Robert Priddy's LSD Trip Beyond The Mind

Robert Priddy: The Anti-Sai-Baba Extremist

UPDATE: Robert Priddy Attempting To Remove His Past Biographical Data From The Internet: Robert C. Priddy created his own Wikipedia page in which he publicly solicited himself as a notable person in relation to Philosophy and his former Indian Guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Robert C. Priddy released his biographical data on a personal website hosted by a free, online hosting company in Norway (home.no.net/anir/Nos/). On this free web-hosting domain, Robert Priddy personally disclosed biographical data that included stories of his experimentation with LSD, cannabis and other drugs as well as information about his early years. Robert Priddy deleted many of these public domain webpages after he defected from the Sai Movement (Ref). Although Robert C. Priddy is now attempting to remove his relevant, unsavory, public and self-disclosed biographical data from the internet, he (as well as his Anti-Sai associates) duplicated complete text content from Pro-Sai websites (including RadioSai) and added commentaries to them. When the same is done to him, however, he cries “copyright infringement” although the biographical material in question was released by him into the public domain as self-disclosure.

Ref: home.no.net/anir/Nos/trip.htm
TRUTH, BEING AND BLISS
AN AMAZING PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE DESCRIBED By Robert C. Priddy - British author & ret'd researcher and teacher in philosophy and sociology, University of Oslo, Norway.

In wishing to write mostly from direct experience rather than theory or guesswork I try here to give as truthful an account as I can of what befell me in 1963. In the intervening 25 years I have continually been returning to that experience as as source of inspiration and in the hope that the fullest possible light may be shed on it for me. Decidedly the most intense experience of my life hitherto, it came without warning and without preparation on my part. Its outward circumstances and all the attendant questions it raises can and should I feel here be held quite distinct from its inner reality, which was above all of the nature of a genuine spiritual revelation for me. Therefore I describe the experience itself, not its cause or the reasons which led me into the situation through which it came about, which are summarised elsewhere.

Is it possible to experience an effective 'crossing out' of virtually all ego only for a temporary period? My experience forces me to conclude that yes, this is possible and it does not always occur from willing it or even purposefully working for it. Who can know why it is that one person who has led an exemplary life is not granted any truly deep transcendental experiences, while another who has not excelled is transported to the inner realm of unspeakably joyous bliss, awareness and amazing truth?

It was a brilliant morning in February, as if the light of the sun from the frozen crystal snow was penetrating everywhere. The first ominous sign of what was to come was great mental agitation that grew more and more intense. It was as if I were being forced to observe the normally restless or over-active condition of my mind while I was at the same time somehow and most frighteningly dissociated from myself. I appeared to myself from without, as it were, often in the light of unpleasant perspectives. My self-images were seen to be illusions, not only my cherished identity as I fondly imagined it to be, but also the most basic of body-feelings and identifications.

At one point in the process that was upon me, I even 'saw' my wrist break and the bones stick through my flesh. Many other unnameable sensations 'came back' to me from before anything my memory clearly knew. My mind became uncontrollable, rushing hither and thither with sickening speed into a vortex of thoughts. It was the disintegration of myself, while 'I' was nonetheless observing it all from within. If the state known as schizophrenia was like this then I really pitied the poor sufferers. "God help them!", I said aloud, doubtless really in the desire that He should also help me.

My mind was speeded, torn, 'deranged' and seemed to be left behind me and lost. Only then was I aware of it as if it were the cast-off clothing of my true being. The 'rabbit-runs' of the mind, the regular routes it had worn for itself through the field of experience which criss-crossed one another, yet which also left huge tracts of reality untrammeled and unnoticed. As I was being driven 'out of' my mind thus, I identified with it very strongly. It was mine, I thought it was 'me' and that I would be destroyed along with it. That was what was so threatening about this destruction of the ego, I did not realise that consciousness of the I remains nonetheless. It was fearful, but the speeding events mercifully at least gave me no time to dwell on this fear. How could I know that nothing essential would really be changed when everything was changing ultimately?

That abnormal or supernormal condition of duality, perhaps known as 'split-mindedness', was like being at once both the body-mind entity and merely the totally unattached witness of it (in other words, being a neutral observer of myself as an incarnated ego-self in a material environment) may well be what many schizophrenics experience with intensity. Looked at in another context, however, it is remarkably like the distinction in Indian philosophy or yoga between the Atma and the jiva. The Atma is a bodiless, timeless, unmoved witness of all events. The jiva is the incarnated and individual ego or personal self.

My own mind, my inner world, whirled me violently about... outwards then inwards, up then down. Brief visions passed through me with increasing velocity, each one grasping at me until I passed through them into the next... like a mirror gazer who falls into the void behind the reflection. Inner visions grew and fragmented, tearing me apart as they went. The mind, which seemed less and less to be mine - shattered into pieces again and again... like a chaos of broken mental staircases. It was impossible to gauge how long this took...

A plenitude of meanings flooded me, but there was no use in trying to comprehend any, for each time a new other world slipped out of my being, I found myself subtly altered, my perspective changing with this. My direction was uncertain and the ground was as if shifting beneath me, a chasm over which I was suspended. Impenetrable questions and possible answers seemed to slide beyond me into mental blind spots... though I also sensed that they might be storing up in some internal forum beyond the ring of awareness.

Eventually, the shattered shards of mind - of myself as I had imagined myself to be - were allowed to settle and coalesce without my involvement. I was not any of that, and I was carried on a wave of very welcome restfulness after the overwhelming rush of so incomprehensibly much. No map could ever chart the route I had traversed, nor was one needed any longer.

During that agony of mental disintegration, it was still very uncomfortable to be the witnessing 'I', which made me feel so alien to my 'normal' self. It was the sheer impossibility of remaining my normal self, the intolerability of it, that forced me out of myself. It was a genuine case of 'going out of my mind', but surprisingly enough also a 'coming to myself' in that I grew more familiar with that overall witness within me. In fact, that selfless 'I' eventually arose from the wreckage of my ego, like a phoenix from the flames, and became my identity. There was a warm, completely unruffled loving sensation that was I. The only special significance I could find in myself was my relative insignificance: that every one of billions of individuals are significant.

I was at first totally disoriented as to time, for hours of living seemed to have been compressed into minutes even. By the clock it could only have been about one or two hours before I at long last began to feel the enormous relief of finding the true core of my being. It was located, oddly enough, centrally in the chest and felt warm and completely open, a loving awareness that was free-floating and unruffled by anything. It was like being a new-born child, lighter than a ball of fluff flowing trustfully along on whatever stream of events arose and offering no resistance to anything.

What remained of me, then, when all the intricately-layered convolutions of my mind had been torn off was an indescribable vibrant and yet inexcitable joy. Where my mind had felt to be bursting, it had dissolved to allow the plenitude of infinity itself to overflow into me where I witnessed and embraced it For this was more real, more poignantly clear and conscious than anything previously seen, known or felt by me.

After I had left behind the mind, I still had 'identity', but it was identification with the consciousness that in some way pervaded entirely everything there is. I could review the 'old' identity, my name and status, with much irony as a delusive joke, a mirage that the mind made to hide awareness from itself. In trying to hold onto such penetrating insights as these, however, I was only causing the mind again to fixate the real and thus make for the same illusion all over again, if yet in a fresh way.

I was aware of my 'normal' surroundings whenever I looked or listened and I could converse with others, yet everything had the mark of eternal being in some form of intuition that I can neither explain nor recapture properly. What previously was being wide awake now seemed as uncertain as a dream had then seemed. The marvel of being welled up as intense but peaceful bliss. The body was an exquisite instrument of feelings, the imagination was unbounded awareness able to penetrate wherever it chose. There were no thoughts as such, nothing was separate from the unity of existence!

An acquaintance who was present asked me if I realised what I was saying when I spoke of infinity. Indeed, it was not a mere idea of it but the reality itself I was intuiting. By what means I do not know, yet I could directly perceive from his manner of talk and being that he possessed only an idea of infinity. For him to have the experience itself, I 'saw' in some indisputable intuition, he must somehow cross the deep internal gulf between his mind and the awareness that filled everything and of which I was then an integral part. That it could be crossed by long and sustained efforts was also evident to me, even though I had been forced across it in a brief period, for I had not attained it myself. Some force beyond my understanding was responsible, I knew.

Notwithstanding the transparent clarity of everything, nothing lost its value or entrancing meaningfulness, for all things still remained a great and inexhaustible mystery. Deep significance and sacredness were everywhere, constantly present in whatever I chose to regard. Breathing and moving in this element of all-pervading truth I realised that the truth simply is, it is not a means to anything else, has no special application or use. It is beyond all worldly concerns and yet it is also subtly in them. A seemingly-endless series of mental transcendences had taken place in emptying my mind, removing its screens and penetrating its self-delusive conjuring tricks before all could flow into and through me unhindered.

I did not properly understand how the mind became stilled so perfectly, in which way 'I' had entered such serene inner silence to allow for the timeless view calmly to arise and flow by. I was aware of the floating absence of bodily weight, but I could focus on the body above which 'I' had risen. To my great fascination I saw it was like a rhythm of perfected movements, an illumined and most intricate dance of itself, whatever 'it' did. As never before I felt the miraculousness of our bodies; highly-attuned and coordinated even the tiniest movements could be even without our offering it a thought! That there was such a higher selfless awareness constantly directing and coordinating its every function was certain.

Not only was all this evident to me, but also to my friend Eric Steadman, with whom I shared in perfect unspoken telepathic awareness from the start of the blissful period. We were capable of silent communication surpassing any other I had shared in. If we chose to say anything it was just gratuitous, or for other persons' benefit, for it was quite unnecessary for us. Nothing we could say could enhance the unity of mind we already shared. We could jokingly pretend not to hear or understand each other, knowing full well that neither of us could or would conceal anything at all, so natural and total was the sense of trust that had overwhelmed us.

Nothing seemed to matter, in the sense that there was no sense of self or distinction between myself and anyone or anything else that I had to defend or support. The many cares of ordinary existence were in complete abeyance, replaced by a carefree - or freely caring - interest in whatever the situation called for. My complete presence in the present, calm and very much myself, allowed me to share completely in any event that arose, were it a friend's comment or pure silence. I felt that this was how I had been in early childhood. Eric and I could relate as freely and without preconceptions as children at their innocent play, both to each other and to anyone else who came by. Once the famous words of Jesus came to mind: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein."

While I had been emerging from the confines of my limited mind I had noticed that the mind was itself a web of ingrained habits of thought and feeling, of response patterns that could be both conscious and subconscious. These were supported by my will, which was closely allied to the mental status quo. The mind was overcome and its routines were 'turned off', opening it to a freedom and clarity of vision that felt most exhilerating. Everything was far clearer than any clarity I had imagined possible. There was no mystery about the translucent joy of Consciousness I was steeped in. Yet, when the wonder of creation became most intense, I was prompted to seek its origin. Where did this come from? I 'looked up', not physically but inwardly and there I sensed something like a silent choir of celestial promises... but there was a veil, like a blinding light into which, or beyond which, I could not see.

"How on earth can we manage to remember all this, Eric?" I said. "It doesn't matter" was his reply. This struck me as being just the very thing we needed to remember; it was the perfect expression of the attitude that the mind must adopt to everything. Equanimity or serenity, was the message. As I began to analyse this thought I got lost in the profundity it opened up to my inner gaze. I forgot his words in a moment.
"What was that you said just now again?"
"It doesn't matter", said Eric, making me laugh heartily.
"That's it!", I went on: "We must write that down!"
"But it doesn't matter," he reminded me.
Later we agreed that in one sense nothing can ever matter once the cosmic vision can behold things but that some things matter very much before one can establish that vision. Above all, all of creation without exception is precious.

This episode was preserved on a tape recorder that I had switched on. Afterwards, when listening back, I heard myself say: "If one knows absolute truth, there is absolutely nothing one can do with it." Reflecting on what then lay behind those words I interpret them to mean that the ultimate purpose of each thing, object, event, act and so on is its gratuitous being, its intrinsic worth, but not any finite, human purpose we may attach to it. The real meaning of anything is thus not actually expressible, being above and beyond what importance and meanings we find or create in our everyday dealings with it. Perhaps the closest our languages can come to it is when we speak of the divine, of God's love and the love for God. I would not now say that I found The Truth, but that instead it came to me. Once known, it can never be entirely forgotten or distorted.

FURTHER INTERPRETATION OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE
The great mystic of Hellenic times, Plotinus, who never wrote down his teachings, once tried to convey to the writer Porphry the idea of the One. It is beyond the realm of divisive thought and thus its essence cannot be expressed by words, which are also divisive. If one says that the One is light, then one excludes the shade, if one says it is both light and shade, then there are endless other aspects that are not included, and so on. Though I had previously read of mystical consciousness in books on Zen Buddhism and similar literature, they had provided me with no real intimation whatever of the actual experience. I could only recognise phenomena that the books had been referring to after the event.

The best that words can do is to lead one to the limits of one's own understanding and point from there towards the fathomless Beyond. At the silent apex of all this I literally glimpsed how the mind, my own mind, created the very illusion of things, of the perceived world and its artificial limits. I could not analyse this vision, only peer briefly into its mystery before the mind asserted its self-questionings. It appeared, however, that everything one could perceive, examine or desire was simply the product of mental activity. Each idea or feeling was a figment floating by on the river of time, a phenomenon illusively appearing to be as such and to be more real than the ceaseless generator itself.

Some persons may not need any deep spiritual experiences to make them aware of the ultimate goal. Their characters or souls may be so close to the last step that they need nothing to convince them of the path and the long, steady effort required. Others, among whom I must reckon myself whether I like it or not, must be shown so as to believe. I was one of those who needed the inspiration of a preliminary experience of the divine so as to recognise that there truly is a possibility of becoming illumined and penetrating beyond space and time.

The effects of mystical states on the individual's relationship to the body hold out great hope and incentive to the suffering. The evidence we have from the reports of a huge variety of persons in history and from the most diverse cultures who have used an amazing varieties of methods and disciplines to achieve what we recognise as super-normal consciousness gives us a far sounder basis than any physical science can ever hope to provide to understand the body-mind relationship. Whether or not these experiences involve direct awareness of the Atma is a matter beyond the range of mere discussion but they are almost invariably bound up with some form of independence of the physical body.

This was a real revelation to me during that first 'out-of-body experience'. Though I had fasted I was not in the least hungry. When it was suggested that I needed food and was offered some cereal, I could not summon any appetite. To please my host I tasted a tiny piece, no larger than a rice corn. It was overpoweringly strong-tasting and felt as if it filled my mouth and was crushing me. I couldn't even swallow it. I later read that this total lack of desire for food - even revulsion - was experienced for periods of up to a month or more by great mystics during the higher forms of samadhi, such as the case of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. It also relates to the mystical significance of fasting for very long periods, as in some Indian yogic practises.

Everything to do with the body seemed entirely irrelevant compared to the gloriousness of the incorporeal realm about me. It appeared that, while aware of this, no bodily pains or sufferings could ever penetrate to me; I could have tolerated them with complete dispassion. Though I did not put this to the test then and there, I have since come across many cases of exceptional individuals who can withstand what must be extreme pain. It is well known how fakirs and shamans can torture the body without showing any sign of suffering.

The return from that illumination was intensely saddening and painful in the extreme, for it was the loss of the closest I had ever come to absolute Realisation. As if sinking down into the clouds of unknowing that characterise the normal operations of the sane and wayward mind, I also felt that this world was familiar to me and there was some security in it. The security was nothing compared to the total lack of any need for security in the intensity of blissful marvel and loving truth I had been immersed in, yet it was where I had to be, the place from where I had to begin the journey I now knew lay before every soul. Where that journey must lead I could not assert once and for all, for the reality at the end of the rainbow is so overwhelmingly many dimensioned and indescribable that I only had the general idea of the destination. But though I was uncertain as to which manner of travel was effective, I at least knew the right general direction.

...may well be what many schizophrenics experience with intensity...I even 'saw' my wrist break and the bones stick through my flesh. Many other unnameable sensations 'came back' to me from before anything my memory clearly knew. My mind became uncontrollable, rushing hither and thither with sickening speed into a vortex of thoughts...My mind was speeded, torn, 'deranged' and seemed to be left behind me and lost...Inner visions grew and fragmented, tearing me apart as they went. The mind, which seemed less and less to be mine - shattered into pieces again and again... like a chaos of broken mental staircases...Eric Steadman, with whom I shared in perfect unspoken telepathic awareness from the start of the blissful period. We were capable of silent communication surpassing any other I had shared in...To please my host I tasted a tiny piece, no larger than a rice corn. It was overpoweringly strong-tasting and felt as if it filled my mouth and was crushing me. I couldn't even swallow it..."

These statements give me the creeps. This is the same guy who is attempting to "expose" Sathya Sai Baba. Enough said.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT LSD:

The most common dangers of LSD result from bad trips, including terrifying thoughts and feelings, despair, fear of losing control, and fear of death. These problems are especially common and severe in people with underlying mental problems like severe depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disease.

Hallucinogens can cause extreme, long-lasting adverse neuropsychiatric effects, like flashbacks (post-hallucination perceptual disorders), relatively long-lasting psychoses, severe depression or shizophrenia-like syndromes, especially in heavy or long-term users or in people with an underlying mental illness. (Reference)

The referenced and attributed material on these webpages is duplicated in full under the premise of ‘fair use’ in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any such (and all) material on this webpage is distributed without profit and for research and reference purposes only.

- Robert Priddy's Copyright Blathering
- Robert Priddy’s “The Psychedelic Experience” (or View Archive)
- Robert Priddy’s “Truth, Being And Bliss” (or View Archive)
- Robert Priddy’s “A Vision Of Cosmic Energy” (or View Archive)