Synchronicity and the Plot/Plot
By Arthur Kleps, 1966
I recently spent a week in the company of a damned soul, that is, one who considers himself a damned soul, and found the experience most stimulating, educational and the cause of much self-congratulatory ideation and emotion, resolutions to continue steadfast in my current prejudices, to listen even less to those who seem to think visionary experiences are the object of visionary experiences, and so forth.
But I also learned something that made me feel slightly foolish (every dimension balances perfectly at every point in time): — the flood of 'coincidence' (synchronicity) which characterizes the truly genuine mystical experience (that is to say, my experience) as distinguished from mere psychedelic 'tripping', pleasure center button pushing, etc. need not, as I formerly thought, coincide with a 'good' karma, or be interpreted in the light of a good karma, as evidence of the gentleness and delicacy, humor, and, above all, love with which the Ultimate Reality may reveal Itself, if permitted to do so, to the 'little fellow'...
In fact, I have good reason to believe, now that my eyes have been opened another hairsbreadth, that sheer terror is as common a reaction to synchronicity-awareness as is happy acceptance, at least in those cases in which psychedelic drugs provoke the awakening. This is a serious matter, and ought to be systematically investigated.
Synchronicity, apparently, does not 'go away' the way visions do. It is not a picture of reality, it
Reality (somewhat diluted)... (thank God)...
Now, if, as my damned soul friend did, one has synchronicity 'shoved down the throat' along with all sorts of secondary occult phenomena, such as other people's dreams, 'winkle buttons', inappropriate vivid imagery (if your ideation is on a low level, your images should be dim), and a variety of hypnagogic hallucinations; because of too many non-integrated LSD experiences, synchronicity will appear to be just one more, or perhaps the ultimate demonstration, that It doesn't care about you.
My friend, if he ever frees himself from the erroneous assumptions which have led him to believe he is being persecuted rather than instructed, will no doubt be the world's greatest expert on demonology, and one may see in this expectation (he is a Capricorn) an excuse for his present suffering. However, be that as it may, the lesson I see in his experience for myself and others — at least for other non-Capricorns — is "the same old one": MAKE UP A GOOD STORY ABOUT YOURSELF, OR NONE AT ALL.
I must add at once that I consider the latter alternative almost impossible. It is, in fact, satori — ultimate mastery — total relaxation at the state of highest tension, and anyone who imagines he can transcend plot in ordinary life because of visions is a fool. Nor will 'powers' do it — they merely assist in producing the "state of highest tension." Unfortunately, the teachings of Tim Leary have been widely misinterpreted as an excuse for just wandering around in the world in an aimless manner, such behavior being thought of as a demonstration of one's freedom from 'games routines'. The idea is that you trust the world to take care of you (scrounge), have those great visions every now and then, and wait for Der Tag, when you will be transported out of this purgatory and into the Great Beyond.
Unfortunately, this attitude is dangerous as well as silly. If it was just silly I would advocate it without hesitation as much preferable to teaching school, bombing the oriental peasantry, or any other common way of life.
What we ought to do is give up our (dirty) neuroses in favor of (clean) karma, but what apparently happens in many cases is that (the Plot) is abandoned, or is ignored, and the neuroses inflated to truly magnificent proportions. Man is a myth maker. If he can bring his ordinary life into conformance with the Plot with a capital P (karma) he is on the path, he need not be "driven to the pasture with blows," but if he refuses to "read his lines" he is at the mercy of that which proceeds from "the gates of horn." Wandering around backstage, he will be frightened by the jumbled paraphernalia, the incongruously disordered scenery and props.
Plot/plot. If the Plot is not accepted, then it must all be some kind of a 'plot'. Instead of a wise order, a fiendish design.
I cannot advocate a second LSD experience until the first is integrated. In fact, I regard all visionary experience as secondary to the correct apprehension of 'what is going on' in this world. (Or, better, in this system.) Seeing things is not the object.
The object is to become what you are.
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