Chapter 1

Vulcan Mind Meld

I AM STILL FASCINATED by the fact that the Universe exists at all. The mystery of the origin of the Cosmos has been on my mind since I was just a young boy too.

In the short history of Humanity, every culture has tried to manage the question of how such a unique event as the Universe could have possibly come into being. It is hard not to feel overwhelmed when faced with that problem.

I became convinced long ago that the Universe is too beautiful, too intricate, too large, and much too full of life, to have been a meaningless accident of inanimate physics, as science teaches, and as atheists like to believe.

Dropping a glass of milk on the kitchen tile floor is an accident. Nicking yourself while shaving is an accident. The existence of this boundless Universe is not “an accident” or a random event.

If it wasn’t an accident, it must have been done on purpose and guided by an intention.

“What is It that is so holy, so dreadful, so exotic and outrageously prolific, that It would create such a concept as a Universe?!”, I asked myself.

THERE ARE ONLY TWO possible methods for gaining knowledge about the nature of Creation itself.

The preferred way is for an individual or a group to have some type of personal, direct experience that illuminates a genuine aspect of the Divine.

The alternative is to trust the experiences of those who have preceded us, and consult the oral and written traditions that have survived over the centuries. They are the secondhand sources that have been mined as material for religions, cults, and philosophical systems.

For reasons as varied as the different religions and creeds themselves, I always found the traditional answers to be unsatisfactory. It can’t be a surprise to anyone that I easily found numerous faults with all the religions and cults that I investigated.

PICKING APART the religion of someone else and finding parts of its teachings to reject is simple, and it’s done by everyone.

A devout Catholic has no problem finding fault with part of the richness of Hindu theology and mythology.

A pious follower of Islam might be wary of some expression of Jewish dogma.

An observant, cosmopolitan Jew may feel insulted and even subtly threatened by certain condescending Christian endorsements.

Atheists toss the whole silly thing against the wall.

And so on.

FOR MY PURPOSES, I found the secular systems of philosophy to be no better. More difficult to approach, they rely on formal essays and dry, complex deliberations. Compared to religions, they inspire few, and entertain even fewer.

Compared to religions, modern philosophical systems are unwilling to venture into the supernatural world. That is one of the consequences of exclusively holding a high regard for only rational, conventional logic.

But this exclusive regard for plain logic must be challenged because it no longer jibes with our best understanding of the way the Universe really works.

The theoretical framework of quantum physics is the uncontested winner for understanding the nature and properties of matter and energy in the Universe. Therefore the logic of quantum theory is an integral part of the new frontiers of cosmology,1 and for all the other branches of philosophy too.

WITHOUT attempting to discuss any details, the following quotes from a few of the most famous scientists who have contributed to the development of Quantum Theory will begin to illustrate this new understanding of the true, underlying nature of reality.

“The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”  –  Werner Heisenberg

“Anyone not shocked by quantum mechanics has not yet understood it.”  –  Niels Bohr

“Nobody … understands quantum mechanics.”  –  Richard Feynman

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”  –  Sir Arthur Eddington

EVENTUALLY, all philosophers must begin to account for the irrational logic, for the “super–logic”,2 that is included in the theorems of quantum physics, higher dimensions, and higher consciousness.

It is dawning on everyone that any field of inquiry will not be fully rounded and relevant until they find at least some small place in their theorems for the irrational, because the irrational, the absurd, is an essential part of quantum logic.

IN SEARCH OF suitably outrageous answers for an outrageous Universe, I continued running down all of the available dogma, theories, myths, and speculations that I could find that spoke about the nature of the human condition in this unfathomable Cosmos.

I could find nothing capable of quenching my insistence for the definitive answers to the biggest questions that I could possibly ask of the Cosmos.

What is this Universe?

What are our responsibilities within Space–Time?

Is there anything beyond this Universe?

BECAUSE I FIND MYSELF in the unlikely position of offering support to a comprehensive answer to those questions, I will expose my world view to you, even if it is a shorthand version, and show my cards.

This will act like a short onramp to the superhighway. Please go straight to Chapter Five if I begin to burden you with excessive personal details. That is where the most important part of what I have to tell begins.

I include this lead–in because the rising tidal effects of the experiences I write about were a very long time coming, and my approach to them was critical. When you have finished reading the story, you should understand why I feel the need to expose upfront as much of my attitude toward life as I do.

My wish is that a brief introduction will synchronize us, to some degree, in generous comprehension and tolerance that is far beyond any reasonable hope I have in its real power to do so.

MY INTENTION in producing this book is to entertain, inform, and encourage. My hope is that many people will identify with it, and fondly evoke the memory of resonating thoughts and similar experiences from their own past.

Inhale deeply, enjoy the hit, and participate again.

You will reach your own conclusions about my cosmological and ethical portfolio. Please base your conclusions, whatever they may be, on a kindly enough reading of my actual words, without projecting assumptions upon me inaptly.

WITH SOME QUICKNESS NOW, I’ll outline a perspective that has served me excellently in this difficult world where life is short, where friendship may be tenuous, where security is elusive, and the gods are seemingly estranged.

1.  cosmology: orderly speculation upon the origin and development of the Universe.

2.  superlogic: a superset of logic that includes and surpasses the formal and exclusively rational logic taught by mathematics and traditional academic courses in logic. It includes a new and supplemental “irrational mode” of logic as a required component.

Chapter 2

The Lay Of The Land

NAIVE AND STUBBORN, I chose the impossible task of seeking answers to philosophy’s biggest questions as my life’s work. I felt compelled to begin the work at an early age, and that resulted in early and far–reaching consequences.

Even as a child, in the aftermath of social disillusionment over humanity’s indifference toward humanity, I knew deep alienation, and I did not easily acknowledge natural, authentic authority to any aspect of the Establishment.

Before I entered my teens, part of me had prematurely taken to wandering the raw intellectual wilderness where rationality transforms into mystery. Blazing my own trails, I never allowed the supposedly inconceivable nature of universal origins to curb my compulsion for too long.

Young and oblivious to the depth of commitment I had already developed for my life’s first love, I was digging for answers to the questions that nobody could begin to solve for me to my satisfaction.

IN TERMS familiar to our western culture, maybe a dissident, quixotic, self–employed philosopher is an accurate–enough description of my social status, and of my primary interests, as I grew into my teens and young adult years.

If we still lived in a tribal culture, my chosen profession might have been called a wanna-be “wizard”, or “witch doctor”, or an apprentice “shaman”.

SHEDDING OPTIONAL social baggage, traveling light, I eventually managed to develop deep connections into dimensions of deep infinities.

There was a big trade–off that had to be made for that access, but it seemed worth it. I felt like I knew what I was doing, and I was making progress.

Growing up, I knew that I was on a track to be one of those non–conformists who would probably not have a conventional life, but that was OK. The truth was that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I’m sure that I often seemed socially isolated and emotionally unresponsive to those around me. That was not an unfair diagnosis, but there was more to it than just that. The higher truth that was never elicited by friends or family was that my guiding passions were being directed into complicated and ultimately occult pursuits.

Trying to imagine my life going forward into the future, I found that I was unable to see how I could integrate into the surrounding cultural and social structures on satisfactory terms for myself. I didn’t recognize how I could discover and maintain a sense of participation and integrity in the world as it was being marshaled.

The official western world was openly hostile to utopian dreamers like me, but I finally figured it out.

That was their problem. Not mine.

I would do just fine. Eventually, I would be fine.

I DID CONSIDER the option of a retreat into the Establishment, corporate priesthood. Momentarily, anyway.

Even though I spent a couple of routine years before high school as an alter boy in the parish of Saint Michael the Archangel, I think I entertained the idea of a formal vocation for maybe two or three days. The prospect was rejected after a quick and solitary rumination, and with finality.

I observed the ritual of the Mass with priests who were decent, but seemingly spiritually ordinary men. And there was nothing about the institution of the Roman Catholic Church that caused me to suspect that it had any special pipeline to any of the gods; whether They were holy, dreadful, exotic, outrageous, or not.

After grade school, I completely dropped the habit of going to church, unless it was connected with a social occasion and a prelude to a party, like a wedding. Funerals were the only other way to get me back inside of any church.

I judged the Mass, and all other religious pomp that I was familiar with, to be a hollow simulation of actions that may have once been alive, but now rattled empty, having long ago been stripped of soul and context.

I also finally decided that I had to admit I didn’t buy the other fundamental notions of Christianity either. Jesus was a great prophet, sure; one of my favorites. But Jesus wasn’t the whole answer. Jesus was being used as a cop–out; a short circuit to keep people from asking the questions that still remained unanswered.

I couldn’t agree that Jesus was the only son of God. Or that Jesus was the only way that anyone could have a true relationship with God. Or that Jesus was God. That couldn’t be. I don’t believe that Jesus himself ever made that claim! Those defining demands coming from the Christian corporate headquarters just did not hold water.

If I wasn’t able to swallow the nucleus of the Christian religion, that meant I wasn’t really a Christian. OK. Fine with me.

Freed of dogma, liberated in mind, I stayed that way.

Without ceremony, and not being fully aware of the large moment of the change I was adopting, I elevated the Cosmos to that sacred status where many people place their religion’s bible.

From now on, I would turn to the Cosmos as the best possible illustration and expression of the Word of God. What better teacher, what more authoritative text, could I possibly find?

THE YEARS THAT PASSED served to confirm most of my earliest suspicions about the secular world too. I was not a member of a species that was significantly advancing in any fields of endeavor, other than the commercial and military applications of physics and technology.

Being a pragmatist regarding sociology and economics, with resigned dissent I observed that human society had not yet decided to weave together a fair and sustainable plan to secure the future of the community of humanity. Most damning of all, there was no Community of Humanity.

The nations of the world were all being run at the top through the dictators, generals, and politicians like a jungle madhouse. The inmates wielding the best weapons hoarded whatever they could grab for themselves, rightfully fearing that their coveted wealth and power were always under siege by their bitter rivals.

How many millions of humans have been killed by the armies of history and their colossal invasions of war over the centuries? History itself is defined by the rise and fall of military empires.

The murders must be a routine matter to those who push those levers. Congratulating themselves for their clever mastery of “Real World” strategy and tactics, they can’t imagine that international relations could take any more sophisticated format on this planet.

Hell, maybe they are right about that. I am well aware that they are the experts with the “Mafia thing” at the scale of nation states.

BUT I DISAGREE, and I believe that Humanity can do better. To be dependent on the predatory brain for your major strategic vision only takes you so far.

Seeing the same carnage and the depressing prospects of the immediate future, I recoiled.

Not because I am a pacifist; I’m not. Some things are worth fighting for, and even dying for, as a last resort.

But a predatory world society that has to prey on itself is far from optimal. I can easily imagine a much improved future for Humanity.

And it has never been more important to change course than it is right now. We have entered the Nuclear Age, and the consequences of another all–out war might be too catastrophic to recover from. At the least, a nuclear weapons exchange of any size could reintroduce very large parts of the world to the Stone Age for an uncertain length of time.

BESIDES, almost all of the treasure and power that all wars are fought over goes to a dark sliver of the population. Why would any sane person agree to risk everything for those “over–achievers” once more? And for what?

Simply to maintain the path the world is on right now?

Our planet’s unbroken history of increasingly destructive wars seemed to me to be the best confirmation that the bloody policy of arming the entire world to the maximum was not worthy of being called “civilized”.

It’s self–destructive.

And criminal.

Sinful? For sure. Especially so when done for greed.

Terrorist, even? Certainly.

Mad?

But history was consistently read wrongly, used wrongly, and opposite conclusions were drawn by “the elite”.

EYES WIDE OPEN for as long as I could handle, I grew up increasingly mistrusting the major institutions, and the so–called “leaders” of the planet.

I dismissed the worst of them as dangerous vampires; just gangsters who were disloyal to the human race.

If I ever felt spectacularly charitable toward one or two of the least objectionable of them, I imagined them as confused, and constrained by factors that shamefully kept them from working hard to guarantee that the planet and human society would be passed along to our future generations in a healthy condition.

I SAW shocking insanity sometimes unaccountably becoming public policy. Maybe the best example was the keystone strategic treaty of the world’s premier nations.

Supposedly, they had deliberated and found a way to impose some restraint on the murderous conflicts that bubble up like boils on the world’s body. The flowering of their most careful international statecraft produced a political and military doctrine with the offensive and in–your–face label; “mutual assured destruction”.

Of course, its mortifying acronym is “M.A.D.”, and it is so easy to agree with that too–revealing epithet.

Pieced together over many years in a procession of campy diplomatic gatherings, punctuated with rounds of polite applause and commemorated by the pressing of garish medals, they have deliberately fashioned a mutual suicide pact with the most dangerous of their respective targets.

The crazy deal is extravagantly expensive, and ensured to function by virtue of layers of redundancy and enough capacity to “bounce–the–rubble” on top of the slaughtered and vaporized civilian populations as an encore, just to put a nuclear exclamation point on the folly.

RELUCTANTLY, I understood that I was another rider within the chaotic tsunami of groping, confused billions of Homo sapiens, and the wave’s precarious crest could break and disintegrate into foam at any moment.

Refusing to commit myself to the killing floor, I determined to search for higher ground. I continued to identify and pursue the existential questions from multiple angles, both familiar and unorthodox.

Soon jettisoning the conventional, and steadily growing into my inwardly–seeking approach to spirituality, I became something of a skeptic within, and the ruling pope of, my own exclusive congregation–of–one.

IT WAS a very interesting time to be growing up in the USA. I managed to find my share of fun, and then even a little more. I had enough friends, and I didn’t find it difficult to entertain myself when I was alone either.

I was never a part of the hippie subculture, but like most people my age at the time, I did become familiar with part of the new drug scene.

The revival of the archaic psychedelic rituals, and especially their connections to spirituality and altered states of consciousness, attracted my interest.

I DECODED and discounted the over–hyped, hysterical propaganda about MaryJane^1 and psychedelics shouted by police and politicians. I became a student of those drugs that evoked condemnation that was far out of proportion to the real, harmful impact they sometimes had upon an unprepared person’s psychological circumstances.

It is true that most people should not take those drugs at the high doses that sometimes leave one alone in a psychedelic speedboat at a moonless midnight, skittering over a heaving mental and emotional sea of white. Few people are really ready to expose themselves to such heavy trips for the first time, even with plenty of focused preparation.

But I felt that I was.

I FELT THAT EVENTUALLY I would have to try them all, at least once. I put all of those new “psychedelic” drugs on my to–do list. It was an important personal, and professional requirement for me to investigate.

Someone with my personality, someone in my line of work, could not ignore this new information. This rediscovery of old–fashioned methods for tracking the spiritual quest was like finding out that Earth had two suns, and one had been obscured until now.

IN MY typical fashion, I got on with the job.

I READ about the earliest accounts of the holy men and women who considered these substances to be a reliable method for initiating a conversation with tribal deities, and other supernatural spirits.

I found the early modern reports of psychedelic scouts from the western world; Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Humphrey Osmond, Charles Tart, Terence McKenna, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, etc.

I decided it was worth a shot. This might be some type of key. I had already experienced a few different examples of higher dimensional episodes and I wanted to increase that range and number.

I was willing to try an accelerant, especially any one of those with such a long and celebrated track record.

I approached these tradition–infused sacraments with the hope that if I utilized them with the proper attitude, I would be actively displaying a serious desire to be allowed some further exposure to a higher dimensional environment in a social context.

Of course, I’d have to learn how these compounds affected my consciousness and get familiar with the type of high that could be evoked. I’d discover whether or not it was an experience that I was capable of utilizing successfully. I suspected that my private spiritual training system was going to face a defining and thorough test.

IN A MANNER not entirely tongue–in–cheek, I equated the activity of consuming one of these drugs to knocking on the front door of the most accessible gods and asking, “Anyone home?”

I understood that I might not get, or seriously desire, an opportunity to request an answer each time, but I had already stood on a higher–dimensional porch a few times and experienced Them peeking at me from between Their blinds, so I already knew They were home.

THE ONLY difficult and unnecessarily risky part about acquiring the drugs was avoiding getting ripped–off too much, and acquiring the authentic substances in the first place. Quality control was a concern too.

Being careful, learning who to trust, and for how far, listening to word–of–mouth reports, I kept oriented. The phrase, “The higher the purity, the better”, was the motto, but how could I really tell what I was taking?

There was that whiff of a reckless element to the drug scene because the federal government had decided to try to outlaw these “naughty” molecules. But I was not a heavy user, and my appropriate initial inclination was to be very wary, so my exposure was never steady or extreme.

I TOTALLY IGNORED the morality of the fact that I was sometimes technically “breaking the law”. I didn’t buy that nonsense. If they accused me, they had to arrest Mother Nature too, because She was always carrying. These molecules came right out of Her natural drug stash.

Real adults, real Americans, don’t surrender their religious freedoms, and the right to control the chemistry of their own bloodstream, so easily.

Even God doesn’t make those demands on an individual.

How can politicians and police?

WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS, these drugs, and their otherwise law abiding users, have been persecuted in such a spiteful and unconstitutional manner. I was careful, and a little lucky, I guess. Except for a single, valuable interaction with the Key West Sheriff’s Department, which was a “good arrest”, I have never been bothered for anything involving “illegal” drugs.2

WITH SPORADIC REGULARITY, I tried to intelligently consume restrained quantities of resinous hemp, central nervous system stimulants (caffeine & the more potent pharmaceutical uppers, not cocaine and especially not crack or crystal meth), the occasional challenging dose of an entheogen^3 (and whatever passes for them on the street sometimes), and a tiny sampling of a few other familiar “out–caste” molecules, as required for my spiritual and physical journey.

At the moment, there are still some items on my first, overly ambitious, to–do list that I have not yet checked–off. And I feel no real need to follow–up, just for the sake of some artificial goal of completeness. Flexibility, sufficiency, and the natural allowance for the discovery of particularly appropriate favorites make that unnecessary.

According to the criteria of my profession, and according to the protections provided to the citizens of the USA by the Constitution, I do not accept that I’ve “abused” any drugs in my preparations for spiritual exploration.

I HAVE ALWAYS assumed the freedom to live my life as I see necessary.

GODSPEED to you and yours.

1.  MaryJane: weed, grass, MariaJuana, pot, resinous hemp, cannabis, etc.

2.  What happened in Key West is detailed in Chapter : Busted In Key West

3.  entheogen(ic): a newer synonym for “psychedelic”.

Chapter 3

Not Flatland

I THINK IT’S FUN to speculate about the nature of consciousness, and about alternatives to our four–dimensions of ordinary reality; the Universe that Science likes to call “Space–Time”.

Is it possible that additional dimensions, higher dimensions, exist within this Universe? Are they accessible to our minds in any way?

What about dimensions beyond this Universe?

Or, turning it around a bit just for fun, have you ever wondered what it could be like to exist in a world with fewer dimensions than four?

What might life be like in a three–dimensional Universe?

IN ENGLAND in 1884, a short novel was written, precisely about life in a 3–dimensional Universe. Titled Flatland,1 it is a clever and humorous story about a fictional world, which only has two dimensions of space to compliment the fluid dimension of time.

In the repressed reality that the individuals of Flatland roamed, the limiting condition was that the pristine and discrete dimension corresponding to our perception of Height did not exist.

The inhabitants of Flatland perceived all objects, including their own bodies, as totally flat, pancake–like items of various widths and motifs, depending upon which sub–species of the Flatland folk they represented.

Although unique and personally compelling, their existence as solitary individuals was cramped and hobbled by the fact that they lived on an utterly flat, infinite plane.

Acting, … reacting, … they conducted their busy affairs on the absolutely featureless surface that extended off into a flat, horizontal infinity, without distinction or borders.

Inhabiting bodies that were far flatter and thinner than even the thinnest of individual molecules, Flatlanders were never aware of the existence of the additional dimension of Height, which surrounded their world in an enfolding, perpendicular embrace of higher reality.

THE MAIN CHARACTER in the tale is an eccentric citizen who soon has a problem with elements of the local bureaucracy. As the story proceeds, his arguments bring up philosophical concepts that get our Flatlander friend singled–out for hard persecution by the authorities.

Eventually, his actions and words become so uncomfortable for the local government that he is even imprisoned on trumped–up charges.

WHILE BEING HELD CAPTIVE in the local jail reserved for social outcasts, he was soon rescued and bodily lifted–up from the horizontal reality of his home world by the kindly intercession of a seemingly supernatural 4–dimensional creature.

The apparently god–like soul who intervened was actually a being just like us; just like a human who is very much at home in the four dimensions of Space–Time.

He plucked–up the imprisoned Flatlander from the two–dimensional prison as easily as we may lift an unnaturally flat pancake from the “imprisoning” surface of a thin, wide, stovetop griddle.

Now tripping under the guidance, and within the grasp, of his higher–dimensional escort, the Flatlander viewed his old world from above for the first time. Offered the lucky chance to sample the additional richness of existence that an extra dimension generates, he grasped the significance of his new orientation.

The Flatlander saw firsthand that he had carelessly and lazily accepted false limits on what he believed to be the extent of reality. Understandably, he was awestruck and disturbed by the tumultuous experience.

THE BRIEF trip into the fresh fundamentals of four dimensions, while bewildering and a bit frightening as it occurred, was quickly becoming comprehensible to him. The Flatlander was intellectually energized enough to rearrange his philosophy and his beliefs to conceptualize and accept the new information.

Now that he had experienced how rapidly the illusions of the lower dimensions could be dispelled, he projected this new information forward in his imagination.

HE PRESSED his new confidant to continue to work with him. He wanted to expand with the opportunity to travel ever–higher among the multi–dimensional levels of existence, into which he had now been initiated.

He floated the notion that his newly improved view of the infinite Universe likely contained wonders beyond the mere four dimensions they had available now to explore. He wanted to form a partnership for the purpose of adventure, and for the pure pursuit of knowledge.

Even the unlikely lure of searching for the ultimate abode of Divinity was invoked.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR the budding psychonaut,2 our friend from Flatland, his new, human–like, 4–D savior was not as quick to learn from the same unfolding pattern of dimensional evidence.

Curiously, it was not the Flatlander, but it was the higher–dimensional creature who narrow–mindedly defended the obsolete belief that there is no chance of any further scope to the Universe. He refused to think about going beyond the customary and traditional limits that he had received and accepted from his more fortunate culture.

Although the higher–dimensional creature could easily and correctly ridicule the errors of the typical Flatland perspective, he nevertheless irrationally clung to the illusion that four dimensions finally and forever exhausted the potential scope of reality.

Of course, he was wrong.

Mistaken.

Incorrect.

In error.

ALTHOUGH SPACE–TIME is an awesome, boundless marvel, it is merely a prelude to the genuine extent of what may be revealed to our higher–dimensional faculties.

Like that excited citizen of Flatland, who had received assistance to glimpse more of reality than others usually see, I have a story of a similar nature, but much more expansive.

Having often tried to imagine what it could be like to live in a 5–dimensional Universe, and sometimes partially succeeding, when I was presented with the chance to actually visit Hyper–Reality, to really visit an extravagant and boundless Hyper–Universe, I was ready!

What follows is my attempt to describe that visit and the immediate environment during the hours ramping up to it, preceded by a skeleton description of my backstory.

1.  Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott; There are many editions and adaptations of this classic fable.

2.  psychonaut: one who explores consciousness, especially consciousness in the higher dimensions, by direct, first–hand experiential techniques; perhaps the world’s second–oldest profession.

Chapter 4

Fingering The Ganges Transmission

AT THE AGE of 28, I was living in a one–bedroom apartment in Miami. Since I arrived with my family in South Florida as a 10–year–old child from Philadelphia, the City of Miami and the South Florida suburbs had become the focus of a vortex.

The cultural whirlpool pulled into itself new life, celebrity icons, X–rated rackets, international intrigue, ethnic exoticism, and an unfettered cross section of everything spawned by the North and South American continents and beyond.

The allure of life in the natural world spans all attributes, and their opposites; from beyond the fragile and flamboyant orchid, to the ancient and lurking crocodile. The personalities of the human residents of South Florida mimicked that same extreme range of possibilities.

OVER THE YEARS, the local social matrix continued to fracture along multiple cultural fault lines. At times, it seemed to me that I occupied my own tiny archipelago among the fragmentation, and I moved as an emigrant in my own native country.

Of course I struggled, but I adapted as the society changed around me. I developed skills required to navigate, participate, and integrate among the contending ethnic zones. I certainly enjoyed ricocheting among the people and places occupying the southern tip of the unique, sub–tropical peninsula. I also valued my time alone.

Living solitarily in my shady oasis in the asphalt desert, my little home base was near a small finger of still water and among a stand of tall trees. I liked the spot.

I insulated myself from the cross–cultural chatter and I found it easy to relax at night, even though I was barely a block away, and one story up, from the six–lane, stop–and–go, growling river of chrome & steel–on–wheels which is Highway US–1 as it approaches Coconut Grove from the south.

The carnival of South Florida blared 24/7, but I usually chose to stay on the margins of the crowds. I had other interests, and now my focus became much more self–absorbed because my details were changing radically.

MAYBE TWO WEEKS EARLIER, for good reason, I had walked–out “on–the–spot” and quit the best job that I ever had.

I didn't regret having left so abruptly. I was still young, without dependents, and without real responsibilities, but the prospect of my steady income drying up for a while did seem to put a temporary kink in the flow. I also didn’t have any prospects for another job lined–up, so I was trying to coast, at least for a while.

My options were not great. Maybe I could quickly find something else, somewhere else, but my head and my heart were not into it. I guess I needed time to regroup.

I still felt that everything would somehow work–out right for me. I'd just have to try to catch the next opportunity when it presented itself and keep looking for a positive spin. Despite the coming uncertainties, at least I had some extra time to relax.

Very soon, a sunny Saturday afternoon rolled around.

REMINISCING ABOUT that summer day now, I remember that I had settled into a comfortable wicker chair in my bedroom to kick–back with the wall–mounted A/C unit blasting. Pulled up close to a small, round, glass–top table that flanked my bed, I started reading a book titled Exo–psychology. The author was Timothy Leary. Very unexpectedly, after just a few pages, I was totally enthralled!

Even though I have considered myself to be a member of the USA’s counterculture since the first time I ever heard the word, I was unfamiliar with any of the written work of the late Timothy Leary. I was not particularly fond of his strategic and tactical antics in the conflicts that America’s counterculture experienced with authoritarian groups and individuals either.

FOR SOME truly occult reason, a few days earlier I had purchased his peculiar publication. Although I was certainly aware of Leary as a cultural and political gadfly, I had never read any of his books, until I picked up this one.

I remember that when I first noticed it in the bookstore at the mall, it was sitting in some type of discount bin, atop a pile of cookbooks and travel guides; totally out of its element. My glance captured the center of the book’s cover, displaying an ascetic, black–and–white, head & shoulder shot of the psychedelic celebrity in an unembellished white tee–shirt.

The book’s message was summarized in the especially intriguing and outrageous sub–title; “A Manual on the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers”.

I had to smile at the audacity of Leary, as he presumed to speak for the Intelligence that animates DNA. Regardless of his numerous pratfalls in the straight culture, and in the counterculture too, he still overreached. But this time, I would learn that he had pieced–together something phenomenal.

LATER IN THE YEAR, after doing some research on Leary, I discovered that most of the credit for the pattern–morphing impact this book was to have on my personal “mind map” was due to an old Hindu work of graphical art that Leary received while he was sheltered at his borrowed Millbrook, New York mansion during 1963.

In that cloistered setting, near a tributary of the Hudson River, he welcomed a visitor, identified as “Professor Adams” from the Oriental Philosophy Department of Rutgers University, who hand–delivered to him a valuable booklet that was several hundred years old.

Adams was an emissary, acting on behalf of an elderly and much venerated yogi in Calcutta, who lived on the mudbanks of the Ganges River. To his devotees, the old guru’s nick–name was “Shiva–gee”.

THE HEIRLOOM booklet that Adams conveyed to Millbrook consisted of twenty–four sophisticated images, which portrayed an evolutionary sequence. The insightful systematization of the past and its shocking, provocative predictions about the future of human culture and human consciousness made its suggestive and dramatic impression upon the residents of the mansion that were allowed access to its pages.

For some reason, that amazing transmission of information from India was commandeered by Leary and not released to the public until thirteen years later, when his first, offbeat autobiography was published in 1976.

In that book, he finally described in some detail the antique treasure which Shiva–gee had bestowed upon him for dissemination. Leary also narrated the amusing details of the prolonged process of the document’s delivery to the USA by “Adams”.

1.  Exo–psychology by Timothy Leary, 1977; ISBN 0–915238–16–0. Republished in 1987 as Info–psychology.

2.  See Appendix : Leary: Blarney, Pratfalls, & Legacy

3.  “Professor Adams” is presented as an alias by Leary to obscure the person’s identity.

4.  An abbreviated interpretation of those twenty–four images is contained in Appendix : The 8 Circuits & 24 Stages of Evolution.

5.  What Does WoMan Want? by Timothy Leary, a numbered, oversize paperback; illustrated with line drawings.

Chapter 5

Camp Reunion

RETURNING TO MY recollection of that laid–back Saturday afternoon in South Miami …

RELAXED IN JEANS and tee–shirt, lounging in my cool bedroom, my bare feet enjoyed the chilly touch of the smooth terrazzo floor. Oblivious to all else, Leary’s book was an iridescent revelation, and I eagerly continued reading it through the late afternoon.

Because there often is a certain amount of noise embedded within a text’s signal, I passed its sentences through a sequence of mental filters, trying to sniff–out any plausible inaccuracies. I also was on the lookout for examples of Leary’s notorious blarney. 1

I did spot a few whoppers, but I let it ride.

MOST OF THE IDEAS and concepts being transmitted seemed familiar to me, and as welcome as a friendly, inhabited island is to a desperate, shipwrecked sailor. I felt as though Leary had been reading my mind, and then embellishing and reinforcing with additional cutting–edge facts and opinions from psychology, sociology, and the future.

Cerebral fireworks erupted inside my skull. As an unanticipated bonus, Leary’s paperback was getting me high. Just by reading his book, I was literally getting high!

AT LEAST, … that's what I thought was happening at the time.

IT WAS the very first time I had ever been so pleasantly warped by merely reading a book, but at about 6:30, having finished the first half, I put it down because I had some unusual plans for that evening.

It was the night of my ten–year high–school reunion, and it was time to get showered and dressed for the occasion. I felt great! My body’s internal endorphins and the anticipation of the upcoming festivities made an exceptionally nice combination.

IN MY TYPICAL FASHION, I drove downtown to the gathering alone. I parked my ride and took an elevator up from the parking garage basement to the appropriate floor of the hotel that was hosting the affair.

I meandered into the milling crowd of early arrivals and only felt a bit of my usual social ambivalence. I had the feeling that this was going to be fun.

I mingled, to observe the young alumni of Miami High. While we had all been time–traveling for the last ten years, a mild metamorphosis had transformed us into more sophisticated echoes of familiar high school personas. From that huge institution of indoctrination and cultural conditioning, there had been a graduating class of over a thousand my senior year, and hundreds of us had gathered again a decade later to perform this ritual.

BY THE TIME the appointed hour arrived, the Omni Hotel ballroom was packed. We sat together at round tables, in groups of eight, and accepted the main course of rubbery chicken and overcooked vegetables. The small talk among those who shared my table was friendly and polite.

I was sitting next to René, a friend who I had not seen for a very long time. Back in the day, we had both played on the baseball team. We talked, laughed, and traded buying each other a drink from the open bar in the foyer, before eventually sitting down for the food serving.

René, a large, black, Cuban dude, had come to the reunion by himself too. Unfortunately, he had been recently widowed. I told him that I had read in The Miami Herald about his social activist wife’s death from an illness earlier in the same year. He was surprised that I was aware of his personal tragedy and he thanked me when I expressed my condolences at the table in front of the three couples gathered with us, the two stags in this little group.

The couples who completed our circle included a fellow alumnus who I had also shared an economics class with a few years earlier at the nearest state university’s campus, and two young women who were hot and pleasantly flirtatious, even though they were there with their alumni dates.

As for the other three people at the table, two guys and my former classmate’s wife, I didn’t connect with them at all.

AFTER a forgettable dessert, the dishes were soon cleared and the crush of former “Stingrays”2, along with their husbands, wives, and dates, were treated to the bygone student leaders clustered on a slightly raised stage, attempting to momentarily reassume their former status by performing short monologues meant to inform, entertain, and boast, if possible.

Soon enough, we heard an abrupt and familiar martial musical cue sounding–out, and responded by rising to cheer the old school fight–song, just like it used to happen at the frantic football pep rallies in our uncommonly ornate high school auditorium.

The first brassy song notes followed, blaring out from somewhere. God! Had a group of former band members been cajoled into bringing along trumpets and even a set of drums for the occasion?

No. For the first time, I focused on the room’s distant details enough to mark that there was a tuxedoed dance band located beyond the festooned islands of the occupied tables, on the far side of the hall. I’m not a dancer, and I hadn’t brought along a date, so that detail had been ignored and sent to a mental bit bucket during my initial take on the venue.

The barked lyrics of the school fight–song exploded and reverberated in the vaulted ballroom, as the participants ferociously pounded their palms together and stomped their wingtips and high heels on the floor. I broke into an amazed laugh at the jarring, hilarious, and delicious display of high, and low, camp.

I happily joined in the granfalloonery^3 of the moment, but with reserve.

Predictably, as my gaze passed over the crowd, I didn’t recognize everyone, and I realized that most people wouldn’t remember my name either, but I did spot some additional long forgotten friends. Once the official program had finished, I roamed around the ballroom and met some of them again. We enjoyed talking about the past, and traded optimistic evaluations of our future prospects before parting.

IT WAS FUN. It was strange. I was still feeling a natural high.

AS THE EVENING stuttered onward, post–celebration party planners self–selected into their favorite group memberships; the Geeks, the Greeks, the Debutantes, the Cheerleaders, the Potheads, the Jocks, and a dozen other affinity groups swirled about, intermingling, and parting again with plans to wring–out the experience further into the evening.

Representing my rare caste, the Hyperheads, while I interacted with most of the other groups, I could merge with none. I have never been a big party person, and I didn’t need a second party that night.

I skipped a combined Yuppie and Wethead^4 after–party being thrown in a couple of the hotel rooms upstairs that had been rented for the evening. I was among the first to leave the milestone rendezvous that night. I had seen enough, and I had unfinished business that called me home early that night.

THE REUNION HAD BEEN very enjoyable, and something like a time–telescoped recapitulation of my high–school years.

I claimed my ride from the hotel garage and retraced my path home; rolling down Biscayne Boulevard and Brickell Avenue, then into the metastasis of suburban Dade County sprawl along the Dixie Highway.

On the way home, I thought a little bit about all the other parties I had skipped over the years, and the other touchstone events of adolescence and adulthood I had felt the need to dodge.

Already for a long time, I had been following the notion that while lunatics^5 are controlling the asylum of our so–called “civilization”, the sane might be wise to restrict their participation in that society, and search relentlessly for the exit doors that promised some relief.

Or maybe just try to get by, and somehow keep as clean as required, and personally develop into light.

ARRIVING HOME, shedding my coat, I cracked open my half–finished book at the table in my bedroom.

The impending dimensional rupture, mere hours away now, increased its amplitude and continued sending its shock waves flowing backwards through time, triggering my body to steadily pump its homegrown molecules of acceleration and delight into my bloodstream.

I was getting higher.

Reading beyond midnight, I vacuumed–up the remaining pages of Exo–Psychology. The second–half was even better than the first. It was an interpretation of the twenty–four images of Shiva-gee’s picture book, along with associated glyphs and diagrams that attempted to illustrate and complement their unfolding, sequential message.

These pages were the soul of the book; a freaking Rosetta Stone^6 of higher–dimensional human evolution, and a dynamic template for hyper–dimensional culture.

I finished it, and then began reviewing and mapping its theories against my current intellectual and emotional world–view. Any thought of sleep was far away as I focused on the unusual information presented in the book, and I played with the new ideas in my mind.

I lifted my eyes occasionally and looked at the room’s simple furnishings and white walls. The dark outlines of tall, feathery Australian pine trees were visible through the bedroom window’s Venetian blinds.

While the A/C wall unit hummed, the entire room, and I too, vibrated in high frequency anticipation.

1.  See Appendix : Leary; Blarney, Pratfalls &Legacy

2.  Stingray : endowed with a potentially lethal, and always extremely painful barbed tail, this familiar and ancient sea creature was the high school’s totem animal; its mascot.

3.  granfalloonery : the harmless and meaningless activity of a granfalloon; a word that was invented for the novel Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. A granfalloon is “a seeming team that’s meaningless in terms of the way God gets things done”. According to Mr. Vonnegut, in addition to groups of high school classmates, examples of granfalloons include “Hoosiers, the communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows – and any nation, anytime, anywhere.”

4.  wethead : an individual who frequently drinks alcoholic beverages.

5.  What lunacy?  See Appendix : What Lunacy?

6.  Rosetta Stone:  a) an engraved stone slab, found in 1799 in Rosetta, Egypt, bearing identical inscriptions in Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphic, and the common writing of ancient Egypt, which facilitated the decipherment of hieroglyphics.  b) any item that possesses the extraordinary capability to render decipherable a complex and mystifying scheme, system, or pattern.

Chapter 6

Pretty Bubbles

MY BUZZING, ELECTRIC EUPHORIA remained constant as I pursued the intellectual scent trail. Abruptly, it twisted into a novelty that I had never seen before; … a gentle gash, … the slightest tear?

I couldn’t identify it, but there it was, in the room, floating almost between the window and me.

Quickly, amazingly, magically, the tiny spherical sector holding my attention began expanding rapidly and dissolving into a sparkling, foamy effervescence. Within a few seconds, throughout my entire field of vision, I was engulfed in a lovely, shimmering, dancing cascade of turbulent quantum bubbles …

… and I was not in Florida any more …

“ … far out … ”, I murmured …

RATHER THAN BEING surprised or frightened, I reacted to the exotic transformation of Space–Time with a calm curiosity. Why shouldn’t I? I had been going “far out” of my way to cultivate similar experiences for almost a decade! 1

As I easily settled into the quantum foam like it was a mattress, I no longer had any awareness of my physical body. I was experiencing events as a disembodied point–of–view. This too was not a new sensation and, relying on my previous seasoning in this agreeable ambience, I trusted that I would remain intellectually and existentially intact.

Instinctively, I felt that I was in the presence of Intelligence that I could communicate with, and interact with, although I could not see anything or anyone within the soft, bright chaos. But after just a little time passed, in a casual though persistent manner, I began to be “interrogated” by the Entities, which I had merely intuited until then. The method they used to interview me was very ingenious, very efficient, and emotionally intense.

There was none of the familiar question–and–answer dialogue that one expects during an interrogation. In fact, spoken language was hardly used at all, by them or by me. Instead, I was probed by the ability of these Beings to create panoramic “Fantasy–Realities”.

By the sweep of their mentality and will, imaginary and independent representations of seemingly flesh–and–blood human co–participants appeared within a familiar social context. Pervading waves of hyper–telepathic information locked me with them, in an interpersonal grid of participation and shared history. Everything that appeared before me, and all of the details that I gathered, was orchestrated by the projected, holographic, sentient intent of the Entities. Though I still could not see them, I felt their presence strongly now.

What I perceived as the other people in the literally magical environment were almost always flawless replicas of my relatives and friends at various stages of their lives. The physical textures of objects within the Fantasy–Reality environment were lavishly beyond familiar Space–Time in terms of richness and charm.

If you’ve ever had a super–realistic lucid dream, that experience is a good analogy for understanding what I am categorizing as a Fantasy–Reality. Or imagine yourself on the magical “Holodeck” of the Star Trek© star–ship Enterprise, and reacting to someone running a prolonged and intimately personal sequence of programmed realities on you.

They engaged me within a long and varied series of their Fantasy–Realities. Often, the justification for each changing scenario was to present me with a social situation involving a large or small ethical dilemma, which I was expected to absorb, evaluate, and bring to a conclusion.

They also wanted to see how friendly I was, so they tested how I responded to having fun, and to being petted, and to see if I would get their jokes.

They were able to select and investigate in detail any part of my philosophical and behavioral foundations that they cared to examine. Even my thoughts, which led up to my final decisions and actions, were available to them via the telepathic transparency of my mind.

In this manner, I exposed every atom of myself to their satisfaction. Working together, we eventually concluded the most sophisticated and absolute psychic strip–search that I will ever have the pleasure to experience.

For that is primarily what it was; a strip–search of my entire personality. They came already ready to like me, and God knows how happy I was to be with them! But they looked up and down all of the mountains, caves, and valleys, and into the watery deep of my mind too, before they decided what they were willing to try next.

Looking backwards, it’s now easy for me to understand what was the purpose for my audience in those personalized morality plays and multiphase conversations. Every detail of every scene was a part of the two fundamental questions that they determined I would answer for them that night:

“WAS I, Mister Zot, capable of sharing in an open,

intimate, reciprocal manner, the hyper–reality that They

themselves, my higher dimensional Interrogators, fully

occupied?”

“WAS I at all reluctant to do so?”

THE SECOND QUESTION was necessary because our interaction up to now had implicitly expressed that the nature of my departure and passage to higher dimensions did not have any prospect of return associated with it. If I took this path, there was the potentially poignant understanding that the doorway back to my previous existence would shut securely behind me. If I went forward from here, I could no more return to Space–Time than a butterfly could revert to a caterpillar.

As I hope I have explained, they had unique ways of posing this challenge, but that’s about what it really boiled down to.

Ultimately, the totality of my responses yielded a definite “Yes!” to the first question, and an enthusiastic “No!” to the second.

I had passed this test.

AFTER a short, summarizing pause, I realized that we were now touching. For the first time, I felt a different “physical” sensation as a couple of them reached out to connect with me. This new type of direct contact was pulling and guiding me, even though I still couldn’t see any of them.

Leading me along, they escorted me beyond another, more elevated threshold of metaphysical & spiritual separation. Immediately upon passing that next exotic and nebulous barrier, I was wide–eyed and dazzled by the splendor of a densely populated culture of incredible, lovely, luxuriating Divinities.

THE INDIVIDUALS that I now encountered were all enchantingly attractive and supernaturally detailed “Centers of Light”. In the form I now viewed them, they had no stable, physical mode, or even distinct boundaries to confine the essence of their magnificent existence.

Imagine standing among an expanse of glorious, illuminated Sources of Light; each one distinct, awesome, alive with grace, and not bounded in any manner. The most intense area of bewitching brilliance marked the primary center of individuality of each Being, but the outwardly radiated light was also an integral expression of their essence as well.

Simply to bask in their presence, and literally be bathed in the spectrum of their captivating consciousness, created a sensation of intimacy that was so penetrating, and so close, that the nature of the environment was instantly symbiotic and profoundly personal.

The entire domain of their consciousness was an unbounded, animated, and extended sphere, pushing outward from its origin. Their thoughts were sentient; radiating and marked with their identity, they interpenetrated instantly into all of the divine population. Every idea and every sentiment they conceived remained somehow alive with their spirit.

Within their culture, the baseline emotion is ecstasy, and everything is a miraculous expression of an intricately pleasurable concept or activity. Their routine interactions are joyful and unique to a degree that is beyond human ability to fully experience in Space–Time.

Words are insufficient. I am incapable of a more detailed picture of the perpetual pleasures that define Their existence.

I HAPPILY admit that whatever I may say about their style, or philosophy of existence is an unavoidable understatement and laughably incomplete. How does one even begin to use language, either spoken or written, to describe the environs of “Heaven”? I must depend on you, to try to color–in with your imagination what I so inadequately stammer about.

The nature of the environment did require that certain “admission conditions” be maintained rather strictly, and I feel that I can speak clearly enough regarding that set of ethical benchmarks.

BECAUSE OF THEIR flawless social symbiosis and infinitely interlaced interactions, there are compelling reasons to assure that their turf is off–limits for anyone who might not be capable of being their good neighbor, or a very close friend, or maybe even more.

Once I had become immersed in their reality, I quickly understood and fully endorsed the necessity for the extensive philosophical frisking that I had recently been subjected to, and had successfully completed. It was a mandatory, common–sense precaution. If the entrance exam is not passed, the chips are allowed to fall as they must. It’s as simple as that.

There may be, there must be, other means of entry than what I experienced, but I can’t imagine that there is any way that instantaneous free passes are being offered. And for very good reason; just as harmony is unavoidably and joyously shared among the gods, disharmony would instantly propagate every bit as easily and universally. The symbiotic nature of the experience of higher dimensions is total, fundamental, and to be protected.

HYPER–REALITY supports a culture of consciousness where sheer ideas, thoughts, perceptions, etc., create an equivalent mode of touch and consequences similar to the way direct physical contact causes physical sensations in Space–Time.

In Heaven, the slightest mental rebuke, if it ever actually occurred, would yield a palpable displeasure. An equivalent event within Space–Time in its meaning and effect might be an inappropriate slap in the face; not something that you would welcome.

The probability that any real degree of disharmony may occur is thoroughly researched beforehand, and the possibility of conflict is intensely and intimately investigated against.

They do not take risks to their perfection being crashed by allowing questionable newcomers to immigrate. That is the reason for the extensive screening process, like the one that I passed through.

Of course, it’s a fair process, and They are content to take all the time needed to thoroughly probe the prospect and give appropriate consideration. They will get to the truth.

THIS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL FEATURE of those symbiotic higher dimensions that sets the ground rules for conduct;

Everyone unavoidably interpenetrates everyone else, in a

mode of continuous and unmitigated psychical connection

unlike anything that can be sustained within Space–Time.

Because of their strict and perpetual prerequisite of

harmonious compatibility, in order to access their domain, the

entrance standards are intensively high.

1.  While seeking experiences of a transcendental nature, I used certain drugs for the purpose of exposing myself to altered states of consciousness. However, the experience on the night of my school reunion, like all of my highest, “peak experiences”, occurred while I was straight.

Chapter 7

Mister Zot?

WELL, YOU MAY ASK,  …   if their standards are so high, why did they let me in?

Mister Zot might seem a little disreputable to a person operating with a moral compass calibrated by an overly–rigid set of attitudes. According to what some people have been told to believe, someone like me might not be welcomed in heaven.

It may be a surprise to the disapproving authoritarian crowd that the most extravagant hedonists I have interacted with disapprove of me too.

I am a big advocate of trying to enjoy life, and I look for pleasure at every opportunity for its wise enjoyment. But, according to the “life is just a cocktail party” crowd, I am too judgmental and moralistic, too concerned about social justice, and too willing to exclude for cause.

But none of that matters now. I don’t claim to make the rules. I’m passing along information and working for the privilege to do that.

THE MEMBERS OF HEAVEN treated me swell, and I fit right in. Any supposed shortcomings in my character presented absolutely no problem to my higher dimensional hosts.

MUCH MORE IMPORTANT from their point of view, and in my favor:

* I am intelligent and I want to learn.

* I’m not dishonest.

* I try to be fair, and an important part of being fair means that I try to correct my mistakes when I make them.

* I’ll stand up for what’s right.

* I’m capable of love and passion.

* I value accomplishment, pleasure, leisure, and community, over control or power.

* I still know how to play.

* I care about the innocent, and about the future of our world’s children.

* I don’t behave like I’m the only one who counts, but I’m not a chump for those who only want to take everything, for nothing in return.

* I welcome the planetary DNA bonds I inherit, and I feel respect and consideration for all the species that share this planet Earth with Homo sapiens.

* I’m patient.

* I’m determined.

* I reciprocate.

* I think there is hope.

* I know there is a reason.

THESE ARE EXAMPLES of crucially important behaviors that are required, not optional, in the symbiotic culture of higher dimensions.

Maybe elevating me a bit further was the sad realization that most individuals want no part of the type of experiences that I had spent my life seeking. I’m not sure how much “competition” I may have had for this prize. This branch of the family of psychic or metaphysical attainment is considered to be absolute madness to many people.

While it’s true that many people in our sick world are mad, I’m not.

What had happened was that I had got something very right. No one really understood that in my own way, I had been working hard for a long time, sometimes feeling keen disappointment, but never too near despair, tugging at my leash, hoping for something like this to happen!

TO TELL THE TRUTH, I was a perfectly acceptable candidate, my credentials were enviable, and from my perspective, it felt like a homecoming.

***************

This free edition of Star Maker’s Apprentice at feedbooks.com has been published in the “epub” format, and it is not a complete edition of the book. One reason for this is because the epub format does not support the display of illustrations of any type. The PDF and Kindle versions at feedbooks.com are derived from the epub version, and therefore they are also not complete.

All partial versions of Star Maker’s Apprentice here at feedbooks.com do not contain the additional chapters, illustrations, and appendices that are included with the full edition that will soon be available for purchase in PDF format at the following locations:

1] The Google Books Internet web site, which will open in December, 2010.

2] Amazon eBooks (in September 200)

3] other Internet sales locations will be selected very soon

For a limited time, we have made all of the photographs and graphics of the complete edition available online for viewing at the following Internet location:

http://ambassadorzot.com/ambassa9/star-makers-apprentice-imag/

If you have found sufficient value in this book, I ask you to purchase a copy of the full PDF format edition, which contains much more information. We request your financial support in this manner.

Also, if you want to acquire a “hardcopy” first edition paperback of Star Maker’s Apprentice, please directly contact me, F. Louis Szot, aka “Ambassador Zot”; flszot@gmail.com

We also encourage contact from individuals or small groups who have a desire to interact with the Author and his Partners.

***************

Chapter 8

Beyond Heaven

THERE IS NO WAY of knowing how long I stayed at that level among Divinity in that “High Country”. The fluid mechanism of Time does not function the same way there, as it does in Space–Time.

I won’t attempt to resolve the differences because Time exhibits startling features in those higher dimensions, which our normal intellect is conditioned to regard as outlandish.

For now, I’ll only say that there were many interactions among the Inhabitants and myself, and the atmosphere remained extremely intimate. Just being present to share a close thought with a Divinity is much more sublime than almost any sensation two humans may share.

No telling what might have happened if I had intended to become familiar enough to maybe kiss one of the female goddesses. Although I stayed for what seemed like a generous amount of time, I didn’t stay long enough to think about the higher equivalent of kissing. Once I felt almost thoroughly acclimated, I found myself having a curiously furtive brainstorm.

IN MY MIND, the notion began to germinate that I really must be in the midst of the metaphysical source of humanity’s myths regarding supernatural Entities. But that was too wild of a guess to swallow without confirmation. I couldn’t just take my own word for it!

But if this wasn’t true, if these weren’t the angels, spirits, and gods of countless fables told by every branch of the Tree of Humanity over time, I needed to ask for a better explanation.

I believed that I was in the dimensions that the Western tradition of spirituality most often calls “Heaven”, but I was not willing to trust my own evaluation of the singular situation. So, I moved close and asked one of them the question directly;

“This is what they call “Heaven”, isn’t it?!”

WITHIN those higher dimensions, although certainly telepathic, this was still somehow the equivalent of a “vocal” mode of communication. But in addition, there was a simultaneous accompanying mode of inquiry; an associated sub–telepathic field; a non–verbal yet directly intelligible form of transmission that furnished a wealth of intelligence in parallel with my surmise.

Its content was much more dense than just my few “spoken” words. The field amplified my assertion by surrounding it in an atmosphere of clarifying, ambient information. My silent thoughts were telepathically inferred and transmitted.

In the sub–telepathic thought–field of communication, the single word “they” within my “verbal” question was more fully defined as being the native humanity I had left behind; Homo sapiens. They were no longer the society and species for which I would hold allegiance.

NOW, my loyalty belonged to the High Country of Heaven and its Inhabitants. Having assumed an expanded identity beyond that of a domesticated primate from Earth, I was a new citizen of the ultimate Utopia.

I had been granted, I had won, true asylum from the proverbial “killing floor”.

I no longer felt subject to the limitations of Space–Time, and to the dictates of biology and physics. There was not the slightest trace of emotion or logic pulling me back. This new, lofty mind–set was spawned, thrashed–out and confirmed during my prolonged “interrogation”, and the subsequent welcoming I had enjoyed.

All these underlying facets of meaning were clearly transmitted beneath my guess as I asked that one, close, glowing god, “This is what they call “Heaven”, isn’t it?!”

The vocal aspect of my query served as a “carrier wave” for the sub–telepathy field.

In turn, the angel I had asked “vocally” responded instantly and emphatically; “Yes!”, he said.

The ambient transmission field that he also reflected back to me provided further assurance, like another easy nod of agreement, as if a bubble of his thoughts had popped into my consciousness, he lightly elaborated; “Pure and simple.”

SUPERNATURAL lore and dreams now having been transformed into confirmed, established knowledge for me through his validation, I immediately made the judgment that continued and broadened my good fortune. Taking a personal leap of faith, I confidently declared to myself; “Well, if there’s this, there must be more!”

It seemed inescapable to me that the verified existence of this first mega–miracle of a “Heaven” implied the necessity of at least one more miracle, and without objection, I decided to act on that conviction.

Casually gesturing “Adios!” to my newly adopted relatives, They accommodated a cushioning space that enveloped me in a partial separation.

Not even wondering about if I could succeed, I cast my mind back to the moment when I last slipped from one assemblage of dimensions into the higher. I reflected back to the moment when I had been conducted and transported to this divine environment of Heaven.

With naive eagerness, trusting my heart, I adapted that memory into another forward thrust of my consciousness, and I moved … this time without escort.

Another opaque and obscure inter–dimensional boundary threshold formed around me. Melding into the softness, I speedily breached it in a frictionless flow, and I mushroomed into a wickedly breathtaking collaboration of further flamboyant dimensions.

This new, mega–supernatural divine–reality was at least as far beyond the level of the first Heaven, as that first Heaven was beyond my bedroom in South Miami.

Chapter 9

Leaving Plato's Cave

AT THIS POINT, my meager writing talent having stretched beyond the snapping point, I must refuse to even attempt a detailed outline of the newest level of reality, which I was ecstatic to imprint.

I was in virgin territory. Maps of this terrain cannot be passed on, unless one feels that poetry and metaphor is a valid ink and paper.

These newest dimensions, essentially indescribable, encompassed the previous assemblage. They were a fantastic leap upward in divinity, complexity, and pleasure, but they also somehow contained the prior levels in their entirety. While this latest advance was cosmically larger, irresistibly magnetic, and addictive in the extreme, it arose in union with the previous stratum, as surely as a blossom finally comes from a seed.

I STILL retain one strain of memories from those dimensions directly beyond the first Heaven that is stronger than the rest. That recollection still radiates coherently enough to outline with a large degree of confidence.

Among the other essences, I experienced the incandescent platonic Ideals. Strange, glorious, vibrant and quintessentially real; these were the templates for pristine originals of Item, or Class, or Law of creation that the charade of Space–Time mimes faintly and robotically in comparison.

Encapsulated Beauty exists there, as an icon; a unique, fundamental, yet paradoxically heterogeneous attribute of the action of creation. There too was Justice. And the smack of Truth. The essence of what it meant to be an Animal. And the crux of Vegetal existence.

Was that Joy?

I recognized Loyalty, and Honor. All were churning interactively among many other ultimate forms. Complete. Objective. A vocabulary of archetypes, each as easily identifiable as one may correctly name "a chair" while within the confines of Space–Time.

OTHER networks of supernatural phenomena, though astounding and primal as well, have not left so enduring a trace upon my current field of consciousness. I cannot recall them well enough to attempt a description, but among those manifold communications, the environment was a matrix of transcendent intellectual, emotional, and material reality–icons.

I stayed much longer in this higher Heaven than I did in the first Heaven. Eventually, in spite of my initial impression that this might at last be the bedrock source of reality, I determined once again that this was another facade. “It” wasn’t there.

I felt compelled to continue; to go further. Although fully engaged, rapidly growing, and swiftly absorbing the higher reality and its harmonics, I was still infinitely far from being satiated. My capacity for fusing into this type of experience remained canyon wide and deep. And something was still missing.

Once again, the magnitude, the fantasy, and the sacred, triggered my reflex of suppositions and premonitions; bubbling with energetic, streaking, liquid mercury theories. Morphed with another marshaling brainstorm, my thoughts realigned, and I declared to myself with hopeful certainty, “There must be even more! … ”

And I wanted it.

AND I sensed that what I wanted was somehow right there; hiding directly in front of me.

It was within my reach, and willing to be taken.

I could feel that.

I wanted to let go, and toss all restraint of my thoughts and movements, and strike off into a new and even higher range of reality.

After a short meditation, recognizing that I had the chance of my life in front of me, feeling confident of the emerging pattern, and fueled by pure desire, that’s exactly what I did.

FOLLOWING MY BEST INSTINCTS, I began to gleefully hound myself forward and upward, and I flowed with pleasure into the secret riot of novel higher dimensions.

I soon found myself going a bit faster, being seduced by the feeling. I swept through more pristine sensations, many fathoms deep, and cascaded into even more amazing rapids.

Speed brought the sensations pouring and flooding to me. That was the simple key to getting higher faster; speed was the trick.

I hit the gas firmly, and then even a little harder again; faster was so much better, in every way. Speed felt appropriate and natural here; it brought the sensations gushing, gliding, surging, and that’s what I wanted.

I picked up more acceleration. Better yet! Wide–open was the way to go. I roared into a whipping hurricane of extravagant bliss, gathered myself into a streamlined tuck, and I kicked–in the afterburners.

Then it really took off.

I ZOTTED through new thresholds again and again, and each distinct, mellow, and supple barrier that I penetrated along the sequence of unfolding dimensions produced a fabulous, explosive rush that oriented me anew, and precisely aimed me toward the next blooming phenomenon.

I flew on and spiraled higher toward a summoning critical mass of delight. How many of those separate realms did I meet, absorb, and integrate completely, then thrust beyond, and develop into the next stratum? It seemed like many thousands. It could have been millions. I can’t tell now.

Going faster and faster, moving into the indulgence, through the splendor, deeply into consciousness, deeply into everything I could never imagine; I plunged.

There are not words capable of accurately reconstructing a mere drop of the ocean I experienced in this part of my flight through that region where the gods can roam and romp for recreation. Yet, though lacking the words of description, I clearly remember an echo of the sensation.

It was joyous and wild, … wildly high, … divinely opulent, … and I felt invulnerable.

DIVINE INFINITY opened for me.

I had absolutely no thought that I could reach a boundary to the unfolding, deliriously thrilling adventure that promised to continue and proliferate.

I wanted only more, I needed only more, because the faster and higher I went, the more miraculous the new superlatives became.

I never suspected that there could be a climax awaiting me.

But then I surged through one last barrier …

In front of me was the sudden, spectacular apparition that instantly held me rapt and motionless.

I couldn’t put a name on what I was seeing. It was too beautiful, too deep, sweepingly revolutionary, the pinnacle; “It”.

Even though I was overwhelmed, and drowning in Its incomprehensibility, from that first glance, I did recognize that I was viewing the supreme and timeless love of my life.

I understood in a heartbeat that I had reached the unsuspected goal of my trip. Finally. And yet, so soon!

I was enraptured. Instead of continuing to riffle through hyper–levels of Creation like a player strumming the edges of a deck of poker cards, as I had been doing, I was captured in a mesmerized full–stop.

1.  The title of this chapter refers to Plato’s famous dialogue from The Republic; The Allegory of the Cave. He uses a series of metaphors to illustrate the concept of superior and inferior perspectives from which to gain a deeper understanding of the hierarchical nature of reality.

Chapter 10

Ultimate Love

AS SOON AS I burst upon Its presence, in some deep region of my soul, I abruptly understood that this “Great Attractor”1 had been secretly enticing me all along. I had indeed been single–mindedly searching for this very “Creature”, and now I had somehow miraculously found It.

… and It was perfect …

… PERFECTION …

… ABSOLUTELY PERFECT …

IT WAS a culmination of some nature … the consummate fusion … and It was beyond anything I had concluded was conceivable! There was simply nothing further for me to ever desire, … as I floated in front of It, … in love with this matchless Spirit.

I made no secret of how I felt either.

I radiated astonishment, veneration, and salutations. I flooded It with desire waves, adoration fields, and oceans of lavish love vibes.

Although not overtly sexual, there certainly was some type of lusting fervor and intensity on my part, holding me securely. I could have stayed right there … joyously entranced forever … and wanted nothing else.

AT FIRST, It gave no indication that It had the slightest knowledge that I was even in the same neighborhood.

I can only imagine that my persistent gushing of intense emotional energy finally turned Its head, although I wasn’t trying to do that. Simply being near It was more than enough for me. I was just spontaneously and unabashedly releasing my heartfelt feelings.

AFTER TIME, It actually turned toward me, oriented Its attention upon me, and silently acknowledged my attendance. I could feel that It had fixed me within Its direct sight, and was evaluating my presence and my history, while nonchalantly studying me for a short period of eons.

I steadily returned Its gaze in exaggerated ecstasy; my attention riveted, my spirit spellbound until, eventually, … It reached a conclusion about what was to happen next.

SOMETHING began to propel me toward my Love, and in a “voice” whose sound I am absolutely unable to categorize, It matter–of–factly stated;

“This is where you’ve come from … ”

I BRIEFLY BEGAN to puzzle over the meaning of this cryptic non sequitur, but Its words seemed secondary to what was swiftly happening to me.

I was involuntarily moving and the gap between the fabulous “Other” and myself was becoming smaller. With rapidly accelerating speed, I flew under the influence of Its mental tractor–beam, coming closer to the growing Entity looming before me.

ONLY NOW, being sucked nearer, and compelled to witness Its fantastic magnitude, only now did I begin to fully understand the difference in size that existed between us.

A deeper sense of fascination and marvel swept over me with the realization that it was only because I had been so unimaginably far away from the Creature that It had appeared to be of a size that I could understand.

Hurtling toward It now, Its dimensions seemed to explode to reveal their true awesome, expanding presence.

IT WAS  …   unexpectedly,  …   impossibly, beyond enormous.

THE DISTANCE separating us collapsed, … and It appeared to be as vast and encompassing as the sky.

And still, It didn’t stop pulling me onward.

The last shrinking space between us evaporated, and now we were about to collide.

Like a flashing photon slipping past the event horizon of a black hole, I rode the rapid avalanche of attractive force toward Its center; and everywhere was Its center now.

Darting into, and then through Its surface layer, I was smoothly absorbed by Its colossal sweep; literally engulfed and surrounded.

I WAS inside of It now, drenched in wonderment, as It revealed fabulous interior dimensions … exposing Itself as more intricate, involved, and gorgeous with each passing instant.

I PENETRATED deeper … and deeper.

1.  Great Attractor: a recently observed gravity anomaly in inter–galactic space, the closest one being in the direction of the Centaurus and Hydra constellations. Discovered in 1986, it lurks at a distance of 200–250 million light years from Earth. It affects the direction and speed of galaxies & their associated clusters over hundreds of millions of light years, including our Milky Way galaxy.

Chapter 11

Pretty Molecules

PRESENTLY, I WAS MERGED so deeply inside of Its “body” that I was able to begin to recognize the core, elemental units of organization which seemed to form the basis of Its entire physical nature. All around me now, wherever I scanned, I was submerged among diaphanous, sparkling, rotating, quasi–spherical objects.

Each elegant object inwardly unfurled its swirling, complex pattern of filaments and clusters, composed of flaring fragments, both innumerable and tiny. Each drifting, translucent harmony was familiarly rounded, but possessed of an uncertain circumference.

All the diminutive units appeared to be discrete and distinguished in their own manner, though all were fundamentally similar as well, being variations on the overarching theme of versatile hyper–orbs.

They reminded me a bit of animated and complex organic molecules, whose outline would change depending on your attitude and angle of view. But, besides being hypnotic and compelling, I didn’t know what any of them actually were designed to accomplish.

ACCORDING to my perception of the relative proportions between the innumerable objects and myself, at this closest magnification level, they were all smaller than me.

I evaluated the largest as seeming approximately the circumference of a soccer ball. The majority of the numinous bubbles resolved downward in scale; spanning through the volume of a softball, to an even smaller motif, perhaps like a plump cherry.

Of course, I had no standard to use to reference their size, and I based this evaluation upon my concept of proportions relative to my sense of self at the time.

The expanse exhibited a soft luminescence that pulsed with varying intensity. I studied the leisurely pace of the lovely procession of bright granular light twirling about the spiraling central axis of each globe–like jewel.

I intuited each object’s subtle relationships with their nearest neighbors; observing interactions passing from assenting solitude, to mere acquaintance, through an understated intimacy, and possibly on to a merging intercourse.

THERE WAS one fragment of structure that I was especially drawn toward. A cunning work of miniature organization, it almost seemed to beckon, … as it indolently circled itself.

Among the artful myriad of flickering molecules, She gently reached out to magnetically, seductively entice my attention.

UNDER my own volition now, I glided closer to examine its diminutive magnificence and I embraced it with my vision. As I inspected its magic artistry, I was allowed yet another miracle.

Unaccountably, … after a short period of closely monitoring its movements, maybe as long as it took my majestic target of observation to flirt through a mere half–revolution in Its motion–of–rotation, I was overwhelmed by a blaze of astonished recognition.

It was no longer an aggregate of flowing mystery, because I discovered that I did know one of Its names.

I knew what It was!

I was somehow able to identify exactly what that petite, pregnant, slowly spinning sphere of magic matter and twinkling light actually was;

It was my home Universe.

It was this Universe!

THE COMPLETE, exhilarating expanse of our provincial Universe was summarized and displayed in front of my sight.

Our all–encompassing Space–Time, from one expanding spherical edge of the Cosmos to the other, was close and before me, and I saw It as a discrete item; as large as the limit of all former physical possibilities, yet as small as the parasol puff of a dandelion gone to seed.

THE NEXT THING on my mind was the first, easygoing declaration of the Star Maker popping to memory;

“This is where you’ve come from … ”

I had been told once, but I had misunderstood and forgotten that warning.

With an annihilating impact, the stunning revelation hit me like a nuclear thunderclap …

I was in the innermost and private depths of

Whatever–It–Is that is composed of unique

Universes at Its “molecular” level.

IN THE NEXT INSTANT, my location snapped to revert to the original perspective from which I had first been swept into mute worship by the sight of the Star Maker, but now I knew much more fully what It was that confronted me.

Startled, shaken, my attitude had now changed completely.

I had not expected to find this final, impenetrable archetype of sacred mythological and theological speculation …

…   and It had acknowledged me?!

…   It had interacted  …   with me?!

Dumbfounded.

I was dumbfounded.

ALTHOUGH I’ve always believed in the existence of some ultimate Goddess or God,  …   although I’ve always reasoned that there must be some creative “Force” of this type of scope, …   to understand and accept that I was being scrutinized under Its immediate attention was mind–blowing.

Having now confirmed Its existence, I was paralyzed, … and a little embarrassed to realize that I had not at all anticipated the likelihood of Its apparition, …   much less Its approval.

How had this happened!?

What was I to do now!?

I KNEW that in my rush to keep this rendezvous I had hurt nothing, constricted nothing, diminished nothing.

Even though I had been speeding like a mad man, I was certain that I had done nothing contrary to the rules of the sacred sport, so I felt blameless in that regard.

Had I shown sufficient deference?

Any deference at all?

Did love count?

Had my ravenous appetite for the experience been too grasping? Over the top?

But, no. I didn’t feel that.

IT HAD ALL flowed through me naturally, and I had accumulated nothing but memories, and knowledge, and personal friendships.

I had consumed nothing but consciousness, and that was free and inexhaustible in the Ocean of Being I had skimmed across.

Had I been too bold?

Too self–confident and self–absorbed in my ascent?

Was I supposed to be here at all?

Was I allowed?

Had there been an implicit invitation?

Or had I unwittingly trampled some taboo?

Had I crashed some gate that should have warned me that the hideaway of the castle keep was about to be entered?

Who had decided to let me pass into the inner sanctum of this most sacred of all cathedrals?

THAT ONE, I couldn’t answer for myself.

That question, only the Star Maker could answer.

For the first time in my extravagant excursion, I wasn’t able to determine what I should do next.

There did not seem to be any way to salvage the situation, and go further into a deeper understanding.

I could make no response.

I waited, motionless, in a state of ecstatic uncertainty and utter awe, as It continued to focus Its attention on me.

We peered at each other for another timeless and silent interval.

THANK GOD, my concern over my confusion and doubt proved to be unimportant.

It turned out that not knowing what to do next was OK too.

SINCE my first look, the love that had flared from me with the intensity of a quasar for the Star Maker had not subsided, and had become even stronger.

Maybe hard to believe, but as I found myself naked and exposed on the highest peak in the most rarified spiritual wilderness possible to imagine, that naive, artless, resonant emotion was what kept me sane and safe.

And that’s what seemed to fuse Its interest; the fact that I hadn’t broken or wavered under Its inspection and revelation.

IT SERENELY surveyed my state of affairs, and in due course, after a much longer new interval of quiet communion, It judged how my encounter would conclude, simply observing, again matter–of–factly, and kindly enough;

“You’d better go back  … ”

WITH that thought, I was informed that my audience in the Headwaters of the Universe had been suddenly terminated.

After a long second of surprise, tempered with a jolt of disappointment, I was quickly in harmony with that instruction.

There was no need for discussion.

We were synched now.

I had experienced the equivalent of many billions of years in Its presence and I had finally been quenched.

I had everything I would ever need.

I had been in Its presence and drank that time.

I had felt myself echoed in Its being.

FOLLOWING THAT informal commandment that instructed me to return to my origins, my primary thought was to obey and go, right away.

Everything was cool; no problems.

I had found where It lived, and just as important, I knew how to get there.

If I could go no further now, after more time, I’d return, maybe with others, maybe alone again; either way would be fine.

Having received my orders, I lifted away and began the prolonged slide through the long layers of hyper–dimensions that preceded the Star Maker’s suite.

ON THE ROUNDTRIP, coming from the heights, to the foothills, and then to the familiar valley of Space–Time, I re–sampled the outlines of the titanic Creation I had flashed over.

I didn’t rush, but I didn’t linger long in any of the intermediate levels.

ONLY at the outpost of the first Heaven, I slowed and stopped completely to beam with, and again touch my close friends.

With a wry grin and a lighthearted wag of my “astral” index finger, I reminded them that because of our tight connection, they would only be a thought away from me now.

When the time came, their help needed to be there for me, as I’d once more be living in those “less–than–perfect” dimensions.

I WAS prepared, but I didn’t want to feel alone.

Having already done time within The Jungle, I knew it was unavoidable that at least part of it would be hard time too, and it could come in a lot of different ways.

Who would prefer to do that trip in solitude for even a minute?

Not me.

I STEELED myself with twin reasons for the coming experiences of bloody, reptilian competitiveness in the bowels of one of the lower Syndicates of Creation; our own SpaceTime.

I had been casually recruited and commissioned, but the scent of having volunteered for the project motivated me as well.

I used the available instruments at my disposal to shape a flexible strategy, while anticipating the desirability for an array of tactics to create and maintain a higher–dimensional advantage.

ONCE I was finally all ready, I made one joking and exaggerated display of resignation to the vibrant, heavenly huddle that had gathered to see me off, as I began the final stage of my coming home.

I’d have to learn to consume and accept the taste of bittersweet, there not being enough pure sweetness in human existence to satisfy me, or even sustain me, as my prior passage through SpaceTime had driven home to me.

I had a few concerns, but nothing major. I knew that almost anything the Old World could offer would seem trivial and barren for a long while.

My devolution back into SpaceTime meant a deprivation from ecstasy and perfection, and a very distasteful reintroduction to a low environment where the laws of physics rigidly dominate, and every interaction holds at least a possibility of personal risk.

Awaiting me was another run through the physical and emotional gauntlet of conflict and pain that must be engaged by all Humanity, lest this Universe be deprived of its Devil, and the dream of Heaven humbled that much by its absence.

NOW, AFTER ENOUGH TIME has passed for a more adequate and accurate evaluation, I realize that the Star Maker’s decision was the best decision that could have been made for me.

Even the most disagreeable aspects of my Space–Time interactions eventually transition into seeming opportunities for gaining knowledge and a fresh frame of reference.

I can find reinforcing reasons for personal re–dedication too, if I look at difficulties from a high enough perspective. And those tough times in Space–Time have been encouragingly few.

I HAVE always loved and enjoyed people, and my home Universe too, but as a result of my previous desire to get beyond and away from both reasonably quickly, I had necessarily left a few fairly large stones unturned.

This time, I could take my time, and examine any aspect of life that had not quite tipped my original rules of inquiry into an active interest.

My self–imposed deadline for success having been beaten and lifted, I felt renewed regard, sympathy, and enthusiasm for down–to–Earth concerns.

My unsolicited opportunity for an encore through the Old World was the best gift the Star Maker could have given me.1

1.  Scientific American, Nov. 1994, p.48,"The Self–Reproducing Inflationary Universe" by Andre Linde. This is an early article that lends some scientific support to my perception of the Star Maker’s “body” having an underlying “molecular” structure of Universes.

Chapter 12

Back In The World

UPON MY REINSERTION into this familiar mode of reality once again, I rediscovered my body, in the same pose, at the same table, almost as if I had never left.

Sitting in my rattan chair, tingling and vitalized, I alternated and slipped back–and–forth a few times; my familiar bio–physical energy patterns coming together in waves into my apartment.

After a few oscillations, I finally accomplished the miracle of shoehorning myself into the cramped limits of Space–Time.

At this moment, my consciousness still reverberates with the strong echo of what occurred that night. I identify with a private, wired version of the cliché phrase, “born again”.

In ways that I’m still discovering, everything is subtly new and marvelously changing. While my reintegration has been slow, rocky, more bizarre than I could have suspected, and there are a few things I think I would prefer had turned–out differently so far, I have no regrets.

MY FIRST TIME through this Universe, and this final time through Space–Time too, hasn’t been all seashells and balloons. As is true for every person who has ever lived, I've had my ups and downs.

Without the help I got from some family members and friends, it would have been a rougher reentry than it has been up to now.

At all times in my first life, I tried to make intelligent decisions, and to remain aware and interested in what was happening over the whole world, as I experimented and shaped my life to stalk my dreams.

I had considered my future, but my status as one of the culture’s out–castes (sic) hadn’t really allowed me enough security, or sense of connection, to bother spending a lot of time making plans.

Maybe that made it easier, but I had not been afraid to take well–calculated risks when it suited me to do so.

EVERYONE makes mistakes. I made some too, but I didn’t screw–up big–time. It was important for me to try to make sure that I could maintain my sense of integrity in whatever I did.

I am unapologetic about the fact that I managed to make the choices that were right for me.

In about every sense that mattered socially in human society, I was under–employed and under–engaged, and that was largely my choice. But I had worked successfully to fill my personal life with meaning and passion.

Even before I met the Star Maker, I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone else, from any time.

A BIG CHANGE that has happened for me since returning is that it has become more important for me to try to make my part of the world more beautiful, to maintain relationships and make more good–friends, to take time for having more fun, and for finding more love.

I love my new life even more than my previous one. I continue to do what comes naturally to me, as I work at learning the details of my dream job; an Apprenticeship to the Star Maker.

I am very satisfied with how I channeled that primal primate urge to risk and rave into an inspirational and fertile conduit for spiritual adventure and a cosmic connection.

SPACE–TIME PROVIDES us with the environment where our quest for transcendence is first born, and then pursued.

Although it’s not apparent, except to the few people who know me well enough, I’m continuously in the process of crafting my second approach to the Star Maker in the background.

My intention is to leave again, as soon as the necessary and sufficient conditions present themselves. Of course, I do not control that agenda, but I have my head in the game.

WHILE I don’t have everything that I could wish for while here in Space–Time, at the moment I have enough.

I can’t complain. I’d never complain about my circumstances, because I’ve already won what I was after, and more than I ever fantasized was possible, on top of that.

Chapter 13

Busted In Key West

PROMPTLY UPON MY bounce back from running into the Star Maker, everyone noticed that I gave off a strongly eccentric and electric vibe, and I was in no condition to even think about finding any type of employment again right away.

To everyone I knew, it immediately seemed I had begun acting like a different person. I knew it too, but it didn’t bother me the tiniest bit. I was a different person; the one I had always wanted to become.

On the outside, I was even more disconnected from the materialistic culture, quite a bit bolder, and much less predictable.

Inside, I was very amused and very pleased with the aftermath of the total and fundamentally alien metamorphosis I found myself still in the process of completing.

OF COURSE, I had to give up my apartment at the end of the month because I would not be able to afford to rent it any longer. Money would be tight for the foreseeable future.

I am a middle class guy, and I did have a thin economic cushion available to rest on. Using my small savings, with no outstanding bills to pay, for a while I would still have access to enough money to buy the few things I needed to survive.

My biggest expenses were for food and gasoline. I really enjoyed driving around the area’s highways and backstreets, at any time of the day or night. As I drove, the continuous and flowing visual panorama of South Florida was speaking to me in a language of puns, riddles, jokes and friendly commentary on my unspoken thoughts.

As I sauntered through the public spaces of buildings and along urban sidewalks, the randomly overheard conversations of total strangers often interjected uncannily appropriate feedback and wise commentary upon the considerations that were foremost in my mind at any moment.

BUBBLING through the surface of God’s emanation, via the reflected sunlight that my eyes caught for my mind’s pleasure, the world seemed to be talking to me with a new, visual language that I could now tune into and somehow interpret.

My leisurely cruising also served as one of the most effective ways to burn–off some of the nervous energy I was stoked on. After each graphically conversational drive, I would usually end-up at one of the area’s less crowded beaches and head for the water, or the sand, or the shade.

THE WILDLIFE at the shore seemed to take note of my arrival into their territory in a way I had never experienced before, coming closer. I reciprocated their non–verbal acknowledgments.

I’d usually find a picnic table, take out my radio and my accompanying books, and enjoy the elegant natural scenery. I often napped on my large beach blanket under the coconut palms, or in the deeper shelter of Florida’s largest native trees, huge Live Oaks, during the day. If I was tired and it was dark because the sun wasn’t watching, I slept in my truck’s cab, sideways across the bench seat.

I WAS able to stretch out my available dollars by shopping at the local grocery stores for items to eat out–of–hand. I’d walk around the aisles hunting for my daily food ration from the usual abundance on the shelves, and regularly pick–up a big jug of juice or water.

Following a personal and social path–of–least–resistance, after a couple of weeks, I found another grounding point at my parent’s home in Miami; a softer, roomier place to sleep, and the familiar family feedback from my Mom & Dad, and a younger brother & sister who still lived there too.

They thought I had gone mad, of course.

I TRIED to tell them something about what had happened to me, and as soon as I confirmed for them that I did not think I was Jesus, or any other such foolishness, they were just relieved and tolerant enough to theorize that something like a juiced–up, verbal, and comfortable schizophrenia had overtaken me for a while. Hopefully, only for a while. They were cool enough about it, and still willing to provide aid to me while I recouped.

AS FOR MYSELF, I had never felt better. If this was the place that I pushed–off from for the rest of this trip, that would suit me nicely. I was confident, and I felt competent.

In reality, I was still too close to the recent transformative events, and I was not yet reintegrated enough to realize that there remained a thick glaze of hyper–dimensional stardust wedged among my synapses, and glittering through my thoughts.

While my body had smoothly and solidly maintained its bearing, and I remained in the best of health, a significant part of my consciousness was still enjoying its vacation from ordinary reality, and had yet to complete reeling itself in from the stratosphere and beyond.

I spent this period of time essentially being a beach bum. The family members freaked–out a bit the first couple of times I stayed out on the road while visiting my favorite local shorelines for a week straight.

I was interacting with the new wonders that I found within even the most ordinary features of the environment as those days evolved, and the idea never entered my mind to telephone and inform anyone about what I was doing. After a number of days on one such early roadtrip, my folks reported me to the police as a missing person.

I WAS “FOUND” by the Sheriff down in the Island City of Key West; the furthest, funkiest outpost of the Florida Keys.

He had been summoned by a thirty–something female citizen because I was silently sitting out of the rain, in the passenger side seat of an ancient and derelict pickup truck that adorned her tiny front yard in a shabby trailer park. Next to an unpaved walkway, the rusty truck’s bed was filled with the accumulated leaves and branches that had dropped from the gigantic, scarlet–flowering shade tree it was disintegrating under during the last five years of its stoic immobility.

The interior was pretty beat–up too, and it had a crunchy layer of leaf litter and twigs on the seat and floorboard. The side windows were both rolled down, so I was aware that I might be sharing the space with a raccoon, or a family of musty rodents. Something smelled, but the little snag I was in would soon be over. I just wanted a dry spot to wait for the worst of a sidewalk pounding sunshine shower to end.

I was on–foot because I had abandoned my truck on a Key West backstreet sometime in the dark early morning hours of the previous night.

The adventure of the following day’s late afternoon was already unfolding, when a sudden deluge of grape–sized raindrops began to splat and thud on the dusty ground, as the sun still simultaneously drenched the entire island with its tropical brilliance. I was innocently borrowing the tucked away bench seat for a moment or two, so I wouldn’t get soaked.

I DIDN’T pay a lot of attention to the young lady when she first suddenly leaned in from the driver’s side window and told me straight–up that she would call the police if I didn’t get up and walk away down the street.

I told her that I had no intention of staying any longer than it took for the rain to stop, but I didn’t want to leave just yet. I asked her nicely to simply be a little cool for a few moments, for god’s sake, lady.

I guess I was just a stranger who was a little too close to her front door. I don’t know. Maybe in the past she had a bad experience with some other dude. Or maybe she was just a shrew. I don’t know.

Scuttling under her umbrella, she duckwalked through the puddles of the downpour, went back into her depressingly small trailer, and immediately called the Sheriff. I knew that, because she alerted me through a small, screened window; yelling out to me that she had just made her call to the authorities.

But, I didn’t really believe her. Responding, I told her that I didn’t believe she would do something like that. She couldn’t be that up–tight!

Right?

And the police would have better things to do than roust someone on a complaint of sitting in a discarded pickup truck during a rainstorm!

Right?

TEN MINUTES later, when the squad car arrived, one deputy “asked” me to step outside of the junked vehicle, into the lessening rain, and I did.

I suggested to the pair of officers that if we could casually let this slide for another five minutes, the rain will stop, I would leave and peaceably amble along the island’s perimeter road, and keep meditating about what a miraculous circus this Space–Time had transformed itself into since my return; a droll planet Bizarro.

IN RESPONSE, they told me that handcuffs would now be applied.

Unconcerned, I placed my wrists behind my back and the cuffs were employed, kindly enough, and then they turned my pockets inside–out and rifled through my stuff.

I briefed the Sheriff to not be surprised when looking in my attaché if he found a little bottle of plutonium present among my books and wallet. I assured the arresting officers that they could just ignore it. I confided that taking a little hit of it put an edge on the day, and it substituted for the effect of caffeine for me.

And that brown, chunky substance on the bottom of the attaché? That was crumbled chocolate chip cookie pieces. “Chocolate chip cookie pieces;  …   see?”

The bigger one, the deputy, actually licked his fingers, plucked out a small wedge of cookie crumbs, and touched it to his lips.

“What did you think it was?”, I asked.

The officer didn’t reply. That may have been bits of chocolate chip cookie, but he wasn’t through yet.

He leisurely reached down into my small grip once again, and with two fingertips, he held up a clear plastic baggy with a couple of joints worth of MaryJane in front of my face.

“You can get rid of that. It’s OK. I don’t even want it.”, I announced with a smile.

The half–dozen “Blackbirds” in a small, clear glass bottle, my pharmaceutical “uppers”, my “plutonium”, was the next thing he discovered.

The rain had stopped by now, as I had predicted.

IF MY LITTLE TRUCK had been four–wheel drive, I probably wouldn’t have had to jettison it the night before for a future pickup date at the Key West auto pound, and I would not have been walking barefoot there in the rain that afternoon. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I still would have been driving.

I don’t remember why I wanted to ascend over the top of that large pyramid–shaped pile of concrete blocks that rose high at a construction site on one of the city’s scarce vacant lots the night before. I got stuck at the apex; with the truck swinging like the long plank of a see–saw, rocking back and forth, unable to advance or retreat.

I eventually hopped out of the driver’s seat and carefully descended, leaving the vehicle perched on the top of that jagged pile, unable to get any traction to a drive wheel, and unwilling to switch–on the anti–gravity circuits for such a minor reason.

I felt pretty sure that the truck wouldn’t disappear, or be stolen. Maybe when the sun came up, I’d find this place again, and see about getting a tow, or maybe a less expensive problem–resolving idea.

I then just stepped away from the automotive entanglement, and meandered down the street, strolling under the vibrantly glowing pools of excited light that blossomed from each ornamental street lamppost. Knowing that I was on a heading that would unfailingly take me to the surrounding ocean, where I would listen to the music of the waves and the wind, I was in good spirits.

I voyaged bewitched through the numinous beauty of the nocturnal community. The occasional bewildering phantasm spiced my aimless walking tour that night through dark and narrow back alleys, across momentarily deserted Duval Street, and through the city’s compact cultural center.

The first, faint, glowing arrival of sunrise slowly transformed tranquil, liquid darkness into the kaleidoscopic drama, bustle, and routine of the waking tourist city.

Noon soon approached, and passed. I walked on, still anticipating that I would find the Ocean at any minute, and somehow missing it every time

APPROXIMATELY twelve enthralling hours later, the Sheriff had busted me. During the short drive to the city’s jailhouse, I asked for feedback about a couple of recent extraordinary, almost magical, events I had hallucinated earlier in the morning after sunrise.

“You really didn’t see that?” I asked a little incredulously. “And nobody reported it to you?”

The officers exchanged sideways glances with each other, but offered no response.

“I mean, yeah, it could have been hallucinations, but it was so big and real that somebody else must have seen it too!?"

"No? OK. Man, I saw it. It was impressive."

"How about the other thing?”

AFTER taking my fingerprints and my grinning mug shot, I was placed in a tiny, Spartan–like isolation cell for the rest of the day, and overnight. Some people were making a lot of noise off in some other part of the building, loudly and incoherently yelling for part of the early evening, but then quiet settled–in for the rest of the night.

The length of the bench seat in the cell was just long enough for me to lay down on it with my knees bent a little. I slept deeply that night on the shiny wood seat, using my arm as best as I could for my pillow. I didn’t even miss not having a mattress or a blanket.

I spoke to no one, and the only person I saw during the nighttime hours of my visit was another police officer in full regalia, doing the night–shift guard duty.

I WAS RELEASED the next morning, with no charges being filed.

I don’t know how it is now, but back then, the Key West police had a reputation of being reasonable people. They had actually been polite through the whole situation, and I understood that they were just doin’ what cops do sometimes.

I didn’t even think about giving them a real reason to treat me otherwise, and I felt only relief when departing the lockup with my Dad, whom they had contacted in Miami the previous evening from the phone number I provided.

AFTER THE KEY WEST EXPERIENCE, I spent the coming months following practically the same behavior patterns, but that short down–time in the island’s jail was the last time I ever stumbled into the mesh of law enforcement. I have always been a quick learner.

Fortunately, that Key West episode was a harmless educational interlude for me. At the least, I imagine they could easily have convicted me of public intoxication, because that was certainly true. Even now, that charge is true.

Not surprisingly, when anyone gets ripped to the degree of God–intoxication that I managed, it never really goes away.

IT IS a fine and intricate exhilaration that doesn’t require a second hit to keep it working. I’m convinced that it’s the quintessential intoxication known to anyone, and I remained heavily God–intoxicated over those following months after the reunions.

I’ll never know how close I even came to a physical death by overdose of spiritual ecstasy on the reunion night. I calculate that it wasn’t an overdose only because my desire and experience had been built–up over the years to an unreasonable, extreme amount, so I could somehow handle the peaking, and endure the comedown, with at least some degree of aplomb.

WITHIN a few days, after I had my truck back with me in Miami, my trusty mechanical steed and I rolled off for another extended safari investigation of the close and enchanting shoreline environment.

It was the most beautiful and serene natural environment that I was aware of, and it was available to explore and to play in, like it was my private backyard. I felt blessed, every day.

THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS never really did get used to my beach bum phase, but the logic behind that behavior still makes perfect sense to me. The edge of the ocean during the day, and especially at night, was a hassle–free and appropriate place to hang–out for days when I was very high on a number of semi–interdimensional occasions.

Eerie, after–effect reality shockwaves persisted, involving Space–Time translucency, cartoonish macro–quantum pop–up events that only I noticed (commonly called "hallucinations"), and meshing non–local leaps of imagination. All these artifacts of my recent transcendent journey lingered–on over the passing months after the reunions, before dampening down in a sinuous manner.

THE SEASHORES of South Florida at Key Biscayne, Juno Beach, and the Florida Keys were idyllic. I would wade and splash around in the beach shallows, sit in filtered shade of seagrape trees and coconut palms, listen to the waves, watch the birds, the crabs, the people, and the other beach visitors.

When I wanted to take a break from the sand or the sun, I would sack–out with rock–music on the radio in the cozy cab of my little pickup until reinvigorated, or until I segued to sleep.

Those tanned days of oceanic weirdness were a tremendous blast. Only years later, in far retrospect I understood that I necessarily went through weeks of multilevel simulations and rehearsals; relearning the stimulus–response dance steps of our primate culture. That series of informal, imprint–solidifying practice runs was very therapeutic, instructive, and inexplicably prescient.

Over that period of time, as my remolded neuro–psychic structures were being conditioned, they were tested, appropriately stressed, tweaked and tempered.

I EVENTUALLY completed most of my gradual transition back to a convincing impersonation of membership with the hometown species; to the point of even convincing myself of that impossibility.

But it is for instances such as this that the superlogic of higher dimensions comes to the rescue. I hold my identification with Humanity, and my status as alien from Humanity, as equally welcome and true. My re–imprinting of the consensus reality of Space–Time eventually became as solidified as it ever would again.

Touching rock–bottom reality once more, with little new information^1 to share, I repeat the time–worn data.

Most religions tell about a heaven beyond mundane human comprehension that is populated with Divinities. Omnipresent, the Basic Forces of the Universe are always available to be approached. Their reaction is largely determined by the nature of the individual approaching and his, or her, intentions.

I END THIS REPORT with a soft warning, and an observation.

If you feel an attraction to the infinite field of psychonautics, I encourage you to go slowly, to prepare well and wisely, and to learn as much as you need, before you further test your inclination to examine the strata of reality that exist beneath the surface layers.

It is not too hard to find the fingerprints of Divinity all around us. It’s the best way to look at the Universe too, because the truth is always the best.

GODSPEED to you in the work of art that is your life.

1.  See Appendix : New Information for the only original data that I can report.

***************

This free edition of Star Maker’s Apprentice at feedbooks.com has been published in the “epub” format, and it is not a complete edition of the book. One reason for this is because the epub format does not support the display of illustrations of any type. The PDF and Kindle versions at feedbooks.com are derived from the epub version, and therefore they are also not complete.

All partial versions of Star Maker’s Apprentice here at feedbooks.com do not contain the additional chapters, illustrations, and appendices that are included with the full edition that will soon be available for purchase in PDF format at the following locations:

1] The Google Books Internet web site, which will open in December, 2010.

2] Amazon eBooks (in September 2010)

3] other Internet sales locations will be selected very soon

For a limited time, we have made all of the photographs and graphics of the complete edition available online for viewing at the following Internet location:

http://ambassadorzot.com/ambassa9/star-makers-apprentice-imag/

If you have found sufficient value in this book, I ask you to purchase a copy of the full PDF format edition, which contains much more information. We request your financial support in this manner.

Also, if you want to acquire a “hardcopy” first edition paperback of Star Maker’s Apprentice, please directly contact me, F. Louis Szot, aka “Ambassador Zot”; flszot@gmail.com

We also encourage contact from individuals or small groups who have a desire to interact with the Author and his Partners.

***************

Chapter 14

Epilog

A LOT HAS HAPPENED since the reunion night and the few months following it.

The change has been cumulative, and it has become more comprehensive over time.

While awake or dreaming, I am always viewing my life through the prism of the metamorphosis I underwent. My new life has given me the opportunity of feeling that I have engaged in mythical themes.

Since the night of the reunions, I have had an equal and ample opportunity for again fully interacting in Space–Time.

I’d try to tell you more about the fallout and repercussions that have touched a widening circle of people and events, but you would never believe me.

HA! Not as if you should. You don’t know me well enough to place that degree of trust in me.

THE WHOLE TRUTH can almost never be known when only one person tells his side of the story. Every interaction is a symbiosis at some level, and unavoidably incomplete if traced–out alone. We must insist on corroboration.

I GRATEFULLY BORROW the name “Star Maker” from the singular philosopher and mythologist, William Olaf Stapledon, who wrote the book Star Maker. That work of art by Stapledon has to be the finest attempt to describe the nature of creation, and the Creator, that our species has ever produced.

There is one major reason why Stapledon has not received the recognition that he is due. His genius is intentionally hidden largely because its wide dissemination would provide an effective antidote to the deliberate anti–social propaganda that is continuously purchased by the corporate and financial gangsters who rent or own the world’s governments and main media outlets to enforce their selfish preferences.

I discovered Stapledon’s mythic masterpiece a few years after my experience with what I believe to be the same Star Maker, and I easily recognized It as described in his book’s climactic chapters.

THE BOOK Star Maker was published in England in 1937, and while it received wide praise from readers and book reviewers, it was necessarily pigeonholed as a science fiction novel, which is actually imprecise. I say it's an autobiography.

Stapledon’s other most astonishing effort actually is a novel. Last and First Men, a mythical prelude to Star Maker, was first published in 1931, and it is only a slightly less inspired work. Last and First Men is a eminent examination of an intricate and intimately familiar foothill within the mountain range that is Star Maker.

Transcendent and brilliant, these are Stapledon’s two best books. They practically redefined the genre of science fiction too.1

EXTREMELY interesting to me is the fact that in the first sentence of its preface, Last and First Men is unambiguously identified as “a work of fiction”. Stapledon has no difficulty telling us that Last and First Men is certainly a novel.

However, in the preface to his other major work, his magnum opus, Star Maker, Stapledon self–deprecatingly makes the following revelation;

“ … Judged by the standards of the Novel, it is remarkably bad. In fact, it is no novel at all.”

(emphasis added)

FOR THIS reason, and for other good reasons too, I am convinced that Star Maker is an unequaled autobiographical testimony that is based on an epic transcendental journey.

THE MOST important question facing the Human Race at this moment is, “Where do we go from here, as a species?”

WHEN OUR primate ancestors first started their pilgrimage out of the mist of animal consciousness, the earliest human echoes that responded to the overwhelming rhythm of the Universe began with the folk arts of tribal village life. Our early forerunners sang back to the Universe in music and myth, dreams and dance, poetry and fantasy.

Sometime during the early hunter–gatherer era of our species, the birth of religion introduced the concept of Divinity joined in a personal alliance with the favored tribe.

MANY centuries later, religion had grown enough to impose the concept of the Authority of God in political partnership with the tribe, and at a later date, as a partner with the secular state.

Professional priesthoods were founded to assist in the goals of social control. Commanding some wealth and power, the strongest of those fraternities grew bold enough to proclaim that they possessed the essential religious rituals that would please, and appease, the hidden animating powers.

OVER the centuries, religion and the various systems of government have cycled together and shared power, betting on the bonds of perceived mutual benefits. When they finally fall apart, the inevitable split is unique in its own way and the former partners fall to a new level of separation. The degree of damage done to the society by the ill–suited mating is unpredictable.

In its latest cyclical rebirth, the type of government that claims to act as if it were the representative of God on Earth is unfortunately coming back in vogue.

THE FLOW of time rippled over Humanity. Its passage brought progress, organization and sophistication to different parts of the globe. Promising buds of nascent civilization bloomed in favorable locations. Surviving fleeting fads and uprooting social revolutions, human society has advanced successfully to the cusp of true civilization, into the current turbulent era of Techno–Barbarism.2

AS OUR SPECIES now approaches its late adolescence and we struggle with untold opportunities for illumination and self–delusion, the priests of the newest religion of Science have crafted a challenge to the legitimacy of the rule of those who still point to the absent gods.

In our modern world, a partial, uncomfortable merging of conviction has occurred between those two sets of guiding principles that have long been uneasy enemies.

In conflict with each other since the earliest upwelling of the civilizing non–conformists who broke the religious stranglehold on Europe, momentous new scientific theorems mirror the view of grizzled religious myths and the bleating faithful.

WE are witnessing a conceptual fraternization of the Institution of Science, with the twin Churches of Deism^3 and Theism^4.

Amazingly, in the renewing controversy over ultimate origins, the answers of Scientists and Believers regarding the initial conditions of the Universe are largely identical.

In their fundamental speculations, they all agree that some type of “Big Bang” must have occurred.

They differ only on whether the Universe exploded into being by a spontaneous freak of quantum probability, or in a gesture of miraculously divine inauguration.

However, because the pre–Big Bang truth has yet to be discovered, there will be no lasting truce between these two rivals for power.

THE APPARENT consensus is an illusion, and unlikely to last long. The heart of the disagreement has merely been moved even further back into deepest time, and it remains unresolved.

From what fountain did that frightful bubble

of unreasonable potential first emerge?

IN THE GREATER PUBLIC DEBATE,5 the expert testimony of Science is commonly hired as an agent for commercial interests.

Regarding the dispute over universal origins, commerce has not yet hired its spokesmen, and therefore Science may speak in its own voice, which is informed by “the scientific method” 6.

The sanctioning bodies of science remain unwilling to bless and fully endorse the boldest speculations offered by their newest generation of cosmological theorists.

Their progress stalled, the conventional scientific creation theory continues to pass for the textbook answer, even though it is not quite state–of–the–art.

THAT creation theorem concludes that Space–Time began as a vanishingly tiny, quickly expanding and fortunate marvel of inanimate physics. Given the current and foreseeable state of scientific understanding, which must locate the hidden seed of the Universe outside of Space–Time, its genesis is unknowable.

We may measure the effects produced by the Universe upon our instruments, but anything beyond Space–Time cannot be investigated. It is undefined, and shall forever remain so.

CONSIDERING the conditions surrounding the Big Bang, and understanding the unbending rules of the scientific method, scientists are being forced to an uncomfortable realization.

In short, Science cannot claim to have a guaranteed chair at the table in the conversation respecting the topic of God and higher dimensions.

THIS IS THE PARADOX for the formal institution of Science:

The conditions preceding the Big Bang are undefined, but the scientific method can only be followed when variables can be fully defined, and then subjected to adequately controlled experimental conditions; over and over again.

THE unknown conditions that preceded the Big Bang, and the initial conditions of our Universe that immediately emerged, are certainly unique and unrepeatable.

They are impossible to fully define, verify, or control in any manner.

The scientific method has no validity in the realm of the undefined, or one–of–a–kind past events.

Before and after the fleeting instant of the Big Bang, the foundation of science falls apart and ceases to exist. The very concept of “science” disappears, and scientific theorems devolve into merely rigorous speculation, at best.

According to the definition that Science has given to itself, it cannot have an official opinion about the nature of anything that may have happened near the time of the Big Bang.

Scientists may have informed personal opinions. They may make well–reasoned guesses, but that’s all.

ACCEPTING membership in the ranks of the deaf, dumb, and blind, as all people must do when we venture to guess about the nature of the supernatural, scientists are alarmed at the abrupt, “quantum leap” change of fortune that has occurred in their status in this debate.

Acting as they must act when the basis of their authority and swagger has evaporated, to their queasy embarrassment, what once appeared to be lofty intellectual high ground is now more closely revealed to be no higher than the high tide mark on a shoreline.

MANY RELIGIONS RESPOND with an eerily similar version of the starting event that is now being advanced by Science.

The most trusted speculations of Deism and Theism declare that the Universe had a discrete and instantaneous beginning. They say the Creation was a deliberate, flamboyant, wildly expansive act of God.

LIKE most people in the Americas, I also believe that something like this is true.

But I did not arrive at that belief by merely reading books, or by listening to religious preachers or crusading scientists either. I accept it because it’s the only thing that makes any sense out of the entire body of available evidence.

My personal experiences are just additional icing on my cake for me.

WHERE I really differ with most people whose beliefs derive from a particular “holy” book is that I am not so suggestible as to take on faith alone any antiquated version of history, morality, and cosmology that often appears to be very unlikely upon close inspection.

And why should I blindly follow the dictates of organized religion? To put it more gently than the situation deserves, there is no track record of infallibility there.

As an intelligent person, I know the sordid history of organized religions and the many cosmological errors and social atrocities in its not too distant past. I considered as merely hoary and ill–founded speculation the same data that many followers claim to believe is the Word of God.

NO Bible, no Koran, no Torah, no mere publication, no matter how fervent the claim, can demand that it be accepted as having convincingly proved itself to be the Word of God.

To think otherwise indicates a misunderstanding of the definition of the verb “to prove”.

The attitude that touts blind faith, such as, “My book says it, therefore I believe it, without needing to even think about it.”, is unworthy of any intelligent, mature human being. It is a lazy, obtuse, and dangerous mindset.

I want to give credit that most people are intelligent enough to understand that just because it may be true that this Universe is a divine creation of a supernatural Logos & Animus, the rest of the faith–based baggage of certain Bronze Age tomes does not deserve a free ride to an uncritical acceptance.

IF I AM CONVINCED that this Universe is an Act of God, it does not necessarily follow that I must choke down all the rest of the questionable dogmatic extras that define each individual religion.

For example, is God really bound to condemn me if I do not attend a specific church, or temple, or mosque, once a week, once a day, or whenever? Even the pope in Rome doesn’t bother to try to enforce that rule anymore.

Why believe that the Creator of the Universe is a proponent of circumcision? Or of female genital mutilation?

Not counting the church representatives and tribal priests that push this blood–sacrifice custom, only sadistic sickos would be asking to inflict this scarification and pain on infants and youngsters.

EVEN IF the perplexing claim of transubstantiation^7 was true, why would God think it’s a reasonable idea that followers must participate in the reenactment of cannibalism of a deity? Beyond the handcuffs of tradition, why do some Christian sects still do the farcical ritual of the eucharist? Why is such theatrical importance placed upon the requirement of participation in that bizarre simulation?

OR, what pushes people to the jihad? To the crusade?

I can’t imagine how any human being can invest himself with the idea that it is their sacred task to violently impose their religious beliefs upon “less enlightened” members of Humanity. But this has been the rationale for a lot of murders.

ZEALOTS have somehow misused their holy books to justify persecution of people who may be following the unfamiliar but essentially similar teaching of an alternative, “wrong” holy book.

THAT IS almost beyond belief. Isn’t it? But we know it’s true that some fanatics get on that ride.

Not me. And I hope not you.

WHILE most religious window dressing is harmless enough, I question whether God really orders that anyone must do any of the hundreds of amusing, boring, dangerous, sentimental, trivial, barbaric, expensive, difficult, annoying, or just downright weird tribal conventions that define membership in one particular religion or cult.

THE VARIOUS RELIGIONS offer a taste of the broad spectrum of truth, but each individual religion unconvincingly intermingles the mysterious facts of existence with self–serving, tribal–based remnants of private superstitions.

We may claim to feel the emanations of the Creator in our life, as I do, but every religion is based on grizzled folklore, told in a distinct ethnic accent, that doubles as a self–promotional dynastic memoir.

IN THEIR prehistoric solitude, every strong ancestral tribe claimed to be the vessel for a special covenant with their concept of Divinity.

Asserting the exclusive gift of direct and unerring communication with the Creator(s) of the Universe, they sheltered and sharpened their tribal identity. They branded their social clan by virtue of their divisive religious ideology, their quirky notions of morality, and their distinctive rituals & paraphernalia of worship.

Parlaying military power and a zeal for empire, the elite of the primitive clans displayed their Bronze Age dogma as “proof” of their chosen status. Using this circular logic, they assumed an exclusive right to gather to themselves the preferred blessings of “their” God, in this life, and in the next.

Those few regional powers that managed to most determinedly transmit their self–created cargo of oral tradition over the centuries, fully blossomed with aggressive conquest and the invention of the printing press. They were able to consolidate their status and became the early core of the familiar established religions of the planet.

The ruling partnerships formed by governments and religions fray and mend over the decades, but as a proven tool in the arsenal used to control the oftentimes fussy and difficult public, they often remain effective.

MAKING THE ASSERTIONS of the familiar religions even more difficult to accept, it is apparent that whatever partnership may have existed long ago between the gods and the religions of Earth has been broken for a very long time.

Even if I believed all the stories of the theatrical interactions from the dim and distant, disreputable past, they happened so very long ago that they now are sad and mocking reminders of a fallen legacy. The ability to publicly, directly, and unerringly communicate with Divinity in any obvious manner has been withdrawn from the ceremonial representatives of every religion.

THE MOMENTOUS significance of this development has been downplayed by the religious hierarchy and the faithful, but it has become embarrassingly obvious that the gods have absolutely shut down the old lines of communication since many centuries ago.

No more burning bushes to provide divine guidance.

No updated heavenly instructions supernaturally chiseled on a pair of stone tablets.

No flaming chariot carrying a distinguished church elder away into the clouds for consultation.

No righteous trumpet players using weaponized musical riffs to knock down the city walls of the followers of a supposedly “lesser god”.

SUPERNATURAL methods of communication, if they ever occurred as the mythology records, never happen any more in connection with bishops, rabbis, mullahs, television preachers, street corner deacons, snake handlers, etc..

What have the world’s church leaders done to make the gods hang–up on them, and shun them for so long? Why has there been a two thousand year absence of public dialogue between religious figureheads and the gods?

Certainly, in our accelerating time of instantaneous electronic communication, if any type of contact with the gods had occurred, we would have seen the evidence, if it existed. Of course, it does not exist, and no one alive today is making any serious claim that it does exist either.

ACTING AS IF unconcerned by this tragic snub, and attempting to remain true to the uncomfortable burden of dogma, the typically religious person of today relies heavily on faith, instead of being open to the possibility of live commentary from Divinity Itself.

But I had to reject that resort to faith, at least as I understand the way it is commonly defined today.

This is my personal understanding of the way that an overtly religious “faith” functions for a follower:

* This type of faith insists upon the required acceptance of any

authorized “article of faith” of the religion, no matter how

unreasonable or unlikely it may seem; and no suggestion of

intellectual or physical evidence is deemed necessary to

provide support for the assertion …

* This type of faith must be pledged to only one religion

at a time …

THE AMPLE PHYSICAL and intellectual supporting evidence in favor of a supernatural level of reality makes any need to force down alienating articles of faith at least a little questionable. At its core, what is commonly called “faith” is too often an attempt to lie to oneself.

I know the feeling that I got when I first tried that religious type of faith. I tried to lie to myself, but I could only do it for a little while.

It didn’t feel good.

It was a bad feeling.

I dropped it like the bad idea that it is.

TO USE faith that way is an unworthy basis for discerning people to accept as the hub of their spiritual lives.

The only type of faith that was useful and appropriate for me, began with a belief in the dream of the Joy of Divinity, without having yet fully participated in it.

In my experience, that was all the faith I needed. Everything else that I needed to understand, and to act upon, began with and flowed from that premise.

WE ARE ALL confronted with a monumental and life–defining choice. Either this Universe is a vast and sacred Creation, or it is a ridiculous accident of lifeless physics.

It appears that there is insufficient evidence for either version to override and solve the stubborn doubts of the other side.

Either way, according to all of the certified authorities on the matter, the instrument of the human mind is intellectually and spiritually insufficient to find the fountainhead.

WITH ALL THIS in mind, can there be any legitimate and authoritative sources to answer the bedrock disputes?

From among Humanity’s recognized elite, who has enough street credibility to own the exclusive right to answer the fundamental arguments in a definitive manner?

Priests or preachers of any type?

Scientists? Politicians? Celebrities?

Royalty? Billionaires? Psychics? Aliens?

I don’t think so.

None of those groups has a history that demonstrates any justification for giving such trust to them. That is why I went off looking for myself.

WHO deserves to occupy that position of certitude, or own that much status, or flaunt that much attitude, or beatitude?

Maybe the one thing that we can all agree on is that there is no consensus answer to that question.

IT IS APPARENT that the field is still wide open, and it will remain so.

NOW, I have my best bet down too,  …   and I’m all–in.

1.  Last and First Men and Star Maker;  Dover Publications

2.  See Appendix : The Path to Civilization

3.  Deism : a preference or “belief” in the existence of a God, or gods, on the evidence of reason and nature only, without reliance upon the possibility and/or reliability of supernatural revelation; a preference or “belief” in supernatural Forces & Principles rather than a requirement for supernatural Personalities or Entities.

4.  Theism : rejection of any standard of evidence for a belief in the existence of a God, or gods, especially belief in a personal God as a designing creator and participating ruler of the universe(s), without rejection of the possibility of supernatural revelation.

5.  the greater public debate : the managed communication from kings and queens, to serfs and soldiers.

6.  scientific method : see Appendix : The Scientific Method

7. transubstantiation : bread and wine becomes the flesh and blood of God, supposedly.

Dedication

THIS STORY, this partial autobiography, is dedicated to the individuals who participate in the creation of the symbiotic future of Humanity now, and in the future, at ever–higher levels of intelligence and experience.

Preface to Star Maker's Apprentice

IMAGINE there is a Cosmic Institution that functions as the equivalent of a Library containing all of the most valuable and seminal documents that have been created within the Milky Way Galaxy. Star Maker’s Apprentice is included in that Library. Its stature is not based on a mere assertion of literary beauty or stylistic innovation. What accounts for its election is its unanticipated, astounding and outrageously unique information content.

The fact that Star Maker’s Apprentice is not universally known among Earth’s Humanity as of the year 2010 is a result of a few factors.

First, there has been a very limited distribution of the document. It has just been released for sale to the general public in September, 2010. Previously, the book has only been available at a few clandestine locations on the Internet.

Second, the representatives of governments, religions, and other instruments of the Establishment Machine who have been made aware of its existence have worked to suppress its distribution, due to the revolutionary effect that its message could evoke if received under the appropriate circumstances.

Third, the information is disruptive to the ordinary thought patterns of ninety–eight percent of the hometown species. Star Maker’s Apprentice upsets the world view of most people who read it and understand what it is saying about its Author, and about the nature of reality.

Fourth, communication may be excruciatingly difficult at times because of the gulf of cultural alienation that exists between the Author, a higher–dimensional creature, and his intended audience, a select group of domesticated primates in their techno–barbaric culture who are poised to experience an initiation into a transition beyond SpaceTime.

Lastly, following a slowly unfolding strategic pattern, this is the manner in which the existence of this Fundamental Species Document was designed to emerge.

You have before you the opportunity to access one of the three documents created by a member of the species Homo sapiens that resides in The Milky Way Galactic Library of Distinction; the two others being W. Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker and Last And First Men. Make of it what you will.

Adios’!

F. Louis Szot

USA

***************

This free edition of Star Maker’s Apprentice at feedbooks.com has been published in the “epub” format, and it is not a complete edition of the book. One reason for this is because the epub format does not support the display of illustrations of any type. The PDF and Kindle versions at feedbooks.com are derived from the epub version, and therefore they are also not complete.

All partial versions of Star Maker’s Apprentice here at feedbooks.com do not contain the additional chapters, illustrations, and appendices that are included with the full edition that will soon be available for purchase in PDF format at the following locations:

1] The Google Books Internet web site, which will open in December, 2010.

2] The Amazon Books Internet web site, sometime in September

3] other Internet sales locations will be selected very soon

For a limited time, we have made all of the photographs and graphics of the complete edition available online for viewing at the following Internet location:

http://ambassadorzot.com/ambassa9/star-makers-apprentice-imag/

If you have found sufficient value in this book, I ask you to purchase a copy of the full PDF format edition, which contains much more information. We request your financial support in this manner.

Also, if you want to acquire a “hardcopy” first edition paperback of Star Maker’s Apprentice, please directly contact me, F. Louis Szot, aka “Ambassador Zot”; flszot@gmail.com

We also encourage contact from individuals or small groups who have a desire to interact with the Author and his Partners.

***************

About The Author

F. Louis Szot, aka “Ambassador Zot”, has long been occupied in the two walks–of–life that are commonly regarded as Humanity's second–, and third–oldest professions.

He has followed the career path of a Self–Employed Philosopher since the age of five, which is when he first diagnosed that there was something seriously wrong with human society.

At that precocious age, he immediately began searching for the Fundamental Fact of this Universe, which is the only philosophical fulcrum capable of prying open the truth about the nature of reality.

In his twenty–ninth summer, he was definitively called to his second vocation and inducted into an esoteric Ambassadorship, representing The Basic Forces of the Universe, headquartered beyond SpaceTime.

Mr. Szot’s hobbies include Computers, Gardening, Performance Art, Small Arms, Light Construction, and Lucid Dreaming. He has also attained amateur status in the fields of Astronomy, Natural Science, and Political Punditry.

Politically speaking, while maintaining an appropriately disrespectful distance from that barnyard business, his views range from the symbiotic and very–far–left of that spectrum of opinion, to the middle–of–the–road.

Health–wise, thank God, he has remained solid as an Ox over his entire life thus far. The only time he has ever been held overnight in any hospital was when he was born, and that was done for the restful benefit of his Mother.

His most important attributes include being a prototypical 24th–Century Symbiotic Aquarian, and having great luck.

The Ambassador still remains optimistic in the serendipitous adventure of attempting to find a mate. As a unique higher–dimensional/SpaceTime hybrid, the social obstacles and special considerations that he must observe have complicated his romantic prospects enormously. In addition, he has found the Homo sapiens females of SpaceTime to be somewhat parochial.

His personal goals include living in a temperate climate within easy bicycling distance of an Ocean, remaining as engaged, happy, and optimistic as his iconoclastic beliefs and opinions permit, preparing for his next “peak experience” by doing what comes naturally for him, and encouraging Humanity to change the world from its current state of barbarism into a true Civilization.

Finally, Zot maintains a special fondness for the “classic” rock ‘n roll music of his youth, especially The Who, and most especially The Rolling Stones, … except for the Stones’ last album.

It appears their Muse has finally abandoned them.

October 2010

***************

This free edition of Star Maker’s Apprentice at feedbooks.com has been published in the “epub” format, and it is not a complete edition of the book. One reason for this is because the epub format does not support the display of illustrations of any type. The PDF and Kindle versions at feedbooks.com are derived from the epub version, and therefore they are also not complete.

All partial versions of Star Maker’s Apprentice here at feedbooks.com do not contain the additional chapters, illustrations, and appendices that are included with the full edition that will soon be available for purchase in PDF format at the following locations:

1] The Google Books Internet web site, which will open in December, 2010.

2] The Amazon Books Internet web site, sometime in September

3] other Internet sales locations will be selected very soon

For a limited time, we have made all of the photographs and graphics of the complete edition available online for viewing at the following Internet location:

http://ambassadorzot.com/ambassa9/star-makers-apprentice-imag/

If you have found sufficient value in this book, I ask you to purchase a copy of the full PDF format edition, which contains much more information. We request your financial support in this manner.

Also, if you want to acquire a “hardcopy” first edition paperback of Star Maker’s Apprentice, please directly contact me, F. Louis Szot, aka “Ambassador Zot”; flszot@gmail.com

We also encourage contact from individuals or small groups who have a desire to interact with the Author and his Partners.

***************

Credits

Star Maker’s Apprentice: A Novel Exploration Into
Higher Dimensions And The Nature Of The Gods
ISBN 978–0–9799023–0–7
***
Copyright © 2007 by Francis Louis Szot

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or in any manner

whatsoever, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

or otherwise, without permission, except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in articlesand reviews.

For additional information or permissions,

please contact Mr. Szot directly. <AZ at AmbassadorZot dot com>

Publication on feedbooks.com occurs with the permission of

Francis Louis Szot and does not effect any copyright claims.

***
Published in the USA by Basic Forces Publications
Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Berkeley
***
Printing & Publication History
November 2007 : First Print Edition

October 2010 : Feedbook.com Edition
***
Text Processing, Cover Design & Page Layout
by Dr. Lightning™

***
Cover photographs courtesy of
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
http://www.nasa.gov

Getting High In A Spiritual Context: Appendix G

WHO controls your bloodstream?

THINK about it.

Who has the right to control the chemical composition of your bloodstream?

YOU?

Or local and federal politicians? Or the police?

Or some different type of domineering dictator?

THE “War on Drugs” has been both a colossal fraud, and a colossal failure, in every way imaginable.

It is based on lies. It’s major premise is demonstrably false. Alcohol, nicotine, and prescription drugs, which are the drugs that cause the most injury and death by far, remain totally legal and are not targets of the phony “war”.

The true purpose of the “war on some drugs” is to provide additional motivation, and another excuse, for the police state to construct an ever larger totalitarian system of surveillance and imprisonment.

THE REASONABLE insistence upon the freedom to exclusively and totally own and control one’s own body and blood is sufficient to protect any type of peaceful and private drug use of a truly free citizen.

The private use of certain other “psychedelic” or “entheogenic” compounds have an even stronger claim of legitimacy because they are also intimately affiliated with a citizen’s rights to freedom of religion.

EVEN though certain substances have been declared “illegal” to possess or ingest, in many cultures, and in important segments of our own Western culture, they still have a respected and very lengthy spiritual tradition that cannot be truthfully denied.

This has been especially true in my life. As unlikely as it may sound to some uninformed people, whether they are able to believe it or not, it is a fact that the use of certain naughty, supposedly “illegal” drugs, helped to prepare me for the penultimate spiritual experience of my life.

AS I EXPLAINED in my book Star Maker’s Apprentice, my highest transcendent experiences always occurred while I was totally straight.  Yes, straight.

Nonetheless, I have no doubt that certain prior experiences, undertaken in a spiritual context, assisted me in no small degree to make the most of the opportunity I was given to investigate the heights of Divinity during that singular night, long ago now.

REGARDLESS of your comfort level with these circumstances, you need to ask yourself, “Who has the right to control the chemical contents of a citizen’s bloodstream?”

Even more importantly, “Who is allowed to determine where a citizen’s religious freedom begins and ends?”

ACCORDING to the USA’s Constitution, the right to continuously monitor my bloodstream, or to prohibit my peaceful, private religious pursuits does not appear among the enumerated powers of our nation’s founding documents. These are not powers that have been relinquished to the local, state, or federal governments.

WHY doesn't a truly "strict constructionist" reading of The Constitution of the United States absolutely protect that activity?

That question is easy to answer.

It does protect those rights, but we are currently being subjected to unconstitutional, and therefore illegal, drug laws. We are being persecuted by laws restricting the free practice of one’s personal and private religious activities.

YOU MAY NOT be aware of this, but for millennia many people from every religious tradition have incorporated various types of drug use into the legitimate spiritual, ritualistic, or "religious" aspects of their life.

TODAY, it is my peaceful, fundamental, and extremely personal religious freedoms that are being proscribed.

If you are loyal to the ideals of our society, the fact that I am being persecuted should concern you immediately.

Even if you are something less than a good citizen and do not  recognize and defend my rights, you should still be concerned because it could easily be your religious freedoms being outlawed tomorrow.

CERTAINLY, all of the Founding Fathers of the nation would passionately agree with the following twin propositions:

“My bloodstream is my concern, and while I am a free citizen, my blood and my body are not subject to investigation and control by the government!”

“My peaceful religious practices must remain outside of the criminal justice system of the government!”

CAN ANYONE truly imagine that the Founding Fathers would believe otherwise?!?

WHY ARE so many of America’s so–called citizens acting like cringing slaves while a handful of judicial bullies and political prostitutes impose such radical, totalitarian laws?

Under the pain of being confined inside of jail cells for decades, many laws restricting personal and religious freedom are being rabidly enforced in the USA, and in many other parts of the world too.

Any truly conservative reading of our Constitution would not permit such dangerous prejudices and inflated fears to be forced upon the nation under the outward appearance of law.

If you can be charged with breaking the law the instant that you modify your own bloodstream, you have lost control of your own body and you are a robot for the state.

BECAUSE THEY VALUE their own freedom, people who are really free will not accept that any government is allowed to dictate the chemical composition of the bloodstream of any of its citizens.

But that is what the criminalization of the mere use of certain forbidden, naughty drugs attempts to do.

Any so–called citizen who agrees with the current regimen of drug laws is not worthy of the honor of being referred to as a proper citizen.

AMONG the many other problems we face, a large number of people here in the USA, and in many other countries, have accepted being placed under this type of 21st century–style slavery.

Free people will not accept such an invasion into their private life by the state, even if they think they are not personally affected at the moment. Free people must be guaranteed that every citizen owns absolute and uncontested control over their own bloodstream.

IN CONTRAST, a so–called citizen who allows any government that kind of control over their most private and sacred possession, their own body, is actually a willing slave of the state.

Everyone who honestly believes in freedom, must affirm that all citizens, all real citizens, must own exclusive control over their own bloodstream.

Anyone who would disagree with this requirement, is not a real citizen at all. They are either one of the robots who are servants to the "bad guys", or else they actually are one of the bad guys.

IN THIS CASE, the "bad guys" are the people in positions of power and influence who are working to subjugate their fellow humans, and are using drug laws fashioned under misinformation and hysteria to push that purpose.

FOR REASONS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM, and because the “war on (some) drugs” has done far more harm than good, I am an advocate of the decriminalization of the use of all drugs.

HOWEVER, I am not an advocate of the total legalization of the use and sale of all drugs.

Many drugs, such as alcohol, tobacco, crack & powder cocaine, opium and its strongest derivatives, crystal meth, and a number of other substances, are directly implicated in so much illness, death, and mayhem, that they should be intelligently regulated and monitored to some degree.

There are always going to be some people who need help to handle a problem with some of the hardest, and even the softest drugs. “Help” is what may be needed; not punishment or incarceration.

We are all aware of the guy or gal who has been in some trouble because they over–did–it with alcohol, or speed, or maybe even caffeine, for God’s sake. We must be reasonable, and look at all sides of these questions.

ONCE SANITY reasserts itself and a rational drug policy is adopted, any advertising of any drugs to the public in print, on radio, on television, etc, must be appropriately discrete and restrained.

There are hardly any types of drugs, even “medicinal” drugs, that should be advertised at all, while still remaining decriminalized, of course. This is especially true for every recreational and mood altering drug, such as beer, wine, weed, stimulants, etc.. They should only be allowed to be modestly advertised, and then only far outside of the main public media of any kind.

There is no need for such substances to be pitched to the public at the half–time of a national sporting event on TeeVee, or during a re–run of an evening sitcom, or on a morning drive radio time slot.

THE OUTLETS for the sale of drugs needs to be re–evaluated too. All drugs, even non–regulated drugs, require dedicated, single–use retail storefronts, where only drugs of certain types are for sale, and entrance to the establishments may be controlled.

No drug needs to be openly sold in gas stations and grocery stores, next to candy bars and baby formula, like alcohol and tobacco, and over–the–counter medicinal drugs are being sold today in large parts of the USA.

BEFORE ANYONE even thinks about starting to put words in my mouth, I’ll mention that I do not believe that the use of any synthesized drug, or product of Mother Nature like psilocybin, DMT, LSD, MaryJane, etc., is essential for anyone.

There are also prudent legal considerations, and cultural, social, and philosophical complaints that may be associated with their use in our modern culture, even in a spiritual context.

UNLESS the desire is to promote confrontation, any potential endorsement is best presented with reserve, and made by individuals whose stake in the inevitable arguments is seen as natural and authoritative in some relevant manner. But the days of rabid prohibition have to end, especially regarding entheogenic drugs, which are also known as the psychedelic drugs.

They are not for everyone, but despite the scare tactics and legal sanctions, the long and useful history of these exo–psychological drugs cannot truthfully be denied. They are utilized by psychonauts and shamans whose traditions have roots that extend to the origins and earliest mists of human activities that are frequently and appropriately referred to as “religious”.

This class of molecules was extremely useful on a number of occasions for me, as numerous testimonies over centuries of devout human experience will affirm is possible.

OF COURSE, most people are not involved in the tools and rituals of the proto–priests of our species. The great majority of people have no wish to use the semi–transcendent, animated qualities of certain “sacred” plants, or their synthesized chemical clones and derivatives, as “allies”.

There are good reasons for this initial hesitation. It must be remembered that these instruments may easily present problems for dilettantes, the misinformed, the psychologically unprepared, or those who are already too unstable for their own good.

This is the shaman’s specialty; the wizard’s technology. Intimate familiarity with altered states of consciousness, hopefully leading to mastery, is one of the most important talents of the successful psychonaut.

But the simple desire to occasionally “get high” by using drugs seems to be thoroughly ingrained in human nature too. And it’s no secret that, if used wisely and within a sympathetic environment, this inherent pattern can be very amusing, and even rewarding.

A DETAILED RULE defining “wise drug use” must continuously evolve and respond to social and technological changes.

While only a fool would argue that any particular example of drug use is desirable for everyone, the current blanket prohibition of entheogenic drugs is an intolerable attack on human freedom that only ignorance will enforce, and only the timid or unconcerned will accept.

The so–called “illegal” entheogenic compounds have been used for thousands of years in the most fundamental and genuinely devout ceremonies of many cultures, many shared cultures, from the archaic to the modern.

BEYOND the public health issue of “quality control”, these matters are far too personal, far too subjective, and potentially sacred, to allow politicians, courts, and police any countermanding input.

The use of heavy police action and wildly excessive jail time to absolutely outlaw a proven, high–powered, access–point to a natural and vital part of the spectrum of human consciousness is an insult to human freedom, and to the Constitution.

We are facing a growing police state mentality in the USA. All reasonable boundaries have been overstepped in “the war against (some) drugs”, and it doesn’t take a legitimate “strict constructionist” reading of the Constitution to see that.

BECAUSE THERE ARE many misinformed people who might not be aware of how historically mainstream my attitude about freedom from government intrusion in these matters actually is, I have included some interesting quotations from famous Founding Fathers and early Presidents of our nation regarding individual liberty, and the value of certain favored agricultural practices. All of the following quotes can be found in Rowan Robinson's excellent publication, The Great Book of Hemp.

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." – Thomas Jefferson

"Let particular care be taken of the India Hemp seed, and as much good ground allotted for its reception as is competent to Sow." – George Washington

"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country." – Thomas Jefferson

"Surviving correspondence of the first several presidents of the United States indicates that seven of them smoked cannabis (MaryJane). George Washington allegedly preferred to smoke ‘the leaves of hemp’ rather than to drink alcohol. While campaigning with the Army of the Revolution, General Washington was heard to bemoan that he could not be at home to harvest his hemp crop. James Madison was once heard to say that smoking hemp inspired him to found a new nation on democratic principles. James Monroe, the fifth U.S. president, was introduced to hashish while he was serving as ambassador to France, and he continued to enjoy the smoke until he was seventy–three years old. When Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, and Franklin Pierce served as military commanders, they each smoked hemp with their soldiers. In one letter to his family, Pierce complained that hemp was ‘about the only good thing’ about the Mexican War." – Rowan Robinson from The Great Book of Hemp

IT IS CORRECT that in some of my younger years, I may have been more reckless than the average person with respect to the use of certain drugs, but almost all psychonauts and shamans use drugs of one type or another.

If my native intellectual and imaginative talents were more sensitive and comprehensive, I might not have felt that I needed the head–morphing jolt that entheogens can provide as an assist to get beyond the framework of ordinary experience, and strongly confront the frontiers of human consciousness.

BUT I wasn’t that lucky.

INSTEAD, as a young adult, I surveyed the anti–drug propaganda in the corporate media, and evaluated feedback from friends, the fringe press, and the hippie media outlets. I soon gravitated to those few chemical compounds that radiated with the aura of psychedelic legitimacy.

I discounted the flashing, hysterical propaganda from police and politicians, and soon became interested in those drugs that evoked condemnation that was far out of proportion to the real, adverse impact they sometimes had upon an unprepared person’s psychological circumstances.

WITH SPORADIC REGULARITY, I tried to intelligently consume restrained quantities of resinous hemp, central nervous system stimulants (caffeine and the more potent pharmaceutical uppers, but not cocaine, and especially not crack or crystal meth), the occasional challenging dose of an entheogen (and whatever passes for them on the street sometimes), and a tiny sampling of a few other familiar out–caste molecules, as required for my spiritual and physical journey.

ACCORDING to the criteria of my profession, and according to the protections provided to the citizens of the USA by our Constitution and The Bill of Rights, I do not accept that I’ve “abused” any drugs in my preparations for spiritual exploration. I have always assumed the freedom to live my life as I see necessary.

Godspeed to you and yours.

WITHOUT QUESTION, there are other options for the spiritual seeker. Some options are more traditional, and others carry as radical a reputation as does any drug. In the USA, and throughout the planet, most people feel comfortable with the more sedate techniques available to prepare for spiritual exploration.

Forcing myself to select an example from the numerous possibilities, the life–long commitment of a loving, devoted, mutually reinforcing member of a close extended family, or in an established and familiar tribe, can be excellent preparation for the social conditions of higher dimensions.

For many enthusiasts, this could be a very reliable practice, but it’s one of the slower paths. I required quicker results and, soon enough, I felt that I had to look elsewhere.

LUCID DREAMING may also be a path to heights, or depths.

I UNDERSTAND that tantric sex has been successful preparation for some proponents, but it has it’s pitfalls too.

TWO–EDGED swords seem to be the rule in the “left–handed” side of this field of endeavor.

THE EXO–ORTHODOX PATHS, such as using certain drugs, lucid dreaming, or transcendent sex, have acknowledged degrees of additional difficulty associated with them, and they seem suitable for only a minority of people.

Their red flags must be presented to the curious novice more forcefully than any possible benefits that may not come until after many years of meticulous attention.

THE INTRODUCTORY MESSAGE must be something like; “You’d better know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, or it would be better for you if you did not start at all.”

NO MATTER what techniques are chosen to be utilized, the value of the public path is to provide a "proof of concept". Ultimate success only comes when you finally jump off the established path and take your personal breakthrough.

THE BEST of these disciplines are designed to introduce you to, and to verify the existence of, various views of alternate realities.

They may serve as springboards, but the real higher dimensional breakthroughs always come when Divinity extends a personal invitation that is recognized and embraced, without constraint.

A LEGITIMATE spiritual discipline that is properly performed may act as a mentor, a guru, a guide, as you move toward your optimal destination, which must be some type of direct experience of the Divine.

THE DISCIPLINE may also be thought of as your vehicle, which you control as the driver.

Your chosen vehicle may have the reputation of being as slow and safe as a tricycle, or as fast and tricky to control as a jet fighter airplane.

INEVITABLY, some who start will fall into a rut and forget that the vehicle's purpose is to help them advance toward a destination, and the path becomes their goal, instead of their tool.

They may master their chosen vehicle and become a mere performer of stunts, like a jet fighter pilot carving pointless smoke trails in the sky with comrades at faster than the speed of sound.

They may never realize that they have become snared by the flypaper of a mastered technique, and buzz in the same spot until time robs them of the opportunity to remember that any path without a higher purpose is just an occupation, or a hobby, and not a means to transcendence.

AS AN UNSHAKABLE BELIEVER in transcendence, and a serious student of the notion of Goddess & God, I flexed my life to probe the world along its most compelling contours. Investigating many paths at least a little, I hoped to get closer to my “Holy Grail”, which resided beyond Space–Time.

LIKE YOU, I had little time to waste.

New Information: Appendix X

IF WE WERE TO break–down this Universe into its most basic components, into its elemental parts, what are the fewest number of words that we can use to totally catalog everything that exists?

WE CAN do it in as few as five words.

MAYBE even in as few as three words, if we decide to count “Space–Time” as one word, and “Energy–Matter” as one word.

• Space: 3–dimensions = Length+Width+Height.

• Time: Tick–Tock–Tick–Tock.

• Consciousness: your snippet of whatever–it–is that finds you reading and comprehending this text, which my snippet has composed.

• Energy:1 everything else in the Universe = photons, flowers, galaxies, biological bodies, magnetism, dirt, radioactivity, vitamin C, etc.; E=mc^2; Energy is Matter

• Matter:2 everything else in the Universe = photons, flowers, galaxies, biological bodies, magnetism, dirt, radioactivity, vitamin C, etc.; mc^2=E; Matter is Energy

ANYTHING, anything, anything that anyone can perceive within Space–Time, or imagine within Space–Time, is an aspect of the synthesis of the “Universal Building Blocks” in that little list; Space–Time, Consciousness, Energy–Matter.

The New Information: There are many more Universal Building Blocks available to be utilized in the creation of universes than just those few that unite in our home Universe.

IF ANY ONE of those exo–Universal Building Blocks were to be subtracted from any prospective Universe, that subtraction would have almost as impoverishing an effect upon the prospective Universe as the subtraction of Time [for example] would have upon our Universe.

Similarly, the addition, the insertion of any one of those alien and fundamental Universal Building Blocks into any specific Universe lacking the proffered attribute, would expand and enrich that Universe something like the way that the inclusion of Energy [for example] would amplify the possibilities of a Universe which previously contained merely the UBB’s of Time–Space and Consciousness.

I CAN’T NAME or describe most of the exo–UBB’s because they are either not capable of being fully expressed within Space–Time, or because they are totally alien to Space–Time.

I also don't want to even guess how many there are, beyond “plenty”.

I'm only left with the certain knowledge that they do exist, and they are used in the creation of hyper–universes that cannot be imagined or envisioned from within this universe; from within so–called “Space–Time”.

1.  E=mc^2 : The Energy contained in a quantity of mass equals the Mass, expressed as joules, multiplied by the square of the speed of light, expressed in meters per second. This formula expresses one aspect of the relationship of energy and mass.

2.  Ibid.

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Food for the mind

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Vulcan Mind Meld

Chapter 2 - The Lay Of The Land

Chapter 3 - Not Flatland

Chapter 4 - Fingering The Ganges Transmission

Chapter 5 - Camp Reunion

Chapter 6 - Pretty Bubbles

Chapter 7 - Mister Zot?

Chapter 8 - Beyond Heaven

Chapter 9 - Leaving Plato's Cave

Chapter 10 - Ultimate Love

Chapter 11 - Pretty Molecules

Chapter 12 - Back In The World

Chapter 13 - Busted In Key West

Chapter 14 - Epilog

Dedication

Preface to Star Maker's Apprentice

About The Author

Credits

Getting High In A Spiritual Context: Appendix G

New Information: Appendix X