This is an archive version of 'Psychedelic Information Theory' Alpha chapters. The final version of this text can be found at:

psychedelic-information-theory.com

Prologue : Psychedelic Information Theory

It is after midnight and I'm sliding deep into a heady cocktail of [CENSORED] and [DELETED]. It is not the first time I have tried this combination, and though I am expecting it, the rapid obliteration of self, time, and space still leaves me reeling with disbelief. Breathe, I remind myself. Lungs keep breathing, heart keep beating... All else has been let go. All else has been lifted from my body in a swift, drooling unravelling of all that once was James Kent.

I must be dead, but I am still thinking, I am still breathing. My heart is still beating...

With my body gone, my consciousness lifts and swirls into a vast expanding void of dark shifting landscapes. My mind opens up like a white flame in the darkness, illuminating Gnostic pools of ancient wisdom, casting shadows across the fundamental elements of all energy and existence. It is the flickering quantum flow of creation made manifest before my eyes, the universe unfolding in stark clarity before me. All knowledge of time and place preceding this eternal celestial viewpoint is gone, I am born anew, nameless and formless within the expanse of the great void.

And all is quiet, except for a ringing tone, creeping ever upward into a high pitched whine. It gets louder and louder, and just when I think I can take no more it goes ever higher, pulling me into the inevitable piercing breakthrough. I feel it about to give, screaming so high up in the range I can't even hear it anymore but I can still feel it coming, coming, winding up inside of me... Deep breath, and...

SNAP!

Something shatters and I squirt sideways through reality, slurping up and to the right, rolling ninety degrees in space, stretching thin across the expanse like a rubber band. Just as quickly I snap to the other end, and now I am sitting still and serene in a celestial temple, looking down upon the shattered fragments of creation. In a matter of seconds the dance begins, swirling pockets of energy collide, vomiting fountains of hot plasma into the void. There is an epic struggle between polarities, each seeking to find balance in the ensuing electromagnetic maelstrom. I am caught like a rubber ball between the two, bouncing back and forth so quickly that an infinite spectrum of realities erupts from the blur in the middle. I jot it all down, make mental notes, file them in the endless tiny holes which line the walls and ceilings of my temple like honeycombs. I watch as the hot gases lump together and form dense pockets, erupting one by one into swirling galaxies of stars. The stars grow and die, new stars are born, and within this galactic dance life begins.

A star spews out lumps of hot debris which cool into orbs of liquid metal, each tiny asteroid and proto-planet spinning in harmony with the mother sun, shaped by its gravitational field, ringing with its own unique voice, kissed by the pattern of energy emanating from the explosive fury at the center. Over eons the liquid orbs cool and molecular lattices crystallize, each of which rings with the resonant energy from the mother star.

Many more eons pass, the crystals cool and become more complex. And when it is finally cool enough for water vapor to form, steam and moisture seep into the cracks of everything, stripping and solving it all down to the nitty-gritty. And in these tiny little water-worn fragments of mud — the salts and debris of the molten dross puked out of an exploding star eons ago — life begins. Water, the primordial solvent, works its alchemical magic on the crystallized minerals covering the surface. The crude elements are worn away, dissolved and remixed in the ultraviolet lab. As salts and gases interact, complex structures grow. Once a pattern is stabilized it begins to reproduce itself, and then again. The intricate dance of molecular pattern reproduction sets the pace of evolution, and the long march towards sentience begins.

I see the dance unfold, and watch how the unbroken chain of life recedes back through time from this moment the early days when the nucleotides collided, embraced, and experimented with new bonds, throwing themselves furiously at each other like blind Tetris bricks, trying all kinds of new configurations, trading energy where they could, sharing energy when they were forced to, but always passing information up and down the links and chinks in the chain. Natural affinities to the carbon molecule are formed, long chains of molecules successfully reproduce themselves, and slowly life begins. Along the way the weak chains fall apart, but the strong survive and reproduce, inventing and stealing new features here and there along the way, stumbling into happy accidents and coming out the other side stronger and more complex. From the primal beds of salt and water life continues ever upward, towards the light, towards our mother sun, eager to get up higher, go faster, and for no better reason than to find a good place to look down on what's going on around us. Along the way we grow elaborate limbs to propel us forward, and evolve complex organs to help us identify, catch, eat, and digest the food that allows us to thrive. The journey of untold trillions and trillions of lives intersect out of the fertile mix, conflicts arise, dominance and order is established. The strong eat, the weak get eaten. The strong get old, die, and in turn get eaten by the weak.

And the cycle repeats, but always with a new twist in the chain.

We can't all make it to the end of the road, but we are all driven to succeed anyway. The feeding frenzy begins, the struggle intensifies. When things get crowded clever organisms dig in, find their niche and thrive, others dominate for millennia and then vanish almost overnight with barely a trace. And on it goes, through the ages, species after species, finally coming to mammals, primates, hominids, humans...

And speaking of humans...

I'm walking along some ancient dirt road. I'm in a body, but it's not my body, It's someone else's body, someone with long facial hair. Itchy facial hair, with lice(?). I come upon a large crowd of people huddled together trying to get a glimpse of something on a hill. The sun is bright as it sets to the West and I lift my hand to see through the blinding rays, but there upon a small rise a man hangs nailed to a cross. I hear nervous nattering among the crowd and am dimly aware that something important is going on and I need to move forward to get a closer look. I desperately need to see the face of the man on the cross, but the sun is too bright, he is just a limp silhouette and will not look up. The crowd will not let me pass.

As frustration overwhelms me things stop. I realize I am in a play or something, this is some kind of set-up. I ascend into the air and can now see the crucifixion scene from above. The drama continues to unfold even though I know it is fake. It goes on and it all seems so real. I grapple to come to terms with what it means. Obviously I am God, and I produced the story of the crucifixion like a living play within the human world, but why? As a means to amuse myself? To teach these humans a lesson? Okay, I think it over again. I am God, I want to teach humans a lesson, so I devise this little morality play. I, God, play Jesus, the "Son of God" and am the star of this play. I set up a quaint little virgin birth with a saintly mom, a humble life for myself, and then get to the good part where I start preaching love to the masses and whipping the money-lenders at the temple. Then I get myself flayed and stuck on a cross for heresy just so I can watch it from the crowd and learn something about humans, to teach them something ugly and petty about themselves, about their true nature...

But I forgive them, because that's what I do. And I made them do it, so it was my own fault anyway.

But as I hover in the sky I wonder if they'll ever get it, those humans. They just keep hacking away at each other, but God (I) love 'em for being so passionate and driven! I sit on my celestial throne like an alien, hovering over the Earth, witnessing the crucifixion, watching wave after wave of religious warfare bringing ruin to cities and temples, destroying life and beauty, marring the perfect balance of the Earth, and I try to make sense of it all, to put all the pieces together, to see the whole tapestry unfolding...

And when I step back to look at the larger tapestry I realize that I have seen it all before. No, I have lived it all before, over and over again. I am not only a participant in this play, I am also the keeper of some ancient secret, the guardian of an extremely important piece of galactic prophecy. Parts of James Kent are filtering back into the cosmic picture now. I am not a witness, I am not an alien god, I am human, woven into the mix, unless I am something more than human, like possibly an alien hybrid. Yes, an alien hybrid, a clone spliced with DNA taken directly from the Blood of Christ on the day of the Crucifixion. Yes! That's it, that's why I was there that day! I am both the producer and product of a clandestine experiment that has spanned two thousand years, the result of a genetically encoded plan to breed a new messiah and bring about the second coming. And now I am here, finally ready to awaken!

But the scenario widens. I am not alone. There are others like me, government experiments, alien experiments, all unwitting pawns in the same elaborate conspiracy for control of the planet, to lead the way when Judgment Day is upon us...

I've finally cracked the big secret! I knew there was something weird going on around here!

I control my elation and ponder it some more. What does it mean? What is judgment day? When is it coming? Is it an alien invasion? Is Revelations true? Are some people going to be sucked up before the invasion begins. Is that what's happening to me now? Am I about to witness a second coming, and full-on Armageddon as well? If so, what am I supposed to be doing when it's all going down? Am I a prophet? Am I the Messiah? No. I shake my head. I don't want to be the Messiah. Someone else can be the messiah.

But wait a minute...

I mull it over and realize that this is starting to sound like a plot from The X-Files. Was the The X-Files real? Things are starting to overlap and get weird again, where does the vision end and my life begin? The logic train I've fallen into has me at loose ends, nothing left to grasp at, but for some reason I feel totally scared out of my wits, like I've stumbled onto something so horribly big and true that my mind cannot accept it. It's fear, mortal fear. I tell myself it's not true, but then why do I feel so vulnerable, like somebody may be coming up the walk to switch me off right now. I feel like I know too much. I've seen the big picture and it's TOO big. I don't buy it. It's too weird, too much responsibility, I don't want it to be true, but somehow I just feel it, I can't deny it: I'm the Alien Hybrid Messiah.

I decide to stop fighting the notion and just accept it. I take a deep breath and let the truth sink in, finally, for the first time in my life, I know who I am. It's been about forty minutes since I started this experiment and the drugs are beginning to wear off. The [DELETED] flash is long gone, but I'm still reeling from the [CENSORED], lost in a realm of infinite possibilities. But I'm firmly back in my body now and not sure what to believe. Synchronicities are lighting up my head like mad, crazy things are actually starting to make sense. At least I'm not babbling, or am I babbling? I can't tell.

But I am finally able to stand and pace around a bit, trying to decide what to do. If I'm the Alien Hybrid Messiah then shouldn't I call someone or something? Should I send out an e-mail? But to whom? Who can I trust? It seems like such a big thing to tell the world, being the Alien Hybrid Messiah and all, but what else should I be doing? What is the Alien Hybrid Messiah supposed to do when he finds out he's the Alien Hybrid Messiah? Should I put an ad in the paper? Should I wait for a sign? Should I do more drugs?

I decide the best answer right now is not to do more drugs. I decide instead to sit quietly and breathe until an appropriate response comes to me, or until I get hungry, or until I get tired of sitting there, whichever comes first. I sit quietly for a few minutes, processing and trying to retain the events of the last hour. I let it all drift away and listen to sounds of city traffic around me. The drugs have almost completely faded away. My body feels light, energized, and limber. I feel like I've seen more than I can process right now, but also as if a great burden has been lifted.

I breathe some more and luxuriate in feeling calm, at peace, sated, tired. The Alien Hybrid Messiah has had a long day and a good mental workout and now feels sleepy. He does not care if Armageddon is coming tonight. It is late and the Alien Hybrid Messiah has to get up early. In fact, upon further reflection I've decided the job title does not suite me. It is obviously too much work. Let somebody else do it. The Alien Hybrid Messiah has left the building. All that remains is James Kent, alone, tired, and ready for sleep.

As I brush my teeth and stare at myself in the mirror, I can't help but chuckle and shake my head at the strangeness of it all. The Alien Hybrid Messiah, that's a good one. I'll have to remember that one. For a few minutes it felt so real, but now, a few minutes later it just seems silly and absurd, even if it is true. Who cares? Just another crazy drug dream desperate for a decent third act, wouldn't even make a good screenplay. I chuckle again as I think of all the psychedelic gurus who get so tediously wrapped up in their own tripped-out delusions and messiah complexes. Maybe they were doing the wrong drugs. But then again, they weren't the Alien Hybrid Messiah, now were they?

Alien Hybrid Messiah...

Where the hell does this stuff come from?

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