I saw Utopia. It was one of those ineffable mystical experiences, but I'm going to try to tell you about it anyway! If you've ever experienced these spontaneous (not chemical) altered states of consciousness, then you understand (if not, then you can get an idea from Jodi Foster's character in the movie, Contact). I don't know if it is possible for a community of kindred spirits to live harmoniously together where love is not tainted with ownership, jealousy, want or need at least some of the time. Fear and insecurity can spoil anything. But we humans are such crazy, silly creatures, anything is possible, both good and bad. So here is what I saw:
It happened in 1968, but it seems like yesterday. I was watching a piano performance of Satie's "Trois Gymnopedie" on TV, and the pianist then shared his thoughts with the audience. The station signed off the air, and the TV became a screen of random dots and white noise. I guess this hypnotized me, and the beautiful music and words from the pianist had set the stage for what happened next. Also, I had just read Maugham's "The Razor's Edge." I wasn't asleep. In fact, the experience was more vivid than real life.
I don't know how long it lasted, but I know it started almost immediately. I was sad when the experience began to fade -- it was like losing a lover. The following is a transcript of a spoken attempt I made to describe the experience to some friends a few years ago.
I lost my sense of time, and I could see all things simultaneously. I could see past, present and future at the same time. I knew where I was, and yet I was more than there and then, I was everywhere and everywhen. All events were simultaneous. And there was a presence, a sentient presence that was kind of . . . I don't know, it's just completely beyond words.
Anyway, there was this presence that said, more or less, "look at this." So I saw, and it didn't matter if my eyes were open or closed. I saw a point, a place where "evolution" or time had brought everything. It was where homo-sapiens -- that's what we call ourselves, Cro-Magnon man or whatever -- no longer existed, but was just something way back in the chain.
The place was like a complex city . . . a myriad of individual people who existed completely, totally connected to each other -- not cut off in any way -- distinct and separate, but totally part of each and every other sentience. It was a social structure where nothing ever fought anything else because everyone knew what everyone else was doing. There was no conflict. Everybody knew where the flow was, which was on more levels and dimensions than we normally consider, by the way. All information was available to anybody at any time. Nobody ever lied or felt there was anything to gain by lying [figure that one out!].
So, there could be this incredible concentration of intelligences in a very tight space, and some pretty big projects could get done. And there was no discord, but there was individual activity. I could see the facets of the structure and the whole at the same time. And I could see when it was occurring in, you might say, logarithmic scale or some other non-linear yardstick, but not time as we perceive it here.
The timescape was so very clear in that special state where I was, and yet it does not translate into our normal concept of days and years. It was a way of knowing I had never experienced before. You know how you can get a better view from a higher vantage point? Well, the view I had was from all vantage points at once, inside, outside, before, after, and something more. It's the "more" that really gets lost in the translation. There were some things I saw that I understood then, but I simply do not have the referents for now.
The special ability everyone shared in this society is/was total and perfect communication. They could simultaneously exist on a separate physical level and a super-connected communal level. On the higher level, which you might call a super-consciousness, communication was direct and without symbols. It was perfectly natural and as much a part of their life as eye-sight is to us. And yet, somehow, I think we could be there now, too, but we resist out of fear. Maybe we are like little children who, having just learned to swim, are afraid of jumping into a lake for the first time. We can't see the bottom!
So I can't say that this community of limitless intimacy exists 30,000 years from now, because it really exists now. I mean, I was there! And it's nice to know that it's there, the future-now, because it gives me a real sense of purpose in that I know that I'm this step in evolution (or God's plan, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter). I'm right here and because I'm right here, these meta-people are going to be here later, yet somehow they are already here. There is a real connectedness to it. The same holds true for all the generations that preceded me. And I think that's why I felt it was natural to have children. Perhaps that sounds vain somehow, but it's really a faith and a certainty that things will get better, incredibly better.
The amazing thing is that what I saw is not the end-all, be-all of life and sentience. It is more like a beginning of the next stage. To see beyond that would really be something to look forward to. And I think that will happen, and it has happened, and it is happening.
Thinking back on this experience, afterwards I didn't want to use the word "God" ever again, because my original concept of God was such a shallow imitation of the reality. I mean it wasn't even close! For a long time afterwards, whenever someone said the word "God" I had to bite my tongue. I knew that there was a lot more, but it was nothing you could talk about. It would have been frustrating and disappointing to try to share the experience and have the listener think I was at best an egotist and at worst just another looney.
I didn't speak about this experience to anyone for a long time, because I felt that it would cheapen the experience. I guess that sound's pretty selfish and conceited. But what I meant was that it had to be experienced to be understood, and it was pointless to try to explain it to another person . . . unless the other person had experienced the same thing, but then explanations would be superfluous. So for a long time I kind of smiled to myself. And then I decided I should do something with it -- exactly what, I don't know, and I am open to suggestions. I hope you won't be shy about contacting me if you have anything you would like to share.
Of course, this altered state I was lucky enough to be invited into isn't something you can force to happen. But if you are relaxed and quiet and open, it will come. It's one of those things where the harder you try, the more you lose your way.
It was an early evening in June, very warm. There was a thunderstorm, and my six year old son and I had gone outside to play in the rain. The dogs were glad to see us, especially the big white one -- she was very afraid of thunder. I remembered the times I had played in the summer rain in Baton Rouge as a child, and how warm and fat the drops had been as they fell from the sky.
We walked down the alley. The water swirling around our toes was hot from the concrete which had soaked up the heat from the sun all day. At the end of the alley a pool had formed, as it always did. We stood there as the clouds began to move away, revealing a hint of sunset. There was a primordial scent of decay and rebirth.
I was very happy and content. Everything was okay and in harmony. My body was the rain, the air, the earth. I was feeling how excellent it was to be alive, but I wasn't actually thinking about anything.
A neighbor called to me from the dark of his garage. He came out and we talked for a while about things neither of us had known about each other, even though we had both lived there for eleven years. My son and the dogs played in the water streaming down the alley as we talked. We talked for a long time.
When my son and I returned home, just a few houses up the alley, my wife said she and my daughter had been looking for us. We were late for an engagement. They had called from the back yard, then my daughter had looked down the alley, and my wife had even driven through the alley. Yet neither one had seen us, and my son and I had neither seen nor heard them. This was clearly not possible, yet it happened. And my wife is not given to exaggeration.
Some might say it was the "crack between the worlds" that opens at sunrise and sunset, a time when all possibilities co-exist. Others might point to the Summer solstice, or to the convergence of Mars, Venus and Jupiter.
But it can happen any time. And the big white dog is smiling, the way Samoyeds do, you know?