The Acid Diaries (Christopher Gray) / quote 105 of 125
Visionary versus mystical experience
In summary, I would suggest that, yes, psychedelics and the magic they access could possibly prove a key factor in the birth of a new universal religion. They are coming from an angle outflanking all our materialistic conditioning—and doing so with a speed and to a depth nothing else can command. But this is only half the story. In the mid-1950s Aldous Huxley wrote Heaven and Hell, an attempt to produce a sequel to The Doors of Perception, in which he observed: Visionary perception is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and “going to heaven” is no more liberation than is the descent into horror.3 In light of such a distinction, I’d say that while psychedelics can produce transpersonal, esoteric, or even—using the word loosely—religious experience, they cannot access genuine mysticism. Not directly. They can take you right to the door, give you a glimpse through, but not propel you any further. Their forte is to decondition: after that you are on your own . . . But that’s just my personal opinion. Awakening is subtle, dialectical, and unexplored.