There are beings that populate the imaginal world and beings that populate the sensuous world. Human beings, blessed of all creatures, can inhabit both in extraordinary fullness of being. What is the imaginal? Your inner world (it’s all in your mind). What is the sensuous? The outer world (the world of the senses). These are problematic designations, but they’ll pass.
Psychedelic experiences are either extrovertive (eyes open) or introvertive (eyes closed). They can connect you to “Nature” or to “Spirit”. In ordinary states of consciousness, we generally enter the imaginal at night, in dreams, and the sensuous during the day, on long walks for example.
We consider dreams to be a lower state of consciousness than waking consciousness; they are usually confused and confusing. But what if dreams are not continuous with waking consciousness? What if dreams unfold in the imaginal world and waking consciousness in the sensuous world? What if we conceive of the imaginal and the sensuous as parallel worlds, parallel dimensions, parallel universes?
A low level of consciousness in the sensuous experiences a shadowy world of vague impressions. We are like a ghost in a world of ghosts, shades in Hades. A high level of consciousness experiences the sensuous as a paradise bursting with life, light and colour. The summit of this experience is a profound sense of unity with all existence. It is the classic enlightenment experience, exemplified most paradigmatically in the spiritual awakening of the Buddha.
A low level of consciousness in the imaginal experiences a chaotic world of dream images. It tends towards the nightmarish as the chaos leans into negative valency and frightening or violent situations. We are like the damned in Hell. A high level of consciousness experiences the imaginal as a heavenly realm over-brimming with beauty, light and love. At the summit we approach the effulgent source of all, in which we lose ourselves in a mystical union of absolute oneness.
Extrovertive psychedelic experiences, through a dramatic elevation of our ordinary level of consciousness, can usher us into paradise, and can even lead to extrovertive mystical experiences of samadhi or satori, that is, enlightenment. Introvertive psychedelic experiences, through an inner-directed elevation of consciousness, can take us to heaven and even to the very throne of God.
bread of life 