The Most Complete Derangement: William S. Burroughs and Ayahuasca
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Tag: the Yage Letters
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I am the last to be called, as I am the newest member. A gnawing fear crawls up my throat like an amoeba that went the wrong way. Have I gone too far to turn around? Would they mock me if I refused? Is this going to hurt? I slowly rise from my mat and stand, realizing there is no turning back. She hands me my cup and I drink it in. The texture is a grainy sludge, thicker than tea but thinner than mud. The smell is bitter and the taste is rough, but down it goes chasing that amoeba of fear back into the darkness of my belly.
I return to my mat and wait for what seems like hours for something to happen. People around me are quiet, but some have started shuffling, shifting, and sitting in a restless anticipation. Suddenly I feel a heaviness in my body, but it’s pleasant, like gravity is pushing me back into the earth from which we all come. My feet are covered in dry dirt and I’m sinking, growing roots and wrapping around rocks, slipping around earthworms. My legs are bound in my new ground. My mind, however, begins to rise. I’m on a large green leaf, and I’m spinning into the heavens. The wind sweeps through me like a breeze through a white curtain. The colors are brilliant. Red zooms by chasing green, then blue. I am rising, rising into the heavens. I see God, but he looks like Jesus and I say “Hello, it’s been a while!” He just smiles and reaches out his hand. I start to explain that it’s not that I don’t like Him, it’s just very hard to talk these days with all my… unbelief in Him.
Then something lands on me (one of those blood-sucking jungle mosquitoes, I’m sure) and I open my eyes. My world looks different now. I’m back on the mat, God is gone, and the outlines of things and people are illuminated with electric blue. The lines are shaking violently, and I suddenly have the urge to vomit. Here, I feel like Burroughs at the moment of his first true experience.