mr peabody
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2016
- Messages
- 5,714
Back in 1964, when psychedelic exploration was still legal, I obtained three doses of ibogaine. I had previously been doing extensive exploration with LSD, peyote, DMT, and mescaline, both in my laboratory as chief alchemist for the League of Spiritual Discovery , and internally on my own quest for illumination. Always on the lookout for new and effective ways to access God-consciousness, I was eager to try ibogaine. I had heard fascinating stories about ibogaine from the older friends who had turned me on to my first psychedelic experience with mescaline. One told of a parade of cosmic proportions. Another described a pageant of incredible detail and completely realistic visions, like watching a movie. These were some of the tantalizing descriptions presented to me about ibogaine.
LSD tends to magnify, intensify and empower the vision of a timeless moment. DMT, on the other end of the tryptamine spectrum, tends to transport one into a totally “other” realm, replete with elaborate and intensely colorful designs, strange guardian creatures, and visitations from divine messengers. Having retrieved rich treasures of spiritual secrets from the DMT realms, I was intrigued by the descriptions of ibogaine.
Looking through my anthropology books, I found passages describing members of the Bwiti cult in central Africa using Tabernanthe iboga , a traditional plant source for ibogaine, in ceremonies to visit their ancestors and receive instructions. In lower doses, ibogaine was said to give hunters the ability to stay motionless for many hours while they became one with the jungle.
My two intrepid cosmic companions, Alan and Raymond, and myself were all enthusiastic about trying it. We decided to take it at their flat in Brooklyn Heights— a brownstone building that had fallen into disrepair—that lay on the boundary between the black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods. They had fixed the fireplace and transformed the flat into a psychedelic temple. Now assembled, we discussed the preparations. We had fasted for two days and spent the day before quietly reading, meditating, and doing yoga to ensure the best possible experience. We disconnected the phone and put a “do not disturb, meditation in progress” sign up on the door.
We each took about 800 mg of ibogaine hydrochloride, a chalky white powder with a bitter, earthy taste. We sat on mattresses arranged on a carpet around the fire. We waited one, two, three hours, and nothing happened. The fire burned low, but no one moved to build it up. The shadows grew long and night fell. Simultaneously, we all lay down, as the lethargy that had subtly been coming on grew more intense. I had no desire to move. Everything became silent and still. I felt that I was in a soft, humming, electric cocoon that gave me little “funny bone” shocks if I touched it.
I was in the middle, centered between euphoria and depression. I felt balanced. My sense perceptions were heightened. The little glow from the fire brightened the whole room. My eyes focused in a different way—clear, but taking everything in. And then the room started to spin. It was similar to an alcohol drunkenness, but with no feeling of vertigo or nausea at all. I was glad that I had fasted! The whirling increased and I felt like I was in the center of a pinwheel. Faster and faster it spun and then I was rising like a projectile through the room—great chunks of wall and brick peeling back and falling away in slow motion. I shot up into the stars: a pair of disembodied eyes wandering, searching. I was an essence - a solo awareness flying through the universe, exploring and seeking.
After an immense journey, I came to a planet. It was a sandy yellow color. I was able to project my vision down to it, and I looked around the surface of the planet. It was an inhospitable looking place; with winds strong enough to blow rocks and sand past me. It looked lethally hot and dry. I moved on. Next, I came to a dark green planet. No clouds. No seas.No mountains. It looked as though it were covered with a poisonous mold. I did not want to go any closer. I continued on through the galaxies until I arrived above a whirling vortex that was coalescing into a solar system. I watched a sun and its planets form, and came closer to observe. I was drawn to one of the middle planets. The fiery liquid surface was cooling and turning from yellow and red to black solids broken by red rivers of lava emitting flames. Slowly, the planet cooled until fumes and vapors veiled the entire surface. As I circled the planet, I sensed a long epoch of torrential rains, as water vapor formed and condensed in the upper atmosphere and fell toward the burning surface, only to evaporate again long before reaching the ground. Eventually, the planet cooled and the rains arrived on the lands below. After what seemed like a long time, the clouds began to clear. I skimmed the planet now, seeing and being everything that I came across. I watched mountain chains rise and volcanoes burst, and everything subside again and again into flat plains and meandering rivers. Time and time again, mountains rose and dissolved and continents appeared and disappeared. Then this slowed down and I watched the seas and plains. All was sterile—a tan land with smoking volcanoes and no life, yet fecund and ready.
As I watched, I then saw life appear. I observed spots of green forming along the seashores. They shot along the banks, forming a green margin and then running up the rivers and tributaries like the veins in a leaf. The barren spaces between these branches of life filled with proliferating plant life. The oceans seemed to be teeming with life and then the first buglike creatures started to crawl out on land. They spread all over, rapidly changing into a variety of insects and strange lobster-like creatures. Fern-like plants appeared. Vast varieties of life appeared and then disappeared. Elaborate life experiments succeeded one another with awesome complexity.
Then suddenly I was in a steaming swamp-like environment that looked familiar. With a sense of awe and amazement, I realized that I was watching the age of the dinosaur, and it slowly dawned on me that I was witness to the history of life evolving on the planet Earth! With a speed that defies accurate recall, life forms changed again and again, spreading and multiplying in a dizzying array of shapes and colors. Humanoid creatures appeared and soon after were hunting and then farming and building. Civilizations bloomed, spread, and subsided, like bubbles on a fermenting pond. Ages of war and conquest expressed the speed of civilization and technology. I witnessed slaughter and mayhem, torture and mutilation, rape and castration. Man’s inhumanity to man was illustrated in myriad forms. I was there “in” it, feeling it as both the doer and the done to. For what seemed an interminably long time civilization rose and fell in inter-folding waves of creation and brilliant innovations in arts and sciences, only to fall in smoking ruins followed by ages of darkness.
Then, points of light appeared in the dark, interconnecting again in new waves of discovery and renaissance. Undulating waves of humanity were crashing and washing over the planet in a succession of expansion and contraction. As I lived through this flux and change, there arose in me an awareness of the noble and brave potential of humanity and its duty as the intelligent species to protect the forests and life forms and water of the planet. I was experiencing a feeling of the sacred unity with all life. I saw the whole planet’s surface as one organism inhabited by one spirit growing its forests to protect its surface and provide even moisture and temperature for all its creatures. I saw one species, humanity, as the natural intelligent guardian of all life. I realized that it was humanity’s intelligence that must understand, preserve, and care for the earth’s surface—and life that is its nutrient substrate, its womb, and its mother. I felt how all life was precious, interconnecting, and supportive of all other life. I dedicated my spirit not to destroy any part of this puzzle of divine mystery that is the milk of creation. Throughout, there was this balance and acknowledgment of the intertwining of opposites, the negative and positive, the base and noble. This feeling went through me as a dual aspect of one energytotal, deep, and sweeping me away on this immense journey of life’s history. It was like falling in love, so entrancing was this vision.
Hours had gone by. The fire was long gone, yet this movie continued with fantastic detail, one pageant coming on the heels of another. An example of the incredible detail that ibogaine shows: through my constantly available “zoomlens,” I was observing a French king and his retinue during a formal promenade in the gardens of Versailles. Of this large group of people in courtly splendor, one woman’s dress caught my eye. I could see at great distance the hem of her dress, an intricate and tiny embroidery of inter-linked fleur-de-lis. Simultaneously, I could see both immense and complicated scenes and vistas as well as small details with great precision. On and on it went, and I never moved. This peak experience went on for at least 14 hours. I was watching scenes from the industrial revolution when the sun shown in the window. The movie continued in stronger and weaker waves, dimming in the light and finally fading out, although I know it was still going on at some internal level. Although I could move around now, I was still high and it was still going on 24 hours later. This was a long trip!
By afternoon, we were all getting pretty hungry. I decided to brave the world and pick up some food at the corner store. I exited the house, which was located on the black side of the street, and headed for a Puerto Rican store on the opposite corner. This was New York, a place where people don’t usually greet strangers on the street. I walked past this old man who glanced up and said, “Hello.” Down at the corner I met a black woman; we also greeted each other and smiled. I crossed the street and entered the store. Pretty soon I was chatting and joking with the owners, and they were putting extra fruit in my bag as gifts. As I exited the store and crossed the street upon my return I had to pass through a group of young black gang members who had just arrived. To my surprise they let me pass with no incident. What was going on? As I walked back it hit me. I knew where we all came from. We all came from the same source—the same mother. There was no difference between us. I saw it, I felt it, and I “was” it. And it was recognizable instantly by others. I had been transformed into a being at one with all other life. Racism and prejudice became incomprehensible to me after that. I knew where we all came from. We all came from the same universe: we were all one.
What I learned from this trip is that there is a new paradigm arising for humankind. Transcending mind, one finds the spirit or soul. Rejecting the bias of politics and the destructiveness of fear, one finds that life and unity and harmony are served by love. Humanity’s role as guardian of the planet becomes all too urgent as we go beyond the carrying capacity of the planet’s surface. This is the dream we must realize: to bring back the health of life and nature on this planet. Protect the womb that has borne us and still serves us. Bring back the forests, let the waters run clean, and live in love and harmony with each other. It is time to understand the roots of fear and deal with them. Let us join in a dance to celebrate life and love and rediscover the beauty of inner sacredness.
What is this stuff called ibogaine that tastes like earth and lets you see your ancestors? Is it a DNA-designed communication link to our origins? How far back are these origins? Are we visitors from space, planted here on the wings of the God-DNA? Is this cosmic panorama it reveals created to give humanity a real look at our history to understand who we are and how we are connected to the universe? One thing is certain: ibogaine is one of the true, deep psychedelics. It is flesh of the Gods. Use it with preparation, respect, and care, and you may grant yourself a taste of truth, a vision into the nature of reality and an inspiration to enter into the path of unity and knowing.
One of richest uses of psychedelics is giving them enough time and attention to allow the sacred messages to filter through and become meaningful. A day before for preparation and one afterwards for contemplation is ideal. The peyote people would spend the morning after, for a traditional breakfast and sharing the visions they had had and finding meanings in these messages from beyond. In like manner, we can also find new meanings for these visions as the years deepen our perspectives.
So as time passed, I wondered who it could have been that was seeing the evolution of life on our planet. Was this some mystery that would just have to be accepted as is? Many years later I came across two ideas that gave new meaning and depth to these ibogaine visions. The first idea came when I read about an explorer in the Amazon questioning the chief of the Mayoruna about the purpose of all the intense psychedelic journeys that the entire tribe participated in. He said that the purpose was to go back to the beginning. The second idea came after reading Jeremy Narby’s book The Cosmic Serpent. I realized that it was quite possible that the DNA molecule had an extraterrestrial origin. In fact, due to the complexity of this life-evolving molecule and the relatively short window it had in which to evolve on this earth it seems that DNA’s evolution here on planet earth may just be another geocentric earthling myth.
Putting these two ideas together started a process that gave a whole new meaning to my ibogaine vision. I was going back to the beginning. Going back to the beginning of life on this planet. Certainly, it was not my persona that was going back. Then what or who was going back? What was the common denominator of all living things? Who was the “I” that was observing and so intensely participating in all these lives and journeys? Suddenly I realized that the common denominator and the origin of life was the DNA that we all carry, whether it be the simplest bacteria or modern man. Now my vision took on a whole new meaning. Our consciousness predates this solar system. I had gone back to the beginning when I (and all of us) had been space-borne DNA looking for a new home in which to create life. I had been seeking through one solar system after another until I came to the nascent solar system we now call our home. Now I rushed down to the surface after waiting for eons for the conditions to be right for the formation of life. Then down I went, creating new life, evolving from the beginning into the vast mystery.
-Nick Sand
Biography
Nick Sand grew up under the shadow of the atomic bomb. His father taught chemistry at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, and contributed to the Manhattan Project and to SAM (substitute alloy materials), which focused on the separation of uranium isotopes in order to extract the only fissionable isotope, uranium-235. Watching the destruction brought about by such work, Sand felt that there had to be a better way. One of his father's PhD students, an Indian Raja, taught Sand yoga at the age of 15. This inspired a deep and abiding interest in spirituality, and over the last five decades Sand has been a student of the Kabballah, meditation, Krishna consciousness, Sufism, aikido, T'ai Chi, Zen, and Tantra, as well as having studied the teachings of Krishnamurti, Milarepa, Ramakrishna, Rajneesh, and other philosophers.
Sand married his first wife, Melly, while he was still in college, studying anthropology. In 1961 he first took mescaline, which sparked a life-long interest in psychedelic sacraments. During his undergraduate days, Sand put together a laboratory and successfully synthesized mescaline and several short-acting tryptamines. His attic became a new sort of temple, as Sand started turning everyone he knew on to these obscure entheogens. After meeting Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) at a lecture at Brooklyn College, Sand invited Alpert to see his lab. Sand was then summoned to Millbrook, the commune home to Timothy Leary's League for Spiritual Discovery. At Millbrook, Sand met John Griggs (founder of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love) and Owsley Stanley (creator of the first underground lab producing pure LSD1). At this point Sand began dividing his time between finishing his BA, making psychedelics, and guiding initiates in his attic and at Millbrook. He graduated from college in 1966. During a vision quest on DMT, Sand came to believe that he should devote his life entirely to manufacturing entheogens. This decision—to give up a career in anthropology and go underground to produce LSD—ultimately resulted in the break-up of his marriage. Sand became a criminal as a matter of principle and as an act of civil disobedience, because he believed he was working for a higher good. He left New York in 1967, and headed to the San Francisco Bay Area to set up a lab, where he manufactured DOM (known at the time under the street name "STP") and MDA.
From 1968 through 1969 in Windsor, California, Sand worked in an illicit lab with Tim Scully, who taught Sand how to manufacture LSD. Their material was distributed through the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a legendary band of dealers on a mission to enlighten the world. Just like Owsley before them, Scully and Sand both felt that it was extremely important to create a product of the highest purity at a standardized dose; these goals resulted in one of the most beloved "brands" of acid in the late 1960s: tiny orange barrels containing 300 micrograms of LSD, called "Orange Sunshine ". In 2007, an ex-DEA agent who spent time analyzing Sand's acid in the 1960s remarked, "It was always high quality, and it was always a good dose."
Although infamous because of his black-market LSD production, Sand was also the first underground chemist on record to have synthesized DMT. Sand and a lab colleague were the first people to notice that DMT exhibits piezoluminescence: when hardened DMT that had collected in a tray was being chipped out with a hammer and screwdriver in a brightly lit room, the blows emitted massive amounts of colored light. Sand was also the first person to realize that synthetic DMT could be smoked for effect; prior to this, self-experimenters were injecting DMT. This discovery came about by serendipity, when some crumbs of DMT fell onto a hotplate and vaporized, inspiring Sand to try smoking it.
Eventually Sand and Scully were arrested. Sand was told by his lawyer, Michael Kennedy, that their bust influenced the government in their massive effort to combine numerous drug control agencies (the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) under one umbrella with greater power: the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 1974, Scully was sentenced to 20 years (later reduced to 10 years; he was released after 3.5 years); that same year Sand was sentenced to 15 years, but he jumped bail and relocated to Canada, where he set up a new lab. Sand met his current partner, Usha, via an international blind date arranged by a mutual friend who knew that they shared a passionate interest in psychedelics.
Sand was arrested again in 1996 in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. His lab there produced assorted psychedelics and, at the time of the bust, had 43 grams of LSD on site. The lab was so impressive that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used it to stage a training video. Samples of drugs seized at the lab tested at over 100% pure,3 which is clearly not possible. Alexander Shulgin has speculated that the government's reference standards must have degraded and been less pure than Sand's illicit product. Sand served time in prison from 1996 through late 2000, first in Canada, and then in the United States in fulfillment of the 22-year-old sentence that he had evaded. While in prison, Sand wrote a manuscript called Psychedelic Secrets, which lays out his thoughts on the best approaches for trippers to take when exploring their minds; he also wrote a guidebook containing his production syntheses techniques for popular psychedelics. (Both books are as yet unpublished.)
After his release, Sand gave a speech at the Mind States II conference in 2001 titled "Reflections on Imprisonment and Liberation as Aspects of Consciousness". He received a standing ovation, and has spoken at numerous events since that time. In his personal exploration of psychedelics, Sand has long been a proponent of psychopharmacological synergy. In 2006 he gave a talk at Burning Man titled "Synergistic Combinations in the Future", describing some of his favorite ways to combine two or more drugs to produce uniquely beneficial effects.
-Jon Hanna
LSD tends to magnify, intensify and empower the vision of a timeless moment. DMT, on the other end of the tryptamine spectrum, tends to transport one into a totally “other” realm, replete with elaborate and intensely colorful designs, strange guardian creatures, and visitations from divine messengers. Having retrieved rich treasures of spiritual secrets from the DMT realms, I was intrigued by the descriptions of ibogaine.
Looking through my anthropology books, I found passages describing members of the Bwiti cult in central Africa using Tabernanthe iboga , a traditional plant source for ibogaine, in ceremonies to visit their ancestors and receive instructions. In lower doses, ibogaine was said to give hunters the ability to stay motionless for many hours while they became one with the jungle.
My two intrepid cosmic companions, Alan and Raymond, and myself were all enthusiastic about trying it. We decided to take it at their flat in Brooklyn Heights— a brownstone building that had fallen into disrepair—that lay on the boundary between the black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods. They had fixed the fireplace and transformed the flat into a psychedelic temple. Now assembled, we discussed the preparations. We had fasted for two days and spent the day before quietly reading, meditating, and doing yoga to ensure the best possible experience. We disconnected the phone and put a “do not disturb, meditation in progress” sign up on the door.
We each took about 800 mg of ibogaine hydrochloride, a chalky white powder with a bitter, earthy taste. We sat on mattresses arranged on a carpet around the fire. We waited one, two, three hours, and nothing happened. The fire burned low, but no one moved to build it up. The shadows grew long and night fell. Simultaneously, we all lay down, as the lethargy that had subtly been coming on grew more intense. I had no desire to move. Everything became silent and still. I felt that I was in a soft, humming, electric cocoon that gave me little “funny bone” shocks if I touched it.
I was in the middle, centered between euphoria and depression. I felt balanced. My sense perceptions were heightened. The little glow from the fire brightened the whole room. My eyes focused in a different way—clear, but taking everything in. And then the room started to spin. It was similar to an alcohol drunkenness, but with no feeling of vertigo or nausea at all. I was glad that I had fasted! The whirling increased and I felt like I was in the center of a pinwheel. Faster and faster it spun and then I was rising like a projectile through the room—great chunks of wall and brick peeling back and falling away in slow motion. I shot up into the stars: a pair of disembodied eyes wandering, searching. I was an essence - a solo awareness flying through the universe, exploring and seeking.
After an immense journey, I came to a planet. It was a sandy yellow color. I was able to project my vision down to it, and I looked around the surface of the planet. It was an inhospitable looking place; with winds strong enough to blow rocks and sand past me. It looked lethally hot and dry. I moved on. Next, I came to a dark green planet. No clouds. No seas.No mountains. It looked as though it were covered with a poisonous mold. I did not want to go any closer. I continued on through the galaxies until I arrived above a whirling vortex that was coalescing into a solar system. I watched a sun and its planets form, and came closer to observe. I was drawn to one of the middle planets. The fiery liquid surface was cooling and turning from yellow and red to black solids broken by red rivers of lava emitting flames. Slowly, the planet cooled until fumes and vapors veiled the entire surface. As I circled the planet, I sensed a long epoch of torrential rains, as water vapor formed and condensed in the upper atmosphere and fell toward the burning surface, only to evaporate again long before reaching the ground. Eventually, the planet cooled and the rains arrived on the lands below. After what seemed like a long time, the clouds began to clear. I skimmed the planet now, seeing and being everything that I came across. I watched mountain chains rise and volcanoes burst, and everything subside again and again into flat plains and meandering rivers. Time and time again, mountains rose and dissolved and continents appeared and disappeared. Then this slowed down and I watched the seas and plains. All was sterile—a tan land with smoking volcanoes and no life, yet fecund and ready.
As I watched, I then saw life appear. I observed spots of green forming along the seashores. They shot along the banks, forming a green margin and then running up the rivers and tributaries like the veins in a leaf. The barren spaces between these branches of life filled with proliferating plant life. The oceans seemed to be teeming with life and then the first buglike creatures started to crawl out on land. They spread all over, rapidly changing into a variety of insects and strange lobster-like creatures. Fern-like plants appeared. Vast varieties of life appeared and then disappeared. Elaborate life experiments succeeded one another with awesome complexity.
Then suddenly I was in a steaming swamp-like environment that looked familiar. With a sense of awe and amazement, I realized that I was watching the age of the dinosaur, and it slowly dawned on me that I was witness to the history of life evolving on the planet Earth! With a speed that defies accurate recall, life forms changed again and again, spreading and multiplying in a dizzying array of shapes and colors. Humanoid creatures appeared and soon after were hunting and then farming and building. Civilizations bloomed, spread, and subsided, like bubbles on a fermenting pond. Ages of war and conquest expressed the speed of civilization and technology. I witnessed slaughter and mayhem, torture and mutilation, rape and castration. Man’s inhumanity to man was illustrated in myriad forms. I was there “in” it, feeling it as both the doer and the done to. For what seemed an interminably long time civilization rose and fell in inter-folding waves of creation and brilliant innovations in arts and sciences, only to fall in smoking ruins followed by ages of darkness.
Then, points of light appeared in the dark, interconnecting again in new waves of discovery and renaissance. Undulating waves of humanity were crashing and washing over the planet in a succession of expansion and contraction. As I lived through this flux and change, there arose in me an awareness of the noble and brave potential of humanity and its duty as the intelligent species to protect the forests and life forms and water of the planet. I was experiencing a feeling of the sacred unity with all life. I saw the whole planet’s surface as one organism inhabited by one spirit growing its forests to protect its surface and provide even moisture and temperature for all its creatures. I saw one species, humanity, as the natural intelligent guardian of all life. I realized that it was humanity’s intelligence that must understand, preserve, and care for the earth’s surface—and life that is its nutrient substrate, its womb, and its mother. I felt how all life was precious, interconnecting, and supportive of all other life. I dedicated my spirit not to destroy any part of this puzzle of divine mystery that is the milk of creation. Throughout, there was this balance and acknowledgment of the intertwining of opposites, the negative and positive, the base and noble. This feeling went through me as a dual aspect of one energytotal, deep, and sweeping me away on this immense journey of life’s history. It was like falling in love, so entrancing was this vision.
Hours had gone by. The fire was long gone, yet this movie continued with fantastic detail, one pageant coming on the heels of another. An example of the incredible detail that ibogaine shows: through my constantly available “zoomlens,” I was observing a French king and his retinue during a formal promenade in the gardens of Versailles. Of this large group of people in courtly splendor, one woman’s dress caught my eye. I could see at great distance the hem of her dress, an intricate and tiny embroidery of inter-linked fleur-de-lis. Simultaneously, I could see both immense and complicated scenes and vistas as well as small details with great precision. On and on it went, and I never moved. This peak experience went on for at least 14 hours. I was watching scenes from the industrial revolution when the sun shown in the window. The movie continued in stronger and weaker waves, dimming in the light and finally fading out, although I know it was still going on at some internal level. Although I could move around now, I was still high and it was still going on 24 hours later. This was a long trip!
By afternoon, we were all getting pretty hungry. I decided to brave the world and pick up some food at the corner store. I exited the house, which was located on the black side of the street, and headed for a Puerto Rican store on the opposite corner. This was New York, a place where people don’t usually greet strangers on the street. I walked past this old man who glanced up and said, “Hello.” Down at the corner I met a black woman; we also greeted each other and smiled. I crossed the street and entered the store. Pretty soon I was chatting and joking with the owners, and they were putting extra fruit in my bag as gifts. As I exited the store and crossed the street upon my return I had to pass through a group of young black gang members who had just arrived. To my surprise they let me pass with no incident. What was going on? As I walked back it hit me. I knew where we all came from. We all came from the same source—the same mother. There was no difference between us. I saw it, I felt it, and I “was” it. And it was recognizable instantly by others. I had been transformed into a being at one with all other life. Racism and prejudice became incomprehensible to me after that. I knew where we all came from. We all came from the same universe: we were all one.
What I learned from this trip is that there is a new paradigm arising for humankind. Transcending mind, one finds the spirit or soul. Rejecting the bias of politics and the destructiveness of fear, one finds that life and unity and harmony are served by love. Humanity’s role as guardian of the planet becomes all too urgent as we go beyond the carrying capacity of the planet’s surface. This is the dream we must realize: to bring back the health of life and nature on this planet. Protect the womb that has borne us and still serves us. Bring back the forests, let the waters run clean, and live in love and harmony with each other. It is time to understand the roots of fear and deal with them. Let us join in a dance to celebrate life and love and rediscover the beauty of inner sacredness.
What is this stuff called ibogaine that tastes like earth and lets you see your ancestors? Is it a DNA-designed communication link to our origins? How far back are these origins? Are we visitors from space, planted here on the wings of the God-DNA? Is this cosmic panorama it reveals created to give humanity a real look at our history to understand who we are and how we are connected to the universe? One thing is certain: ibogaine is one of the true, deep psychedelics. It is flesh of the Gods. Use it with preparation, respect, and care, and you may grant yourself a taste of truth, a vision into the nature of reality and an inspiration to enter into the path of unity and knowing.
One of richest uses of psychedelics is giving them enough time and attention to allow the sacred messages to filter through and become meaningful. A day before for preparation and one afterwards for contemplation is ideal. The peyote people would spend the morning after, for a traditional breakfast and sharing the visions they had had and finding meanings in these messages from beyond. In like manner, we can also find new meanings for these visions as the years deepen our perspectives.
So as time passed, I wondered who it could have been that was seeing the evolution of life on our planet. Was this some mystery that would just have to be accepted as is? Many years later I came across two ideas that gave new meaning and depth to these ibogaine visions. The first idea came when I read about an explorer in the Amazon questioning the chief of the Mayoruna about the purpose of all the intense psychedelic journeys that the entire tribe participated in. He said that the purpose was to go back to the beginning. The second idea came after reading Jeremy Narby’s book The Cosmic Serpent. I realized that it was quite possible that the DNA molecule had an extraterrestrial origin. In fact, due to the complexity of this life-evolving molecule and the relatively short window it had in which to evolve on this earth it seems that DNA’s evolution here on planet earth may just be another geocentric earthling myth.
Putting these two ideas together started a process that gave a whole new meaning to my ibogaine vision. I was going back to the beginning. Going back to the beginning of life on this planet. Certainly, it was not my persona that was going back. Then what or who was going back? What was the common denominator of all living things? Who was the “I” that was observing and so intensely participating in all these lives and journeys? Suddenly I realized that the common denominator and the origin of life was the DNA that we all carry, whether it be the simplest bacteria or modern man. Now my vision took on a whole new meaning. Our consciousness predates this solar system. I had gone back to the beginning when I (and all of us) had been space-borne DNA looking for a new home in which to create life. I had been seeking through one solar system after another until I came to the nascent solar system we now call our home. Now I rushed down to the surface after waiting for eons for the conditions to be right for the formation of life. Then down I went, creating new life, evolving from the beginning into the vast mystery.
-Nick Sand
Biography
Nick Sand grew up under the shadow of the atomic bomb. His father taught chemistry at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, and contributed to the Manhattan Project and to SAM (substitute alloy materials), which focused on the separation of uranium isotopes in order to extract the only fissionable isotope, uranium-235. Watching the destruction brought about by such work, Sand felt that there had to be a better way. One of his father's PhD students, an Indian Raja, taught Sand yoga at the age of 15. This inspired a deep and abiding interest in spirituality, and over the last five decades Sand has been a student of the Kabballah, meditation, Krishna consciousness, Sufism, aikido, T'ai Chi, Zen, and Tantra, as well as having studied the teachings of Krishnamurti, Milarepa, Ramakrishna, Rajneesh, and other philosophers.
Sand married his first wife, Melly, while he was still in college, studying anthropology. In 1961 he first took mescaline, which sparked a life-long interest in psychedelic sacraments. During his undergraduate days, Sand put together a laboratory and successfully synthesized mescaline and several short-acting tryptamines. His attic became a new sort of temple, as Sand started turning everyone he knew on to these obscure entheogens. After meeting Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) at a lecture at Brooklyn College, Sand invited Alpert to see his lab. Sand was then summoned to Millbrook, the commune home to Timothy Leary's League for Spiritual Discovery. At Millbrook, Sand met John Griggs (founder of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love) and Owsley Stanley (creator of the first underground lab producing pure LSD1). At this point Sand began dividing his time between finishing his BA, making psychedelics, and guiding initiates in his attic and at Millbrook. He graduated from college in 1966. During a vision quest on DMT, Sand came to believe that he should devote his life entirely to manufacturing entheogens. This decision—to give up a career in anthropology and go underground to produce LSD—ultimately resulted in the break-up of his marriage. Sand became a criminal as a matter of principle and as an act of civil disobedience, because he believed he was working for a higher good. He left New York in 1967, and headed to the San Francisco Bay Area to set up a lab, where he manufactured DOM (known at the time under the street name "STP") and MDA.
From 1968 through 1969 in Windsor, California, Sand worked in an illicit lab with Tim Scully, who taught Sand how to manufacture LSD. Their material was distributed through the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a legendary band of dealers on a mission to enlighten the world. Just like Owsley before them, Scully and Sand both felt that it was extremely important to create a product of the highest purity at a standardized dose; these goals resulted in one of the most beloved "brands" of acid in the late 1960s: tiny orange barrels containing 300 micrograms of LSD, called "Orange Sunshine ". In 2007, an ex-DEA agent who spent time analyzing Sand's acid in the 1960s remarked, "It was always high quality, and it was always a good dose."
Although infamous because of his black-market LSD production, Sand was also the first underground chemist on record to have synthesized DMT. Sand and a lab colleague were the first people to notice that DMT exhibits piezoluminescence: when hardened DMT that had collected in a tray was being chipped out with a hammer and screwdriver in a brightly lit room, the blows emitted massive amounts of colored light. Sand was also the first person to realize that synthetic DMT could be smoked for effect; prior to this, self-experimenters were injecting DMT. This discovery came about by serendipity, when some crumbs of DMT fell onto a hotplate and vaporized, inspiring Sand to try smoking it.
Eventually Sand and Scully were arrested. Sand was told by his lawyer, Michael Kennedy, that their bust influenced the government in their massive effort to combine numerous drug control agencies (the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) under one umbrella with greater power: the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 1974, Scully was sentenced to 20 years (later reduced to 10 years; he was released after 3.5 years); that same year Sand was sentenced to 15 years, but he jumped bail and relocated to Canada, where he set up a new lab. Sand met his current partner, Usha, via an international blind date arranged by a mutual friend who knew that they shared a passionate interest in psychedelics.
Sand was arrested again in 1996 in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. His lab there produced assorted psychedelics and, at the time of the bust, had 43 grams of LSD on site. The lab was so impressive that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used it to stage a training video. Samples of drugs seized at the lab tested at over 100% pure,3 which is clearly not possible. Alexander Shulgin has speculated that the government's reference standards must have degraded and been less pure than Sand's illicit product. Sand served time in prison from 1996 through late 2000, first in Canada, and then in the United States in fulfillment of the 22-year-old sentence that he had evaded. While in prison, Sand wrote a manuscript called Psychedelic Secrets, which lays out his thoughts on the best approaches for trippers to take when exploring their minds; he also wrote a guidebook containing his production syntheses techniques for popular psychedelics. (Both books are as yet unpublished.)
After his release, Sand gave a speech at the Mind States II conference in 2001 titled "Reflections on Imprisonment and Liberation as Aspects of Consciousness". He received a standing ovation, and has spoken at numerous events since that time. In his personal exploration of psychedelics, Sand has long been a proponent of psychopharmacological synergy. In 2006 he gave a talk at Burning Man titled "Synergistic Combinations in the Future", describing some of his favorite ways to combine two or more drugs to produce uniquely beneficial effects.
-Jon Hanna
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