Individual practice: the story of Figment

He yearned to return to the human realm but,

"At moments I had flashes of inhabiting/being a god form, (…) and I had the realization that the emphasis on pattern and proportion in so many religious traditions (mandalas, circles, spirals, trees, ladders, etc.) can be

seen as ways to consciously organize the more blind, repetitive, and chaotic forces of this psychophysical realm of primal DNA

reproduction." (Figment, 2003, p. 2)

He claims to have almost understood and organized the repetitive and profound patterns that seemed to be behind creation by giving them shape through mandalas, circles, and spirals.

Religious traditions became ways to capture the fleeting and chaotic nature of the

"psychophysical realm of primal reproduction." The use of the word "psychophysical" is rather intriguing as it would appear the practitioner blurs the edges between mind and matter when it came to understanding the notion of "reproduction." On his report, he recounted he even used the Kabbalistic tree of life to capture for brief instances the "slippery maggot-like codes" he perceived as the infinite names of God.

He found the show rather tedious, as the psychedelic visions unfolded "outside the space-time frames" he was used to. He witnessed the liminal zone between abstract code and material molecule, as the fundamental blocks of reality constructed higher forms of consciousness until it reached the human spirit. In this formless realm of potentiality, he was shown different choices that seemed to be taking the form of a devil/angel dyad where it was almost impossible to see who was good, bad or "who [was] wearing the white hats." Was this a "magnification"

a cellular level. He reflected on the purpose of ritual devices to configure, translate, or give shape to the blind forces that created and re-created the universe from the high cosmos to the very being:

"Hence the "religious" need for integration, for "work": weaving the pattern, singing the song, drawing the magic sigil, chanting the holy name.

The hope is that these practices can weave together the seething multiplicity of the psyche, alchemically producing an object that synthesizes and integrates the various levels of being." (Figment, 2003, p.

3)

Figment's emphasis on "sigils" and "chanting the holy name" appeared to him as ritual-linguistic tools to integrate what he perceived was the "multiplicity of the psyche." He concluded ritual practices such as the like were the human efforts to synthesize and capture the abstract forces of the cosmos.

Once the experience started to pass, he was almost grateful to be in his regular "goofy" human form, with all its limitations, anxieties, and pains. He felt gratitude for the particularities and apparent simplicities of life on earth. He reflected as well on the importance of having built a fireplace for his ceremony as it acted as the "human thing" to do; a tool to hold on to while his mind wondered about in the confines of the endless becoming of the universe he fears he will face again when the moment of death ("bardo time") finally settles upon him. In his words,

"It was good to have built the fire, even if it may have diminished some of the intensity of the visuals. I felt as if I had done the right human thing in the face of the immense chittering void—that zone of endless becoming I

can't shake the suspicion that I will face again one day, come bardo time." (Figment, 2003, p. 3)

4.2.2.1 Without a map or a compass: analysis of Figment’s narrative

Figment's account titled "Weary of Elves" was chosen to portray the individual consumption of ayahuasca because it is the story of an individual who wondered about the "chittering void"

of the "endless becoming of the universe," feeling sort of lost but held on to various ritual devices such as Jewish chants, mandalas, "shamanic methods," mudras, magic sigils, an so forth as a way of organizing and even coping with the tremendousness of the experience. The various ritual devices he narrated were ways to "weave the pattern" of the blind and chaotic forces of both the universe and his psyche. Even giving form to the slippery codes of creation he perceived by arranging them in the tree of life was part of this unique ritual and coping mechanism.

The setting of the experience, being an individual practice, implies no guide but the practitioner himself. Figment's example is quite compelling as this is visible in his need to use a diverse range of ritual and religious references to try to take a handle on his visions. Additionally, the ritual-linguistic tools such as the sigils, mantras, and chants were to him forms to organize and grasp the experience; in his reflections, we see how he conceptualized these religious items as deliberate human efforts to synthesize the "multiple levels of being." The appearance of those specific ritual devices suggests that he is intimately acquainted with esoteric literature. His references to Terrance McKenna, as well as the use of the word "Bardo," central concept in Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert's manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, "The Psychedelic Experience" (1964), might support this claim.

The aforementioned suggests that his experience's source of guidance was the cultural (esoteric) references he carried in his set. In sharp contrast with the previous section, where practitioners were interacting with an environment outside of themselves (the jungle sounds,

In Figment's case, it would appear the event was so daunting that it seems he was clamoring for a kind of expression to such complex thoughts, emotions and visions, and found in his cultural background the specific ritual devices reviewed earlier.

In the end, Figment understands his experience as one encounter with space he "can't shake the suspicion" he will face again at the time of his passing. One of the many instances in which ayahuasca experiences are construed as near or close to death.