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| Continuing
along with comments of other people, here is what Aldous Huxley says on
pages 10-11 of his book Heaven and Hell:
"I looked at a film of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite beauty of every little grain of it. Instead of being dull, I saw that each particle was made up of a perfect geometric pattern, with sharp angles, from each of which a brilliant shaft of light was reflected, while each tiny crystal shone like a rainbow...The rays crossed and recrossed, making exquisite patterns of such beauty that they left me breathless...Then suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole universe was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us." Alan Watts, in his book, This is It, has this to say on pages 143-144: "As I stood on the lawn, I noticed that the rough patches where the grass was thin or mottled with weeds no longer seemed to be blemishes. Scattered at random as they were, they appeared to constitute an ordered design, giving the whole area the texture of velvet damask, the rough patches being the parts where the pile of velvet is cut. In sheer delight, I began to dance on this enchanted carpet and through the thin soles of my moccasins I could feel the ground becoming alive under my feet, connecting me with the earth and the trees and the sky in such a way that I seemed to become one body with my whole surroundings." "Looking up, I saw the stars colored with the same reds, greens and blues that one sees in iridescent glass and passing across them was a single light of a jet plane taking forever to streak over the sky. At the same time, the trees, shrubs and flowers seemed to be living jewelry, inwardly luminous like intricate structures of jade, alabaster or corel and yet breathing and flowing with the same life that was in me. Every plant became a kind of musical utterance, a play of variations on a theme repeated from the main branches, through the stalks and twigs, to the leaves, the veins in the leaves and to the fine capillary network between the veins. Each new bursting of growth from a center repeated or amplified the basic design with increasing complexity and delight, finally exulting in a flower." Going back to The LSD Story by John Cashman, again, Cashman doesn't know anything, but there is a quote from an ordinary, nameless person, describing their experience on pages 97-98: "In one great crystal instant I realized that I was immortal. I asked the question: 'Am I dead?' But the question had no meaning. Meaning was meaningless. Suddenly there was white light and the shimmering beauty of unity. There was light everywhere, white light with a clarity beyond description. I was dead and I was born and the exultation was pure and holy. My lungs were bursting with the joyful song of being. There was unity and life and the exquisite love that filled my being was unbounded. My awareness was acute and complete. I saw God and the devil and all the saints and I knew the truth. I felt myself flowing into the cosmos, levitated beyond all restraint, liberated to swim in the blissful radiance of the heavenly visions." |