By my early twenties I had abandoned hallucinogens. Throughout my teens, mushrooms and acid had taught me so much. But it is no easy ride. For each transcendent moment of understanding universal truths there was a soul searching moment, even paranoid terror. Either we were playing with a magic we didn't fully understand or our experiences were mere hallucinations. Maybe it only felt like we were experiencing higher truths. Fear crept in, loss of faith, and the dispersal of our group. Many turned on to harder drugs. Alcohol, heroin, speed. People were starting to die, some ending up in mental hospitals. Could this be our legacy? Now, as an older man, having read so many papers on drugs and mental illness it is clear it wasn't the acid nor the mushrooms but the cannabis, the speed, the alcohol that caused mental illness. So I put it to bed for thirty years. My mysticism became replaced with the bullet proof atheism my father raised me on. No one could beat me in an argument regarding God, life after death, transcendent souls. But being able to beat the arguments doesn't mean you are right.
I recall the names LSZ, that sounded great, but AL-LAD? Yorkshire acid? I knew little about either when I first tried them. LSZ was a little underwhelming. Pleasant enough, good for a first timer maybe, or social occasions. My first AL-LAD was just a nice background trip. It's easy to look for acid, or at least how it differs, than take it for what it is. You have to learn its nuances. Explore its personality. Trying two blotters, 300ug I began to see its potential. Not once did I get the fear. Some LSD purists have derided it as all glitter and decoration, lacking the depth of acid. There is some truth in this, but not much. As I experimented more I realised how many of my youthful trips had been spent hanging on for sheer life, holding it off, fighting it. AL-LAD permits you to let go, to just give yourself to the experience and let it take you. How much global trip time is spent fighting the effects? How much of this had i done? Here was a hallucinogen, every bit as spectacular as acid but free of fear.
At this time I knew little about its origins. First synthesised by a Japanese team in the early seventies but made more famous by Shulgin and later David Nichols. In its making LSD25 must first be made, from here it is reduced by four fifths. Now, what is taken out chemically, I don't know. But from a users point of view, they remove all dark corridors, all bad trips. It may not be the litmus test of the soul acid can be but freedom to abandon oneself makes it something that would have far broader appeal. The LSD revolution was never going to happen with people having bad experiences. But the AL-LAD revolution could just be the evolutionary trigger in human consiousness we sought in our teens. This could change the world. At the time it was largely unknown and still legal. To my mind it is the sacrament, the best drug I have ever taken. Even referring to it as a drug is inaccurate. It is 100% tolerant as is acid the next day. You can't do it two days in a row, even should you want to. Counter addictive. More often it takes a week or a month to digest what you have learned. It doesn't lend itself to abuse. Don't read this and expect to be an expert first time. All skills worth having take practice. But I beg you, persevere.
I took a couple on leaving Trowbridge one afternoon and was tripping strong when I hit frome. I heard a close freind had died. Her spirit or essence entered the flat and I lied on the bed, flooded with tears as her spirit enveloped me. I knew her as I never had in life. Though intense I could drift in to a sleep like dream state where we were just holding each other in tears. Where I ended and she began wasn't apparent. We were one.
During this time I worked on the office in Chelsea then went to visit my artist freind P. I gave him an AL-LAD, I only had two but wanted to spread the word. In response he gave me a pipes worth of DMT to take home. As we talked D who I had converted was 300ug up. Talking to beings, people from Victorian times who intervened to protect him. One specific woman has returned to him on many trips, a guardian angel.
My DMT experience was quite wonderful but I wished I had more. First attempt is disconcerting. I would love to study this most spiritual of all sacraments. The ground before me split in to multiple layers. Life forms, spheres of energy lept in to my head to welcome me. It takes you to a different dimension.
P experienced religious figures, cracks in time, after
under estimating the drug whilst in a nightclub. D often spoke of miniature rainbows. His greatest trip on the lad saw him plunged in to a time before time. In the palm of his hand he witnessed the Big Bang, the creation of the universe exploding from his palm, seeing galaxies, stars forming.
We began to have very powerful experiences. In an experiment me and D stayed in phone contact for the first five hours of a trip, taking one 150ug blotter every hour for five hours. This compounds but mainly serves to extend the trip. LSD can be 7 to 12 hours, AL-LAD rarely longer than five. After this I stepped out into the night. It was a few hours from dawn but I felt the draw of Vallis. Walking this distance alone on mushrooms or acid would be unthinkable. Instantly, looking to the skies, multiple stars exploded in blues, reds, and greens, stardust falling all around and comets cutting across space.
As I left the streets and hit the fields I was fortunate to have my dog Dook with me. He knew the way well. I, however, no longer knew where I was. Walking through oriental interiors that melted in to Victorian stately homes. As I hit the woods I was aware that this could be dangerous but felt confident. After a while I became aware an adolescent boy walked silently with me. He was my guardian angel and stuck around till daybreak. Each time I got lost a pool of light would descend, enabling me to gather my bearings. One slight hazard came when I walked in to an iron bar. At first I thought I'd been hit with a crow bar but the boy smiled mischievously.
Once at the river the path can be followed by ear. Piercing owl calls prewar end dawn. From either side of the valley they called to each other. As light grew the skies opened and the ecstatic feel of rain on skin was the most sensual beauty. At some point I realised the boy was gone. He'd seen me through the dark then returned from whence he came.
Coming back in to town, swirling hoops of colour of tremendous beauty welcomed me back. Despite hallucinating heavily I felt confident and bought milk etc from the shop. This trip confirmed I was on to something very special.
For me I had now established a high single dose was preferable. Armed with this knowledge I tried to spread the word, giving away a few. Sadly, those first goes are too close to acid for the novice. Learning the sacrament takes some practice, as does any skill.
In a terrible turn of events, despite never having been implicated in a single death or bad story, AL-LAD was banned along with LSZ, 5-meo-dalt, 5-meo-malt, AMT and a whole host of lesser substances. That night the Internet was fevered as psychonauts tried to buy a last few. I got a few but this date, 07/01/15 will go down as one of the saddest in history. I had got to know through email the lab that made it and knew the trouble they had gone through to create or recreate this holy treasure. Many research chemicals are made in China, but the advanced lysergics were apparently beyond them at the time. The lab moved to Europe where the lad remains legal.
In a beautiful stroke and a two fingers to the establishment of anti transcendence, lizard labs released a new lysergic just seven days later. How long they had had it up their sleeve I don't know. 1p-LSD remains legal. This too is an advanced lysergic, less body load than acid, much less demanding. A master stroke. Pure poetry.
All in all, it was a homecoming. I began my teens with psychedelics. Somehow became distracted by other drugs. Now I could see the error of my ways. I had strayed from the path but now I was refocused. Certain of where to look for the transcendence jesse spoke of. Our key to a paradigm shift in human consiousness. An evolutionary trigger.
It was beautiful to have an alternative and I like to do a 1p as the lad diminishes to augment the afterglow. But it's AL-LAD that would change everything. Forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment