LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven

This an utterly unique book in all of its aspects: the LSD angle certainly, but combine that with a serious use of it over 20 yrs of personal research, AND an exhaustive chronicling of those 70+ experiences, wherein he wrote down his reflections and remembering which has now been used to write this book. It's phenomenal. Dr. Bache is phenomenal.One thing that I have found very interesting about his experiment in consciousness thru the use of an entheogen is the question: how does his experience of the Divine and Its world relate to the experience of yogis and self-realized masters? Back in the day we hippies were admonished to "give up the drugs" and instead use the sober accepted route through meditation, etc.LSD will certainly take you to the Mountaintop but then you lose the heavenly experience on the way down. Whereas with spiritual endeavors you gradually get to the Moutaintop and absorb It All along the way up. And then retain it. Well, Dr. Bache's experience and research tests that admonition. He has shown that if one is serious about the use of LSD using it as a clinical trial so to speak, and keeps at it and doesn't give up when the going gets rough, one may obtain the same level of "higher consciousness" (or higher!).I don't know of any spiritual masters, self-realized gurus, etc. who have reported back to us their experiences and insights during samadhi. They just give a general summary by saying they were absorbed in the Divine Mother, or some other deity, saw a Great White Light, and realized +All is One! Well, yeah..and? Bache has given us more details at least as they were revealed to him.Christopher Bache is a true original. I like the term another reviewer used here: psychonaut. For my money he has gone farther and faster and higher than any NASA astronaut. And come back to Earth to tell us of the marvels he saw.

This book is extraordinary and on the list of the top 10 books I've read in my life and I've read thousands and thousands. Anyone interested in the truth about physical reality and the soul must read it. Anne Baring, Ph.D said it perfectly: "Once or twice in a century a book appears that has the explosive force of a supernova, breaking through the limitations of religion, science, and culture. This is such a book -- a gripping account of an utterly unique and extraordinary hero's journey that opens our minds and hearts to a new vision of our universe and ourselves. A deeply moving template of our evolutionary journey."

With this volume, Chris Bache pulls back the curtain to reveal a Universe far more intelligent, alive, and loving than we could have imagined before its publication. Some of you, may chose to follow Dr. Bache down this road. If so, this book provides a good map of the territory. It also identifies the dangers and pitfalls, and ways to avoid them, as one travels this road. Still, one does not need to take LSD to benefit from this book.I found that just reading this book connects you to those intelligences that Bache experienced first hand. Reading this book helped my realize that some of my own personal experiences mirrored those Dr. Bache went through. For example, at times I find myself consumed by an anger that seems to arise from no where. Yet, despite my best effort, I could not identify a specific event or thought that triggered this anger. Could this anger spring from our collective psyche and not my own personal unresolved angst? Bache seems to think so. Could the same intelligence that forced Dr. Bache through a thousand deaths spring this anger on me? Following Dr. Bache’s lead instead of pushing that anger away allowed myself to feel this collective anger as deeply as I could. I then allowed the feeling to die away allowing it to dissipate.What began as an exploration of Dr. Bache’s own personal psyche jumped well beyond that small and insignificant “i” to the Diamond Luminosity and our future self. Along the way, Dr. Bache paid a very high price but also received many blessings. The Sufis have a saying that a Sufi is someone who can do today what anyone will be able to do in 10,000 years. At first, I thought that this statement was the height of self serving arrogance. But, after reading LSD and the Mind of the Universe, I’ve come to see that 10,000 years is nothing in the face of 13-billion years that this universe has existed and will continue to exist.Of course, this short review can’t capture the depth and beauty of this volume. So I suggest you buy and read it. You will find the price small, in comparison to the doors it will open for you.

I was listening to a podcast and heard him talk about his experimentation and how it broadened his consciousness. So I bought the book. The book was OK although he pretty much said the same thing he did in his talk, but there’s some thing about the way he described it verbally that was just amazing. And of course, now I can’t remember the podcast

Fascinating tale of one man's intensely deep journey into the incredibly intense experiences of LSD and other " mind altering" substances. It is frightening at times and then almost seductively inviting.The careful attention to detail in his experiential notes are enlightening.Dr. Bacho gives informed advice on the use of LSD or the like. He is neither an advicate nor a disuader, however, I suggest the reading his journey may give you a clearer indication as to your own decision making.He does however, strongly recommend the carefully guided by a professional as a viable treatment for PTSD and other mental illness.( its a very long book. I chose the audio which worked better for me, especially on a long trip.)

A must read for psychonauts

Chris Bache fez o primeiro trabalho de um uso de longo prazo de LSD (20 anos). O método utilizado por Bache leva a experiência lisérgica a um nível completamente diferente do que geralmente é associado ao LSD. Os relatos dele mais se comparam ao que geralmente é experenciado com DMT. Uma leitura de valor extremo para todos psiconautas.

I have read this as the true version of a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, an awe-inspiring testimony to man's capabilities to make sense of its existence.

More amazing than you can imagine...

I very much enjoyed this book but would advise against anybody dosing themselves up on LSD, there are other means of delving into higher realities.I am going to add a couple of paragraphs from Jane Roberts book by Seth called The Nature of Personal RealitySeth, the personality who speaks through author Jane Roberts, has this to say about “massive doses” of LSD in The Nature of Personal Reality (Prentice-Hall). Seth’s statements refer only to LSD, used under certain conditions; there are other chemical hallucinogens that are not mentioned. “In therapy using massive doses of LSD, a condition of chemically enforced insanity takes place. By insanity, I mean a situation in which the conscious mind is forced into a state of powerlessness. There is a literal assault made not only upon the psyche, but upon the organizational framework that makes it possible for you to exist rationally in the world that you know. The ego, of course, cannot be annihilated in physical life. Kill one and another will, and must, emerge from the inner self which is its source.“Under such enforced conditions, you are literally facing egotistical consciousness with its own death in an encounter that need not occur — and while the physical body is fighting for its own life and vitality. You are bringing about a dilemma of great proportions.“The landscape of the psyche is indeed revealed, bringing good data to the psychiatrist. But the experiences undergone by the patients — and all of this applies to massive doses — represent the enactment, through terrible encounter, of the species’ birth into consciousness, and its death as consciousness falls back annihilated; followed by its rebirth as the individual patient struggles to emerge again from dimensions not native under those conditions.“The deepest biological and psychic structures are altered. I did not say they were damaged, though they may be according to the situation. Consciousness is assaulted at its roots. When periods of transcendence are felt under such conditions, they represent the psychic birth of a new personality from the sources of the old, and from the death, psychically, of the old. In some cases the genetic messages have changed, in that they are different. This is psychic slaying in a technological framework.“Under LSD you are highly suggestible. If you are told that the ego must die then you will kill it. You will telepathically follow the ideas of your guide under even the best of conditions. The psychic “rebirth” may leave you with a completely new set of problems, rising on the bed of the old and as yet undecipherable.“The new ego is quite aware of the conditions of its birth. It knows it was born out of the death of its predecessor, and for all its feelings of transcendent joy, natural enough at its birth, it fears that annihilation from which it sprang.“The natural creature-integrity is not the same. The physical world will never be trusted in quite the same way. The alliance with it is not as secure. The “self” that was born into the body, and grew with it, has gone, and another “self” has risen from that previous organization.“Such self-changes happen naturally as life progresses, and when the self modulates at any given time, it is different from what it was. When this occurs “all by itself” it is an innate reflection of the psyche’s creativity and happens with its own rhythm — connected to seasons of the mind and blood and consciousness and cells in ways that you do not as yet understand. But the whole structure and its subsidiary relationships change together, and the conscious mind is able to assimilate what is happening.“You grow and live through deaths that happen in you constantly, and travel through births within your lifetime that you do not comprehend. Such massive doses of LSD chemically activate all levels of cellular memory to such an extent that in certain terms they are no longer in charge of themselves, and the memories can then emerge unpredictably when the system is under stress. The fine biological and psychological alliance is now weakened.” “Assaults upon your consciousness in such a manner challenge the stability of your species, and insult the integrity of your creaturehood. You may say that such chemicals are natural because they exist within the reality that you know, but the body is equipped to deal with ingredients that come from the earth.