I've been up here for a few years now.

Here in Appalachia, with its mountains of sadness and antiques and coal. In the hills of the high desert, climbing red rocks in Sedona. Looking for artifacts and aliens and God's voice.

Here, on the Sunshine Bridge, driving through slanting sunlight and lemon yellow pillars of wire. Top down, flying on the salty wind across the aquamarine whitecaps.

And here, at my window, looking at coral sunsets every night. Trying to understand a language that Whitman and Keats couldn't speak. Neither could Bob Dylan or Bob Marley, even after sitting in the sand sharing enlightenment.

I can't speak it either. You gotta do more drugs than Dylan or Marley or me.

But I know who might. Tim Leary, Harvard psychologist and the sixties hippie of all hippies. While he probably walked around with mushrooms in his pockets, he claimed they were the source of shamanic power and deep metaphysical truth.

Leary once said that he learned more "in the five hours after taking ... mushrooms than ... in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research in psychology."

What did he learn? About eight levels, or circuits, of consciousness. He described the first four circuits as the basic psychological skills needed by human beings - such as survival, problem-solving, and socializing. That each circuit could be clearly and astonishingly sensed, and sometimes triggered, by specific types of chemicals - such as opiates, marijuana, alcohol and sexual hormones.

Leary also described the big leap to the higher circuits. The ones that the shamans use. Four levels, progressively associated with sociosexual knowledge, telepathy, ESP, life extension, and immortality.

The final circuit, according to Leary, is that which is sensed in near-death experiences: it is a fusion to quantum consciousness.

This highest circuit can be found described in nearly all major religions. It is the equivalent of a heaven, a paradise, a knowing of all things. A consciousness among all souls. It's what Leary really sought.

Levels five and higher can be reached with Iboga, a root used in West Africa, which leads to an eight hour metaphysical journey.

It can be reached with Peyote, a mushroom which brought native Americans intense transcendental experiences - some lasting up to 10 hours.

And with Ayahuasca, which means “vine of the souls.” Ayahuasca is such an intense hallucinogen that it seems to hurl the user into a dimension that often requires spiritual and clinical supervision.

I'm not going up to five. I can't get that high. I need to settle for healing and understanding and old-fashioned four level learning.

But the truth isn't in the mountains or among the red rocks or on the bridge, either.

I think it's written in the sunset. There are streaks of meaning there, if I can lose myself in the colors and the salty breeze and in my stirred faith. And in the quantum language of the sun's rays.

I can't understand the words - yet.

But it's my journey. John's journey. For now.

#appalachia

A place too high