See (as in vision or realization)

All behavior involves learned games but only that rare Westerner we call “mystic” or
who has had a visionary experience sees clearly the game structure of behavior.

All that you see has a pristine quality: the landscape, the edifices, the carvings, the
animals—they look as though they had come straight from the Maker’s workshop.

All the movement, all the energies, all forms, all happenings we must see as those in our
one and real self in many existences.

Almost without exception, religious communities, churches, temples, work to establish
social institutions and not to see through them.

An over-awing type of beauty is seen that makes people experience certain mystical
revelations.

Anger and anxiety are irrelevant because you see your small game in the context of the
great evolutionary game which no one can win and no one can lose.

Any number of interpenetrating universes of different orders can be seen in holographic
coexistence.

As for identity, it is not really lost. On the contrary, it is found; it is expanded to include
all that is seen and all that is not seen.

As the retina enables us to see countless pulses of energy as a single light, so the mystical
experience shows us innumerable individuals as a single Self.

By polar awareness, awareness of polarity, one sees that things which are explicitly
different are implicitly one.

Change in behavior can occur with dramatic spontaneity once the game structure of
behavior is seen. The visionary experience is the key to behavior change.

closed eyes—I see centuries and all the glory and tragedy of man. Everything is in this
music.

Consciousness is seen as an integral part of the universal fabric, certainly not limited to
the activities contained inside our skulls.

Each object seems complete. The world we see in each has objects of its own which are
seen as worlds and objects endlessly.

Every detail is seen and rendered as a living jewel and all these jewels are harmoniously
combined into a whole which is a jewel of yet higher order of visionary intensity.

Every person should have the experience to see what potential lies within himself. (First,
the person must be well prepared.)

Every religion uses the term infinite to describe its highest conception and all mystics
have seen infinity.

For those who have eyes to see, eternal truth and Buddhahood are manifest before us here
and now.

He sees that his ego is his persona or social role, a somewhat arbitrary selection of
experiences with which he has been taught to identify himself.

“I can feel better and more deeply; I can see so much better; I can listen so much better,”
etc.

I have seen the Bird of Paradise, she has spread herself before me and I shall never be the
same again.

I have seen the greater consciousness, shining like the sun on the other shore beyond the
darkness.

If the truth is already manifest, what’s the use of meditation and if it’s hidden, one is just
measuring darkness. Whatever you see, that is it.

In Buddhism, attachment or clinging to the material world is seen as the root of suffering
and releasing it is a key to spiritual liberation.

In non-ordinary states, the boundary we ordinarily see between myths and the material
world tends to dissolve.

In the 1960’s, more people than ever before had a glimpse of a higher, happier, more
living reality. For a moment, they really SAW.

In this world, nothing is wrong or even stupid. The sense of wrong is simply failure to see
where something fits into a pattern.

Is it not strange that an infant should be heir of the whole World and see those mysteries
which the books of the learned never unfold?

It permits you to see more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond
the horizons of this life.

Just as a microscope can help a biologist, LSD can remove the inhibitions to perception
which prevent us from seeing the central relationships of the world.

Leary had that abstracted look of a person who can see with absolute clarity what no one
else will believe is there.

Leary saw the revolutionary possibilities of psilocybin and later LSD for psychotherapy
and religion.

Liberation does not involve the loss or destruction of such conventional concepts as the
ego; it means seeing through them.

LSD sessions can be seen as opportunities to confront the mysteries of the universe and
the riddle of human existence.

Man as ego does not see nature at all. For man as ego is man identifying himself or his
mind, his total awareness, with the narrowed and exclusive style of attention.

More of what the eye sees and more of what the nose smells is getting into
consciousness.

Once you’ve seen it all, experienced the divine flame, how can you play out a role in the
silly TV drama of American society?

Once we can see that consciousness alteration is not in itself undesirable, we need be
concerned only with an evaluation of methods of achieving it.

One sees quite clearly that all existence is a single energy and that this energy is one’s
own being.

One sees that all form is an illusory package of vibrations, just like your television
screen.

Our perception of the world is relative to ways in which social conditioning has taught us
to see.

People may see lights or visions or they may hear different kinds of inner sounds. They
may experience inner fragrances or tastes.

Perennial philosophy sees humans as essentially commensurate with the entire universe
and ultimately divine.

Precious stones are precious because they bear a faint resemblance to the glowing
marvels seen with the inner eye of the visionary.

Psychedelic drugs allow you to see and hear new patterns of energy that suggest new
patterns for composition. In this way, they enhance the creative perspective.

Psychedelics make it easier to see and accept aspects of reality that one can’t rationally
explain.

Rational consciousness itself is seen as a tissue thin artifact easily blown away by the
slightest alteration of our biochemistry.

Release of unconscious materials frequently occurs. Insight is added to insight. At last I
am seeing the world without self-deceit or illusion.

Some psychiatrists very early saw the remarkable potential of LSD for telescoping many
weary hours of psychotherapy into a brief, intense experience.

Spirituality is seeing the world with a deeper vision that is not self-centered, a vision that
sees through dualistic views to the underlying interconnectedness of all of life.

Subjects see new dimensions in the world and in the universe and tend to regard ordinary
things and activities in everyday life as manifestations of the divine.

The aim of a way of liberation is not the destruction of maya but seeing if for what it is or
seeing through it.

The cortex can be cleared. The games that frustrate and torment can be seen in the cosmic
dimension.

The cosmos is seen as a multi-dimensional network of crystals, each one containing the
reflections of all the others.

The drug itself is seen as a catalyst that activates the unconscious processes in a rather
unspecific way.

The historical and evolutionary sequences may be seen as having the function of moving
the subject toward increasing dramatic involvement. (eyes closed)

The insights psychedelics potentiate frequently enable one to see through the myriad
pretentions and deceits which make up the mythology of the Social Lie.

The knowledge through participation in ultimate reality, in the sense of being able to
KNOW and SEE what is REAL, carries its own sense of certainty.

The minister might become an extraordinarily helpful person if he could see through his
own religion.

The mystical experience enables the individual to be so open and sensitive to organic
reality that the ego begins to be seen for the transparent abstraction that it is.

The new physics seem to be approaching the mystic vision of which seers and sages of all
traditions have spoken.

The region of death becomes knowable and death itself is seen primarily as a rite of
passage to a spiritual mode of being.

The universe in which a human being lives can be transfigured into a new creation by
using “that other kind of seeing which everyone has but few make use of”.

The use of drugs by witches appears to make intelligible to us on a scientific level many
phenomena formerly seen as involving elements of the supernatural.

“The view of that world” says Plato, “is a vision of blessed beholders” for to see things
“as they are in themselves” is bliss unalloyed and inexpressible.

The visual field behind closed eyelids becomes rich in color and animated and the
individual can see a variety of geometrical or architectural forms.

The world of nature is neither things seen by an ego, nor things, some of which are
sensations, bundled mechanically together, but a field of “organic” patterns.

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.

These remarkable medicines temporarily dissolve our defenses and permit us to see what
separative consciousness normally ignores, the world as an interrelated whole.

They might begin to see the whole life process as a miraculous cosmic drama that is
carefully orchestrated by a divine cosmic force.

This ability of the individual to examine memories, unburdened by feeling of guilt or
anxiety, often leads him to believe that at last he is seeing himself as he really is.

To the cosmological eye, all things and all people are lovable, in reality, where they are
seen as of one Suchness and yet, unique, incomparable.

“Turned-on” people are not interested in serving the power games of the present rulers.
Looking at successful men, they see completely boring lives.

Victory over life and death is won by seeing the oscillating dance of energy and yielding
to it.

We are ignore-ant of our real identity as members, functions, expressions and
manifestations of everything that is to be seen in the sky and much more.

We are so absorbed in conscious attention, so convinced that this narrowed kind of
perception is the only real way of seeing the world.

We can go further than the religious sphere and see the need for ecstasy in all of life. This
is the solid core of truth in the message of the hippies.

We don’t see that human nature and “outside” nature are all of a piece. (They are
connected and united.)

We go through torments to protect our personality; once we see through the illusion, we
laugh.

We learn as children to see the function of objects, rather than experience them in all
possible ways.

We must look at reality without words to see it as it is. When we see reality as it is, we
are free to use thought without being fooled by it.

We perceive things in a state of hypnosis, not as they are, but as we are told to see them.
(LSD fixes that.)

Westerners see the ego-loss experience confused with schizophrenia because they can’t
label it and therefore it can’t be investigated.

What art was available to the great knowers of Suchness? They probably paid little
attention to art if their mind can see the All in every “this.”

When we step into nonordinary reality even for a moment, we experience things directly,
see inner contents rather than external forms.

Why the colors are so bright! The world seems alive! I’m seeing for the first time! It’s
alive! Well, of course, it’s alive. Your eye knew that all along.

Wisdom becomes available when we see things as they are. Our task is to remove the
obstacles to awareness that limit and distort perception.

Within the course of a lifetime, we see certain signs that seem familiar and remind us of
those times when we knew.

Words, whether we see them or hear them, bring to us not only meaning, sensations and
emotions, but also images.

You get a sense of the larger picture of things. People who don’t trip are too tied up in
themselves to see anything beyond their own petty, little troubles and problems.

You see with an immediacy of vision that leads you to say to yourself, “Now I am seeing
for the first time, seeing direct, without the intervention of mortal eyes”.

A child sees his first bright red ball, tastes his first piece of chocolate, smells his first
flower, touches his first piece of velvet and hears his first few notes of music in a manner
not unlike that of the individual under LSD.

A person in this state suddenly sees that everything in the universe is a manifestation and
expression of the same creative cosmic energy and that separation and boundaries are
illusory.

After the experiences of ego death, abuse of alcohol or narcotics, as well as suicidal
tendencies, are seen as tragic mistakes due to an unrecognized and misunderstood
spiritual craving for transcendence.

Almost all mystics and visionaries have experienced reality in terms of light—either of
light in its naked purity or of light infusing and radiating out of things and persons, seen
with the inner eye or in the external world.

Amorphous surfaces, textures of objects and spots on the floor or walls can be seen as
fantastic animals, grotesque faces or exotic scenery. The optical side of aesthetic LSD
sessions can be so overwhelming and rich that it has been described as “orgies of vision”.

Any point from which one sees the one-ness is a center. That one point of vision is the
eye of God, seeing, glorifying, understanding the whole. One such moment of revelation
is the only purpose of life.

As soon as the ego’s act of identifying itself with the future can be seen as something
present, one is seeing it from a standpoint superior to the ego, from the standpoint of the
Self.

Can we not see that this voyage is not what we need to be cured of, but that it is itself a
natural way of healing our own appalling state of alienation called normality? In other
times, people intentionally embarked upon this voyage. (Some always will.)

clear consciousness, seeing the world just as it is—Such awareness is a lively attention to
one’s direct experience, to the world as immediately sensed, so an not to be misled by
names and labels.

Consciousness is central and primary. This reversal of the prevailing scientific view
which sees consciousness as secondary and peripheral to material reality, changes
conventional ideas of cause-and-effect relationships.

During some spiritual states, one sees the ordinary environment as a glorious creation of
divine energy, filled with mystery; everything within it appears to be part of an exquisite
interconnected web.

Every person who has a genuine mystical experience reports that he sees the unity, reality
and infinity in space and time of all creation. He feels joy, peace and a sense of the
sacred. He knows that his experience is true.

Everyone who wanted to make it went to college. But now I saw it as a game I couldn’t
afford to play any longer. I wanted to start living something real. Tired of preparing for a
nebulous future, I wanted to live and learn about NOW.

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)

He may see and understand with unimagined clarity and brilliance various social and
self-games that he and others play. His own struggles in karma (game) existence will
appear pitiful and laughable.

I am looking at what I ordinarily call a confusion of bushes, a tangle of plants and weeds
with branches and leaves going every which way. But now I see that what is confusing is
not the bushes by my clumsy method of thinking. Every twig is in its proper place.

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.

Individuals can feel that prior to the experience they had never really seen colors, smelled
the variety of fragrances and odors, tasted the infinite nuances of food, or experienced the
sensuous potential of their bodies.

It’s a great feeling, one of the greatest of the entire psychedelic experience, to look into
another being’s eyes and see that they’ve seen the same incredible thing that you have. It
validates the vision. (The vision is valid regardless.)

One transcends the dichotomy set up in one’s mind between “inner” and “outer” worlds
of experience and sees reality only from the standpoint of the mystical vision and many
experience life beyond all dualities.

Our famous ego is pieced together out of society’s stockpile of images and ideas,
according to our individual circumstances and this abstraction dictates what we see and
feel and think.

People perceive the mystical realms to be pervaded by a sacred essence and an
unfathomable beauty, and they frequently see visions of precious gold, sparkling jewels,
unearthly radiance, luminescence and brilliant light. (eyes closed)

Psychedelics can be healing tools. I’ve seen a lot of healing, not just of mental problems
but of physical problems, from psychedelic experiences; they’ve got great potential in
that regard.

Saying that a drug experience can precipitate a psychosis is not the same as saying that
drugs cause psychosis. We do not say that sex and college cause psychosis even though
we commonly see that both can trigger it.

Subjects see new dimensions in the universe, have strong feelings of being an integral
part of creation and tend to regard ordinary things in everyday life—such as meals, walks
in nature, playing with children or sexual intercourse—as sacred.

The ability to see patterns, far from being a psychological weakness to be treated, is a
vital capacity of the unconscious mind that must be developed and allowed to interact
with our conscious perceptions.

The colors are typically described as rich, brilliant, glowing, luminous or
“preternatural”—colors exceeding in their beauty anything the subject has ever seen
before.

The enlightened individual goes beyond grammar. He has what may be called a
“grammar-transcending experience” which permits him to live in the consciousness of
the divine continuum of the world and to see the one continually manifest in the many.

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 experiences have been described as waking dreams. But to me, the visions are far
more colored and vivid than any dream can possibly be. With LSD, you see with striking
and unforgettable clarity.

The eyes see by themselves and the ears hear by themselves and the mouth opens by
itself without having to be forced apart by the fingers. (Why do we live our lives like the
mouth that won’t open without having to be forced apart by the fingers?)

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 sees the world as incredibly beautiful, radiant, safe, and nourishing. This
is associated with a deep awareness of the spiritual and mystical dimensions in the
universal scheme of things and with a sense of oneness and belonging.

The society always owes a great debt to the people who defy authority and force change,
and I see Leary in the tradition of Thoreau and Whitman, and the entire American
transcendental impulse.

The spirituality revealed in the process of focused self-exploration sees God as the Divine
Within. Here the individual uses various techniques that mediate direct experiential
access to transpersonal realities and discovers his or her own divinity.

The subject confronts figures from mythology with a shock of recognition, seeing in the
figures now revealed as inhabitants of his own deep psyche, enigmatic bearers of ancient
answers to the riddle of existence. (eyes closed)

The veil which made you see duality drops away and you experience the world as a
blissful sport of God’s energy. You see the universe as supremely blissful light,
undifferentiated from yourself and you remain unshakable in this awareness.

The wise man has penetrated through the verbal curtain, seen and known and felt the life
process. The great writer is the wise man who feels compelled to translate the message
into words.

There are sudden “slips” of consciousness into a wave length or dimension of this
everyday world which impress those who see them as being more real than the normal
vision.

There exists inside the human nervous system, inside our cellular structures a tissued,
biochemical memory-bank. The person who stumbles onto this inner room sees and
knows exactly what has been seen and known by visionaries of the past.

To cure the junkie and the alcoholic, you must admit that he is a deeply spiritual person
and accept the cosmic validity of his search to transcend the game and you help him to
see that the way is through psychedelic rather than anesthetic experience.

To some people, looking only at the surface, the sequence of events of my first
psychedelic experience might seem to border on madness; others will see it in a profound
logic and wisdom.

Total awareness opens the way to understanding and when any given situation is
understood, the nature of all reality is made manifest and the nonsensical utterances of
the mystics are seen to be true.

We are going to see many of the hypotheses of our Christian mystics and many of the
cosmological and ontological theories of Eastern philosophers spelled objectively in
biochemical terms.

We can perhaps see the whole course of a psychedelic experience as an effort of
consciousness to rid itself of false identifications and experience its own everchanging
identity.

We can see rites of passage as structured events in which individuals can confront,
experience and express powerful energies associated with matrices deep in the
unconscious. (eyes closed)

We see on the part of young people, directly or indirectly involved with the psychedelic
scene, an affirmation of positives, not an “escape from reality”. (That was written in
1968.)

What you are seeing and what you are hearing appear as one, the music assumes
harmonious shapes, giving visual form to its harmonies and what you are seeing takes on
the modalities of music.

When you look for stuff underlying the pattern of nature, you cannot find any stuff.
Instead, you just find more and more patterns because there never was any stuff. What we
call “stuff” is simply pattern seen out of focus. When it is fuzzy, we call it stuff.

Acid taught me a different mode of experience. I learned how to see: how to give
something my attention, to be drawn into it, to concentrate, to see worlds within worlds.
Through psychedelic drugs, then, a few extra layers of perspective were added to my
view of things.

All day, in wave after wave and from all directions of the mind’s compass, there has
repeatedly come upon me the sense of my original identity as one with the very fountain
of the universe. I have seen, too, that the fountain is its own source and motive and that
its spirit is an unbounded playfulness which is the many-dimensioned dance of life.

Clear sight has nothing to do with trying to see. (If your eyes are open, you will see
without having to try. If you “try” to see, all you will do is strain your eyes or the eye
muscles. Just leave your eyes alone and you will see. Similarly, leave yourself alone so
that you can live to the fullest.)

Everything seen by those who visit the mind’s antipodes is brilliantly illuminated and
seems to shine from within. All colors are intensified to a pitch far beyond anything seen
in the normal state and at the same time, the mind’s capacity for recognizing fine
distinctions of tone and hue is notably heightened.

Flowers, leaves, grass, trees are seen with tremendous vividness—“with the intensity that
Van Goth must have seen them” is an often-used description. They seem to pulse and
breathe; in fact, even everyday, fixed objects around the room may take on “flowing”,
“waving” shapes, as if invested with some life force of their own.

He is seeing immense zodiacal figures laid out in jeweled definition with blue and gold
stones against the heavens “on a grand cosmic scale.” He speculates that the zodiacal
signs that man has “imposed on the stars” derive from corresponding physical structures
in the brain. (eyes closed)

“Holy madness” or “divine madness” is known and acknowledged by various spiritual
traditions and is distinguished from ordinary insanity; it is seen as a form of intoxication
by the Divine. Revered seers, mystics, and prophets are often described as inspired by
madness.

How can we Westerners see that our own potentials are much greater than the social-hive
games in which we are so blindly trapped? Once the game structure of behavior is seen,
change in behavior can occur with dramatic spontaneity. The visionary, brain-change,
consciousness-altering experience is the key to behavior change.

I see all these sensory dimensions as a round dance, gesticulations of one pattern being
transformed into gesticulations of another and these gesticulations are flowing through a
space that has still other dimensions, which I want to describe as tones of emotional color
or light or sound.

I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic
intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence. We are not just highly
evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields
of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter and linear causality.

If any single theme dominated young people in the 1960’s, it was the search for a new
way of seeing, a new relation to the world. LSD was a means of exciting consciousness
and provoking visions, a kind of unhurried magic enabling youthful seekers to recapture
the resonance of life that society had denied.

If I put on glasses and see details more clearly, no one can say that I am hallucinating.
But if, under the drug, I see colors and forms I did not see before, they say I am
hallucinating. But maybe I really achieved a new and better vision of external reality.
(There are no maybes about it.)

In the final analysis, only the creative principle of Cosmic Consciousness exists. Only it
takes physical form. From this point of view, the entire universe is a divine play of one
Supreme Being. Anyone who grasps this concept will see that karmic appearances are
just another level of illusion.

In the psychedelic ‘60’s the flower children had been lit up like living torches and
beamed out their powerful little lights across the world. For a while it looked like the
light would conquer the dark, and there would at last be peace on earth. We were filled
with wonderment, gratitude, awe, love. We had seen MORE than the everyday reality.

It does help you to look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very
clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually
introduced into the kind of world that Van Goth or Blake lived in. You begin to have a
direct experience of this kind of world while you’re under the drug.

Jung came to the conclusion that there is—in addition to the individual unconscious—a
collective or racial unconscious, which is shared by all humanity and is a manifestation of
the creative cosmic force. Comparative religion and world mythology can be seen as
unique sources of information about the collective aspects of the unconscious.

Once a person has experienced a visionary state of mind, one can no longer confuse the
lie with the truth. One has seen where one comes from and who one is, and one no longer
doubts what one is. There is no emotion or external influence that can divert one from
this reality.

Plato tells us that beyond this ephemeral and imperfect existence here below, there is
another Ideal world of Archetypes, where the original, the true, the beautiful Pattern of
things exists for evermore. It is clear where Plato found his Ideas; Plato had drunk of the
potion in the Temple of Eleusis and had spent the night seeing the great Vision.

Take the sense of sight. LSD vision is to normal vision as normal vision is to the picture
on a badly tuned television set. Under LSD, it’s as though you have microscopes up to
your eyes, in which you see jewellike, radiant details of anything your eyes fall upon.
You are really seeing for the first time.

The critical issue here is the ontological status of non-ordinary states of consciousness—
whether we see them as pathological conditions that should be indiscriminately suppressed
or veritable alternatives to our everyday states of consciousness that can contribute to our
understanding of the psyche and have a great therapeutic potential.

The height of sexual love, coming upon us of itself, is one of the most total experiences
of relationship to the other of which we are capable, but prejudice and insensitivity have
prevented us from seeing that in any other circumstances such delight would be called
mystical ecstasy.

The human mind is not limited to biographically determined elements in the Freudian
unconscious; it has no boundaries or limits and its dimensions are commensurate with
those of the entire universe. From this point of view, it is more correct to see human
nature as divine than as bestial.

The perception of the environment has a certain primary quality; every sensory stimulus,
be it visual, acoustic, olfactory, gustatory or tactile, appears to be completely fresh and
new and at the same time, unusually exciting and stimulating. Subjects talk about really
seeing the world for the first time in their lives.

The remarkable thing about the LSD experience is that you see the broad range of the
underconsciousness without losing consciousness, a state wherein you are aware of all
things in the conscious mind and at the same time aware of all things in the
underconscious mind.

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.

The world is now seen as an infinite diversity that is yet a unity and the beholder
experiences himself as being at one with the infinite Oneness that manifests itself, totally
present, at every point of space, at every instant in the flux of perpetual perishing and
perpetual renewal.

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.

These accounts do suggest that a “new vision” takes place, colored by an inner exaltation.
Their authors report perceiving a new brilliance to the world, of seeing everything as if
for the first time, of noticing beauty which for the most part they may have previously
passed by without seeing.

We may encounter entities, situations, and places that bear little or no resemblance to the
realities we know in our day-to-day lives. It is here that we go beyond more familiar
experiences and enter the world known to shamans and seers, the world of deities and
suprahuman beings known from myths and fairy tales. (eyes closed)

You are right about the hopelessness of the “scientific” approach. Those idiots want to be
Pavlonians not Lorenzian Ethnologists. Pavlov never saw an animal in its natural state,
only under duress. The “scientific” LSD boys do the same with their subjects. No wonder
they report psychosis. (Aldous Huxley wrote that in a letter to Timothy Leary.)

Your soul is free, loses all sense of time, alert as it never was before, living an eternity in
a night, seeing infinity in a grain of sand. What you have seen and heard is cut with a
burin in your memory, never to be effaced. At last you know what the ineffable is and
what ecstasy means. Ecstasy!

You’ve never seen a cell. What do you think of that? Yet it’s the key to everything that
happens to a living creature. I’m simply saying the same thing from the mental,
psychological standpoint, that there are wisdoms, lawful units inside the nervous system,
invisible to the symbolic mind, which determine almost everything.

A person in the psychedelic state can perceive much more in other human beings than he
can when he is in his everyday mind. The voyager may see his companion at different
ages of life, at different periods of history, and as different persons. At one time or
another, during the psychedelic session, the voyager looks at his companion. Often it is
an overwhelming discovery.

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.

All the learned games of life can be seen as programs that select, censor and thus
dramatically limit the available cortical response. Consciousness-expanding drugs unplug
these narrow programs, the social ego, the game-machinery. And with the ego and mind
unplugged, what is left? What is left is something that Western culture knows little about:
the uncensored cortex, activated, alert and open to new realities.

Almost all of us are still robots controlled by conditioning. We think we are conscious,
but we aren’t. We are asleep, hypnotized, sleep-walking—the metaphors vary, but they
all mean that we can’t see outside our conditioned reality-tunnel. When we begin to
awaken, we perceive the world is nothing at all like the myths and superstitions our
society has imposed on us.

Elements of plant consciousness can be accompanied by philosophical and spiritual
ideation and insights. Several subjects, for example, have pondered over the purity and
unselfishness of plant existence and have seen plant life as a model for ideal human
conduct; unlike animals and man, most plants do not kill and do not live at the expense of
other organisms.

I doubt whether artists will have much power to shape public policy on psychedelics, but
I also doubt whether illegality will ever dissuade artists from exploring all sources of
stimulation and inspiration. I hope to see a day when artists, and indeed anyone else who
wishes to explore all the possibilities of mental experience, will have the legal option to
use substances having such power and promise.

If the intellect by nature cannot understand life, it follows that the intellect by nature
cannot understand death. Its view of death results from the fact that it looks only at the
parts, not the Whole. If it would look at the Whole, it would see immediately that life is
immortal. The esoteric doctrine would be that it is precisely our insistence on personal
immortality which makes us blind to our actual immortality.

In many traditions, the notion of “dying before dying” is essential to spiritual
advancement. Coming to terms with the fact of death as part of the continuity of life is
seen as tremendously liberating, releasing one from the fear of death and opening one to
the experience of immortality. As the 17th century Christian monk, Abraham a Santa
Clara wrote: “A man who dies before he dies does not die when he dies.”

In the LSD state, the old conceptual frameworks break down, cultural cognitive barriers
dissolve and the material can be seen and synthesized in a totally new way that was not
possible within the old systems of thinking. This mechanism can produce not only
striking new solutions to various specific problems, but new paradigms that revolutionize
whole scientific disciplines.

In this state, the subject finds it difficult to see any negative aspects in the world and in
the very structure of the cosmic design; everything appears perfect, everything is as it
should be. At this point, the world appears to be a friendly place where a childlike,
passive-dependent attitude can be assumed with full confidence and with feelings of
complete security.

Laws against mere possession or even cultivation of these plants are in basic conflict with
Biblical principles. “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you EVERY herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat’. …And God saw EVERY thing that he had
made, and behold, it was very good.” (Everything and every herb includes psychedelics.)

Normal waking consciousness may be replaced by aesthetic consciousness and the world
will be perceived in all its unimaginable beauty, all the blazing intensity of its
“thereness.” And aesthetic consciousness may modulate into visionary consciousness.
Thanks to yet another kind of seeing, the world will now reveal itself as not only
unimaginably beautiful, but also fathomlessly mysterious.

One frequently sees geometric patterns of multi-colored abstract lines that are visionary
in nature. Although such patterns are often more clearly visible when one’s eyes are
closed, they may be seen superimposed upon objects in the external world when one’s
eyes are open. These abstract patterns are generally three-dimensional and constantly
change in a steady, rhythmic flow, resembling the view through a kaleidoscope.

One sees the other in terms of a richness once seen, but lost through over-familiarity.
With this perception, closed-circuits are reopened and the persons communicate in ways
and on levels long inaccessible to them. Also, new circuits may be opened and new ways
of communication become possible. Or the subject may feel he is seeing the other in all
her richness and complexity for the first time.

Our capacity to think, except in the service of what we are dangerously deluded in
supposing is our self-interest and in conformity with common sense, is pitifully limited:
our capacity to even see, hear, touch, taste and smell is so shrouded in veils of
mystification that an intensive discipline of unlearning is necessary for anyone before one
can begin to experience the world afresh, with innocence, truth and love.

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.

Since the psychedelic experience includes so many elements that are not part of nondrug
experience, the guide never will be able to understand the subject or communicate with
him adequately unless the guide himself has first-hand knowledge of the drug state and
its phenomena. The point has become controversial but we see no sound reason why it
should be.

The discovery of brain-change drugs has been compared to the discovery of the
microscope. New forms swim into perception. It’s a truism that you cannot impose the
ethics and language of the past upon the subject matter revealed by a new extension of
the senses. Galileo was arrested for describing what he saw in his telescope. The
inquisition would not bother to look through the lens.

The global popularity of chemical mind-changers is due to their producing ecstasy,
perception change, fresh sensation. Ecstasy means to break out of the verbal prisons,
suspend your imprints, see things anew, perceive directly. With freshened perception
goes the feeling of liberation, insight, the exultant sense of having escaped the lifeless net
of symbols.

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.

Those who were previously convinced that death was the ultimate defeat and meant the
end of any form of existence discovered various alternatives to this materialistic and
pragmatic point of view. They came to realize how little conclusive evidence there is for
any authoritative opinion in this matter and often began seeing death and dying as a
cosmic voyage into the unknown.

Under the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, the concept of the ego is associated with
one’s ability to test reality and to function adequately in everyday life. Individuals who
share this limited point of view see the perspective of the ego death with horror.
However, what actually dies in this process is a basically paranoid attitude toward the
world.

We felt that we were involved in a fascinating historical event—the first research project
in which experimentally induced mystical experiences were being woven into the fabric
of daily work and play. We saw ourselves as pioneers developing modern versions of the
traditional techniques for philosophic inquiry and personal growth. (That was Timothy
Leary.)

We may feel that we are really seeing the world for the first time in our lives. Everything
around us, even the most ordinary and familiar scenes, seems unusually exciting and
stimulating. People report entirely new ways of appreciating and enjoying their loved
ones, the sound of music, the beauties of nature and the endless pleasures that the world
provides for our senses.

Western scientific disciplines have described the universe as an infinitely complex
mechanical system of interacting, discrete particles and separate objects. In this context,
matter appears to be solid, inert, passive and unconscious; life, consciousness and
creative intelligence are seen as insignificant accidents and derivatives of material
development. (Einstein understood. Will the other Western scientists ever wake up?)

When I started taking LSD, I just saw that the academic thing was more or less a socio-
political game more than a true learning experience, in that the things that I really felt I
was learning were when I was just purely being or purely experiencing something and not
trying to read it from a stilted textbook or hearing it from some superintellectual
professor.

When one sees God as light and beauty penetrating the whole of the universe, feelings are
far too intense and sacred to contain one iota of humor. (The writer doesn’t mean that
humor isn’t part of an LSD trip, but refers to someone insensitively revealing their total
ignorance of LSD by laughing at the person’s descriptions of some details of their
experience.)

When we set out to study consciousness and such elusive altered states as ecstasy, there is
the observer’s “subject matter” and there is the subject’s “reality” and usually these have
no relation. The psychiatrist may see psychosis, while the subject may be experiencing
hedonic ecstasy. The outside observer has an entirely different view from the
experiencing person. (The psychiatrist must be experienced with LSD or it’s a joke.)

Within the cosmic order, every component pattern, every object and event, is related to
every other; there is a co-varying togetherness of all things. But, by creatures like
ourselves, most of the interconnections within the general Gestalt are and will always be
unrecognized. For us, “the world is full of a number of things”, which we tend to see as
so many independent entities.

In ordinary seeing, we are hardly ever directly aware of our immediate impressions. For
these immediate impressions are more or less profoundly modified by a mind that does
most of its thinking in terms of words. Every perception is promptly conceptualized and
generalized, so that we do not see the particular thing or event in its naked immediacy;
we see only the objective illustration of some generic notion, only the concretion of an
abstract word.

Leary the scientist, Alpert the intellectual and later the mystic, Metzner the scholar: what
held these three together was their shared faith in the power of the transcendent
experience to remove the blinders that keep us at odds with each other. A world where all
humans have access to the mystical experience would be a world transformed, they
believed. Everyone would then directly see what Jesus, Buddha, Moses and Mohammed
preached.

A God not seen as fully beautiful is less good and true and above all, less living.
All forms of matter and all living beings are seen as patterns of divine consciousness.
As the mystics of all traditions say, “Those who have seen KNOW”.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Colors are seen with a certain movement and continuous influx of shades.
Conscious attention cannot see the whole for the parts.
Everything you see and touch can glow with radiance.
He has seen the vision and its beauty and power.
He may “see what has to be done” as he has “never seen it before.”
He sees in his experience a glimpse of reality.
Heaven is there for all to see.
Huxley saw the urge for self-transcendence as “a principle appetite of the soul.”
I can’t see the back, much less the inside of my head.
I have just come back from seeing the world for the first time.
I have never seen such color before.
I see everything in its cosmic dimension.
If people could only see their inner beauty, they’d have no need to criticize anyone.
If you see anything frightening, walk toward it and it will disappear. (advice for trip)
In many cultures, such experiences are seen as a vital source of creative inspiration.
It is as if I see everything for the first time.
It’s like seeing things for the first time. It’s like a renaissance, a rebirth of the mind.
Light seems preternaturally intense in all that is seen with the inward eye.
Magnificent! I see it all! Incredible!
Man is blind to the world inside himself. Acid is to help us see.
One sees the old and familiar in a new and strange way, often as though for the first time.
Open your eyes! Get those stupid blind eyes open! Don’t you see what’s happening?!
People and objects become as fascinating as if they were the first of their kind ever seen.
Precious stones resemble things which are seen with the inner eye.
Seeing loses the conventional meanings imposed upon the object seen.
Seen from Spirit, nothing is heavy; it takes all things lightly.
The beauty of the real God, like so much other beauty, is rarely seen.
The Being inside us is seen.
The ego cannot see the reality of nonordinary reality.
The eye as such does not see things: it sees the total visual field in all its infinite detail.
The individual can see many spiritual dimensions to human life.’
The intrinsic beauty and significance of the thing (object) seen is enormously magnified.
The Kingdom of God is already here, if we would only allow ourselves to see it.
The light and dark are transcended through being seen in terms of a dramatic unity.
The mind is like an eye that sees but cannot see itself.
The most ordinary things, the most trivial events, are seen as jewels and miracles.
The rare treasure is the capacity to see Truth.
The saint sees that doing the will of God is joining in the play of God.
The shaman truly has “eyes that see and ears that hear”.
The world beyond the world of appearances is this world seen in a different way.
The world is seen as a place of indescribable radiance and beauty.
The world may be seen in its unclassified “suchness.”
They have seen beyond the separateness of the ego’s shell.
They’ve seen the truth.
This is how one ought to see, how things really are.
Time is expanded because you see more into each minute.
To awaken really means to see what is true.
To see the world as it really is means to understand that life is immortal.
We actually see or hear infinitely more than we attend to or think about.
We need a clean heart to be able to see God in each other.
We see things intellectually, but we won’t let go and feel them spiritually.
What you see is how the inside of your head “looks” or “feels”.
Whatever you see, just accept it. Don’t stop your experience to try to understand things.
When defenses are down, we begin to see customarily ignored aspects of reality.
When we keep our emotions on the surface, we never see the beauty of the depths.
You can enter heaven and see how the universe works.
You can see what’s going on in your psyche.
You don’t select and immediately classify what you see; you just take it in.
You may see radiating figures in human forms (eyes closed).
You see music-like dancing particles and see sound in multicolored forms.
You see things so clear. Your mind is not cluttered up with everyday nonsense.
You see through the game and laugh with God at the cosmic joke.
You’re much more aware of things you’re seeing.

All forms, all structure, manmade or organic, were seen clearly in their molecular and
particle nature.

As in Plato’s myth of the cave, what I was now seeing struck me with the force of the sun
in comparison with which normal experience was flickering shadows on the wall.

Besides seeing objects in greater visual depth, I also saw them with greater clarity, as
though a great lens had brought everything into sharper focus for me.

Between the trees I could see the sun sending down rays of warming benediction upon
this Eden, this forest paradise.

Everything I could see seemed alive and immensely beautiful and meaningful. Trees,
rocks, cacti the entire landscape was radiating with relevance.

Following the ego death, individuals saw human existence in a much broader spiritual
framework.

He looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time. The world was beautiful,
strange and mysterious.

He saw eternal cycles of life and death unfolding in front of his eyes. Nothing really got
destroyed; everything was in eternal flux and transformation.

He saw objects in a new light; they disclosed their inherent deep, timeless existence,
which remains hidden from everyday sight.

He was seeing life as an endless sequence of cycles in which becoming, being, and
perishing were just chapters in the same great book.

I could see beauty in hundreds of commonplace things I had not thought of as being even
attractive before.

I gazed and was humbled forever as I saw the unsheathed face of the Being cleared of all
his veils.

I had never before seen, touched, tasted, heard, smelled and felt so profound a personal
unity and involvement with the concrete material world.

I looked at a film of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite
beauty of every little grain of it.

I realized how a normally, constricted perceptual framework permits one to see only a
fraction of reality.

I saw a gleaming, blinding light with a brilliance. I knew that I was looking at God. (eyes
closed)

I saw all the little shades of white in the sugar. What blindness I had to color
differentiation all my life.

I saw an old lady gradually get younger all the way back to being a baby and then grow
back to the old lady.

I saw deep parallels between various mathematical concepts and altered states of
consciousness.

I saw for the first time how wildly beautiful and joyous, beyond any words of mine to
describe, is the whole of life.

I saw people as gross distortions of themselves. The personality and intentions seemed to
be boldly written on his features and reflected in his mannerisms.

I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is on the contrary, a living
Presence. I became conscious in myself of eternal life.

I saw the grasses bend in prayer, the flowers dance in the breeze and the trees lift their
arms to God.

I saw the most beatific visions, the most beautiful women, angelic in their mental and
physical configurations. (eyes closed)

I saw then that there were dimensions to life and harmonies and deeps which had been for
me unseen, unheard and untapped.

I saw this moment as an archetypal crossroads in time, ripe with revelatory meanings and
building up to something supremely special.

I suddenly saw the color of the wall waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing. The
extraordinary character of light and color is unbelievable.

I was looking at a painting and projected images into it, all seen in vivid photographic
reality.

Looking up, I saw the stars colored with the same reds, greens and blues that one sees in
iridescent glass.

My little ego seemed removed and I felt that I saw clearly and purely for the first time in
my life.

No saint ever saw more glorious or joyously beautiful visions or experienced a more
blissful state of transcendence.

Objects were seen not only with a greater clarity but also seemed to be “more
meaningful.”

red lawn chair—This red color was just about the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,
the way it combined with the shadow and the light.

She felt enormous gratitude for her experience and the cosmic insights; she saw them as a
special grace and privilege.

Status and classification appeared as mere superficial differentiation, in the light of the
harmony I saw among all beings.

The alcoholic had experienced vivid scenes from his past life and these had markedly
helped him in seeing the problems that led him to his catastrophic drinking.

The beauty I saw so clearly was not even noticed by anyone else, much less appreciated. I
realized this beauty was God.

The chair Van Goth had seen was obviously the same in essence as the chair I had seen.
(That was Aldous Huxley.)

The colors had become not only more luminous and brilliant, but different in quality from
any color previously seen; they were located outside the normally visible spectrum.

The experience was as big as I thought it was. Others had seen it. The shared wow—the
sacred wow.

The exquisite beauty of this tree was like a window in which you could see the existence
of this Other World.

The outside appeared clear, serene and beautiful. I saw things I have never seen on the
road. The trees, grass, colors, sky—all were a real delight to behold.

This was color like you’ll never see in your life. It was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever
seen.

Words came out of their wrappers and said “look at me” and I would look at each word
and I would see things in that word that I never saw before.

You could drop down into your unconscious to see the pillars and the roots of the tree
which is your personality.

As I looked around the room, I saw great bands of moving streams of energy particles
traversing the space, passing through and between myself and the other people. We all
seemed to be part of these moving, everchanging bands of energy.

Blake saw visionary landscapes “articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing
nature can produce” and “infinitely more perfect and minutely organized than anything
seen by the mortal eye.”

By my calculation, the state lasted about 300 years, for the sensations which followed one
another were so numerous and pressing that any real appreciation of time was impossible.
The rapture passed…I saw that it had lasted just a quarter of an hour.

Every atom of my body and soul had seen and felt God. The world was warmth and
goodness. There was no time, no place, no me. There was only cosmic harmony. With
every fiber of my being I knew it was so.

For what seemed an immensely long time, I dazed without knowing, even without
wishing to know what it was that confronted me. I was so absorbed in looking, so
thunderstruck by what I actually saw.

He fell into an inward ecstasy and it seemed to him as if he could now look into the
principles and deepest foundation of things. He gazed into the very heart of things and
nature harmonized with what he had inwardly seen.

I found myself wishing that every living person might be given LSD and see beauty equal
to that which I had witnessed, have the same feelings, know the blessed nearness of God
and that these feelings might stay uppermost in all of us at all times.

I learned a different way to be. I learned what awe, delight, blessedness, and serenity
were, and recognized them as more than platitudes. I felt as if the good news was being
whispered to me. I was in on a big secret. I was beginning to see what it was all about.

I saw my world shrink to a micro-speck floating in the eternity of the cosmos and I
smelled enlightenment and was promised answers to the questions I didn’t even know
how to ask.

I saw that we were part of an enormous sinewy archetype, a monstrous rooted and
branching phenomenon, the primordial life force. I could see the buds opening constantly
to new existences and whole colorful worlds.

I was deeply enmeshed in an abstract world of whirling geometrical forms and exuberant
colors that were brighter and more radiant than anything I have ever seen in my life. I
was fascinated and mesmerized by this incredible kaleidoscopic show. (eyes closed)

I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his Creation, the miracle, moment
by moment of naked existence. (That’s what Huxley saw while looking at a flower
arrangement.)

My exponentially heightened awareness saw through the static, one-dimensional ego-
contracted false front which is the consciousness-contracted reality of the everyday
world.

Old things have passed away, all things have become new. It was like entering another
world, a new state of existence. Natural objects were glorified, my spiritual vision was so
clarified that I saw beauty in every material object in the universe.

The mechanistic Newtonian model of the universe was steadily giving way to an
Einsteinian continuum. Everything in the universe, from galaxies to quarks, was seen to
be alive, evolving, sending out decipherable signals.

With all my being transfixed in the moment that answered the quest of my life, I
shuddered in my soul and with new velocities of divining sight, I saw our universe
sphering on its destiny.

During this long journey I saw recurrent images of mandala-like forms. Eventually I saw
life arise on this planet, and humans evolve, and civilization develop to a point where a
person with my Name/Address personality sat in a room and took some LSD and saw the
evolution of the universe.

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 became conscious in myself of eternal life…I saw that all men are immortal: that the
cosmic order is such that all things work together for the good of each and all; that the
foundation principle of the world…is what we call love and that the happiness of each and
all is in the long run absolutely certain.

I cannot say exactly what the mysterious change was. I saw no new thing, but I saw all
the usual things in a miraculous new light, in what I believe is their true light. I saw for
the first time how wildly beautiful and joyous, beyond any words of mine to describe, is
the whole of life.

I could see that the intricate organization both of the plants and of my own nervous
system, like symphonies of branching complexity, were not just manifestations of
intelligence, as if things like intelligence and love were in themselves substances or
formless forces. It was rather that the pattern itself is intelligence and is love.

I looked down below as if from a very high place and saw a rough square of pavement
which had laid out all of Manhattan in miniature, including people. The proportions, the
infinite detail were perfect. The city within the city. We could have swooped down like
gods and lifted up the Empire State Building.

I suddenly felt that everything was so much more real than it had been before. The grass
was greener, the sun was shining brighter, and people were more alive, I could see them
clearer. I could see the bad things and the good things and all that. I was much more
aware.

I’d given up even trying to talk. I just smiled at everything that was said to me, and
nodded my head up and down as the words went by. I felt beautiful and saw nothing but
beauty. I was a little child being led and protected by two wise saints. On the perfect path
to all-the-way-up now. Awake, finally, and headed for truth.

It was as if all the warm, sunny wonderful days of my childhood had been rolled into one
and this was the day. I felt like a child looking out of the window at the beautiful,
beautiful world. Never in all my life have I seen anything that looked as beautiful as this
particular day.

Science states that all things are in motion; that there are no solids; that everything is in a
gaseous state. The molecules of matter are always in motion. This was what I was
actually seeing. The constant motion of the molecules made everything seem alive The
wall, the table, everything had the same sort of aliveness that the human being has.

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.”

Suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how
the whole universe was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and
lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a
second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory.

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 visions were not blurred or uncertain. They were sharply focused, the lines and
colors being so sharp that they seemed more real to me than anything I had seen with my
own eyes. I felt that I was now seeing clearly, whereas ordinary vision gives us an
imperfect view.

There was unity and life and the exquisite love that filled my heart was unbounded. My
awareness was acute and complete. I saw God and all the saints and I knew the truth. I
felt myself flowing into the cosmos, levitated beyond all restraint, liberated to swim in
the blissful radiance of the heavenly visions.

We remain ignorant of our true nature—our eternal Self. It was that Self that I longed to
discover. In order to get in touch with the ground of my being, I had to strip away the
accretions of prejudices and preconceptions that cluttered up my psyche, making it
impossible to see what was really there.

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.

We were just leafing through the Catalog, and we came across some monkeys, and we
realized that we were monkeys, too. We looked at each other and had a strong realization
of our common ancestry. We could see that the little bits of hair we had sticking around
on us were left over from when we used to have hair all over us.

Without rational thought, the experience had been the solution to my problem of trying to
find God. I could see that when intellectual development is overemphasized, the
subjective part of one’s self, in which religious experiences occur, is usually
undervalued; thus, the feeling of God is hindered by the worship of the intellect.

A curtain was lifted and I saw the magnitude of life and was totally absorbed by it. The
moment lasted just a minute or two, but it embraced a lifetime. I suddenly understood the
cliché of oneness, that everything in the world is connected and part of a Whole, and that
that interlinkage is a truer characterization of the relationship of things than that of me
and my body being separate from all other men and their bodies.

He had the feeling that his experience and analysis of it were valid and cast serious doubt
on many of his previous philosophical certainties. His doubt deepened as he began to
suspect that the experience which at first he had interpreted as a regressive preverbal one
also could be seen, because of its complexity, as a kind of evolutionary preview into
future post-verbal modes of communication.

I kept getting visions of this “golden dawning” of consciousness in man which would
enable us to get things whole, to see life’s miracles, to know that indeed all is in
everything from blade of grass to man and woman. It was a vision of some ideal
existence in which there was only the sense of wonder and all fear gone, of a certain state
of being that was there not to be judged, but simply to be.

I “saw,” though that is not quite the word, the evolution of the universe. I felt the various
stages of cosmic evolution, inventoried a thousand planets, participated in the molecular
dance of life. Subjectively, I lived and experienced 10 billion years, feeling it second by
second. My Name/Address personality played no part in the pure consciousness with
which I observed everything.

I was amused to see the brick walls of a house tirelessly undulating. Fascinated, I drew
near the trees whose trunks heaved and whose bark flowed and pulsated in a manner
suggesting organic growth. Close observation of the bark was astounding. I reminded
myself of the mental patient one sees in films, on the lawn of the institution, drawn next
to the inanimate in watchfulness.

My familiar reality had cracked; a vast new reality that promised liberation from death
and meaninglessness lay before me. I believed that if everybody saw what I now saw
there would be peace on earth. The demons of hate, violence, illness and war would be
banished back into Pandora’s box. The scales would fall from humanity’s eyes and we
would recognize that we are one, and that we are eternal.

The world slowly formed…life evolved…the world aged…man evolved…man
aged…thought pulled itself together…slowly…slowly…no way to hurry it along…slowly it
got around to me, sprawled on my back, staring open-eyed into the sun, on a beach at Big
Sur, and them…wham…and I slid right out of existence again, back to the beginning…for
eternities, until I fell into time again and saw the illusion of ocean-sky-sand.

What saved me from despair of my encounter with the Nothingness that lies at the heart
of All was the realization that what I had witnessed was the destruction of matter, not of
spirit. Modern physics tells us that matter is composed of atoms that stick together for a
time to form an object—a table, a wall, a human body. Matter is energy; I saw it re-
transformed.

Aldous had given me a bowl of vegetable soup, beautiful and delicious. When I finished
it, Aldous made a move to take the bowl and wash it. I held on to it as though he were
taking my most precious possession. “Please don’t, Aldous.” The round, white bowl with
little pieces of vegetable was to me the cosmos, round and infinite, puncturated by light
exuding planets and stars of fiery orange and translucent green. Aldous smiled; he knew
what one can see in a dirty dish when the doors of perception are cleansed.

A deep gratitude came for the privilege of seeing this divine part of myself and others.
Aldous was looking at my hair and seeing in it the very mystery and wonder of life.
All infinity seemed filled with an endless ocean of golden light. Then I saw Him!
Ecstatic vision: for the first time in my life I literally saw “the world in a grain of sand.”
Everything that I saw and the color of them seemed to be more intense.
He felt there was “a classic quality” in some of the shapes which he saw.
He had honestly seen the Big Eternity.
He raved about the beauty. He laughed with joy. He saw it all.
He saw “miracle,” heard “holy music.”
His eyes twinkled as if he had seen the Ultimate Joke.
I could see a new world, a world I had missed before.
I could see a waterfall which sparkled like a brilliant rainbow. (eyes closed)
I could see an ant upon a tree at a great distance away.
I could see colored shadows across the sky.
I could see the patterns in their psyches.
I do not have to have faith that what I saw was true. I KNOW that it was.
I find it hopeless to describe in language the beauty and splendor of what I saw.
I heard, saw, felt, smelled and tasted more than ever before.
I noticed color and beauty where I had never seen it before.
I sat there a part of Einstein’s equation, seeing it all.
I saw a city of light.
I saw a gleaming, blinding light with a brilliance. I knew that I was looking at God.
I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
I saw colors I never experienced before.
I saw Eternity.
I saw images coming out from a shiny spot on the wall.
I saw light in the form of a river blazing with radiance.
I saw others distorted, as if I was focusing on the dominant quality of each.
I saw temples in all the colors of precious stones illuminated from within. (eyes closed)
I saw that I didn’t need any answer to the mystery of life because there is no question.
I saw that I, like everyone, was linked to this one mind and that it was beautiful.
I saw the design of the universe, the blueprint of evolution.
I saw the sun so close I could touch it.
I saw the universe through new eyes.
I saw what “a perfectly wonderful world” it all was and that there was a “central being”.
I was convinced that I’d seen the answer.
It had to be seen and felt to be believed, to be understood.
It was now given to see in their own light, the truths.
It was possible to look out and see and participate in the entire cosmic drama.
Looking from behind the ego, it was a big joke seeing how seriously the ego takes it all.
Magnificent, I never really saw color before.
Now I saw with an inside view.
One could not only see the beauty of the natural landscape but also feel it.
The grass was the greenest I had ever seen.
The light sparkling from the cars was as beautiful as anything I had ever seen.
The substance of a thing was both seen and felt through the visual perception.
We could see with the miracle of LSD vision.
We saw the multiple facets of our potential.
With the completest understanding, I saw the center of creation.

a new soul-shaking appreciation of the inner beauty, either seen or potential, of all
humanity

a radiant face with eyes that held a far-away look as if seeing something that was
invisible to me

a single overwhelming experience that produces a drastic and permanent change in the
way a person sees himself and the world

a view of life which sees its worth and point not as a struggle for constant ascent but as a
dance

alterations of perception which enable us to see ourselves and the world in their basic
unity

had opened my eyes to beauty such as this world has never seen and to God (“This
world” means the so-called “real world” of ego, without LSD)

jars one free of mental ruts, allowing old problems to be seen from new angles, accessing
higher levels of information, some of which were spiritual in nature

non-ordinary states of consciousness which allow us to see the guiding forces of our lives
much more clearly

saw the magnificent unfolding of the cosmic design in all its infinite nuances and
ramifications

see beings, events and things as processes which, however clearly distinguishable, are
inseparable from the processes which surround them and constitute their environment

see that objects are also events, that our world is a collection of processes rather than
entities

see through the whole paranoid game and mutate to a wider, funnier, more hopeful
reality-map

seeing the room in wonderful technicolor, raving about the beauty, the texture, the
delicate shades, the shadows on the rug, the subtle play of light on the wall

seeing through the social institution of the separate ego, no longer confusing his identity
with his social role or taking his role seriously

sees man’s unity with God in an ontological and natural principle in which all beings are
metaphysically one

the awe that comes when the veil is torn from your eyes and you see the nature of the
energy process you’re involved in

the chasm that opens between our present ego-restricted lives and the wider seeing which
is possible

the enormity of the experience, the total confirmation, in that it was all intensely seen, the
clarity and reality of what was felt

the intense thereness of natural objects seen by the transfiguring eye of the lover or the
mystic

the unfathomable beauty and joy that was right there, all around, everywhere, just waiting
to be seen and appreciated

to remove certain habitual and normal inhibitions of the mind and senses, enabling us to
see things as they would appear to us if we were not so chronically repressed

to see rather than look (seeing meaning in general and looking meaning looking at
something in particular, for a purpose)

windows in the soul through which can be seen images created not by human but by the
divine imagination (eyes closed)

would intensify your visual awareness and would make you aware of colors—some of
which you may never have seen before

seems to project his consciousness away from his body and can see his body as if he were
standing off to one side of it or looking down at it from above or observing it from a
distance

able to see reality with new eyes
an intensity of seeing whether the eyes are opened or closed
both seeing and feeling the images
can be seen in the broader evolutionary dimension
can see female guide as a goddess or the personification of wisdom, truth or beauty
can see the Secret Essence
changed ways of seeing, interpreting and reacting to people and events in the world
clearer days and cleaner times seen through unclouded eyes and an uncluttered brain
closed eyes—saw luminous, moving patterns of great beauty
closed my eyes, saw geometric forms, colors aroused in me a kind of emotional warmth
could see objects from perceptions which were normally impossible
look at anything as though you were seeing it for the first time
male guide can be seen as a Buddha or Buddha-like figure
merging with energy flux, seeing all life forms as physical waves, existence as energy
saw a multicolored mosaic on the ceiling and for a while the ceiling rippled like a pond
saw beautiful scenes and colors and felt rich emotions
saw flying masses of color
saw luminous, moving patterns of great beauty
saw visions of such beauty that he sobbed with joy
see beyond-our-world beauty
see it with unusual vividness and clarity
see rolling waves of colored forms whirling up, bouncing jolly
see Suchness in all its heavenly beauty
see the world and themselves in terms of spiritual energy involved in a divine play
see them shining, alive, glorified (people or objects)
see things for the first time “as they really are”
see visions within and a transformed world without
see vivid colors
seeing and being the oneness of all life
seeing everything from the standpoint of eternity
seeing into one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood
seeing into the abode of reality as it is and not reality as it seems to us
seeing reality directly, in its “suchness”
seeing the truths that were hidden beneath everyday reality
seeing the world in a new way
seeing things in a larger or more meaningful context
seeing truth and beauty
seen in perfect harmony
seen the world in this magical aspect
sees-feels the primordial evolutionary beginnings
sees fibers of her dress, breathing and undulating
sees not objects but patterns of light waves
sees the thickness of printer’s ink
that glorious, blissful, shining consciousness, has seen Being itself
that if only men could see it they would go wild with joy
that this vision is a brief recapturing of the way in which we saw things in our infancy
the ability to “think an emotion” and see it reflected in the mirror
the glowing marvels seen with the inner eye of the visionary
the honor roll of pure warriors who saw the great light and leaped for it
the impressiveness of seen, real objects, their shape and color
the intense vividness, composition and significance of things seen
the intrinsic beauty that I now saw in every human being
the intuitive wisdom which sees into the relational character of everything
the means whereby reality is seen clearly
the most vivid brightness I had ever seen
the phenomenon of seeing patterns in the air
the possibility of seeing into new institutional solutions
the radiance I saw that day
the wider seeing which is possible
this greatness of beauty and goodness that I saw and felt
this new and novel way of seeing the world
this supreme, shining, primal and infinite universal Form which was not seen before
to get into the invisible forces within his own deepest self in order to see more “seeingly”
to pass beyond ordinary consciousness and see things as they are in Reality
to peek beneath the cosmic curtain and see what the universe is all about
to pull back the veil and see for a second a fragment of the energy process, the life power
to pull back the veil and see the energy dance, the life power
to see a beauty that transcends anything one had ever imagined possible before
to see and feel what you are experiencing as it is and not as it is named
to see and hear and live more fully and completely in a higher state of awareness
to see colors in all its brilliance and absolute splendor
to see his life in terms of some universal myth or legend
to see into a spiritual plane of reality
to see it with new eyes
to see life in the totality of its cyclical patterns and interdependences
to see more, to be more conscious, more creative, more compassionate, more aware
to see, not merely to glance or look at
to see ourselves whole, free from egocentric attachment to form or outcome
to see people as caricatures of themselves
to see the divine essence in heaven
to see the interrelationship of many levels or dimensions all at once
to see the realities of which, in his former state, he had seen shadows
to see the universe again with an innocent eye
to see the universal and all-pervading spirit of the truth
to see the world in a new way
to see the world in some greater, more universal sense
to see this glow of motion
to see this multi-differentiated world as a unity
truths seen in the splendor of their own harmonious beauty as an intuition
vastness, incredible luminous light, a different radiant quality here never seen before
vivid imagery seen with the eyes closed
watching colors more exquisite than anything I’d ever seen