To date, the official medical literature on ketamine has been pervaded by the assumption that any "emergence reaction" left in the wake of this anesthetic has to be a dream, hallucination or unwholesome symptom. This unwillingness to admit the possible validity of the insights gained is an example of the "medical materialism" that the psychologist William James described in The Varieties of Religious Experience:
Medical materialism finishes up St. Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Theresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle's organ tones of misery it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal catarrh…And medical materialism thinks that the spiritual authority of all such personages is thereby successfully undermined.
In the opposite camp, those who have experimented with ketamine deny that they are dreaming or hallucinating, even though the effect can be that of a child turned loose in a surrealistic Disneyland of animated archetypes. Most subjects feel that they are simply altering their usual modes of perception, removing the filters of sensory limitations and opening the windows of consciousness to new and higher levels of meaning. At the same time, they do not regard the outer world as less real, even though they recognize its limitations. Rather, they become aware of the flatness of consensual reality and begin to see through the systematized illusions that have made the mundane plane such a difficult place in which to function. They discover that there are mountains of the mind, and are given the impetus to ascend.
It is our conviction that the fauna and flora of ketamine's magical kingdom are in no way weird or abnormal, even though the substance most definitely does open the gates to alternate realities. Peering through the smog of planet Earth, however, it is hard to escape the conviction that its affairs are out of whack to the point of insanity, with too many moral morons running the show. In this impasse we are reminded of a story recounted by the free-wheeling guru Ram Dass about the confrontation between a mental patient and his psychiatrist. The patient was convinced that he was Christ, the psychiatrist was convinced that he was a psychiatrist, and each was absolutely certain that the other was insane. In our case, therefore, all we can do is describe what happened to us, our friends, and coworkers, and leave it to the reader to decide who may or may not be deranged. We know that the subconscious is inherently bizarre, but we can still explore it in a sensible way.
For the most part, our ketamine experiences have been set down when and as they happened. Hence, our original desire to organize the material systematically, topic by topic, has been sacrificed to the more artistic urge to convey the continuity of a grand adventure. So we have presented our insights chronologically rather than encyclopedically. The intrinsic properties of our boundary-dissolving elixir lead us to detail its effects in the manner of a tapestry of soft-toned interwoven strands rather than as a mosaic of isolated single-colored squares.
Books, like wine and cheese, usually need time to mellow. However, the cathartic action of ketamine is so intense that it accelerates all functions. One senses that the very cells of the body are being jiggled into a faster rhythm. The mind churns out new thoughts, while the illumination intensifies the desire to shine on others and warm their hearts.
This quickening of responses has made us peculiarly aware of the urgency of the times. Truly, we are now living in the midst of Armageddon. At this moment of supreme planetary crisis every effort must be made to regenerate the ailing body of humanity, to redeem our discordant past, and to salvage the best elements of modern culture as seeds for future seasons of growth. Out of our concern with the current world situation, we have decided to publicize our research even before we can vindicate our activities with a mass of meticulously documented statistical studies. In short, we are "blowing our cover," with the full knowledge that we are taking a calculated risk in stirring up resistances before we are strong enough to withstand the opposition. There simply isn't time to fiddle while Rome burns.
A point that must be made clear from the outset is that at no time have we engaged in any kind of illegal activity. There is no law prohibiting the use of ketamine by a licensed physician. It is a commonly used anesthetic that has been extensively tested and found so safe that even in an instance when ten times the normal anesthetic dose was administered there were few negative aftereffects. At the same time we want to emphasize that this is an exceedingly powerful medicine, which should be properly supervised and administered by a trained specialist. We conscientiously inquire into the subject's medical background, monitor pulse and blood pressure. To date, however, there have been no untoward reactions.
In this respect, we have drawn on Howard's unblemished fifteen-year record as a full-time practicing anesthesiologist and Marcia's thirty-five years of metaphysical studies. For both, this has been an apprenticeship in dealing with potentially dangerous substances. The hazards of an anesthesiologist's trade are clearly evident, since the patient is suspended just this side of death. As a teacher of hatha yoga, Marcia learned that you don't fool around with necks and knees, much less with heavy-duty breathing exercises. As an astrological counselor, she discovered how to avoid the pitfalls inherent in psychotherapeutic situations. Her work with hypersentience was a further application of poweful mind-opening techniques to ameliorate a variety of human dilemmas.
We both feel that as a result of the care and caution we have shown in practicing these preliminary disciplines, we have been entrusted with the sacred gift of ketamine therapy. Neither of us is preoccupied with money, power or fame. We live modestly, eat vegetarian food, practice yoga, meditate and work long hours, often without remuneration. To date we have taken no money for our samadhi therapy. For years all Marcia's earned income has gone to support the Ananta Foundation located in Ojai, California and to publish the quarterly Hypersentience Bulletin. Funds derived from our ketamine research will also be plowed back into this humanitarian foundation.
As we broaden the base of our activities we will try to keep our reading audience up to date. For now, despite our initially narrow focus, there is so much ground to cover that we are releasing this first progress report. If widespread interest is aroused the work will go forward that much faster. Presumably, we will complete our follow-up ketamine book which will be an academically acceptable clinical and statistical study. In the meantime here, hot off the fire, are our first impressions. With the hope that this Promethean offering can be utilized for the benefit of humanity, we will try to describe how we began and hope that others will profit from our experiences.
1: You have to Die to be Reborn
Anesthetic drugs with actions at specific sites in the central nervous system have been sought for a long time as alternatives to general anesthetics which have far-reaching effects on the brain. The most successful of these to date has been ketamine.