''Zarkov is terrified of psilocybin, and a fairly ego-bound person. He is forceful, opinionated, and it never enters his mind that he might not be entirely 100 percent correct. The couple of times that he's tried to take mushrooms it's just been too rough for him, because of the dissolving of the ego and surrender. This is the issue for most males and most dominator types – is how can you fling yourself into the blast furnace of disillusion?''
The point here is not to pit Zarkov and McKenna against each other, but to distinguish the specific qualities of the cyberian psychedelic experience from other sorts of psychedelic experiences. What makes a vision qualify for the renaissance is that it is an experience of greater mystical dimensionality, which can then be translated down, at least in part, to the three-dimensional realm. One must retain an inkling of the infinite – an intimation of immortality. As Terence argues:
''You have to download it [the DMT experience] into some kind of model, and I don't know why I'm so able to do that. It may be because of a bad upbringing. Because really there is nothing new about this. This is what lurks behind Kabbalism and Catholic hermeneutics. If you talk to the village priest, that's bullshit; but if you talk to the theologians of the Jesuit order, they will tell you God will enter history. History is the shock wave of eschatology – the fall of all these dimensional models. This is the secret that lies behind religion, but religion has been subverted for millenia as a tool of social control through the notion of morality. Morality has nothing to do with it. It isn't good people who go to heaven. It's smart people who go to heaven.''
Chapter 8
1234567: All Smart People Go to Heaven
Earth Girl – a beautiful if slightly otherworldly twenty-year-old from Los Angeles – is at Mr. Floppy's Firm and Floppy house party in Oakland, explaining the effects of Psuper Cybertonic to several young girls who have traveled from the suburbs to get a taste of the house scene. Adorning her Smart Bar (a Peter Max version of Lucy's psychiatrist's booth) are several posters of mushrooms, spaceships, and loose quotes from The Starseed Transmissions:
''As this new awareness increasingly filters into everyday levels of human function, and as more and more individual human cells become aware of what is taking place, the change will accelerate exponentially. Eventually, the psychic pressure exerted by a critical mass of humanity will reach levels that are sufficient to tip the scales. At that moment, the rest of humanity will experience the instantaneous transformation of a proportion you cannot now conceive.''
Earth Girl and her traveling Smart Bar offer two brain nutrient mixtures: the Cybertonic and a stimulant drink called Energy Elicksure, made from ephedra (an herb related to the active ingredient in Sudafed, the cold medicine that keeps one from getting drowsy) and a few amino acid uppers. Her advice to the high-schoolers is heartfelt but somewhat underinformed. She relies heavily on the fact that these herbs are ''100 percent safe, used for centuries by ancient cultures, and make you feel really good.'' The girls all buy the Cybertonic for $3 a glass and chug it down. "Light up and live,'' Earth Girl calls after the kids as they return to the dance floor.
A punkish boy stumbles up to the bar at about 4:00 a.m. His girlfriend wants to dance till dawn but the LSD he took at three that afternoon has sucked about as much in adrenaline as it offered in insight. Earth Girl sells him a large cup of tangy Energy Elicksure, and soon he's back under the strobe lights, pulsing with new life.
It is the kind of scene that would horrify parents. What the hell's going on?
Earth Girl isn't really selling drugs; she's selling nutrients. Drugs are patented medications that enhance brain function; nutrients are nonpatented substances that the body uses more like food to do the same thing, usually less invasively but also a bit less effectively. They include substances like the amino acid L-pryoglutamate, the herb Gingko biloba, niacin, lecithin, and certain vitamins. Earth Girl's brews are slightly altered versions of prepackaged nutrient mixes available at health food stores or through multilevel marketers. These mixes bear the names of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, whose book Life Extension first publicized the existence of smart chemicals and the notion of nutrient-enhanced ''designer beings'' back in the 1970s.
Smart drugs (with names like vasopressin – a snorted spray – hydergine and piracetam) are generally unavailable in this country. Depending on the legal weather, these drugs can be purchased through the mail from pharmaceutical companies overseas because of a loophole demanded by AIDS patients who wanted access to drugs not approved for use in the United States. (For more information, see Dean and Morgenthaler, Smart Drugs and Nutrients.) Smart drugs fall between the cracks of America's ability to comprehend the uses of medication, which is why we have such a cloudy understanding of their abilities and their categorization.
Most cyberians understand the science by now. Acetylcholine is one of the chemicals that allow for transmission of information at the nerve synapses. As we get older, our supply of acetylcholine decreases. While we can't just eat acetylcholine to increase the supply in the brain, we can take its precursors, such as choline, as well as chemicals that tend to increase our own production of acetylcholine by the cholinergic system. Some of these chemicals are now called ''nootropics'' (noos, "mind'' + tropein, ''to turn'' – that is, "acting on the mind''), the new class of drugs that provide cognitive enhancement with no toxicity.
The most widely used, over-the-counter smart nutrients are mixtures of several forms of choline along with a few of the enzymes and co-enzymes that turn them into acetylcholine. Earth Girl's Cybertonic is a combination of choline, acetylcholine precursors, and co-factors. Their effect is noticeable over time but not very dramatic. The sudden increase in popularity and marketing visibility of these nutrients is due to the fact that other, much more potent smart substances have arrived in Cyberia. It is a case of fame by association.
The pyrrolidone derivatives are the smart substances deserving the most attention. In an unknown way, they improve the functioning of the cholinergic system. They increase memory, boost intelligence, and enhance certain kinds of learning. They were originally used for diseases of old age such as Alzheimer's and senility. The most widely distributed one in Europe is a geriatric medication called piracetam, which is unavailable in the United States. (Users here purchase it directly from European distributors through the mail.) It is a fast-acting, easy-to-notice cognitive enhancer. Walter Kirn, a novelist and smart drugs user (whom we'll meet later), describes piracetam's effect as ''going through life wearing a miner's lamp with a beam of intelligence.'' Nearly everyone who takes it experiences greater ability to conceptualize complex problems and to retain information.
Users' reactions to the drugs differ, and all have their preferred combinations and dosages. It's quite common to see a bottle of vasopressin on a computer terminal, next to a bar of chocolate or a pack of cigarettes. A particularly dense passage of text to understand or a complex series of steps to write into a program? A blast of vasopressin and everything gets clear in less than a minute. Going to have a difficult day filled with interviews? Probably better off with piracetam or pyroglutamate in a few doses spread out over the course of the day – that added articulateness and recall will come in handy. And, of course, don't forget the daily dose of hydergine until the end of the semester. Jet lag still a problem? Maybe some L-tyrosine (an amino acid) to wake up this morning instead of coffee – it works as well, without the jitters or the stress to the adrenal system. Smart drugs even help psychedelics users come down off difficult trips.