Terminal. What other journey, you might ask, begins at the end?

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...

It is too close, too far-out, its sacred transmissions too muddled with the scandalous grit of its concrete historical unfoldment

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...

But what if the medium is the message?

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...

There is a difference between psychedelic experiences and psychedelic people

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...

“Messages from beyond” are forms of information, and information is a trickster

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...