What to do about the Bacchanal

[BenjaminDaniel]

This is going to sound a little "far out", so don't read if you're going to play Doubting Thomas in this thread, plz. Just imagine my whole story as though it were true, even if you have to force yourself to consider it only metaphorically. You see, I wish to discuss the ramifications of something I saw this last week. So there's no point in going off that topic.

Recently, a friend and I went on a sort of Bacchanal which involved a ceremony/ritual, utilizing mostly some Thelemic and Dionysian elements, but there were others, for instance, Christian agape was invoked.

Well, I sure wasn't ******** expecting what happened next. It was like the universe was torn apart and I was ripped and flayed and disintegrated down into just- me, what was really me, and I was worried no one would save me. At one point I thought I would die, and wondered what I would then do with myself once dead. After that, I could sense others. They were looking for me beneath all my layers of being ripped apart. I screamed out at them because I was worried they would not find the real me. But they found me, and brought me out, and they tried to explain things to me.

They told me that I had been laying on the ground since childhood, and they tried to get me to open my eyes. I resisted, because, if I had never lifted my head from the ground since childhood, that must have meant that I was crazy. It felt like some kind of intervention, like all my friends and family had come to tell me that yes, I was crazy, and that would mean that I had never grown up. But I didn't want to be the kind of person who just lain down and never gotten back up. It felt like a disastrous fall, but they were trying to tell me that I only chose to believe that falling into the ground was all there was. That I had made myself believe this.

They got me to open my eyes, and I looked around at things I can't quite remember but which they tried to explain. I heard phrases repeated often, such as, "It's okay", though I was not so sure I believed them, because I felt such anxiety. And shame, besides, for apparently having been laying on the ground all my life, which I still did not want to believe. I looked around at the people and saw someone to my left who reminded me of many people and only one person all at the same time, and it was as though he was trying to chide me- again the shame- and he was expressing tired, patient disappointment. Again, I did not want to believe this. I told him something like (so far as I can remember, as I'm sure it wasn't quite English) "But where is everything? I live in Los Angeles. There's something I'm supposed to do there."

And so the next thing I knew that person pressed me down onto the ground, face down, so hard it felt as though I were crushed into nothing again. At some point, time flashed before my eyes, and I saw much of my life- and I felt the rhythmic vibrations of schedules throughout time, and I saw how time affected certain things. And then I found myself looking down at the ground directly ahead of me, in the now. I saw all of Los Angeles. I realized then what had happened and tried to look back in time to check and see if, in fact, I could see anything further back. I could pretty much only see the city. And the city directly underneath me- how filthy it was! There was litter all over the ground. What an urban wasteland. And I felt as though it was just a photograph, and we were all two-dimensional and struggling and suffering in this place. And I thought, well that's no good. That can't be how things really are!

And so then I saw the firmaments of heaven begin to peel away. It was almost unimagineably huge, like the size of a fracking planet, I'm sure. It was so huge I imagined that it would take a long, long time for it to complete whatever job it was doing. But I knew that everyone was suffering under its yoke- the tedium, the pressure, the pain! And I expressed compassion for myself, for those around me who were now allowed to be three-dimensional and breathe, and for those who were still trapped in two dimensions.

Then I see my true location- the mountain where I had been when the Bacchanal had been occurring. I'd almost forgotten that it had existed, that I was there with my friend. I saw that he was concerned for me, though I could not yet understand the words he was pushing at me through the air. I expressed the only words I could think of at the time- "It felt like the universe stepped on me"- and turned back from where I sensed there had been someone else placing me here with that grim, patient disappointment. I turned back and saw the earth closing up like some kind of magma hole. I pawed at it, but it was too late. It was closing up. I felt the disappointment of the other side, which was rolling away in its giant wheel I'm sure, and I in turn felt disappointment, then saying my first coherent words of the evening, "Well what am I supposed to do about it!?" And then I was completely back. I turned around and my friend said, "Has Apollo called you back yet?" He said that because he knew that Apollo is the god of reason and light. He asked me some multiplication questions to make sure I was fully awake again.

My friend said that I had fallen back onto the ground, been screaming, then turned around and pawed at the ground, then got up and crawled, then fell down against the ground and started pawing at my mouth (I suppose because I felt like I couldn't breathe) so he started to restrain me and try to calm me down, just saying calming words like 'love'. He saw me calm down, before I began to start mumbling. And then I'd said, well what am I supposed to do about it. And that's that for me.

As for him? He had seen a reality far different from my own, but just as terrifying. He saw everything as a mere interface created in light, vibration, speed, and time, through primordial ooze. It was all like a fake set for a movie. The rocks weren't really there, the tree wasn't really there, it was just ooze vibrating at different frequencies to make fake rocks and fake trees and even fake human bodies. He said I did not even seem like a real person, and he asked me if I was still his girlfriend. I responded that I was, and he seemed slightly reassured but still perturbed. He said he saw yellow wheat around and behind my head like a wreath, and that half my head was oozing off into the atmosphere. So basically, he just felt like... reality is all one big fake lie. He felt like he could sense the primordial ooze beyond, an eternal vat of... nothing. And the reality that exists is a mutual agreement to keep the nothing at bay. Reality is just our own imagination in agreement with itself about how to experience itself subjectively through its creation.

But now that we're both aware of this false interface, we are left with a curious sense of what to do with ourselves in order to create more beautiful- well, creations. Because that seems to be the most important thing. It's just that since there's all this toil blocking up the clogs of the clock that I still feel bothered.  

[-X-Luciferin-X-Bandit-X-]

This may be true, or It may not.

Either way, it's now my favorite post on Gaia.

Your account of that experience both terrifies me, and intrigues me.

I'm at least a little jealous of your experience with divinity.  

[Nattfodd]

I read this yesterday and couldn't think of anything to say.

I can't really think of anything to say today, either. It's an interesting account. I urge you to psycho-analyze every bit of it before jumping to any metaphysical conclusions (as any true occult researcher should do!) Other than that... awesome?  

[BenjaminDaniel]

I have, of course, been unable to stop thinking about what happened... I feel like... if I burnt away into nothing, except what was merely me... it was like I realized I could never die because I would always be thinking. And, as I realized that, I realized, oh, well there MUST be people elsewhere. People to save me! And that's just what the other group of people is thinking too. They want someone to save them from their tedium just as much as we do.

If I was just a pure consciousness reaching out into the vibrations of the world around me, speaking words and receiving the vibrations bounced back at me, I suppose I found what I was looking for, even if it was just a giant ourobouros of sentience. Life feeds on life.

Nothing is real except for thought, and, what may have started out as only light and shadow became movement and song and people for whom one could feel love, in a place where they could communicate with all possibilities.

It felt as though we were all merely ourselves... just everyone had this one core thing that made them THEM. Like, their name. And when you reach the edge of the universe, they ask you to say your name... I was reluctant to do so, because as soon as I did admit my identity I was told that I had been insane and staring at shadows all my life. I told them, no, there were people there! And... ********, they believed me! I don't even know if I was telling the truth, if nothing is real, but they believed me enough, they believed my CONCERN for those who had suffered. And they began to peel away, then, when they saw my compassion, and that is when I began to hear the affection of my companion and return to reality.

It is like we all exist on a different vibrational reality, each playing our very own song. My friend, who was with me on the mountain, starts the song. I end the song. Really, all it is is him asking me a question... and me answering. But I am merely an echo of his question, pushed through time, and placed in front of him. I saw him in front of me as though all the souls in the universe were lined up to help us communicate, but the circle was imperfect enough that he could not understand- it was, in fact, only a straight line. So I began to imagine periphery, I suppose, that must have been it... I must have tried to imagine there was something other than our eternal song of miscommunication. His refusal to see the fact that I am merely a reflection of himself- that I am merely a satellite of him, and I tell him so.

Once there is a third entity... this place, this meeting, this voice, we can communicate without misunderstanding. We can communicate with love. Once love was there, everything was... okay. "it's okay it's okay it's okay". Still, I feel there is something more could be done... I worry terribly that what I saw was merely the end of time and it's bouncing back like a rubber band only to start again and repeat all the same mistakes. Especially when, now, I see the synchronicity of life like never before. I understand all around me as symbolic of some greater truth. And I'm worried, because the more it goes on, the more inevitable it seems and the more I worry. I never used to worry before. Now- now that all this has happened, I feel as if I am some kind of Cassandra.

Anytime I ever try to talk about what I have seen, my friend tells me, "no! You are speaking nonsense! It doesn't make any sense! Why do you only speak in veiled lies! Why do you only speak in metaphor! Why are all your truths hidden!" He began to see that I was incapable of communicating with him in such a way that it was not, in some way, a lie... but he is so unsatisfied. He will always be trying to get more... and I worry he will never understand, and I would show him if I could. But every time I tell him that, or try to get him to calm down, he again tells me that I am not trying because I refuse to speak to him in a way he can understand. I tell him I am trying. I am trying as best I know how with the words I have. And he says, no! You're not! You're just using words, just use definitions! I told him that definitions are only made of words, which are the cores of ourselves and our existence, just as molecules make up our bodies too. Every time I try to give him something to relate the experience to, even when I say everything I saw as literally as I damn well can, he sees only metaphor! He always, always thinks I am lying to him! As such... yes, Cassandra. I am not so foolish to think I am her. I live in Los Angeles. I am hopeful there could be something new other than another fall for Ilion. I just don't know how just yet... maybe I never will; and maybe that's why I'm on the end. Or was in the vision. I just want to improve things.  

[Rustig]

I hate to be Temperant Tim, but were you taking hallucinogenics before or during the ritual?  

[Magus Initi]

Mitsh

I hate to be Temperant Tim, but were you taking hallucinogenics before or during the ritual?

That was what I was wondering.  

[BenjaminDaniel]

Any true devotee of Dionysos would take an entheogen beforehand, yes. I've just never had such a strong reaction to drugs before. I usually have a strong resistance to substance. It wasn't anything hard. Just a regular hallucinogen. I've never seen anything beyond a couple pretty colors before- usually they just make me feel fuzzy and nice.

But! Now I am beginning to understand more what has been going on. And what the hippies have been talking about since they got started. XD

Immediately afterwards someone gave me a copy of "The Power of Now". I didn't want to read it because it seemed super cheesy... but I guess everything I've been doing lately is a concession in that regard razz It helped me understand a few things I saw, at least. He has a good grasp of the nature of the universe and our place within it- even if I wouldn't trust him entirely. I wouldn't trust anyone entirely.

I read the lyrics to some death metal songs or whatever, too, that my boyfriend was showing me. They all seem to have the same idea in GENERAL, and a few even saw something almost exactly like what I saw.

Maybe everyone's just been hallucinating up gods since the times of Ancient Greece- that is one way to look at it. But after having SEEN? At the very least- we are not alone. smile We have each other and the world and we are one.

I led another bacchanal and it only furthered our suspicions in that regard. Others began to be "unable to tell where they stopped and something else began". The universe is a big place- but not entirely unfriendly smile  

[BenjaminDaniel]

I'm remembering more. I saw a picture of Krishna with an incredible amount of arms and heads (they sometimes label such a depiction or similar ones the "universal form") and it brought me back and immediately reminded me of the second evening- part of what I saw was terrifying and somewhat beyond description when I came back to reality. It was like being bent in all directions at once, and, as I peeled back into the normal frequency of reality, I saw layers and layers and layers of people... like everything is made of people, which I remembered from the first night. My arms- or the universe's arms- were everywhere and all around me. I realize that gods have multiple arms for varying symbolic reasons, but... I can see now why they are depicted with tons, if there are people like me who have seen these things, and I assume there are many. So I looked into Hinduism a bit and the nature of oneness therein... how each god is supposed to be every other god, and, I was especially attracted to Shiva being that he seemed the most like Dionysos. He wears animal skins and purifies through destruction... of course, it's just a dance to him. All an illusion- so he holds up one hand to signify that it's alright. Apparently, Shiva is the representation of ourselves, of our egos... Shiva is everyone. People travel to his holy mountain to try to realize the nature of themselves, the nature of their awareness of themselves, and that everything outside of themselves doesn't actually exist. I also think there's something to Krishna and therefore Vishnu because I am so attracted to the prospect of eternal peace, joy, and love, but Shiva seems more realistic for me. Of course, since they're probably the same person anyway... I'm not going to be picky or limit myself in my recognition of gods/spirits/myself/whatever. The goddess of wealth might even be more practical for me during this time period... I've just never been attracted to such things, so maybe that's why I'm living below poverty level. XD s**t.

I also came across the claim, in a couple of places, that if one repeats Om Namah Shivaya (Om representing the attributeless eternal, Namah Shivaya hailing Shiva, the self, and all the elements of existence) to the extent that it is resonating with your being, then one will not need to practice pranayama or yoga or other devotions because Shiva will purify you and draw you towards that which is beyond the material. I'm not sure how well that would hold for my physical fitness scientifically, but it's interesting to hear. So I've got Krishna Das on the iPod now XD

That part of the experience was still terrifying, though DX