I felt immersed in this incredibly detailed imagery that looked like Islamic architecture, with Arabic script, about which I knew nothing. And then I somehow became these exquisitely intricate patterns, losing my usual identity. And all I can say is that the eternal brilliance of mystical consciousness manifested itself. My awareness was flooded with love, beauty, and peace beyond anything I ever had known or imagined to be possible. 'Awe,' 'glory,' and 'gratitude' were the only words that remained relevant...I have never doubted the validity of these experiences [on psilocybin]. This was the realm of mystical consciousness that Shankara was talking about, that Plotinus was writing about, that Saint John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart were writing about. It's also what Abraham Maslow was talking about with his 'peak experiences,' though Abe could get there without the drugs...You go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness and you will bump into the sacred. It's not something we generate; it's something out there waiting to be discovered. And this reliably happens to nonbelievers as well as believers.

  -- Bill Richards, quoted in Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, p. 53-55.

I was lying on my back underneath a ficus tree. I knew it was going to be a strong experience. And the point came where the little I still was just started slipping away. I lost all awareness of being on the floor in an apartment in Baltimore; I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed. What opened up before me was, for lack of a better word, a space, but not our ordinary concept of space, just the pure awareness of a realm without from and void of content. And into that realm came a celestial entity, which was the emergence of the physical world. It was like the big bang, but without the boom or the blinding light. It was the birth of the physical universe. In one sense it was dramatic--maybe the most important thing that ever occurred in the history of the world--yet it just sort of happened...To the extent I regard the experience as veridical--and about that I'm still not sure--it tells me that consciousness is primary to the physical universe. In fact, it precedes it."

  -- Bob Jesse, quoted in Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, p. 40-41.