DOSE:	50 g	oral	Cacti - T. peruvianus	(tea)
			Pharms - Tramadol	(daily)
			Codeine	(daily)
			Pharms - Pregabalin	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

198 lb

Peruvian Torch Journey

This is the first time I’ve taken Peruvian Torch. I’m a thirty-five year old male, 5’ 8”, 198lb. When I was in my twenties I smoked a lot of weed, took mushrooms, LSD, Ecstasy, 2CB, GHB and Speed a bunch of times. Mushrooms and weed were always my favourite. I can’t tell you how many times I took psychedelics because I honestly can’t remember. Lots, in any case. I especially used mushrooms for shamanic trance states, undertaking journeys into ‘otherworlds’.

The last time I ate mushrooms (or taken any other substance besides a little weed now and then) was shortly before they were banned in the UK. Over the last seven years I’ve married and begun a family. As my kids have grown, it’s brought back severely traumatic memories from when I was a child. I was horribly abused by my father, daily for nineteen years, and I’ve been waiting to receive some form of psychiatric care from the NHS. With budget cuts being what they are, I’m still waiting, so I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. Now psychedelics are probably the last thing someone in my predicament should turn to, but I learned to trust the spirit world from my shamanic forays with mushrooms. I was actually looking into ways to acquire mushroom spores when I discovered sacred plants from around the world are now available if you know where to look!

I was particularly interested in Ayahuasca but I have a medical condition that causes me continuous pain in my back and joints. As such I take prescribed medication: codeine, tramadol, pregablin and others. So Ayahuasca was out, but sacred cacti? Now they’re another matter all together.

I purchased two 20g bags of dried Peruvian Torch chips from an online source, but when they arrived they weighed closer to 50g! My wife agreed to allow me the use of the living room for the evening and that she would take care of the children the following day and we set a date that would be most convenient for the family. I began boiling the dried chips in water on a low heat at 10:00, adding lemon juice and sugar and adding water as it reduced to prevent burning. I pureed the chips with a hand blender at 12:00 and by 15:00 the whole slimy gloop had reduced down to half a large (hot chocolate) mug. I hadn’t strained any of the solid material out. I put it in the fridge and went out on my electric wheelchair to take the dog for a good run.

I am able to hobble about the house using a walking stick and my wife helped make sure the living room was free of obstacles. At 20:00 the kids were asleep and the wife went upstairs. I spooned the incredibly bitter mixture into my mouth, swallowing as swiftly as I could. It helped to coat my mouth with cheese between mouthfuls while watching Beavis and Butthead Do America and I washed it down with flat lemonade. I’d finished forcing it down by 20:15. Aside from gagging slightly on a few mouthfuls, I didn’t experience any nausea.

I felt the effects almost immediately as waves of euphoria: a faint tingle at first that grew gradually in strength. Things became brighter and by 20:45 I felt the coming trip as a sense of imminence that was almost like the anxious phase of the onset of acid, but much more mellow – more like a happy acknowledgement that I hadn’t wasted my money on impotent cactus. It felt good. At 21:00 I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Boy did that feel good. My head filled with green, yellow and red visuals as I brushed and my body was awash with energy. I returned to the sofa, switched off the movie and put my mp3 player on – a nice mellow psytrance mix.

21:10 and it felt like I’d been tripping for hours. Intense visuals and MDMA type physical rushes. Quite sexual energy at times, but there was no way my body could possibly have used it in the normal way! Around 23:00 I wanted to go outside but was cautious of being seen staggering around the garden, so I buttoned down the hatches and rode the music. That’s when I recalled my intention.

I delved very deeply into a memory from my childhood, but I felt emotionally detached from the experience. I sensed a grandfatherly (yet very young) cactus being standing over me, kind of dancing in a bright green, yellow and red star pattern above and behind me while this was going on, kind of looking out for me. As my father beat me, I stopped feeling like a small child, I just felt suddenly bigger and more powerful and no matter how angry he got and how angrily he punched and kicked me, I just saw how small and insignificant he is/was. I felt compassion for him. Sure, he treated me awfully when I was a child and he’ll never admit it to himself, let alone apologise to me. But I’ve grown into a (relatively) sane adult. I would never treat my children the way he treated me and I was hit by a sudden powerful conviction that I would do anything to protect my own children, I would never let him hurt me or my kids. I felt such a sense of his smallness: that he’s created such negative karma that in his next life he’s going to have to experience the consequences – and I wanted to protect him, too.

Then the grandfather whispered ‘enough’ and the experience faded. I felt almost as if the effects had completely worn off. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and, boy, was I wrong?! It just took a while for the open-eye visuals to form. I lost track of time. Lost track of ‘me’. Just danced in the music and lights. At one point I went outside. The garden was filled with stripes and lights and the sky was rippling and sparkly – it was beautiful.

I returned to the sofa and lay back and allowed the music to wash me away again. I lost track of time and, frankly, didn’t much care about it, either! When the kids got up in the morning, I was still peaking so I hid in our bedroom while my wife and kids took over the rest of the house.

I wasn’t able to leave the room until around 11:00. I was still tripping a little, but the effects were gradually fading. I found it very hard to focus on simple tasks – I certainly wasn’t up to talking on the phone or replying to emails. I did have to put what would normally be a moderately simple lego toy together for my son, but it took me over an hour! By 19:00 the effects had mostly worn off. Things were still rippling a little and colours were brighter and my skin felt very scratchy, but I was long overdue my painkillers and I was starting to really need them.

That’s another thing. I still needed my stick to hobble around, but my body was numbed to the point where the normally ever-present back pain had gone! Bliss!

I took codeine, tramadol and pregablin (I wouldn’t normally take them at the same time, normally spread them out) and was asleep by 20:00. I woke again at 03:33 (!), back pain back to normal, vision fine, head a little fuzzy and stomach grumbling. I got a glass of water and a snack, watched an episode of Fraser (I wasn’t very interested in it, but it was what was on) then went back to sleep till 06:00.

Over all, it was a wonderful experience. The principal transformative experience was the run in with my dad. Although I’ve written it quite briefly in this account, it was a profound event for me and seemed to last for days. There were other, much more personal revelations that I’m still processing. The effects were similar to MDMA, LSD and shrooms, yet more intense and less confusing then any of them. My thoughts weren’t as messy and, even though I was slow, I wasn’t as wiped out the following day as I have been on other substances.

I look forward to my next visit with the Torch. It won’t be for some time, though. This isn’t the sort of experience I could cope with too often. I am profoundly grateful to the kind grandfatherly being that helped guide my healing.

One other thing: cucumbers taste amazing mid-peak!

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 97421
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 35
Published: Oct 4, 2016	Views: 5,583
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Cacti - T. peruvianus (69) : Alone (16), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Entities / Beings (37), Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2)