Flower Power

Here is a short story about psychedelic discoveries and finding proof of the existence of God and an afterlife

by H. R. Brown

“Sorry,” said Stu, “Still not been able to get hold of any. It’s like gold dust right now, dude.”

Marlo tutted but accepted the fact. DMT was indeed hard to get hold of, not least for the fact that it’s a Class A scheduled drug. This classification bothered him not a jot – he only knew that sooner or later, he would simply have to try some. He had done plenty of other illegal drugs and had some fun times, as well as some truly terrifying and horrific times. Due to good fortune, he had come through those experiences unharmed; he had never been arrested nor become addicted (an overly affectionate relationship with marijuana notwithstanding). But DMT, he knew, was something utterly unlike any other illegal drug.

It was something of an irony, as Marlo was well aware, that here he was, an atheist sci-fi writer who had overused the number forty-two in many of his tales (in deference to the late great Douglas Adams), rapidly approaching the age of forty-two himself and suddenly unsure of everything about the universe and his place in it, all because of an illegal drug which he’d never even tried.

How was it possible that he had got so old and only recently found out about DMT and what it can do? It was lunacy. The first time he had heard anything about it was several months earlier. He was drunk and stoned and playing pool on his smartphone whilst the videos playing in the background on YouTube cycled, as they will, into ever dodgier and crazier places.

Later, he couldn’t even remember what five-minute video it was he had first started watching. It must have been half an hour later, or more, when, during the third or fourth video, which had randomly followed his original choice, he heard something along the lines of –

“When you take the third hit – your mind blasts off, and you shoot straight out of your body!”

Suddenly, the TV became more important than the electronic game of 9-ball he was clearly losing. He sat up and listened as the narrator continued –

“You’re going at light speed through this tunnel, then you reach this weird place, feels like it’s underground, this weird, neon, palace-like place – but the really mad thing is that you recognise it! And you remember you’ve been here before – just not in this life!”

Marlo watched, intrigued, as the voice continued to try to explain the nature of the realms into which DMT can transport you.

Marlo could not believe any of what he heard at first. He made his own enquiries, via Google, into DMT. The first thing he found was a PDF download of Rick Strassman’s seminal, precision-detailed work, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, a book which he read within a couple of days. His world was fast turning upside down at this point. Marlo had previously thought that, having done LSD several times and magic mushrooms maybe a dozen times, he had seen as much psychedelic lunacy as he needed to – and yet could always do so again with any happy nutter who might want to get silly with him. Now, at nearly forty-two, he was finding out there existed something which could not only beat those experiences – but might offer a peek into the actual afterlife. Being unused to the idea of believing in God, but ever determined to know the truth of things – he had to know more.

Marlo’s enquiries led him to find the following details on the alleged properties of DMT:

• Whilst DMT is Class A; illegal, and you will very likely be put in prison for possessing even a tiny amount of it – all human beings have DMT inside them. Our bodies make it, this; often named the most psychedelic drug known on earth – it is in us all, each and every one. Our bodies primarily utilise it during sleep – but also when we die.
• Most plant and animal life is also thought to contain DMT, as it has been found in most plants and animals tested – although only several dozen different species have been tested for it thus far.
• The truly amazing aspects of DMT begin if you blast three or four good hits of pure DMT, either by vaping or via a bong. Then, what is known as a DMT breakthrough experience begins; you will literally pass out whilst your mind leaves your physical body and travels to other dimensions.
• Often, a breakthrough experience will begin with the image of a flower, a kind of chrysanthemum. It is through the middle of this flower that the mind will fly as it leaves your body.
• Once free, your mind will travel at speeds which seem faster than light, through the universe – or through a tunnel – to higher dimensions.
• A lot of those YouTube people who talk openly about their DMT breakthroughs say that, at first when their minds blast out of their bodies and into hyperspace – or whatever the fuck that crazy high-speed zone is – they honestly believe they’ve died.
• Within the higher dimensions in which you arrive, you can encounter other highly intelligent beings, sometimes described as ‘aliens’, ‘machine elves’, ‘angels’, ‘higher beings’ or even ‘self-dribbling basketballs’ – this last one is from Terence McKenna, the apparent Jesus Christ of DMT, of whom more later.
• Within these higher realms, all communication is done by thought. You think something whilst there – and it is immediately known by the realm itself and all other beings around you.
• Within these higher dimensions, you can remember past lives and realise there is no such thing as death.
• Within these higher realms, the Akashic Records are available – containing the sum total of all human knowledge from the whole of our history: past, present and future. Thus, your knowledge pool expands massively – you can become virtually all-knowing – but only while you are there.
• Within these higher realms, you may meet old friends you recognise from past lives.
• Existence within these higher dimensions is usually described as feeling more real than human life on earth.
• Within these higher realms, your body is pure energy, you have no mass, you can fly, you have 360° vision – and you realise this is your true form; not that crazy, dirty, little flesh-riddled skeleton you have to wear whilst on earth.
• Within these higher dimensions, you may indeed meet God.
• Within these higher realms, there is no concept of time. Therefore, whilst a full DMT breakthrough experience will never last more than ten to fifteen minutes at the most, it may feel, upon your return to your body, as if weeks – or more – have passed.
• Upon returning, most people can remember very little of what they have experienced. As when we awake in the morning, we often remember little of the dream we were just now deeply embroiled in; though you may completely understand the meaning of life itself whilst in those higher places, a moment or two later, back on earth, this knowledge will be lost to you. There is certain higher knowledge we cannot bring back with us.
• Although upon return, you may feel woozy, and the visuals may still be wildly colourful and pulsating, this will soon pass. Within an hour of having taken DMT, you’ll be completely back to normal. This extremely short-lived aspect of the drug is why one of its nicknames is a ‘businessman’s lunch’. Your body already knows DMT intimately, which is how it is able to process it so quickly.
• Countless folk have tried DMT and made YouTube videos detailing their experiences. Whilst some detail a few crazy and horrifying trips they’ve had on DMT, almost all the people who speak about it have ended up glad they did it for one reason or another.
• There are also many millions of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) detailed in literature and videos across all media platforms. These are experiences which do not involve any drugs but can occur when people die and are able to return to life – usually with some form of assistance – in operating theatres, in terrible accidents, or drownings, etc. Many of these descriptions have a lot in common with DMT breakthrough experience descriptions.

Marlo spent some time discerning all the above information via books, websites and YouTube testimonial videos – all of which featured similar details and attempts at a description of the DMT realm – which the describers themselves often lamented as poor and lacking when compared to the actual experience. The term ‘unenglishable’ was frequently used to describe the realm, as it was clearly beyond the vocabulary of the language itself to detail the place satisfactorily.

He had come to accept that there had to be something in this – and that – as a sci-fi writer and an atheist who had only just heard about DMT in his middle-age, at forty-one; he was clearly way behind the curve. To regain his own self-respect, if nothing else, he would clearly have to try DMT himself in order to make his own judgements. Illegality be damned – how could he not? Aside from the higher knowledge – a mere glimpse of which he craved – he had to know for himself because he was an atheist. If all it took was three hits of a simple drug to enable him to truly know whether or not God exists – it was his duty to his very existence to attempt it.

It had been a couple of months now since he’d first approached his psychonaut friend Stu with a view to getting some DMT. Stu could often be relied upon to find such substances, although DMT was something he had not managed to get hold of yet. More annoying was what he’d told Marlo when he first asked him about it; he’d said he’d already tried DMT – but from his memories of it, Marlo deduced that he hadn’t had a full breakthrough experience or even been aware that such a thing could be possible—probably hadn’t had the three required hits.

And now here he was again, asking in vain if his friend had managed to acquire any. Marlo just grinned in defeat and nodded his head.

However, Stu made him feel better by offering him a game of pool, so they left his gaff, crossed the street and went to the pub.

They were halfway through a fifth, deciding frame, getting quite merry on the booze when Stu mentioned something which would end up changing Marlo’s life. Though it ostensibly had nothing to do with DMT, he told Marlo about a particular, perfectly legal food supplement – which he declared would de-calcify his pineal gland. This, in turn, would be generally good for his mind, make his dreams more vivid and memorable, and make his vision more colourful.

Though it was not exactly what he was looking for, Marlo did like the sound of this stuff. When he got home later that evening, he googled “Fermented Skate Liver Oil Tablets”, precisely as Stu had told him and as he’d written down on his hand. The capsules were clearly of a similar nature to the better-known health food; Cod Liver Oil Tablets, but these were more exotic.

A bottle of 120 capsules of Fermented Skate Liver Oil Tablets was not cheap. They were to be taken two per day for 60 days. He ordered a bottle from Amazon as the cheapest option.

A couple of days passed before the bottle was delivered, and it was only upon receipt of it Marlo even remembered he’d ordered it.

Well, it’s here now, he thought, knocking back the first couple of golden capsules with some water.

He regretted this a little later when he happened to burp and found the stench of fish almost made him bring up his breakfast. Whilst less than happy about this, it was bearable now he knew about it. He lived alone, so he wasn’t going to upset anyone immediately. He resolved to simply take his two capsules as part of his routine every morning, before breakfast – which he hoped would dilute the effect on his breath – and then at work, he would stay aware of the issue and keep his head down and the coffees coming.

As the weeks passed, Marlo couldn’t honestly say that he remembered his dreams, but he also understood that part of the reason he never did remember them was due to his pot habit. He had also gotten used to taking the tablets and was starting to see unusually complex and colourful visuals, especially when he closed his eyes. For this reason alone, he persevered with the course of tablets.

It was after his 42^nd birthday, when he was more than 45 days into the 60-day course, that Marlo’s mind was first truly blown – by a massive, hours-long bout of horrifying, apocalyptic paranoia. OK, he was high at the time, but not especially, and this was a dose the likes of which he’d not seen since having been a novice with weed – i.e. not for a couple of decades.

Having survived the terror, and the night, without suffering any actual physical problems – nor indeed the apocalypse – he carried on with the tablets, although he suspected their influence on the state of him during the last night.

Later that day, he astounded himself when his mind fell upon an old sci-fi story idea he’d been kicking around more than ten years ago but which he’d never finished as he wasn’t happy with it – now he saw exactly how to write it and make it fresh, exciting and new. A story involving robots, the bare bones of which he had long ago given up on as too derivative of both Isaac Asimov and the film Robocop – now had a life of its own – and in fact ended up becoming two pretty decent, linked short stories.

Not many days after this, when he had almost completed the course of tablets, he was relaxing late one evening. He wasn’t really drunk, having only had a couple of ciders in over three hours, but was very nicely high. It was after midnight, and he wasn’t really watching the TV any more, although he hadn’t got round to turning it off yet; his eyelids felt heavy, his vision blurred, and at the back of his mind, he knew he was passing out on his settee, and that was fine.

His blurring vision rested upon the clear, cream-coloured wall in front of him, and it was then that he caught his first glimpse of it.

The spinning flower.

Initially, he noticed what appeared to be some tiny little dots circling each other; they appeared over a small portion of the centre of his vision, almost like an eye-floater – but they couldn’t be – the pattern was perfectly symmetrical; it was that of seven tiny dots in a hexagonal formation; six around a central one. The edges of the pattern appeared delicately as if ever-so-lightly drawn in oil over his main vision. These dots were spinning anticlockwise in a swift, fluid motion; it was a perfectly formed geometric pattern, rotating perhaps one full revolution every second or so.

“What the actual fuck!” Marlo said aloud to no-one, fully waking up all at once after less than four seconds of this.

The perfectly symmetrical little mathematical pattern he had glimpsed was immediately lost as his eyes refocused.

“What?” he said again, “What?!”

He sat back again. He relaxed all his muscles and let his eyes blur again whilst he looked vaguely at the blank wall ahead of him in the hopes that this would be the best canvas upon which to allow the pattern to reappear.

His efforts were rewarded.

It was difficult to see; he could only catch glimpses of it, never the whole thing, but it became clear that what he was seeing, he was not seeing with his two main eyes. This was behind his eyes, over his eyes. This was in his pineal gland. Had he actually ‘opened his third eye’?! Jesus! How embarrassing! Whilst he could never quite catch the full thing (it constantly shifted, or his perception of it did, as if it were trying to avoid being seen), he realised that those seven spinning dots were at the centre of a many-layered, perfectly-symmetrical, geometric pattern; that of a flower.

As he sat there, nicely wasted, intermittently witnessing the impossible, Marlo recalled many of the sayings of Terence McKenna (and others) on the subject of having an out-of-body experience on DMT, especially those concerning the start of the trip – when you will usually see a flower – through which your mind leaves your body to travel into other dimensions.

Holy shit, he realised that flower is not unique to the DMT experience! That’s what I’m actually seeing – without having taken any DMT – all I’ve done is a legal course of tablets to de-calcify my pineal gland! If I’ve randomly got that flower spinning inside the seat of my own soul – then it must be here all the time – and everyone must have it…

What is it?

If, at the start of a DMT trip, it’s the mind’s – or the soul’s – exit way from the body, and yet it’s not unique to DMT, then it must always be there, just beyond our usual sight… And it’s always there because… Is it simply a part of us? This exit to other realms?!

It is there, this flower, all the time, and… We can die at any time.

And thus, at the perfect age of 42, Marlo realised, with both a chuckle and some happy tears, that the path back to higher realms he couldn’t yet remember – and to God, had been within him his entire life.

The next day, Marlo couldn’t quite see the flower any more. This unhappy situation was happily undone as soon as he got high again. The flower was still there! He could still see it!

For the first time ever, he actually thanked God, and it felt good.

Marijuana (though only very mildly psychedelic), in conjunction with his newly de-calcified pineal gland, allowed him to see the flower—the source of his new-found belief. That was the recipe, or at least it was what had worked for him (NB: Later, he would find from various searches that the flower he was seeing was known of; it is known – in the circles of those who know – as The Flower of Life).

Now he knew for sure – he was no longer an atheist.

Marlo still wanted a DMT breakthrough experience in order to be able to explore the truth as fully as possible whilst still on this side of the yawning grave, but that was a peripheral matter in the here and now. The shift in his entire philosophy on God and the afterlife had happened because he could not reconcile his new awareness of the permanently spinning flower with a disbelief in the afterlife and, by extension, God. It wasn’t viable.

Shit, he thought, how can I ever explain this to people?! When what it boils down to is; I heard a lot of crazy shit about DMT breakthrough experiences – but I’ve never actually had one – I have, however, taken some weird fish oil – and now I believe in God?!?

At that moment, there fell into his mind an old Hindu proverb, which he had liked, but dismissed many years ago:

“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.”

And now he was laughing and crying again.