“Seed of Life: The Inception"
(How The Lateralus Papers Came To Be)
Toward the end of 2014, placing life on hold to escape into a psychedelic journey was my way of treating myself and rewarding myself. Most likely one of the biggest contributing factors to this was that I was just getting the hang of the types of experiences accompanied with such substances, as my first psychedelic experience had been just approximately six months prior to this time. A very close & trusted friend was the one who finally opened me up to give it a whirl earlier that year; and just a few short months later another close & trusted friend (at the time) would plant a seed in my mind during a psychedelic trip that would take years to reveal itself as even something of significance. Yet, I can honeslty say today that without it, my path of spirituality at this current time probably wouldn’t look as it does in the life I am lucky enough to lead out.
Between the months of November 2014 & January 2015, I and my very close friend (at the time) that I resided with had a handfui of nights that we put our phones away & escaped with psychedelics. Honestly, I am unsure which of our “times-a-trippen” it was that the interaction relevant to all of this actually occured. Of course, had I known that this was the planting of a seed for my own life’s future path, I may have taken note of more details & specifics that day. But when this took place, I was just immersed in my trip at the time, & going with the flow of things. I thought it was just part of the flow this day, when in actuality it was what I was flowing towards; in the long term perspective. Yet that moment of actualization & realization wouldn’t come until some 5-6 years later. I didn’t even venture the thought that this particular exchange would be something that would be a memory like that.
Somewhere in the duration of one of these “Psych-Vacays” my then good friend asked me a question that to this day I am pretty sure came out of “left field” (which I believe to be a term referring to the deepest reaches of one’s thoughts). He turned to me at one point and said, “You know Tool? The band, do you know who I am talking about?” and as I am nodding to respond in the affirmative, he follows up with, “You fuck with Tool?”. It was then I verbally confirmed that I was familiar with their music. The next thing he asked was simply, “Okay, so how well do you know the song “Lateralus”?”, to which I replied that I knew of the song, however it wasn’t one that I could sing along to or anything like that being as though I was for the most part unfamiliar with the piece of music itself. He then motioned for me to follow him.
We went to a bedroom in his house and got comfortable in front lf an artificial fireplace as he queued up a fan made video for "Lateralus" created from bits & pieces of other official Tool videos as well as other artwork. He pressed play, the song began, and from the beginning the sights and sounds sucked me in. Mind you, I was nowhere near as far in my mental expansion or spiritual maturity path as compared to where I am in both of those respects at the time of writing this. Needless to say, I had essentially no idea of the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that is packed into that song verbally, instrumentally, etc. Regardless, as it began I was lost in the strums and build of the music and somewhat feeling as though I was surfing through the scenes being shown on the screen. I was immersed in this until either the first or second chorus, when the words, "Overthinking/Overanalyzing;
Separate the body From the Mind '' were sang. It was as though the words were being sung inside my head, a cappella style, with thundering echoes and resounding force. At one point during the particular fan created video that we had playing, the end of the music video for "Parabol/a" looped through two or three times. As this happened, my buddy, who had 10 more years of life under his belt than I did, looked at me and said, "That's how we are all made; that's where we come from." - Honestly, even with the minor amount of understanding that I had in that moment for what his words or the scene itself meant, in all made complete sense in that moment; to a level that was completely beyond my comprehension.
After the song and accompanying video had wrapped up, my friend had a little piece of advice to add. He said, "Anytime you do psychedelics; I mean everytime...make sure you listen to "Latetalus" at least once.” What he or I both didn't know then was that statement itself was a seed planted in my being that would sprout some 5-6 years later.
So as time progressed forward in life, it wasn’t long before the memory itself, let alone any idea of its unknown relevance to my life, were put away mentally. I seemingly tucked it away in the department of memories, wherever that may be for the mind, & virtually forgot about that night altogether. It was something that would not be brought to the forefront of my mind again until the first time I consciously, yet effortlessly recalled it at the moment that its significance would become apparant.
Sometime later during 2015, what I feel was the vibration of my being elevating to a higher frequency, guided me to dive into my spiritual self. I began my own personal spiritual growth journey. I dove into ancient history & different translations/interpretations of ancient texts from Sumer, Babylon, & the Mesopotamian region in general. From the works of Zecharia Sitchen, which are out on the fringe in some cases; to the paradigm shifting & thought altering works of Graham Hancock, starting with Fingerprints of the Gods, I read whatever I could get my hands on. Just about the time I was satisfying my appetite for historical literature, I was getting acquainted with what I call these days one of my spiritual teachers. I saw some books that interested me one day, & he noticed my interest. He told me that if I was seriously interested in the realm of spirituality, that he had plenty to help me grow. However, his only stipulation was that I consume said literature in the order in which he would give them & not to get ahead of myself in any of the practices. I kindly and eagerly agreed, to which he replied, “And oh yeah, be patient...”
Needless to say, after gobbling up books on meditation, dreaming/lucid dreaming, Astral Projection, and the like, I was certain that I was growing into the person I was supposed to be. Toward the end of 2016, the All That Is gave me the opportunity to have my first experience with DMT, serving as yet another factor in my growth. I knew immeadiately that this molecule was a transcendant journey, like a forced Astral Projection. From 2016-2019, I grew into my true self, a bright beam of light that does all I can to move with Spirit.
In late 2017, I had another encounter with the molecule & from that point on, the molecule became a big part of my life and my journey. A series of events from then, through 2018, and partially into 2019 had led to my having the molecule available at all times &; it became something that I use somewhat regularly (i.e., every couple months or so, sometimes shorter intervals). Halfway through the year 2019, I had the idea that I wanted to pair something with the experience that will enhance it or assist me in breaking through to levels I had yet to reach during an experience. To be completely honest, I can not ignore the fact that I also began to wonder & go deep into thought about what kind of influence that sights and/or sounds would have on the experience, given that up until this point it was something I had only done in silence. Initially, a plethora of ideas came to mind, yet as I gave each one of these ideas a further exploration in thought individually, there just seemed to be something steering me away. All of my ideas were potential musical elements for the most part given that it has always been in the forefront of my life. I often will use music that was out during a specific time in reference to when a memory occured to get to a more accurate mental place chronologically, ultimately helping me better place events in the history of time during my life. As I drove in my car alone that evening to pick my girlfriend up from work, I became puzzled as to why all of these possiblities that I easily thought of plenty of, weren’t sounding as good as I thought through them individually; each candidate for the pairing, if you will. A short time later, I had just pulled up outside of where my girlfriend and I work, although at the time of this story I was not working there yet. Stepping further back from the ideas I was having, I grouped them mentally and asked myself what it was that wasn’t clicking here because they were all tracks that I would love to have on for no reason or any reason; especially to be part of the ensemble of set, setting & substance for a psychedelic experience. Upon that, I came to realize that was exactly the issue in itself. These were things that I, as an ego, thought & told myself would be wonderful pairings. All songs that carried meaning specific to my life & all of which demanded my singing along & what have you anytime I heard them. But that doesn’t mean that simply because they have sentimental value to the self in the physical world that they will have that same value to the higher me in the higher planes of existence. They could possibly have the opposite value, or not have a value at all to my being or any one else’s beyond life. I couldn’t fully queue up the next thought I was going to attempt to build upon; it seemed to be another great thought that would have bounced around my thought-space into just another good idea, which in turn would have taken me nanoseconds to “overthink”. However, upon racking my brain & memory to search for any knowledge that I may have gained (whether I knew I had gained it or not) about anything that was seemingly supposed to be used in conjuction with psychedelics, it all hit me so fast. Like a ton of matter, what I was searching for slammed down into the lap of my mind. I like to say that the thought process that I initiaited only seconds prior had to start with that scanning of memory, which is also what was needed to find my element; so its like both trains of thought shared a mutual mental station.
As if it was on some sort of instant recall in the mind that was locked with an encryption in the form of a question or a wonder about music & its influence/interaction with psychedelics accompanied by an unmistakeable desire with or behind it to do it, the memory of that night some five and a half years prior came rushing back to me unfathomably quickly. Simulaneously, the sound of a someone’s voice I once knew thundered through my mind, "Anytime you do psychedelics; I mean everytime...make sure you listen to "Lateralus" at least once”. It came out inside the mind from deep within with the same resounding voice & seemingly a ca pella style that the lyrics of the song did in the mind the night in which this memory was being recalled from. One important difference being that I was on a heavy psychedelic on that night back in 2014 & heard a song that was actually playing sound that way to me, yet on this night I was sober for the most part, less those few marijuana hits I had taken a little earlier that evening, & there was no actual sound coming from anywhere for me to hear it any kind of way. I definitely heard him in that memory, even if I only perceived to hear him due to the memory commanding my sensory engagement with it like it knew the answer I was looking for was what it had to show me. The memory itself seemed to convey with great clarity what it wanted me to take from it as if it had a point to get across; and then had somehow emphasized that point by its own knowledge to make sure not to resurface for the first time until certain conditions had been met, insuring that its first appearance as a memory was in itself, a profound memory, as well as the beginning of a greater profound happening.
Before anyone reading this gives up on me for putting forth the idea that an individual memory in one’s mind, a memory that one barely remembers & hasn’t ever even remembered an initial time, thereby being presented with the first instance to label it a memory, which is something I believe our mind does not do until the first time it is “remembered”, could intelligently (or intelligently due to guidance) keep itself locked away with a plan, just hear this paragraph out. This plan it was folllowing seemed to be an ourageously precise set of instructions, with the basic idea being to only let itself be noticed by the awake, conscious self, if and when this extremely specific set of rules upon which to release itself had come to pass. Now, for a month or so, give or take, leading up to this particular night that I was recalling the original memory, we had recently came across this artist group that takes well known artists songs & turns them into baby lullabyes. One of the many artists that they have an entire album of lullaby renditions for is TOOL. Now, being a little familiar with their body of work, my daughter was introduced to the sound of TOOL via lullaby verions of their songs. Oddly & ironically enough one of the lullabyfied songs that I was hearing almost on the daily at this point was none other than “Lateralus”. I was hearing the song’s melodies & intervals, I was reading the word itself everytime I played the lullabyfied version, etc, etc. There had been countless things leading up to the moment of remembering that should have easily triggered that very same memory. Hearing the tune of it virtually everyday and/or reading the word “Lateralus” could & should trigger a memory that is directly connected to & involved with it.
In the approximately one month preceeding my night of inspiration in the car, there were so many instances that should have dialed up that particular memory, the only thing that kept it from revealing itself was the lack of my wondering & questioning; accompanied by the underlying desire to self experience the subject matter that only my wondering questioning can and will bring with it.
I like to imagine that it was a seed when it was planted in the mind back in 2014, then I nurtured it, albeit unknowingly, from 2015-2016, and then after an unplanned break in my spiritual journey, began nurturing that seed with sunlight and water once again in late 2017 & have been doing so persistently & consistently since then; still am doing so at the time of writing. Writing is actually a single aspect of the consistent nurturing I have been doing to & with myself. The final bit of nourishment & nurturing that memory apparantly needed was for me to let mind wander to a precise wonder/question along with an intense desire being present at the time to explore these wondering ideas myself, because as soon as these seemingly final 2 variables had landed where they needed to, boy did that little shell of life sprout mentally and begin to grow & transform through my mind. It was only something that my mind could understand and accept when I recognized it as a whole from a “big picture” standpoint; seeing it all as one transcendent happening that broke into numerous minor event happenings so that the cosmic & synchronistic process being applied, that will be applied, and that has been & always will be applied could begin manifesting to bring me to this here and now; the writing of these journeys & travels.
So of course, I begin by looking into the song “Lateralus” itself. This definitely boosted this mentally from “obscure idea” to “looks like I may be onto something”. The lyrics themselves, just reading them in that moment, began to resonate within my being, confirming to myself that I had found the element I would be using. That did not stop me from further assurance of this via extensive facts I dug up about the piece of music as a whole. “Lateralus” was based from top to bottom on the Fibonacci sequence, the first verse begins at 97 seconds, which is 1.618 minutes, thereby implementing the Golden Ratio. Every numerical value or representation in the entire piece of music all tie back to Fibonacci/Golden Ratio. Even the structure of the verses is so that the amount of syllables will be sang in ascending & descending Fibonacci sets.
Ex: Black (1)
And (1)
White Are (2)
All I See (3)
In My Infancy (5)
Red And Yellow Then Came To Be (8)
Reaching Out To Me (5)
Lets Me See (3)
Preparation began for the introduction of a new element that would hopefully enhance & aide my journey(s) with DMT. Up until this time, all of my sessions with the Spirit Molecule had been done in silence, which I am sure most people that have experienced it or are at least knowledgable about it will fully understand. I had began to really find meaning and connection to more of TOOL’s music, especially what I had been unfamiliar with before this time, & more importantly, locking in on the other songs from the “Lateralus” album. The “Parabol/Parabola” piece was actually receiving more attention from me then the song I was planning to use; so I made a decision. I was going to make the first session that made use of a audio element a little softer, much more of a way to ease in to adding something to your set/setting. I decided to use the lullaby rendition of “Parabol/Parabola” as the initial pairing with the molecule so as to get a good feel for what adding music, visuals, etc, would do to me & the experience itself. Seeing as I realized the necessity of chronicling these early audio paired sessions during the writing of the “Egg of Life” report, I may not have minor details for one or both of these sessions. Such as I don’t have the exact date of the lullaby audio session; but it wasn’t too long after deciding to go about it this way that I was ready to see what would happen.
Initial Session That Paired Audio With Molecule: RockaBye Baby’s Lullaby Rendition of “Parabol/Parabola”
(June/July 2019)
I'll start this log by saying this was of course the 1st time that I had been introducing anything other than peace and silence into my journey with the molecule. Needless to say, at least for all of my psychonauts, I was in deep mental consideration of my set, setting and substance. These are the 3 things to consider and keep in mind when using psychedelics; whether for fun or for doing work on Self, which is why I happily refer to these as the Psychedelic Triad. And I will go ahead and state here that it is my firm belief that these three considerations to keep in mind are the reason the last song on Lateralus is titled "Triad", amongst quite a few other reasons; just one of the many messages for us in their music.
The following served as a catalyst for a few things: The first was for me to actually dive into using this substance alongside & in tandem with their actual works of music; as well as a learning experience into how to make the whole process flow better as a whole when combining one or more supporting cast members to your psychedelics' starring role. Also, it was as well a process of discovery into the unexpected things that may happen as much as anything else. Not to sound cliche, but this gave me a lovely new understanding for the whole mantra of "expect the unexpected."
Now this whole idea that anything at all was going to be done while someone in our house or presence was on an intergalactic, interstellar journey through the cosmos with the help of the molecule was completely foreign to me, as well as my significant other. She has been an integral part of not only my self growth, but especially these self experiments & self developed ideas that I am continuing to explore & record on my own mind, body, and spirit. Not only is she my ground or check in with this reality when I am having one of my intense mystical adventures, but on all of these journeys with music as the GPS to the Spirit Molecule's trip, she has been by my side as my spotter so that I have an account of what I physically do during these experiences other than to rely on my own vague & often intertwined memories. All my fellow psychonauts know that when you're going deep, sometimes the memories of the places it takes you feel as though they are or were more real than being here. The heres, theres, anywheres that a psychedelic furlough can have in store can be realer than real, and thats very real. So have a ground, you must.
So not to make this any longer than it should be, I explained to her what I planned on doing & away we went. Since this was the 1st of many firsts that I was not aware of, nor was I trying to overcomplicate things, I simply told her that I needed her help with inhaling the molecule past the 2nd draw, & that I needed her to make sure the 1st video went into the 2nd video because I was playing the lullaby renditions of "Parabol/Parabola" from YouTube. And just as the original works of music are separated into 2 tracks on the album, the lullaby renditions are separated into 2 tracks on Rockabye Baby's lullaby album of TOOL songs.
The lullaby track "Parabol" begins after I heated the utensil, which I use what is commonly referred to as a nectar collector. More known for inhaling THC concentrate, I use it for vaporizing my DMT, as I have found that it takes way less to breakthrough this way, as opposed to smoking it via direct contact with an open flame; not to mention the taste isn't anywhere near as unpleasant either. As stated previously, minor details escape me, so I'm not sure how many hits it was, 2 or 3, but whichever it was, away I went.
Now at the time, being just shortly before the release of their 5th album which was preluded by the digitalization & release on streaming platforms of their whole catalogue, the primary place I had been listening to the actual music of TOOL had been YouTube. Of course, these were all user posted videos, so the imagery or visuals used on any given one had been picked by the user that had posted it. As I mentioned before, when I found this path & started following this white rabbit or sorts down its proverbial hole, albeit more literal than one would expect; I was feeling a deeper instant connection to the "Parabol/a" piece of music. My YouTube search for this yielded a top result, which used Alex Grey's work of visionary art entitled "Net of Being", in which what seems to be an endless realm of Godhead Fountain Conscious Beings, faces covered in eyes of full awareness, are all interconnected by the Cosmos, as galaxies can be seen in all the intermediate spaces above the faces, within the endless fountain as well as down below. As above, so below.
Just this still work of art seemed to speak to my soul; to resonate with my being. I seemed to yearn to be with this type of presence, to experience existence the way they do. But i did my best to separate my mind from that as an idea, as to not connect it with what I was actually doing & setting some hopes of encountering these beings; which in turn would set me up for disappointment if this didn’t occur. From what I can recall of the experience through the lullaby version of “Parabol”, it was a more general blast off than it became. It was endless realms of impossible geometry, profound symmetry, the matrix of creation. Then, the break between the 2 videos came. And even though my spotter was prepared for this, it was still a very sudden switch into the add as soon as “Parabol” concluded. Just as I was feeling myself being pulled into the beyond, I was pulled back down to Earth. We shared a giggle in a “figures…” type of manner as she skipped the “Parabola”’s lullaby version. When this happened, it gave me no warning or preparation time, the continuation of the work of music sucked me right back out into the Cosmos where the unexpected ad had pulled me from; & my journey continued.
It was a very cosmic adventure, full of the knowledge of other solar systems & life on different planets across the Cosmos. I was timeless for sure. At one point, this came to am abrupt halt & in a flash there I was, amongst the beings who are being depicted in “Net of Being”. Alex Grey does an awesome job in his artwork with these beings, but they are even more beautiful & intense than anyone could ever fully recreate. They, or It, communicated with me in a psychic manner. I was first welcomed & shown appreciation for my reverence. Then I was given a simple set of psychic instructions: “See as we see; Be as we are: Do as we do”, at which point I was thrust into being one of them. I could see as they saw, which was like seeing all of the Cosmos all at once, time not being a factor. I felt that I was being as they were, & realized this meant that to do as they do meant to create. So i began creating. In what seemed like a sphere in front of my center of awareness, I spun together a galaxy, made planets evolve to have life, progressed time until the stars that allowed that life burnt out, and the galaxy went dark. Then I repeated this process in a whole new way. Middle way through my third galaxy, I felt myself being pulled away from it all. As my consciousness begged to stay, I was psychically soothed and told that it was time for me to go. Then my being was willed by the thought of “NOW, RETURN” right back into my body. I came up from the arm of the couch, looked around, then plunged back into the arm of the couch, where it seemed they would be. Sure enough, I could see them getting further away by the second, & received the thought “Goodbye, for now.” I came up from the couch again. After gathering myself, I spoke with my partner & informed her I was definitely going to explore these connections further.
Following Session That Paired Molecule With TOOL’s “Lateralus”
(July 2019)
It wasn’t very long after that before I was ready to further said exploration, & have a session to the actual song “Lateralus”. If you have read the “Egg of Life” report prior to this, then the highlights of the following will be very familiar. My whole plan was to summarize this particular session in that report while giving an account of it in full detail in this paper, but a lot of the details are wrapped up in what it opened up inside of me & what mental expansion followed.
Now I had no idea at all what to expect, this being the first actual song being brought into the arena. I did suspect that the video I would be using would have its influence on the experience as well. It was somewhat of an unofficial music video for “Lateralus” that was visually stunning, created by an artist or group called SENTIENTMIND. It has since been removed from YouTube, but I managed to find it on a different site & download it to have for posterity. Sparing the tedious details of getting things off the ground, I inhaled my first hit. During the exhalation of this draw, I could feel all of the elements present: the molecule, the visuals, & the music, pulling me into orbit quickly. By the time I exhaled the second hit, I had left the building just as the lyrics began. (Which happens to be at 1.618 minutes into the song; Golden Mean applied).
Everything was in perfect harmony & everything flowed just as it should. This song seems to embody the infinite & hold within it a reminder of the limitless potential of human beings, our mind, & our spirit. I can’t describe it much more than saying it was a profound, beautiful, and exciting experience; if you really want to understand, smoke to this song. I fully understood that there is always infinite balance in the All That Is, & that my will & desire for the next experience influences what is possible & what will be. The defining moment during the experience that I consciously knew that I had barked up the right tree (no pun intended) was when I landed back into my body. I immediately stood up & began singing the words a couple seconds later to the part of the song that was arriving at that moment, which was, “With my feet upon the ground, I lose myself between the sound...” & so on. It was as though the song really was singing about exactly what I was doing & experiencing from allowing the molecule & this work of music to meet within me being. I wandered around my house, reaching for all the random and all that I could perceive in my home for the remainder of the song, which had never made so much sense until that moment. I was bumfuzzled as I gazed at our chakra meditation tapestry and repeatedly whispered, “whatever will bewilder me; whatever will bewilder me… I’m reaching up and reaching out; reaching for the random. For whatever will bewilder me...” and I just cycled through those words as I contemplated what that truly meant.
I was engaged in a lot of deep thought for awhile afterward that was only disrupted by the reciting of this lyric or that lyric from the song; which were followed by deep understanding & a nodding of my head that I may be onto something. With each nod, I was further confirming my quantum path, which has led me to not only profound spiritual growth, but to develop & recognize all of these connections, self-experiment with them & make comprehensive logs of all of it in hopes that others may benefit from what I am piecing together while here on Earth.
Conclusion (or Preface)
Needless to say this was only the beginning of what would become a project, growth & process that would take years to complete. What came next was an egg full of life, it just needed some help to properly hatch.
