yourself, ‘Now I am seeing for the first time, seeing di- 
rect, without the intervention of mortal eyes.’ (Plato 
tells us that beyond this ephemeral and imperfect ex- 
istence here below, there is another Ideal world of 
Archetypes, where the original, the true, the beautiful 
Pattern of things exists for evermore. Poets and philoso- 
phers for millenniums have pondered and discussed his 
conception. [t is clear to me where Plato found his Ideas: 
it was clear to his contemporaries too. Plato had drunk 
of the potion in the Temple of Eleusis and had spent the 
night seeing the great Vision. ) 
And all the time that you are seeing these things, the 
priestess sings, not loud, but with authority. The Indians 
are notoriously not given to displays of inner feelings— 
except on these occasions. The singing is good, but under 
the influence of the mushroom you think it is infinitely 
tender and sweet. It is as though you were hearing it 
with your mind’s ear, purged of all dross. You are lying 
on a petate or mat; perhaps, if you have been wise, on 
an air mattress and in a sleeping bag. It is dark, for all 
lights have been extinguished save a few embers among 
the stones on the floor and the incense in a sherd. It is 
still, for the thatched hut is apt to be some distance away 
from the village. In the darkness and stillness, that voice 
hovers through the hut, coming now from beyond your 
feet, now at your very ear, now distant, now actually 
underneath you, with strange ventriloquistic effect. The 
mushrooms produce this illusion also. Everyone experi- 
ences it, just as do the tribesmen of Siberia who have 
eaten of Amanita muscaria and lie under the spell of 
their shamans, displaying as these do their astonishing 
dexterity with ventriloquistic drum-beats. Likewise, in 
Mexico, I have heard a shaman engage in a most com- 
plicated percussive beat: with her hands she hits her 
chest, her thighs, her forehead, her arms, each giving a 
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