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on easter and altered consciousness

by marina streznewski

It's the night before Easter.

I've just finished reading--for the third time--an article in the latest issue of Wired (May 2000) entitled "Terence McKenna's Last Trip."

You may know who Terence McKenna is--or perhaps was, as the article indicated he was dying of brain cancer, despite pretty radical medical intervention. The article talks about his life as a shaman of sorts for the experience of psychedelic drugs. The author paraphrases his view--going through life without trying psychedelics is like going through life without having sex.

I've never tried psychedelics. I am of the generation that got the first round of anti-drug messages full-bore, including the warnings that LSD (nobody even mentioned 'shrooms or peyote) would damage your chromosomes--and that's if you didn't jump out of a window on a bad trip first. It worked in my case--I was scared. Actually, for a long time, I was even scared of trying pot--although alcohol held no such mystery. Besides, I was basically a pretty good kid with a reasonably good head on her shoulders. I self-destructed using different mechanisms.

In hindsight, that fear may have been a good thing. I wonder about the effect psychedelics might have had on my already touchy neural chemistry. Of course, I'm sure alcohol had its own detrimental effects, but alcohol is legal, so it must be harmless, right? ;-} Yeah, right--ingesting a central nervous system depressant is just the ticket for someone with clinical depression--NOT!

Reading this article has had me pondering the wildly different methods we humans have for altering our consciousness. I remember being a little kid and whirling around and around to make myself so dizzy that it seemed the earth was tilting. I would climb to the top of the highest hill I could find and roll down, rolling over and over, to achieve the same effect. As I got older, I discovered the mind-altering effects of swimming underwater or riding my bicycle down a steep hill or swinging so high I was parallel to the ground. And as I got older still, I learned about alcohol and sex and driving really, really fast.

A friend of mine once wrote about how alcohol could be hallucinogenic if you did it right. I only experienced hints of that--I would always get sick to my stomach before I got to that point. (I believe the technical term was "cheap drunk." ) I've had sexual experiences that were mind-altering, but not until I was much older and even then only in a serious relationship. (Pleasurable is one thing--mind-altering is quite another.)

The same friend talks about his practice of the art of sleep deprivation as a cheap high--I know what he means. Going without sleep alters your perception--for me, it's like eating the side of Alice's mushroom that made her taller. (Antihistamines produce the same effect for me.) Is it related to humanity's desire to fly? I always seem to seek experiences that render me weightless somehow--floating or flying or otherwise slipping the surly bonds of earth. Sometimes I sleep too much because I've found that feeling in a dream and I don't want it to end.

It is not inappropriate that I think of these things at Easter. This is the holiest of days to Christians--the day that commemorates the defining belief that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead. As paranormal experiences go, that one is pretty intense. Talk about being weightless--to believe in the possibility of the ultimate transcendence. Marx called religion the opiate of the people. I think I know what he meant. Religious ecstasy is, I suppose, as mind-altering as any drug. Add a little music, a little incense, and a lot of faith, and perhaps Mass can be a pretty trippy experience.

Yet still I wonder why. Is this craving to go to another place mentally evidence of our fundamentally dual nature--or is it a way to bring mind and body together? Are we as human beings so unhappy with our lot that we seek any and all forms of escape? Or are we, as Terence McKenna suggested, seeking a dialog with the sum total of human knowledge?

Marina Streznewski is a non-profit executive and freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. She publishes the 'zine, Blue Okapi.