DOSE:

oral

LSD

BODY WEIGHT:

98 lb

Timothy Leary's first paper on his approved experiments with his psychology students utilizing very pure LSD had just been published in 'The Harvard Review'. A fellow nicknamed Crow, a psychology student in Leary's experiment (long before he told everyone to 'Turn on, tune in, and drop out.'), offered us a guided trip on LSD. We accepted, as he explained 'set and setting', purpose, possible benefits, fasting from the night before 'taking the trip' to increase intensity, etc.

The next day, as planned, he returned to the Lower East Side apartment of our artist friend, Pompa, where we eagerly awaited this experience. Five of us, Pompa, Dan, my boyfriend, Tim Hardin, and his girlfriend, Eunice, and myself ingested the LSD, feeling very relaxed and comfortable with Crow, a beautiful young man who looked like a Native American. We had all done peyote, brought back from Mexico by Tim a few weeks earlier, just the five of us, and knew that we had it together as a group to go with LSD.

Crow was a gifted student of psychology, and very experienced with LSD. He did not take any. He was there to guide us, and assure that we had a positive experience. Pompa's radiant paintings covered the walls of the room, and his sweet, gentle laughter as his cat insisted on coming in from the back courtyard, triggered my first smooth move into a new world.

Looking at the cat, yelling 'meow' very loudly, I felt his telepathic command to Pompa that the window be opened now. We all silently agreed that the grey, orange and white tomcat had the right to be with us, and would engender some interesting insights into feline emotions and thoughts. Pompa moved like a dancer across the room, opened the window and the cat laughed and leaped into his arms. They hugged, the cat purred vibrato and base with joy, as Pompa whirled around, snuggling and laughing with his friend, the very large cat.

Then he put him on the floor, and he came to each of us, jumping into our laps, tenderly tapping faces, meowing and demanding to be petted, as each of us received his attentions with great humility, as he was a one-man cat, and normally treated all but Pompa with typical feline disdain, ignoring profferred tidbits or any attempts to befriend him. But today was different. He visited each of us, then sat in the center of the room, the perfect picture of an Egyptian statue of a cat God.

Having our complete attention, he poured out the story of feline-human relations from the beginning of time, delighted that finally we could understand him, intensely sharing all that was, is and ever will be in the world of the cat sharing the planet with other species, and choosing to be our companion, and an invaluable partner in his role of rodent control, which cats consider the smallest and easiest contribution that they make to humanity. Dumbstruck with awe, glancing at each other from time to time, able to read the cat's and each other's minds, we were humbled by this lucid being who gracefully shared important realities that we had never considered before. He shared with us how the cat had once been treated with the proper respect, in the ancient days of Egypt, how when a small cat died, their human families would mourn, mummify their little bodies, and give them solemn burials.

He gave us to know that our other close companion, the dog, was junior to cats in wisdom, but that their capacity for unconditional love inspired cats, who, by his admission, generally showed less patience, and were more inclined to just use pantomime and vocalizations to get us to respond to their needs, rather than continue to waste energy sending us their thoughts. He did remark that fortunately many cats had the good fortune to have humans who really made an effort in that regard. He said that dogs never quit trying to encourage their humans to really hear their hearts.

Then he cut to the quick as he imparted the grave truth to us that we failed most animals, especially the horse, who, like cats and dogs, forgave us everything, as they served in whatever capacity we required of them; from plowing our fields to fighting our wars with us, only to be thanked by being sent to the knackers when their useful days were over. While the horse served loyally as long as they were sound, it was a criminal shame that so many were sold to wind up in a dog food can, or on the plates of the degenerate French people, and the other horsemeat eaters of the world.

Once again, we were humbled, and I vowed, as a horse crazy girl, that whenever I should finally have my own horse, I would never sell it to be meat.

But back to my first LSD trip.

After the cat was satisfied that we had received all the truth we could handle, and would never be the same, he ordered his dinner, and left us to our guide. As we looked into each other's eyes, we saw love and compassion there.

As evening was coming on, Crow and Pompa made a fire in the fireplace, and we listened to Handel's Messiah, drank herb tea, graciously prepared and served by Crow, and nibbled on the best oranges we had ever eaten.

Our unity of bliss remained and we talked of the beauty of Pompa's paintings, and the infinite warmth and splendid dance of the fire blazing on the hearth. And we listened deeply to the power and majesty of the human spirit in the music. Everything in the universe was in perfect harmony, and we were grateful humans, having been blessed by a heart to heart talk with a normally distant cat. We knew that we would never take an animal for granted again.

I did not know that night how famous Tim would become with the Martin guitar that Eunice shortly thereafter bought for him, as a songwriter and performer. I remember the day he cut his first record, and as a songwriter and singer/musician, he did have genius. I would, several times, over the years, go to see him perform, and we would always smoke something and reminisce about that night, and other really good times we had shared.

But I did not know that night how his life would be cut short by the tragedy of drug addiction. In those days of our innocent adventurous youth, I never imagined that he would die so young.

Although our first LSD trip left us feeling enlightened, believing we knew everything important, understanding how the entire universe worked, none of us foresaw our futures.

Exp Year: 1963	ExpID: 23845
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 13, 2018	Views: 1,076
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LSD (2) : Guides / Sitters (39), Retrospective / Summary (11), First Times (2), Second Hand Report (42), Small Group (2-9) (17)