Student: Did you hear (William) Blake‘s voice reading his poems, or just….
AG: Yeah.
Student: As you were reading it you heard….
AG: I had my eye on the page and then I heard a big solid, solemn earthen voice saying, “Ah! Sun-flower!, weary of time.” It’s my voice now, actually. I had a much higher voice then. What I heard was my own voice as of now, or say about five years ago, when I was in stronger voice, say at peak of health strength. I’ve always been mystified by that experience, I’ve never figured it out. Because I actually literally had an hallucination – I heard a voice. I went around for weeks and months and years telling people “I heard Blake’s voice!, I heard Blake’s voice!, I heard Blake’s voice!.” – Sort of like an acid head who’s had some transcendental vision and goes around trying to beat you over the head with it and insisting that it come true right now, like “Everybody take off their clothes right now,!” or like “Revolution now!”,
or, what? “The electricity now!” or “C.I.A. now!” or “Breakthrough now!.” You know that syndrome? Well, you may not know it. At least, as of ten years ago, (1966), it was a major thing. What is it, actually? It’s a realization that there is one common consciousness, sort of. That if only everybody would refer to that consciousness simultaneously there would be some universal cosmic consciousness breakthrough so that everybody at the same time would be the same self, and would be telepathizing the same perceptions back and forth.
Student: Wasn’t it like a kind of classical visionary experience….
AG: Well, yeah, but we’re talking about what are classical visionary experiences like? So the classical visionary experience….
Student: You have a light, you hear the voice, and…
AG: Well, okay, as far as light. I had a sensation of that everyday light as some kind of eternal. So it was like an eternal light superimposed on everyday light, but everyday light wasn’t any different than everyday light. It was just that “The eyes altering alters all.” (see above) – My eyes, having altered slightly, everyday light seemed like sunlight in eternity. So there was a sensation of awe, spaciousness and ancientness as in some eternity, but actually people get that everyday. Aren’t we now anyway in eternity? So I don’t know what was so striking about it. By now, this is years later, I don’t know what was so striking but it seemed to me like a break in nature or a break in the normal continuum of my consciousness.
In classical religious experience, like in (William) James‘ ..Varieties of Religious Experience, there’s a reference to light as if it’s something special and there is a sensation of something special. (to class) How many here have had acid? And how many have not? (show of hands) Okay, so very few. So talking, just for the moment, if you’ll excuse me, to the majority – but you all know what it is anyway. On acid when you go out in the day and you’re not hallucinating so you’re just seeing the normal light and air of the day you can’t say it’s any different than everyday light, can you, really? It may seem different but basically the big discovery is that everyday light is supernatural. Right? Does that make sense? Is there anybody that disagrees with that as a basic? So everyday light seems supernatural when the eyes alter. It’s a line of Blake – “The eyes altering alters all”. So change your brain or change your eyeballs and the light seems awesome.
So what are the characteristics of the light? It seems like it’s eternal in the sense it’s always been there, timeless, translucent. You can see through it. Bright, reflecting from the leaves of the trees, gracious – because it allows you to see. So there’s a certain kind of intelligence in the light because it’s built to allow you to see so it seems like there’s some intentionality to the light, it’s cooperating with your consciousness, because without the light you wouldn’t be able to see – if everything were black you couldn’t see. Well, whatever it is it’s as old as words, but the particular experience I had was without any drugs, so I was taken by surprise or overtaken, because I hadn’t expected anything like that.
to be continued