and
abstract the trees turned into gigantic dark plastic numerals leaning against each
other. Part of his mind was excitedly saying ‘Oh wow !!! I’m having a real
hallucination!!!’, and the rest of it was terrified. This is when he went in, down to
the ground, the grass and earth a stream of ticker-tape numbers, the sky a rage of
equations streaming into nothingness at the edges he went right in, to try and
surrender to the experience. The attempt made it worse; the more he tried to give in, the
more frenzied the hallucinations got. It was a hell of half-finished thoughts rotating at
a terrible frictionless speed, an inner scream of panic. Suddenly, after an eternity of
spiritual terror, someone rescued him: a voice came into his head, saying: ‘You
cannot allow this to continue’. Thatwas all it said. Instantaneously, he stopped it,
just like that. The world held its breath, and he looked around. The middle of his chest
was swelling with rich, sexy golden light, and it spilled over, all around him. He wanted
to hug all his friends, could communicate telepathically with people, could understand
everything about what it mean to be alive and human. Alex was in total bliss, for the
first time. He knew what it meant to feel a living, sensuous part of everything,
everything working out perfectly that enchanted day. And more than anything, he learned
the primacy of his individual will; he learned that he was responsible for how he felt,
and how his life unfolded. In short, at that moment he entered the Left Hand Path of
magick.

However, this gnosis faded; the rest