Page Content (OCR)
IF So, So WHAT? + 273 At his follow-up interview with Laura he stated, "I now have a much more tangible sense of cosmic and divine con- sciousness with an altered sense of selfhood in relationship. A more real sense of connectedness to all around me. I am more integrated. My own divinity is less of an abstraction. Thinking and feeling overlap more now." While he also believed this had changed his capacity for engaging in psychotherapy with his clients, he didn't believe it was outwardly obvi- ous. Philip had reduced his use of psychedelics since his participation in the DMT work. He now took them every two or three months, instead of several times a month, and used them more carefully, in a supportive group context. He wasn't sure how much of this was the result of other changes in his life—moving and getting divorced—and how much was from his DMT experiences. Don was a thirty-six-year-old waiter and writer. His transpersonal high- dose DMT sessions destabilized his world view so much that he stopped writing for the first time in years. As opposed to Elena, when Don met face-to-face the vast and impenetrable nature of the source of all exist- ence, he despaired. Elena was steeped in Eastern mysticism, while Don was raised in, and continued believing in, the Catholic faith. Elena saw the love behind the "impersonal" void. Don, on the other hand, felt shocked, stunned, and betrayed by the absence of a personal God or Savior behind it all. DMT had knocked away his spiritual and philosophical underpin- nings, and he found himself at a loss for something to replace them. When I called to request his participation in additional studies, he declined, but updated me. He was feeling quite well. He told me, "I'm doing better than I was before the study. I have more enthusiasm for life, as it was a death experience for me. I've gotten back into writing and found a patron to support me part-time. There's a little bit of my DMT sessions in my writings, but not too much." We read a brief excerpt from one of Ray's high-dose DMT EEG sessions in chapter 15, "Death and Dying." When we spoke with him some years later, he had this to say about long-term effects of his high-dose sessions: