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Quote by Ralph Metzner

“(Male) At this point I was in an utterly empty place, where the only remaining thing was light itself. There were no features, not even a sense of energy flux. The place seemed as full as it could be, without containing a single object or pattern. Getting somewhere else, or waiting for a manifestation, simply did not occur to me. The guide later called this space the “plenum void”, a term from mysticism that means the empty space that contains everything, a kind of featureless fullness. The basic nature of the experience was an initiation into the radiant void.”

Quote by Ralph Metzner

Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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The Toad and the Jaguar

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Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner

Ralph Metzner is a renowned psychologist, born on May 18, 1936. He has conducted extensive research in the field of psychology, particularly in the areas of consciousness studies, psychopharmacology, and human potential development. Metzner completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Stanford University, where he began his academic career. more

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“(Male) This medicine hurled me deep into the fiery firmament, with instantaneous, absolute death of ego, no-self on the quantum level of consciousness-chaos, harmony and bliss. The deepest fullest release from the chains of illusion. This big bang of God-orgasm, creation overwhelming bliss, no choice but absolute surrender to the primal current. Flooding back to consciousness, still fully aware as the body was permeated and open to the infusion of the ultimate ground of being. Body fully open to assimilate throughout every atom of being blissful non-attached truth of the unlimited eternally fresh, fiery present. Left with a sense of unbounded joy and sensory delight beyond description.”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“Stanislav Grof, in his account, related receiving a whole series of death-and-rebirth visions of his past incarnations and witnessing the struggles of these past dyings with calm, even ecstatic detachment. Like Grof, I also found myself rapidly reviewing a series of past lives especially the deaths of these lives: Images of decapitation, dismemberment, disembowelment flashed by, in rapid succession, including an image of being run through the chest with a sword – yet there was no fear or horror associated with these images. The following thoughts occurred: “Death comes to all, now it’s your turn. This is it, the termination. Resistance is impossible and pointless besides. It’s too late, the annihilation has already happened.” As I gradually came back into my body, after ten minutes in real time, I felt bathed in pure joy and completely at peace with myself, the world and my death (RM).”

DeathEcstasyPsychedelic ExperiencePsychedelicsEgo DeathAltered Consciousness5 Meo Dmt
Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“(Female) Within seconds of inhaling, the room filled with an amber-gold veil which seemed to coat everything. My entire body and mind were filled with visual, vibrational sound, which appeared like millions of tiny, flashing points of light. An intense swirling feeling came over my body and mind, and I felt a rapid and complete loss of control as I swirled downward into a very deep, bottomless whirlpool. I experienced a very sensual, unitive state with my partner (also voyaging). I experienced our essences blending like the mixing of water colors while still feeling each of us as individuals – he later confirmed something similar at the same point. As I swirled and lost control, a deep pain within me expressed itself as a high-pitched moaning that came screeching out of the very depths of me. I witnessed and felt this happening without capacity, or desire, to stop it from happening. With this sound I twisted and twirled downward, not knowing if my body was actually doing this or if it was a very strong inward sensation. The next thing I knew, I was in a vast, dark space like a night sky, yet there was a slight whirling around me. I was no longer whirling, but the space around me was. My mind was fragmented into a million pieces which seemed to be floating around me in this space. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. When I noticed this I felt lost and afraid. While there were no sign posts indicating a direction, I spontaneously made a kind of mental intention to go towards something and as a result began to move in a direction in this inner space. I then heard a deep, loving, feminine voice slowly say “That’s right. You can do it.” It was a voice from within this space, the voice of the guide. Upon hearing it, I was deeply, utterly relieved – her voice so soothing and warm, reassuring and firm. She felt ancient and familiar to me. I felt I knew what to do now, yet was overwhelmed with the task – I felt I was in an insane state of mind. While it felt like the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, I knew I had to move within this space in a certain direction. There were no visual clues, only an internal sense that once I had moved that I was going in the right direction. I was going Home. I heard a noise in the room and recalled where I was, that I was travelling with the Jaguar. I brought conscious attention to my breathing and gradually re-collected myself. I sat up and as I looked around the room at everyone I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she awoke from her long dream – I recognized everyone as ancient friends. I asked the women to form a cocoon around me and when they did I burst into tears and sobbed very deeply, accompanied by a very deep feeling of relief and return. I felt ancient connection and experienced a grounding and inner contact with my spiritual nature. During the days following my journey, I alternated between anxiety and elation and experienced an amazingly broad range of levels of consciousness throughout my daily activities. I could easily perceive multiple levels of existence and experienced an increase in empathic and psychic ability. I also experienced a tremendous amount of sexual energy and greatly heightened orgasmic responses in my entire body. At quiet moments I felt very deeply relaxed and centered.”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“(Male) After moving into the space of formlessness, I felt directed toward my solar plexus area. It was very different than other experiences with healing body work – I was totally disidentified with my body, but somehow in it with a warmth of intention and orientation. I took a breath and a rippling of freedom passed through layers of mind out through the physical form. The pleasure of the experience brings waves of joy and a smiling feeling. Jaguar emerged when I asked to open to his fierceness within me, to have the courage to move through fear blocks. Jaguar, my power animal, appears as I focus on a tightness in my upper back. He is biting me there, where I am contracting with fear and holding back. His energy is filling me, I am becoming him, moving my face and arms as a jaguar. It feels very good, very strong, uninhibited. Then I feel the courage to let go of my job (which I had been too afraid to do) and move into creating my own livelihood.”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“(Female) I let go more fully than I ever have. I became the sounds and the movements – no controlling. That is the place where deep transformative healing takes place for me. It’s also the place where Spirits meet to help others to heal. I felt like my voice and movement were healing and clearing the fear that I didn’t need to hold anymore. It is the place where my seizures come from. The seizures are not an illness. They are an opening to other realms. My toning was multi-level. There was a woman’s voice with an overtone of my child’s voice and an undertone of my crone’s voice. I could feel the tones working in my body, opening and releasing. There was only pure sound…no holding back. I found my full voice…I was being born, reliving my physical birth… releasing fear and opening to a new way of being in the moment. Allowing myself to enter the flow of life and humanity and move with it, not against it.”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“Shortly after inhalation, I experienced warm flushing sensations, a sense of wonder and well-being, strong auditory hallucinations, which included an insect-cicada sound that ran across my mind and seemed to link my body to the earth. Though I was indoors, there was a sense of the feel of the earth, the dry desert soil passing through my fingers, the stars at midday, the scent of cactus and sage, the feel of dry leaves through hands. Strong visual hallucinations in orblike brilliance, diamond patterns that undulated across my visual field (Davis, Wade & Weil, Andrew T. “Identity of a New World Psychoactive Toad” in: Ancient Mesoamerica, 3 (1992), p. 56).”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“I lost all contact with the surrounding world, which completely disappeared…The awareness of my everyday existence, my name, my whereabouts and my life disappeared… I tried hard to remind myself of the existence of the realities I used to know, but they suddenly did not make any sense… There was no biographical or transpersonal content, images, archetypes…none of these dimensions seemed to exist, let alone manifest. I had no concepts, no categories for what I was witnessing (Grof, Stanislav. When the Impossible Happens. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc. 2006).”

Psychedelic ExperiencePsychedelicsEgo DeathAltered Consciousness5 Meo Dmt
Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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“My only reality was a mass of radiant swirling energy of immense proportions that seemed to contain all existence in a condensed and entirely abstract form. I became Consciousness facing the Absolute. It had the brightness of myriad suns, yet it was not on the same continuum with any light I knew from everyday life. It seemed to be pure consciousness, intelligence, and creative energy transcending all polarities. It was infinite and finite, divine and demonic, terrifying and ecstatic, creative and destructive…My ordinary identity was shattered and dissolved; I became one with the Source. I retrospect, I believe I must have experienced the Dharmakaya, the Primary Clear Light, which according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, appears at the moment of our death (Grof, Stanislav. When the Impossible Happens. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc. 2006).”

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Book:The Toad and the Jaguar
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