“… Yet, I never imagined ghosts in my house, let alone a wise ethereal presence talking to me as if we were old friends, until I met Gloria. And now that confounding reality was sitting in front of me. Before you experience Gloria rising from dark evil places, I wish to immerse you in the eerie world of the Guardian and the unbelievable impact the Guardian had on me and Gloria’s therapy. Only then will you experience, understand and appreciate the greatness of her ascent.”
Dr. Adam Jaxon
I have struggled with the meaning of death in my life. Is Death Good or Bad?
Chapter 12, pg. 67-68
Ali shouted, “What in God’s name!” pointing to the ocean horizon where a colossal object hovered.
Lyn screeched, “Jill, toss me your phone. I want to call a friend at NORAD,” but before she could, a terrific boom shook the beach. Involuntarily, she turned toward the deafening sound, stunned by what she saw. The object, now clearly in view, moved closer to the shoreline. It hovered thousands of feet above them, rotating counterclockwise on its axis. Awed, she tilted her head back. Her jaw dropped, and she gaped at the translucent object—a red, ethereal, whirling entity in the white-blue sky, emitting fantastic bursts of energy. A mushroom cloud materialized over the object, forming a massive anvil thunder dome. The thing she thought, at a loss for words, gyrated faster and faster, glowing bright reddish-orange. Pulses of energy surged into the sky and sizzling and cracking lightning struck the ground, causing her hair to stand on end and spark. The Pacific Coast Highway’s sandstone cliffs moved from the force of the sonic boom, causing huge landslides that buried everything. Lyn screamed, “Mad, what’s going on?”
“All I know is that super cell looks deadly,” she replied, as a violent gust of wind bent them over. The sky turned to night as the object’s red glow created a shaft of light that pierced the ocean, causing it to boil. Three bluish-white tornados appeared curling and twisting like poisonous snakes, heading for the beach. Mad let out a shriek, “Get out of here.”
Lyn yelled, “Run for the cottage.”
Mad screamed, “No, take the jeep; we’ll escape south like the birds.” Lyn fumbled and dropped the keys. She grabbed them and slid into the driver’s seat. Jill rode shotgun, and the rest squeezed into the back. Torrential rain beat down as Lyn barreled off the driveway, driving like a maniac. She turned south along the shoreline. Mad glanced back and gasped. The sky turned greenish black as a massive wedge tornado touched down, annihilating everything. Cars, people, and million-dollar homes hurtled through the air as a rescue copter crashed. “Faster… faster or we’re dead!” Mad shrieked. Lyn squinted through blinding rain, as baseball-size hail crashed down. They screamed until their voices gave out, “Go . . . go . . . go.” The jeep hit a rut that blew a front tire, ripping the wheel from her hands, causing the jeep to veer and flip over. Shaken, they helped each other out of the jeep. Jill glowered at the flat tire and said, “Let’s make a run for it.” Mad looked back. “It’s too late.” They hugged goodbye and turned to face their fate. Holding hands, heads high, they courageously faced the wedge of Black Death that swept them away—
Chapter 1
EARTH, CIRCA 2035
Sade sat entranced. She was about to embark on a perilous journey with her cheeky, younger sister, and adventurous cousins that would change their lives forever. She had been haunted since childhood by inexplicable psychic events and ageless questions:
Where did we come from?
Who are we?
Why are we here?
Questions that confounded her young mind until her obsessive thoughts took on a life of their own, as a mystifying premonition emerged into her awareness. Sade’s eyes glazed over. She felt spacey; her body tingled as an intoxicating smell overpowered her—the heady and sweet odor of static electricity. It felt like déjà vu. She tried to speak, but muttered only gibberish. She saw astonishing lights and then a vortex. She felt powerless to resist what called her as a shadowy force swept her away.
*****
The Stargirls exploded out of LAX, Gate-5 like some comic book heroes, Sade crossed the plane’s entryway last, lost in foreboding thoughts, and tripped headlong into the others. Her crash scattered them like dominoes. Unscathed, they chuckled at her faux pas as the flight door hissed shut. BX-1 nicknamed the “Bat Express” for its titanic bat-wing airframe and incredible Mach 3 speed was a redeye flight to Washington Dulles International Airport.
Sade heard the whine of engines as they catapulted off the runway, and oxygen-hydrogen liquid fuel engines blasted them into a vertical climb that pinned them to their seats, feeling twice as heavy as normal. Sudden air turbulence startled Sade. Her tanned, pixyish face blanched to a ghastly pallor.
She tugged at a lock of hair that had escaped her Neptune Trident barrette while her golden brown bangs concealed the paralyzing fear that darkened her eyes and forced her lips to quake. She gazed out her passenger window for some sign of hope but only saw tumultuous, dark skies. Then something peculiar on the angular wing—a red strobe light that seemed to comfort her. Be not afraid.
Bewildered, she rubbed her sea-blue eyes and realized the message was a projection from her subconscious. They were all psychic, but Sade’s abilities were astonishing. She knew her sixth sense told her to relax, while her conscious mind stubbornly refused.
Her psychic abilities could open portals to alternate realities, like wormholes opened gateways to the universe, but tonight fear blocked her second sight—her connection between the realms of Nature and Spirit had been broken.
The intercom crackled with static. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We are experiencing rough air turbulence. Please keep your seat belts secure and enjoy your flight.” Sade feared the raging tempest, but the captain’s monotone voice terrified her more. She feared wind shear like a giant hand would smash them into the ground.
Disturbing thumps and bumps of hydraulics echoed in her ears like ghostly groans. She stuck her fingers in her ears, trying to banish the haunting metallic noises and bat engine screams. Spooks in the night, she thought, burying her face in moist hands, trying to force the reality of the Wright brothers’ damned invention of flight from her mind. Her efforts were futile, as the horrific image of the Bat liner exploding in a ball of flame consumed her.
Ghosts go away, go away.
She noticed her sister next to her, who played with a Holographic Universe Cube while listening to throbbing music. Mad is different, she thought. Mad felt the Bat liner’s air-battle, too, but felt exhilarated by its frightening ascent. After all, adrenaline-pumping skydiving as a human rocket across indigo skies was her ecstasy. Had she been a bird in a past lifetime? She wondered. She fancied a prairie falcon, falcon mexicanus, with a powerful death dive and a shrill proud cry—kik-kik-kik-kik-kik. She laughed at the outrageous thought that she wired for bird behavior, inheriting DNA from some Jurassic archetype. This quirky idea pleased her.
It reminded her of her space jumps at 130,000 feet, at the razor edge of space, where she body surfed supersonic shock waves at astounding speeds, and trail-blazed the sport of “Celestial Skydiving.”
Known in Xtreme sports as “Sky Dancer,” only her gleaming gold pressure suit and guts stood between her and blood-boiling death. In the twilight sky, her glittering aerodynamic suit made her appear as a shooting star.
Despite her death-defying exploits, she felt the prairie falcon fit her to a T, an excitable bird that harried larger eagles and slower hawks whenever they messed with its nest. She knew the falcon was a fast bird at high altitudes, and a formidable hunter at 300 feet. Birds of a feather, this notion tickled her.
Sade’s eyes had frozen shut; she imagined breathing in calmness with each breath, while exhaling fear. Her white knuckles gripped the arms of the seat, while she struggled to think of anything but flying.
Mad noticed her death-grip. “Sade, are you all right?”
Sade roused from her free fall trance and said, “Do pigs fly? Have you seen pigs orbiting Mars lately?”
Mad tittered at her outlandish come back. “Forget flying; we’re on a historic mission.”
“Yes, but my stomach in my throat makes it hard to appreciate.”
Mad squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, big Sis, the Bat’s doing its thing.”
Sade thought about Mad’s unwavering faith in machines while clutching a talisman dangling from her neck, a small o-mamon that contained the teachings of Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. She focused on Bodhi Buddha’s awakening, trying to purge the terror of flying from her mind.
“Sade, when you think about it, life’s funny. You have a doctorate in Biological Oceanography from FSU and explore undersea worlds that would petrify most adrenaline junkies. Yet being airborne gives you the willies. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
Sade rolled her eyes. “Maybe, if I was a cuckoo bird in a former lifetime, and not the killer whale that frequents my dreams, I might feel right at home—but if I were a bird, it would be that daft dodo bird that couldn’t fly to save its neck.”
Mad choked, spitting out her bottled water. “You’re hilarious, despite your fear of flying.”
“Thanks for the complement, I think. Hey, what time do we arrive in Dulles?”
“Don’t know, but I know who does.” Mad reached over the seat and knocked twice on her older cousin’s head.
Jill made a sour face, and said, “Who’s there?”
“Mad.”
“Mad who?”
“Mad about you.”
Jill sighed. “Okay, what do you want?”
“What time do we hit the tarmac in Dulles?”
“Mad! If you had a brain . . . oh, never mind, two-fifty a.m. You, my little whirlwind, need to get a brain.”
Mad scoffed, and made a laughable pirate face with one eye closed. “Ahoy, me hearties, scarecrow and me search for a brain. We merrily skip down a yellow brick road to Doctor Frankenstein’s hangout. I knock hard with a brass-ring knocker on a giant door. The heavy blows send head-splitting echoes into the castle. The door swings open with a loud grating sound. A mad scientist with bloodshot eyes and a wild hairdo lurches outside and I say, ‘ARGH Dr. Frankenstein, I presume. Would you have any spare brains for the needy?”’
Jill snorted, shaking her head. Mad the clown.
Mad, pleased with her preposterous performance, sat down. “We arrive—“
Sade interrupted. “Yes, brainless, I have ears, too, but not as big as yours.”
Mad grabbed her ears. “We’ll see who has the biggest ears. You’ll wish you were that wooden-headed Pinocchio rather than a long-eared mule after I get done with you.”
Sade chuckled at her horseplay. “Lights out, little sister, I’m off to dreamland.”
“Good night, Shorts my lovable pixie. Thanks for being a good sport.”
Sade yawned. “Watch out, Amazon woman, dynamite comes in small packages. That reminds me—do you remember how you towered over your first grade class like a fairy-tale giant?”
“Yeah, those were the good old days.”
“Mad, you’re impossible.”
The Bat liner hurtled through the stratosphere, and disappeared in the ethers of Sade’s slumbering consciousness, while her cousins chattered like overexcited children about their hasty departure.
“Max’s call took me by surprise,” Jill protested.
Ali said, “Caught me off guard, too.”
Lyn cackled and said, “What else, mysterious Max.”
Jill noticed Ali’s reflection in the passenger window and said, “Ali I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s up with the medicine bag you keep fussing with?”
Ali cradled a small pouch in her arms, as if it was her first-born child, and said, “Our totem spirits that will watch over us on our journey in Ethiopia and drive evil spirits away.”
Lyn thought she heard evil spirits. “What did you say?”
“I wanted to bring something special on our expedition to protect us. I asked Sade, and she said ‘pick something that represents our inner power.’ I chose these blood dragon seeds.”
Jill blurted out, “Blood dragon seeds?”
“Yes—to be exact, Dracaena draco, the Dragon Tree, harvested for its supernatural powers. I brought five germinating seeds wrapped in moist peat moss.” She paused, staring at the seeds, and said, “Understand the blood dragon symbolizes our spirits. Seeds of our spiritual blood we will plant in our power spots in the Afar Triangle. Our way of giving Earth Mother an offering that will live beyond us—our spiritual markers to inspire others to walk gently on her.”
Jill said, “Ali, you are a true Earth Woman.”
Ali gazed into the pregnant bag and said, “We love you, so grow big and strong little ones.” Jill and Lyn felt awed by her outlook and choice of good luck charms. Ali continued, “Gee, they smiled at me. They really smiled at me, big happy dragon smiles.”
Jill thought, only a psychiatrist or mystic could understand Ali’s love for dragon seeds. She then tapped Lyn’s hand, “Any word from Max?”
“Funny you asked. Just before takeoff, I got a message from Aqua Man.”
“Great, open it.”
Lyn unfolded a paper-thin microcomputer, from her shirt pocket, that expanded into a pliable touch screen. They stared at the computer screen, wondering about their field dig site. Max’s communications were always encrypted; he used the alias Aqua Man. Max had cautioned from the beginning about the necessity of secrecy, regarding their field digs. His words ran through Lyn’s mind as his e-mail appeared on the screen, accompanied by a soft, compelling audio alert. “Ari, let’s swim together in paradise and share forbidden fruit.” A red apple bobbed on the screen, as the alert repeated until she opened it and saw attachments written in complex mathematical algorithms.
She chortled and said, “Max has the mind of a romantic spy. I think he missed his calling.”
Jill said, “Romantic spy or not, Max is a famous paleoanthropologist, and our gracious sponsor.”
Ali interrupted, “Yes, yes, but what does it say?”
Mad, oblivious to their conversation, listened to the comedy channel, while Sade slipped into REM sleep. Her breathing became rapid, irregular, and shallow. Her eyes jerked in different directions as her heart rate and blood pressure rose. Her limbs paralyzed as a tunnel of light transformed her sleep into a mythical time machine that whisked her away, to a land that existed millions of years ago near Hadar, Ethiopia.
She unknowingly peered into where we came from—yet could only see half the truth of how humans came to walk upon the Earth.
Pages (185-187)
AUTOMATIC LETTER 123
Saturday night
Hi,
Cold! In Gloria’s dream tonight it was cold, cold all the way to the center of the earth – there’s a little girl in this dream and she’s watching a man with anger twisting his face – he’s cursing a little girl with braids, grabbing her, hitting her and there’s a storm coming, trees are snapping like glass beneath the wind – like her with the braids – she wasn’t strong enough – if he kept it up she would break and the pieces would be scattered all over the rocks – she’s running – scrambling her breath like a knife in her side, the storm is chasing her now – she’s found a shelter behind a huge rock and she’s thinking about trying to find someone – anyone who would understand what it was like to be scared every second of every day, to be scared to fight or not to fight and not to show it, to face each day knowing that it probably wouldn’t be better than yesterday and often would be worse. She knew what it was like to feel naked and helpless, hating yourself, feeling that everything you did made the snarl worse, not better – she was angry and disgusted with herself even if she was just a little girl – other little girls weren’t weak and hateful and they knew how to take care of their own person – then there he was, he’d found her and her throat screamed before she could stop it and he was chasing her, catching her, yanking her backwards while rocks like fists struck her and she screamed again but she was lifted high, helpless, nothing beneath her feet and she was falling – the feeling of falling didn’t stop as memory and nightmare and reality surrounded her –
I awoke her and she tried to shake off the residue of another bad dream.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 124
Wednesday night
Dear Port in Many Storms,
Sleep came quickly tonight. So did dreams – dreams twisted into nightmares.
When Gloria sleeps she’s like a frightened child – she’s either running from someone or is trapped by someone. In this dream she was an adult though – in one dream she was cold – too cold but there was no warmth, only fear, leaving her weak. She tried to scream but no sound came – she tried to run but her feet weighed as much as big rocks deeply rooted into the earth.
She had to try harder to move or she’d never get to you before the “Other” did.
She was broken and bleeding, screaming finally, reaching, and stumbling but she had to get to you. The “Other” was laughing and the sound was colder than frigid wind. He said, “You didn’t know about Gloria’s amnesia – the nightmares that lapped over into nights triggered by a word – did you know that she was afraid of going crazy?”
Even in the dream Gloria was sure if she could reach you first you’d be a lifeline capable of pulling her beyond the reach of whatever terror stalked her. She had survived the deaths of many, now she was trying to survive a different kind of death – a shattering loss of belief in herself, in her own strength, her own mind. Now she was trying to ask herself if it was worth it, any of it, if there was no end to fear and loss and deaths. Then she remembered how you had survived also and how strong you were – it showed in your movements, in your laughter, in the clean male lines of your face – she wasn’t terrified of you like with others and yet you were strong in mind and body – you moved with the easy strength that always fascinated Gloria yet your voice was gentle and your hands were – beautiful – an odd way to describe anything so strong and quick as a man’s hands yet that is the word – not all hands had affected Gloria like that – sometimes she saw hands and terror was in her. But I’m getting away from the dream here (you’re not often in our dreams). I was telling you how Gloria was trying to reach you first before the “Other” so he wouldn’t be able to convince you that she was losing her mind and imagining the real fear and the pain and terror of death he gave her – but no matter how she tried she couldn’t get to you and when she woke up she was so happy it was just a dream.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 125
Sunday night
Hi again,
I have started this twice now and I can’t seem to write to make any sense – Gloria’s fingers keep cramping up. In our dream tonight what started out as a beautiful walk in the woods ended up in terror – unspeakable terror – it had taken a little girl too long to face the truth, she was living with a maniac. She was running and got to her bedroom where she crouched in a corner her body trembling waiting for death – she knew she must not let herself scream or be found or the “Other” would return and kill her – it’s like a sponge, erasing the past and making up the future – all those crazy dreams. The “Other” had been following us in the woods when he went into a rage because we stopped to pick some wild flowers – he had been telling us that he was a man with no background but he had imagination and intelligence but he said in the image in his mind he was successful and polished – by this time he was in a rage and saw us picking the flowers – after this the whole dream doesn’t make sense except for the little girl crouching in the bedroom so sure he was going to kill her – not much help tonight.
Gloria’s Helper
(pages 179-181)
“… When you have resources you have options. You are facing the closed minds of a whole generation. When a doctor doesn’t have belief or hope, then the resources would not come out. That’s as far as the patient will go. The doctor wouldn’t be able to talk to the Helper because the Helper wouldn’t feel a bond. It would stop where he wants it to stop—not what he wants, but stop where his belief is. In other words this is not hocus-pocus. People have been taught for so many years not to believe in the supernatural. They just dismissed it. The belief and faith, itself, is what makes the progress. You hear a patient saying, ‘I wish I had another psychologist. Patients sense doctors’ beliefs, he isn’t going to get better. Faith and belief only progresses, advances the mind. If a person expects the best life, they can do better; changes attitude. You keep pushing on the attitude. Now, we wouldn’t have come; and the Pyramid Lady, her Guardian Angel, and I couldn’t have come, if you wouldn’t have been open minded, open in your belief. Gloria wouldn’t have believed in us. Psychiatrists damage people by labeling them. In so doing they put an artificial limit to what that person can experience. No matter what happens in life they think it’s a coincidence, chance, rather than their own resources that brought it about. It actually does damage to a person for psychiatrists to stop there. After the patient finishes they ask themselves a lot of questions. They don’t believe in themselves and go through life not really whole. For example, a psychiatrist might have blamed Gloria’s parents for her emotional state. Gloria would have gone away more depressed and damaged, while the psychiatrist thinks he’s done his job. It is interesting to talk to you because you have an open mind. Korea was the beginning of your life’s battles. Now you meet with all these characters, Gloria’s therapeutic selves, and never know what you’re going to come up against. See revelations every day. The unknown is frightening. People dismiss, ignore and write it off as weird, anything spiritual. It is not frightening when you begin to understand. People here are very blind—think they see, don’t see at all. They would get a shock if they opened their eyes.”
The Guardian
“Something to make you think: Gloria has not reached the turning point yet. She has only had a small glimpse at the core of the problem which resulted in a depression; so do not make the mistake of not probing further. The therapy must keep her going forward.”
“Because it would hurt too much to think about things she had managed to wrap up the biggest part of her life in healing self-induced amnesia, she buried it all in the back of her memory. When I tried to reach her and failed, I knew the griefs of childhood persist where others fade. Inside the woman talking so calmly in a polite tone is a small child who has never been given love, never has known why, and has carried a lifelong burden of guilt and rejection because of the horrors that came with the people who entered that life. It is all complicated but it will fall into place. Do not make the mistake of thinking it will be easily done—but it will be done!”
“Gloria is receptive to healing treatments which attract harmonious vibrations into her life. Sometimes she forgets this until a need arises. Such is this day! For two days now she has pushed off reality deliberately. I can do no more than to say to you that two harmonious energies will always be better than one; two spiritual seekers may accomplish anything. You will literally be able to refashion, reshape and get reality to be harmonious with Gloria’s life.”
“… There are those who have been ill, or in misfortune for so long, that they are afraid to get well; yet those are the ones who would become far happier than others who have not been fortified by trials. Such is this case. Be an open channel for love—the main ingredient—for then a healing will automatically take place.”
The Guardian
“… Lyn was oddly aware; she was peering into a Star Chamber with gleaming transparent walls that reflected the past, present, and future. Gradually, she realized she was looking into a space-time crystal ball, a cosmic ball she had once gazed into as a small child. She realized they had left their bodies in the mandala’s cavern and had not even noticed. She felt the others but could not see them. She heard Jill’s pleading voice call out,
“Are we dead or alive?”
Lyn tried to respond but could not find her own voice. Mesmerized by the shift in space-time, she realized their nightmare of annihilation was a subconscious projection, a projection of their deepest fears when they pressed the star symbols, not knowing whether they would live or die. Regardless of its reality, she was thankful they survived the killer alien tornado.
Mad, in exasperation, cried out to the unseen force, “Why did you summon us? There must be a reason. Tell us.” She heard a dreamlike voice.
“You are Stargirls.” The voice paused, letting the fog and confusion of their nightmare to lift.
Lyn found her voice, “But why us?”
“You are the chosen ones by prophecy; you have proven your worthiness. A time warp brought you here. The one you opened was no accident. It was left a hundred thousand years ago just for you. Your Star training as children has prepared you well. You are ready for the next stage in your evolution.” Her disquieting words shifted reality, creating an energy-womb within them, a powerful psychic connection to their puzzling destiny.”
“… Yet, I never imagined ghosts in my house, let alone a wise ethereal presence talking to me as if we were old friends, until I met Gloria. And now that confounding reality was sitting in front of me. Before you experience Gloria rising from dark evil places, I wish to immerse you in the eerie world of the Guardian and the unbelievable impact the Guardian had on me and Gloria’s therapy. Only then will you experience, understand and appreciate the greatness of her ascent.
Gloria took to hypnosis like a zealous skydiver jumping off Mount Everest from dizzying heights into an abyss. In this respect, she was fearless. She loved my arm levitation induction which resembled a magician’s sleight of hand, except it was real magic that took Gloria time traveling into her sordid past and on higher astral voyages.
The hypnotic arm levitation was well suited for Gloria’s need to experience catalepsy and deep trance where Gloria’s Helper and I could do our work, and it was necessary to reach the Guardian’s higher vibration of energy and reality.
In the beginning, I would hold her right wrist very, very gently and lift slightly almost imperceptibly with just the slight suggestion the arm was levitating. I enhanced the effect by the slight movement of the arm this way or that until her arm levitated by itself. Invariably, this led to a deep trance and communication with Gloria’s Helper.
In the process I would later discover if I simply lifted her arm higher, this triggered my contact with the Guardian. The Guardian from the start would speak through Gloria’s voice without the theatrics of a split personality. It was Gloria’s voice but not Gloria. Through the course of her therapy the Guardian would only appear if called on—never intrusive, only offering support, encouragement, and omniscient insight and understanding into Gloria’s emotional disturbance. In case you have forgotten, I must remind you that the Guardian was Gloria’s deceased husband, Greyson, a shocking fact that even I had a hard time wrapping my mind around.
Nevertheless, I am pleased to present the channeled messages from the Guardian that encompass and enlighten Gloria’s therapy. The Guardian’s messages were fascinating, thought provoking and decisive to the success of Gloria’s therapy. Some messages towards the end were answers to my questions about the Guardian’s nature and being—bold and blunt questions that challenged his reality and who he claimed to be. I probed whether the Guardian was a dissociated or split personality of Gloria’s personality, questions my lifetime of scientific training and rational mind forced me ask. Nonetheless, I felt self-conscious as if I were questioning the Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain.
The Guardian’s responses were always lighthearted, humorous, unoffending, and illuminating as you will see. The Guardian’s words and profound messages often made my mind whirl with astonishment and wonder. In the beginning the Guardian’s messages were terse until the Guardian could take full control of Gloria’s body and then the messages became grander as long as Gloria’s energy could sustain them.”
Dr. Adam Jaxon
The ’60s was the golden age of LSD research. The U.S. government subsidized at least 116 experiments (that we know of) over this interval to unlock its secrets. Dr. Stanislav Grof, one of the early experimenters, described LSD as a “non-specific amplifier of the unconscious,” for both good and bad. The suggestion was that LSD might be a primary modulator of the unconscious mind, and unlocking its mysteries would answer the questions of who we are, why we are here, and what’s to become of us. Big questions indeed. Maybe too big to be left to scientists?
As hard as you may try, you can’t keep something this big locked up in the lab. These molecules escaped from the ivory tower and started a (relatively) bloodless revolution within America, especially among young people, who were disillusioned with the U.S. government, and the handling of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Psychedelics were all the rage in the late ’60s throughout the country. College campuses were the testing ground for this social experiment, and some still are.
Who on this earth is in greatest need of happiness, or at least the alleviation of the severest form of dysphoria or distress? Terminal cancer patients, that’s who. Standard hospice care provides such patients with opiates like hydromorphone (Dilaudid), which, while alleviating pain, dope them up to the point where they can’t and don’t care, and can’t even respond: they can’t tell their doctors that they are scared, or their loved ones that they love them. And of course these opiates are highly addictive. You could argue: Who cares about addiction if you’re already dying? Both of my parents died in hospice care, both doped up on opiates at the end. I couldn’t tell them I loved them, and they couldn’t communicate back. Prescribing opiates is more humane than letting patients suffer but nonetheless not an optimal way to depart this world. We all deserve a better exit than that, at peace with our own imminent mortality.
In a study that took a full decade to complete, and with the approval of the FDA, NIH, DEA, and a host of institutional review boards, Charles Grob at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center assessed the use of psilocybin (the compound in “magic mushrooms”) as a stand-alone treatment for the reactive anxiety and depression that attends death due to terminal cancer. In an initial study, 12 individuals with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis participated in a double-blind randomized crossover fashion (neither the subject nor the physician knew which treatment was being administered) with either psilocybin or niacin (Vitamin B3), which results in a tingling sensation and acted as the placebo control. Furthermore, every subject was prepared by a licensed psychologist beforehand to minimize the possibility of any side effects or a bad trip. Each had their own personalized metaphysical tour guide, who remained with them through the session. They optimized the set and the setting by providing a pleasing and comfortable environment. These clinical research studies were carefully performed and documented, and above reproach. The results were quite remarkable. Feelings of “oceanic boundlessness” and “visionary restructuralization” were followed by positive mood and reduction in depressive scores, which persisted up to six months after the psilocybin treatment ended.
Several follow-up studies are now being conducted. Stephen Ross at NYU School of Medicine randomized 29 participants with cancer in a double-blind fashion to receive either psilocybin or niacin. Again, reductions in long-term anxiety and depression were observed, and with long-lasting effects still measurable six months after hallucinogen exposure; and again the benefit correlated with the extent of the “mystical experience.” Using LSD as the hallucinogen, Peter Gasser in Switzerland showed that 12 cancer patients also showed short- and long-term benefit, and with no persistent side effects beyond the day of the study itself. Further studies have corroborated these beneficial effects up to 14 months out.
These studies provide yet another line of reasoning to support the assertion that our brains are being hacked—that our emotions are just the inward expression of biochemical processes in the brain. In the case of hallucinogens, signaling of the serotonin-1a receptor drives contentment, whereas signaling of the serotonin-2a receptor drives the mystical experience. In our modern society, the role of mind-altering drugs to achieve heightened consciousness and/or contentment has yet to be determined, and will require careful scientific investigation in controlled settings along with philosophical and ethical debate before the public can be trusted with the key to nirvana.
We are our biochemistry, whether we like it or not. And our biochemistry can be manipulated. Sometimes naturally and sometimes artificially. Sometimes by ourselves but sometimes by others. Sometimes for good and sometimes for ill.