Meaning, Significance, Importance, Relevance, Value
A harmonious inner awakening is characterized by a sense of joy and mental illumination
that brings with it an insight into the meaning and purpose of life.
A new intellectual understanding of reality is an important catalyst for therapeutic
progress.
A significant danger confronting our society may lie in losing out on the values that the
responsible use of these drugs may offer.
A succession of object-stimuli might be used to lead the subject beyond the aesthetic
appreciation of the thing to meaningful examination of his own life.
A word doesn’t have the same meaning for everyone. At best, it stands for a
generalizable concept that we attach differing, specific meanings to.
Although the experiences have been fulfilling in hundreds of ways, by far the most
meaningful have been the religious insights and feelings of spirituality.
An important aspect of the discussions in the preparatory period is exploration of the
subject’s philosophical orientation and religious beliefs.
As drugs entered the scene, songwriters and musicians became interested in interior
experience, outer space and the Meaning of Reality.
As everything in the field of consciousness assumes unusual importance, feelings become
magnified to a degree of intensity and purity almost never experienced in daily life.
As objects become charged with symbolic meanings, they incorporate emotions, often of
a religious nature.
Careful planning of both the emotional atmosphere and the physical environment is
important.
Colors seem to hold great and uncanny significance. All of them are providential and
mean something.
Deep experiential work requires a vastly extended cartography of the psyche that includes
important domains uncharted by traditional science.
Deep personal experiences may be significant in shaping the inner landscape of the
future. Today that landscape appears dismally flat, largely a featureless plain.
During mystical experiences, one can feel that one has access to ultimate knowledge and
wisdom in matters of cosmic relevance.
East and West, civilized or primitive, religious thought and all that flows from it almost
certainly has been importantly influenced by psychedelic drugs.
Even if it doesn’t refer to anything outside itself, it’s still the most important thing that
ever happened to you.
Explicit focus on the positive potential in human beings is an important therapeutic
factor.
Extremely valuable insights may enable the subject to revise his thinking and self-image
and to alter his behavior in desirable ways.
Few therapists are capable of assessing, evaluating and integrating psychedelic
experiences in a useful way.
Flowers are almost as transporting as precious stones, reminding us of what’s always
been there, preternaturally bright, colorful and significant, at the back of our minds.
For creativity and sanity, man needs to have, or at least to feel, a meaningful relation to
and union with life, with reality itself.
He (Leary) knew how important it was to have a warm supporting setting to experience
the ego-shattering revelations of the mushroom.
I’ve been given tremendous mileage on my quest for meaning by the few transmitting
glimpses LSD has given me of the cosmic mesh that stitches the universe together.
If psychologists largely ignore this whole area, the students then dismiss psychology as
an academic word game of no importance.
If you attach more importance to your beliefs than to self-understanding, you’ll probably
need an awful lot of LSD.
In general, others have little idea of the significance of your experiences. (That’s unless
they have taken LSD themselves.)
In the past, experiences of this kind were considered valuable and those who had them
were looked up to.
In this state of cosmic unity, we feel that we have direct, immediate and unlimited access
to knowledge and wisdom of universal significance.
Intensified light, intensified color and intensified significance do not exist in isolation.
They adhere in objects.
It has a deep logic of its own and can be meaningfully related to a new model of the
universe and of human nature.
It is a condition of extreme suggestibility where minor cues come to assume enormous
significance and great mood swings can be precipitated by hitherto insignificant stimuli.
It is through experience of the sacred that the idea of reality, truth, and significance first
dawn, to be later elaborated and systemized by metaphysical speculations.
It seems to give all sensory input equal importance, instead of just what’s important for
survival.
It would appear that everybody who experiences these levels develop convincing insights
into the utmost relevance of the spiritual dimension in the universal scheme of things.
It’s a universe of inconceivable beauty in which all things are full of life and charged
with an obscure but immensely important meaning.
Its essential meaning for the evolution of human consciousness will appear in the
spiritual Age of Aquarius.
It’s how your soul is doing in its path to eternity, not how your body is doing in its path
through this life that’s important.
It’s like a key is opening a door and the light in flowing in. And this means a great deal to
me.
Knowledge belonging to Mind at large oozes past the reducing valve of brain and ego,
into his consciousness. It is the knowledge of the intrinsic significance of every existent.
Knowledge of the true nature of existence is perceived as being ultimately more real and
relevant than all scientific theories or perceptions and concepts of our everyday life.
Looking back on my own experiences, they all converge toward a kind of insight to
which I cannot help ascribing some metaphysical significance.
LSD activates emotionally important material in different areas and on various levels of
the personality.
LSD could expedite the psychotherapeutic process and shorten the time necessary for the
treatment of various emotional disorders, which makes it a potentially valuable tool.
LSD helps patients in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy to perceive their problems in
their true significance.
LSD remains one of the most valuable tools in understanding the functioning of the
human mind.
Man’s normal waking consciousness is always culturally conditioned and prevents us
from actualizing some of our most valuable potentialities.
Many of the states that psychiatry automatically categorizes as symptoms of mental
disease are actually important and necessary components of a profound healing process.
Men have pursued, down the centuries, certain experiences that they considered valuable
above all others.
Most of our culture does not recognize the significance and value of the mystical domains
within human beings.
Music has several important functions and adds new dimensions to the psychedelic
experience.
My own belief is that these experiences really tell us something about the nature of the
universe, that they are valuable in themselves.
Mythology, the repository of a culture’s sacred history, reveals the relevance and
universal nature of the experience of death and rebirth.
Never underestimate the sacred meaning of the turn-on. To turn on, you need a sacrament
which turns the key to the inner doors.
No matter where one is or what one is observing, the situation feels fraught with
meaning, portentous.
No one part of it is more real than another. Everything at all moments is shimmering with
all the meaning.
Objects which appear to ordinary, utilitarian, pragmatic, goal-oriented thought and
perception as irrelevant take on sudden and surprisingly fresh meanings.
Of utmost importance is the psychedelic peak experience, which usually takes the form of
a death-rebirth sequence with ensuing feelings of cosmic unity.
On a LSD trip, nearly anything one looks at can seem pregnant with meaning, embodying
great truths.
One must be tuned into the flow of the life energy and enjoy one’s existence; then the
value of life is self-evident.
One of the important contributions of the drug movement to religion is that it has called
the attention of religious people to the necessity of ecstasy for vital religion.
One of the real tragedies of our time is that such an extraordinarily valuable and
necessary tool as LSD should be held in such disrespect.
One of the top overriding values of these altered states is that they bestow direct
experience of phenomena usually apprehended only in abstraction.
Our neglect of these experiences of great value has rendered psychology stale and
savorless.
Our precious “self” is just an idea, useful and legitimate enough if seen for what it is, but
disastrous if identified with our real nature.
Our social policy has all but ignored the extraordinary potential of psychedelic drugs for
therapeutic use and inner development.
Our society knows little of the important rites of passage and initiations provided by other
civilizations. Our society suffers from the lack of these means of growth.
Our spiritual progress will not consist in a development and adaptation of symbolism, but
in an increased understanding of its meaning.
Painful experiences can be as personally revealing and permanently beneficial as
experiences of great joy and beauty.
Peyote-eating and the religion based upon it have become important symbols of the red
man’s right to spiritual independence.
Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its perceiving in terms of
intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationship within a pattern.
Preternatural light evokes, in everything it touches, preternatural color and preternatural
significance.
Psychedelic drugs have enabled them to attain significant experiences otherwise
unavailable to them.
Psychedelic drugs give me a sense of harmony and beauty. For the first time in my life, I
can take pleasure in the beauty of a leaf; I can find meaning in the processes of nature.
Psychotherapy has to be significantly reevaluated in view of the observations from
psychedelic therapy.
Ritualized and responsible use of psychedelics received social sanction in some ancient
societies and pre-industrial countries and was meaningfully woven into the social fabric.
Shamanism is nearly universal. Shamanic cultures attribute great value to nonordinary
states of consciousness.
Significant aspects of mystical consciousness are felt by the experiencer to be true, in
spite of the fact that they violate the laws of Aristotelian logic.
Specialized training of the therapist, which includes first-hand experiences of psychedelic
states of consciousness, is an important element in LSD psychotherapy.
Techniques that directly activate the unconscious seem to reinforce selectively the most
relevant emotional material and facilitate its emergence into consciousness.
That the right kind of research will yield results of very great value seems to us
absolutely certain.
The bum trip could be a more meaningful and educational event than the good one. (A
bad trip isn’t as good as a good trip, but it can still be very beneficial.)
The changes of consciousness have ontological relevance through offering valid insights
into the nature of human existence and the universe.
The development and expansion of a direct emotional experience of reality, unobstructed
by words and concepts would be of evolutionary significance.
The discovery of LSD is as important to philosophy and religion as the discovery of the
microscope was to biology.
The dramatic experience of new dimensions of reality can be meaningfully integrated
into the world view (a new, better and more meaningful and realistic view of the world).
The early experimentation with LSD brought important new insights into the nature of
the creative process.
The effects of these drugs result in an intensity of personal experience and emotion more
meaningful than the term “hallucinogenic” implies.
The experiences of universal symbols are followed or accompanied by an intuitive
understanding of various levels of their esoteric meaning.
The familiar view of our surroundings is transformed; it appears to us in a new light,
takes on a special meaning.
The gift of union with God means that our mental and physical space-time life is given
the dimension of eternity.
The healing potential of ecstatic states is of such paramount significance that it suggests
an entirely new orientation in psychiatric therapy.
The high value, the meaningfulness, and the intensity reported of such experiences
suggest that the perception has a different scope from that of normal consciousness.
The images may enter into consciousness as supremely meaningful, illuminating the most
important areas of the subject’s life. (eyes closed)
The importance of the inner subjective and meditative, as well as introspective capacities,
has been rejected by the orthodox psychologist.
The individual connects with important aspects of reality that are inaccessible to
perception under ordinary circumstances.
The insights that have been achieved by LSD experimentation are of lasting value and
relevance.
The LSD experience is felt by almost everyone who undergoes it to be profoundly
significant and enlightening.
The more expanded your consciousness, the farther out you can move beyond your mind,
the deeper, the richer, the longer and more meaningful your sexual communion.
The most important rule is that the tripper decides what behavior change is desired.
Nobody else has the right to decide for him.
The most important scientific insights or intuitions come precisely through the somewhat
reluctant use of a nonthinking mode of awareness.
The most valuable insights come from questioning the most obvious forms of common
sense.
The natural world is endowed with a richness of grace, color, significance and sometimes
humor, for which our normal adjectives are insufficient.
The nature of psychedelic therapy is such that the process itself automatically selects in
each session the material that is most emotionally relevant at the time.
The observations of nonordinary states of consciousness have important implications for
many fields of research.
The only way to study these drugs properly is to take them. You don’t learn anything of
significance by watching a subject under LSD.
The person has had what he regards as an enormously impressive and important
experience.
The psychedelic experience is man’s oldest and most classic adventure into meaning.
Every religion was founded on the basis of some flipped out visionary trip.
The psychedelic peak experience is certainly an important factor mediating deep
personality transformation.
The psychedelics gives warrant of being man’s most valuable resource to date in solving
problems and in treating emotional disorders.
The rate of recovery or significant improvement was often higher with LSD therapy than
with traditional methods.
The realm of insights or problem solutions is in any area which is meaningful to that
individual be it social or personal, intellectual, religious, philosophical, things like that.
The recognition of the love aspects of the mystical experience and the implications for
new forms of social conditioning are especially important.
The rediscovery of these experiences and the recognition of their heuristic relevance has
been one of the major incentives for the development of a new movement in psychology.
The selective, systematic use of psychedelics in creative problem-solving situations may
turn out to be one of the most significant applications of these chemicals.
The significance of the LSD observations transcends the framework of psychiatry and
psychology and extends to many other scientific disciplines.
The significance of the psychological components in the mechanism of pain relief
induced by LSD is unquestionable. (This refers to physical pain.)
The soul beholds realities of greater significance, such as may never be apprehended
again out of the light of eternity.
The spiritual experiences they had in their LSD sessions were important evidence that
spirituality is a genuine and deeply relevant force in human life.
The story of drug-taking constitutes one of the most curious and also it seems to me, one
of the most significant chapters in the natural history of human beings.
The strong conviction of belonging and of having a personal worth gives new meaning to
the outer world and changes in the perception of it.
The subject comes to experience himself in a totally new way and finds that the age-old
question “Who am I?” does have a significant answer.
The subject in this state feels that he has access to direct insightful knowledge and
wisdom about matters of fundamental and universal significance.
The therapeutic claims made for these drugs are of sufficient potential importance to
warrant serious unprejudiced study.
The therapeutic effects associated with the experience of death and rebirth are so
important.
The therapist has to be open to the spiritual dimension and recognize it as an important
part of life.
The true and deepest value of the experience is that it offers a “tangible vision” of a better
state. (It’s the highest or best state of being.)
The true religious ascetic has no particular interest in mystical religion. He is totally
under the domination of the symbol and does not actually understand its meaning at all.
The truly significant aspects of the sessions were entirely nonverbal and nonconceptual,
and slipped through our category nets like water through a fishnet.
The universe is a many-dimensioned pattern, infinite in extent, infinite in duration,
infinite in significance and infinitely aware, we may surmise, of its own infinities.
The value of his experience will depend in large measure on his willingness to suspend or
abandon his ordinary everyday way of looking at things.
The visionary experience is so highly prized that throughout the ages of recorded history,
people have done their best to induce visions.
The wise person devotes his life to the religious search—for therein is found the only
ecstasy, the only meaning.
There exists an abundance of evidence to indicate that mind-changing drugs have
importantly affected the course of human history.
There is a fathomless meaning, an intensity of delight in all our surroundings, which our
eyes must be unsealed to see.
There is an intensification of what I may call intrinsic significance. That which is seen,
either with the eyes closed or open, is felt to have a profound meaning.
There is no “higher religion” without mysticism because there is no apprehension of the
meaning of reality without mysticism.
These drugs are useful in producing valuable personality changes in individuals with
serious personality disorders.
These drugs can elicit material normally in the subconscious that can be of considerable
value to virtually all schools of psychotherapeutic thought.
This preternaturally significant light shines on or shines out of a landscape of such
surpassing beauty.
Those who have approached the experience with a receptive mind have often found
meaning and liberation.
Throughout history, most cultures had a great appreciation for nonordinary states of
consciousness. They highly valued the positive potential of such states.
Traditional psychiatry has never adequately explained these forms of experience, their
universality, and their cultural as well as psychological importance.
True spirituality is based on personal experience and is an extremely important and vital
dimension of life.
Unquestionably this drug is very useful to the artist, activating trains of association that
would otherwise be inaccessible.
We believe the experience to be of enormous potential value, both to the subject and
researcher.
Western scholars have greatly underestimated the importance of these drugs to the
cultures that use them.
What are ordinarily dismissed as irrelevant details of speech, behavior, appearance and
form seemed in some indefinable way to be highly significant.
What historians describe as history is simply those aspects of the past which, according to
their own philosophy of life, they regard as particularly important and significant.
What is happening to you seems to be freighted with significance, beside which the
humdum events of everyday are trivial.
With the decrease in the power of words in the psychedelic experience, the immediate
sensory life gains in range of significance as well as strength.
Words break down because they always imply a meaning beyond themselves and here,
there is no meaning beyond.
Words, whether we see them or hear them, bring to us not only meaning, sensations and
emotions, but also images.
You feel as if you are looking down at what was once your former life and you laugh
inwardly at the little things that once seemed so important.
A deeper understanding of the transformative process, based on the synthesis of
historical, anthropological and experimental data, could have important implications for
many different areas, including psychiatry, art, philosophy, religion and education.
Aesthetic responses are greatly heightened, colors seem more intense, textures richer,
contours sharpened, music more emotionally profound, the spatial arrangements of
objects more meaningful.
After such experiences, contemplation may take on new meaning for the Western man
who finds little time to ponder the meaning of his own existence and the philosophical
presuppositions upon which his religious, political, scientific, and ethical convictions rest.
As all great musicians have insisted and as anybody who has listened to music with
understanding agrees, music has some kind of cognitive meaning. It does say something
about the nature of the universe. Beethoven insisted on this very strongly.
Because they know nothing of spirituality and regard the material world and their
hypotheses about it as supremely significant, rationalists are anxious to convince
themselves and others that miracles do not and cannot happen.
cosmological mysticism—It’s an ecstatic experience of Nature and Process which leaves
the subject with a sense of having acquired important insight into, as well as identity
with, the fundamental nature and structure of the universe.
Deep satisfaction can now be derived from a number of things that have been available
all along but were previously ignored or barely noticed. Full participation in the process
of life becomes more important than pursuit of any specific goal.
Dr. David Smith, of the Haight Street Free Clinic said, “Acid lowers your powers of
discrimination until everything seems important”. When I heard that, I said,
“No. Acid RAISES your powers of INTEGRATION until everything IS important”.
Even in our sophisticated society, the dream and the hallucination retain a vestige of their
magical powers. Many surmise that somehow they contain a more important message, a
final truth of which waking awareness is incapable.
Experiencing the profound psychological changes induced by LSD is a unique and
valuable learning experience for all clinicians and theoreticians studying abnormal mental
states.
For most people, this discovery is a glorious surprise. Mystics come back raving about
higher levels of perception where one sees realities a hundred times more beautiful and
meaningful than the familiar scripts of normal life.
Gem-like objects, bright, self-luminous, glowing with preternatural color and
significance, exist in the mind’s Antipodes, are seen by visionaries and are felt by all who
see them to be of enormous significance. (eyes closed)
Geneticists, we believe, make the chauvinistic mistake of assuming that DNA is a
process, rather than a living intelligence as old as life itself that can teach us the meaning
of existence. DNA designs and constructs the nervous system.
I can gain insight into the nature of consciousness or experience, the meaning and
essence of being and the experience of harmony, the mystery of life, communion and
sharing, the delight of ecstasy. (Anyone can gain that insight. LSD is the best way.)
I doubt if this can possibly be made to seem meaningful at the ordinary level of
consciousness. No wonder the mystics of all faiths teach that understanding comes only
when logic and intellect are transcended!
I hope that religious organizations in this country will begin to understand that highs
triggered by drugs may be more relevant to spiritual development than appearances of
spirituality on Sunday mornings.
If a Jesus or a Buddha were to appear in our midst today, he would be hard pressed to
convince anyone of the relevance to mankind of his teachings. (Our ignorant, sick society
would bash Jesus or Buddha just like they bashed Timothy Leary.)
If drugs can change the way in which the brain sees, hears, smells, and assembles
meaningful form out of the chaos of sensation, they can also radically transform the
nature of sexual feeling.
If the perceptions touched off by the drugs are in any reliable sense religious, then an
invaluable means of studying the dynamics and effects of profound religious experience
at firsthand is available to us.
Important emotional experiences from the past are relived with all the physiological,
sensory, emotional and ideational characteristics of the original reaction and frequently
with a detailed, realistic representation of the setting. (eyes closed)
Important emotional, psychosomatic or interpersonal difficulties that have plagued the
client for many years and have resisted conventional therapeutic approaches can
sometimes disappear after a full experience of a transpersonal nature.
In our emphasis on rationality and logic, we have put great value on the everyday sober
state of mind and relegated all other states of consciousness into the realm of useless
pathology.
In some circles of serious research into the drug’s effect, it is thought that LSD is
possibly the clue that will lead to the discovery and disclosure of man’s unconscious, its
meaning and function.
In such states, the subject has a revelation of the significance and interrelationships of
many dimensions of life; he becomes aware of many levels of meaning simultaneously
and “understands” the totality of existence.
In the past, experiences of this kind were considered valuable and those who had them
were looked up to. That’s one reason why there were more visionaries in earlier
centuries.
It became obvious to many practitioners involved in these explorations that we needed a
new model of the psyche whose important elements would include not only the Freudian
biographical dimension but the Jungian collective unconscious and spirituality as well.
It is important to prepare the client for the fact that the dimensions of the experience will
probably be beyond anything that he or she has ever faced or could even imagine in the
usual state of consciousness.
It is important to realize that by banning psychedelic research we have not only given up
the study of an interesting drug or group of substances, but also abandoned one of the
most promising approaches to the understanding of the human mind and consciousness.
It seems that everyone who experientially reaches these levels develop convincing
insights into the total relevance of the spiritual dimension to the universal scheme of
things.
It’s easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven. The rich man’s life is cluttered up with yachts, estates and other
things of little value. He has no time to feel.
Jung and his followers brought to the attention of Western psychology the utmost
significance of all the symbolic variations on the theme of death and rebirth in our
archetypal heritage. (This is way beyond what Freud knew, wrote or talked about.)
Knowledge is a collection of facts and information. Knowledge is something which
comes from without. Wisdom is the ability to use those facts and the information for the
meaningful purposes of life. Wisdom comes from within.
Leary felt that LSD’s significance lay beyond all social analysis and all psychological
categories and since the drug experience was completely unique, a new model was
needed, a new structure.
Long “forgotten” memories may become accessible and meaningful with the subject
“going back in time” to very vividly experience the emotional as well as other contents of
important forgotten or repressed events.
Man is just beginning to catch on to the idea, just beginning to discover that there is an
infinity of meaning and complex power in the equipment he carries around behind his
eyebrows.
Many observations from psychedelic research indicate that LSD can be of extraordinary
value to various scientific disciplines that are traditionally considered domains of reason
and logic.
Music seems to serve several important functions in the context of psychedelic therapy. It
tends to evoke a variety of powerful emotions and facilitates deeper involvement in the
psychedelic process.
New insights into a new, transfigured world of givenness, new combinations of thought
and fantasy—the stream of novelty pours through the world in a torrent, whose every
drop is charged with meaning.
On the verbal level, the “psychedelic” conversation may include a mutual awareness of
nuances rarely encountered in ordinary conversation, multiple meanings and shades of
meanings, all attached to a single word or brief phrase.
One of the most important changes most people experience through non-ordinary states
of consciousness involves a new appreciation for the role of spirituality in the universal
scheme of things.
Psychedelic research will be of great value in such diverse areas as philosophy,
parapsychology and the creative arts and in the study of literature, mythology,
anthropology, comparative religion and still other fields.
Raptures about “transcendental experiences” often focus on the visual splendors and lofty
insights into the meaning of existence and the universe and the increase in aesthetic
sensitivity.
Shapes devoid of content could produce feelings of meaning, in the same way that
unusual notes in a pattern seemingly devoid of content, can convey very specific images
and emotions.
Some people find it so useful in gaining new perspectives or seeing problems from a
different vantage point that they smoke it in preparation for intellectual work. (refers to
marijuana)
Subjects who had previously ridiculed alchemy and the ancient forms of divination
suddenly discovered their deeper meaning and found genuine appreciation of their
metaphysical relevance.
Suddenly, the familiar view of our surroundings is transformed in a strange, delightful
way: it appears to us in a new light, takes on a special meaning. Such an experience can
be as light and fleeting as a breath of air, or it can imprint itself deeply upon our minds.
The Church insists on the acceptance of certain particular analogies of God which cannot
always and invariably be meaningful and helpful. The supremely important thing is God
himself and not formal religion.
The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s
mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It
educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal.
The esoteric core of the great religious and spiritual traditions could be seen as roadmaps
to higher states of consciousness, and some of the most profound material in these
traditions became especially clear and meaningful during psychedelic sessions.
The experiencer, when he opens his eyes, sees the outer world transfigured, sees it as
glowing with an intensity of light and significance and life, which is something he simply
does not see at all in his ordinary state.
The expression “a system of teaching” has no meaning, for Truth, in the sense of Reality,
cannot be cut up into pieces and arranged into a system. The words can only be used as a
figure of speech.
The fact that visionary experiences has always, at all times and everywhere been very
highly valued, means that at all times and in all cultures systematic efforts have been
made to induce this experience.
The importance and value of transpersonal experiences is extraordinary. It is a great irony
and one of the paradoxes of modern science that phenomena with a therapeutic potential
transcending what Western psychiatry has to offer are, by and large, seen as pathological.
The individual who connects with these levels of his or her psyche automatically
develops a new world view within which spirituality represents a natural, essential and
absolutely vital element of existence.
The individual’s right of access to his or her own brain has become the most significant
political, economic and cultural issue in America today. Our states will never be united
nor prosperous until the generational drug war is ended. (That was Timothy Leary.)
The linearity of temporal experience is transcended in unusual states of consciousness.
Scenes from different historical contexts can occur simultaneously and appear to be
meaningfully connected by their experiential characteristics. (eyes closed)
The meaning of the universe is wholly felt, not thought out. (“Thought out” is based on
words, which by itself, cannot get one to the meaning of the universe. One must get past
words and ego.)
The meaningful things seen in the mescaline experience are not symbols. They do not
stand for something else, do not mean anything except themselves. The significance of
each thing is identical with its being. Its point is that it IS.
The most important reason for making the observations from psychedelic research
available to professionals, as well as the general public, is the revolutionary nature of the
observations associated with it.
The motivations for psychedelic experimentation can be extremely serious and reflect the
most fundamental needs of human beings—cravings for emotional well-being, spiritual
fulfillment and a sense of meaning in life.
The nonordinary state of consciousness had the remarkable capacity to select and bring
into conscious awareness contents that have a strong emotional charge and are thus
psychologically important.
The past is not something fixed and unutterable. Its facts are rediscovered by every
succeeding generation, its values reassessed, its meanings redefined in the context of
present tastes and preoccupations. (We need to rediscover a lot more.)
The psychedelic experience tends to bring the subject into intimate contact with nature
and dramatically enhances his or her sensory perception of the world and an encounter
with nature at its best can become an aesthetic and spiritual experience of lasting value.
The really important division in the world of spirituality is not the line that separates the
individual mainstream religions from each other, but the one that separates all of them
from their mystical branches.
The recent increase of interest in various forms of self-exploration, which can mediate
direct spiritual experiences, is a very encouraging trend and a development of great
potential significance.
The screening or selective apparatus of our normal interpretative evaluation of experience
had been partially suspended, with the result that I was presumably projecting the
sensation of meaning or significance upon just about everything.
The significance of incarnation and resurrection is not that Jesus was a human like us but
rather that we are gods like him—or at least have the potential to be. This is the secret of
all ages and all spiritual traditions. This is the highest mystery.
The subject is made to understand that the value of his experience will depend, in large
measure, on his willingness to suspend or abandon his ordinary, everyday ways of
thinking and “looking at things.”
The things that are most important to many young Americans are not being discussed in
academic life. The sterile formalism of much American higher education can hardly hold
a candle to the psychedelic experience.
The unusual states of consciousness induced by LSD can generate important insights,
facilitate problem-solving and lead to valid intuitions or unexpected resyntheses of
accumulated data
The variability of response to the drugs is enormous, largely because what is most
important for a particular person to learn at a particular time will vary tremendously and
thus the experience will differ accordingly.
The wide historical and geographical distribution of transformative rituals focusing on
death and rebirth and their psychological relevance for individuals, groups, and entire
cultures suggest that they must reflect important basic needs inherent in human nature.
There are dedicated scientists trying to find some way in which supplies of LSD may be
made available for important research in brain physiology, psychology, theology or
mental therapy.
There are many reports of patients receiving meaningful insight about themselves in an
LSD experience without the intervention, participation or even the presence of a
therapist.
There is—in addition to the individual unconscious—a racial or collective unconscious
that is shared by all mankind. Jung saw comparative religion and mythology as
invaluable sources of information about these collective aspects of the unconscious.
These drugs promise discoveries about mind as important and far reaching in their
ultimate effects as have been the revolutionary findings of this century concerning the
physical universe.
To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours
the outer and inner world as they are apprehended directly and unconditionally, by Mind
at Large— this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone.
Twentieth century educators have ceased to be concerned with questions of ultimate truth
or meaning and are interested solely in the dissemination of a rootless and irrelevant
culture and the fostering of the solemn foolery of scholarship for scholarship’s sake.
Unconsciously, if not always consciously, everyone knows that this Other World is there,
inside the skull—and any news about it, any discussion of its significance, its relevance
to other aspects of life, is a matter of universal concern.
We are in need of a kind of philosophy or vision, an intellectual grasp of its nature and
recognition of its value, so that the psychedelic experience may be incorporated into our
lives as wisdom.
We cannot wait around, dealing with energies which are so insistent and important, until
scientists or government agencies tell us that we can take that risk. (Don’t wait until the
power forces tell you that it’s all right because it will never happen.)
We must come to understand the value of nonordinary experience—to feel grateful for it
rather than guilty about it—so that we can encourage our children to express it rather than
hide it.
We sometimes have a strangely pleasant sensation of having forgotten something
extremely important from long, long ago. Occasionally, this shadow of a memory comes
with hints of a forgotten paradise.
What truly defines the transpersonal orientation is a model of the human psyche that
recognizes the importance of the spiritual or cosmic dimensions and the potential for
consciousness evolution.
William James was well aware that a deep religious conversion is the best therapy for
alcoholism. The importance of deep spiritual experiences for overcoming alcoholism was
also well known to Carl Gustav Jung.
Words are not distinct packages of meaning but are tied to clouds of memories and
associations. A basic Information Age realization is that these meanings are different for
everyone.
Words such as joy, ecstasy, grace, beauty, just don’t exist in the psychiatric vocabulary.
The poor psychiatrist has been given the sad task of looking for pathology and is usually
bewildered when he comes face-to-face with the more meaningful experiences of life.
Your thoughts, feelings and sensations are new and strange. All events, physical,
personal or social are looked at with a new eye. You suddenly realize who you really are
and what your personal reality means.
A single high-dose LSD session can frequently be of extraordinary value for those
persons who do not have any serious clinical problems. The quality of their lives can be
considerable enhanced and the experience can move them in the direction of self-
realization and self-actualization.
Along with light, there comes recognition of heightened significance. The self-luminous
objects possess a meaning as intense as their color. Here, significance is identical with
being: objects do not stand for anything but themselves. Their meaning is precisely this:
that they are intensely themselves.
An important characteristic of collective and racial memories is the fact that the subject
experiences them as insights into the diversity of cultural groups within the human race,
illustrations of the history of mankind or manifestations of the cosmic drama and divine
play. (eyes closed)
ancient and Oriental religions and philosophy—It has become increasingly clear that
these systems of belief reflect profound understanding of the human mind and of unusual
states of consciousness, embodying knowledge that deals with the most universal aspect
of human existence, and thus is highly relevant for all of us.
Controlled research aimed at maximizing their safety, their effectiveness, and their
human value has barely begun. In addition to questions concerning the possible uses of
LSD as a therapeutic or educative device, its potential value as a basic research tool for
investigating higher mental processes has also been minimally explored.
Every human being is born with an innate drive to experience altered states of
consciousness periodically, in particular to learn how to get away from ordinary ego-
centered consciousness. This drive is a most important factor in our evolution, both as
individuals and as a species.
Few of the drug-state phenomena are more perplexing, fascinating and potentially
valuable than is the subject’s participation in mythic and ritualistic dramas which
represent to him in terms both universal and particular the essentials of his own situation
in the world. (eyes closed)
He takes a fantastic inner journey into the unconscious and superconscious mind. These
drugs thus reveal and make available for direct observation, a wide range of otherwise
hidden phenomena that represent intrinsic capacities of the human mind and play an
important role in normal mental dynamics.
I suppose in a certain sense one can say the value is absolute. In a sense one can say that
visionary experience is, so to say, a manifestation simultaneously of the beautiful and the
true, of intense beauty and intense reality and as such it doesn’t have to be justified in any
other way.
If we perceive this has some sort of deep significance and we do something about it, then
it may be very, very important in changing our lives, changing our mode of
consciousness, perceiving that there are other ways of looking at the world than the
ordinary utilitarian manner and it may also result in significant changes of behavior.
If we understand that straight and stoned are descriptive terms for ways of using the mind
rather than labels for people who do or do not use a particular means of entering other
states of consciousness, we can use these terms profitably, for they indicate an important
choice between different kinds of thinking.
In our minds we possess a far greater wealth than we have ever conceived. Such a
discovery may do much for us in every way, making material ends seem less valuable to
us as ultimate aims, and encouraging us to live well for the sake of a spirit which
possesses fathomless capacities for happiness no less than knowledge.
In spite of the frequency of these phenomena and their obvious relevance for many areas
of human life, surprisingly few serious attempts have been made in the past to
incorporate them into the theory and practice of contemporary psychiatry and
psychology.
It is a complex revelatory insight into the essence of being and existence. This insight is
typically accompanied by feelings of certainty that such knowledge is ultimately more
real and relevant than our concepts and perceptions regarding the world that we share in a
usual state of consciousness.
It is important to realize that the subjective experience of time is radically changed in
nonordinary states of consciousness. Within seconds of clocktime, one can experience a
rich and complex sequence of events that lasts subjectively a very long time, or even
seems to involve eternity.
It is most curious to find, from Japan to Western Europe, these same images coming
through again and again, showing how universal and how uniform this kind of visionary
experience has been and how it has constantly been regarded as of immense importance
and has been projected out into the cosmos in the various religious traditions.
It is significant that those who have been surprised by a mystical experience seldom fail
to feel that their experience is religious. Intuitively they become aware—at least
subjectively—that their state of mind somehow links them with the saints and prophets of
the ages. This is even the case with atheists.
Most of the subjects felt that the psychedelic experience could sometimes supply a
guiding vision which provided direction and meaning for one’s life thereafter. They
mentioned intense emotions such as love, compassion, or empathy, and the recognition
that the mind can be and should be highly trained.
Of great relevance for the creative process is the facilitation of new and unexpected
synthesis of data, resulting in unconventional problem-solving. It is a well known fact
that many important ideas and solutions to problems did not originate in the context of
logical reasoning, but in various unusual states of mind.
Only a few rather exceptional professionals have shown a genuine interest in and
appreciation of transpersonal experiences as phenomena of their own right. These
individuals have recognized their heuristic value and their relevance for a new
understanding of the unconscious, of the human potential and of the nature of man.
Perceptually, LSD produces an especially brilliant and intense impact of sensory stimuli
on consciousness. Normally unnoticed aspects of the environment capture the attention;
ordinary objects are seen as if for the first time and with a sense of fascination or
entrancement, as though they had unimagined depths of significance.
Physicists and mathematicians report that after using LSD they have developed “a
feeling” for such concepts as the photon, the hypercube or imaginary numbers. Similarly,
philosophers have reported they have “understood” the meaning of existentialism, and
theologians report having “experienced” that which they had been preaching for years.
Psychedelics expand attention. They make the spotlight of consciousness a floodlight
which not only exposes ignored relationships and unities but also brings to light
unsuspected details, details normally ignored because of their lack of significance or their
irrelevance to some prejudice of what ought to be.
Spiritual feelings are associated with such issues as the enigma of time and space; the
origin of matter, life and consciousness; the dimensions of the universe and of existence;
the meaning of human life and the ultimate purpose underlying the process of the creation
of the phenomenal world.
The concept of time does not merely lose meaning, but, more impressively, is seen in a
new perspective. Subjects assert that they felt “outside of” time, beyond both past and
future, as though they were viewing the totality of history from a transcendent vantage
point.
The emotional effects are even more profound than the perceptual ones. The drug taker
becomes unusually sensitive to faces, gestures, and small changes in the environment. As
everything in the field of consciousness assumes unusual importance, feelings become
magnified.
The Good, the True and the Beautiful are absolute values and in a certain sense one can
say that visionary experience has always been regarded as an absolute value, that it has
always been felt to be intrinsically of immense significance and importance and worth
having at a very great price.
The language of cultures with ancient spiritual traditions that are based on experiential
self-exploration have a rich and sophisticated vocabulary describing various mystical
states of consciousness. However, even then the terms adequately convey the meaning
only if we can relate them to a personal experience.
The most lasting value of the drug experience for me appears to be a number of
convictions, most of them religious in nature, which are so strong that it makes not one
iota of difference whether anyone agrees with them or not. (When you know the truth, no
one can talk you out of it. The truth is the truth.)
The perception of the environment can be changed in a way that bears a striking
resemblance to the pictures of famous Cubist painters. The fantasy process is usually
considerably enhanced and contributes an important creative element to these perceptual
changes.
The reason psychedelic experiences are important and valuable is that people live their
lives by their own “chess boards,” playing the lawyer-game, the merchant-game or some
rule-ridden ego-game, rarely if ever expanding their consciousness to the point of true
awareness and understanding of man and nature, including themselves.
The value, apart from their intrinsic value, so to say the ethical, sociological and spiritual
value of the visionary experience, is that if it is well used, it can result in a significant and
important change in the mode of consciousness and perhaps also in a change in behavior
or for the good.
The whole world has been completely misunderstood: for it has been looked at with a
spotlight called consciousness so narrow in scope that it was all but impossible to see
how things are actually related. But only in that relationship do things have their meaning
and their beauty, as well as their existence.
There are gaps between the fingers; there are gaps between the senses. In these gaps is
the darkness which hides the connection between things. This darkness is the home of the
gods. They alone see the connections, the total relevance of everything that happens; that
which now comes to us in bits and pieces in our limited perceptions.
We are confronted by the very real possibility that the known and unknown uses of these
drugs that could prove to be legitimate and beneficial for individual persons and society
may be suppressed until some future century when investigation will be permitted to
proceed unhampered by popular hysteria and over-restrictive legislation.
We now consider that they give us therapeutic possibilities in areas where we were
formerly powerless. In fact these drugs are of such great importance in our psychiatric
instrumentation that we can hardly think of doing without them. Indeed, this is a great
step forward in psychiatry.
We should re-evaluate our attitude toward mythology. Instead of representing bizarre and
ultimately useless pieces of knowledge, the data can prove to be invaluable cartographies
of strange experiential worlds which each of us will have to enter at some point in the
future.
When the non-ordinary states are opened up to them, even scientifically cautious and
highly intelligent people of our own time and culture find these experiences deeply
moving and personally meaningful, providing them with dramatic breakthroughs in their
beliefs.
Abraham Maslow urged that there was a need to “depathologize” the psyche, that is, to
look upon the “inner core” of our being not as the source of metaphysical darkness or
illness but as the source of health and as the wellspring of human creativity. It was his
belief that Western civilization had obscured the importance of this inner core by
approaching it more as a superstition than as a reality.
According to Laing, psychiatrists do not pay proper attention to the inner experience of
psychotics, because they see them as pathological and incomprehensible. However,
careful observation and study show that these experiences have profound meaning and
that the psychotic process can be healing. Laing believes that psychotics have in many
respects more to teach psychiatrists than psychiatrists do their patients.
Both Freud and Skinner explained creative processes in terms of their deviance from
“normality” rather than as positive, healthy processes to be encouraged and developed. It
is not surprising that most American psychiatrists and psychologists are baffled by the
reports of LSD activity, puzzled by the subjective reports of LSD users, and skeptical
about the value of LSD in man’s efforts to understand, describe and change his behavior.
Certain physical stimuli from the environment can change the session in a very dramatic
way. This may be observed in connection with certain accidental sounds; thus barking of
a dog, sound of a jet, explosion of fireworks, factory or ambulance sirens or a particular
tune may have a specific biographical meaning that can elicit quite unexpected responses
from the subject.
I pronounced that LSD was the greatest discovery man had ever made. It has such
enormous potential because the mind is infinite. LSD opens up the resources of the mind.
Since the mind is the most important aspect of the human being, what could possibly be
more important than a drug that revealed the awesome, infinite potential that lies within?
(That was Timothy Leary.)
If mystical experiences are integrated into the personality, they are highly therapeutic.
Single-state scholars and theoreticians are hard-pressed to explain this therapeutic value.
Denial is easier. But if an enlarged map of reality includes altered states of consciousness,
then experiencing such states logically leads to a fuller view of reality, and therapists tell
us that a fuller view of reality is therapeutic.
In most preindustrial societies and ancient civilizations, there have existed powerful
rituals designed to transform and consecrate individuals, groups, or even entire cultures.
These transformative events, termed rites of passage by anthropologists, are of
fundamental importance to the discussion of the experience of symbolic death and
rebirth.
In nonordinary states of consciousness, visions of various universal symbols can play a
significant role even in experiences of individuals who previously had no interest in
mysticism or were strongly opposed to anything esoteric. These visions tend to convey
instant intuitive understanding of the various levels of meaning of these symbols and
generate a deep interest in the spiritual path. (visions seen with eyes closed)
Indians experience the collective unconscious as an immediate reality, not just as an
intellectual construct. It is significant that this experience of shared consciousness holds a
most important place in the society. In fact, as a sacramental ritual, it is the basis of tribal
unity because it proves and confirms the supposition that every person in the tribe is the
same as every other person in the most fundamental way.
It has been shown that LSD experiences of death and rebirth and mystical states of
consciousness can change patients’ concepts of death and life and alleviate their fears of
dying. Psychedelic therapy has proved to be more than an important tool in the control of
mental and physical pain, it has contributed greatly to our understanding of the
experience of death. —
LSD subjects often consider the possibility that consciousness is a basic cosmic
phenomenon related to the organization of energy and that it exists throughout the
universe: in this context, human consciousness appears to be only one of its many
varieties and outgrowths. Episodes of consciousness of inorganic matter can be
accompanied by various insights of a philosophical and religious relevance.
Modern consciousness research has confirmed the basic thesis of perennial philosophy
that the consensus reality reveals only one aspect or fragment of existence. There are
important realms of reality that are transcendental and transphenomenal. The impulse is
human beings to connect with the spiritual domain is an extremely powerful and
important force. It resembles, in its nature, sexuality.
Openness to new data challenging traditional beliefs and dogmas has always been an
important characteristic of the best of science and a moving force of progress. A true
scientist does not confuse theory with reality and does not try to dictate what nature
should be like. It is not up to us to decide what the human psyche can do and what it can
not do to fit our neatly organized preconceived ideas.
Previously almost-depressed individuals typically emerge from a successfully integrated
LSD session with elevated mood, joyful appreciation of existence, enhanced self-esteem
and self- acceptance and greater capacity for meaningful human relationships. Their
inner life is enriched, they are more open and they show an increased appreciation of
beauty in nature and art.
Sensory perceptions become especially brilliant and intense. Normally unnoticed aspects
of the environment capture the attention; ordinary objects are seen as if for the first time
and acquire new depth of significance. Aesthetic responses are greatly heightened; colors
seem more intense, textures richer, contours sharpened, music more emotionally
profound, the spatial arrangements of objects more meaningful.
Specialists from various disciplines have asked me for specific details of my
observations, because they felt that these data may have important implications for such
diverse areas as personality theory, psychology of religion, psychotherapy, genetics,
psychology and psychopathology of art, anthropology, the study of mythology,
education, psychosomatic medicine and obstetric practice. (That was Stanislav Grof.)
Spiritual experiences of this kind can occur in individuals of high intellectual caliber and
rigorous scientific training, in fact, they are fully compatible with observations
accumulated by various branches of modern research. An important illustration of this
point, for those who emphasize the scientific world-view, is the recent convergence of
quantum-relativistic physics and various mystical traditions.
The conveying and receiving of complicated messages, without the normal amount of
verbalization, is made possible by the subject’s alertness to nuances of language. Double
meanings and other word plays may be picked up instantly. Apparently simple statements
and even single words yield manifold meanings and implications that all seem
simultaneously accessible.
The experience of cosmic consciousness provides important insights for deepening our
understanding of the highest forms of creativity. The literature on creativity is filled with
examples of extraordinary artistic, scientific, philosophical, and religious inspiration that
came from a transpersonal source and that occurred in non-ordinary states of
consciousness.
The findings from psychedelic explorations throw entirely new light on the material from
history, comparative religion and anthropology concerning the ancient mysteries of death
and rebirth, rites of passage of various cultures, shamanic procedures of all times,
aboriginal healing ceremonies, spiritual practices of various religious and mystical
traditions and other phenomena of great cultural significance.
The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of
happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings, and
of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfaction of life are
to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their
thoughts, their emotions and their sensations.
The new data are of such far-reaching relevance that they could revolutionize our
understanding of the human psyche. Some of the observations transcend in their
significance the framework of psychology and psychiatry and represent a serious
challenge to the current Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm of Western science. They could
change drastically our image of human nature, of culture and history, and of reality.
The opportunity to vividly experience specific memories from different periods of one’s
life makes it possible to see their interrelations and discover chains of unconscious
neurotic patterns underlying specific emotional problems. This can be an important
transforming experience that results in profound changes in the personality structure,
emotional dynamics, and behavior of the individual.
The reality and concrete nature of these experiences, as well as their convincing quality,
presented for a while a very serious conflict for the “scientist” in me. Then, all of a
sudden, the resolution of this dilemma emerged; it became clear to me that it was more
appropriate to consider the necessity of revising present scientific beliefs than to question
the relevance of my own experience. (That was Stanislav Grof.)
The recognition of the primary and independent significance of spiritual aspects of the
psyche or of what would these days be called the transpersonal dimension, was extremely
rare among Freud’s followers. Only Jung was able to penetrate really deeply into the
transpersonal domain and formulate a system of psychology radically different from any
of Freud’s followers.
The world of myths, legends, and fairy tales literally comes to life. The subject can
witness numerous scenes from the mythology and folklore of any culture in the world and
visit any mythical landscapes. He or she can also experientially identify with legendary
and mythical heroes and heroines or fantastic mythological creatures. Such sequences can
emerge in meaningful connection with personal problems of the subject. (eyes closed)
Three hundred years ago, if I announced there was a level of reality made up of tiny
particles which seem to have a beauty, a meaning, a planfulness of their own, I’d be in
danger of being imprisoned. When I could persuade people to look through the
microscope lens at a leaf, or a snowflake or a drop of blood, then they would discover
that beyond the macroscopic world are visible realms of energy and meaning.
Underlying all these highlights, what held us together was our feeling that we were on the
cutting edge of knowledge. We were spearheading the acquisition of new and important
truths and their potentials. We likened ourselves to explorers in Africa when that
continent was still unknown to Europeans. (That was Timothy Leary referring to his days
at Harvard.)
What we ordinarily take in and respond to is a curious mixture of immediate experience
with culturally conditioned symbol, of sense impressions with preconceived ideas about
the nature of things. And by most people the symbolic elements in this cocktail of
awareness are felt to be more important than the elements contributed by immediate
experience.
Crying and laughing are branches of the same tree—the tree of emotions. Not two of the
leaves are the same, yet all have the same roots: the capacity to feel and the need to
express those feelings. Whether I was crying or laughing was really not too important,
except on the conventional level. The important point was that the tree of my emotions
was being vigorously shaken and liberated of some withered leaves which had hung on it
too long.
The old paradigms of in psychiatry have now outlived their usefulness and are impeding
progress. Instead of repressing observations because they do not conform to established
ways of thinking, we should try to formulate new paradigms. A paradigm should not be
confused with an accurate description of reality. It is a useful organization of existing
data, a temporary conceptual tool that should be replaced when it no longer serves its
purpose.
The richness of the experiential content is augmented by the fact that the process involves
an endless variety of illustrative material from biology, zoology, anthropology, history,
mythology and religion. Psychedelic sessions focusing on the death-rebirth process not
only have great therapeutic potential, but are a source of invaluable scientific,
sociopolitical, philosophical and spiritual insights. (That material is seen with the eyes
closed.)
A genuinely religious image is always intrinsically meaningful.
A newer and fuller significance of individual human existence will be revealed.
A present event becomes charged with profound emotional significance.
After insight comes the deeper question as to the meaning of life.
All is significant.
An overwhelming conviction in the value of the experience is felt.
As aids to learning about being, psychedelics are of great potential value.
Because of that mushroom experience, I never forgot what’s really important.
Colors and sounds gain an intense meaning.
Drug-taking, it is significant, plays an important part in almost every primitive religion.
Everything has worlds and worlds of meaning.
Everything is more meaningful.
Experiential self-exploration is an important tool for a spiritual and philosophical quest.
For many, the discoveries mean new truth and wisdom.
For most people, it’s an extremely significant experience.
His experience had brought first deliverance and then meaning into his life.
How do we keep alive this world of immense value which people had during childhood?
If life has a meaning for you beyond the TV-studio game, you are religious.
Individuals tend to discover meaning and beauty in ordinary objects.
It is a question of being aware of what is truly valuable and to be prized.
It is here that man actually realizes his ultimate meaning and destiny.
It opens a religious vista or fulfills a sense of meaning in existence.
It remains as valuable to me now as it was then.
It remains the most important event of my life. Nothing at all can be compared to it.
It restores a whole dimension of value to life.
Its significance is profound.
LSD helps you find divinity and helps you discover yourself, discover God and meaning.
LSD would awaken appetite for spiritual meaning.
Meaningful connections appear between seemingly unrelated objects.
Most people searched for the deeper meaning of life while under the drug.
Most subjects find the experience valuable.
Most subjects find the experience valuable and many say that it is uniquely lovely.
New sights and sounds, new meanings, and new feelings come together.
Objects attain a heightened personal significance.
One session can be an important turning point in one’s life.
Our education should surely teach us how to search for meaning.
Patients who have had vivid experiences of this type have tended to value them highly.
Patterns and designs begin to distinguish themselves and take on significance.
People did immensely value this kind of visionary experience.
Psychedelic experiences can play an important role in the creative development of artists.
Recognize the importance and value of other states of consciousness.
Return to nature is an important aspect of the psychedelic experience.
Sacredness is that which a person feels to be of special value.
Seeing loses the conventional meanings imposed upon the object seen.
Spirituality is an important dimension of existence.
Subjects report that the viewed object has enhanced beauty and meaning.
Such experiences have a great healing potential and therapeutic value.
The drugs induce valuable states of self-transcendence and mystical unity.
The experience holds out the promise of rewards of incalculable value.
The experience is powerful, intense and meaningful.
The experience is profoundly significant.
The experiences emerging from the unconscious are valid, important and meaningful.
The government remains steadfast in its curtailment of meaningful psychedelic research.
The individual seriously questions the meaning of his or her life and existence in general.
The inner life of God is meaningful and playful (as opposed to purposeful).
The intrinsic beauty and significance of the thing (object) seen is enormously magnified.
The meaning is divined rather than defined.
The meaning is within.
The memory of mystical consciousness itself is regarded as deeply meaningful.
The most important experiences are those I am least able to talk about.-
The object focused upon assumes a profound significance.
The sexual orgasm has lost much of its mystical meaning in the West.
The significance of each thing is identical with its being.
The spiritual and intellectual rewards are vivid, wonderful, inexpressible.
The spiritual search and philosophical quest become important new dimensions of life.
The state of mind is a delightful calm of complete significance.
The use of psychedelics was a search for meaning, not an escape from life.
The world does not point to a meaning beyond itself. It is like pure music.
There is greater sensitivity to significant background noises.
There is order, pattern and meaning in nature.
These drugs have present value and an enormously greater potential value.
These mystical experiences had an enormous relevance.
This is a new venture and an important one.
Throughout the ages, visionary states have played an extremely important role.
To turn on means to come to your senses.
Transpersonal experiences can be of great therapeutic value.
Use the senses to find inner meaning and divinity.
Visionary states can provide valuable information about the self and reality.
What is important is less the reason for the experience than the experience itself.
What is serious and terribly important is at root nothing but play.
What’s going on up here is the true meaning of it all and it always has been.
When the ego controls dissolve, the world within is glowing, serene and meaningful.
You are going to learn little of value and meaning in high school and college.
You discover a new meaning of love.
You learn to appreciate the true value of things.
You may discover that you are living a robot existence, devoid of meaning.
You will rejoice in perception of a meaning in life which you never felt.
You’re never the same once you’ve had LSD. It makes life take on richer meanings.
Those folds in the trousers—what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And
the texture of the gray flannel—how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous! (That’s
Aldous Huxley.
My life has new savor, new meaning—and new mystery.
Clock time and ordinary space no longer had any meaning. Everything was happening in
infinite dimension. My consciousness swelled.
Emotionally, aesthetically and religiously, the experience was the most intense,
impressive and valuable day I have ever experienced.
Everything I could see seemed alive and immensely beautiful and meaningful. Trees,
rocks, cacti the entire landscape was radiating with relevance.
Everything seemed to have a much greater—very much greater significance than
normally.
Everything that I ever believed in, everything that I did or pursued, everything that
seemed to give my life meaning, suddenly appeared utterly false. (That is a revelation.)
For the first time in my life, I knew what the word “beauty” meant. Now I understand
that I had never even begun to penetrate what beauty was all about.
For the first time, the word ecstasy took on real meaning. For the first time, it did not
mean someone else’s state of mind.
He found it difficult to read while eating because the taste of food obscured the meaning
of the words.
He said the session had been the most important, profound and intense experience of his
life.
He stood there motionless, gazing, gazing through a timeless succession of mounting
intensities and ever-profound significances.
He was not remembering back reflectively, but instead he was directly perceiving the
experience and the meaning of the experience.
I could see God and life and everybody and myself in its reality and true proportion. It is
wonderful and full of meaning after all.
I felt that something of utmost relevance had happened to me on this session day and that
I would never be the same.
I knew what was important in my life and what was less important more clearly than ever
before.
I had reached a state of “wakefulness” when the brilliance of light on a window sill or the
color of blue in the sky would be so important it could make me cry.
I now knew what the shamans meant when they said, “the mushroom takes you there to
the place where God is.”
I saw this moment as an archetypal crossroads in time, ripe with revelatory meanings and
building up to something supremely special.
I was keenly aware that every little sparrow that flew had a beautiful song to sing that
meant something.
It created vast openings of the mind that led to an understanding of spiritual realities and
it was very valuable.
It occurred to me that the importance of music was, like art, its power to convey
emotions.
It was a feeling that was deeper, more profound, more moving, more meaningful, than
any feeling I have ever had.
“It was,” according to Huxley “without question the most extraordinary and significant
experience this side of the Beatific Vision.”
LSD carried with it a certain messianic vision, a certain understanding of the meaning of
freedom.
My experience was so deep, so moving, so meaningful. What I really discovered under
LSD is love. Some call it God.
My sensitivity to beauty was significantly increased and I perceived aesthetic qualities in
most all of the objects that surrounded me, even in the walls of the room itself.
Objects were apprehended as “presenting themselves more forcefully” as being less
opaque, more easily yielding up meanings.”
Objects were seen not only with a greater clarity but also seemed to be “more
meaningful”.
Peace and joy engulfed me and I knew that the kingdom of heaven was truly within and
that LSD had made this day the most important one in my life.
Random details of my surroundings suddenly stood out strongly and somehow appeared
to be “meaningful.”
The books, like the flowers, glowed when I looked at them, with brighter colors, a
profounder significance.
The expansion of all visible things had been growing toward its height; it now revealed it
and to the fullest extent I apprehended what is meant by the infinity of space.
The glitter of metal and gems were intensified to the highest pitch of what may be called
intrinsic significance.
The light reflections became important, meaningful and mysterious. It had some secret
message.
The mind was concerned not with space, measures and locations, but with living and
meaning.
The music had an intensity of beauty, a depth of intrinsic meaning incomparably greater
than anything he had ever found in the same music.
The precious stones and jewels appeared to have a much deeper meaning than being just
things of beauty. The green light emanating from them was of a spiritual nature.
Things the least suspected of having significance beyond their material agency were
perceived to be the most startling illustrations and incarnations of spiritual facts.
When I was strongly under the influence of the drug were the most important hours of my
life.
During the playing of the record I felt myself being swept along by the movement of the
words, as if the meaning were coming through directly to me and the meaning itself was
a movement, a dynamic flow which carried me along as if on a journey.
Every human being moving across the porch, every sparrow that flew, every branch
tossing in the wind, was caught in and was part of the whole mad ecstasy of lovliness, of
joy, of importance, of intoxication of life.
His emotional state was one of “tranquility, a quiet kind of happiness and a security
coming from the knowledge of having accomplished something enormously worthwhile,
of having made some very great advances.”
I found myself discussing who I was, what I was doing, what I wanted from life, what life
meant to me, and a series of questions that I hadn’t been concerned with since I was a
teenager.
I realized that it was not up to us to dictate what the human psyche should be like in order
to fit our scientific beliefs and worldview. Rather, it is important to discover and accept
the true nature of the psyche and find out how we can best cooperate with it.
My identity and awareness seemed to spread throughout the room and even beyond into
the forest outside. This meant when somebody came into the room, as they did, it was as
if they were walking into “me.”
My own personal drama was no more significant than light playing on a movie screen.
Even feelings of joy, ecstasy, and liberation in letting go of attachments were less
important than the insight and sense of knowing, or remembering, inexpressible truth.
Seemingly, some element of my former personality had died, but some other part that
was far more vital had been reborn. Whatever it was that wanted to come to life was
important, but I didn’t yet know how or why.
The experience was highly significant. He comprehended “the essential All-Rightness of
the universe.” (Ultimately, the universe is good and right no matter how bad things seem
to get.)
The intensity of the love feelings caused sexual hungers and reactions to be markedly
heightened. Intercourse took on such depth of meaning as to have a religious
significance.
We had entered the cosmic state. It was divine. It was expansive and harmonious and
beatific and one. I was alive! For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to
be truly alive.
With great emotion, he announced that “this is of vital importance to me” and that he
“absolutely must get to the bottom” of what he felt was being disclosed to him about his
own nature.
Everything was beautiful. Everything was right. Each smallest thing was uniquely
important, yet fitted perfectly into the whole. My little ego seemed removed and I felt I
saw clearly and purely for the first time in my life. I wept with relief and joy. I felt
unworthy of such blessedness.
I cannot recall whether the revelation came suddenly or gradually; I only remember
finding myself in the very midst of those wonderful moments, beholding life for the first
time in all its young intoxication of loveliness, in its unspeakable joy, beauty and
importance.
I could feel deeply about other people. We felt connected. The side which had been
suppressing emotions did not seem to be the real one. I was in a higher and higher state of
exhilaration and awareness. Things people said had hidden meaning. They said things
that applied to life. Everything that was real seemed to make sense.
I looked on fields, and waters, and sky, and read in them a most startling meaning. I
wondered how I had ever regarded them in the light of dead matter. They were now
grand symbols of the sublimest spiritual truths—truths never before even feebly grasped,
and utterly unsuspected.
I understood, at that instant, what the concept of being born again was all about. Jesus the
Christ says in the Christian bible, “you must be born again.” And I knew what he meant.
You must go into yourself…all the way into yourself…to your beginning, your origin.
Into the waters of your unconscious. Into the core of you.
My understanding of mystical teachings, both Eastern and Western, Hindu, Buddhist,
Christian, and Sufi alike, took on a quantum leap. I became aware of the transcendental
unity at the core of all great religions, and understood for the first time the meaning of
esoteric states.
She saw the session as a very important event in her life. She felt as if she had begun a
completely new chapter: “I have been EXISTING all these years; I started to LIVE this
past Friday. I honestly feel that I am a new person, with a completely new mind. Even my
body feels different; I am pain free.”
The “mechanism” by which we screen our sense-data and select only some of them as
significant had been partially suspended. Consequently, I felt that the particular feeling
which w associate with “the meaningful” was projected indiscriminately upon
everything.
There was simply a pattern of action, of process and this was at one and the same time
the universe and myself with nothing outside it either to trust or mistrust and there
seemed to be no meaning in the idea of its trusting or mistrusting itself, just as there is no
possibility of a finger’s touching its own tip.
This clear-light experience, as Leary termed it, was a true communion of the soul. I felt
as if my consciousness and entire being had broken up with the brittleness of linear ego
thought, while the person that filled the vacuum bore the same body of experience with a
totally new vitality and an understanding of life’s true value.
We walked around the garden together. It was like walking in Paradise. Everything was
composed and harmonized. I felt I had never really seen this garden before. I was
enchanted with each plant, leaf, flower, tree trunk and the earth itself. Each blade of grass
stood up separate and distinct, edged with light. Each was supremely important.
Feeling not that I was drugged but that I was in an unusual degree open to reality, I tried
to discern the meaning, the inner character of the dancing patterns which constituted
myself and the gardens and the whole dome of the night with its colored stars. All at
once, it became obvious that the whole thing was love-play. This single source was not
just love as we ordinarily understand it. It was also intelligence.
For the first time, I understood the meaning of “ineffable.” There seemed to be no
possibility of conveying in words the subjective truth of my experience. A veil had been
lifted from my inner vision, and I felt able to see, not just images or forms, but the nature
of truth itself. The doors of perception were so cleansed, they seemed to vanish
altogether, and there was only infinite being.
I had the feeling of going deep within myself to the self stripped bare of all pretense and
falseness. It was the point where a man could stand firm with absolute integrity—
something more important than mere physical life. The white light experience was of
supreme importance—absolutely self-validating and something worth staking your life
on and putting your trust in.
I was looking at my furniture as the pure aesthetic whose concern is only with forms and
their relationships with the field of vision or the picture space. But, as I looked, this
purely aesthetic, Cubist’s-eye view gave place to what I can only describe as the
sacramental vision of reality. I was in a world where everything shone with the Inner
Light and infinite in its significance.
Large trees known for their longevity, such as sequoias and redwoods, were experienced
in the sessions as representing timeless and centered consciousness uninfluenced by the
turmoils and upheavals in the external world. Other insights associated with similar
experiences were related to the mystical consciousness and deep religious significance of
certain plants.
The acid took me directly to my lucid, “higher self.” It was as though I’d arrived at my
true nature: sincere, clean of purpose, and more useful and wonderful than I’d ever felt in
my life. I can’t fathom what it was that made me feel so “perfect” and “enlightened” or
what specific obstacle the chemical had overcome to enable me to feel so wholesomely
fabulous. I felt a sweeping reassurance that everything was all right after all.
When I realized that I was being born again, that life goes on and on and on, the feeling
was overwhelming. I was filled with confidence that it was okay to die, because the
consciousness that inhabits the flesh has a higher destiny. It never began and it won’t end.
It just keeps going. Then I was struck with wave after wave of value wisdom, as though
the forms behind human spirituality were hitting me for the first time.
Thoughts spun around in my head and everything—objects, sound, events—took on a
special meaning for me. I felt like I was putting the pieces of a puzzle together.
Childhood feelings began to come back, as symbols and bits from past conversations
went through my head. The word religious and other words from other past conversations
came back to me and seemed to take on a new significance. I increasingly began to feel
that I was experiencing something like mystical revelations.
All seemed indescribably lovely and significant to me.
Even inanimate objects sent signals, took on meaning.
Even slight and subtle shifts of facial expression were meaningful.
He felt certain that something extremely important had happened to him.
He was going through something very intense, of great importance.
I knew that the rich emotions I had experienced held some deeper meaning.
I knew the meaning of things I never comprehended before.
I wondered why I had not comprehended meanings which now seemed so obvious.
It was a profoundly moving, real and deeply meaningful experience.
Looking at the cards, the shadings suddenly became very meaningful.
Meaning after meaning became strikingly clear.
Ordinary remarks seemed to reverberate with double and quadruple meanings.
Our lovemaking had a new depth of meaning.
Stars in the sky seemed to have special significance.
The different colored lights meant things.
The entire experience seemed charged with value and significance.
The going was into intenser beauty, deeper significance.
The room had taken on new meaning for me.
The session I had seemed greatly significant to me.
The tree assumed a deep archetypal meaning and became the Tree of Life.
There was overwhelming significance in all this.
With ego-loss came feelings of the enhanced significance and relevance of everything.
a break from everyday perception, recognized as such by the mystic, which is regarded as
infinitely more important than everyday perception
a central viewpoint from which not only the chemistry, the structure, the color, but rather
all attributes become significant
a fantastic display of colorful visions, some of them abstract and geometrical, others
figurative and full of symbolic meaning (eyes closed)
a lovely moment when everything was so intensely significant that you don’t even want
to communicate. You just want to take it all in.
a more joyful, interesting and satisfactory way of being in the world, with a sense of
belonging, meaning, natural spirituality
a now that changed incessantly in a dimension, not of seconds and minutes, but of beauty,
of significance, of intensity, of deepening mystery
a sense of certainty that this knowledge is ultimately more relevant and “real” than the
perceptions and beliefs we share in everyday life
an acute awareness of symbolic dimensions in every object of perception and a
heightened significance
an intensity of beauty, a depth of intrinsic meaning, incomparably greater than anything
he had found in the same music
awareness of the special quality and purity of plants that make them important examples
for human spiritual life
books whose color was so intense, so intrinsically meaningful, that they seemed to be on
the point of leaving the shelves to thrust themselves more insistently on my attention.
deep awareness of the critical importance of the spiritual dimension in the universal
scheme of things
drugs—part of the search for the meaning of life, as tools to reach new levels of
awareness, for revelation
drugs useful for exploring perception and different possibilities and modes of
consciousness
ever more complex and more personally significant realms of symbolic experience (eyes
closed)
finally knowing the meaning of genuinely meeting another person without the subtle
masks that separate man from man
flowers breathing, a repeated flow of beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever
deeper meaning
flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the
significance with which they were charged
gave him certain inner enduring feelings that seemed to play some significant part in his
pattern of living
had an intensity of beauty, a depth of intrinsic meaning, incomparably greater than
anything he had ever found in the same music
has provided us with some brand new clues into the meaning of the ancient journeys into
other realities
in the very midst of those wonderful moments, beholding life for the first time in all it
young intoxication of loveliness, in its unspeakable joy, beauty and importance
instilling a sense of meaning in his personal existence and a feeling that since there is
meaning in life, there is meaning in death
LSD one of the most important scientific discoveries of our time, the significance of
which has yet to dawn on modern man
make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and
significant
make the world appear fraught with an intensity of significance that everyday common
sense cannot perceive
may gain a new perspective on himself or gain an important insight into his defenses
which results in a change of behavior
mosaics, temples, sacred objects, patterns of great intricacy and profoundly meaningful
(eyes closed)
my awareness of my connection to the whole, a knowledge more valuable than status or
being some so-called important individual
permits entry into consciousness of certain kinds of mental activity normally excluded as
possessing no survival value
produces an intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies description—past
philosophical reading will take on living meaning
profound aesthetic imagery—Objects in the room may suddenly become transformed into
works of considerable beauty and artistic value.
profound feelings of interpersonal communion and unity which endow every action with
beauty and significance
psychedelic drugs especially valuable in the area of comparative religion where the
researcher might find a key to the understanding of the genesis of religious experiences
psychedelic drugs potentially useful for a wide variety of therapeutic, religious, and
creative purposes
psychotherapeutic value in the LSD experience as a new beginning—an existential
encounter of decisive proportions to be followed by a realignment of the perceptual set
relevant insights into the dynamics of important religious, historical and sociopolitical
movements
reliving of emotionally important events in the individuals’ lives, from early childhood,
later life or even the remote past
reveal extraordinary capacities of the human psyche and important aspects of reality
normally hidden from our awareness
revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence, of the given
unconceptualized event
seeks to attain in his most valued moments escape from the boundaries imposed on him
by his 5 senses, to break through into another order of experience
the discovery of the existence of shades of inner meaning one would not normally credit
with the capacity for signifying so much
the enormous potential importance of psychedelic research for many scholarly and
scientific disciplines
the importance of retaining the child’s capacity for fresh free-flowing perception and
thought
the increased significance and meaning attributed both to internal and external stimuli
during alterations in consciousness
the intense vividness, composition and significance of things seen in the psychedelic
condition
the intolerance of science for such phenomena, her denial either of their existence or of
their significance
the landscapes, the architectures, the clustering gems, the brilliant and intricate patterns,
these in their atmosphere of preternatural light, color and significance (eyes closed)
the most acute sense of the poignancy, fragility, preconsciousness and significance of all
life and history
the most extraordinary and significant experience available to human beings this side of
the Beatific Vision
the spiritual dimension, will discover the critical importance of the basic ontological and
cosmological questions
the truth that the creative and meaningful life is impossible without some realization of
union with God
the value of the drug experience for the purpose of both therapy and personal growth and
fulfillment
the value of the transcendental aspect of such experiences and the utmost importance of
the spiritual dimension in human life
the value that psychedelic experiences could have for the personal development of
“normal” individuals
the very great importance of the eidetic images and the need to study them (the images
seen with the eyes closed)
this immediate sense on the part of almost everyone concerned that there was something
intrinsically valuable and important in this kind of experience
to make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and
significant
to revise his present scientific beliefs rather than to question the relevance of his own
experience
to understand at least a little of the significance of what, in our pathetic imbecility, we
call “mere things” and disregard in favor of television
to use marijuana and LSD to get beyond the TV studio, to enhance creativity, as catalysts
to deepen wisdom and meaning
understood the Cosmic meaning of all nature dances and how man and
nature merge into one
a legacy of intensely generous insight and teaching whose full value will not be fully
understood nor valued until several years after the millennium (That was Caroline W.
Casey talking about Timothy Leary.)
experiences of a world transfigured into unimaginable loveliness, charged with intrinsic
significance and manifesting, in spite of pain and death, an essential and divine All-
Rightness
heightened sensitivity to nuances of language and to non-verbal cues; greater use of
gestures and shifts of posture and facial expressions as means of communicating; the
sense that communication is multileveled and much more meaningful than at other times
providing new insights into the psychology of creation by intensifying and lengthening
the subjective duration of the kind of subtle mental activity in which original productions
begin and new meanings are created
the fundamental importance of a mystical experience for the recovery of people in
Western industrial societies who are sickened by a one-sided, rational, materialistic world
view
the rich and accurate historical information that we can assemble from some ancestral
experiences, providing us with valuable insights concerning periods that might otherwise
be lost to history (eyes closed)
the sense of perceiving truths not known before…insights into depths of truth unplumbed
by the discursive intellect…the mysteries of life become lucid…illuminations, revelations,
full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain…
the significance of visionary experience, this manner of comprehending the world—in
cultural history, in the creation of myths, in the origin of religions and in the creative
process of which works of art arise
greater spontaneity of emotional expression, reduction in depression and anxiety, less
distance in interpersonal relations, more openness to experience, increased aesthetic
appreciation, deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life, and an enhanced sense of unity
with nature and humanity
the heurisitc value of LSD as a tool for the exploration of the human unconscious
(Heuristic means a person learning, finding out or discovering something themselves, not
just being told about it. With LSD, this is especially true. The person has to have the
experience or they are just blowing meaningless smoke.)
a clear feeling that something significant has been achieved
a deeper sensing of beauty, an intensifying of color, and significance in form
a domain where the simplest things have rich meaning, glorified by an ideal excellence
a feeling of knowing the ultimate meaning of life itself
a flood of various insights of cosmic relevance
a heightened significance of light and color
a lack of cultural understanding of the importance of the transformational journey
a marvelous world of meaning engendering vision, hope, and peace
a meaning exceeding ordinary understanding
a multilayered meaning
a new experience which will enlarge our horizon and give new meaning to life
a potentially valuable drug
a potentially valuable personal experience
a profound and meaningful experience of certain realities that are alien to our culture
a richness of insights of cosmic relevance
a significant enhancement of intuition
a special quality and significance
a special reality of a new and different significance
a state of intenser, more significant experience
a truly important discovery, the significance of which has yet to be fully understood
a unified world view with meaning beyond that drawn from empirical reality
a value experience
a very valuable kind of insight
a view of the world as a meaningful totality, a cosmos
a voyage much richer in scope and meaning than any Western psychological theory
a wild hunger for meaning and passion, for transformation
an alteration in the value of the significance of color
an experience of significant value
an extremely profound and important experience
an immeasurably heightened perception of the significance of the world
ascend to a higher level of meaning
awareness of what was truly important
boundless compassion, fathomless mystery and meaning
broader meanings and rapturous vibrations
can be a very profound and valuable experience
can be of immense value to us and of great importance in changing our lives
can discover a deep mystical meaning
can give life a new focus and meaning
charged with all the meaning and the mystery of existence
completely free to be oneself in its noblest meanings
cosmic significance
deep and valuable insights
deep emotional meanings
deeper meanings
depths of meaning I feel
discover true meaning of our existence
discovering a strange new world of extraordinary radiance and significance
divinely significant
ecstatic meaning
enhanced sense of meaningfulness in familiar objects
enhanced significance
eternal significance
experienced this heightening of intrinsic significance
experiencing an important revelation
exploring a meaningful area of our lives
fathomless mystery and meaning
fresh meanings and unsuspected beauties
getting new meaning in life, LSD the greatest thing that ever happened to me
have declared it to be the most significant experience of their lives
heightened sense of meaningfulness
heightening of the intensity and emotional significance of perceptions
images of a higher reality and deeper meaning than those of the ordinary everyday world
important experiential quality
important psychological, philosophical and spiritual dimensions
incredible beauty and significance
inner spiritual meaning
insights capable of effecting a valuable shift of perspective in the subject
insights into esoteric meaning
insights of cosmic relevance, powerful mystical overtones
insights of enormous importance
instant total emotional value of the thought
intense conviction that the experience will be highly meaningful and highly therapeutic
intensely significant
intensified light, intensified color and intensified significance
its intensity of significance
its universal relevance
lofty insights into the meaning of existence and the universe
magical significance
man’s search to identify himself with something more meaningful than his mortal life
meaningful whole experiences
metaphysical significance
music an important unifying and deepening element in the sessions
mythic significance
new and relevant dimensions
new, beautiful and significant experiences
new depths of meaning
new dimensions of meaning
new meanings, fresh perspective
objects more significant and beautiful
objects which begin to live, to have another, a deeper meaning
of enormous significance
of ultimate meaning and value
open the door to visions of unimaginable richness and significance
peak-experiences of everlasting value
perceive an inner reality, tremendous, beautiful and significant
perceiving new meanings
perceiving the nature or meaning of real objects
profound significance, special significance
profoundly meaningful
psychedelic experience as a unique phenomenon with special therapeutic value
recognizing the significance of spiritual dimensions of the psyche
realms imbued with meaning, filled with life, laughter, love
reliving of various emotionally relevant episodes from infancy, childhood or later life
revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence
reveals the secret of life and therein lies its spiritual value and its universal appeal
revelations full of significance and importance
rich with meaning
search for new meaning
search for transcendent meaning
seeing things in a larger or more meaningful context
the ancient sacramental meaning of LSD
the cleansed perception of the infinite significance of all things
the crucial importance of drug-induced “far-reaching insight experiences”
the cultural value and philosophic implications of altered states
the divine meaning
the divine meaning underlying the workings of the universe
the drug movement and its significance which may be crucial to our society
the educational value of psychedelics when used intelligently
the educational value of the psychedelic experience
the emotional power and meaningfulness of the experience
the enormous significance of the experience for one who undergoes it
the extraordinary value of LSD for the education of psychiatrists and psychologists
the feeling if intense meaningfulness
the glory and the meaning of the turn-on
the great universal significance of visionary experience
the higher meanings of life
the hunger for a religious commitment to give meaning to life
the illumination and the meaning and the beauty
the importance of religious experience in effective psychotherapy
the importance of a true experience of the Divine
the importance of the spiritual and philosophical quest in human life
the inner meaning, the spiritual and universal reality
the intense vividness, composition and significance of things seen
the intensified sense of significance
the intensity and significance of light
the key to miracle and meaning
the LSD experience significant, useful and enriching
the most important experience of his life
the most important, profound and intense experience of his life
“the most meaningful day of their lives”
the most valuable chemical discovery of the century
the one thing that makes spiritual life possible and meaningful—union with God
the potential therapeutic value of these transformative experiences
the radiant core of meaning, the great vibration dance
the realm of the soul itself wherein the self may find its deepest meaning
the relevance of mythology for psychology, religion and human life
the religious significance of psychedelic drug experiences
the rich meaning
the rich meaning of the Eastern message
the sense of ineffable importance in the smallest events
the sense of the supreme importance of a moment of heightened experience
the spiritual meaning of LSD
the terrific magnitude of the meanings
the therapeutic potential of the reliving of emotionally relevant episodes from childhood
the therapeutic significance of the ego death and rebirth experience
the true nature and meaning of existence
the truly meaningful
the ultimate meanings of the experience
the ultimate truth, of great importance
the value of a drug-induced, sudden transforming encounter
the value of these drugs as superlative means for the study of religious experience
the whole mad ecstasy of loveliness, of joy, of importance, of intoxication of life
these higher valued areas of reality
thinking more clearly and deeper awareness of the meaning of things
those folds in the trousers—what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity!
those intensely significant, inwardly glowing objects
timeless dimension of quality and significance
to associate seemingly dissimilar elements in meaningful ways
to discover the meaning which underlies the words
to examine reality for its intrinsic value
to expand their consciousness, to find deeper meaning inside themselves
to know the true meaning of an expanded consciousness
to penetrate the inner significance
to understand the meaning not only intellectually, but organically, experientially
ultimate meaning
ultimate significance
uncharted realms of higher meaning
uncovering layer after layer of meaning
unearthly significance
useful in uncovering the true self
visions of great meaning
vivid, complex reliving of emotionally relevant memories
vivid meaning
was at the heart of meaning and the radiant core of the energy process
were illuminated with new meaning
wild hunger for meaning, passion for transformation
will regard this experience as one of the most profoundly meaningful events of his life
will take LSD to satisfy a deep-rooted need for wholeness and meaning
words with new meanings