CHAPTER 13 THE BRIGHT DARKNESS-PERSO AL INSIGHTS INTO THE ENTHEOGENIC USE OF KETAMINE Julian Vayne My entheogenic explorations with the substance known as ketamine began when I was four years old. At that age, I suffered from an astigmatism af- fecting my left eye. This led to a planned admission to the hospital and an operation to correct the problem. The anesthetic used on me was ketamine, a drug commonly employed for surgery on children and the elderly (Couper et al., 2013). Ketamine is a very safe, reliable medicine (Jansen, 2004, p. 267) and also a medicine that can provoke strange visions, distortions of space and time, and even, 1 later discovered, open the door to peak spiritual experiences (Jansen, 2004<,p. 267). For years after this operation, two things haunted me: The first was a vision, a nightmare. Something that I'd see in dreams when under stress (1 was something of a worrisome child), during fevers, and sometimes in the hypnagogic or hypnopompic states. The vision was of an egg. Not a realistic object but a stylized black-and-white ovoid shape in a 2D space that filled my entire visual field. Bisected at the widest part of the figure, this egg would appear on a background of black and white. As the top of the egg shape was filled with black, so the field behind that part of the shape would switch to white, and vice versa, for the bottom of the egg. Then the picture would shift, the monochromatic shades switching around, faster and faster until the black seemed white and the white dark. Flickering and flashing like lightening in the night, this strobe would continue while somehow (the geometry was and remains impossible for me to describe) fine black and livid white lines would form across (or perhaps behind) the egg shape. 300 Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances The second, a generally less unpleasant event, was what I came to call 'The Cavern Experience" (naming it this by the time I was in my early teens). This "vas a strange disconnected and yet intensely present state that would come upon me at odd times. Mostly when lying in bed. This spontaneously arising feeling was one of dysmetropsia, appearing in all four of its mani- festations: macropsia, micropsia, pelopsia, and teleopsia. I would somehow feel that the corner of the room was many miles, sometimes even light-years away. Yet, when I held up my hand, it seemed impossibly large, or my arm improbably long and I could touch even the farthest part of the ceiling. Had I grown gigantic or had space collapsed, or both? Both the reoccurring monochrome vision and the Alice in Wonderland-style changes of scale went on for many years. However, it was not until 1996 when I was in the Indian state of Goa that I made sense of these experiences. One evening with some friends, we each insufflated a line ofketamine (which was obtainable from a chemist in one of the larger towns). The bottle of injectable material had been "cooked up" in spoon to remove the water that resulted in a pale gray powder. As soon as the effect of the drug hit me, I realized I knew it. Realized I'd been here before. The monochromatic, linear visions with my eyes shut (like razor sharp etchings on volcanic glass, rather than the Technicolor morph- ing fractals I'd become familiar with from drugs such as LSD and psilocybin) had a quality exactly like that of my egg-shaped pulsating nightmare. And with my eyes open, my body seemed to be extending into space, and space itself seemed to have become plastic and distorted in just the same way as it was during The Cavern Experience. Moreover, just like in The Cavern Experience, it was not a significant visual distortion of my body that led me to think this. The changes were felt instead as a visceral, kinaesthetic transformation. While it is true that some psychoactive medicines can pro- voke a sense offamiliarity (DMT sometimes does this, perhaps because of its possible endogenous production in extreme situations such as birth, labor, and critical illness; see Strassman, 2001, p. 55), this experience felt like a clear recognition of this specific chemical. I knew this. feeling. I experienced the woozy disconnection of anesthesia and the paradoxical sense that as the light of consciousness dimmed so a bright darkness seemed to rise within me.I felt a sense of giving up and simultaneously a sense of finding myself. It was my connection with a child years ago in a hospital bed coming back to consciousness and the disturbing and yet delicious, even ecstatic, sense of waking up and coming into awareness. The ketamine trip (whether it is undertaken in medical, recreational, or spiritual contexts) is this experience of coming into awareness. At a sufficient dosage, ketamine obliterates consciousness, plunging the user into the mythic "1\: hole" and anesthetized sleep (Jansen, 2004) Awareness is extinguished The Bright Darkness 301 for a while (depending on the method of administration and dosage), but the actual ketamine trip is something that happens as self-awareness comes back into focus. Neurologically, ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) re- ceptor antagonist. It induces a state called dissociative anesthesia, marked by catalepsy, amnesia, and analgesia (Pender, 1971). NDMA is closely involved in the formation of memory and one might conceptualize the psychological process of the ketamine trip as being one in which the continuity of con- sciousness (what we on a daily basis report as the feeling of being an 'T' or broadly unitary and persistent self-aware identity) is temporarily obliterated. As the drug is metabolized, so the faculty of memory, and therefore the sense of self returns. This return to awareness includes the returning awareness of the body from an anesthetized state, and importantly, this includes not only the return of sensitivity to the limbs, but also a literal remembering of the psychological schema of the body. Proprioception (the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement), exterocep- tion (by which one perceives the outside world), and interoception (by which one perceives pain, hunger, and internal sensations), all come back online. While these changes are taking place, there may be visual "psychedelic" ma- terial emerging into the mind's eye, but typically these effects are much less than those experienced with either tryptamines (such as N,N-DMT) or the phenylethylamines (such as mescaline and MDMA (Turner, 1994). However, ideational changes during a ketamine experience can be as profound as those associated with classic psychedelics from both tryptamine and phenylethyl- amine families. Experiences of being present at the beginning (or end) of the universe can arise. Deep personal introspection can be provoked by ketamine, as well as ecstatic states and existential dread (Turner, 1994). Even so, ket- amine tends to be considered less psychologically challenging than materials such as LSD. Perhaps for this reason, it is more open to becoming a drug of abuse, and in recent years, it has been described as "psychedelic heroin" (Donut, 1997). In common with most drugs, very frequent use can lead to problems. These range from the usual social and psychological difficulties of habitual drug use through to specific dangers to physical health associated with this substance. A recently identified problem for heavy users of ket- amine is a range oflower urinary tract symptoms (Hanna, 2010). Although ketamine is a new material (it was first synthesized by Calvin Stevens in 1962), since its early days, there have been a number of individuals who have explored its enthogenic potential. These people include Timothy Leary, John C. Lilly, D. M. Turner, Marcia Moore, and Howard Alltounian. Although these and other writers have described some of their experiments, the texts that I present below are, as far as I'm aware, some of the first to not only describe the subjective experience of ketamine, but to also seek to 302 Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances deliberately place that experience within a ritual setting designed specifically for that drug. These two accounts are separated by several years and ap- pear in Magick Works: Stories if Occultism in Theory and Practice (Vayne, 2008) and Deep Magic Begins Here ... Tales and Techniques cf Practical Occultism (Vayne, 2013b). As a practicing occultist, I am interested in creating ritual environments that maximize the transforrnative potential of the entheogens I'm working with. In a sense, this is a form of autopoietic therapy (Vayne, 2006, and 2013b).The aim of these rituals is both to explore the self and also to recreate it. These ceremonies, rather like the initiation rites of the ancient mystery cults of Eleusis or Orpheus, are attempts to bring us into a powerful and empowering meeting with a particular "spirit" (in this case, one that manifests physically in the form of a psychoactive molecule). Such ex- periences can be challenging and potentially dangerous; however, the ritual framework seeks both to intensify and support these encounters, creating a safe environment 'where these powerful materials can be engaged with in way that is liberating or illuminating (in a spiritual sense; Vayne, 2006). Naturally, none of these experiments took place in locations or times where the law was broken (Vayne, 2013). Additional notes (as endnotes) have been added to these texts to include academic references and additional explanatory material for those who may be unfamiliar with the vocabulary of contemporary occultism. The second narrative is presented as a fictional account.In part, this is a literary device to point toward the sense of unreality that can attend protracted periods of ketamine exploration, and in another sense, it is designed to hint at the real emergence of an entheogenic ketamine cult.