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WHAT'S ON THIS PAGE NAVIGATION BOX SPECIAL REPORT: IN DEFIANCE OF SCIENCE 4 -- Visions of Infinity; Thinking Cosmos; Paradigm Time | WARNING: The Trip Trap | INSPIRATIONAL Use Contents Navigation Console | Go To Next Page (Page 16) |
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| . | Ticket in hand, we delve again into the pages of Paul Devereux’s ground-breaking book to join him for some magic moments from his first trip. As he recalls the vivid events, perceptions and experiences of that crucial adventure, he identifies and expresses some of the fundamental precepts of spirituality. |
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| . |  t is March 1966. And 20 year-old Paul Devereux is about to have a life-changing experience. In the vanguard of the ‘acid generation’, his inspiration had been the writings of the visionary/mystic/intellectual, Aldous Huxley. Extremely intelligent and with a strong spiritual bent, Huxley had offended the establishment when, in 1954, he had published essays describing his mescaline experiences. One of the most powerfully anarchic texts to appear in the latter half of that century, ‘The Doors of Perception’ produced the first crack in the mould which had shaped world consciousness for more than 2000 years. Like many of those who encountered Huxley’s (r)evolutionary opus, Paul Devereux had been inspired and awed by the ecstatic revelations it described......As an art student in London, |
...... | . | Paul Devereux “began to appreciate with some amusement that this profound state of mind .... did not come with mental fireworks, cosmic visions, clouds of angels or hordes of hobgoblins. It was not the result of hallucinatory additions; quite the contrary, the process was one of paring away. The culture I normally inhabited was the hallucination. This |
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| . | Devereux was ideally placed to pursue his interest in emulating Huxley. Although ‘Swinging London’ had emerged out of the grey serge 50s, England was still as straight as ever — old men, old minds, old money. But deep within the blossoming Youth Culture (not much culture but nice shiny Lambrettas) there was anarchy afoot. And it was happening in the nation’s art colleges. Ever a hotbed of youthful revolution, for many years the art schools had carried the national mantle for unconventional behaviour. As the sixties headed towards the half way point, the free-thinking attitudes of art school students started to find | .... | . |  understanding.’ At the same time, I noticed that I had arrived at a state of bliss. In fact, it was a holier feeling than that, more a state of grace .... the trains of thought that normally chained me mentally and emotionally had dissolved. I was experiencing the truth of all matter — this is always all that I ever am, just here and now. Everything else is an illusion. What passes for normal rational mentality is |
. | . | was unadulterated primal consc- iousness, and here there was only here. And now. Here was infinity; now was eternity. This simple yet vastly complex truth was the joyous, glorious news of liberation. I was thrilled with the exultation of salvation.” .....As he began the long, slow drift back to normal consciousness, again and again he would be drawn along shamanic paths revealing new truths. Disappearing “down brilliant, swirling tunnels formed from kaleidoscopic colours hurtling along at light speed .... I felt myself going away without myself, as if my mind |
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| . |  the grossest ofillusions. I had read these kind of ideas in literature dealing with various forms of mysticism, but I wasn’t intellectualis- ing now. This was simply the direct experience of the fact.” .....Entering a state where the “grime of time was washed away,” he “saw with astounding clarity that the pristine under- surface of eternity was always there. Time took its course, but, just |
.... | . | were draining away. Except that wasn’t possible, because I didn’t have a separate mind anymore.There were no boundaries: the whole cosmos was passing through me and the edges of my personality became invisible, because what was inside me also surrounded me.” In a classic ‘ego-death’ experience, Devereux gave himself up to the Cosmos and slipped out of thinking and into a “place of sanctity, .... ultimate holy of holies.” .....“Several eternities later,” he was back. But still experiencing significant effects from the chemical he had taken. In a series of ‘movie show’ visions he experienced the ability of the mind to mould realities while he dipped his toes in new truths. Taking in many of the archetypal tripping experiences, he started to use the enhanced perceptual abilities that come with hallucino- gens. Following a series of visions he realised he could see his friends’ auras. .....And there was more magic still to come. Some time after watching a daffodil’s petals moving and witness- ing the capillary action as it drew |
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| . | expression in the public arena. In popular music, fashion, the media, the graphic arts and wide-ranging social mores, the art school influence became overwhelming. .....And, at the very heart of art school attitudes and influences, was their preoccupation with drugs. .....Thus it was that Paul Devereux found himself in possession of two slightly-used looking sugar cubes |
. | . | as sound was encased in silence, time was suspended within the greater medium of eternity. Eternity was not endless time or some future state, eternity was here and now, that was its very nature. Eternity was always present; time was merely a glinting reflection off its surface, like the sparkle of sunlight in the waters of a stream. Truly, as Blake wrote: ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, | . | . | water up its stem, he found his “awareness slipping inside that daffodil.” As “an exquisite sensation cascaded through me, I knew that I was experiencing light falling on those petals. It was virtually orgasmic, the .... equivalent of an an- gelic choir. At every moment I felt, repeatedly, as if I were receiving the first ray of sunshine on the first morning in Eden. The world was |
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. | . | unutterably new and innocent.” .....Although Paul Devereux’s trip was not without its moments of insecurity, paranoia and fear, there can be no doubt from his ecstatic descriptions exactly what he got from it and what conclusions he reached about it. That, within those hours, he was having the fundamental experiences that have always defined |
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| .. | containing LSD. Dissolving the two cubes in a glass of water, Devereux drank the lot (apart from a teaspoonful taken by one of the friends who would watch over him while he tripped) and waited for the show to begin. .....For an interminable half an hour nothing seemed to be happening. Then, slowly, Devereux began to experience the fluctuations on the fringes of perception and rationalisation that characterise the onset of the hallucinogenic experience. Becoming increasingly aware of the ceiling light hanging above a daffodil in a slim vase, |
. | . | everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.’ The idea that this was ‘poetry’ fell away. I had much the same feeling when someone put Bob Dylan’s ‘Tambourine Man’ on the record player. What had previously seemed to me a string of marvellously poetic images now turned out to be descriptions of the states I was experiencing. The Silence was simply an aspect of eternity that I felt all around me and all through me, and both were, in turn, just other facets of bliss.... Zen writings that had seemed entertainingly half-baked to me suddenly took on deep meaning. ‘A split hair’s difference and heaven and | . | . | man’s relationship with God and the Cosmos, there can be little doubt. .....What Paul Devereux and so many others have experienced is probably the most important adjunct to successful living that the human race has chosen to ignore. It is an experience that is not only outside of the accepted scientific paradigm but is in deep and fundamental opposition to it. And not only scientific paradigms, for it is also in diametric opposition to accepted and imposed social paradigms. .....Ladies and gentlemen, what we are saying here is that this is the bridge to freedom. But not all of us |
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| .. | Devereux “realised with some surprise that I could actually feel the heat of the bulb.” Almost imperceptibly he spun in the wider fields of consciousness. Hearing “a pure, ringing tone,” he moved around the room trying to locate the source of the sound while his friends looked on, amused at his behaviour. Finally, | . | . |  |
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| .. | in a wave “understanding flooded over me. I was listening to the silence. More precisely, I was tuned into The Silence. All sounds were like bees in amber, they were sealed within this all-pervading no-sound.” .....With that powerful revelation, the doors swung open. And the revelations came thick and fast. “In a flash I understood the biblical phrase ‘The peace that passeth all TOP OF COLUMN |
. | . | earth are set apart.’ (How very true.) ‘What is gained is no gain, yet there is something truly to be gained in this.’ (Absolutely. I couldn’t have put it better myself.) Far from appearing paradoxical, such sparse, well-honed statements were to be seen as the equivalent of engineering specificat- ions, describing the structure of reality.” .....As his experience reached its peak, TOP OF COLUMN |
. | . | know what freedom actually means. Freedom is, fundamentally, a state of mind. Such freedom is, however, not compatible with the social and economic structures that create and dominate our world. If you have ever wondered why those in control seek to limit our experience and proscribe our freedoms, why they continue to subscribe to the scientific paradigm that has become so tired and used, it is because freedom and control (their control) are simply not compatible. PLAIN TEXT • TOP OF PAGE |
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| PLAIN TEXT Clearly the world and the Cosmos within which it exists are 'thinking' entities. The intricacy of the systems that support the whole thing, its responsiveness to events and changes, the sense of destiny with which the world seems to be embued; all these indicate a dynamically interactive entity that has self-protection at its heart. Almost human, huh? |
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 vents are no more than random field disturbances in thewaveform fabric of life. They possess no coherence, no pattern, no continuity. They are devoid of meaning. Random, meaning- less, empty. And world events? They, too, are without any deeper significance than their occurrence. |
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| ...It is, perhaps, unfair to extend the mechanical Cosmos para- digm so far. But doing so only highlights its incompatibility with what we know, feel, believe or understand to be true. So let us look at the events of 1967 from the opposite point of view. ....As this is going to take a fairly substantial stretch of the imagination (if you are a scientist, don’t bother), let us drop in feet first. Here are three key precepts: ....1. The Cosmos lives for ....evolution. It is the evolut- ....ionary Impulse that pushes ....life and the world forward, ....it is the evolutionary im- ....pulse that maintains the ....Cosmos. ....2. The Cosmos cannot ....abide a vacuum. ....3. Although technological ....advancement can be seen ....as evolution of sorts, the ....Cosmos does not see it so. ....Technology merely tinkers ....with the external aspects of ....reality, evolution happens at ....the level that supports that ....reality. ...Now let us put these precepts together. By the mid-60s, the Western world had gone a long way down the road towards viewing reality as existing exclusively on the outside. It had taken more than 2000 years to get there but get there we had. And, in the process, we had gained ascendancy over many Laws of Nature. TOP OF COLUMN |
. | . | ....But, as any cursory examin- ation of world history reveals, we had made little or no progress as a species seeking to develop its humanitarianism. History, ancient and modern, is as we all know little more than a blood bath. No progress. No evolution. Just better techniques to destroy life. ....That we are part of the Cos- mos is undeniable. That, how- ever, is only half the truth. To a large extent we are the Cosmos. It is us, here in the arena of life, who make things happen. It is we who create the state of the world (and, if we did but know it, support the entire illusion of reality). That is why, although the Cosmos supports evolution in every aspect of creation, it is the evolution of people that really matters to it. ....Evolution cannot happen, however, without some vision of our own place in the Cosmos and of the power and potential of our own consciousness in creating that Cosmos. To lose that vital link to the truth would spell the end of the Cosmos as we know it. Life would descend into chaos. Social structures would crumble. The anarchy of self-interest would ensue. ....It would, in fact, be just like now only worse. ....But in 1966, on the very brink of selling our souls forever to the plastic demon, a few were pulled back from the edge of dissolution to rediscover their source. ....That the same source gives rise to every aspect of the Cosmos was, of course, purely coincidental. PLAIN TEXT • TOP OF PAGE |
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PARADIGM TIME It is obvious that a paradigm is better than one digm. But what the hell are they? |
. | .. | For paradigms define our most strongly held belief systems. Unfortunately, that definition is one of limitation rather than expansion. But that is the nature of paradigms. ....The up-side is that paradigms provide coherence and a certain clarification to scientific theories. But only to those theories that |
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| .. | If our sci-fi view of the Cosmos is wrong, it is not our fault. Blame it on the scientists. We are, after all, only going with what they tell us to be true. And, in many ways, it is true. It just doesn’t take in the broader picture. Because ‘the broader picture’ does not fit within the Newtonian Paradigm. ....According to my dictionary, a paradigm is a ‘conceptual framework within which scientific theories are constructed’. Fine. But so boring it is hardly worth thinking about. However, hidden within that not so simple definition is the key to understanding what went wrong with our Cosmic view. TOP OF COLUMN |
.. | . | naturally fit or can be forced to fit. Theories that fall outside the conceptual framework that the paradigm provides are simply dismissed or provide the basis for another paradigm. ....The classic example of the limitations of scientific paradigms is the Newtonian Paradigm. This describes the world in terms of mathematically precise laws and sets it up to be little more than a machine. One has only to look around at the richness, diversity and intricacy of nature and experience its uncertainties to realise the limitations of this and other paradigms. PLAIN TEXT • TOP OF PAGE |
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