“Everything is Third Bardo, Jay. Everything. I can’t stress that enough. Third Bardo—the carnival. Morning to night. Birth to death. We wander through the straw and sawdust of the carnival. Which is our life. And we don’t see it because we are part of it. We’re on the midway, Jay. Third Bardo, the carnival midway.”

I nodded and looked up from the letter, a grin pasted to my face. Third Bardo. I kept on nodding as I stared out my grimy, stained window. Windex and a rag. All it would take. Keep putting it off.

Joe’s letter had been waiting in my box when I came home for lunch. Stinton’s Stationery only allowed me an hour. I’d eat my sandwich on the way back. I took a drag on my cigarette and flattened the page out on my desk.

“This is our reality, Jay—the Third Bardo. You’ve been trying to catch glimpses of it for nearly a month now, as I instructed you. It’s hard to do, sure it is, because you’re living it. But ask yourself, why do you hold the door open for the old lady? Huh? Why do you always take the curbside when you walk a date down the street? Because you’re following the Third Bardo script. Games! Games! You’d lay your jacket over a puddle for her, just like Sir Walter Raleigh. You know it’s true. You have to catch yourself doing these things. Slipping a panhandler a quarter. You’re always doing that. Third Bardo scripts.

“Ask yourself this. Why do you rent your little two-room apartment a couple of blocks from your folks? Free rent. Free food, two blocks away. Why? Third Bardo script, that’s why. Writers don’t live at home. Right? You writers gotta struggle for your art, don’t you? Third Bardo. Third fucking Bardo script.”

The last sentence made me laugh out loud, then shoot a glance out the window to see if a passerby had noticed it through the grime. But it was laugh-worthy to hear Joe use an expletive. Not that he was straight-laced, or anything. He just communicated effectively, directly, and pointedly, without using them.

“So, I’m meeting you at the Greyhound terminal tomorrow at 11:45, right? Don’t change your mind and decide to drive to LA. It’s cleaner this way. You won’t want to trust yourself driving around afterward, especially back to Santa Maria.

“And for Christ’s sake, Jay — remember this! Don’t be giving your window seat up for another just because she asks you. It’s just the script making a last dying grasp for your ego. Just say no! No! Be polite, but no! Same for helping someone with their bags. Anything like that. You’ve worked too hard for the last month to blow it the day before. Remember, the whole death of the Third Bardo is at stake! Don’t let yourself down. Keep your eyes on the clear light. I’ll be there to guide you through.

“Tomorrow, then, at 11:45. Call me if there’s a scheduling change.

“Later …”

And he signed it “Joe,” with his usual flourish.

I hadn’t actually read “The Tibetan Book of the Dead," or anything about the Bardos. Not back then. It was early sixties, years before the whole “Turn on, tune in, drop out” movement had trended.

Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Albert had obviously got their hands on the book, digested it on behalf of the world’s youth, and kindly distilled its essence into a much easier-to-read manual called "The Psychedelic Experience". They published it in August 1964.

Some Speculation on “The Psychedelic Experience”

I believe Joe would have educated himself on The Psychedelic Experience, rather than the more seminal and authoritative, The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Walter Evan Wentz.

Joe might have read some of Carl Jung’s writings on Wentz’s classic, but I rather doubt it. No computers back then. No Google. No Amazon. Libraries listings lagged behind. As far as bookstores were concerned, Joe was as broke as I.

He’d more than likely snagged a street copy of “The Psychedelic Experience,” shortly after it was published.

Joe had considerable street savvy. Which was why this cop’s son felt a sort of illicit privilege hanging with him at this tender stage in my creativity.

And now I was preparing to put my sanity, if not my very life, in Joe’s trusted hands.

Tomorrow, after a two-hour bus trip to Los Angeles, Joe would escort me to his pad where preparations had been made for my first experience dropping acid. Joe was to be my sole guide and he was well-prepared. I knew that.

~     ~     ~

I found his apartment immaculate. Huge, colorful pillows strewn about. In the dim light, candle flames blinked and danced in their holders on two end tables and on the kitchen counter.

Jasmine invaded my senses.

Joe’s Preparation

As I look back at it, I am all the more convinced his preparation followed a close study of “The Psychedelic Experience.” That manual’s dedication to the renowned intellect and philosopher, Aldous Huxley, contained two key pages from his book, "Doors of Perception " (which Joe had read and recommended to me). The last few sentences of the dedication were an eye-opener.

They answered Huxley’s wife’s question of whether he would be able to ward off madness by focusing on the Tibetan Book of the Dead’s Clear Light.  Clearly, she was worried about her husband's little experiment.

“…only if there were somebody there to tell me about the Clear Light,” Huxley told her. “One couldn’t do it by oneself. That’s the point, I suppose, of the Tibetan ritual — somebody sitting there all the time and telling you what’s what.”

That was Joe’s job, sitting there telling me “what’s what” as soon as I started experiencing the drug’s effects.

I felt comfortable having Joe in that role. Looking back now, though, I have to ask myself whether I should have been feeling comfortable. I mean, for Christ's Sake! I was literally putting my life in the hands of one who, at 25, was only a year older than I!

My blind faith in Joe at the time aside, I would be doing him a huge disservice today to lead you to think he was reckless or cavalier with the soul he had in his care.

Truly, I don’t believe Joe would have exposed anyone’s life or sanity to anything he hadn’t studied from every available angle and only then had subjected himself to experiment. I know he had used LSD himself at least twice and had taken written and audio notes of his experience.

As I look at the PDF I downloaded today of “The Psychedelic Experience” it’s as though I hear Joe’s voice reading the words.

“The nature of the [psychedelic] experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical — the weather, the room’s atmosphere; social — feelings of persons present towards one another; and cultural — prevailing views as to what is real.” (Taken from the introduction.)

Reading that paragraph, I see why Joe put such emphasis on my preparation, based on my “personality structure.” Joe knew me, and he also knew how our “culture” impacted the way I responded to events in my life. Hence the opening of doors for women, carrying their bags, etc.

Public and Hidden Use of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”

The exoteric (public) use of The Tibetan Book of the Dead was to guide the dying, or dead, through the three stages leading to reincarnation. The appropriate text was read by the guide into the ear of the dead or dying.

There was also an esoteric (hidden from the general public), use. In its simplest sense, we can understand the esoteric meaning by substituting certain keywords in the exoteric use with others. Thus it becomes: The use of The Tibetan Book of the Dead (the Bardo Thodol) is for "the guide" [guru, trusted mentor] to follow as he "takes" the initiate [reads in the ear of the dead or dying] through the intricacies of the three stages leading to "reincarnation" [the rebirth of the ego].

Those Buddhist gurus who were privy to the esoteric meaning taught that meditation, yoga, or prayer was the key to opening up the mind and liberating “the nervous system from its ordinary patterns and structures.”

Leary and his cohorts added LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, and other chemicals to the Buddhist formula. (In the interest of space, I will refer to the authors of “The Psychedelic Experience” hereafter by only Leary’s name.)

“The Psychedelic Experience” Experienced

On that smoggy afternoon in the summer of 1964, I sat on an oversized pillow and leaned against the wall in Joe’s small, but immaculate, apartment. The lights were dimmed. The candle flames fluttered on the far walls like hummingbird wings. I had downed the vial of clear liquid not fifteen minutes earlier and found myself wondering if the light-and-shadow show would be incorporated into my experience.

I closed my eyes and waited.

Very eastern-sounding sitar music floated as on waves from his hi-fi speaker situated in his bedroom. Joe sat on a kitchen chair to my side. Without actually looking at him, I was aware of his paternal gaze.

He was being a good guide.

After about an hour, I began to experience a peripheral shimmer of blue, red, and gold sparkles behind my closed eyelids. I felt as if I were floating on a raft in the middle of a lake, aware of the silent, shore-line fireworks all around me, but without looking at them.

My heart beat a little faster, and I waited.

Buddha Belly Blues

Perhaps another hour went by. I noticed a growing heaviness in my lower abdomen like it was filling with cement, layer by layer.

I mentioned it to Joe.

He nodded. “Good. Good. Go with it, flow with it.”

I tried. But reason interceded. The heaviness had to go somewhere. It couldn’t just turn to concrete down there.

I told Joe.

“It’s all part of it.” He smiled.

Now, I’ve got to say his smile was beginning to piss me off. “I have to go to the bathroom, Joe. Either I have to fucking throw up, or I have to shit it out. It can’t stay in me!” I talked myself to the very edge of panic.

“It’s all eeegoo, Jaaay. Eeee-goooo.” His words were gooey, elongated. He put a gently restraining hand on my shoulder. “Mind games. It’s part of the expected process. Know that. Trust it. Relax. Flow with it.”

His words came out in an easy, practiced, inflectionless stream. Vaguely condescending, it continued to piss me off. “I think I’m gonna throw up, Joe.”

Earth Sinking Into Water

The only thing is, no heralded transcendence followed.

The heaviness lifted (or dissolved) over time. I think I was in my sixth or seventh hour, by then.

Joe could no longer hide his puzzlement.

“So are you feeling anything else?” He was careful not to lead me with his questions.

“No, I just feel ... drained.”

“Sleep if you feel like it.”

I tried, but sleep didn’t come.

Even the Guide is Jaded

An hour after that, Joe went to the kitchen. He blew out the candles and turned on the light. Coming back to the front room he blew out the candle on each end table.

“I think I bought a bad batch.” He turned on the overhead light. “We’ll try again in a month or so.”

I manufactured enthusiasm for his idea, but I knew I’d closed the door on further chemically-induced ego tampering.

A Parting of Ways

It’s been close to 60 years since my experiment fizzled out. I’ve long since lost contact with Joe, which saddens me. I’ve tried to search for him online, but always reached dead-ends. I heard he became a teacher, which doesn’t surprise me. A student would be sure to gain from Joe’s love and patient dedication. He'd gotten married, had children. I'd heard that, too. And that his son had gotten into some trouble with drugs. The odd thing about all of that is that I don't remember the source of the information. I'm left now with only the residual feeling that it was somehow reliable.

My Continuing Study of “The Psychedelic Experience.”

I had delved into Leary’s manual thinking it would shed some light on Joe’s preparation of the setting … which it did, in spades. Beyond that, I considered the manual a potentially lethal weapon in the hands of the unprepared, naïve thrill-seeker.

Let me explain.

For the younger reader, I need to say that Leary, and to a lesser extent, Alpert and Metzner, had been prominently in the public eye at the time of the manual’s writing. With the fanfare of its publication, parents feared him as a Pied Piper, who would lure away their children to their destruction. Leary in particular — as I remembered him in the news — seemed to bask in his notoriety, even enjoying the charismatic piper’s persona that Society had foisted on him.

I found I’d bought into that persona, probably due to my failed LSD experience. But I don’t think I was aware of the depth to which it colored my perception even as I downloaded the PDF.

If instead of reading it, though, I had merely cherry-picked instances of the importance Leary placed on set and setting, I’d have to brand myself as dishonest.

So I chose to read it closely.

The manual is not an easy read. The content is dense, but it is more balanced in its presentation than my prejudice would have led me to believe.

In spite of Leary’s contention that “the experience is safe (at the very worst, you will end up the same person who entered the experience),” (p. 5), he didn’t trivialize the importance of preparation.

This preparation included not just the initiate’s thorough knowledge of what experience to expect during each of the three Bardos. The guide, especially, needed to be so knowledgeable as to extract from the initiate’s words and behavior what was going on inside, and have at the ready a script (preferably memorized) to guide his ward through it.

That Infamous Third Bardo Stage

The Third Bardo stage I found most troubling. This is where the initiate is coming back to “reality” and trying to regain his ego. There are seven points of entry into this stage, identified by either the feeling of possessing supernatural powers; experiencing panic; a restless wandering feeling ... or even being tortured, crushed, and pressed into crevices.

Through any of these, the initiate is instructed to relax and flow through it.

All these are preparatory to the initiate’s choosing his entry into “one of six worlds of game existence (sangsara).” (P 32) According to Leary, the choice is very real and to be selected only after the most careful consideration. The first two are higher than normal. They are: the devas (Christ, Buddha, Lao Tsu, etc.), and the asuras (titans or heroes); the third is the normal human; fourth are the “primitive and animalistic incarnations (which may be such as dogs, pigs, wolves, snakes);” the fifth level is the neurotic; the sixth the psychotic.

Then Leary concludes with this: “Less than one percent of ego-transcendent experiences end in sainthood or psychosis. (Italics are mine.) Most persons return to the normal human level.”

Even though he is referring to ALL experiences, not just drug-induced ones, and even though one percent is incredibly small … still, I find it difficult to square it with his previous statement of the utter safety of using psychedelic drugs.

Some After-thoughts

On the other hand, it would be naïve not to realize there is always inherent risk involved anytime one rocks the ego’s status quo.

And The Tibetan Book of the Dead reminds us throughout that the initiate cannot grow through the Bardos without first encountering them. There is no shortcut to spiritual rebirth. The Yogi, the meditator, the prayer devotee, or the psychedelic voyager must be willing to come face-to-face with his or her demons, no less than the Buddha did, in order to transcend the ego-attached Third Bardo existence.

Is the risk worthwhile?

In which category below would you place yourself? Are you comfortable there?

1. Some people go through life from birth to death without the felt need or regard for a spiritual awakening.

2. Some people feel occasional nudging or quickening in the direction of “growth from the inside out,” or spiritual awakening, but it is not sustained within the pressures of society.

3. Some people have a sustained drive toward attaining spiritual awakening. They may have experienced glimpses of, or have a compelling faith there is, a state of higher awareness that forces their eyes to stay on the goal. They realize that “working on themselves” is a lifetime endeavor.

4. Some people’s passion burns white-hot for their “prize.” They realize the potential for risk in their unbridled pursuit of spiritual rebirth. But nothing short of total engagement is acceptable.

And me? Where would I place myself? In light of this story, it would depend on whether we're talking about the 24-year-old who gambled on a vial of clear liquid, and somehow survived ... or the 84-year-old who dodders through his days and nights grateful that he's been given these days and nights to dodder through.

That younger me had been, for a period of some two or three years before I "dropped acid", solidly ensconced in the third category. I knew that a higher awareness existed and that it wasn't offered out as a gift, but that one had to prepare to be worthy of it. I believed that when the student was ready, the Master would appear. Deep down, I felt that Joe was that Master. Moreover, if I had ever introduced that thought to Joe, I'm sure he would have worn his mantle well. I believe he had as much the need to lead as I had the need for a leader.

A potentially dangerous combination.

Had the LSD accomplished its full purpose in 1964, and had Joe and I not drifted apart, in all likelihood you'd not be reading this today.

As I look back from the perspective of this 84-year-old, the past is frozen in time. I'm not unhappy with the way I turned out. That brings to mind one of the few poems I am proud to have written that seems to bear on this subject. I'll leave only the last stanza with you now:

For it’s a blessing now
to be once — and only once — young
and once to test the depths
once to dare to fail
and once to Succeed in Failing —
and in failing, yet survive
with a greater knowing
that there’s a near infinity of learning
from lightly skimming
from blithely skimming
the safer, monocular surface of things.*

* From I am the Skimmer of Stones