Altered States Page #3

What is not religious about that?

You've simply replaced God

with the original self.

But we've localized it. We know

where the self is, in our minds.

It's a form of human energy.

Our atoms are six billion years old.

We've got six billion years

of memory in our minds.

- Hydrogen atoms are older-

- Memory is energy.

It doesn't disappear. It's still in there.

There's a physiological pathway

to our earlier consciousnesses.

There has to be. I'm telling you,

it's in the limbic system.

Jessup, you are a wacko.

What's wacko about it?

I'm a man in search of his true self.

- How archetypically American can you get?

- Ha, ha, ha.

Everybody's looking for their true selves.

We're all trying to fulfill ourselves...

...understand ourselves,

get in touch with ourselves...

...face the reality of ourselves,

explore ourselves, expand ourselves.

Ever since we dispensed with God...

...we've got nothing but ourselves

to explain this meaningless horror of life.

You're a wacko.

Well, l think that that true self...

...that original self, that first self,

is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing...

...tangible and incarnate...

...and I'm going to find the f***er.

What are their chemical properties?

Are they safe?

The mushrooms

are almost certainly Amanita muscaria...

...a very powerful psychedelic,

and a little dangerous.

It contains belladonna-like alkaloids...

...atropine, scopolamine.

The sinicuichi plant is highly regarded...

...among a number of Indian tribes.

I've seen it as far north as Chihuahua.

The Indians say it evokes old memories.

Even ancient ones.

And the Hinchis call it the first flower.

- The first in the sense of primordial?

- Yes.

In the sense of the most ancient.

I'd like to try it.

Do you think they'd let me

join their ritual?

Well, they seem like agreeable people.

It's all right for you

to participate in the ceremony.

Good. Ask him what kind of an experience

I can expect.

Are they gathering mushrooms

for the ritual?

No, they're being

harvested for next year.

Brujo!

Your soul will return to the first soul.

Ask him what this first soul will look like.

He is unborn stuff.

Then you will propel into the void.

You will see a spot.

Uh, the spot will become a crack.

This is the crack between the nothing...

...and out of this nothing

will come your unborn soul.

He wants you to hold the root.

Put out your hand with the palm up.

Ah! Ugh!

Eduardo!

- Jesus Christ.

- Are you all right?

- We only have their word l killed a lizard.

- Oh, no.

You didn't see it

and l have no recollection of it.

This whole business is just a joke

the Indians have played on me...

...to make the gringo look like a fool.

Look, you asked me what happened

and l told you.

You drank the mixture

and you went outside.

After a while there was a scream

and some dogs were barking.

I started after you.

The screaming stopped

and the brujo yelled to come back.

- Oh, bullshit.

- Then why did you ask the brujo...

...to give you the mixture

to take back to Boston?

I thought I'd like Arthur to analyze,

maybe synthesize it.

The noise is stupefying.

The sun became black...

...as sackcloth.

The full moon became like blood.

Then the great mountain,

burning with fire...

...was thrown into the sea.

And the beast ascends

from the bottomless pit.

The angel of the bottomless pit.

His name is Abaddon.

Abaddon.

He is off the wall.

Are you okay?

Get this stuff. It's new.

It's deafening. The noise is deafening.

Can you hear me above this noise?

Oh, my God.

The most unbelievable thing I've seen.

I'm watching the birth agony

of a mountain.

Oh, my God.

Are you okay?

I'm fine. Really, I'm fine.

Do you want me to bring you down now?

What happens now?

He's blacked-out.

His blackouts can get pretty freaky.

Sometimes they last

as long as four hours.

When he comes out, he's chipper

as a bird but doesn't remember a thing.

Just how dangerous is this stuff

he brought back from Mexico?

I didn't say dangerous, l said it

was weird. Hangs around too long.

And what's really screwy is

it heads straight for the brain.

Well, l don't believe this.

You guys are shooting up an untested

drug that stacks up in the brain...

...works in the nucleus of the cell,

and don't call that dangerous?

For the record,

we don't actually shoot up.

- Heh, heh, heh.

- Eddie drinks a 10-

It's gonna stop now.

You guys are supposed to be scientists,

not two kids in the dorm...

...freaking out on Mexican mushrooms.

Well, why do you think I called you for?

Let's see you stop him.

This ain't LSD, goddamn it.

This ain't no serotonin antagonist

you're drinking.

How many grams of that

you think you've already got in you?

Two? Three?

You could be working up

a case of cancer...

...with a truckload

of antimetabolites in you.

The Hinchi Indians have done it

for centuries with no cancer.

F*** the Hinchi Indians.

You don't know anything

about those mushrooms.

Sounds like they have staying power.

We've shot up 30 rats with that stuff.

Some of them have

a whopping load in them.

None of them have been

noticeably affected.

Where are we going now?

I thought we were gonna eat.

Eddie wants to show me an isolation tank.

Isolation tank. You guys get flakier

every time l talk to you.

All that isolation-tank stuff

went out in the'60s...

...with Timothy Leary

and all them other gurus.

Will you shut up for a minute

and let somebody else say something?

What happens during these

blackouts...

...is you feel phenomenal acceleration...

...like you're being shot out over millions,

billions of years.

Time simply obliterates.

You sense the hallucination is going on,

but you get no images.

I want to break through that barrier.

I want to know what those images are

that I know are going on but l can't see.

We can't raise the dosage of the drug,

we're close to toxic level now.

The only way to intensify the experience

is to take the 200 milligrams...

...in conjunction with the tank.

There's more I'd like to do to that drug.

- A half-life determination.

That'd take a year.

I'd like to know

the transport system. Find some analogues.

All l know is this stuff

is an extraordinary substance.

Every instinct l have tells me

I'm onto something hot here.

And another 200 milligrams

isn't going to kill anybody.

There it is.

Oh, it's horizontal.

It's smaller than the one

we had in New York.

lf they do sleep studies,

it must be wired for sound.

Don't think anybody's used it in

years, but l checked it, it works.

Won't take a week

to get this functioning.

If it ever gets out you use

an untested drug on human subjects...

Don't worry. Nothing's gonna

happen to me. Let's get a hamburger.

- Told one kid in class l might see her.

- All right.

Do what you want to do.

I think you're both irresponsible as hell.

Don't call me and tell me you're worried

about Eddie putting all this sh*t into him.

I tell you now, don't you put

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