The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

~ The Psychedelic Experience ~

A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead

By Timothy Leary, Ph.D., Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., &

Richard Alpert, Ph.D.



The authors were engaged in a program of experiments with LSD and

other psychedelic drugs at Harvard University, until sensational

national publicity, unfairly concentrating on student interest in the

drugs, led to the suspension of the experiments. Since then, the

authors have continued their work without academic auspices.



This version of THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

is dedicated,

to



ALDOUS HUXLEY



July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963

with profound admiration and gratitude.



"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the

investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be a proof

of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You

couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot."



"So you think you know where madness lies?"



My answer was a convinced and heartfelt, "Yes."



"And you couldn't control it?"



"No I couldn't control it. If one began with fear and hate as the

major premise, one would have to go on the conclusion."



"Would you be able," my wife asked, " to fix your attention on what

The Tibetan Book of the Dead calls the Clear Light?"



I was doubtful.



"Would it keep the evil away, if you could hold it? Or would you not

be able to hold it?"



I considered the question for some time. "Perhaps," I answered at

last, "perhaps I could - but only if there were somebody there to tell

me about the Clear Light. 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."



(DOORS OF PERCEPTION, 57-58)





I.



GENERAL INTRODUCTION



A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness.

The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its

characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of

space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of

enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory

deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or

aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become

available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as

LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. [This is the statement of an

ideal, not an actual situation, in 1964. The psychedelic drugs are in

the United States classified as "experimental" drugs. That is, they

are not available on a prescription basis, but only to "qualified

investigators." The Federal Food and Drug Administration has defined

"qualified investigators" to mean psychiatrists working in a mental

hospital setting, whose research is sponsored by either state or

federal agencies.]



Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience.

It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the

nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of

the 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. It is for

this reason that manuals or guide-books are necessary. Their purpose

is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded

consciousness, to serve as road maps for new interior territories

which modern science has made accessible.



Different explorers draw different maps. Other manuals are to be

written based on different models - scientific, aesthetic,

therapeutic. The Tibetan model, on which this manual is based, is

designed to teach the person to direct and control awareness in such a

way as to reach that level of understanding variously called

liberation, illumination, or enlightenment. If the manual is read

several times before a session is attempted, and if a trusted person

is there to remind and refresh the memory of the voyager during the

experience, the consciousness will be freed from the games which

comprise "personality" and from positive-negative hallucinations which

often accompany states of expanded awareness. The Tibetan Book of the

Dead was called in its own language the Bardo Thodol, which means

"Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane." The book stresses

over and over that the free consciousness has only to hear and

remember the teachings in order to be liberated.



The Tibetan Book of the Dead is ostensibly a book describing the

experiences to be expected at the moment of death, during an

intermediate phase lasting forty-nine (seven times seven) days, and

during rebirth into another bodily frame. This however is merely the

exoteric framework which the Tibetan Buddhists used to cloak their

mystical teachings. The language and symbolism of death rituals of

Bonism, the traditional pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, were skillfully

blended with Buddhist conceptions. The esoteric meaning, as it has

been interpreted in this manual, is that it is death and rebirth that

is described, not of the body. Lama Govinda indicates this clearly in

his introduction when he writes: "It is a book for the living as well

as the dying." The book's esoteric meaning is often concealed beneath

many layers of symbolism. It was not intended for general reading. It

was designed to be understood only by one who was to be initiated

personally by a guru into the Buddhist mystical doctrines, into the

pre-mortem-death-rebirth experience. These doctrines have been kept a

closely guarded secret for many centuries, for fear that naive or

careless application would do harm. In translating such an esoteric

text, therefore, there are two steps: one, the rendering of the

original text into English; and two, the practical interpretation of

the text for its uses. In publishing this practical interpretation for

use in the psychedelic drug session, we are in a sense breaking with

the tradition of secrecy and thus contravening the teachings of the

lama-gurus.



However, this step is justified on the grounds that the manual will

not be understood by anyone who has not had a consciousness-expanding

experience and that there are signs that the lamas themselves, after

their recent diaspora, wish to make their teachings available to a

wider public.



Following the Tibetan model then, we distinguish three phases of the

psychedelic experience. The first period (Chikhai Bardo) is that of

complete transcendence - beyond words, beyond space-time, beyond self.

There are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only

pure awareness and ecstatic freedom from all game (and biological)

involvements. ["Games" are behavioral sequences defined by roles,

rules, rituals, goals, strategies, values, language, characteristic

space-time locations and characteristic patterns of movement. Any

behavior not having these nine features is non-game: this includes

physiological reflexes, spontaneous play, and transcendent awareness.]

The second lengthy period involves self, or external game reality

(Chonyid Bardo) - in sharp exquisite clarity or in the form of

hallucinations (karmic apparitions). The final period (Sidpa Bardo)

involves the return to routine game reality and the self. For most

persons the second (aesthetic or hallucinatory) stage is the longest.

For the initiated the first stage of illumination lasts longer. For

the unprepared, the heavy game players, those who anxiously cling to

their egos, and for those who take the drug in a non-supportive

setting, the struggle to regain reality begins early and usually lasts

to the end of their session.



Words like these are static, whereas the psychedelic experience is

fluid and ever-changing. Typically the subject's consciousness flicks

in and out of these three levels with rapid oscillations. One purpose

of this manual is to enable the person to regain the transcendence of

the First Bardo and to avoid prolonged entrapments in hallucinatory or

ego-dominated game patterns.



The Basic Trusts and Beliefs. You must be ready to accept the

possibility that there is a limitless range of awareness for which we

now have no words; that awareness can expand beyond range of your ego,

your self, your familiar identity, beyond everything you have learned,

beyond your notions of space and time, beyond the differences which

usually separate people from each other and from the world around

them.



You must remember that throughout human history, millions have made

this voyage. A few (whom we call mystics, saints or buddhas) have made

this experience endure and have communicated it to their fellow men.

You must remember, too, that the experience is safe (at the very

worst, you will end up the same person who entered the experience),

and that all of the dangers which you have feared are unnecessary

productions of your mind. Whether you experience heaven or hell,

remember that it is your mind which creates them. Avoid grasping the

one or fleeing the other. Avoid imposing the ego game on the

experience.



You must try to maintain faith and trust in the potentiality of your

own brain and the billion-year-old life process. With you ego left

behind you, the brain can't go wrong.



Try to keep the memory of a trusted friend or a respected person whose

name can serve as a guide and protection.



Trust your divinity, trust your brain, trust your companions.



Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.



After reading this guide, the prepared person should be able, at the

very beginning of his experience, to move directly to a state of non-

game ecstasy and deep revelation. But if you are not well prepared, or

if there is game distraction around you, you will find yourself

dropping back. If this happens, then the instructions in Part IV

should help you regain and maintain liberation.



"Liberation in this context does not necessarily imply (especially in

the case of the average person) the Liberation of Nirvana, but chiefly

a liberation of the 'life-flux' from the ego, in such a manner as will

afford the greatest possible consciousness and consequent happy

rebirth. Yet for the very experienced and very highly efficient

person, the [same] esoteric process of Transference [Readers

interested in a more detailed discussion of the process of

"Transference" are referred to Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines,

edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford University Press, 1958.] can be,

according to the lama-gurus, so employed as to prevent any break in

the flow of the stream of consciousness, from the moment of the ego-

loss to the moment of a conscious rebirth (eight hours later). Judging

from the translation made by the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, of an old

Tibetan manuscript containing practical directions for ego-loss

states, the ability to maintain a non-game ecstasy throughout the

entire experience is possessed only by persons trained in mental

concentration, or one-pointedness of mind, to such a high degree of

proficiency as to be able to control all the mental functions and to

shut out the distractions of the outside world." (Evans-Wentz, p. 86,

note 2)



This manual is divided into four parts. The first part is

introductory. The second is a step-by-step description of a

psychedelic experience based directly on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The third part contains practical suggestions on how to prepare for

and conduct a psychedelic session. The fourth part contains

instructive passages adapted from the Bardo Thodol, which may be read

to the voyager during this session, to facilitate the movement of

consciousness.



In the remainder of this introductory section, we review three

commentaries on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, published with the

Evans-Wentz edition. These are the introduction by Evans-Wentz

himself, the distinguished translator-editor of four treatises on

Tibetan mysticism; the commentary by Carl Jung, the Swiss

psychoanalyst; and by Lama Govinda, and initiate of one of the

principle Buddhist orders of Tibet.







A TRIBUTE TO W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ



"Dr. Evans-Wentz, who literally sat at the feet of a Tibetan lama for

years, in order to acquire his wisdom . . . not only displays a deeply

sympathetic interest in those esoteric doctrines so characteristic of

the genius of the East, but likewise possesses the rare faculty of

making them more or less intelligible to the layman." [Quoted from a

book review in Anthropology on the back of the Oxford University Press

edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead.]



W. Y. Evans-Wentz is a great scholar who devoted his mature years to

the role of bridge and shuttle between Tibet and the west: like an RNA

molecule activating the latter with the coded message of the former.

No greater tribute could be paid to the work of this academic

liberator than to base our psychedelic manual upon his insights and to

quote directly his comments on "the message of this book."



The message is, that the Art of Dying is quite as important as the Art

of Living (or of Coming into Birth), of which it is the complement and

summation; that the future of being is dependent, perhaps entirely,

upon a rightly controlled death, as the second part of this volume,

setting forth the Art of Reincarnating, emphasizes.



The Art of Dying, as indicated by the death-rite associated with

initiation into the Mysteries of Antiquity, and referred to by

Apuleius, the Platonic philosopher, himself an initiate, and by many

other illustrious initiates, and as The Egyptian Book of the Dead

suggests, appears to have been far better known to the ancient peoples

inhabiting the Mediterranean countries than it is now by their

descendants in Europe and the Americas.



To those who had passed through the secret experiencing of pre-mortem

death, right dying is initiation, conferring, as does the initiatory

death-rite, the power to control consciously the process of death and

regeneration. (Evans-Wentz, p. xiii-xiv)



The Oxford scholar, like his great predecessor of the eleventh

century, Marpa ("The Translator"), who rendered Indian Buddhist texts

into Tibetan, thereby preserving them from extinction, saw the vital

importance of these doctrines and made them accessible to many. The

"secret" is no longer hidden: "the art of dying is quite as important

as the art of living."





A TRIBUTE TO CARL G. JUNG



Psychology is the systematic attempt to describe and explain man's

behavior, both conscious and non-conscious. The scope of study is

broad - covering the infinite variety of human activity and

experience; and it is long - tracing back through the history of the

individual, through the history of his ancestors, back through the

evolutionary vicissitudes and triumphs which have determined the

current status of the species. Most difficult of all, the scope of

psychology is complex, dealing as it does with processes which are

ever-changing.



Little wonder that psychologists, in the face of such complexity,

escape into specialization and parochial narrowness.



A psychology is based on the available data and the psychologists'

ability and willingness to utilize them. The behaviorism and

experimentalism of twentieth-century western psychology is so narrow

as to be mostly trivial. Consciousness is eliminated from the field of

inquiry. Social application and social meaning are largely neglected.

A curious ritualism is enacted by a priesthood rapidly growing in

power and numbers.



Eastern psychology, by contrast, offers us a long history of detailed

observation and systematization of the range of human consciousness

along with an enormous literature of practical methods for controlling

and changing consciousness. Western intellectuals tend to dismiss

Oriental psychology. The theories of consciousness are seen as occult

and mystical. The methods of investigating consciousness change, such

as meditation, yoga, monastic retreat, and sensory deprivation, and

are seen as alien to scientific investigation. And most damning of all

in the eyes of the European scholar, is the alleged disregard of

eastern psychologies for the practical, behavioral and social aspects

of life. Such criticism betrays limited concepts and the inability to

deal with the available historical data on a meaningful level. The

psychologies of the east have always found practical application in

the running of the state, in the running of daily life and family. A

wealth of guides and handbooks exists: the Book of Tao, the Analects

of Confucius, the Gita, the I Ching, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, to

mention only the best-known.



Eastern psychology can be judged in terms of the use of available

evidence. The scholars and observers of China, Tibet, and India went

as far as their data allowed them. They lacked the findings of modern

science and so their metaphors seem vague and poetic. Yet this does

not negate their value. Indeed, eastern philosophic theories dating

back four thousand years adapt readily to the most recent discoveries

of nuclear physics, biochemistry, genetics, and astronomy.



A major task of any present day psychology - eastern or western - is

to construct a frame of reference large enough to incorporate the

recent findings of the energy sciences into a revised picture of man.



Judged against the criterion of the use of available fact, the

greatest psychologists of our century are William James and Carl Jung.

[To properly compare Jung with Sigmund Freud we must look at the

available data which each man appropriated for his explorations. For

Freud it was Darwin, classical thermodynamics, the Old Testament,

Renaissance cultural history, and most important, the close overheated

atmosphere of the Jewish family. The broader scope of Jung's reference

materials assures that his theories will find a greater congeniality

with recent developments in the energy sciences and the evolutionary

sciences.] Both of these men avoided the narrow paths of behaviorism

and experimentalism. Both fought to preserve experience and

consciousness as an area of scientific research. Both kept open to the

advance of scientific theory and both refused to shut off eastern

scholarship from consideration.



Jung used for his source of data that most fertile source - the

internal. He recognized the rich meaning of the eastern message; he

reacted to that great Rorshach inkblot, the Tao Te Ching. He wrote

perceptive brilliant forewords to the I Ching, to the Secret of the

Golden Flower, and struggled with the meaning of The Tibetan Book of

the Dead. "For years, ever since it was first published, the Bardo

Thodol has been my constant companion, and to it I owe not only many

stimulating ideas and discoveries, but also many fundamental insights.

. . Its philosophy contains the quintessence of Buddhist psychological

criticism; and, as such, one can truly say that it is of an unexampled

superiority."



The Bardo Thodol is in the highest degree psychological in its

outlook; but, with us, philosophy and theology

are still in the mediaeval, pre-psychological stage where only the

assertions are listened to, explained, defended, criticized and

disputed, while the authority that makes them has, by general consent,

been deposed as outside the scope of discussion.



Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and

are therefore psychological. To the Western mind, which compensates

its well-known feelings of resentment by a slavish regard for

"rational" explanations, this obvious truth seems all too obvious, or

else it is seen as an inadmissible negation of metaphysical "truth."

Whenever the Westerner hears the word "psychological," it always

sounds to him like "only psychological."



Jung draws upon Oriental conceptions of consciousness to broaden the

concept of "projection":



Not only the "wrathful" but also the "peaceful" deities are conceived

as sangsaric projections of the human psyche, an idea that seems all

too obvious to the enlightened European, because it reminds him of his

own banal simplifications. But though the European can easily explain

away these deities as projections, he would be quite incapable of

positing them at the same time as real. The Bardo Thodol can do that,

because, in certain of its most essential metaphysical premises, it

has the enlightened as well as the unenlightened European at a

disadvantage. The ever-present, unspoken assumption of the Bardo

Thodol is the anti-nominal character of all metaphysical assertions,

and also the idea of the qualitative difference of the various levels

of consciousness and of the metaphysical realities conditioned by

them. The background of this unusual book is not the niggardly

European "either-or," but a magnificently affirmative "both-and." This

statement may appear objectionable to the Western philosopher, for the

West loves clarity and unambiguity; consequently, one philosopher

clings to the position, "God is," while another clings equally

fervently to the negation, "God is not."



Jung clearly sees the power and breadth of the Tibetan model but

occasionally he fails to grasp its meaning and application. Jung, too,

was limited (as we all are) to the social models of his tribe. He was

a psychoanalyst, the father of a school. Psychotherapy and psychiatric

diagnosis were the two applications which came most naturally to him.



Jung misses the central concept of the Tibetan book. This is not (as

Lama Govinda reminds us) a book of the dead. It is a book of the

dying; which is to say a book of the living; it is a book of life and

how to live. The concept of actual physical death was an exoteric

facade adopted to fit the prejudices of the Bonist tradition in Tibet.

Far from being an embalmers' guide, the manual is a detailed account

of how to lose the ego; how to break out of personality into new

realms of consciousness; and how to avoid the involuntary limiting

processes of the ego; how to make the consciousness-expansion

experience endure in subsequent daily life.



Jung struggles with this point. He comes close but never quite

clinches it. He had nothing in his conceptual framework which could

make practical sense out of the ego-loss experience.



The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Bardo Thodol, is a book of

instructions for the dead and dying. Like The Egyptian Book of the

Dead it is meant to be a guide for the dead man during the period of

his Bardo existence. . . .



In this quote Jung settles for the exoteric and misses the esoteric.

In a later quote he seems to come closer:



. . . the instruction given in the Bardo Thodol serves to recall to

the dead man the experience of his initiation and the teachings of his

guru, for the instruction is, at bottom, nothing less than an

initiation of the dead into the Bardo life, just as the initiation of

the living was a preparation for the Beyond. Such was the case, at

least, with all the mystery cults in ancient civilizations from the

time of the Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries. In the initiation of

the living, however, this "Beyond" is not a world beyond death, but a

reversal of the mind's intentions and outlook, a psychological

"Beyond" or, in Christian terms, a "redemption" from the trammels of

the world and of sin. Redemption is a separation and deliverance from

an earlier condition of darkness and unconsciousness, and leads to a

condition of illumination and releasedness, to victory and

transcendence over everything "given."



Thus far the Bardo Thodol is, as Dr. Evans-Wentz also feels, an

initiation process whose purpose it is to restore to the soul the

divinity it lost at birth.



In still another passage Jung continues the struggle but misses again:



Nor is the psychological use we make of it (the Tibetan Book) anything

but a secondary intention, though one that is possibly sanctioned by

lamaist custom. The real purpose of this singular book is the attempt,

which must seem very strange to the educated European of the twentieth

century, to enlighten the dead on their journey through the regions of

the Bardo. The Catholic Church is the only place in the world of the

white man where any provision is made for the souls of the departed.



In the summary of Lama Govinda's comments which follow we shall see

that the Tibetan commentator, freed from the European concepts of

Jung, moves directly to the esoteric and practical meaning of the

Tibetan book.



In his autobiography (written in 1960) Jung commits himself wholly to

the inner vision and to the wisdom and superior reality of internal

perceptions. In 1938 (when his Tibetan commentary was written) he was

moving in this direction but cautiously and with the ambivalent

reservations of the psychiatrist cum mystic.



The dead man must desperately resist the dictates of reason, as we

understand it, and give up the supremacy of egohood, regarded by

reason as sacrosanct. What this means in practice is complete

capitulation to the objective powers of the psyche, with all that this

entails; a kind of symbological death, corresponding to the Judgement

of the Dead in the Sidpa Bardo. It means the end of all conscious,

rational, morally responsible conduct of life, and a voluntary

surrender to what the Bardo Thodol calls "karmic illusion." Karmic

illusion springs from belief in a visionary world of an extremely

irrational nature, which neither accords with nor derives from our

rational judgments but is the exclusive product of uninhibited

imagination. It is sheer dream or "fantasy," and every well-meaning

person will instantly caution us against it; nor indeed can one see at

first sight what is the difference between fantasies of this kind and

the phantasmagoria of a lunatic. Very often only a slight abaissement

du niveau mental is needed to unleash this world of illusion. The

terror and darkness of this moment has its equivalent in the

experiences described in the opening sections of the Sidpa Bardo. But

the contents of this Bardo also reveal the archetypes, the karmic

images which appear first in their terrifying form. The Chonyid state

is equivalent to a deliberately induced psychosis. . . .



The transition, then, from the Sidpa state to the Chonyid state is a

dangerous reversal of the aims and intentions of the conscious mind.

It is a sacrifice of the ego's stability and a surrender to the

extreme uncertainty of what must seem like a chaotic riot of

phantasmal forms. When Freud coined the phrase that the ego was "the

true seat of anxiety," he was giving voice to a very true and profound

intuition. Fear of self-sacrifice lurks deep in every ego, and this

fear is often only the precariously controlled demand of the

unconscious forces to burst out in full strength. No one who strives

for selfhood (individuation) is spared this dangerous passage, for

that which is feared also belongs to the wholeness of the self - the

sub-human, or supra-human, world of psychic "dominants" from which the

ego originally emancipated itself with enormous effort, and then only

partially, for the sake of a more or less illusory freedom. This

liberation is certainly a very necessary and very heroic undertaking,

but it represents nothing final: it is merely the creation of a

subject, who, in order to find fulfillment, has still to be confronted

by an object. This, at first sight, would appear to be the world,

which is swelled out with projections for that very purpose. Here we

seek and find our difficulties, here we seek and find our enemy, here

we seek and find what is dear and precious to us; and it is comforting

to know that all evil and all good is to be found out there, in the

visible object, where it can be conquered, punished, destroyed or

enjoyed. But nature herself does not allow this paradisal state of

innocence to continue for ever. There are, and always have been, those

who cannot help but see that the world and its experiences are in the

nature of a symbol, and that it really reflects something that lies

hidden in the subject himself, in his own transubjective reality. It

is from this profound intuition, according to lamaist doctrine, that

the Chonyid state derives its true meaning, which is why the Chonyid

Bardo is entitled "The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality."



The reality experienced in the Chonyid state is, as the last section

of the corresponding Bardo teaches, the reality of thought. The

"thought-forms" appear as realities, fantasy takes on real form, and

the terrifying dream evoked by karma and played out by the unconscious

"dominants" begins.



Jung would not have been surprised by professional and institutional

antagonism to psychedelics. He closes his Tibetan commentary with a

poignant political aside:



The Bardo Thodol began by being a "closed" book, and so it has

remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it.

For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding

and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can

only acquire through special training and special experience. It is

good that such to all intents and purposes "useless" books exist. They

are meant for those "queer folk" who no longer set much store by the

uses, aims, and meaning of present-day "civilization."



To provide "special training" for the "special experience" provided by

psychedelic materials is the purpose of this version of The Tibetan

Book of the Dead.





A TRIBUTE TO LAMA ANAGARIKA GOVINDA



In the preceding section the point was made that eastern philosophy

and psychology - poetic, indeterministic, experiential, inward-

looking, vaguely evolutionary, open-ended - is more easily adapted to

the findings of modern science than the syllogistic, certain,

experimental, externalizing logic of western psychology. The latter

imitates the irrelevant rituals of the energy sciences but ignores the

data of physics and genetics, the meanings and implications.



Even Carl Jung, the most penetrating of the western psychologists,

failed to understand the basic philosophy of the Bardo Thodol.



Quite in contrast are the comments on the Tibetan manual by Lama

Anagarika Govinda.



His opening statement at first glance would cause a Judaeo-Christian

psychologist to snort in impatience. But a close look at these phrases

reveals that they are the poetic statement of the genetic situation as

currently described by biochemists and DNA researchers.



It may be argued that nobody can talk about death with authority who

has not died; and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from

death, how can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it?



The Tibetan will answer: "There is not one person, indeed, not one

living being, that has not returned from death. In fact, we all have

died many deaths, before we came into this incarnation. And what we

call birth is merely the reverse side of death, like one of the two

sides of a coin, or like a door which we call "entrance" from outside

and "exit" from inside a room."



The lama then goes on to make a second poetic comment about the

potentialities of the nervous system, the complexity of the human

cortical computer.



It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her

previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons

do not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not

remember their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were

recently born. They forget that active memory is only a small part of

our normal consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers

and preserves every past impression and experience which our waking

mind fails to recall.



The lama then proceeds to slice directly to the esoteric meaning of

the Bardo Thodol - that core meaning which Jung and indeed most

European Orientalists have failed to grasp.



For this reason, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book vouchsafing

liberation from the intermediate state between life and re-birth,-

which state men call death,- has been couched in symbolical language.

It is a book which is sealed with the seven seals of silence,- not

because its knowledge would be misunderstood, and, therefore, would

tend to mislead and harm those who are unfitted to receive it. But the

time has come to break the seals of silence; for the human race has

come to the juncture where it must decide whether to be content with

the subjugation of the material world, or to strive after the conquest

of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish desires and

transcending self-imposed limitations.



The lama next describes the effects of consciousness-expansion

techniques. He is talking here about the method he knows-the Yogic-but

his words are equally applicable to psychedelic experience.



There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic

practices, are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of

discriminative consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the

unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the

records not only of our past lives but the records of the past of our

race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not

of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.



If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individual's

subconsciousness were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind

would be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the

subconscious are guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil

of mysteries and symbols.



In a later section of his foreword the lama presents a more detailed

elaboration of the inner meaning of the Thodol.



If the Bardo Thodol were to be regarded as being based merely upon

folklore, or as consisting of religious speculation about death and a

hypothetical after-death state, it would be of interest only to

anthropologists and students of religion. But the Bardo Thodol is far

more. It is a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind, and a

guide for initiates, and for those who are seeking the spiritual path

of liberation.



Although the Bardo Thodol is at present time widely used in Tibet as a

breviary, and read or recited on the occasion of death,- for which

reason it has been aptly called "The Tibetan Book of the Dead"- one

should not forget that it was originally conceived to serve as a guide

not only for the dying and the dead, but for the living as well. And

herein lies the justification for having made The Tibetan Book of the

Dead accessible to a wider public.



Notwithstanding the popular customs and beliefs which, under the

influence of age-old traditions of pre-Buddhist origin, have grown

around the profound revelations of the Bardo Thodol, it has value only

for those who practise and realize its teaching during their life-

time.



There are two things which have caused misunderstanding. One is that

the teachings seem to be addressed to the dead or the dying; the other

that the title contains the expression "Liberation through Hearing"

(in Tibetan, Thos-grol). As a result, there has arisen the belief that

it is sufficient to read or recite the Bardo Thodol in the presence of

a dying person, or even of a person who has just died, in order to

effect his or her liberation.



Such misunderstanding could only have arisen among those who do not

know that it is one of the oldest and most universal practices for the

initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be

spiritually reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past, and to his

old ego, before he can take his place in the new spiritual life into

which he has been initiated.



The dead or the dying person is addressed in the Bardo Thodol mainly

for three reasons: (1) the earnest practitioner of these teachings

should regard every moment of his or her life as if it were the last;

(2) when a follower of these teachings is actually dying, he or she

should be reminded of the experiences at the time of initiation, or of

the words (or mantra) of the guru, especially if the dying one's mind

lacks alertness during the critical moments; and (3) one who is still

incarnate should try to surround the person dying, or just dead, with

loving and helpful thoughts during the first stages of the new, or

afterdeath, state of existence, without allowing emotional attachment

to interfere or to give rise to a state of morbid mental depression.

Accordingly, one function of the Bardo Thodol appears to be more to

help those who have been left behind to adopt the right attitude

towards the dead and towards the fact of death than to assist the

dead, who, according to Buddhist belief, will not deviate from their

own karmic path. . . .



This proves that we have to do here with life itself and not merely

with a mass for the dead, to which the Bardo Thodol was reduced in

later times. . . .



Under the guise of a science of death, the Bardo Thodol reveals the

secret of life; and therein lies its spiritual value and its universal

appeal.



Here then is the key to a mystery which has been passed down for over

2,500 years - the consciousness-expansion experience - the pre-mortem

death and rebirth rite. The Vedic sages knew the secret; the

Eleusinian initiates knew it; the Tantrics knew it. In all their

esoteric writings they whisper the message: it is possible to cut

beyond ego-consciousness, to tune in on neurological processes which

flash by at the speed of light, and to become aware of the enormous

treasury of ancient racial knowledge welded into the nucleus of every

cell in your body.



Modern psychedelic chemicals provide a key to this forgotten realm of

awareness. But just as this manual without the psychedelic awareness

is nothing but an exercise in academic Tibetology, so, too, the potent

chemical key is of little value without the guidance and the

teachings.



Westerners do not accept the existence of conscious processes for

which they have no operational term. The attitude which is prevalent

is: - if you can't label it, and if it is beyond current notions of

space-time and personality, then it is not open for investigation.

Thus we see the ego-loss experience confused with schizophrenia. Thus

we see present-day psychiatrists solemnly pronouncing the psychedelic

keys as psychosis-producing and dangerous.



The new visionary chemicals and the pre-mortem-death-rebirth

experience may be pushed once again into the shadows of history.

Looking back, we remember that every middle-eastern and European

administrator (with the exception of certain periods in Greece and

Persia) has, during the last three thousand years, rushed to pass laws

against any emerging transcendental process, the pre-mortem-death-

rebirth session, its adepts, and any new method of consciousness-

expansion.



The present moment in human history (as Lama Govinda points out) is

critical. Now, for the first time, we possess the means of providing

the enlightenment to any prepared volunteer. (The enlightenment always

comes, we remember, in the form of a new energy process, a physical,

neurological event.) For these reasons we have prepared this

psychedelic version of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The secret is

released once again, in a new dialect, and we sit back quietly to

observe whether man is ready to move ahead and to make use of the new

tools provided by modern science.





II.

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD



FIRST BARDO:



THE PERIOD OF EGO-LOSS OR

NON-GAME ECSTASY

(Chikhai Bardo)



Part I: The Primary Clear Light Seen At the Moment of Ego-Loss.



All individuals who have received the practical teachings of this

manual will, if the text be remembered, be set face to face with the

ecstatic radiance and will win illumination instantaneously, without

entering upon hallucinatory struggles and without further suffering on

the age-long pathway of normal evolution which traverses the various

worlds of game existence.



This doctrine underlies the whole of the Tibetan model. Faith is the

first step on the "Secret Pathway." Then comes illumination and with

it certainty; and when the goal is won, emancipation. Success implies

very unusual preparation in consciousness expansion, as well as much

calm, compassionate game playing (good karma) on the part of the

participant. If the participant can be made to see and to grasp the

idea of the empty mind as soon as the guide reveals it - that is to

say, if he has the power to die consciously - and, at the supreme

moment of quitting the ego, can recognize the ecstasy which will dawn

upon him then, and become one with it, all game bonds of illusion are

broken asunder immediately: the dreamer is awakened into reality

simultaneously with the mighty achievement of recognition.



It is best if the guru (spiritual teacher), from whom the participant

received guiding instructions, is present, but if the guru cannot be

present, then another experienced person; or it the latter is also

unavailable, then a person whom the participant trusts should be

available to read this manual without imposing any of his own games.

Thereby the participant will be put in mind of what he had previously

heard of the experience and will at once come to recognize the

fundamental Light and undoubtedly obtain liberation.



Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual activity.

[Realization of the Voidness, the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unmade,

the Unformed, implies Buddhahood, Perfect Enlightenment - the state of

the divine mind of the Buddha. It may be helpful to remember that this

ancient doctrine is not in conflict with modern physics. The

theoretical physicist and cosmologist, George Gamow, presented in 1950

a viewpoint which is close to the phenomenological experience

described by the Tibetan lamas.



If we imagine history running back in time, we inevitably come to the

epoch of the "big squeeze" with all the galaxies, stars, atoms and

atomic nuclei squeezed, so to speak, to a pulp. During that early

stage of evolution, matter must have been dissociated into its

elementary components. . . . We call this primordial mixture ylem.



At this first point in the evolution of the present cycle, according

to this first-rank physicist, there existed only the Unbecome, the

Unborn, the Unformed. And this, according to astrophysicists, is the

way it will end; the silent unity of the Unformed. The Tibetan

Buddhists suggest that the uncluttered intellect can experience what

astrophysics confirms. The Buddha Vairochana, the Dhyani Buddha of the

Center, Manifester of Phenomena, is the highest path to enlightenment.

As the source of all organic life, in him all things visible and

invisible have their consummation and absorption. He is associated

with the Central Realm of the Densely-Packed, i.e., the seed of all

universal forces and things are densely packed together. This

remarkable convergence of modern astrophysics and ancient lamaism

demands no complicated explanation. The cosmological awareness- and

awareness of every other natural process- is there in the cortex. You

can confirm this preconceptual mystical knowledge by empirical

observation and measurement, but it's all there inside your skull.

Your neurons "know" because they are linked directly to the process,

are part of it.] The mind in its conditioned state, that is to say,

when limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-

formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence,

alert, awake but not active is comparable to what Buddhists call the

highest state of dhyana (deep meditation) when still united to a human

body. The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic

condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have

called illumination.



The first sign is the glimpsing of the "Clear Light of Reality," "the

infallible mind of the pure mystic state." This is the awareness of

energy transformations with no imposition of mental categories.



The duration of this state varies with the individual. It depends upon

experience, security, trust, preparation and the surroundings. In

those who have had even a little practical experience of the tranquil

state of non-game awareness, and in those who have happy games, this

state can last from thirty minutes to several hours.



In this state, realization of what mystics call the "Ultimate Truth"

is possible, provided that sufficient preparation has been made by the

person beforehand. Otherwise he cannot benefit now, and must wander on

into lower and lower conditions of hallucinations, as determined by

his past games, until he drops back to routine reality.



It is important to remember that the conscious-expansion process is

the reverse of the birth process, birth being the beginning of game

life and the ego-loss experience being a temporary ending of game

life. But in both there is a passing from one state of consciousness

into another. And just as an infant must wake up and learn from

experience the nature of this world, so likewise a person at the

moment of consciousness expansion must wake up in this new brilliant

world and become familiar with its own peculiar conditions.



In those who are heavily dependent on their ego games, and who dread

giving up their control, the illuminated state endures only so long as

it would take to snap a finger. In some, it lasts as long as the time

taken for eating a meal.



If the subject is prepared to diagnose the symptoms of ego loss, he

needs no outside help at this point. Not only should the person about

to give up his ego be able to diagnose the symptoms as they come, one

by one, but he should also be able to recognize the Clear Light

without being set face to face with it by another person. If the

person fails to recognize and accept the onset of ego loss, he may

complain of strange bodily symptoms. This shows that he has not

reached a liberated state. Then the guide or friend should explain the

symptoms as indicating the onset of ego loss.



Here is a list of commonly reported physical sensations:



1. Bodily pressure, which the Tibetans call earth-sinking-into-water;

2. Clammy coldness, followed by feverish heat, which the Tibetans call

water-sinking-into-fire; 3. Body disintegrating or blown to atoms,

called fire-sinking-into-air; 4. Pressure on head and ears, which

Americans call rocket-launching-into-space; 5. Tingling in

extremities; 6. Feelings of body melting or flowing as if wax; 7.

Nausea; 8. Trembling or shaking, beginning in pelvic regions and

spreading up torso.



These physical reactions should be recognized as signs heralding

transcendence. Avoid treating them as symptoms of illness, accept

them, merge with them, enjoy them.



Mild nausea occurs often with the ingestion of morning-glory seeds or

peyote, rarely with mescaline and infrequently with LSD or psilocybin.

If the subject experiences stomach messages, they should be hailed as

a sign that consciousness is moving around in the body. The symptoms

are mental; the mind controls the sensation, and the subject should

merge with the sensation, experience it fully, enjoy it and, having

enjoyed it, let consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually

more natural to let consciousness stay in the body - the subject's

attention can move from the stomach and concentrate on breathing,

heart beat. If this does not free him from nausea, the guide should

move the consciousness to external events - music, walking in the

garden, etc.



The appearance of physical symptoms of ego-loss, recognized and

understood, should result in peaceful attainment of illumination. If

ecstatic acceptance does not occur (or when the period of peaceful

silence seems to be ending), the relevant sections of the instructions

can be spoken in a low tone of voice in the ear. It is often useful to

repeat them distinctly, clearly impressing them upon the person so as

to prevent his mind from wandering. Another method of guiding the

experience with a minimum of activity is to have the instructions

previously recorded in the subject's own voice and to flip the tape on

at the appropriate moment. The reading will recall to the mind of the

voyager the former preparation; it will cause the naked consciousness

to be recognized as the "Clear Light of the Beginning;" it will remind

the subject of his unity with this state of perfect enlightenment and

help him to maintain it.



If, when undergoing ego-loss, one is familiar with this state, by

virtue of previous experience and preparation, the Wheel of Rebirth

(i.e., all game playing) is stopped, and liberation instantaneously is

achieved. But such spiritual efficiency is so very rare, that the

normal mental condition of the person is unequal to the supreme feat

of holding on to the state in which the Clear Light shines; and there

follows a progressive descent into lower and lower states of the Bardo

existence, and then rebirth. The simile of a needle balanced and set

rolling on a thread is used by the lamas to elucidate this condition.

So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread.

Eventually, however, the law of gravitation (the pull of the ego or

external stimulation) affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the

Clear Light, similarly, the mentality of a person in the ego-

transcendent state momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of

perfect equilibrium, and of oneness. Unfamiliar with such a state,

which is an ecstate state of non-ego, the consciousness of the average

human being lacks the power to function in it. Karmic (i.e., game)

propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of

personality, of individualized being, of dualism. Thus, losing

equilibrium, consciousness falls away from the Clear Light. It is

thought processes which prevent the realization of Nirvana (which is

the "blowing out of the flame" of selfish game desire); and so the

Wheel of Life continues to turn.



All or some of the appropriate passages in the instructions may be

read to the voyager during the period of waiting for the drug to take

effect, and when the first symptoms of ego-loss appear. When the

voyager is clearly in a profound ego-transcendent ecstasy, the wise

guide will remain silent.





Part II: The Secondary Clear Light Seen Immediately After Ego-Loss.



The preceding section describes how the Clear Light may be recognized

and liberation maintained. But if it becomes apparent that the Primary

Clear Light has not been recognized, then it can certainly be assumed

there is dawning what is called the phase of the Secondary Clear

Light. The first flash of experience usually produces a state of

ecstasy of the greatest intensity. Every cell in the body is sensed as

involved in orgastic creativity.



It may be helpful to describe in more detail some of the phenomena

which often accompany the moment of ego-loss. One of these might be

called "wave energy flow." The individual becomes aware that he is

part of and surrounded by a charged field of energy, which seems

almost electrical. In order to maintain the ego-loss state as long as

possible, the prepared person will relax and allow the forces to flow

through him. There are two dangers to avoid: the attempt to control or

to rationalize this energy flow. Either of these reactions is

indicative of ego-activity and the First Bardo transcendence is lost.



The second phenomenon might be called "biological life-flow." Here the

person becomes aware of physiological and biochemical processes;

rhythmic pulsing activity within the body. Often this may be sensed as

powerful motors or generators continously throbbing and radiating

energy. An endless flow of cellular forms and colors flashes by.

Internal biological processes may also be heard with characteristic

swooshing, crackling, and pounding noises. Again the person must

resist the temptation to label or control these processes. At this

point you are tuned in to areas of the nervous system which are

inaccessible to routine perception. You cannot drag your ego into the

molecular processes of life. These processes are a billion years older

than the learned conceptual mind.



Another typical and most rewarding phase of the First Bardo involves

ecstatic energy movement felt in the spine. The base of the backbone

seems to be melting or seems on fire. If the person can maintain quiet

concentration the energy will be sensed as flowing upwards. Tantric

adepts devote decades of concentrated meditation to the release of

these ecstatic energies which they call Kundalini, the Serpent Power.

One allows the energies to travel upwards through several ganglionic

centers (chakras) to the brain, where they are sensed as a burning

sensation in the top of the cranium. These sensations are not

unpleasant to the prepared person, but, on the contrary, are

accompanied by the most intense feelings of joy and illumination. Ill-

prepared subjects may interpret the experience in pathological terms

and attempt to control it, usually with unpleasant results. [Professor

R. C. Zaehner, who as an Oriental scholar and "expert" on mysticism

should have know better, has published an account of how this prized

experience can be lost and distorted into hypochondriacal complaint in

the ill-educated.



. . . I had a curious sensation in my body which reminded me of what

Mr. Custance describes as a "tingling at the base of the spine," which

according to him, usually precedes a bout of mania. It was rather like

that. In the Broad Walk this sensation occurred again and again until

the climax of the experiment was reached . . . I did not like it at

all.



(R. C. Zaehner: Mysticism, Sacred and Profane. Oxford Univ. Press,

1957, p. 214)



If the subjects fails to recognize the rushing flow of First Bardo

phnomena, liberation from the ego is lost. The person finds himself

slipping back into mental activities. At this point he should try to

recall the instructions or be reminded of them, and a second contact

with these processes can be made.



The second stage is less intense. A ball set bouncing reaches its

greatest height at the first bounce; the second bounce is lower, and

each succeeding bounce is still lower until the ball comes to rest.

The consciousness at the loss of the ego is similar to this. Its first

spiritual bound, directly upon leaving the body-ego, is the highest;

the next is lower. Then the force of karma, (i.e., past game-playing),

takes over and different forms of external reality are experienced.

Finally, the force of karma having spent itself, consciousness returns

to "normal." Routines are taken up again and thus rebirth occurs.



The first ecstasy usually ends with a momentary flashback to the ego

condition. This return can be happy or sad, loving or suspicious,

fearful or courageous, depending on the personality, the preparation,

and the setting.



This flashback to the ego-game is accompanied by a concern with

identity. "Who am I now? Am I dead or not dead? What is happening?"

You cannot determine. You see the surroundings and your companions as

you had been used to seeing them before. There is a penetrating

sensitivity. But you are on a different level. Your ego grasp is not

quite as sure as it was.



The karmic hallucinations and visions have not yet started. Neither

the frightening apparitions nor the heavenly visions have begun. This

is a most sensitive and pregnant period. The remainder of the

experience can be pushed one way or another depending upon preparation

and emotional climate.



If you are experienced in consciousness alteration, or if you are a

naturally introverted person, remember the situation and the schedule.

Stay calm and let the experience take you where it will. You will

probably re-experience the ecstasy of illumination once again; or you

may drift into aesthetic or philosophic or interpersonal

enlightenments. Don't hold on: let the stream carry you along.



The experienced person is usually beyond dependence on setting. He can

turn off external pressure and return to illumination. An extroverted

person, dependent upon social games and outside situations may,

however, become pleasantly distracted (colors, sounds, people). If you

anticipate extroverted distraction and if you want to maintain a non-

game state of ecstasy, then remember the following suggestions: do not

be distracted; try to concentrate on an ideal contemplative personage,

e.g., Buddha, Christ, Socrates, Ramakrishna, Einstein, Herman Hesse or

Lao Tse: follow his model as if he were a being with a physical body

waiting for you. Join him.



If this is not successful, don't fret or think about it. Perhaps you

don't have a mystical or transcendental ideal. That means your

conceptual limits are within external games. Now that you know what

the mystic experience is, you can prepare for it next time. You have

lost the content-free flow and should now be ready to slip into

exciting confrontation with external reality. In the Second Bardo you

can reash and deeply experience game revelations.



We have just anticipated the reactions of the naturally mystical

introvert, the experienced person, and the extrovert. Now let's turn

to the novitiate who shows confusion at this early stage of the

sequence. The best procedure is to make a reassuring sign and do

nothing. He will have read this manual and will have some guidepost.

Leave him alone and he will probably dive into his panic and master

it. If he indicates that he wishes guidance, repeat the instructions.

Tell him what is happening. Remind him of his phase in the process.

Urge him quietly to release his ego struggle and drift back into

contact with the Clear Light.



Preparation and guidance of this sort will allow many to reach the

illuminated state who would not be expected to recognize it.



At this point, it is necessary to inject a word of benign warning.

Reading this manual is extremely useful, but no words can communicate

experience. You are going to be surprised, startled and delighted. A

person may have heard a detailed description of the art of swimming

and yet never had the chance to swim. Suddenly diving into the water,

he finds himself unable to swim. So with those who have tried to learn

the theory of how to experience ego-loss, and have never applied it.

They cannot maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness, they grow

bewildered at the changed condition; they fail to maintain the

mystical ecstasy; they fail to take advantage of the opportunity

unless upheld and directed by a guide. Even with all that a guide can

do, they ordinarily, because of bad karma (heavy ego games) fail to

recognize the liberation. But this is no cause for worry. At the

worst, they just slip back to shore. No one has drowned, and most of

those who have taken the voyage have been eager to try again.



Even those who have familiarized themselves with the road maps and who

previously have had illumination, may find themselves in settings

where heavy game behavior on the part of others forces them into

contact with external reality. If this happens, recall the

instructions. The person who masters this principle can block out the

external. The one who has mastered control of consciousness is

independent of setting.



Again there are those, who although previously successful, may have

brought ego games into the session with them. They may want to provide

someone else with a particular type of experience. They may be

promoting some self goal. They may be nurturing negative or

competitive or seductive feelings towards someone in the session. If

this happens, recall the instructions. Remember the unity of all

beings. One to me is shame and fame. One to me is loss or gain.

Jettison your ego program and float back to the radiant bliss of at-

one-ness.



If you reach the Clear Light immediately and maintain it, that is

best. But if not, if you have slipped down to reality concerns, by

remembering these instructions you should be able to regain what the

Tibetans call the Secondary Clear Light.



While on this secondary level, an interesting dialogue occurs between

pure transcendence and the awareness that this ecstatic vision is

happening to oneself. The first radiance knows no self, no concepts.

The secondary experience involves a certain state of conceptual

lucidity. The knowing self hovers within that transcendent terrain

from which it is usually barred. If the instructions are remembered,

external reality will not intrude. But the flashing in and out between

pure ego-less unity, and lucid, non-game selfhood, produces an

intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies description.

Previous philosophic reading will suddenly take on living meaning.



Thus in this secondary stage of the First Bardo, there is possible

both the mystic non-self and the mystic self experience.



After you have experienced these two states, you may wish to pursue

this distinction intellectually. We are confronted here with one of

the oldest debates in Eastern philosophy. Is it better to be part of

the sugar or to taste the sugar? Theological controversies and their

dualities are far removed from experience. Thanks to the experimental

mysticism made possible by consciousness-expanding drugs, you may have

been lucky enough to have experienced the flashing back and forth

between the two states. You may be lucky enough to know what the

academic monks could only think about.



Here ends the First Bardo,

The Period of Ego-loss or Non-Game Ecstasy





SECOND BARDO:



THE PERIOD OF HALLUCINATIONS

(Chonyid Bardo)



Introduction



If the Primary Clear Light is not recognized, there remains the

possibility of maintaining the Secondary Clear Light. If that is lost,

then comes the Chonyid Bardo, the period of karmic illusions or

intense hallucinatory mixtures of game reality. It is very important

that the instructions be remembered - they can have great influence

and effect.



During this period, the flow of consciousness, microscopically clear

and intense, is interrupted by fleeting attempts to rationalize and

interpret. But the normal game-playing ego is not functioning

effectively. There exist, therefore, unlimited possibilities for, on

the one hand, delightful sensuous, intellectual and emotional

novelties if one floats with the current; and, on the other hand,

fearful ambuscades of confusion and terror if one tries to impose his

will on the experience.



The purpose of this part of the manual is to prepare the person for

the choice points which arise during this stage. Strange sounds, weird

sights and disturbed visions may occur. These can awe, frighten and

terrify unless one is prepared.



The experienced person will be able to maintain the recognition that

all perceptions come from within and will be able to sit quietly,

controlling his expanded awareness like a phantasmagoric multi-

dimensional television set: the most acute and sensitive

hallucinations - visual, auditory, touch, smell, physical and bodily;

the most exquisite reactions, compassionate insight into the self, the

world. The key is inaction: passive integration with all that occurs

around you. If you try to impose your will, use your mind,

rationalize, seek explanations, you will get caught in hallucinatory

whirlpools. The motto: peace, acceptance. It is all an ever-changing

panorama. You are temporarily removed from the world of game. Enjoy

it.



The inexperienced and those to who ego control is important may find

this passivity impossible. If you cannot remain inactive and subdue

your will, then the one certain activity which can reduce panic and

pull you out of hallucinatory mind-games is physical contact with

another person. Go to the guide or to another participant and put your

head on his lap or chest; put your face next to his and concentrate on

the movement and sound of his inspiration. Breathe deeply and feel the

air rush in and the sighing release. This is the oldest form of living

communication; the brotherhood of breath. The guide's hand on your

forehead may add to the relaxation.



Contact with another participant may be misunderstood and provoke

sexual hallucinations. For this reason, helping contact should be made

explicit by prearrangement. Unprepared participants may impose sexual

fears or fantasies on the contact. Turn them off; they are karmic

illusory productions.



The tender, gentle, supportive huddling together of participants is a

natural development during the second phase. Do not try to rationalize

this contact. Human beings and, for that matter, most all mobile

terrestrial creatures have been huddling together during long, dark

confused nights for several hundred thousand years.



Breathe in and breathe out with you companions. We are all one! That's

what your breath is telling you.





Explanation of the Second Bardo



The underlying problem of the Second Bardo is that any and every shape

- human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, animal, thing - which the

human brain conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself

to consciousness: shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly.



The underlying solution - repeated again and again - is to recognize

that your brain is producing the visions. They do not exist. Nothing

exists except as your consciousness gives it life.



You are standing on the threshold of recognizing the truth: there is

no reality behind any of the phenomena of the ego-loss state, save the

illusions stored up in your own mind either as accretions from game

(Sangsaric) experience or as gifts from organic physical nature and

its billion-year old past history. Recognition of this truth gives

liberation.



There is, of course, no way of classifying the infinite permutations

and combinations of visionary elements. The cortex contains file-cards

for billions of images from the history of the person, of the race,

and of living forms. Any of these, at the rate of a hundred million

per second (according to neuro-physiologists), can flood into

awareness. Bobbing around in this brilliant, symphonic sea of imagery

is the remnant of the conceptual mind. On the endless watery

turbulence of the Pacific Ocean bobs a tiny open mouth shouting

(between saline mouthfuls), "Order! System! Explain all this!"



One cannot predict what visions will occur, nor their sequence. One

can only urge the participants to shut the mouth, breathe through the

nose, and turn off the fidgety, rationalizing mind. But only the

experienced person of mystical bent can do this (and thus remain in

serene enlightenment). The unprepared person will be confused or,

worse, panicky: the intellectual struggle to control the ocean.



In order to guide the person, to help him organize his visions into

explicable units, the Chonyid Bardo was written. There are two

sections: (1) Seven Peaceful Deities with their symmetrically opposed

ego traps. (2) Eight Wrathful Deities who can be joyfully accepted as

visionary productions, or fled from in terror.



Each of the Seven Peaceful Deities (bisexual Father-Mother figures)

are accompanied by consorts, attendants, lesser deities, saints,

angels, heroes. Each of the Wrathful Deities is similarly accompanied.

Lights, symbolic objects, beautiful, horrid, threatening, seething,

are likewise seen.



If read literally, The Tibetan Book of the Dead would have you expect

the "Master of All Visible Shapes" (or his opposite, the fondness for

stupidity) on the first day; the "Immovable Deity of Happiness" and

his consort, attendants and opposite on the second, etc. The manual

should, of course, not be used rigidly, exoterically, but should be

taken in its esoteric, allegorical form.



Read from this perspective, we see that the lamas have listed or named

a thousand images which can boil up in the ever-changing jeweled

mosaic of the retina (that multi-layered swamp of billions of rods and

cones, infiltrated, like a Persian rug or a Mayan carving, with

countless multi-colored capillaries). By preparatory reading of the

manual and by its repetition during the experience, the novice is led

via suggestion to recognize this fantastic retinal kaleidoscope.



Most important, he is told that they come from within. All deities and

demons, all heavens and hells are internal.



The student with a particular interest in Tibetan or Tantric Buddhism

should steep himself in the text of the Chonyid Bardo. He should

obtain colored plates of the fourteen dramas of the Bardo, and he

should arrange to have the guide lead him through the prescribed

sequence during the drug session. This will provide an unforgettable

series of liberations and will permit the devotee to emerge from the

experience "reincarnated" in the lamaist tradition.



The aim of this manual is to make available the general outline of the

Tibetan Book and to translate it into psychedelic English. For this

reason we shall not present the detailed sequence of lamaist

hallucinations but, rather, list some apparitions commonly reported by

Westerners.



Following the Tibetan Thodo, we have classified Second Bardo visions

into seven types:



1. The Source or Creator Vision 2. The Internal Flow of Archetypal

Processes 3. The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity 4. The Wave-Vibration

Structure of External Forms 5. The Vibratory Waves of External Unity

6. "The Retinal Circus" 7. "The Magic Theatre" [We owe the phrase

"retinal circus" to Henri Michaux (Miserable Miracle), and the term

"magic theatre" to Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf).



Visions 2 and 3 involve closed eyes and no contact with external

stimuli. In Vision 2 the internal imagery is primarily conceptual. The

experience can range from revelation and insight to confusion and

chaos, but the cognitive, intellectual meaning is paramount. In Vision

3 the internal imagery is primarily emotional. The experience can

range from love and ecstatic unity to fear, distrust and isolation.



Visions 4 and 5 involve open eyes and rapt attention to external

stimuli, such as sounds, lights, touch, etc. In Vision 4 the external

imagery is primarily conceptual and in Vision 5 emotional factors

predominate.



The sevenfold table just defined bears some similarity to the mandalic

schema of the Peaceful Deities listed for the Second Bardo in The

Tibetan Book of the Dead.





THE PEACEFUL VISIONS



Vision 1: The Source [The first Peaceful Deity

listed by the Bardo Thodol is the Bhagavan Vairochana who occupies the

center of the mandala of the five Dhyani-Buddhas. His attributes of source-

power have been translated into those of the monotheistic creator of

Western religions.]

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)



The White Light, or First Bardo energy, may be interpreted as God the

Creator. The Spreader of the Seed. The Power which makes all shapes

visible. Seed of all that is. Sovereign Power. The All-Powerful. The

Central Sun. The One Truth. The Source of all Organic Life. The Divine

Mother. The Female Creative Principle. Mother of the Space of Heaven.

Radiant Father-Mother. Magnificent revelations, both spiritual and

philosophic, can occur at this point making the highest union of

experience and intellect. But, because of bad karma (usually religious

beliefs of a monotheistic or punitive nature), the glorious light of

the seed wisdom it can produce awe and terror. The person will wish to

flee and will beget a fondness for the dull white light symbolizing

stupidity.



Persons from a Judaeo-Christian background conceive of an enormous

gulf between divinity (which is "up there") and the self ("down

here"). Christian mystics' claims to unity with divine radiance has

always posed problems for theologians who are committed to the

cosmological subject-object distinction. Most Westerners, therefore,

find it difficult to attain unity with the source-light.



If the guide ascertains that the voyager is struggling with thoughts

or feelings about the creative source energy, he can read the

appropriate instructions. ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE

SOURCE





Vision 2: The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)



If the undifferentiated light of the First Bardo or of the Source

Energy is lost, luminous waves of differentiated forms can flood

through the consciousness. The person's mind begins to identify these

figures, that is, to label them and experience revelations about the

life process. [Lama Govinda tells us that Amoghasiddhi represents ". .

. the mysterious activity of spiritual forces, which work removed from

the senses, invisible and imperceptible, with the aim of guiding the

individual (or, more properly: all living beings) towards the maturity

of knowledge and liberation. The yellow light of an (inner) sun

invisible to human eyes . . . (in which the unfathomable space of the

universe seems to open itself) for the serene mystic green of

Amoghasiddhi. . . . On the elementary plane this all-pervading power

corresponds to the element of air - the principle of movement and

extension, of life and breath (prana)." Lama Govinda: Foundations of

Tibetan Mysticism. Lodon: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959, p.120.



The fifth day of the Baro Thodol confronts the deceased with the

Bhagavan Buddha Amoghasiddhi, Almighty Conqueror, from the green

Norther realm of Successful Performance of Best Actions, attended by a

Divine Mother, and two Bodhisattvas representing the mental functions

of "equilibrium, immutability, and almighty power" and "clearer of

obscurations."]



Specifically, the subject is caught up in an endless flow of colored

forms, microbiological shapes, cellular acrobatics, capillary

whirling. The cortex is turned in on molecular processes which are

completely new and strange: a Niagara of abstract designs; the life-

stream flowing, flowing.



These visions might perhaps be described as pure sensations of

cellular and sub-cellular processes. It is uncertain whether they

involve the retina and/or the visual cortex, or whether they are

flashes of direct, molecular sensation in other areas of the central

nervous system. They are subjectively described as internal visions.



Another class of internal process images involves sound. Again we do

not know whether these sensations originate in the auditory apparatus

and/or in the auditory cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct,

molecular sensations in other areas. They are subjectively described

as internal sounds: clicking, thudding, clashing, soughing, ringing,

tapping, moaning, shrill whistles. [ The Tibetan Book includes a

brilliant discussion of internal process noises. ". . . innumerable

(other) kinds of musical instruments, filling (with music) the whole

world-systems and causing them to vibrate, to quake and tremble with

sounds so mighty as to daze one's brain. . . ."



"Tibetan lamas, in chanting their rituals, employ seven (or eight)

sorts of musical instruments: big drums, cymbals (commonly brass),

conch shells, bells (like the handbells used in the Christian Mass

Service), timbrels, small clarionets (sounding like Highland

bagpipes), big trumpets, and human thighbone trumpets. Although the

combined sounds of these instruments are far from being melodious, the

lamas maintain that they psychically produce in the devotee an

attitude of deep veneration and faith, because they are the

counterparts of the natural sounds which one's own body is heard

producing when the fingers are put in the ears to shut out external

sounds. Stopping the ears thus, there are heard a thudding sound, like

that of a big drum being beaten; a clashing sound, as of cymbals; a

soughing sound, as of a wind moving through a forest - as when a

conch-shell is bone; a ringing as of bells; a sharp tapping sound, as

when a timbrel is used; a moaning sound, like that of a clarionet; a

bass moaning sound, as if made with a big trumpet; and a shriller

sound, as of a thigh-bone trumpet."



"Not only is this interesting as a theory of Tibetan sacred music, but

it gives the clue to the esoteric interpretation of the symbolical

natural sounds of Truth (referred to in the second paragraph

following, and elsewhere in our text), which are said to be, or to

proceed from, the intellectual faculties within the human mentality."

- (Evans-Wentz, p. 128)] These noises, like the visions, are direct

sensations unencumbered by mental concepts. Raw, molecular, dancing

units of energy.



The minds sweeps in and out of this evolutionary stream, creating

cosmological revelations. Dozens of mythical and Darwinian insights

flash into awareness. The person is allowed to glance back down the

flow of time and to perceive how the life energy continually manifests

itself in forms, transient, alwasy changing, reforming. Microscopic

forms merge with primal creative myths. The mirror of consciousness is

held up to the life stream.



As long as the person floats with the current, he is exposed to a

billion-year lesson in cosmology. But the drag of the mind is always

present. The tendency to impose arbitrary, isolating order on the

organic process.



Sometimes the voyager feels he should report back his vision. He

converts the life flow into a cosmic ink-blot test - attempts to label

each form. "Now I see a peacock's tail. Now Muslim knights in colored

armor. Oh, now a waterfall of jewels. Now, Chinese music. Now, gem-

like serpents, etc." Verbalizations of this sort dull the light, stop

the flow and should not be encouraged.



Another trap is that of imposing a sexual interpretation. The dancing,

playful flow of life is, in the most reverant sense, sexual. Forms

merging, spinning together, reproducing. Eros in its countless

manifestations. The Tibetans refer to the female Bodhisattvas

Pushpema, personification of blossoms, and Lasema, the "Belle",

depicted holding a mirror in a coquettish attitude. Keep the pure,

spontaneous awareness of the Mirror-like Wisdom. Laugh joyously at the

tricks of the life process, forever decking out forms in seductive,

enticing patterns to keep the dance going. If the voyager interprets

the visions of Eros in terms of his personal sexual game model, and

attempts to think or plan - "what should I do? what role should I

play?" - he is likely to slip down into the Thrid Bardo. Sexual plots

dominate his awareness, the flow fades, the mirror tarnishes, and he

is rudely reborn as a confused, thinking being.



Still another impasse is the imposition of physical symptom games upon

the biological flow. The new somatic sensations may be interpreted as

symptoms. If it is new, it must be bad. Any organ of the body may be

selected as the focus of the "illness." People whose primary

expectation when taking a psychedelic substance is medical, are

particularly likely to fall into this trap. Medical doctors are, in

fact, extremely prone and can imagine colorful diseases and fatal

attacks.



In the case of the most widely-used psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin,

etc.), it is safe to say that such bodily effects are virtually never

the direct effect of the drug. The drug acts only on the brain and

activates central neural patterns. All physical symptoms are created

by the mind. Bodily sickness is a sign that the ego is fighting to

maintain or regain its hold over an outpouring of feeling, over a

dissolution of emotional boundaries.



If the person complains of physical symptoms such as nausea or pain,

the guide should read him the ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL

SYMPTOMS.



The negative, wrathful counterpart to this vision occurs if the

voyager reacts with fear to the powerful flow of life forms. Such a

reaction is attributable to the cumulated result of game playing

(karma) dominated by anger or stupidity. A nightmarish hell-world may

ensue. The visual forms appear like a confusing chaos of cheap, ugly

dime-store objects, brassy, vulgar and useless. The person may become

terrified at the prospect of being engulfed by them. The awesome

sounds may be heard as hideous, clashing, oppressive, grating noises.

The person will attempt to escape from these perceptions into restless

external activity (talking, moving around, etc.) or into conceptual,

analytic, mental activity.



The experience is the same, the intellectual interpretation is

different. Instead of revelation, there is confusion; instead of calm

joy, there is fear. The guide, recognizing the voyager to be in such a

state, can help him get free, by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for

Vision 2.





Vision 3: The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)



The First Bardo instructions should keep you face-to-face with the

void-ecstasy. Yet there are classes of men who, having carried over

karmic conflict about feeling-inhibition, prove unable to hold the

pure experience beyond all feelings, and slip into emotionally toned

visions. The undifferentiated energy of the First Bardo is woven into

visionary games in the form of intense feelings. Exquisite, intense,

pulsating sensations of unity and love will be felt; the negative

counterpart is feelings of attachment, greed, isolation and bodily

concerns.



It comes about this way: the pure flow of energy loses its white void

quality and becomes sensed as intense feelings. An emotional game is

imposed. Incredible new physical sensations pulse through the body.

The glow of life is felt flooding along veins. One merges into a

unitive ocean of orgastic, fluid electricity, [The Peaceful Deity of

the Bardo Thodol personifying this vision is the Buddha Amitabbha, the

all-discriminating wisdom and feeling, boundless light, representing

life eternal. Lama Govinda writes that "The deep red light of

discriminating inner vision shines forth from his heart . . . fire

corresponds to him and thus, according to the ancient traditional

symbolism, the eye and the function of seeing." (Govinda, op. cit., p.

120.) With the Bhagavan Amitabbha comes the Bodhisattva Chenrazee,

embodiment of mercy or compassion, the great pitier ever on the

lookout to discover distress and to succour the troubled. He is joined

by the Bodhisattva "Glorious Gentle-voiced One," and the femal

incarnates "song" and "light."] the endless flow of shared-life, of

love.



Visions related to the circulatory system are common. The subject

tumbles down through his own arterial network. The motor of the heart

reverberates as one with the pulsing of all life. The heart then

breaks, and red fire bleeds out to merge with all living beings. All

living organisms are throbbing together. One is joyfully aware of the

two-billion-year-old electric sexual dance; one is at last divested of

robot clothes and limbs and undulates in the endless chain of living

forms.



Dominating this ecstatic state is the feeling of intense love. You are

a joyful part of all life. The memory of former delusions of self-hood

and differentiation invokes exultant laughter.



All the harsh, dry, brittle angularity of game life is melted. You

drift off - soft, rounded, moist, warm. Merged with all life. You may

feel yourself floating out and down into a warm sea. Your

individuality and autonomy of movement are moistly disappearing. Your

control is surrendered to the total organism. Blissful passivity.

Ecstatic, orgiastic, undulating unity. All worries and concerns wash

away. All is gained as everything is given up. There is organic

revelation. Every cell in your body is singing its song of freedom -

the entire biological universe is in harmony, liberated from the

censorship and control of you and your restricted ambitions.



But wait! You, You, are disappearing into the unity. You are being

swallowed up by the ecstatic undulation. Your ego, that one tiny

remaining strand of self, screams STOP! You are terrified by the pull

of the glorious, dazzling, transparent, radiant red light. You wrench

yourself out of the life-flow, drawn by your intense attachment to

your old desires. There is a terrible rending as your roots tear out

of the life matrix - a ripping of your fibres and veins away from the

greater body to which you were attached. And when you have cut

yourself off from the fire-flow of life the throbbing stops, the

ecstasy ceases, your limbs harden and stiffen into angular forms, your

plastic doll body has regained its orientation. There you sit,

isolated from the stream of life, impotent master of your desires and

appetites, miserable.



While you are floating down the evolutionary river, there comes a

sense of limitless self-less power. The delight of flowing cosmic

belongingness. The astounding discovery that consciousness can tune in

to an infinite number of organic levels. There are billions of

cellular processes in your body, each with its universe of experience

- an endless variety of ecstasies. The simple joys and pains and

burdens of your ego represent one set of experiences - a repetitious,

dusty set. As you slip into the fire-flow of biological energy, series

after series of experiential sets flash by. You are no longer

encapsulated in the structure of ego and tribe.



But through panic and a desire to latch on to the familiar, you shut

off the flow, open your eyes; then the flowingness is lost. The

potentiality to move from one level of consciousness to another is

gone. Your fear and desire to control have driven you to settle for

one static site of consciousness. To use the Eastern or genetic

metaphor, you have frozen the dance of energy and committed yourself

to one incarnation, and you have done it out of fear.



When this happens, there are several steps which can take you back to

the biological flow (and from there to the First Bardo). First, close

your eyes. Lie on you stomach and let you body sink through the floor,

merge with the surroundings. Feel the hard, square edges of your body

soften and start to move in the bloodstream. Let the rhythm of

breathing become tide flow. Bodily contact is probably the most

effective method of softening hardened surfaces. No movement. No body

games. Close physical contact with another invariably brings about the

unity of fire-flow. Your blood begins to flow into the other's body.

His breathing pours into your lungs. You both drift down the capillary

river.



Another form of life process images is the flow of auditory

sensations. The endless series of abstract sounds (described in the

preceding vision) bounce through awareness. The emotional reaction to

these can be neutral or can involve intense feelings of unity, or of

annoyed fear.



The positive reaction occurs when the subject merges with the sound

flow. The thudding drum of the heart is sensed as the basic anthem of

humanity. The whooshing sough of the breath as the rushing river of

all life. Overwhelming feelings of love, gratitude and oneness funnel

into the moment of sound, into each note of the biological concerto.



But, as always, the voyager may intrude his personality with its wants

and opinions. He may not "like" the noise. His judgmental ego may be

aesthetically offended by the sounds of life. The heart thud is, after

all, monotonous; the natural music of the inner ear, with its clicks

and hums and whistles, lacks the romantic symmetries of Beethoven. The

terrible separation of "me" from my body occurs. Horrible. Out of my

control. Turn it off.



The trained guide can usually sense when ego-attachment threatens to

pull the person out of the unitive flow. At this time he can guide the

voyager by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 3.





Vision 4: The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms

(Eyes open or rapt involvement with external stimuli; intellectual

aspects)



The pure, content-free light of the First Bardo probably involves

basic electrical wave energy. This is nameless, indescribable, because

it is far beyond any concepts which we now possess. Some future atomic

physicist may be able to classify this energy. Perhaps it will always

be ineffable for a nervous system such as that of homo sapiens. Can an

organic system "comprehend" the vastly more efficient inorganic? At

any event, most persons, even the most illuminated, find it impossible

to maintain experiential contact with this void-light and slip back to

imposing mental structures, hallucinatory and revelatory, upon the

flow.



Thus we are brought to another frequent vision which involves intense,

rapt, unitive awareness of external stimuli. If the eyes are open,

this super-reality effect can be visual. The penetrating impact of

other stimuli can also set off revelatory imagery.



It comes about this way. The subject's awareness is suddenly invaded

by an outside stimulus. His attention is captured, but his old

conceptual mind is not functioning. But other sensitivities are

engaged. He experiences direct sensation. The raw "is-ness." He sees,

not objects, but patterns of light waves. He hears, not "music" or

"meaningful" sound, but acoustic waves. He is struck with the sudden

revelation that all sensation and perception are based on wave

vibrations. That the world around him which heretofore had an illusory

solidity, is nothing more than a play of physical waves. That he is

involved in a cosmic television show which has no more substantiality

than the images on his TV picture tube. [The Peaceful Deity of the

Thodol personifying this vision is Akshobhya. According to Lama

Govinda, "In the light of the Mirror-like Wisdom . . . things are

freed from their "thingness," their isolation, without being deprived

of their form; they are divested of their materiality, without being

dissolved, because the creative principle of the mind, which is at the

bottom of all form and materiality, is recognized as the active side

of the universal Store Consciousness (alaya-vijnana), on the surface

of which forms arise and pass away, like the waves on the surface of

the ocean. . . ." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)



The atomic structure of matter is, of course, known to us

intellectually, but never experienced by the adult except in states of

intense altered consciousness. Learning from a physics textbook about

the wave structure of matter is one thing. Experiencing it - being in

it - with the old, familiar, gross, hallucinatory comfort of "solid"

things gone and unavailable, is quite another matter.



If these super-real visions involve wave phenomena, then the external

world takes on a radiance and a revelation that is staggeringly clear.

The experienced insight that the world of phenomena exists in the form

of waves, electronic images, can produce a sense of illuminated power.

Everything is experienced as consciousness.



These exultant radiations should be recognized as productions of your

own internal processes. You should not attempt to control or

conceptualize. This can come later. There is the danger of

hallucinatory freezing. The subject rushes back (sometimes literally)

to the three-dimensional reality, convinced of the fixed "truth" of

one experienced revelation. Many misguided mystics and many persons

called insane have fallen into this ambuscade. This is like making a

still photograph of a television pattern and shouting that one has

finally seized the truth. All is ecstatic electric Maya, the two-

billion-year dance of waves. No one part of it is more real than

another. Everything at all moments is shimmering with all the meaning.



So far we have considered the positive radiance of clarity; but there

are fearful negative aspects of the fourth vision. When the subject

senses that his "world" is fragmenting into waves, he may become

terrified. "He," "me," "I" are dissolving! The world around me is

supposed to sit, static and dead, quietly awaiting my manipulation.

But these passive things have changed into a shimmering dance of

living energy! The Maya nature of phenomena creates panic. Where is

the solid base? Every thing, every concept, every form upon which one

rests one's mind collapses into electrical vibrations lacking

solidity.



The face of the guide or of one's beloved friend becomes a dancing

mosaic of impulses on one's cortex. "My consciousness" has created

everything of which I am conscious. I have kinescoped my world, my

loved ones, myself. All are just shimmering energy patterns. Instead

of clarity and exultant power, there is confusion. The subject

staggers around, grasping at electron-patterns, striving to freeze

them back into the familiar robot forms.



All solidity is gone. All phenomena are paper images pasted on the

glass screen of consciousness. For the unprepared, or for the person

whose karmic residue stresses control, the discovery of the wave-

nature of all structure, the Maya revelation, is a disastrous web of

uncertainty.



We have discussed only the visual aspects of the fourth vision.

Auditory phenomena are of equal importance. Here the solid, labelled

nature of auditory patterns is lost, and the mechanical impact of

sound hitting the eardrum is registered. In some cases, sound becomes

converted into pure sensation, and synesthesia (mixture of sense

modalities) occurs. Sounds are experienced as colors. External

sensations hitting the cortex are recorded as molecular events,

ineffable.



The most dramatic auditory visions occur with music. Just as any

object radiates a pattern of electrons and can become the essense of

all energy, so can any note of music be sensed as naked energy

trembling in space, timeless. The movement of notes, like the

shuttling of oscillograph beams. Each capturing all energy, the

electric core of the universe. Nothing existing except the needle-

clear resonance on the tympanic membrane. Unforgettable revelations

about the nature of reality occur at these moments.



But the hellish interpretation is also possible. As the learned

structure of sound collapses, the direct impact of waves can be sensed

as noise. For one who is compelled to institute order, his order, on

the world around him, it is at least annoying and often disturbing to

have the raw tattoo of sound resonating in consciousness.



Noise! What an irreverent concept. Is not everything noise; all

sensation the divine pattern of wave energy, meaningless only to those

who insist on imposing their own meaning?



Preparation is the key to a serene passage through this visionary

territory. The subject who has studied this manual will be able, when

face to face with the phenomenon, to recognize and flow with it.



The sensitive guide will be ready to pick up, on any cue, that the

subject is wandering in the fourth vision. If the voyager's eyes are

open (indicating visual reactions), he can read the ==|==>>

Instructions for Vision 4.



If the guide senses that the voyager is experiencing the fragmentation

of external sound into wave vibrations, he can amend the instructions

appropriately (changing the visuaol references to auditory).





Vision 5: The Vibratory Waves of External Unity

(Eyes open, or rapt involvement with external stimuli; emotional

aspects)



As the learned perceptions disappear and the structure of the external

world disintegrates into direct wave phenomena, the aim is to amintain

a pure, conten-free awareness (First Bardo). Despite the preparations,

one is likely to be led backwards by one's own mental inclinations

into two hallucinatory or revelatory interpretations of reality. One

reaction leads to the intellectual clarity or frightened confusion of

the fourth vision (just described). Another interpretation is the

emotional reaction to the fragmentation of differentiated forms. One

can be engulfed in ecstatic unity, or one can slip into isolated

egotism. The Bardol Thodol calls the former the "Wisdom of Equality"

and the latter the "quagmire of worldly existence accruing from

violent egotism." [The Peaceful Deity of the fifth vision comes in the

form of the Bhagavan Ratnasambhava, born of a jewel. He is embraced by

the Divine Mother, She of the Buddha Eyes, and accompanied by the

Bodhisattvas, womb of the sky, All-good, and those holding incense and

rosary. "On the elementary plane Ratnasambhava corresponds to the

earth, which carries and nourishes all beings with the equanimity and

patience of a mother, in whose eyes all beings, borne by her, are

equal." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)] In the state of radiant unity,

one senses that there is only one network of energy in the universe

and that all things and all sentient beings are momentary

manifestations of the single pattern. When egotistic interpretations

are imposed on the fifth vision, the "plastic doll" phenomena are

experienced. Differentiated forms are seen as inorganic, dull, mass-

produced, shabby, plastic, and all persons (including self) are seen

as lifeless mannequins isolated from the vibrant dance of energy,

which has been lost.



The experiential data of this vision are similar to that of the fourth

vision. All artifactual learned structure collapses back to energy

vibrations. The awareness is dominated not by revelatory clarity but

by shimmering unity. The subject is entranced by the silent, whirling

play of forces. Exquisite forms dance by him, all surrounding objects

radiate energy, brilliant emanations. His own body is seen as a play

of forces. If he looks in a mirror, he sees a shining mosaic of

particles. The sense of his own wave structure becomes stronger. A

feeling of melting, floating off. The body is no longer a separate

unit but a cluster of vibrations sending and receiving energy - a

phase of the dance of energy which has been going on for millennia.



A sense of profound one-ness, a feeling of the unity of all energy.

Superficial differences of role, cast, status, sex, species, form,

power, size, beauty, even the distinctions between inorganic and

living energy, disappear before the ecstatic union of all in one. All

gestures, words, acts and events are equivalent in value - all are

manifestations of the one consciousness which pervades everything.

"You," "I" and "he" are gone, "my" thoughts are "ours," "your"

feelings are "mine." Communication is unnecessary, since complete

communion exists. A person can sense another's feeling and mood

directly, as if they were his own. By a glance, whole lifetimes and

words can be transmitted. If all are at peace, the vibrations are "in

phase." If there is discord, "out of phase" vibrations will be set up

which will be felt like discordant music. Bodies melt into waves.

Objects in the environment - lights, tree, plants, flowers - seem to

open and welcome you: they are part of you. You are both simply

different pulses of the same vibrations. A pure feeling of ecstatic

harmony with all beings is the keynote of this vision.



But as before, terrors can occur. Unity requires ecstatic self-

sacrifice. Loss of ego brings fright to the unprepared. The

fragmentation of form into waves can bring the most terrible fear

known to man: the ultimate epistemological revelation.



The fact of the matter is that all apparent forms of matter and body

are momentary clusters of energy. We are little more than flickers on

a multidimensional television screen. This realization directly

experienced can be delightful. You suddenly wake up from the delusion

of separate form and hook up to the cosmic dance. Consciousness slides

along the wave matrices, silently at the speed of light.



The terror comes with the discovery of transience. Nothing is fixed,

no form solid. Everything you can experience is "nothing but"

electrical waves. You feel ultimately tricked. A victim of the great

television producer. Distrust. The people around you are lifeless

television robots. The world around you is a facade, a stage set. You

are a helpless marionette, a plastic doll in a plastic world.



If others attempt to help, they are seen as wooden, waxen,

feelingless, cold, grotesque, maniacal, space-fiction monsters. You

are unable to feel. "I am dead. I will never live and feel again." In

wild panic you may attempt to force feeling back - by action, by

shouting. You will then enter the Third Bardo stage and be reborn in

an unpleasant way.



The best method to escape from fifth vision terrors is to remember

this manual, relax, and swing with the wave dance. Or to communicate

to the guide that you are in a plastic doll phase, and he will guide

you back.



Another solution is to move to the internal biological flow. Follow

the instructions given in the third vision: close your eyes, lie

prone, seek bodily contact, float down into your bodily stream. In so

doing, you are recapitulating the evolutionary sequence. For billions

of years, inorganic energy danced the cosmic round before the

biological rhythm began. Don't rush it.



If the guide senses that the person is experiencing plastic doll

visions or is afraid of the uncontrollability of his own feeling, he

should read to him the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 5.





Vision 6: "The Retinal Circus"



Each of the Second Bardo visions thus far described was one aspect of

the "experiencing of reality." The inner fire or outer waves,

apprehended intellectually or emotionally - each vision with its

correspondent traps. Each of the "Peaceful Deities" appears with its

attendant "Wrathful Deities." To maintain any of these visions for any

length of time requires a certain degree of concentration or "one-

pointedness" of mind, as well as the ability to recognize them and not

to be afraid. Thus, for most persons, the experience may pass through

one or more of these phases without the voyager being able to hold

them or stay with them. He may open and close his eyes, he may become

alternately absorbed in internal sensations and external forms. The

experience may be chaotic, beautiful, thrilling, incomprehensible,

magical, ever-changing. [In the Bardo Thodol, on the sixth day appear

the radiant lights of the combined Five Wisdoms of the Dhyani-Buddhas,

the protective deities (gatekeepers of the mandala) and the Buddhas of

the Six Realms of game-existence. According to Lama Govinda: "The

Inner Way of Vajra-Sattva, consists in the combination of the rays of

the Wisdoms of the four Dhyani-Buddhas and their absorption within

one's own heart - in other words, in the recognition that all these

radiances are the emanations of one's own mind in a state of perfect

tranquility and serenity, a state in which the mind reveals its true

universal nature." (Govinda, op., cit., p. 262.)]



He will travel freely through many worlds or experience - from direct

contact with life-process forms and images, he may pass to visions of

human game-forms. He may see and understand with unimagined clarity

and brilliance various social and self-games that he and others play.

His own struggles in karmic (game) existence will appear pitiful and

laughable. Ecstatic freedom of consciousness is the keynote of this

vision. Exploration of unimagined realms. Theatrical adventures. Plays

within plays within plays. Symbols change into things symbolized and

vice versa. Words become things, thoughts are music, music is smelled,

sounds are touched, complete interchangeability of the senses.



All things are possible. All feelings are possible. A person may "try

on" various moods like so many pieces of clothing. Subjects and

objects whirl, transform, change into each other, merge, fuse,

disperse again. External objects dance and sing. The mind plays upon

them as upon a musical instrument. They assume any form, significance

or quality upon command. They are admired, adored, analyzed, examined,

changed, made beautiful or ugly, large or small, important or trivial,

useful, dangerous, magical or incomprehensible. They may be reacted to

with wonder, amazement, humor, veneration, love, disgust, fascination,

horror, delight, fear, ecstasy.



Like a computer with unlimited access to any programs, the mind roams

freely. Personal and racial memories bubble up to the surface of

consciousness, inter-play with fantasies, wishes, dreams and external

objects. A present event becomes charged with profound emotional

significance, a cosmic phenomenon becomes identical with some personal

quirk. Metaphysical problems are juggled and bounced around. Pure

"primary process," spontaneous outopouring of association, opposites

merging, images fusing, condensing, shifting, collapsing, expanding,

merging, connecting.



This kaleidoscopic vision of game-reality may be frightening and

confusing to an ill-prepared subject. Instead of exquisite clarity of

many-levelled perception, he will experience a confused chaos of

uncontrollable, meaningless forms. Instead of delight at the playful

acrobatics of the free intellect, there will be anxious clinging to an

elusive order. Morbid and scatological hallucinations may occur,

evoking disgust and shame.



As before, this negative vision occurs only if the person attempts to

control or rationalize the magic panorama. Relax and accept whatever

comes. Remember that all visions are created by your mind, the happy

and the unhappy, the beautiful and the ugly, the delightful and the

horrifying. Your consciousness is creator, performer and spectator of

the "retinal circus."



If the guide senses that the voyager is in or seems to be in the

"retinal circus" vision, he may read to him the appropriate

instructions ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6: "THE RETINAL CIRCUS".





Vision 7: "The Magic Theatre"



If the voyager was unable to maintain the passive serenity necessary

for the contemplation of the previous visions (the peaceful deities),

he moves now into a more dramatic and active phase. The play of forms

and things becomes the play of heroic figures, superhuman spirits and

demigods. [In the Tibetan Handbook, this is described as the vision of

the five "Knowledge-Holding Deities," arranged in a mandala form, each

embraced by Dakinis, in an ecstatic dance. The Knowledge-holding

Deities symbolize "the highest level of individual or humanly

conceivable knowledge, as attained in the consciousness of great

Yogis, inspired thinkers or similar heroes of the spirit. They

represent the last step before the "breaking-through" towards the

universal consciousness - or the first on the return from there to the

plane of human knowledge." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 202.) The Dakinis

are female embodiments of knowledge, representing the inspirational

impluses of consciousness leading to break-through. The other four

Knowledge-Holders, besides the central Lord of Dance, are: the

Knowledge-holder abiding in the earth, the Knowledge-holder who has

power over the duration of life, the Knowledge-holder of the Great

Symbol, and the Knowledge-holder of Spontaneous Realization.] You may

see radiating figures in human forms. The "Lotus Lord of Dance": the

supreme image of a demi-god who perceives the effects of all actions.

The prince of movement, dancing in an ecstatic embrace with his female

counterpart. Heroes, heroines, celestial warriors, male and female

demi-gods, angels, fairies - the exact form of these figures will

depend on the person's background and tradition. Archetypal figures in

the forms of characters from Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Celtic, Aztec,

Persian, Indian, Chinese mythology. The shapes differ, the source is

the same: they are the concrete embodiments of aspects of the person's

own psyche. Archetypal forces below verbal awareness and expressible

only in symbolic form. The figures are often extremely colorful and

accompanied by a variety of awe-inspiring sounds. If the voyager is

prepared and in a relaxed, detached frame of mind, he is exposed to a

fascinating and dazzling display of dramatic creativity. The Cosmic

Theatre. The Divine Comedy. If his eyes are open, he may visualize the

other voyagers as representing these figures. The face of a friend may

turn into that of a young boy, a baby, the child-god; into a heroic

stature, a wise old man; a woman, animal, goddess, sea-mother, young

girl, nymph, elf, goblin, leprechaun. Images of the great painters

arise as the familiar representations of these spirits. The images are

inexhaustible and manifold. An illuminating voyage into the areas

where the personal consciousness merges with the supr-individual.



The danger is that the voyager becomes frightened by or unduly

attracted to these powerful figures. The forces represented by them

may be more intense than he was prepared for. Inability or

unwillingness to recognize them as products of one's mind, leads to

escape into animalistic pursuits. The person may become involved in

the pursuit of power, lust, wealth and descend into Third Bardo

rebirth struggles.



If the guide senses that the voyager is caught in this trap, the

appropriate instructions may be used ==|==>> INTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7:

"THE MAGIC THEATRE".





THE WRATHFUL VISIONS

(Second Bardo Nightmares)



Seven Second Bardo visions have been described. At each one of them,

the voyager could recognize what he saw and be liberated. Multitudes

will be liberated by that recognition; and although multitudes obtain

liberation in that manner, the number of sentient beings being great,

evil karma powerful, obscurations dense, propensities of too long

standing, the Wheel of Ignorance and Illusion becomes neither

exhausted nor accelerated. Despite the confrontations, there is a vast

preponderance of those who wander downwards unliberated.



Thus, in the Tibetan Thodo, after the seven peaceful deities, there

come seven visions of wrathful deities, fifty-eight in number, male

and female, "flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking." These Herukas

as they are called, will not be described in detail, especially since

Westerners are liable to experience the wrathful deities in different

forms. Instead of many-headed fierce mythological demons, they are

more likely to be engulfed and ground by impersonal machinery,

manipulated by scientific, torturing control-devices and other space-

fiction horrors. [Some general remarks about the Tibetan

interpretation of these visions. The Wrathful Deities are regarded as

"only the former Peaceful Deities in changed aspect." Lama Govinda

writes: "The peaceful forms of Dhyani-Buddhas represent the highest

ideal of Buddhahood in its completed, final, static condition of

ultimate attainment or perfection, seen retrospectively as it were, as

a state of complete rest and harmony. The Herukas, on the other hand,

which are described as "blood-drinking," angry or "terrifying" deities

- are merely the dynamic aspect of enlightenment, the process of

becoming a Buddha, of attaining illumination, as symbolized by the

Buddha's struggle with the Hosts of Mara. . . . The ecstatic figures,

heroic and terrifying, express the act of breaking through towards the

unthinkable, the intellectually "Unattainable." They represent the

leap over the chasm, which yawns between an intellectual surface

consciousness and the intuitive supra-personal depth-consciousness."

(Govinda, op. cit., pp. 198, 202.)]



The Tibetans regard the nightmare visions as primarily intellectual

products. They assign them to the Brain chakra, whereas the peaceful

deities are assigned to the Heart chakra and the Knowledge-Holding

deities to the intermediate Throat chakra. They are the reactions of

the mind to the process of consciousness-expansion. They represent the

attempts of the intellect to maintain its threatened boundaries. They

symbolize the struggle of breaking through to ego-loss understanding

and awareness.



Because of the terror and awe they produce, recognition is difficult.

Yet in a way it is also easier in that, since these negative

hallucinations command all attention, the mind is alert and therefore

through trying to escape from fear and terror, people get involved in

psychotic states and suffer. But with the aid of this manual and the

presence of a guide, the voyager will recognize these hell visions as

soon as he sees them, and welcome them like old friends.



Again, when psychologists, philosophers, and psychiatrists, who do not

know these teachings, experience ego-loss - however assiduously they

may have devoted themselves to academic study and however clever they

may have been in expounding intellectual theories - none of the higher

phenomena will appear. This is because they are unable to recognize

the visions occurring in these psychedelic experiences. Suddenly

seeing something they had never seen before and possessing no

intellectual concepts, they view it as inimical; and, antagonistic

feelings arising, they pass into miserable states. Thus, if one has

not had practical experience with these teachings, the radiances and

lights will not appear.



Those who believe in these doctrines even though they may seem to be

unrefined, irregular in performance of duties, inelegant in habits,

and perhaps even unable to practice the doctrine successfully - let no

one doubt them or be disrespectful towards them, but pay reverence to

their mystic faith. That alone will enable them to attain liberation.

Elegance and efficiency of devotional practice are not necessary -

just acquaintance with and trust in these teachings.



Well-prepared persons need not experience Second Bardo hell visions at

all. Right from the beginning they can pass into paradisiacal states

led by heroes, heroines, angels and super-spirits. "They will merge

into rainbow radiance; there will be sun-showers, sweet scent of

incense in the air, music in the skies, radiances."



This manual is indispensable to those students who are unprepared.

Those proficient in meditation will recognize the Clear Light at the

moment of ego-loss and will enter the Blissful Void (Dharma-Kaya).

They will also recognize the positive and negative visions of the

Second Bardo and obtain illumination (Sambhogha-Kaya); and being

reborn on a higher level will become inspired saints or teachers

(Nirmana-Kaya). The study and pursuit of enlightenment can always be

taken up again at the point where it was broken by the last ego-loss,

thus ensuring continuity of karma.



by the use of this manual, enlightenment can be obtained without

meditation, through hearing alone. It can liberate even very heavy

ego-game players. The distinction between those who know it and those

who do not becomes very clear. Enlightenment follows instantly. Those

who have been reached by it cannot have prolonged negative

experiences.



The teaching concerning the hell-visions is the same as before;

recognize them to be your own thought-forms, relax, float downstream.

The ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WRATHFUL VISIONS may be read. If,

after this, recognition is still impossible and liberation is not

obtained, then the voyager will descend into the Third Bardo, the

Period of Re-Entry.





CONCLUSION OF SECOND BARDO



However much experience one may have had, there is always the

possibility of delusions occurring in these psychedelic states. Those

with practice in meditation recognize the truth as soon as the

experience begins. Reading this manual beforehand is important. Having

some degree of self-knowledge is helpful at the moment of ego-death.



Meditation on the various positive and negative archetypal forms is

very important for Second Bardo phases. Therefore, read this manual,

keep it, remember it, bear it in mind, read it regularly; let the

words and meanings be very clear; they should not be forgotten, even

under extreme duress. It is called "The Great Liberation by Hearing"

because even those with selfish deeds on their conscience can be

liberated if they hear it. If heard only once, it can be efficacious

because even though not understood, it will be remembered during the

psychedelic state, since the mind is more lucid then. It should be

proclaimed to all living persons; it should be read over the pillows

of ill persons; it should be read to dying persons; it should be

broadcast.



Those who meet this doctrine are fortunate. It is not easy to

encounter. Even when read, it is difficult to comprehend. Liberation

will be won simply through not disbelieving it upon hearing it.



Here ends the Second Bardo

the Period of Hallucinations



THIRD BARDO:



THE PERIOD OF RE-ENTRY

(Sidpa Bardo)



Introduction



If, in the second Bardo, the voyager is incapable of holding on to the

knowledge that the peaceful and wrathful visions were projections of

his own mind, but became attracted to or frightened by one or more of

them, he will enter the Third Bardo. In this period he struggles to

regain routine reality and his ego; the Tibetans call it the Bardo of

"seeking rebirth." It is the period in which the consciousness makes

the transition from transcendent reality to the reality of ordinary

waking life. The teachings of this manual are of the utmost importance

if one wishes to make a peaceful and enlightened re-entry and avoid a

violent or unpleasant one.



In the original Bardo Thodol the aim of the teachings is "liberation,"

i.e., release from the cycle of birth and death. Interpreted

esoterically, this means that the aim is to remain at the stage of

perfect illumination and not to return to social game reality.



Only persons of extremely advanced spiritual development are able to

accomplish this, by exercising the Transference Principle at the

moment of ego-death. For average persons who undertake a psychedelic

voyage, the return to game reality is inevitable. Such persons can and

should use this part of the manual for the following purposes:



(1) to free themselves from Third Bardo traps;

(2) to prolong the session, thus assuring a maximum degree of

illumination;

(3) to select a favorable re-entry, i.e., to return to a wiser and

more peaceful post-session personality.



Although no definite time estimates can be given, the Tibetans

estimate that about 50% of the entire psychedelic experience is spent

in the Third Bardo by most normal people. At times, as indicated in

the Introduction, someone may move straight to the re-entry period if

he is unprepared for or frightened by the ego-loss experiences of the

first two Bardos.



The types of re-entry made can profoundly color the person's

subsequent attitudes and feelings about himself and the world, for

weeks or even months afterwards. A session which has been

predominantly negative and fearful can still be turned to great

advantage and much can be learned from it, provided the re-entry is

positive and highly conscious. Conversely, a happy and revelatory

experience can be made valueless by a fearful or negative re-entry.



The key instructions of the Third Bardo are: (1) do nothing, stay

calm, passive and relaxed, no matter what happens; and (2) recognize

where you are. If you do not recognize you will be driven by fear to

make a premature and unfavorable re-entry. Only by recognizing can you

maintain that state of calm, passive concentration necessary for a

favorable re-entry. That is why so many recognition-points are given.

If you fail on one, it is always possible, up to the very end, to

succeed on another. Hence these teachings should be read carefully and

remembered well.



In the following sections some of the characteristic Third Bardo

experiences are described. In Part IV instructions are given

appropriate to each section. At this stage in a psychedelic session

the voyager is usually capable of telling the guide verbally what he

is experiencing, so that the appropriate sections can be read. A wise

guide can often sense the precise nature of the ego's struggle without

words. The voyager will usually not experience all of these states,

but only one or some of them; or sometimes the return to reality can

take completely new and unusual turns. In such a case the general

instructions for the Third Bardo should be emphasized ==|==>> THIRD

BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS.





I. General Description of the Third Bardo



Normally, the person descends, step by step, into lower (more

constricted) states of consciousness. Each step downwards may be

preceded by a swooning into unconsciousness. Occasionally the descent

may be sudden, and the person will find himself jolted back to a

vision of reality which by contrast with the preceding phases seems

dull, static, hard, angular, ugly and puppet-like. Such changes can

induce fear and horror and he may struggle desperately to regain

familiar reality. He may get trapped into irrational or even bestial

perspectives which then dominate his entire consciousness. These

narrow primitive elements stem from aspects of his personal history

which are usually repressed. The more enlightened consciousness of the

first two Bardos and the civilized elements of ordinary waking life

are shelved in favor of powerful, obsessive primitive impulses, which

in fact are merely faded and incoherent instinctual parts of the

voyager's total personality. The suggestibility of Bardo consciousness

makes them seem all-powerful and overwhelming.



On the other hand, the voyager may also feel that he possesses

supernormal powers of perception and movement, that he can perform

miracles, extraordinary feats of bodily control etc. The Tibetan book

definitely attributes paranormal faculties to the consciousness of the

Bardo voyager and explains it as due to the fact that the Bardo-

consciousness encompasses future elements as well as past. Hence

clairvoyance, telepathy, ESP, etc. are said to be possible. Objective

evidence does not indicate whether this sense of increased

perceptiveness is real or illusory. We therefore leave this as an open

question, to be decided by empirical evidence.



This then is the first recognition point of the Third Bardo. The

feeling of supernormal perception and performance. Assuming that it is

valid, the manual warns the voyager not to be fascinated by his

heightened powers, and not to exercise them. In yogic practice, the

most advanced of the lamas teach the disciple not to strive after

psychic powers of this nature for their own sake; for until the

disciple is morally fit to use them wisely, they become a serious

impediment to his higher spiritual development. Not until the selfish,

game-involved nature of man is completely mastered is he safe in using

them.



A second sign of Third Bardo existence are experiences of panic,

torture and persecution. They are distinguished from the wrathful

visions fo the Second Bardo in that they definitely seem to involve

the person's own "skin-encapsulated ego." Mind-controlling

manipulative figures and demons of hideous aspects may be

hallucinated. The form that these torturing demons take will depend on

the person's cultural background. Where Tibetans saw demons and beasts

of prey, a Westerner may see impersonal machinery grinding, or

depersonalizing and controlling devices of different futuristic

varieties. Visions of world destruction, dying in space-fiction modes,

and hallucinations of being engulfed by destructive powers will

likewise come; and sounds of the mind-controlling apparatus, of the

"combine's fog machinery," of the gears which move the scenery of the

puppet show, of angry overflowing seas, and of the roaring fire and of

fierce winds springing up, and of mocking laughter.



When these sounds and visions come, the first impulse will be to flee

from them in panic and terror, not caring where one goes, so long as

one goes out. In psychedelic drug experiences, the person may at this

time plead or demand to be brought "out of it" through antidotes and

tranquillizers. The person may see himself as about to fall down deep,

terrifying precipices. These symbolize the so-called evil passions

which, like narcotic drugs, enslave and bind mankind to existence in

game-networks (sangsara): anger, lust, stupidity, pride or egoism,

jealousy, and control-power. Such experiences, just as the previous

one of enhanced power, should be regarded as recognizing features of

the Third Bardo. One should neither flee the pain nor pursue the

pleasure. Recognition is all that is necessary - and recognition

depends upon preparation.



A third sign is a kind of restless, unhappy wandering which may be

purely mental or may involve actual physical movement. The person

feels as if driven by winds (winds of karma) or shunted around

mechanically. There may be brief respites at certain places or scenes

in the "ordinary" human world. Like a person travelling alone at night

along a highway, having his attention arrested by prominent landmarks,

great isolated trees, houses, bridgeheads, temples, hot-dog stands,

etc., the person in the re-entry period has similar experiences. He

may demand to return to familiar haunts in the human world. But any

such external placation is temporary and soon the restless wandering

will recommence. There may come a desperate desire to phone or

otherwise contact your family, your doctor, your friends and appeal to

them to pull you out of the state. This desire should be resisted. The

guide and the fellow voyagers can be of best assistance. One should

not try to involve others in one's hallucinatory world. The attempt

will fail anyway since outsiders are usually unable to understand what

is happening. Again, merely to recognize these desires as Third Bardo

manifestations is already the first step toward liberation.



A fourth, rather common experience is the following: the person may

feel stupid and full of incoherent thoughts, whereas everyone else

seems to be perfectly knowing and wise. This leads to feelings of

guilt and inadequacy and in extreme from to the Judgment Vision, to be

described below. This feeling of stupidity is merely the natural

result of the limited perspective under which the consciousness is

operating in this Bardo. Calm, relaxed acceptance and trust will

enable the voyager to win liberation at this point



Another experience, the fifth recognizing feature, which is especially

impressive when it occurs suddenly, is the feeling of being dead, cut

off from surrounding life, and full of misery. The person may with a

jolt awake from some trance-like swoon and experience himself and the

others as lifeless robots, performing wooden meaningless gestures. He

may feel that he will never come back and will lament his miserable

state.



Again, such fantasies are to be recognized as the attempts of the ego

to regain control. In the true state of ego-death, as it occurs in the

First or Second Bardos, such complaints are never uttered.



Sixth, one may have the feeling of being oppressed or crushed or

squeezed into cracks and crevices amidst rocks and boulders. Or the

person may feel that a kind of metallic net or cage may encompass him.

This symbolizes the attempt prematurely to enter an ego-robot which is

unfitting or unequipped to deal with the expanded consciousness.

Therefore one should relax the panicky desire to regain an ego.



A Seventh aspect is a kind of grey twilight-like light suffusing

everything, which is in marked contrast to the brilliantly radiating

lights and colors of the earlier stages of the voyage. Objects,

instead of shining, glowing and vibrating, are now dully colored,

shabby and angular.



The passages ==|==>> THIRD BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS contain

general instructions for the Third Bardo state and its recognizable

features. Any or all of the passages may be read when the guide senses

that the voyager is beginning to return to the ego.





II. Re-entry Visions



In the preceding section the symptoms of re-entry were described, the

signs that the voyager is tryihng to regain his ego. In this section

are described visions of the types of re-entry one can make.



The Tibetan manual conceives of the voyager as returning eventually to

one of six worlds of game existence (sangsara). That is, the re-entry

to the ego can take place on one of six levels, or as one of six

personality types. Two of these are higher than the normal human,

three are lower. The highest, most illuminated, level is that of the

devas, who are what Westerners would call saints, sages or divine

teachers. They are the most enlightened people walking the earth.

Gautama Buddha, Lao Tse, Christ. The second level is that of the

asuras, who may be called titans or heroes, people with a more than

human degree of power and vision. The third level is that of most

normal human beings, struggling through game-networks, occasionally

breaking free. The fourth level is that of primitive and animalistic

incarnations. In this category we have the dog and the cock, symbolic

of hyper-sexuality concomitant with jealousy; the pig, symbolizing

lustful stupidity and uncleanliness; the industrious, hoarding ant;

the insect or worm signifying an earthy or grovelling disposition; the

snake, flashing in anger; the ape, full of rampaging primitive power;

the snarling "wolf of the steppes;" the bird, soaring freely. Many

more could be enumerated. In all cultures of the world people have

adopted identities in the image of animals. In childhood and in dreams

it is a process familiar to all. The fifth level is that of neurotics,

frustrated lifeless spirits forever pursuing unsatisfied desires; the

sixth and lowest level is hell or psychosis. Less than one percent of

ego-transcendent experiences end in sainthood or psychosis. Most

persons return to the normal human level.



According to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, each of the six game worlds

or levels of existence is associated with a characteristic sort of

thraldom, from which non-game experiences give temporary freedom: (1)

existence as a deva, or saint, although more desirable than the

others, is concomitant with an ever-recurring round of pleasure, free

game ecstasy; (2) existence as an asura, or titan, is concomitant with

incessant heroic warfare; (3) helplessness and slavery are

characteristic of animal existence; (4) torments of unsatisfied needs

and wants are characteristic of the existence of pretas, or unhappy

spirits; (5) the characteristic impediments of human existence are

inertia, smug ignorance, physical or psychological handicaps or

various sorts.



According to the Bardo Thodol, the level one is detined for is

determined by one's karma. During the period of the Third Bardo

premonitory signs and visions of the different levels appear, that for

which one is heading appearing most clearly. For example, the voyager

may feel full of godlike power (asuras), or he may feel himself

stirred by primitive or bestial impulses, or he may experience that

all-pervasive frustration of the unhappy neurotics, or shudder at the

tortures of a self-created hell.



The chances of making a favorable re-entry are increased if the

process is allowed to take its own natural course, without effort or

struggle. One should avoid pursuing or fleeing any of the visions, but

meditate calmly on the knowledge that all levels exist in the Buddha

also.



One can recognize and examine the signs as they appear and learn a

great deal about oneself in a very short time. Although it is unwise

to struggle against or flee the visions that come in this period, the

==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR RE-ENTRY VISIONS are designed to help the

voyager regain First Bardo transcendence. In this way, if the person

finds himself about to return to a personality or ego which he finds

inappropriate to his new knowledge about himself, he can, by following

the instructions, prevent this and make a fresh re-entry.





III. The All-Determining Influence of Thought



Liberation may be obtained, by such confrontation, even though

previously it was not. If, however, liberation is not obtained even

after these confrontations, further earnest and continued application

is essential.



Should you feel attachment to material possessions, to old games and

activities, or if you get any because other people are still involved

in pursuits that you have renounced, this will affect the

psychological balance in such a way that even if destined to return at

a higher level, you will actually re-enter on a lower level in the

world of unsatisfied spirits (neurosis). On the other hand, even if

you do feel attached to worldly games that you have renounced, you

will not be able to play them, and they will be of no use to you.

Therefore abandon weakness and attachment to them; cast them away

wholly; renounce them from your heart. No matter who may be enjoying

your possessions, or taking your role, have no feelings of miserliness

or jealousy, but be prepared to renounce them willingly. Think that

you are offering them to your internal freedom and to your expaned

consciousness. Abide in the feeling of non-attachment, devoid of

weakness and craving.



Again, when the activities of the other members of the session are

wrong, careless, inattentive or distracting, when the agreement or

contract is broken, and when purity of intention is lost by any

participant, and frivolity and laxness take over (all of which can

clearly be seen by the Bardo voyager) you may feel lack of faith and

begin to doubt your beliefs. You will be able to perceive any anxiety

or fear, any selfish actions, ego-centric conduct and manipulative

behavior. You may think: "Alas! they are playing me false, they have

cheated and deceived." If you think thus, you will become extremely

depressed, and through great resentment you will acquire disbelief and

loss of faith, instead of affection and humble trust. Since this

affects the psychological balance, re-entry will certainly be made on

an unpleasant level.



Such thinking will not only be of no use, but it will do great harm.

However improper the behavior of other, think thus: "What? How can the

words of a Buddha be inappropriate? It is like the reflection of

blemishes on my own face which I see in a mirror; my own thoughts must

be impure. As for these others, they are noble in body, holy in

speech, and the Buddha is within them: their actions are lessons for

me."



Thus thinking, put your trust in your companions and exercise sincere

love towards them. Then whatever they do will be to your benefit. The

exercise of that love is very important; do not forget this!



Again, even if you were destined to return to a lower level and are

already going into that existence, yet through the good deeds of

friends, relatives, participants, learned teachers who devote

themselves wholeheartedly to the correct performance of beneficent

rituals, the delight from your feeling greatly cheered at seeing them

will, by its own virtue, so affect the psychological balance that even

though heading downwards, you may yet rise to a higher and happier

level. Therefore you should not create selfish thoughts, but exercise

pure affection and humble faith towards all, impartially. This is

highly important. Hence be extremely careful.



The ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ALL-DETERMING INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT

are useful in any phase of the Third Bardo, but particularly if the

voyager is reacting with suspicion or resentment to other members of

the group, or to his own friends and relatives.





IV. Judgment Visions



The judgment vision may come: the Third Bardo blame game. "Your good

genius will count up your good deeds with white pebbles, the evil

genius the evil deeds with black pebbles." A judgment scene is a

central part of many religious systems, and the vision can assume

various forms. Westerners are most likely to see it in the well-known

Christian version. The Tibetans give a psychological interpretation to

thisas to all the other visions. The Judge, or Lord of Death,

symbolizes conscience itself in its stern aspect of impartiality and

love of righteousness. The "Mirror of Karma" (the Christian Judgment

Book), consulted by the Judge, is memory. Different parts of the ego

will come forward, some offering lame excuses to meet accusations,

others ascribing baser motives to various deeds, counting apparently

neutral deeds among the black ones; still others offering

justifications or requests for pardon. The mirror of memory reflects

clearly; lying and subterfuge will be of no avail. Be not frightened,

tell no lies, face truch fearlessly.



No you may imagine yourself surrounded by figures who wish to torment,

torture or ridicule you (the "Executive Furies of the Robot Lord of

Death"). These merciless figures may be internal or they may involve

the people around you, seen as pitiless, mocking, superior. Remember

that fear and guilt and persecuting, mocking figures are your own

hallucinations. Your own guilt machine. Your personality is a

collection of thought-patterns and void. It cannot be harmed or

injured. "Swords cannot pierce it, fire cannot burn it." Free yourself

from your own hallucinations. In reality there is no such thing as the

Lord of Death, or a justice-dispensing god or demon or spirit. Act so

as to recognize this.



Recognize that you are in the Third Bardo. Meditate upon your ideal

symbol. If you do not know how to meditate, then merely analyze with

great care the real nature of that which is frightening you: "Reality"

is nothing but a voidness (Dharma-Kaya). That voidness is not of the

voidness of nothingness, but a voidness at the true nature of which

you feel awed, and before which your consciousness shines more clearly

and lucidly. [That is the state of mind known as "Sambhoga-Kaya." In

that state, you experience, with unbearable intensity, Voidness and

Brightness inseparable - the Voidness bright by nature and the

Brightness inseparable from the Voidness - a state of the primordial

or unmodified consciousness, which is the Adi-Kaya. And the power of

this, shining unobstructedly, will radiate everywhere; it is the

Nirmana-Kaya.



These refer to the fundamental Wisdom Teachings of the Bardo Thodol.

In all Tibetan systems of yoga, realization of the Voidness is the one

great aim. To realize it is to attain the unconditioned Dharma-Kaya,

or "Divine Body of Truth," the primordial state of uncreatedness, of

the supra-mundane All-Consciousness. The Dharma-Kaya is the highest of

the three bodies of the Buddha and of all Buddhas and beings who have

perfect enlightenment. The other two bodies are the Sambhoga-Kaya or

"Divine Body of Perfect Endowment" and the Nirmana-Kaya or "Divine

Body of Incarnation." Adi-Kaya is synonymous with Dharma-Kaya. The

Dharma-Kaya is primordial, formless Essential Wisdom; it is true

experience freed from all error or inherent or accidental obscuration.

It includes both Nirvana and Sangsara, which are polar states of

consciousness, but in the realm of pure consciousness identical. The

Sambhoga-Kaya embodies, as in the five Dhyani Buddhas, Reflected or

Modified Wisdom; and the Nirmana-Kaya embodies, as in the Human

Buddhas, Practical or Incarnate Widom. All enlightened beings who are

reborn in this or any other world with full consciousness, as workers

for the betterment of their fellow creatures, are said to be Nirmana-

Kaya incarnates. Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the translator of the Bardo

Thodol, held that the Adi-Buddha, and all deities associated with the

Dharma-Kaya, are not to be regarded as personal deities, but as

personifications of primordial and universal forces, laws or spiritual

influences. "In the boundless panorama of the existing and visible

universe, whatever shapes appear, whatever sounds vibrate, whatever

radiances illuminate, or whatever consciousnesses cognize, all are the

play of manifestation in the Tri-Kaya, the Three-fold Principle of the

Cause of All Causes, the Primordial Trinity. Impenetrating all, is the

All-Pervading Essence of Spirit, which is Mind. It is uncreated,

impersonal, self-existing, immaterial and indestructible." The Tri-

Kaya is the esoteric trinity and corresponds to the exoteric trinity

of Buddha, the Scriptures and the Priesthood (or your own divinity,

this manual and your companions).



If the voyager is struggling with guilt and penance hallucinations,

the ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR JUDGMENT VISIONS may be read.





V. Sexual Visions



Sexual visions are extremely frequent during the Third Bardo. You may

see or imagine males and females copulating. [According to Jung.

("Psychological Commentary" to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Evans-

Wentz edition, p. xiii), "Freud's theory is the first attempt made in

the West to investigate, as if from below, from the animal sphere of

instinct the psychic territory that corresponds in Tantric Lamaism to

the Sidpa Bardo." The vision described here, in which the person sees

mother and father in sexual intercourse, corresponds to the "primal

scene" in psychoanalysis. At this level, then, we begin to see a

remarkable convergence of Eastern and Western psychology. Note also

the exact correspondence to the psychoanalytic theory of the Oedipus

Complex.] This vision may be internal or it may involve the people

around you. You may hallucinate multi-person orgies and experience

both desire and shame, attraction and disgust. You may wonder what

sexual performance is expected of you and have doubts about your

ability to perform at this time.



When these visons occur, remember to withhod yourself from action or

attachment. Have faith and float gently with the stream. Trust in the

unity of life and in your companions.



If you attempt to enter into your old ego because you are attracted or

repulsed, if you try to join or excape from the orgy you are

hallucinating, you will re-enter on an animal or neurotic level. If

you become conscious of "malness," hatred of the father together with

jealousy and attraction towards the mother will be experienced; if you

become conscious of "femaleness," hatred of the mother together with

attraction and fondness for the father is experienced.



It is perhaps needless to say that this kind of self-centered

sexuality has little in common with the sexuality of transpersonal

experiences. Physical union can be one expression or manifestation of

cosmic union.



Visions of sexual union may sometimes be followed by visions of

conception - you may actually visualize the sperm uniting with the

ovum - , of intra-uterine life and birth through the womb. Some people

claim to have re-lived their own physical birth in psychedelic

sessions and occasionally confirming evidence for such claims has been

put forward. Whether this is so or not may be left as a question to be

decided by empirical evidence. Sometimes the birth visions will be

clearly symbolic - e.g., emergence from a cocoon, breaking out of a

shell, etc.



Whether the birth vision is constructed from memory or fantasy, the

psychedelic voyager should try to recognize the signs indicating the

type of personality that is being reborn.



The ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEXUAL VISIONS may be read to the voyager

who is struggling with sexual hallucinations.





VI. Methods for Preventing the Re-Entry



Although many confrontations and recognition points have been given,

the person may be ill-prepared and still be wandering back to game

reality. It is of advantage to postpone the return for as long as

possible, thus maximizing the degree of enlightenment in the

subsequent personality. For this reason four meditative methods are

given for prolonging the ego-loss state. They are (1) meditation on

the Buddha or guide; (2) concentration on good games; (3) meditation

on illusion; and (4) meditation on the void. See the ==|==>> FOUR

METHODS OF PREVENTING RE-ENTRY. Each one attempts to lead the voyager

back to the First Bardo central stream of energy from which he has

been separated by game involvements. One may ask how these meditative

methods, which seem difficult for the ordinary person, can be

effective. The answer given in the Tibetan Bardo Thodol is that due to

the increased suggestibility and openness of the mind in the

psychedelic state these methods can be used by anyone, regardless of

intellectual capacity, or proficiency in meditation.





VII. Methods of Choosing the Post-Session Personality



Choosing the post-session ego is an extremely profound art and should

not be undertaken carelessly or hastily. One should not return fleeing

from hallucinated tormentors. Such re-entry will tend to bring the

person to one of the three lower levels. One should first banish the

fear by visualizing one's protective figure or the Buddha; then choose

calmly and impartially.



The limited foreknowledge available to the voyager should be used to

make a wise choice. In the Tibetan tradition each of the levels of

game-existence is associated with a particular color and also certain

geographical symbols. These may be different for twentieth-century

Westerners. Each person has to learn to decode his own internal road

map. The Tibetan indicators may be used as a starting point. The

purpose is clear: one should follow the signs of the three higher

types and shun those of the three lower. One should follow light and

pleasant visions and shun dark and dreary ones.



The world of saints (devas) is said to shine with a white light and to

be preceded by visions of delightful temples and jewelled mansions.

The world of heroes (asuras) has a green light and is signalled by

magical forests and fire images. The ordinary human world has a yellow

light. Animal existence is foreshadowed by a blue light and images of

caves and deep holes in the earth. The world of neurotics or

unsatisfied spirits has a red light and visions of desolate plains and

forest wastes. The hell world emits a smoke-colored light and is

preceded by sounds of wailing, visions of gloomy lands, black and

white houses and black roads along which you have to travel.



Use your foresight to choose a good post-session robot. Do not be

attracted to your old ego. Whether you choose to pursue power, or

status, or wisdom, or learning, or servitude, or whatever, choose

impartially, without being attracted or repelled. Enter into game

existence with good grace, voluntarily and freely. Visualize it as a

celestial mansion, i.e., as an opportunity to exercise game-ecstasy.

Have faith in the protection of the deities and choose. The mood of

complete impartiality is important since you may be in error. A game

that appears good may later turn out to be bad. Complete impartiality,

freedom from want or fear, ensure that a maximally wise choice is

made.



As you return you see spread out before you the world, your former

life, a planet full of fascinating objects and events. Each aspect of

the return trip can be a delightful discovery. Soon you will be

descending to take your place in worldly events. The key to this

return voyage is simply this: take it easy, slowly, naturally. Enjoy

every second. Don't rush. Don't be attached to your old games.

Recognize that you are in the re-entry period. Do not return with any

emotional pressure. Everything you see and touch can glow with

radiance. Each moment can be a joyous discovery.



Here end the Third Bardo,

The Period of Re-Entry





GENERAL CONCLUSION



Well-prepared students with advanced spiritual understanding can use

the "Transference" principle at the moment of ego-death and need not

traverse subsequent Bardo states. They will rise to a state of

illumination and remain there throughout the entire period. Others,

who are a little less experienced in spiritual discipline, will

recognize the Clear Light in the second stage of the First Bardo and

will then win liberation. Others, at a still less advanced level, may

be liberated while experiencing one of the positive or negative

visions of the Second Bardo. Since there are several turning points,

liberation can be obtained at one or the other through recognition at

moments of confrontation. Those of very weak karmic connection, i.e.,

those who have been involved in heavy ego-dominated game-playing, will

have to wander downwards to the Third Bardo. Again, many points for

liberation have been charted. The weakest persons will fall under the

influence of guilt and terror. For weaker persons there are various

graded teachings for preventing the return to routine-reality, or at

least for choosing it wisely. Through applying the methods of

visualization described, they should be able to experience the

benefits of the session. Even those persons whose familiar routines

are primitive and egocentric can be prevented from entering into

misery. Once they have experienced, for however short a period, the

great beauty and power of free awareness, they may, in the next

period, meet with a guide or friend who will initiate them further

into the way.



The way in which this teaching is effective, even for a voyager

already in the Sidpa Bardo, is as follows: each person has some

positive and some negative game-residues (karma). The continuity of

consciousness has been broken by an ego-death for which the person was

not prepared. The teachings are like a trough in a broken water drain,

temporarily restoring the continuity with positive karma. As stated

before, the extreme suggestibility or detached quality of

consciousness in this state ensures the efficacy of listening to the

doctrine. The teaching embedded in this Manual may be compared to a

catapult which can direct the person towards the goal of liberation.

Or like the moving of a big wooden beam, which is so heavy that a

hundred men cannot carry it, but by being floated on water it can be

easily moved. Or it is like controlling a horse's bit and course by

the use of a bridle.



Therefore, these teachings should be vividly impressed on the voyager,

again and again. This Manual may also be used more generally. It

should be recited as often as possible and committed to memory as far

as possible. When ego-death or final death comes, recognize the

symptoms, recite the Manual to yourself, and reflect upon the meaning.

If you cannot do it yourself, ask a friend to read it to you. There is

no doubt as to its liberative power.



It liberates by being seen or heard, without need of ritual or complex

meditation. This Profound Teaching liberates those of great evil karma

through the Secret Pathway. One should not forget its meaning and the

words, even though pursued by seven mastiffs. By this Select Teaching,

one obtains Buddhahood at the moment of ego-loss. Were the Buddhas of

past, present and future to seek, they could not find any doctrine

transcending this.



Here ends the Bardo Thodol, known as

The Tibetan Book of the Dead





III.



SOME TECHNICAL COMMENTS

ABOUT PSYCHEDELIC SESSIONS



1. Use of This Manual



The most important use of this manual is for preparatory reading.

Having read the Tibetan Manual, one can immediately recognize symptoms

and experiences which might otherwise be terrifying, only because of

lack of understanding as to what was happening. Recognition is the key

word.



Secondly, this guidebook may be used to avoid paranoid traps or to

regain the First Bardo transcendence if it has been lost. If the

experience starts with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and

if it continues along this path, then there is no need to remember

this manual of have this manual re-read to you. Like a road map, we

consult it only when lost, or when we wish to change course. Usually,

however, the ego clings to its old games. There may be momentary

discomfort or confusion. If this happens, the others present should

not be sympathetic or show alarm. They should be prepared to stay calm

and restrain their "helping games." In particular, the "doctor" role

should be avoided.



If at any time you find yourself struggling to get back to routine

reality, you can (by pre-arrangement) have a more experienced person,

a fellow-voyager, or a trusted observer read parts of this manual to

you.



Passages suitable for reading during the session are given in Part IV

below. Each major descriptive section of the Tibetan Book has an

appropriate instruction text. One may want to pre-record selected

passages and simply flick on the recorder when desired. The aim of

these instruction texts is always to lead the voyager back to the

original First Bardo transcendence and to help maintain that as long

as possible.



A third use would be to construct a "program" for a session using

passages from the text. The aim would be to lead the voyager to one of

the visions deliberately, or through a sequence of visions. The guide

or friend could read the relevant passages, show slides or pictures or

symbolic figures of processes, play carefully selected music, etc. One

can envision a high art of programming psychedelic sessions, in which

symbolic manipulations and presentations would lead the voyager

through ecstatic visionary Bead Games.





2. Planning a Session



In planning a session, the first question to be decided is "what is

the goal?" Classic Hinduism suggest four possibilities:



(1) For increased personal power, intellectual understanding,

sharpened insight into self and culture, improvement of life

situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.



(2) For duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth

for fellow men.



(3) For fun, sensuous enjoyment, aesthetic pleasure, interpersonal

closeness, pure experience.



(4) For transcendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits;

attainment of mystical union.



This manual aims primarily at the latter goal - that of liberation-

enlightenment. This emphasis does not preclude attainment of the other

goals - in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination

requires that the person be able to step out beyond game problems of

personality, role, and professional status. The initiate can decide

beforehand to devote the psychedelic experience to any of the four

goals. The manual will be of assistance in any event.



If there are several people having a session together they should

either agree collaboratively on a goal, or at least be aware of each

other's goals. If the session is to be "programmed" then the

participants should either agree on or design a program

collaboratively, or they should agree to let one member of the group

do the programming. Unexpected or undesired manipulations by one of

the participants can easily "trap the other voyagers into paranoid

Third Bardo delusions.



The voyager, especially in an individual session, may also wish to

have either an extroverted or an introverted experience. In the

extroverted transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused

with external objects (e.g. flowers, or other people). In the

introverted state, the self is ecstatically fused with internal life

processes (lights, energy-waves, bodily events, biological forms,

etc.). Of course, either the extroverted or the introverted state may

be negative rather than positive, depending on the attitude of the

voyager. Also it may be primarily conceptual or primarily emotional.

The eight types of experience thus derived (four positive and four

negative) have been described more fully in Visions 2 to 5 of the

Second Bardo.



For the extroverted mystic experience one would bring to the session

objects or symbols to guide the awareness in the desired direction.

Candles, pictures,books, incense, music or recorded passages. An

introverted mystic experience requires the elimination of all

stimulation; no light, no sound, no smell, no movement.



The mode of communication with the other participants should also be

agreed on beforehand. You may agree on certain signals, silently

indicating companionship. You may arrange for physical contact -

clasping hands, embracing. These means of communication should be pre-

arranged to avoid game-misinterpretations that may develop during the

heightened sensitivity of ego-transcendence.





3. Drugs and Dosages



A wide variety of chemicals and plants have psychedelic ("mind

manifesting") effects. The most widely used substances are listed here

together with dosages adequate for a normal adult of average size. The

dosage to be taken depends, of course, on the goal of the session. Two

figures are therefore given. The first column indicates a dosage which

should be sufficient for an inexperienced person to enter the

transcendental worlds described in this manual. The second column

gives a smaller dosage figure, which may be used by more experienced

persons or by participants in a group session.



LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide) 200-500 micrograms 100-200 micrograms

Mescaline 600-800 mg 300-500 mg

Psilocybin 040-060 mg 020-030 mg



The time of onset, when the drugs are taken orally on an empty

stomach, is approximately 20-30 minutes for LSD and psilocybin, and

one to two hours for mescaline. The duration of the session is usually

eight to ten hours for LSD and mescaline, and five to six hours for

psilocybin. DMT (dimethyltryptamine), when injected intramuscularly in

dosages of 50-60 mg, gives an experience approximately equivalent to

500 micrograms of LSD, but which lasts only 30 minutes.



Some person have found it useful to take other drugs before the

session. A very anxious person, for example, may take 30 to 40 mg of

Librium about on hour earlier, to calm and relax himself. Methedrine

has also been used to induced a pleasant, euphoric mood prior to the

session. Sometimes, with excessively nervous persons, it is advisable

to stagger the drug administration: for example, 200 micrograms of LSD

may be taken initially, and a "booster" of another 200 micrograms may

be taken after the person has become familiar with some of the effects

of the psychedelic state. Nausea may sometimes occur. Usually this is

a mental symptom, indicating fear, and should be regarded as such.

Sometimes, however, particularly with the use of morning-glory seeds

and peyote, the nausea can have a physiological cause. Anti-nauseant

drugs such as Marezine, Bonamine, Dramamine or Tigan, may be taken

beforehand to prevent this.



If a person becomes trapped in a repetitive game-routine during a

session, it is sometimes possible to "break the set" by administering

50 mg of DMT, or even 25 mg of Dexedrine or Methedrine. Such

additional dosages, of course, should only be given with the person's

own knowledge and consent.



Should external emergencies call for it, Thorazine (100-200 mg, i.m.)

or other phenothiazine-type tranquilizers will terminate the effects

of psychedelic drugs. Antidotes should not be used simply because the

voyager or the guide is frightened. Instead, the appropriate sections

of the Third Bardo should be read. [Further, more detailed suggestions

concerning dosage may be found in a paper by Gary M. Fisher: "Some

Comments Concerning Dosage Levels of Psychedelic Compounds for

Psychotherapeutic Experiences." Psychedelic Review, I, no.2, pp. 208-

218, 1963.]





4. Preparation



Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word.

There is no specific reaction, no expected sequence of events, somatic

or psychological.



The specific reaction has little to do with the chemical and is

chiefly a function of set and setting; preparation and environment.

The better the preparation, the more ecstatic and revelatory the

session. In initial sessions and with unprepared persons, setting -

particularly the actions of others - is most important. With persons

who have prepared thoughtfully and seriously, the setting is less

important.



There are two aspects of set: long-range and immediate.



Long-range set refers to the personal history, the enduring

personality. The kind of person you are - your fears, desires,

conflicts, guilts, secret passions - determines how you interpret and

manage any situation you enter, including a psychedelic session.

Perhaps more important are the reflex mechanisms used when dealing

with anxiety - the defenses, the protective maneuvers typically

employed. Flexibility, basic trust, religious faith, human openness,

courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, are characteristics which

allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to control,

distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, are

characteristics which make any new situation threatening. Most

important is insight. No matter how many cracks in the record, the

person who has some understanding of his own recording machinery, who

can recognize when he is not functioning as he would wish, is better

able to adapt to any challenge - even the sudden collapse of his ego.



The most careful preparation would include some discussion of the

personality characteristics and some planning with the guide as to how

to handle expected emotional reactions when they occur.



Immediate set refers to the expectations about the session itself.

Session preparation is of critical importance in determining how the

experience unfolds. People tend naturally to impose their personal and

social game perspectives on any new situation. Careful thought should

precede the session to prevent narrow sets being imposed.



Medical expectations. Some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose

a medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret

each new sensation in terms of sickness/health, place the guide in a

doctor-role, and, if anxiety develops, demand chemical rebirth - i.e.,

tranquilizers. Occasionally one hears of casual, ill-planned, non-

guided sessions which end in the subject demanding to be hospitalized,

etc. It is even more problem-provoking if the guide employs a medical

model, watches for symptoms, and keeps hospitalization in mind to fall

back on, as protection for himself.



Rebellion against convention may be the motive of some people who take

the drug. The idea of doing something "far out" or vaguely naughty is

a naive set which can color the experience.



Intellectual expectations are appropriate when subjects have had much

psychedelic experience. Indeed, LSD offers vast possibilities for

accelerated learning and scientific-scholarly research. But for

initial sessions, intellectual reactions can become traps. The Tibetan

Manual never tires of warning about the dangers of rationalization.

"Turn you mind off" is the best advice for novitiates. Control of your

consciousness is like flight instruction. After you have learned how

to move your consciousness around - into ego-loss and back, at will -

then intellectual exercises can be incorporated into the psychedelic

experience. The last stage of the session is the best time to examine

concepts. The objective of this particular manual is to free you from

you verbal mind for as long as possible.



Religious expectations invite the same advice as intellectual set.

Again, the subject in early sessions is best advised to float with the

stream, stay "up" as long as possible, and postpone theological

interpretations until the end of the session, or to later sessions.



Recreational and aesthetic expectations are natural. The psychedelic

experience, without question, provides ecstatic moments which dwarf

any personal or cultural game. Pure sensation can capture awareness.

Interpersonal intimacy reaches Himalayan heights. Aesthetic delights -

musical, artistic, botanical, natural - are raised to the millionth

power. But all these reactions can be Third Bardo ego games: "I am

having this ecstasy. How lucky I am!" Such reactions can become tender

traps, preventing the subject from reaching pure ego-loss (First

Bardo) or the glories of Second Bardo creativity.



Planned expectations. This manual prepares the person for a mystical

experience according to the Tibetan model. The Sages of the Snowy

Ranges have developed a most sophisticated and precise understanding

of human psychology, and the student who studies this manual will

become oriented for a voyage which is much richer in scope and meaning

than any Western psychological theory. We remain aware, however, that

the Bardo Thodol model of consciousness is a human artifact, a Second

Bardo hallucination, however grand its scope.



Some practical recommendations. The subject should set aside at least

three days for his experience; a day before, the session day, and a

follow-up day. This scheduling guarantees a reduction in external

pressure and a more sober commitment to the voyage.



Talking to others who have taken the voyage is excellent preparation,

although the Second Bardo hallucinatory quality of all descriptions

should be recognized. Observing a session is another valuable

preliminary. The opportunity to see others during and after a session

shapes expectations.



Reading books about mystical experience is a standard orientation

procedure. Reading the accounts of others' experiences is another

possibility (Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Gordon Wasson have written

powerful accounts).



Meditation is probably the best preparation for a psychedelic session.

Those who have spent time in the solitary attempt to manage the mind,

to eliminate thought and to reach higher stages of concentration, are

the best candidates for a psychedelic session. When the ego-loss state

occurs, they are ready. They recognize the process as an end eagerly

awaited, rather than a strange event ill-understood.





5. The Setting



The first and most important thing to remember, in the preparation for

a psychedelic session, is to provide a setting which is removed from

one's usual social and interpersonal games and which is as free as

possible from unforeseen distractions and intrusions. The voyager

should make sure that he will not be disturbed by visitors or

telephone calls, since these will often jar him into hallucinatory

activity. Trust in the surroundings and privacy are necessary.



A period of time (usually at least three days) should be set aside in

which the experience will run its natural course and there will be

sufficient time for reflections and meditation. It is important to

keep schedules open for three days and to make these arrangements

beforehand. A too-hasty return to game-involvements will blur the

clarity of the vision and reduce the potential for learning. If the

experience was with a group, it is very useful to stay together after

the session in order to share and exchange experiences.



There are differences between night sessions and day sessions. Many

people report that they are more comfortable in the evening and

consequently that their experiences are deeper and richer. The person

should choose the time of day that seems right according to his own

temperament at first. Later, he may wish to experience the difference

between night and day sessions.



Similarly, there are differences between sessions out-of-doors and

indoors. Natural settings such as gardens, beaches, forests, and open

country have specific influences which one may or may not wish to

incur. The essential thing is to feel as comfortable as possible in

the surroundings, whether in one's living room or under the night sky.

A familiarity with the surroundings may help one to feel confident in

hallucinatory periods. If the session is held indoors, one must

consider the arrangement of the room and the specific objects one may

wish to see and hear during the experience.



Music, lighting, the availability of food and drink, should be

considered beforehand. Most people report no desire for food during

the height of the experience, and then, later on, prefer to have

simple, ancient foods like bread, cheese, wine, and fresh fruit.

Hunger is usually not the issue. The senses are wide open, and the

taste and smell of a fresh orange are unforgettable.



In group sessions, the arrangement of the room is quite important.

People usually will not feel like walking or moving very much for a

long period, and either beds or mattresses should be provided. The

arrangement of the beds or mattresses can vary. One suggestion is to

place the heads of the beds together to form a star pattern. Perhaps

one may want to place a few beds together and keep one or two some

distance apart for anyone who wishes to remain aside for some time.

Often, the availability of an extra room is desirable for someone who

wishes to be in seclusion for a period.



If it is desired to listen to music or to reflect on paintings or

religious objects, one should arrange these so that everyone in the

group feels comfortable with what they are hearing or seeing. In a

group session, all decisions about goals, setting, etc. should be made

with collaboration and openness.



6. The Psychedelic Guide



For initial sessions, the attitude and behavior of the guide are

critical factors. He possesses enormous power to shape the experience.

With the cognitive mind suspended, the subject is in a heightened

state of suggestibility. The guide can move consciousness with the

slightest gesture or reaction.



The key issue here is the guide's ability to turn off his own ego and

social games - in particular, to muffle his own power needs and his

fears. To be there relaxed, solid, accepting, secure. The Tao wisdom

of creative quietism. To sense all and do nothing except to let the

subject know your wise presence.



A psychedelic session lasts up to twelve hours and produces moments of

intense, intense, INTENSE reactivity. The guide must never be bored,

talkative, intellectualizing. He must remain calm during the long

periods of swirling mindlessness.



He is the ground control in the airport tower. Always there to receive

messages and queries from high-flying aircraft. Always ready to help

navigate their course, to help them reach their destination. An

airport-tower-operator who imposes his own personality, his own games

upon the pilot is unheard of. The pilots have their own flight plan,

their own goals, and ground control is there, ever waiting to be of

service.



The pilot is reassured to know that an expert who has guided thousands

of flights is down there, available for help. But suppose the flier

has reason to suspect that ground control is harboring his own motives

and might be manipulating the plane toward selfish goals. The bond of

security and confidence would crumble.



It goes without saying, then, that the guide should have had

considerable experience in psychedelic sessions himself and in guiding

others. To administer psychedelics without personal experience is

unethical and dangerous.



The greatest problem faced by human beings in general, and the

psychedelic guide in particular, is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of

losing control. Fear of trusting the genetic process and your

companions. From our own research studies and our investigations into

sessions run by others - serious professionals or adventurous

bohemians - we have been led to the conclusion that almost every

negative LSD reaction has been caused by fear on the part of the guide

which has augmented the transient fear of the subject. When the guide

acts to protect himself, he communicates his concern to the subject.



The guide must remain passively sensitive and intuitively relaxed for

several hours. This is a difficult assignment for most Westerners. For

this reason, we have sought ways to assist the guide in maintaining a

state of alert quietism in which he is poised with ready flexibility.

The most certain way to achieve this state is for the guide to take a

low dose of the psychedelic with the subject. Routine procedure is to

have one trained person participate in the experience and one staff

member present in ground control without psychedelic aid.



The knowledge that one experienced guide is "up" and keeping the

subject company, is of inestimable value; intimacy and communication;

cosmic companionship; the security of having a trained pilot flying at

your wing tip; the scuba diver's security in the presence of an expert

comrade in the deep.



It is not recommended that guides take large doses during sessions for

new subjects. The less experienced he is, the more likely will the

subject impose Second and Third Bardo hallucinations. These intense

games affect the experienced guide, who is likely to be in a state of

mindless void. The guide is then pulled into the hallucinatory field

of the subject, and may have difficulty orienting himself. During the

First Bardo there are no familiar fixed landmarks, no place to put

your foot, no solid concept upon which to base your thinking. All is

flux. Decisive Second Bardo action on the part of the subject can

structure the guide's flow if he has taken a heavy dose.



The role of the psychedelic guide is perhaps the most exciting and

inspiring role in society. He is literally a liberator, one who

provides illumination, one who frees men from their life-long internal

bondage. To be present at the moment of awakening, to share the

ecstatic revelation when the voyager discovers the wonder and awe of

the divine life-process, is for many the most gratifying part to play

in the evolutionary drama. The role of the psychedelic guide has a

built-in protection against professionalism and didactic oneupmanship.

The psychedelic liberation is so powerful that it far outstrips

earthly game ambitions. Awe and gratitude - rather than pride - are

the rewards of this new profession.





7. Composition of the Group



The most effective use of this manual will be for the experience of

one person with a guide. However, the manual will be useful in a group

also. When used in a group session, the following suggestions will be

most helpful in planning.



The important thing to remember in organizing a group session is to

have knowledge of and trust in the fellow voyagers. Trust in oneself

and in one's companions is essential. If preparing for an experience

with strangers, it is very important to share as much time and space

as possible with them prior to the session. The participants should

set collaborative goals and explore mutually their expectations and

feelings and past experiences.



The size of the group should depend to some extent on how much

experience the participants have had. Initially, small groups are

preferable to larger ones. In any case, group experiences exceeding

six or seven people are demonstrably less profound and generate more

paranoid hallucinations. If planning for a group session of five or

six people, it is preferable to have at least two guides present. One

will take the psychedelic substance and the other, who does not,

serves as a practical guide to take care of such concerns as changing

the recordings, providing food, etc., and if necessary or desired,

reading selections from the manual. If it is possible, one of the

guides should be an experienced woman who can provide an atmosphere of

spiritual nurturing and comfort.



It is sometimes advisable that the initial session of married couples

be separate in order that the exploration of their marriage game not

dominate the session. With some experience in consciousness-expansion,

the marriage game like others may be explored for any purpose -

increased intimacy, clearer communication, exploration of the

foundations of the sexual, mating relationship, etc.





IV.



INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE

DURING A PSYCHEDELIC SESSION



FIRST BARDO INSTRUCTIONS



O (name of voyager) The time has come for you to seek new levels of

reality. Your ego and the (name) game are about to cease. Your are

about to be set face to face with the Clear Light Your are about to

experience it in its reality. In the ego-free state, wherein all

things are like the void and cloudless sky, And the naked spotless

intellect is like a transparent vacuum; At this moment, know yourself

and abide in that state.



O (name of voyager), That which is called ego-death is coming to you.

Remember: This is now the hour of death and rebirth; Take advantage of

this temporary death to obtain the perfect state -Enlightenment.

Concentrate on the unity of all living beings. Hold onto the Clear

Light. Use it to attain understanding and love.



If you cannot maintain the bliss of illumination and if you are

slipping back into contact with the external world, Remember: The

hallucinations which you may now experience, The visions and insights,

Will teach you much about yourself and the world. The veil of routine

perception will be torn from you eyes. Remember the unity of all

living things. Remember the bliss of the Clear Light. Let it guide you

through the visions of this experience. Let it guide you through your

new life to come. If you feel confused; call upon the memory of your

friends and the power of the person whom you most admire.



O (name), Try to reach and keep the experience of the Clear Light.

Remember: The light is the life energy. The endless flame of life. An

ever-changing surging turmoil of color may engulf your vision. This is

the ceaseless transformation of energy. The life process. Do not fear

it. Surrender to it. Join it. It is part of you. You are part of it.

Remember also: Beyond the restless flowing electricity of life is the

ultimate reality -The Void. Your own awareness, not formed into

anything possessing form or color, is naturally void. The Final

Reality. The All Good. The All Peaceful. The Light. The Radiance. The

movement is the fire of life from which we all come. Join it. It is

part of you. Beyond the light of life is the peaceful silence of the

void. The quiet bliss beyond all transformations. The Buddha smile.

The Void is not nothingness. The Void is beginning and end itself.

Unobstructed; shining, thrilling, blissful. Diamond consciousness. The

All-Good Buddha. Your own consciousness, not formed into anything, No

thought, no vision, no color, is void. The intellect shining and

blissful and silent -This is the state of perfect enlightenment. Your

own consciousness, shining, void and inseparable from the great body

of radiance, has no birth, nor death. It is the immutable light which

the Tibetans call Buddha Amitabha, The awareness of the formless

beginning. Knowing this is enough. Recognize the voidness of your own

consciousness to be Buddhahood. Keep this recognition and you will

maintain the state of the divine mind of the Buddha.





SECOND BARDO PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS



Remember: In this session you experience three Bardos, Three states of

ego-loss. First there is the Clear Light of Reality. Next there are

fantastically varied game hallucinations. Later you will reach the

stage of Re-Entry Of regaining an ego.



O friend, You may experience ego-transcendence, Departure from your

old self. But you are not the only one. It comes to all at some time.

You are fortunate to have this gratuitously given rebirth experience.

Do not cling in fondness and weakness to your old self. Even though

you cling to your mind, you have lost the power to keep it. You can

gain nothing by struggling in this hallucinatory world. Be not

attached. Be not weak. Whatever fear or terror may come to you Forget

not these words. Take their meaning into your heart. Go forward.

Herein lies the vital secret of recognition.



O friend, remember: When body and mind separate, you experience a

glimpse of the pure truth -Subtle, sparkling, bright, Dazzling,

glorious, and radiantly awesome, In appearance like a mirage moving

across a landscape in springtime. One continuous stream of vibrations.

Be not daunted thereby, Nor terrified, nor awed. That is the radiance

of your own true nature. Recognize it.



>From the midst of that radiance Comes the natural sound of reality,

Reverberating like a thousand thunders simultaneously sounding. That

is the natural sound of your own life process. Be not daunted thereby,

Nor terrified, nor awed. It is sufficient for you to know that these

apparitions are your own thought-forms. If you do not recognize your

own thought forms, If you forget your preparation, The lights will

daunt you, The sounds will awe you, The rays will terrify you, The

people around you will confuse you. Remember the key to the teachings.



O friend, These realms are not come from somewhere outside your self,

They come from within and shine upon you. The revelations too are not

come from somewhere else; They exist from eternity within the

faculties of your own intellect. Know them to be of that nature.



The key to enlightenment and serenity during this period of ten

thousand visions is simply this: Relax. Merge yourself with them.

Blissfully accept the wonders of your own creativity. Become neither

attached nor afraid, Neither be attracted nor repulsed. Above all, do

nothing about the visions. They exist only within you.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE SOURCE

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)



O nobly-born, listen carefully: The Radiant Energy of the Seed >From

which come all living forms, Shoots forth and strikes against you With

a light so brilliant that you will scarcely be able to look at it. Do

not be frightened. This is the Source Energy which has been radiating

for billions of years, Ever manifesting itself in different forms.

Accept it. Do not try to intellectualize it. Do not play games with

it. Merge with it. Let it flow through you. Lose yourself in it. Fuse

in the Halo of Rainbow Light Into the core of the energy dance. Obtain

Buddhahood in the Central Realm of the Densely Packed.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS



O friend, listen carefully. The bodily symptoms you are having are not

drug-effects. They indicate that you are struggling against the

awareness of feelings which surpass your normal experience. You cannot

control these universal energy-waves. Let the feelings melt all over

you. Become part of them. Sink into them and through them. Allow

yourself to pulsate with the vibrations surrounding you. Relax. Do not

struggle. Your symptoms will disappear as soon as all trace of ego-

centered striving disappears. Accept them as the message of the body.

Welcome them. Enjoy them.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 2:



THE INTERNAL FLOW OF ARCHETYPAL PROCESSES

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)



O nobly born, listen carefully: The life flow is whirling through you.

An endless parade of pure forms and sounds, Dazzlingly brilliant,

Ever-changing. Do not try to control it. Flow with it. Experience the

ancient cosmic myths of creation and manifestation. Do not try to

understand; There is plenty of time for that later. Merge with it. Let

it flow through you. There is no need to act or think. You are being

taught the great lessons of evolution, creation, reproduction. If you

try to stop it, you may fall into hell-worlds and endure unbearable

misery generated by your own mind. Avoid game interpretations. Avoid

thinking, talking and doing. Keep faith in the life flow. Trust your

companions on this watery journey. Merge in Rainbow Light, Into the

Heart of The River of Created Forms. Obtain Buddhahood in the Realm

called Pre-Eminently Happy.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 3:



THE FIRE-FLOW OF INTERNAL UNITY

(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)



O nobly born, listen carefully: You are flowing outward into the fluid

unity of life. The ecstasy of organic fire glows in every cell. The

hard, dry, brittle husks of your ego are washing out, Washing out to

the endless sea of creation. Flow with it. Feel the pulse of the sun's

heart. Let the red Buddha Amitabha sweep you along. Do not fear the

ecstasy. Do not resist the flow. Remember, all the exultant power

comes from within. Release your attachment. Recognize the wisdom of

your own blood. Trust the tide-force pulling you into unity with all

living forms. Let your heart burst in love for all life. Let your warm

blood gush out into the ocean of all life. Do not be attached to the

ecstatic power; It comes from you. Let it flow. Do not try to hold on

to your old bodily fears. Let your body merge with the warm flux. Let

your roots sink into the warm life body. Merge into the Heart-Glow of

the Buddha Amitabha. Float in the Rainbow Sea. Attain Buddhahood in

the Realm named Exultant Love.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 4:



THE WAVE-VIBRATION STRUCTURE OF EXTERNAL FORMS

(Eyes open, rapt involvement with the external

visual stimuli, intellectual aspects)



O nobly born, listen carefully: At this point you can become aware of

the wave structure of the world around you. Everything you see

dissolves into energy vibrations. Look closely and you will tune in on

the electric dance of energy. There are no longer things and persons

but only the direct flow of particles. Consciousness will now leave

your body and flow into the stream of wave rhythm. There is no need

for talk or action. Let your brain become a receiving set for the

radiance. All interpretations are the products of your own mind.

Dispel them. Have no fear. Exult in the natural power of your own

brain, The wisdom of your own electricity. Abide in the state of

quietude. As the three-dimensional world fragments, you may feel

panic; You may beget a fondness for the heavy dull world of objects

you are leaving. At this time, fear not the transparent, radiant,

dazzling wave energy. Allow your intellect to rest. Fear not the hook-

rays of the light of life, The basic structure of matter, The basic

form of wave communication. Watch quietly and receive the message. You

will now experience directly the revelation of primal forms.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 5:



THE VIBRATORY WAVES OF EXTERNAL UNITY

(Eyes open; rapt involvement with external stimuli such as lights,

or movements; emotional aspects)



O nobly born, listen carefully: You are experiencing the unity of all

living forms. If people seem to you rubbery and lifeless, like plastic

puppets, Be not afraid. This is only the attempt of the ego to

maintain its separate identity. Allow yourself to feel the unity of

all. Merge with the world around you. Be not afraid. Enjoy the dance

of the puppets. They are created by your own mind. Allow yourself to

relax and feel the ecstatic energy-vibrations pulsing through you.

Enjoy the feeling of complete one-ness with all life and all matter.

The glowing radiance is a reflection of your own consciousness. It is

one aspect of your divine nature. Do not be attached to your old human

self. Do not be alarmed at the new and strange feelings you are

having. If you are attracted to your old self, You will be reborn

shortly for another round of game-existence. Exercise humble trust and

remain fearless. You will merge into the heart of the Blessed

Ratnasambhava, In a Halo of Rainbow Light, And attain liberation in

the Realm Endowed with Glory.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6: "THE RETINAL CIRCUS"



O nobly born, listen well: You are now witnessing the magical dance of

forms. Ecstatic kaleidoscopic patterns explode around you. All

possible shapes come to life before you eyes. The retinal circus. The

ceaseless play of elements -Earth, water, air, fire, In ever-changing

forms and manifestations, Dazzles you with its complexity and variety.

Relax and enjoy the rushing stream. Do not become attached to any

vision or revelation. Let everything flow through you. If unpleasant

experiences come, Let them flit by with the rest. Do not struggle

against them. It all comes from within you. This is the great lesson

in the creativity and power of the brain, freed from its learned

structures. Let the cascade of images and associations take you where

it will. Meditate calmly on the knowledge that all these visions are

emanations of your own consciousness. This way you can obtain self-

knowledge and be liberated.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7: "THE MAGIC THEATRE"



O nobly born, listen well: You are now in the magic theatre of heroes

and demons. Mythical superhuman figures. Demons, goddesses, celestial

warriors, giants, Angels, Bodhisattvas, dwarfs, crusaders, Elves,

devils, saints, and sorcerers, Infernal spirits, goblins, knights and

emperors. The Lotus Lord of Dance. The Wise Old Man. The Divine Child.

The Trickster, The Shapeshifter. The tamer of monsters. The mother of

gods, the witch. The moon king. The wanderer. The whole divine theatre

of figures representing the highest reaches of human knowledge. Do not

be afraid of them. They are within you. Your own creative intellect is

the master magician of them all. Recognize the figures as aspects of

your self. The whole fantastic comedy takes place within you. Do not

become attached to the figures. Remember the teachings. You may still

attain liberation.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WRATHFUL VISIONS





O nobly born, listen carefully: You were unable to maintain the

perfect Clear Light of the First Bardo. Or the serene peaceful visions

of the Second. You are now entering Second Bardo nightmares. Recognize

them. They are your own thought-forms made visible and audible. They

are products of your own mind with its back to the wall. They indicate

that you are close to liberation. Do not fear them. No harm can come

to you from these hallucinations. They are your own thoughts in

frightening aspect. They are old friends. Welcome them. Merge with

them. Join them. Lose yourself in them. They are yours. Whatever you

see, no matter how strange and terrifying, Remember above all that it

comes from within you. Hold onto that knowledge. As soon as you

recognize that, you will obtain liberation. If you do not recognize

them, Torture and punishment will ensue. But these too are but the

radiances of your own intellect. They are immaterial. Voidness cannot

injure voidness. None of the peaceful or wrathful visions, Blood-

drinking demons, machines, monsters, or devils, Exist in reality Only

within your skull. This will dissipate your fear. Remember it well.





THIRD BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS



O (name), listen well: You are now entering the Third Bardo. Before,

while experiencing the peaceful and wrathful visions of the Second

Bardo, You could not recognize them. Through fear you became

unconscious. Now, as you recover, Your consciousness rises up, Like a

trout leaping forth out of water, Striving for its original form. Your

former ego has started to operate again. Do not struggle to figure

things out. If through weakness you are attracted to action and

thinking, You will have to wander amidst the world of game existence,

And suffer pain. Relax your restless mind.



O (name), you have been unable to recognize the archetypal forms of

the Second Bardo. You have come down this far. Now, if you wish to see

the truth, Your mind must rest without distraction. There is nothing

to do, Nothing to think. Float back to the unobscured, primordial,

bright, void state of your intellect. In this way you will obtain

liberation. If you are unable to relax your mind, Meditate on (name of

protective figure) Meditate on your friends (name) Think of them with

profound love and trust, As overshadowing the crown of your head. This

is of great importance. Be not distracted.



O (name), You may now feel the power to perform miraculous feats, To

perceive and communicate with extrasensory power, To change shape,

size and number, To traverse space and time instantly. These feelings

come to you naturally, Not through any merit on your part. Do not

desire them. Do not attempt to exercise them. Recognize them as signs

that you are in the Third Bardo, In the period of re-entry into the

normal world.



O (name), If you have not understood the above, At this moment, As a

result of your own mental set, Frightening visions may come. Gusts of

wind and icy blasts, Humming and clicking of the controlling

machinery, Mocking laughter. You may imagine terror producing remarks:

"Guilty," "stupid," inadequate," "nasty." Such imagined taunts and

paranoid nightmares Are the residues of selfish, ego-dominated game-

playing. Fear them not. They are your own mental products. Remember

that you are in the Third Bardo. You are struggling to re-enter the

denser atmosphere of routine game existence. Let this re-entry be

smooth and slow. Do not attempt to use force of will-power.



O (name), As you are driven here and there by the ever-moving winds of

karma, Your mind, having no resting place or focus, Is like a feather

tossed about by the wind, Or like a rider on the horse or breath,

Ceaselessly and involuntarily you will wander about, Calling in

despair for your old ego. Your mind races along until you are

exhausted and miserable. Do not hold on to thoughts. Allow the mind to

rest in its unmodified state. Meditate on the oneness of all energy.

Thus you will be free of sorrow, terror, and confusion.



O (name) You may feel confused and bewildered. You may be wondering

about your sanity. You may look at your fellow voyagers and friends,

And sense that they cannot understand you. You may think; "I am dead!

What shall I do?," And feel great misery, Just like a fish cast out of

water on red-hot embers. You may wonder whether you will ever return.



Familiar places, relatives, people known to you appear as in a dream,

Or through a glass darkly. If you are having such experiences,

Thinking will be of no avail. Do not struggle to explain. This is the

natural result of your own mental program. Such feelings indicate that

you are in the Third Bardo. Trust your guide, Trust your companions,

Trust the Compassionate Buddha, Meditate calmly and without

distraction.



O (name), You may now feel as if you are being oppressed and squeezed,

Like between rocks and boulders, Or like inside a cage or prison.

Remember: These are signs that you are trying to force a return to

your ego. There may be a dull, gray light Suffusing all objects with a

murky glow. These are all signs of the Third Bardo. Do not struggle to

return. The re-entry will happen by itself. Recognize where you are.

Recognition will lead to liberation.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR RE-ENTRY VISIONS



O (name), You have still not understood what is happening So far you

have been searching for your past personality. Unable to find it, you

may begin to feel that you will never be the same again, That you will

come back a changed person. Saddened by this you will feel self-pity,

You will attempt to find your ego, to regain control. So thinking, you

will wander here and there, Ceaselessly and distractedly. Different

images of your future self will be seen by you; The one you are headed

for will be seen most clearly. The special art of these teachings is

particularly important at this moment. Whatever image you see,

Meditate upon it as coming from the Buddha -That level of existence

also exists in the Buddha. This is an exceedingly profound art. It

will free you from your present confusion. Meditate upon (name of

protective ideal) for as long as possible. Visualize him as a form

produced by a magician, Then let his image melt away, Starting with

the extremities, Till nothing remains visible. Put yourself in a state

of Clearness and Voidness; Abide in that state for a while. Then

meditate again on your protective ideal. Then again on the Clear

Light. Do this alternately. Afterwards, allow your own mind also to

melt away gradually. Wherever the air pervades, consciousness

pervades. Wherever consciousness pervades, serene ecstasy pervades.

Abide tranquilly in the uncreated state of serenity. In that state,

paranoid rebirth will be prevented. Perfect enlightenment will be

gained.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ALL-DETERMINING

INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT



O (name), you may now experience momentary joy, Followed by momentary

sorrow, Of great intensity, Like the stretching and relaxing of a

catapult. You will go through sharp mood swings, All determined by

karma. Be not in the least attached to the joys nor displeased by the

sorrows. The actions of your friends or companions may evoke anger or

shame in you. If you get angry or depressed, You will immediately have

an experience of hell. No matter what people are doing, Make sure that

no angry thought can arise. Meditate upon love for them. Even at this

late stage of the session You are only one second away from a life-

changing joyous discovery. Remember that each of your companions is

Buddha within. You mind in its present state having no focus or

integrating force, Being light and continuously moving, Whatever

thought occurs to you, Positive or negative, Will wield great power.

You are extremely suggestible Therefore think not of selfish things.

Recall your preparation for the session. Show pure affection and

humble faith. Through hearing these words, Recollection will come.

Recollection will be followed by recognition and liberation.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR JUDGMENT VISIONS



O (name), if you are experiencing a vision of judgment and guilt,

Listen carefully: That you are suffering like this Is the result of

your own mental set. Your karma. No one is doing anything to you.

There is nothing to do. Your own mind is creating the problem.

Accordingly float into meditation. Remember your former beliefs.

Remember the teachings of this manual. Remember the friendly presence

of you companions. If you do not know how to meditate Concentrate on

any single object or sensation. Hold this (hand the wanderer an

object), Concentrate on the reality of this, Recognize the illusory

nature of existence and phenomena. This moment is of great importance.

If you are distracted now it will take you a long time to get out of

the quagmire of misery. Up till now the Bardo experiences have come to

you and you have not recognized them. You have been distracted. On

this account you have experienced fear and terror. Even though

unsuccessful thus far You may recognize and obtain liberation here.

Your session can still become ecstatic and revelatory. If you do not

know how to meditate, remember (person's ideal). Remember your

companions Remember this manual. Think of all these fears and

terrifying apparitions as being your own ideal, Or as the

compassionate one. They are divine tests. Remember your guide. Repeat

the names over and over. Even though you fall, You will not be hurt.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEXUAL VISIONS



O (name), At this time you may see visions of mating couples. You are

convinced that an orgy is about to take place. Desire and anticipation

seize you, You wonder what sexual performance is expected of you. When

these visions occur, Remember to withhold yourself from action or

attachment. Humbly exercise your faith. Float with the stream. Trust

the process with great fervency. Meditation and trust in the unity of

life are the keys. If you attempt to enter into your old personality

because you are attracted or repulsed, If you try to join the orgy you

are hallucinating, You will be reborn on an animal level. You will

experience possessive desire and jealousy, You will suffer stupidity

and misery. If you wish to avoid these miseries Listen and recognize.

Reject the feelings of attraction or repulsion. Remember the downward

pull opposing enlightenment is strong in you. Meditate upon unity with

your fellow voyagers. Abandon jealousy, Be neither attracted nor

repulsed by your sexual hallucinations. If you are you will wander in

misery a long time. Repeat these words to yourself. And meditate on

them.





FOUR METHODS OF PREVENTING RE-ENTRY



First Method: Meditation on the Buddha



O (name), tranquilly meditate upon your protective figure (name). He

is like the reflecting of the moon in water. He is apparent yet non-

existent. Like illusion produced by magic. If you have no special

protective figure, Meditate upon the Buddha or upon me. With this in

mind meditate tranquilly. Then causing the visualized form of your

protective ideal To melt away from the extremities, Meditate, without

any thought-forming, upon the Void Clear Light. This is a very

profound art. By virtue of it rebirth is postponed. A more illuminated

future is assured.





Second Method: Meditation on Good Games



(Name), You are now wandering in the Third Bardo. As a sign of this,

look into a mirror and you will not see your usual self (show the

wanderer a mirror). At this time you must form a single, firm resolve

in your mind. This is very important. It is like directing the course

of a horse by the use of the reins. Whatever you desire will come to

pass. Think not of evil actions which might turn the course of your

mind. Remember your spiritual relationship with me, Or with anyone

from whom you have received teaching. Persevere with good games. This

is essential. Be not distracted. Here lies the boundary line between

going up or down. If you give way to indecision for even a second, You

will have to suffer misery for a long, long time, Trapped in your old

habits and games. This is the moment. Hold fast to one single purpose.

Remember good games. Resolve to act according to your highest insight.

This is a time when earnestness and pure love are necessary. Abandon

jealousy. Meditate upon laughter and trust. Bear this well at heart.





Third Method: Meditation on Illusion



If still going down and not liberated, Meditate as follows: The sexual

activities, the manipulation machinery, the mocking laughter, dashing

sounds and terrifying apparitions, Indeed all phenomena Are in their

nature, illusions. However they may appear, in truth they are unreal

and fake. They are like dreams and apparitions, Non-permanent, non-

fixed. What advantage is there in being attached to them, Or being

afraid of them? All these are hallucinations of the mind. The mind

itself does not exist, Therefore why should they? Only through taking

these illusions for real will you wander around in this confused

existence. All these are like dreams, Like echoes, Like cities of

clouds, Like mirages, Like mirrored forms, Like phantasmagoria, The

moon seen in water. Not real even for a moment. By holding one-

pointedly to that train of thought. The belief that they are real is

dissipated, And liberation is attained.





Fourth Method: Meditation on the Void



"All substances are part of my own consciousness. This consciousness

is vacuous, unborn, and unceasing." Thus meditating, Allow the mind to

rest in the uncreated state. Like the pouring of water into water, The

mind should be allowed its own easy mental posture In its natural,

unmodified condition, clear and vibrant. By maintaining this relaxed,

uncreated state of mind Rebirth into routine game-reality is sure to

be prevented. Meditate on this until you are certainly free.





INSTRUCTIONS FOR CHOOSING THE

POST-SESSION PERSONALITY



(Name), Listen: It is almost time to return. Make the selection of

your future personality according to the best teaching. Listen well:

The signs and characteristics of the level of existence to come Will

appear to you in premonitory visions. Recognize them. When you find

that you have to return to reality, Try to follow the pleasant

delightful visions. Avoid the dark unpleasant ones. If you return in

panic, a fearful state will follow, If you strive to escape dark,

gloomy scenes, an unhappy state will follow, If you return in

radiance, a happy state will follow. Your mental state now will affect

your subsequent level of being. Whatever you choose, Choose

impartially, Without attraction or repulsion. Enter into game-

existence with good grace. Voluntarily and freely. Remain calm.

Remember the teachings.

ASTRAL PROJECTION **





Astral projection (OOBE, out of the body experience) is a

popular area of occult literature; for traveling to see other

worlds and places while the physical body sleeps or is entranced

is an exciting notion. Astral projection is not dangerous. It is

as safe as sleeping. Most dreams are probably unconscious astral

projections, anyway. Although there has been quite a bit written

on the subject, astral projection is difficult for many people.

The main difficulty is the tendency to forget dream consciousness

upon awakening. Accordingly, the successful practice of astral

projection requires work.



Modern psychology discounts the idea of actual OOBE (that

the spirit temporarily vacates the physical body). However, the

idea is very ancient. The Tibetans have an entire system of yoga

(dream yoga) based upon astral projection. And here we have an

important assumption: you are involved in an OOBE (at least to a

degree) whenever you dream. What sets it apart from a full OOBE

is your hazy consciousness during the experience and poor recall

afterwards. Many people forget most of their dreams completely.

Learning astral projection requires a kind of inner mental

clarity and alertness.



Dreams are a door to the subconscious which can be used for

psychological and spiritual insight, and sometimes for

precognition. Dream content is influenced by external sounds and

sensations. For example, a loud external noise (such as a train)

will likely appear in your dream (if it doesn't wake you up!).

Dreams are also influenced by events of the previous day, by your

moods, and by suggestion. Everyone normally dreams 4 or 5 times a

night (about every 2 hours). The longest dreams occur in the

morning. Everyone dreams. You are more likely to remember the

details of your dream when you first wake up. By keeping a dream

diary you will improve dream recall. Have writing equipment or a

tape recorder at your bedside for this purpose; also a light

which isn't too bright. Suggest to yourself several times before

you go to sleep, "I will awaken with the knowledge of a dream."

Then when you do awaken, move quietly (sometimes just turning

over drives the idea away). Remember first, then write the dream

down, and then add as many details as possible. The next day

check for objective facts and expand if you can (by remembering

'what happened before that'). Once you start remembering your

dreams in this way, it will become easier to do so. (If you are

unsuccessful at this, and *really* want to remember your dreams,

you could arrange for someone to sit by your bedside all night

long with a dim light on. Then when he sees your eyes moving back

and forth -- rapid eye movements, a sign you are dreaming --he

can wake you and ask for a dream report.)

FORMS OF ASTRAL PROJECTION



Astral projection may be subdivided into three basic types:

mental projection, astral projection (proper) and etheric

projection. And your OOBE may shift between them. Mental

projection is really simple clairvoyance ('remote viewing'), and

'traveling in your mind'. Imagination plays a key role. The

experience of mental projection is not particularly vivid, and

you will more likely be an observer than a participant.

Nevertheless, mental projection is an important 'way in' to

astral projection proper.



During mental projection and astral projection you are able

to travel through solid objects, but are not able to act directly

upon them or to move them (if they are in the physical world).

This is not true during etheric projection. Whether it is simply

subconscious expectation, or whether it is a true etheric

projection which in theory means that part of your physical body

has been relocated with your projection (the etheric or vital

part) may be difficult to determine. Etheric projections

generally travel at or very near the physical world. There are

even cases reported (very, very rare ones) in which the entire

physical body is transferred to another location (teleportation),

or cases in which the physical body exists and acts in two

separate places at once (bilocation)!



But our primary interest is astral projection proper, and

mental projection to a lesser extent. Astral and mental

projection are not confined to the physical world. Travel in the

mental and astral realms is feasible, and often preferred. Nor

are astral and mental projection restricted to the realm of the

earth (you could even go to the moon and planets).





STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS



The electrical activity of the brain has been observed and

classified with EEG (electroencephalograph) equipment; signals

picked up from the scalp by electrodes, then filtered and

amplified, drive a graph recorder. Brain activity has been found

to produce specific ranges for certain basic states of

consciousness, as indicated in 'hz' (hertz, or cycles/vibrations

per second):



delta -- 0.2 to 3.5 hz (deep sleep, trance state),

theta -- 3.5 to 7.5 hz (day dreaming, memory),

alpha -- 7.5 to 13 hz (tranquility, heightened

awareness, meditation),

beta -- 13 to 28 hz (tension, 'normal'

consciousness).



As you can see, some form of physical relaxation is implied

in the alpha, theta, and delta consciousness. These states are in

fact reached through deep breathing, hypnosis, and other

relaxation techniques. OOBE occurs during these states, and delta

is probably the most important for it. The problem is really, as

we have said, one of maintaining mental awareness and alertness

while experienceing these altered states. Experimental subjects

hooked to an EEG do not show a discrete change from drowsy to

sleep; it is very gradual.



At the threshold between sleep and waking consciousness is a

drowsy condition known as the hypnogogic state. OOBE seems to

occur during this state, or a variant of it. By careful control

of the hypnogogic state (not going beyond it) it is possible to

enter OOBE directly.





BASIC TECHNIQUES



Most methods of astral projection are methods of

conditioning. Some form of trance or altered consciousness is

always involved. No one ever projects consciously while fully

awake (some may think that they do). Although there are many

techniques used to produce an astral projection, they boil down

to nine of them. They all sort of overlap.



1) Diet -- Certain dietary practices may aid in OOBE,

especially at first. These include fasting, vegitarianism, and in

general the eating of 'light' foods as discussed in a a previous

lesson. Carrots and raw eggs are thought to be especially

beneficial, but all nuts are to be avoided. Over-eating should be

avoided. And no food should be eaten just before an OOBE attempt.

If you intend to practice during sleep, for example, allow 2 to 4

hours of no food or drink (except water) before bedtime. In

general, we see here the same kind of dietary restrictions

advocated for kundalini yoga.



2) Progressive muscular relaxation -- This is one of the

basic methods used in hypnosis and self-hypnosis. Physical

relaxation can assist one in attaining the requisite trance

state. These techniques involve beginning at the toes and

tensing, then relaxing the muscles, progressively up the entire

body.



3) Yoga and breath -- Yoga, mantra, and breathing exercises

similarly aim at physical relaxation. The practice of kundalini

yoga is particularly relevant, since it is concerned with altered

consciousness. In fact the arousal of kundalini requires a

similar state of consciousness to OOBE.



4) Visualization -- This involves a type of extended

clairvoyance or picturing of remote surroundings. If you can

experience the feeling of being there, so much the better.

Although this technique is essentially mental projection, it is

possible to deepen mental projection into astral projection

through (you guessed it!) visualization. Crowley taught a similar

technique: a) visualize a closed door on a blank wall, b) imagine

a meditation symbol on the door, c) visualize the door opening

and yourself entering through it. And J.H. Brennan describes

similar techniques wherein the door is shaped and colored like a

tattva, or alternately, a chosen tarrot card is visualized and

the student visualizes entering into it.



5) Guided imagery -- In many respects similar to

visualization. Except in this case, there is a guide (or perhaps

a voice on tape) directing you by means of descriptions. As with

visualization, mental rather than astral projection is most

likely.



6) Body of Light -- The old Golden Dawn technique. Imagine a

duplicate (mirror image) of yourself in front of you. Then

transfer your consciousness and sensation to the duplicate ('body

of light').



7) Strong willing -- Sort of like creative visualization

experienced in the present. That is you express your strong

desire to project through your willpower while you visualize

yourself doing it.



8) The Monroe techniques -- These are a series of steps

developed by Robert Monroe: a) relax the body, b) enter the

hypnogogic state, c) deepen the state, d) develope the senstation

of 'vibration', e) separate from the body. The Monroe Institute

has developed some cassete tapes which are claimed to help in

this.



9) Dream control -- This is one of the most important

techniques. It involves becoming aware that you are dreaming.

There are several ways to do this. Oliver Fox says to look for

descrepancies in the dream to realize you are dreaming. One

occult student I know of visualized a white horse which he could

ride wherever he wished to go. After a time, when the horse

appeared in his dreams it was his cue that he was actually

dreaming/projecting. Don Juan tells Castaneda to look at his

hands while he is dreaming. And even the tarot and Cabala may

also be used as dream signals. Another method is to tell yourself

each night as you go to sleep, "I can fly"; then when you do, you

will know you are dreaming. Once you know you are dreaming you

can control your dream/OOBE and go anywhere you want. Repetitive

activities will also likely influence your dreams. For example,

if you are on an automobile trip and spend most of the day

driving, you will probably dream about driving. You can condition

yourself to be aware you are dreaming by doing a repetitive

activity many times (walking across the room or a particular

magick ritual, for example). Then when you dream about it, you

will know you are dreaming.



Although all these techniques may appear straightforward,

they all require effort. Astral projection is generally learned.





The astral world is the "ghostland" into which one passes

after death. It is sometimes possible to visit with the dead, or

you might be called upon to reassure and assist those who have

just passed over (died) or those who are consciously projecting

for the first time. Many spirits, elementals and ghosts exist in

the astral world. The magician should feel comfortable there.

Tibetan belief is that through proficiency in OOBE, you no longer

need reincarnate after death. The astral world is extremely

changeable and subject to your thoughts. Your will can control

your movements in the astral world, and if you seem to be going

somewhere non-volitionally ('astral current') it is probably your

true will causing it anyway. You might also experience heightened

magical ability while in the astral realm.



[This is a popular subject]







REVIEW QUESTIONS



1) What is the relationship between astral projection and

dreams.

2) What is mental projection?

3) List the nine basic methods of astral projection.