By J. F. Burke
Most of my life it’s been boo, booze and blow. I didn’t get into journeys till I used to be 42, in 1957, when a pal of mine in Santa Fe launched me to peyote. A Taos Indian had given a dozen peyote buttons to every of a number of individuals in Santa Fe’s artwork colony. Certainly one of them a serigrapher who did practical nonetheless lifes of mushrooms had been ready for me to reach and journey with him.
I knew little or no about peyote at the moment, however I did know sufficient to concentrate on the issue of getting it previous our palates, so I pulverized the dried buttons in a Waring blender and tamped the powder into gelatin capsules. In any other case our comfortable palates may need reflexively ejected the peyote, which I’d been advised was extremely bitter. We washed the caps down with chilly mountain nicely water.
My pal’s journey will need to have been very unusual, for he spent the primary eight hours wrapped in a Navaho blanket, curled up like a chrysalis in a cocoon and chanting in a language that sounded Indian to me. After eight hours he emerged from his cocoon smiling, trying beatific and saying nothing. Very mysterious.
Afterwards, once I requested him what language he’d been chanting, he mentioned English. I objected that it didn’t sound remotely like English however very very similar to some Indian tongue. He mentioned that was simply my very own psychological confusion, a peyote hallucination. After I requested him what he’d been chanting about, he mentioned he’d been chanting “in reward of every little thing,” as he put it. Simply what an Indian shaman would possibly do, I commented. He ridiculed the thought. But when he actually believed he’d been chanting English, he was out of his tree. English it was not.
As for my very own journey, I spent the primary 4 hours laughing, simply laughing, for every little thing was laughable. It appeared to me that laughter was the truest response to the world. Apparently I’d wanted snicker for a very long time.
The subsequent time Mescalito got here to me, I used to be with my spouse Rosa. We ate peyote daily for 15 months. Mescalito stayed with us all that point. Generally I really feel he by no means left.
Rosa and I despatched to Smith’s Cacti Ranch in Laredo, Texas, for peyote, which was authorized then and was being bought within the East Village for 25 cents a button. We bought it by mail order at $10 per 100 buttons plus $3 postage. You obtained your cargo through parcel put up with a U.S. Division of Agriculture stamp on the carton testifying to the purity of the contents. This was again in 1961—the great previous days!
Our first cargo arrived on a Friday. A couple of of the buttons had rotten spots from being locked up within the mailing carton for a number of days. These have been huge, contemporary, inexperienced, juicy buttons. We minimize out the dangerous spots. Then we set the hundred buttons out across the residence, wherever there was a horizontal floor. They have been in all places. They appeared to have presence, as we are saying in theater. They have been fleshlike to the contact, they usually appeared beautiful with their elegant little silvery tufts. We might scent them, too, an earthy scent, fairly delicate. They appeared like huge, spherical dwelling emeralds. Or maybe imperial jade.
I minimize a slice off one, and we tasted it. Phrases haven’t been coined for such unbelievable bitterness. So we had an issue. eat this little inexperienced god? You possibly can’t pulverize the contemporary, juicy buttons and cap them as with the dried ones. We knew that folks had tried to reduce the style by brewing infusions, boiling porridge, making milk shakes. We determined that someway we’d meet the issue head-on. So we slept on it.
Whereas we slept, Mescalito was in all places within the room, 100 of him. Saturday morning we wakened realizing the right way to deal with the consuming drawback. We eliminated the tiny silvery tufts, washed the buttons in chilly water, dried them gently with comfortable towels after which chopped up a couple of of the most important, fattest, juiciest. We minced them. We additionally floor some darkish Brazilian beans and made a pot of sturdy espresso laced with honey.
Nonetheless, it’s no straightforward process chewing the bitter inexperienced mass previous to swallowing it. You chew like a rabbit, preserving it within the entrance of your mouth, nicely away from the taste bud. Then, when it’s able to be swallowed, you set the cup of espresso to your lips, swallow the peyote and observe it instantly with the espresso so that you just’re washing the peyote previous the esophagus earlier than the taste bud can react. As soon as it’s previous the esophagus you’re residence free, besides maybe for a queasy abdomen.
Some folks expertise nausea, and a few even throw up, nevertheless it’s no huge factor, for the peyote comes up a lot simpler than it goes down, and it doesn’t have to remain within the abdomen lengthy for the energetic precept (mescaline) to enter the bloodstream. I’ve by no means had greater than a really slight queasiness, and I’ve by no means thrown up. The queasy feeling doesn’t final lengthy. Anyway, I benefit from the preliminary poisonous reactions, notably the muscle spasms. Orgasmic.
Now, some of the vital issues that Mescalito taught us about ourselves throughout our 15 months’ routine is that peyote itself doesn’t style bitter. This isn’t a paradox. If you happen to proceed consuming peyote daily, and lengthy sufficient, the bitterness decreases. Finally it’ll go away altogether. However the peyote itself is a continuing issue, so it may possibly’t be the cactus that modifications. If it was bitter, it’ll nonetheless be bitter. Ergo, the peyote wasn’t bitter; the peyote eater’s style was.
Actually peyote clears and heightens the senses, all of them, in order that we see, hear, style, really feel and scent in another way, extra intensely, deeply, clearly. It shouldn’t be shocking, then, that the style of the taster modifications. To place it one other manner, Mescalito shouldn’t be solely a trainer. The little god can be a profound doctor. For a few of us, peyote is usually a psychic purgative.
We’d accomplished our homework, so we knew what was then usually recognized about Lophophora williamsii. For the reason that essential energetic precept is the alkaloid mescaline, the dosage of which varies round 400 milligrams, relying on one’s physique weight, we assumed the peyote dosage must be measured likewise. Being a small lady, Rosa ate solely three of the buttons, huge ones. I’m 5’11” after which weighed 175 kilos, so I ate 9. Then we smoked some reefer and waited.
In about 20 minutes, I turned stressed, so as an alternative of ready for the response I went out and spaded the brand new backyard plot. We’d simply moved into the residence and had but to begin our first seeds. The arable a part of our backyard measured some 30 by 40 ft, nevertheless it took me solely half an hour to show the earth and weed it. After I was accomplished, I used to be sweating so closely I appeared like I’d been standing in a cloudburst. And I smelled like a cab horse. I undressed and went into the bathe. Rosa joined me.
After we got here out, nonetheless bare and dripping moist, we noticed with surprise the work on our partitions glowing as if alive. The partitions themselves appeared to breathe. The large tree in our backyard was shifting not solely its limbs, branches and leaves, however its very bark appeared to undulate. All the pieces was in pulsating movement.
I felt like singing, so I picked up my mandola and commenced to tune it. And right here Mescalito rid me of a really annoying drawback. I’d at all times beloved to play stringed devices and sing, however I had no tone management. I used to be totally incapable of tuning the instrument precisely, and I couldn’t sing on pitch. I might hear the terrible sounds I made, all proper, however I couldn’t assist it. My behavior was to play and sing solely once I was alone, however in fact once in a while somebody would have the misfortune to listen to me.
On this peyote morning I tuned the mandola precisely and sang really for the primary time in my life. I felt like a fledgling in first flight. Free! Rosa and I typically sang duets after that, once we have been tripping. She taught me her Portuguese songs, fados, and I taught her Mexican and Spanish songs.
On that first peyote Saturday we have been so charged that regardless of our lengthy bathe we needed to take our power to mattress, and there we merged, entwined like Aztec stone carvings right into a single advanced type, interpenetrating, in order that we couldn’t inform who was inside whom. For a time we gave the impression to be mendacity atop an awesome pyramid in Mexico, alone collectively below a excessive blue sky, our kaleidoscopic orgasms surging, ever altering, reaching into all components of our our bodies, filling us with brightness and sheer ecstasy.
It will need to have been early afternoon when our residence and unplanted backyard have been abruptly reworked right into a Mexican hacienda someplace in Chihuahua, and we appeared to see golden chamiso bushes and a tall yucca with a yucca moth hovering among the many pearly flowers. We might scent the desert and listen to lizards and small birds chirping. The fantasy—or as Carlos Castaneda later would say, this different actuality—was very substantial though we knew we have been in Manhattan and there have been no chamisos or yuccas, a lot much less yucca moths, in our yard. And we noticed rather more, which later I set down in a poem.
Yucca welcomes her lover below the moon.
He hovers like pale kisses, fluttering. Silkworm weaves his mandarin cocoon.
Cat schemes by a groundhole, muttering.
Owl waits and watches, hooting mirth.
Hummingbird drinks nectar from the rose.
She opens her secret petals ardently.
Roots strongly embrace the nice and cozy and keen earth.
And all issues like to be sweetly certain, not free.
Ask the yucca’s private moth, who is aware of.
Of ideas like these our waking desires are spun:
We might be as flowers that observe the solar—
Oh, by no means rely the hours!—Because the river grows
from streams and flows to the ocean, so would we be.
After our first 4 hours’ rush, we had 4 hours of very excessive euphoria and contemporary perceptions after which 4 hours of gently settling again, besides that we didn’t get all the way in which again to the place we’d began. We by no means did. Not fairly.
We went to sleep excessive that evening, slept superbly and woke superbly within the daybreak, prepared for love and breakfast. We have been in for a shock. After we’d ready our ordinary eggs and toast, we didn’t need the eggs. Couldn’t eat them. Although very hungry, we have been nauseated by the scent of cooked eggs. What we actually needed, and what we ate with gusto, was contemporary fruit, bread, cheese and occasional. We didn’t realize it but, however Mescalito was already turning us into vegetarians, curing us of smoking tobacco and giving us a distaste for alcohol. The little god additionally bought us into studying yogic literature, however that got here with time.
We ate peyote once more at sundown that day, which was a Sunday, and made an evening journey. Once more we took it to mattress and bought deep into our internal areas. Clinging collectively, entwined, floating freely in area that was each microcosm and macrocosm, we noticed atoms and molecules as miniature photo voltaic programs and galaxies, and we noticed the seen universe as a crystal of star programs, which in fact we acknowledged because the mescaline molecule. After we’d reached the thumping conclusion that the universe was a colossal crystal of mescaline, we understood. Mescalito has a cosmic humorousness. To place it philosophically, the little god was demonstrating oneness.
The next day was Monday, however I didn’t go to the workplace. I’d determined throughout the evening to strive working behind peyote, since we’d discovered it to be such a robust energizer. Nevertheless, discretion being the higher a part of valor, I believed I’d higher run the experiment at residence. I might think about some fairly humorous scenes if I ought to begin tripping at Westpark Publications. I wasn’t positive what a working dosage must be, however that it was attainable to work on peyote I had little doubt, for a seafaring pal of mine had as soon as dealt craps in Las Vegas whereas on peyote, and he needed to hold loads of motion sorted out in his thoughts. He mentioned peyote helped him do it quick and precisely. Three buttons, he mentioned.
Huxley had written in The Doorways of Notion, “Mescaline… provides entry to contemplation—however to a contemplation that’s incompatible with motion and even with the desire to motion, the very considered motion.” Properly, I didn’t assume so. That was his journey. Not my seafaring crap supplier’s. Actually the Huichol, the Tarahumara and different nations get into loads of motion after they’re tripping on peyote. They sing, dance, run up and down mountains.
Because it turned out, I might as nicely have made the take a look at on the workplace. I ate three buttons of medium dimension and waited an hour, then bought into some manuscripts. It wasn’t a visit, on this smaller dosage, however I nonetheless felt enormously energized. I used to be, nonetheless, permitting myself to get too deep into the work, deeper than it referred to as for. This, I might see, was one thing I’d have to observe if I needed to work behind peyote.
I’ve labored behind grass for over 20 years, and I recall that initially I needed to discover ways to deal with, the right way to focus behind smoke. Properly, concentrating behind peyote is a bit tougher to study, however when you’ve bought it, you possibly can focus higher than earlier than. Deeper, extra targeted. Or centered. By midday the work was accomplished.
The subsequent day was Tuesday, and I went to the workplace after breakfasting on three peyote buttons, medium dimension. Numerous my associates commented on my look and temper. “You’re trying nice. Been smoking one thing?” That type of factor. The day went quick and I bought a mountain of labor accomplished. After I bought residence I discovered that Rosa had spent the entire day, as an alternative of her ordinary two or three hours, writing in her journal.
And that’s the way in which it went for the following 15 months: love very first thing within the morning, peyote for breakfast, good work all day, collectively once more for dinner and a quiet night speaking, then bedtime and extra love and sleep.
Weekends we’d typically take bigger doses and see how far out (or in) we might journey. And once in a while we’d abstain for a day or two, to examine up. At first we discovered that peyote’s salutary results appeared to final solely two or three days earlier than we developed a yen. Nothing heavy. Only a yen. However as time glided by we additionally observed that we wanted much less to get off, till on the finish of 15 months I used to be taking a single giant button within the morning, and Rosa a smaller one. In fact, we typically replenished ourselves throughout the afternoon with one other button.
There was no comedown on the finish of the day, no crash, solely a pleasantly drained feeling and a readiness to relaxation. If we needed extra power then, we merely ate one other button. Why no crash? The place did all of the power come from? Not from peyote. The cactus acts like a catalyst. The power comes from the peyote eater. Now we have a a lot higher power potential than we’re ordinarily conscious of. It’s just like the thoughts’s potential, which, as is well-known, we barely faucet. Properly, peyote faucets it however doesn’t exhaust it. There’s at all times extra. Every now and then, say a weekend, we’d journey on and on, with out sleep, consuming a button or two once in a while, for 36 or 48 hours. How lengthy we might have gone, I don’t know, however there gave the impression to be no motive to attempt to set a report on that rely. We’d already set one by the top of our first month on peyote.
I quickly started taking my lunch to work. I saved a basket of bread and cheese, contemporary fruit and uncooked greens on my desk, and one of many fruits (greens) was at all times a big peyote button, in case I felt like recharging throughout the afternoon.
The primary of my fellow staff to ask concerning the unusual inexperienced fruit within the basket was Bob Shea, one of many swingier editors at Westpark. The dialogue went one thing like this:
“Is that some form of tropical fruit? It seems like a cactus.”
“It’s peyote.”
“Heard of it. Thoughts if I style it?”
“Please do.”
He took a tiny chew, very tiny, and put the remainder again within the basket. He gave me an odd look and went to his workplace throughout the corridor. In half a minute I heard him spitting and making guttural noises.
He got here again saying, “You imply you really eat that stuff?”
“Every single day.”
“You’re pulling my leg. I hope to God it doesn’t make me sick.”
To allay his nervousness I took a good chew out of the massive button that he’d nibbled. I chewed it nicely and punctiliously, up entrance between my entrance tooth, and swallowed it with out espresso. Bob checked out me as if I’d gone mad.
He is aware of higher now, in fact, for since then he’s co-written a guide referred to as Illuminatus, which supplies clearly recognizable proof that he’s discovered a manner into his personal head.
Mescalito actually smiled on Rosa and me, for all these 15 months. The top got here when some skilled prohibitionists in Washington, D.C., determined that peyote was Indian medication, match just for Indians, not for whites. The official determination was that it could possibly be used just for spiritual ritual by bona fide members of the Native American Church.
Smith’s Cacti Ranch and different respectable suppliers weren’t keen to bootleg the buttons, which minimize down the availability to the vanishing level, in order that was the top of our 15 months. Sometimes some buttons would present up in New York, they usually nonetheless do, very poor vegetation in comparison with what we have been used to.
These 15 months have been one in all our highest occasions, although not, I hasten so as to add, the very highest. That prime got here quickly after, once we obtained our first little sugar cubes from a ravishing psychedelic artist within the East Village.
Learn the total difficulty right here.