XV111: The Moon. 'Illusion, deception, falsehood, error'. 'The path that you are on is a hard one, full of twists and turns of fate, yet it is right for you.' 'The fairy must listen to the song of the wolf to find her path.'

Part One

Things might have been going a bit wobbly in my external world as the end of 1975 beckoned, but inner life was proceeding apace.

I was practicing meditation, and the results were remarkable. The technique was gorgeously simple: lie on the floor or my mattress, and methodically move through my body, bringing attention to and relaxing each part as I went. Starting with toes and feet, I would let go. In so doing, I seemed to be releasing enormous reserves of energy. It seemed that the ventures into other worlds with the help of LSD had opened up channels of energy, and through meditation this could be worked with in a conscious and focussed way.

Effortlessly, I would slip into a state of superconsciousness, as a liquid silver energy began to flow, eventually taking over my entire being. I would lie motionless, at total ease and naturally focussed, in what Buddhists call dhyana, a state of higher consciousness. This became my regular post-dinner activity. Then I would grab a bedtime drink and a few hours' sleep, before staggering downstairs and onto my bike, for another early morning stint at the sorting office. 

Then, in October of that year, a lorryload of tiny black microdots rolled into town. Though miniscule in size, they came with a poke and a push that I hadn't known before. They were of no greater potency than the brown pyramids of non-duality from earlier in the year, but came on quickly, seeming to put a clench on the stomach as the first effects began to kick in. 

Following one of my shorter shifts at work I would sit in the living room, turn on the gas fire, then sit in half-lotus position ready to ride out the initial come-up. Remaining in complete silence through the peak of the trip, I might turn to the music of Mahavishnu Orchestra or Wishbone Ash to help guide me during the long, slow process of return to consensus reality. 

By now, Dave would have come home from another day with the Social Services van. "Not again" I would hear him exclaim through the wall separating the living room from kitchen. His disdain was now openly expressed to everyone but me when he learnt that I was tripping. Then he would stomp off to his room, to listen to radio or sing a few songs from the Bob Dylan back pages.

I honestly didn't get it. Consciousness was key - to everything. If you wanted to help change the world for the better, you had to get at consciousness. The nonsense in the world was a direct reflection of crappy, limited, dualistic consciousness. Psychedelics could help show a different way, a higher reality, a way out of or through the mess that was the world. What's more, it wasn't as if I was taking acid every other day. Once a month; and I only had four of these little black bombshells anyway. 

Part Two

Dave's behaviour pointed up a real division within the alternative community. While society at large could (simplistically) be split into straights and freaks, the latter in turn fell into two camps. There were freaks and there were acid freaks. This was not something that I wanted or liked, but there it was. There were people who had been there, and people who hadn't, and it often made a difference to how you saw.... well, pretty much everything. Like a mystery cult or secret society, acid freaks invariably shared an unspoken understanding which other freaks just didn't get. That was just the way of things.

It might have all been OK, except that there tended to be a lack of tolerance from both sides. Acid freaks could appear cultish, and to be adopting a sense of superiority (sometimes a projection by the not-acid freaks); while those who spurned the assistance of psychedelics might behave disapprovingly, or simply regard the acid heads as crazy, irresponsible, dangerous.

A picture is sometimes painted of the 1970s counterculture as being full of people taking psychedelics. Not true. For every real acid freak, there were probably twenty alternative-style folk, people who had either never tripped, or who had been there once or twice and decided it was not their cup of Tao. Whatever, LSD was simultaneously the spearhead for an ocean of creativity and innovation, but also the source of division and dissent.   

Liberty Fox was always inclined more sympathetically towards these psychedelic adventures in hyperspace. Not a trips man himself, he nevertheless fully recognised the need for 'revolution in the head.' "Are you OK?" he would enquire, as I was coming down into the dark Oxford evening. "Do you fancy a walk?" So we would stride briskly along the chill empty autumnal streets together, in silence but together, synched up. Beautiful moments.

As for Mottie, I don't think it really registered. By now he was off on a trip of his own making....

Part Three

Many hours after the carpet first signalled its true nature as manifestation of the Universal Godhead, I would retire to bed in the vain search for sleep. I closed my eyes, only to be assailed by a gaudy parade of bubbles and balloons, clowns and court jesters. On and on it would come, this grotesque circus troupe, entertaining at first before transforming into something altogether more sinister. The painted laughing clowns would roll up, pressing themselves up close. Their presence came with more than a hint of menace, as if they were mocking me. Laughing at our pathetic efforts to understand existence, or the silly ways of our ego, or our aspirations for spiritual gnosis. Maybe they had a point.

At 4 o'clock I would stumble out of bed and up the stairs to the kitchen, where the linoleum was swimming around beneath my feet. I cycled to work down quiet streets abandoned by the human race, but teeming with winking trees and swirling kerbstones. 

On one occasion, I emerged from the sorting office for my delivery round into a still dark and frosty morning. Spider webs, rimmed with bejewelled white hoarfrost, formed a gauntlet along every driveway where I had mail to deliver. Beguiling, entrancing, out to trap me in their delights forever. Maya writ large. It was going to take all day to get rid of this delivery.

Overall, this wasn't much fun. The black microdots seemed far longer-lasting than any other acid I'd known. I just wanted to get on with the day. "Please stop" I implored quietly. "Please please stop. Pleeez."

One November morning, at 4.28 precisely, I dismounted my bike, and stumbled from the chill night air into the fug of activity that was Oxford sorting office. Breezing along and doing my best to appear 'normal' (whatever that might turn out to mean), I walked up to my usual delivery frame. Horror upon horror! The usually empty frame already had letters sorted into pigeon holes in readiness for delivery! Paranoia blasted through me like a shock wave I'd never experienced before. I'd been found out. They knew I'd been tripping and, not expecting me to be in for work, they'd lined up someone else to do my mail today.

I froze on the spot. Terror. "Good morning" chirped the postie who worked on the frame next to mine. "You're on holiday next week. The fellow who's doing your delivery while you're away came over to get a bit of practice on your frame. Great news for you - your letters are nearly ready to take out!"

With muted celebrations, the New Year of 1976 arrived. Dave's moanings about Social Services admin were becoming interminable, while with his regular Guinness sessions Mottie was in danger of becoming a teenage boor. Liberty continued to rise in status as an expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and I took the last tab of thunderbolt black. Then, something unexpected happened: we were offered a property out in the countryside....   

Links

I recently renewed acquaintance with an old friend of mine. Among many other things, Stephen Coates hosts a fortnightly interview on Bureau of Lost Culture on Soho Radio. Some of the interviewees are the kind of people who people the pages of this life story. Recently, and remarkably, he interviewed Joey Mellen, whose trepanned head got a mention in Life Story#6: White Rabbits. I found it highly entertaining, and something different, even for those whose consciousness has already been somewhat expanded:

https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-6v66w-92ba90

Images: Inspirational Tarot, Dark Fairytale Tarot