I write in case others have had such experiences and want to know they are not alone. I write to note some landmarks on the path, point out the avalanche slopes, the food caches, and the cairns left by others long before. Twenty years ago, I felt alone, blindly groping on the path. Yet looking back I see that guides, both human and spiritual, remained always at my side. Just when we think we've learned something, we find-there's always more.
Alcoholic beverages provide a high, as, more mildly, do nicotine and caffeine.
William James was experimenting with nitrous oxide when he wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience . He confesses that he never had a mystical experience. Nonetheless, sometimes they change the person taking them. In some cases the visions seen on drugs have had profound effects. Lily was twenty-two when she came from England to San Francisco, attracted to the hippie life.