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The Ecstatic Adventure

  Reports of Chemical Explorations of the Inner World

    Introduced and Edited by Ralph Metzner
      Foreword by Alan Watts


The Ecstatic Adventure
©1968 by Ralph Metzner
Library of Congress 68-15269




      Contents

 
FOREWORD    by Alan Watts
INTRODUCTION    by Ralph Metzner
in which the editor attempts to place current psychedelic events in historical perspective and indicate salient trends.
CHAPTER 1At Play In The Fields Of The Lord
    by Peter Matthiessen
in which a distinguished novelist-naturalist describes the ayahuasca visions of a half-caste Cheyenne Indian.

Experiences Described in the Language of Psychology
CHAPTER 2A Kind of Harmonious and Convincing Equilibrium
    by Rolf von Eckartsberg
in which an existential philosopher-psychologist plays back his observations of the
sensitized nuances of being and perceiving under psilocybin.
CHAPTER 3Of Hell and Heavenly Blue
    by Stanley Krippner
in which a clinical psychologist struggles and comes to terms with human loneliness
and isolation under the influence of morning-glory seeds.
CHAPTER 4Psychiatry vs. God
    by Joseph Havens
in which a Quaker psychotherapist describes the "great doubt" and "terror" of a
psychedelic psychosis.

Experiences Described in the Language of Religion
CHAPTER 5Empirical Metaphysics
    by Huston Smith
in which an eminent religious scholar and MIT professor tells how mescaline showed him directly what he bad only thought (and written) about before.
CHAPTER 6Shaking To The Foundations
    by Walter H. Clark
in which a distinguished teacher of religion gives a biblical commentary on his ecstatic experience with LSD.
CHAPTER 7The Oneness in God, The Vision of Christ, The Crucifixion
    by the Reverend Mary Hart
in which a lady Protestant minister descends into an inferno of madness and sin, makes the final act of faith and is restored to radiance.
CHAPTER 8Uncontainable Joy
    by John Robertson
in which a student of theology and mysticism ceases to exist and becomes immersed
in the ground of Being.
CHAPTER 9The Point Is That Life is a Gesture
    by Alan Watts
in which the friendly word-magician discovers once again that life is purposeless play and there isn't any problem.
CHAPTER 10The Conscious Ascent of the Soul
    by Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter
in which a Hasidic rabbi dances at midnight in the shrine with all his bones and struggles to pray in the garden at dawn with all his hand and mind tied by the holy ribbon to the hand and mind of a goy.
CHAPTER 11Consciousness, Energy, Bliss
    by John Blofeld
in which a Buddhist scholar describes a high yogic experience with mescaline in the language of the "diamond-thunderbolt" school of Buddhism.
  Psychedelic Poetry:
    Poems by Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary

Experiences of Therapeutic Self -Confrontation
CHAPTER 12From Character Disorder to Mystical Philosopher
    Anonymous
in which a series of Sessions with LSD and Ritalin progresses from Freudian sexual hallucinations to union with the real Self.
CHAPTER 13The Crime Game
    by George Castayne
in which a convict under psilocybin discovers the bewildering chaos of his life.
CHAPTER 14Flights Go Down
    by Sugar Wagner
in which an overdose nightmare plunge in the oily vortex of black nothingness results afterwards in all good things happening.
CHAPTER 15The Eyes Of The Child-Corpse Were Open Wide
    by Linda Sontag
in which a seventeen-year-old college freshman amphetamine addict takes LSD and, to her surprise, is liberated from cellular slavery.

Experiences Programmed for Creative Problem-Solving
CHAPTER 16The Designs Were More Free
    by Henrik Bull
in which a professional architect under LSD finds that cobwebs, blocks and binds disappear and outlines three designs in three hours.
CHAPTER 17Through A Mellowness Filter
    by Irwin Wunderman
in which an engineer-physicist psychedelically considers the problem "What is a photon?" and develops a model that satisfies all the known constraints.
CHAPTER 18Toward The City Of The Future
    by Eric Clough
in which a California architect takes mescaline in a creativity project, envisions buildings of the past and future and rapidly designs a project for the present.

Experiences of Parents and Children
CHAPTER 19To Be Able to Say: Thou, Really to Love
    by Rolf and Elsa von Eckartsberg
in which a husband and wife experience ecstatic fusion of male-female energies, magnetic union, liberation in sacrifice.
CHAPTER 20Ecstatic Childbirth
    by Karin and Ronald Harvey
in which a young mother describes giving birth under LSD with energetic ease, and she and her husband give a free-wheeling account of the impact of LSD on marriage, business and modem life.
CHAPTER 21The Eyes Of Wonder
    by Charles Soames and Arnold West
in which a twelve-year-old and nine-year-old give an account of their first encounters
with inner realities.
CHAPTER 22Dropping Out — Tuning In
in which three ex-college students report how they dropped out of school in order to begin their real education.

Experiences of New Dimensions
CHAPTER 23The Refinement of Vision
    by Gray Henry
in which a college girl explores some less substantial dimensions of matter, and encounters the basic mythic nature of her sex.
CHAPTER 24Other Worlds, Other Times
    by Ken Green
in which a young American yogi shoots himself out of the body with STP, hurtles through incarnations, is attacked by a malevolent spirit and rescued by the power of mantra and guru.
CHAPTER 25In Tune With Positives
    by David Crosby
in which one of The Byrds talks poetry, music, acid, telepathy, electronic sound, marihuana, mind gardens, hippies, trips, love, freedom, trees, growth, change, peace.


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