- Shalom & Welcome! - Information extracted from Journeys into the Bright World by Marcia Moore & Howard Alltounian, ParaResearch, Rockport, 1978, from Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 61, 1964, columns 5569-70, and also courtesy of certain unpublished sources -
In the landscape of spring
The flowering branches grow naturally
there is neither better nor worse.
some long, some short.
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone -
Man has created death.
C.G. Jung
" ' Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one answered the Traveller. Unlike T.S. Eliot, who pictured us as 'hollow men,' incapable of response, de la Mare envisioned our inner house as filled with 'a host of phantom listeners' who hear the Traveller's knock but do not respond to his call. One can see these listeners clearly as they cower, silent in the shadows, frozen in fear, not unlike many city dwellers today who refuse to answer the cry of a stranger in the streets lest they become 'involved'." (Sallies Nichols, Jung and Tarot, New York: Samuel Weiser 1980, p.169.)
1. Avoid food and alcohol for at least 4 hours before taking ketamine. Lie down for the session. Have someone at hand throughout, but arrange for them not to touch you during the trip, unless you request it. Remain quiet. Do not drive for at least 2 hours afterwards.
2. Effects? Physical, psychological, therapeutic, educational, aesthetic, recreational, parapsychological, thanatological, spiritual....
3. While medical materialists assume that any emergence reaction triggered by the use of ketamine hydrochloride must be a dream, hallucination or unwholesome symptom, most who have experimented with it feel they are simply altering their usual modes of perception, removing the filters of sensory limitations and opening the windows of consciousness to new and higher levels of meaning. Though they do not regard the outer world as less real, they recognize its limitations and become aware of the flatness of consensual reality. Beginning to see through the systematized illusions that have made the mundane plane such a difficult place in which to function, they discover that there are mountains of the mind, and are given the impetus to ascend.
4. Ketalar is a non-barbiturate anaesthetic chemically designated d12-(o-chlorophy-2-(methylamino) cyclohexanone hydrochloride. It is formulated as a slightly acid (pH 3.5 to 5.5) solution for intravenous or intramuscular injection in concentration containing the equivalent of either 10, 50 or 100 mg ketamine base per millilitre, and contains 0.1 mg/ml Phemerol (benzethonium chloride) as a preservative. The 10 mg/ml solution has been made isotonic with sodium chloride. Ketalar is a rapid-acting general anaesthetic producing an anaesthetic state characterized by profound analgesia, normal pharyngeal-largyngeal reflexes (which help maintain a patent airway), normal or slightly enhanced skeletal muscle tone, cardiovascular and respiratory stimulation and, occasionally, a transient and minimal respiratory depression.
5. The cathartic action of ketamine is so intense that it accelerates all functions. One senses that the very cells of the body are being jiggled into a faster rhythm. The mind churns out new thoughts, while the illumination intensifies the desire to shine on others and warm their hearts. The most exalted stage of a ketamine excursion comes just prior to re-emergence into the world of ordinary realities. The main difference between ketamine and LSD is that the former produces a very much higher, clearer and more veridical trip - ketamine works primarily on the emotional body, while LSD is more mental in its effects. 75 milligrams is a very potent dose.
6. The trouble with most drug-induced highs is that eventually one comes down with a depressing thud. With ketamine, however, the high is followed by a mellowing. The body seems better balanced. On the negative side, however, one feels one needs more protection and certainly more sleep. But there seems to be no dulling of the cutting edge of ones ability to apportion the many demands of a demanding routine. Instead, a greater openness to the feelings of others, a more compassionate concern for their problems, a more conscientious determination to help.
7. Ketalar appears selectively to interrupt association pathways of the brain before producing somaesthetic sensory blockade. It may selectively depress the thalamoneo-cortical system before significantly obtunding the more ancient cerebral centres and pathways (reticular-activating and limbic systems). No residual psychological effects are known to have resulted from its use. Such psychological manifestations as occur ordinarily last no more than a few hours, though recurrences have occasionally taken place up to 24 hours post-operative. Its use is not addictive.
8. A dose of 25 mg suffices to trigger fascinating experiences and is helpful as a means of integrating inner and outer worlds. For peak experiences and the achievement of higher archetypal levels of consciousness a dose of 50 mg seems to be indicated... possibly in the form of an initial dose of 25 mg followed by a later boost. It is convenient to use a concentration of 50 mg per cubic centimetre. In many respects, the low-dose sessions are the more satisfying. Mini-trips with 15 mg are also possible.
9. Elevation of blood pressure begins shortly after injection, reaches a maximum within a few minutes, and usually returns to preanaesthetic values within 15 minutes after injection. The median peak rise has ranged from 20% to 25% of preanaesthetic values. Ketamine produces a sense of separation between mind and body, because it separates the higher nerve centres in the brain from the lower centres in the spinal cord, stimulating the central nervous system yet producing a dissociation in the thalamo-cortical tract which is the main relay-centre for sensory impulses to the cerebral cortex. To benefit from this experience there must be sufficient discipline or insight to relate expanded consciousness to normal, everyday life.
9*. According to Ketamine (Lifeline Publications, 101-103 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LW - p.19): "The best source book about the non-medical use of ketamine is Ketamine Dreams and Realities by Dr Karl Jansen, published by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in September 2000 ($14.95 + $12.00 airmail to U.K.). The author, who is continuing his research in this field, welcomes ketamine stories.
10. Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 61, 1964, columns 5569-70: Amino ketones. Calvin L. Stevens. Belgian Patent 634,208, Nov. 4, 1963; U.S. Appl. June 29, 1962; 30pp. alpha-Amino ketones (I) were prepd. from ketones. The 1st step was the prepn. of alpha--bromo ketones (II). II were converted to epoxides (III) by strong base and to I or hydroxyimines by reaction with primary amines. Amino ketones prepd. from III were rearranged by heating to new amino ketones. Hydroxyimines were also rearranged to amino ketones by heating. Cyclopentyl Me ketone was treated with N-bromosuccinimide to give 77% 2-bromocyclopentyl Me ketone (IV), b8.0 75-7o, n2D5 1.4900. A Grignard reaction between bromocyclopentane and o-chlorobenzonitrile gave o-chlorophenyl cyclopentyl ketone (V), b0.3 96-7o, n2D5 1.5452. V (21 g.) was treated with 10 g. Br in 80 cc. CCl4 to give 1-bromocyclopentyl o-chlorophenyl ketone (VI), b0.1 111-14o (decompn.). Similarly the following bromoketones were prepd. from the corresponding ketones: 1-bromocyclopentyl p-chlorophenyl ketone (VII), m. 57-8o; 1-bromocyclopentyl p-methylphenyl ketone (VIII), b0.01 114o, n2D5 1.5724; 1-bromocyclopentyl o-methylphenyl ketone (IX), b0.005 90-5o (decompn.); 1-bromocyclopentyl p-methoxyphenyl ketone (X), m. 36-6.5o; 1-bromocyclopentyl o-methoxyphenylketone (XI), m. 26-7o; 1-bromocyclopentyl o-benzyloxyphenyl ketone (XII). 1-Chlorocyclopentyl p-methoxyphenyl ketone (XIII), m. 37-8o, was prepd. by treating p-methoxyphenyl cyclopentyl ketone with Cl. The bromo ketones were converted to amino ketones or hydroxyimines by reaction with MeNH2. IV and excess MeNH2 in C6H6 at ambience 4 hrs. gave 76% 2-methylaminocyclopentyl Me ketone (XIV), b1.5 49-50o, n2D5 1.4642; HCl salt m. 117-19o. Similarly the following conversions were carried out (bromo ketone, product, and m.p. of product): 1-bromocyclopentyl Ph ketone (XV) (m. 29- 30o), 1-hydroxycyclopentyl Ph ketone N-methylimine (XVI), m. 72-4o; VI, 1-hydroxycyclopentyl o-chlorophenyl ketone N-methylimine (XVII), m. 62o; VII, 1-hydroxycyclopentyl o-chlorophenyl ketone N-methylimine (XVIII), m. 64-5o; X, 1-hydroxycyclopentyl p-methoxyphenyl ketone N-methylimine (XIX), m. 38-9o; XI, 1-hydroxycyclopentyl o-methoxyphenyl ketone N-methylimine (XX), m. 78-9o; XII, 1-hydroxycyclopentyl o-benzyloxyphenyl ketone N-methylimine (XXI), - . The bromo ketones were converted to epoxides by treatment with a strong base. XV was treated with anhyd. MeONa to give 96% 2-methoxy-2-phenyl-1-oxaspiro [2.4] heptane (XXII), b0.05 62-4o, n2D5 1.5136. Other epoxides prepd. were (bromo ketone, epoxide, b.p., and refractive index): alpha-bromo-alpha-methyl butyrophenone, 1,2-epoxy-2-methyl-1-methoxy-1-phenylbutane (XXIII), b0.1 49o, n2D5 1.4890 (97% yield); VIII, 2-methoxy-2-(p-methylphenyl)-1-oxaspiro [2.4] heptane (XXIV), b0.1 64o, - ; IX, 2-methoxy-2-(o-methyl-phenyl)-1-oxaspiro [2.4] heptane (XXV), - , - ; X or XIII, 2-methoxy-2-(p-methoxphenyl)-1-oxaspiro [2.4] heptane (XXVI), b0.1 90-1o (m. 45-8o), n2D5 1.5237; VII, 2-methoxy-2-(p-chlorophenyl)-1-oxaspiro [2.4] heptane (XXVII), b0.2 82o, n2D5 1.5623. The epoxides were converted to amino ketones by reaction with MeNH2 or EtNH2. A mixt. of 15.8 g. 1,2-epoxy-2-ethyl-1-methoxy-1-phenylbutane and 60 cc. liquid MeNH2 was heated at 150o 12 hrs. to give 2-ethyl-2-methylaminobutyrophenone, b0.12 74-6o, n2D5 1.5227. Other amino ketones similarly prepd. were (epoxide, product, b.p., and refractive index): XXII, 1-methyl-aminocyclopentyl Ph ketone (XXVIII), b0.03 74-6o, n2D5 1.5441 (57% yield); XXIII, 2-methyl-2-methylaminobutyrophenone (XXIX), b0.45 94o, n2D5 1.5212 (66% yield); 1,2-epoxy-1-methoxy-2-methyl-1-phenylpropane, 2-methyl-2-methylaminopropriophenone (XXX), b0.3 70-1o, n2D5 1.5246 (58% yield); XXII, 1-ethylaminocyclopentyl Ph ketone (XXXI), b0.1 94o (HCl salt m. 183o), n2D5 1.5325; XXIV, 1-ethylaminocyclopentyl p-methylphenyl ketone (XXXII), b0.07 96o (HCl salt m. 196-7o), - ; XXV, 1-methylaminocyclopentyl o-methylphenyl ketone (XXXIII), - (HCl salt m. 161-2o), - ; XXVI, 1-methylaminocyclopentyl (p-methoxyphenyl) ketone (XXXIV), b0.1 115-16o (HCl salt m. 167-8o), n2D5 1.5565; XXVII, 1-methyl- aminocyclopentyl p-chlorophenyl ketone (XXXV), - (HCl salt m. 153-5o), - . The hydroxy-imines and amino ketones from epoxides rearranged on heating to amino ketones of different structures. XVI (2.95 g.) was heated in 30 cc. refluxing Decalin 2 hrs. Addn. of HCl-PrOH pptd. 2-methylamino-2-phenylcyclohexanone-HCl (XXXVI), m. 255-7o. Similarly the following rearrangements occurred [starting compd., rearrangement product, b.p. (m.p.), refractive index]: 2-ethyl-2-methylaminobutyrophenone, 4-methylamino-4-phenyl-3-hexanone, b0.03 60-5o, n28D..5 1.5135 (HCl salt m. 210.5-11o); XXVIII, 2-methylamino-2-phenyl-cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 256o), - ; XXIX, 2-methylamino-2-phenyl-3-pentanone, b0.1 59-60o (HCl salt m. 192-3o), - ; XXX, 3-methylamino-3-phenyl-2-butanone, - (HCl salt m. 213.5o), - ; XIV, 2-methylamino-2-methylcyclohexanone, b2.0 55-7o (HCl salt m. 191.4o - 1.8o, salt had a pKa of 8.40 in 50% MeOH-H2O), n2D5 1.4710; XXXI, 2-ethylamino-2-phenyl-cyclohexanone, bo.5 108-9o, n2D5 1.5373; XVII, 2-methylamino-2-(o-chlorophenyl) cyclohexanone, m. 92-3o (HCl salt m. 262-3o), - ; XVIII, 2-methyl-amino-3-(p-chlorophenyl) cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 221-2o), - ; XXXII, 2-ethylamino-2-(p-methylphenyl) cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 234-5o), - ; XXXIII, 2-methylamino-2-(o-methylphenyl) cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 263-4o), - ; XIX, 2-methylamino-2-(p-methoxyphenyl)cyclo-hexanone (XXXVII), - (HCl salt m. 261-8o), - ; XXXV, 2-methylamino-2-(p-chlrophenyl)cyclo-hexanone, - (HCl salt m. 221-2o), - ; XX, 2-methylamino-2-(o-methoxyphenyl)cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 211-12o), - ; 1-hydroxycyclopentyl o-methylphenyl ketone N-methylimine, 2-methylamino-2-(o-methylphenyl)cyclohexanone, - (HCl salt m. 263-4o), - ; XXI, 2-methyl-amino-2-(o-benzyloxyphenyl)cyclohexanone (XXXVIII), - (HCl salt m. 227-8o), - . 'alpha-Hydroxy ketones were heated with amines to produce amino ketones. 2-Ethyl-2-hydroxy-butyrophenone was heated with excess MeNH2 at 240o 12 hrs. to give 4-methylamino-4-phenyl-3-hexanone; HCl salt m. 208-10o. Similarly the following conversions were done (hydroxy ketone, amino ketone, and HCl salt m.p.); alpha-hydroxyphenyl cyclohexyl ketone, alpha-anilino-alpha-phenylcycloheptanone, - (free amine m. 136-8o); 1, 1-diphenyl-1-hydroxy-2-propanone, 2-methylamino-2-phenylpropriophenone, m. 215.5-16o; 4-hydroxy-4-phenyl-3-hexanone (XXXIX), 4-methylamino-4-phenyl-3-hexanone, m. 211- 12o; 3-hydroxy-3-phenyl-2-butanone, 3-methylamino-3-phenyl-2-butanone, m. 213-5o; 2-hydroxy-2-phenylcyclo-heptanone, alpha-methylaminophenyl cyclohexyl ketone, m. 225-6o (b.0.09 104-6o, n2D7 1.5438); 1-hydroxycyclopentyl Ph ketone, 2-methylamino-2-phenylcyclohexanone, m. 255-6o. XXXIX was prepd. by stirring 2-ethyl-2-hydroxybutyrophenone in anhyd. Et2O at 0o with finely pulverized KOH. The Et2O was sepd. from the KOH, dried over Na2SO4, and distd. to yield XXXIX. XXXVI was reduced with NaBH4 to 2-methylamino-2-phenylcyclohexanol; HCl salt m. 232o. XXXVII was similarly reduced to 2-methylamino-2-(p-methoxyphenyl)cyclohexanol, m. 107-17o. XXXVIII (1.0 g.) was refluxed 3 hrs. with 16 cc. 4N HCl soln. to give 2-methyl-amino-2-(o-hydroxyphenyl)cyclohexanone. XXXVII (5 g.) was heated in 15 cc. refluxing HOAc satd. with HBr 12 hrs. to give 2-methylamino-2-(p-hydroxyphenyl)cyclohexanone, m. 157-8o (decompn.); HCl salt m. 213-14o. Danford Olson.
[Note: Wherever Dsubscript features above, the superscript (decimal) numbers immediately left and right of it are to be interpreted as one underlined number; alpha substitutes the Greek letter so named.]
11. (2-(2-Chlorophenyl)-2-methylaminocyclohexanone, otherwise known as ketamine (sold for human benefit as Ketalar, but for use with other animals as Vetalar) is an anaesthetic with a molecular weight of 237.5 and a melting point of 92-3o.
12. Economic and other rivalries commonly influence arguments for and against the use of ketamine. Before either whole-heartedly accepting or utterly rejecting what is claimed in 6, readers are, therefore, whether or not they choose also to discuss such matters with appropriately experienced and/or qualified others, recommended to take into account, e.g.,Helen M. Luke's discussion of some common unconscious difficulties occurring in the advance towards authentic individuation of contemporary men and women, especially in "Orual" in Kaleidoscope - 'The Way of Woman' and other Essays (Parabola Books, New York, 1992). Opinions favourable to the ingestion of substances likely to precipitate altered states of conscious awareness are implicit in all Carlos Castaneda's writings, feature largely in Terence McKenna's Food of the Gods - The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: a Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution (Bantam Books, New York, 1992), and, with specific reference to LSD and Ketamine, have been frequently advanced by Dr. John Lilly - cf. The Centre of the Cyclone (Paladin, 1973), The Human Biocomputer (Abacus, 1974), and The Scientist - A Novel Autobiography (J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia - New York, 1978). A still increasing number of other excellent relevant books underlines widespread interest in these matters.
13. Ketalar is made at the Laboratorio Substancia, S.A., Pol. Ind. Manso Mateu, s/n. - El Prat de Llobregat, BARCELONA, Spain (a division of Warner Lambert Co., Morris Plains, NJ, U.S.A.) under license of Parke-Davis & Co. (U.S.A.), and is available on medical prescription at 10 mg./ml. strength in 20 ml. single-dose bottles, and at both 50 mg./ml. and 100 mg./ml. strength in 10 ml. single-dose bottles - one of which may, of course, suffice for 20 or so separate injections of this substance for consciousness-modification purposes as discussed above.
Since Ketalar (a personal supply of which is standard issue to soldiers serving in the Swiss army) produces dissociative anaesthesia, it should always be stored out of reach of babies and other children. It is recommended by Parke-Davis: "(1) as the sole anaesthetic agent for diagnostic and surgical procedures. Although best suited for short procedures, ketalar can be used, with additional doses, for longer procedures. If skeletal muscle relaxation is desired, a muscle relaxant should be used. (2) for the induction of anaesthesia prior to the administation of other general anaesthetic agents. (3) to supplement other anaesthetic agents.
Specific areas of application of types of procedures have included: (1) debridement, painful dressing, and skin grafting in burned patients, as well as other superficial surgical procedures. (2) neurodiagnostic procedures such as peumoencephalograms, ventriculograms, myelograms, and lumbar punctures. (3) diagnostic and operative procedures of the eye, ear, nose, and mouth, including dental extractions. Note: Eye movements may persist during ophthalmological procedures. (4) diagnostic and operative procedures of the pharynx, larynx, or bronchial tree. Note: Muscle relaxants should be used in these procedures (see Precaution no. 6 below). (5) Sigmoidoscopy and minor surgery of the anus and rectum and circumcision. (6) extraperitoneal procedures used in gynecology such as dilation and curettage. (7) obstetrical procedures including complicated deliveries and cesarean section. (8) orthopedic procedures such as closed reduction manipulation, phemoral pinning, amputations, and biopsies. (9) anaesthesia in poor-risk patients with depression of vital functions. (10) cardiac catheterization procedures. (11) when the intramuscular route of administration is preferred.
Ketalar is contraindicated in persons in whom an elevation of blood pressure would constitute a serious hazard; it should not be used in patients with eclampsia or preeclampsia.
Precautions [supposing the entire contents of a regular 1-dose bottle are to be administered]: (1) Ketalar should be used by or under the direction of physicians experienced in administering general anaesthetics and maintenance of an airway and in the control of respiration. As with any general anaesthetic agent, resuscitative equipment should be available and ready for use. (2) The intravenous dose should be administered over a period of 60 seconds. More rapid administration may result in respiratory depression or apnea and enhanced pressor response. (3) Respiratory depression may occur with overdosage of Ketalar, in which case supportive ventilation should be employed. Mechanical support of respiration is preferred to the administration of analeptics. (4) Cardiac function should be continually monitored during the procedure in patients found to have hypertension or cardiac decompensation. (5) Since an increase in cerebrospinal fluid pressure has been reported during Ketalar anaesthesia, Ketalar should be used with special caution in patients with preanaesthetic elevated cerebrospinal fluid pressure. (6) Because phrayngeal and laryngeal reflexes usually remain active, Ketalar should not be used alone in surgery or diagnostic procedures of the pharynx, larynx, or bronchial tree. Mechanical stimulation of the pharynx should be avoided, whenever possible, if Ketalar is used alone. Muscle relaxants, with proper attention to respiration, may be required in these instances. (7) In surgical procedures involving visceral pain pathways, Ketalar should be supplemented with an agent which obtunds visceral pain. (8) Ketalar should not be used as the sole anesthetic in obstetrical procedures requiring relaxation of uterine muscle. (9) Use with caution in the chronic alcoholic and the acutely alcohol-intoxicated patient. (10) Barbiturates and Ketalar, being chemically incompatible because of precipitate formation, should not be injected from the same syringe. (11) Prolonged recovery time may occur if barbiturates and/or narcotics are used concurrently with Ketalar. (12) As with other general anaesthetic agents, emergence delirium phenomena may occur during the recovery period. The incidence of these reactions may be reduced if verbal and tactile stimulation of the patient is minimized during the recovery period. This does not preclude the monitoring of vital signs. (13) When Ketalar is used on an outpatient basis, the patient should not be released until recovery from anaesthesia is complete and then should be accompanied by a responsible adult.
In case of adverse reactions: (1) Cardiovascular: Blood pressure and pulse rate are frequently elevated following administration of Ketalar. However, hypotension and bradycardia have been observed. Arrhythmia has also occurred. The median peak rise in blood pressure has ranged from 20 to 25% of preanaesthetic values. Depending on the condition of the patient, this elevation of blood pressure may be considered an adverse reaction or a beneficial effect. (2) Respiration: Although respiration is frequently stimulated, severe depression of respiration or apnea may occur following rapid intravenous administration of high doses of Ketalar. Laryngospasms and other forms of airway obstruction have occurred during Ketalar anaesthesia. (3) Eye: Diplopia and nystagmus may occur following Ketalar administration. It may also cause a slight elevation in introocular pressure. (4) Psychological: During recovery from anaesthesia the patient may experience emergence delirium, characterized by vivid dreams (pleasant or unpleasant), with or without psychomotor activity, manifested by confusion and irrational behaviour. These reactions appear to be similar to those observed following the use of other general anaesthetic agents. The incidence of these reactions is least in the young (15 years of age or less) and elderly (over 65 years of age) patient. Also, they are less frequent when the drug is administered intramuscularly. The incidence of emergence reactions is reduced as experience with the drug is gained. No residual psychological effects are known to have resulted from the use of Ketalar. (5) Neurological: In some patients, enhanced skeletal muscle tone may be manifested by tonic movements sometimes resembling seizures. These movements do not imply a light plane of anaesthesia and are not indicative of a need of additional doses of the anaesthetic. (6) Gastrointestinal: Anorexia, nausea, and vomiting have been observed; however, these are not usually severe. The great majority of patients are able to take liquids by mouth shortly after regaining consciousness. (7) Other: Local pain and exanthema at the injection site have infrequently been reported. Transient erythema and/or morbiliform rash have also been reported. Increased salivation leading to respiratory difficulties may occur unless an antisialogogue is used."
The Physician's Package Insert distributed with Ketalar by Parke-Davis also includes brief notes on "Dosage and administration" from which it may be helpful at least to quote the following: "Ketalar has been safely used alone when the stomach was not empty, and is recommended for use in patients whose stomach is not empty when in the judgment of the physician the benefits of the drug outweigh the possible hazards. While vomiting has been reported following Ketalar administration, airway protection is usually afforded because of active largyngeal-pharyngeal reflexes. However, since the need for supplemental agents and muscle relaxants cannot be predicted, when preparing for elective surgery it is advisable that nothing be given by mouth for at least six hours prior to anaesthesia.... The use of droperidol (0.1 mg/kg. I. M.) or diazepam (0.1 mg/kg. I. M.) as premedication has been effective in reducing the incidence of emergence reactions.... The individual response to Ketalar is somewhat varied depending on the dose, route of administration, age of patient, and concomitant use of other agents, so that dosage recommendations cannot be absolutely fixed. The drug should be titrated against the patient's requirement.... If, during the recovery, the patient shows any indication of emergence delirium, consideration may be given to the use of one of the following agents: Diazepan (5 to 10 mg, I. V. in an adult), or Droperidol (2.5 to 7.5 Mg. I. V. or I.M.). A hypnotic dose of a thiobarbiturate (50 to 100 mg. I.V.) may be used to terminate severe emergence reactions. If any of these agents are employed, the patient may experience a longer recovery period.... Ketalar has a wide margin of safety; several instances of unintentional administration of overdoses of Ketalar (up to 10 times that usually required) have been followed by prolonged but complete recovery."
14. While Parke-Davis brand Ketolar (Ketamine Hydrochlorate) produced until 6 years ago will, wherever still available, enable trippers to enjoy pleasant hallucinations, any Ketolar from the same source made more recently than that is likely to induce only an unpleasantly dark state. This is because a new patent was taken out in 1971 for producing Ketolar in a different way than previously, and this new way includes the separating out of two distinct isomers of ketamine hyrdrochlorate, the discarding of the hallucinogenic one previously left in, and the use only of the narcotic isomer. Until 6 years ago, Parke-Davis were still selling old-patent-produced stock. For example, Parke-Davis Ketolar boxes marked 776203 contain hallucinogenic stuff; the 'dark' isomer product label refers in small print to Ketamine(D.C.I.)Chlorhidrato - where D.C.I. is the coded equivalent of BL-2705 as specified on page 22 of the 1971 patent (109829/1824)!
Since the old patent has expired, it is, presumably, no longer illegal others interested to begin manufacturing the hallucinogenic product by the old or some third alternative route dependent upon it. However, drug-users who had until recently remained largely ignorant of ketolar, and who only began to use it when fake ecstasy became more common than 'real' ecstasy, have, unsurprisingly, been most confused when they have found that only ketolar from unofficial sources gives good trips, and that the Parke Davis Ketolar they may as recently as 1994 have bought over the counter in Croydon leads to unpleasant experiences!
Although frequently far from happy about the reported behaviour of drug-users and drug-addicts, I also disapprove of several ways in which hospitals and medical doctors experiment on patients, and feel that cannabis, magic mushrooms and natural substances generally should not normally be illegal; although the ongoing debate about synthetic drugs is understandably contentious, as well as complex. On balance I dissent from D. M. Turner's strong endorsement of Ketalar in his The Essential Psychedelic Guide ( San Francisco CA 94122: Panther Press 1994), especially as he shows no awareness of the points about Ketolar I have just mentioned.… It takes a sage to know his onions!
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyataso wrote on 27 December 1989: "May all sentient beings, oneself and others, find constant happiness through love and compassion associated with wisdom."
Helen Mary Luke was born in England in 1904. She received a Masters degree in French and Italian literature from Somerville College, Oxford. Twenty years later, she became interested in the work of Carl Gustav Jung, and studied his thought in Zurich and London. Arriving in the United States in 1949, she established a practice as a counsellor in Los Angeles. In 1962, she helped found the Apple Farm Community near Three Rivers, Michigan, which has been described as a "centre for people seeking to discover and appropriate the transforming power of symbols in their lives." Her earlier writings include Old Age: Journey into Simplicity and Dark Wood to White Rose (a study of Dante's Divine Comedy), both for Parabola Books, 656 Broadway, New York NY 10012, and Woman: Earth and Spirit - The Feminine in Symbol and Myth (Crossroad). In 1992 Parabola also published her most mature work... Kaleidoscope - 'The Way of Woman' and other Essays, which is edited and introduced by Rob Baker (ISBN: 0-930407-24-5), and arranged as follows -
PRELUDE:
THE WAY OF WOMAN:
THE WAY OF DISCRIMINATION:
THE WAY OF STORY:
POSTLUDE:
James Sarfati's dust-jacket nests Painton Cowen's colour-photograph of a stained glass window from the Church of Santa Chiara in Assisi, Italy in the middle of four inward-yet-outward-turned identically-yet-differently-inclined images of Emile Saraf's photo of a woman's face from the west wall of the Temple of Jupiter in the Archaeological Museum in Olympia.
Chapter Eleven, "The Joy of the Fool" begins: 'I remember that, during a discussion of Charles Williams' novel The Greater Trumps some time ago, someone asked for a definition of '"the Fool." It was, of course, not forthcoming, for the Fool of the Tarot eludes all analysis. If he could be rationally defined, he would cease to be the Fool. This is true, in fact, of any numinous symbol' - and, I might add, particularly of "Woman;" Virgil's comment on Dido, Queen of Carthage, has lost none of its thrust: 'Varium et mutabile semper est foemina,' where my use of bold simply draws attention to an emphasis already naturally present in the rhythms of this eloquent phrase.
The Glossary of twenty-one terms (anima, animus, archetype, consciousness, unconscious, ego, eros, extraversion, hierosgamos, hubris, introversion, logos, mana, mandala, metanoia, numinous, projection, psyche, self, shadow, symbol) provided by Rob Baker, helpful though it is, unsurprisingly is in no way an adequate guide to the word-dances in which Helen Luke shares herself with her readers on as many levels as they are prepared to venture that encounter... or almost.
The Supernatural Life of Grace familiar to traditional Catholic theology and Zecharia Sitchin's scholarly insistence that our most ancient myths, those that come from Sumeria and Babylon, are, when read in their original sources and accurately translated, both factually and scientifically as well as psychodynamically true, appear almost equally to be ignored.
Since a similar criticism can also be made of Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza's otherwise excellent Discipleship of Equals - a Critical Feminist Ekklesia-logy of Liberation (SCM, 1993), discerning readers will treasure Helen Luke's quotation from an anthology of George MacDonald's writings that C.S. Lewis edited (CollierMacmillan, 1986):
For each, God has a different response. With every man He has a secret - the secret of a new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is the innermost chamber.
There is a chamber also... a chamber in God Himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man - out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his creation. This is that for which he was made - to reveal the secret things of the Father."
But,' she comments, 'if anyone rushes to reveal his glimpses of that first secret place in himself to all and sundry, without the long discipline of discrimination, he or she will assuredly never enter the innermost secret chamber, where the whole, unique life of a conscious being brings to others revelation and strength beyond any words and without any effort of the will.'
Mary of Nazareth is to my mind the supreme demonstration of that. "Stetit iuxtra crucem Iesu mater ejus - close to the cross on which Jesus was hanging were standing his mother, his mother's sister, Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala" (John 19:25). There is an entire theology here.
Helen Luke's vocation as an Anglo-Catholic Jungian psychologist and writer has enabled her to develop Jung's achievements in a way that meets the needs and aspirations of both women and men in today's rapidly changing world, and on the one hand to liberate the kernel of his message from the residual materialism of his mode of delivering it, while on the other overcoming much of the neo-gnostic ambiguities of his pioneering positions.
That is her chief merit, and Dom Bede Griffiths clearly sensed it, witness these words of his: "I had read C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces before, but had never been able to make much of it. Helen Luke's commentary is a revelation. I understand now why Lewis himself thought so much of it and what a change it must have worked in his own life."
Colin Duriez's The C.S. Lewis Handbook (Monarch, Eastbourne, 1990) is a much more comprehensive guide to his life, thought and writings but, as a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk and as a Yogi, Father Griffith's spiritual eyes were - to half-borrow one of Helen Luke's own inspired expressions - not primarily those of the suffering victim hanged from one of the lower branches of a strong tree, but the spontaneously innocent ones of the blithe-hearted bird warbling on the immediately next branch above.
Dom Bede's earliest experience of the monastic life was as a member of the Prinknash Community, and in Buddhist Haloes & Catholic Haloes: are they the same colour? - or, Talking at Talacre (29 July 1986) on Talking to Tibetans at Talacre, PART I: Catholic Teaching in Buddhist Terms, PART II: Buddhist Teaching in Catholic Terms (personal communication from the author), another monk of Prinknash, Dom Sylvester Houédard, in addressing topics of 'Inter-Faith' interest, as they have, in some ways regrettably (since, while 'beliefs' are legitimately many, Faith can only be IN The One), come to be called, steered well clear of the well-intentioned discussions and skirmishes of even the friendliest of rivals in arms in the foothills (where Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza's contributions are invaluable), and, like Helen Luke's happily singing bird, repeatedly invited his audience: "Sursum corda - lift up your hearts".... In other words: open your eyes to the Splendour of Truth (cf. John-Paul II's Splendor Veritatis, CTS, 1993), to the Deifying Light, to the final fruit of what Helen Luke intuits as the hierosgamos, the coincidentia oppositorum, of the practice of what St. Benedict called the crowning summit of the doctrina virtutumque or, to invoke the Buddhist expression, of Highest Yoga Tantra.
All this is very fine, but a healthy community is never simply a friendly club of upper middle-class intellectuals. As Paramahansa Satyananda Saraswati, head of the Bihar (India) School of Yoga, correctly insists in Tantra-Yoga Panorama (International Yoga Fellowship Movement, Rajanandagaon, India), "Tantra is meant for the common man.... Tantra does not accept any kind of religious, cultural or tribal or national inhibitions.... This difference which I make between myself and yourself because of the way of life that you lead and the way of life I lead is something which is not in Tantra. I do not want you to make a departure from your status of life, nor do I have any disrespect for your status of life."
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop & Prince of Geneva and Doctor of the Church, did not say exactly the same thing, but he was very much on the same wavelength. Writing from Annecy in June 1616, he remarked: "In nineteen years one learns and unlearns many things; the language of war is not that of peace, and one must needs speak differently to young beginners or to old comrades. Here I am addressing those who are far advanced in the spiritual life." (Treatise Of The Love of God, Preface)
And again: "In the Church of God all is of love, in love, to love, and for love.... My present work, while following in the tracks of [those earlier trod by the Apostle Paul, by the Saints Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Denys the Carthusian, Catherine of Genoa, Catherine of Siena, Angela di Foligni, Matilda, Robert Bellarmine and Teresa of Avila, and by other theologians including Gerson, Grenada, de Fonseca, Richeome, the Bishop de Belley and Father Laurent de Paris], contains matter not to be found in any of them, as assuredly they possess many beauties which are not here. My special intention has been different from theirs, save in the general aim of promoting Divine Love. I have merely sought to set the origin, growth, slackening, and working, the peculiarities and blessings, of God's Love simply and plainly before my readers; and if aught else be there it is but as the excrescences, which are not easily avoided by one writing, like myself, amid sundry distractions. Yet even these may have their use, since even Nature herself brings forth so many leaves and tendrils as well as grapes that most vines need pruning."
"Men," he continues - but it is worthy of note that he emphasises that term by beginning a new paragraph with it (the distinction implied is between 'men' and God's angels), "are wont to deal harshly with authors, and to pass hard sentences on them. There are many foolish authors and over-severe critics. A kindly reader is most like to profit."
This is the most important message in Helen Luke's discussion of Till We Have Faces, "Orual", Chapter 4 in Part I of Kaleidoscope, as clearly emerges from the following passages: "A modern woman in this world of alienation from eros must take up this work [of removing the veil and searching for her true face] or succumb to possession by the animus; and she must take it up with the same kind of honesty that Orual achieved, and which is of all things the most difficult for a woman caught by the inferior masculine spirit in her unconscious life....
Nothing kills the symbolic life so quickly as words reduced to mere information or mindless chatter. There can be no awareness of the uniting myth without this battle to discriminate and to separate, but if women leave this work to the animus disconnected from their womanhood, then they never glimpse their true story. In the Christian myth, the Word, the Logos, must become flesh if man is to stand face to face with God, and this, a fact so consistently forgotten [despite the best efforts of such prominent figures as Madonna and, even more controversially, Annie Sprinkle - cf. Every Woman, no. 99, Dec. 1993/ Jan. 1994], is an impossibility unless he is conceived and brought to birth by woman."
Etymologically 'man' means mind, most obviously, of course, the conscious mind. Wilhelm Reich seems to have appreciated, as Freud did not, that what psychologists dub 'the unconscious mind' is basically identical with what in ordinary everyday language we call the body. To reject Cartesian dualism effectively, it is also necessary to transcend certain limitations and distortions present in gnostic and Cathar teachings, and to come to appreciate that body-language and mind-languages are fundamentally twinned sides of one and the same coin. All human bodying is minding; all human minding is bodying. Bestiality and bloodless logic undermine and destroy all authentic human values in whichever men and women fall victim to them, but while the Classical Greeks on the occasion of the Olympics may have rewarded displays of prowess by both genders, only women were praised for their skill in telling lies and other deceitful wiles, only men for their mastery of the logical subtleties of dialectical sword-play.
"Contempt for women... demonstrates the negative side of man's struggle to free himself from the devouring aspects of the feminine unconscious, of the mother goddess.... The highly rational educated woman of today... will not allow her Psyche to connect her with the gods, with the irrational eternal paradoxes of life, with the Fool beyond reason - she sees only the cruel negative side of the sacrifice - that 'making holy' of her inmost self - and she panics at the threat it brings to her determination to save the world and all the people around her through her own newly acquired masculine reasoning and actvity. The 'oughts' and 'shoulds' of the animus are in fact a passionate femine possessiveness....
The Great Offering [is] the giving of that which is most loved to the god who is as yet unknown. A woman makes this offering when she is willing to risk the loss of a relationship rather than make possessive demands on the person loved. A man makes it when he will sacrifice his achievements in the world rather than betray his deeper values. To both that offering brings the experience of Eros, the god of Love," who cannot, of course, grow to maturity unless and until he has first been born as the Divine Child within. Only when the male consciousness of a human person of either gender not merely impregnates but almost fuses with the female embodied instincts of that same person, either directly (as is meant to be the case eventually with all celibate monks and consecrated nuns) or within the context of a psychologically balanced dyadic relationship (of which marriage is still meant to be the paradigm), can this birth of the inner Child occur in either person, let alone quasi-simultaneously in both. One good reason for the ancient custom of a prolonged solemn Betrothal before the Nuptials were celebrated, was the laudable desire that married couples should not even dream of conceiving a child in the flesh until they had already engendered this secret Child within.
Even the severest critics of the papal encyclical Splendor Veritatis have concurred with the widespread general agreement that truth, integrity, and ethical principles urgently and desperately need to be restored to public life. G. K. Chesterton's The Man who was Thursday is unrivalled as a statement of God's assessment of the situation.
The Chinese Education Association for International Exchange organized an International Symposium on Oriental Tradition of Ethics & Morality and Education of the Contemporary Youth in 1993. It was held in Beijing from the 19th to the 24th May, and Dr. Iraj Ayman, the Director of the Institute of International Education & Development in the Landegg Academy at Wienacht, Switzerland, whose Faith is that of the Baha'i, delivered a paper significantly entitled: The Imperative Need for a Moral Renaissance and a New Framework for Moral Education.
He claims, and there is a level at which his claim is both valid and relevant: "The fundamental challenge we are facing is how the following issues [I note in passing that 'issue' too is a reference to birth] may best be resolved.
The gist of the answer lies in the Victorian and Edwardian rule: "Ladies before Gentlemen." Until men learn consistently to conduct themselves sensitively in public as well as in private, and until women come to appreciate that unless instincts are first lovingly nourished and nurtured there will be no subsequent growth for them to master, direct and, on occasion, restrain and prune, papal encyclicals and Chinese symposia are unlikely to set the world to rights. As I have said before: "The problem of social de-alienation is that of finding some institution capable of governing, serving, defending, teaching, entertaining, curing, and creating and sustaining symbols of integration great enough to overcome the disintegrative forces of fear and weakness. We do not need fresh ideas merely, but an appropriate application of practical force. This is neither more nor less than art. Art is the communication of society....
I find the human being standing in a situation of world-openness between the restlessness of disorder and the chthonic expectancy of creative chaos. Outside the individual, if we prescind and abstract from everything that women and men collectively have developed, this ambiguity appears to be all-pervading. Cultural and social order has its immediate origin within women and men in their historicity. Just as a cinema-projector throws an image onto an otherwise blank screen, so women and men in their individual and collective consciousness project stability, dimensions, colours, meanings and values, and so bring a world into being. The human being is, therefore, quite literally, the light of the world. The difference, not only between order and disorder, but - and this is of quintessential importance - between the sterility of disorder and the secret vitality of chaos results in this way from a psychological projection which, like all things human, is the hard-won fruit of a very long evolution.
The basic need is clearly that of living in an understandable universe. Unless this need is met, not even the most selfish thought is possible.... Only a new empowering of the human being, a liberation of the riches of the spirit, a more generous opening of the heart to love of natural beauty and true freedom can bring about this urgently needed resurgence." (cf. Creativity House: The Rainbow CYMBAL - Constellate Youthful Minds Beyond Ancient Limits Interpreting Symbolically Earth's Significant PRESENT.)
Now, as always, the present, both enticing and awesome, is a gift which is, in every moment, utterly new - but this has nothing at all to do with progress; the authentic present is never new because it is novel - its pristine freshness is, like the bloom on a rose, an abiding witness to its underlying primordial character as a symbol of Life and, I trust, of Life Everlasting: to change the emphasis in my opening quotation from Virgil - "Varium et mutabile semper est foemina." That 'always' (semper) reaches back a very long way indeed.
I have already mentioned Zecharia Sitchin's still insufficiently noticed books, all published by Bear & Company (Santa Fe, New Mexico): THE EARTH CHRONICLES, Book I: The 12th Planet; Book II: The Stairway to Heaven; Book III: The Wars of Gods and Men; Book IV: The Lost Realms, + Genesis Revisited: Has Modern Science Caught Up with Ancient Knowledge - And Provoked a War of the Worlds?, and more recently (August 1993): THE EARTH CHRONICLES, Book V: When Time Began.
The crucial point in evaluating the essence of Sitchin's findings is, although the author nowhere explicitly manifests any awareness of this blindingly obvious question: If, as he claims, in Sumerian, the word for 'word' also means something rather like 'Rocket', 'Space-Craft', or 'UFO', was the Sumerian word used properly of flying-machines and only metaphorically of words, or the other way round, or does this way of formulating the question imply a dichotomy that would never have been a relevant consideration for persons then living, whether the humans approximately like us from whom, he suggests, we all of us today descend, or the seemingly immortal giants or gods and goddesses from outer space who created us about 300,000 years ago, and introduced us, as well as to many other wonderful things, to the Secret Mysteries of the all-creating Word?
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Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thursday, 25 March 1999
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