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“Today is the day I become the shaman,” I think as I walk back from my mailbox. In my hands, there is a thick, inconspicuous, and mysterious envelope with European stamps in an unknown language. Inside, a thin Mylar bag contains something squishy. I close the door, open the envelope, and inspect the bag inside. The alchemical ingredients are present as a generic white powder. I am not dismayed by this prosaic view; this powder holds the keys to transforming a human brain into an antenna, capable of tuning into frequencies beyond reality. I grab the powder and head down to my basement, where most of my work happens. My contraption stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by beakers, pipettes, and bottles containing preserved specimens. It has a seat with a helmet equipped with black-tinted goggles. There’s no need for plain human eyesight where I am going. A pipe to burn powder connects to one of the seat’s armrests. I sit down, strap myself into the harness, and put on the helmet, leaving the goggles up. Soon, the pipe is ready, filled with the white powder to the top. I hold the lighter close to a burner. I’ve never been so close to piercing the veil of this miserable reality with a spear of my sharp mind. I am trembling with terror and excitement.

“There’s no turning back,” I think, and I begin reciting “The Litany Against Fear”:
    Fear is the mind-killer.
    Fear is a little death that brings complete obliteration.
    I will face my fear.
    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
    And when it has gone past, I will turn my inner eye to see its path.
    Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
    Only I will remain.

I light the burner and watch the powder turn into bubbling goo as it melts and evaporates under the relentless flame. I inhale the smoke; it tastes like burnt plastic and chicory, but I hold it in despite waves of nausea and a suppressed cough. Its effects soon begin to ripple through the higher structures of my brain. I feel the promised pineal gland activation as reality starts to melt around me. The energy lattice just beneath the surface of what we call real begins to shine through ordinary objects as they fade away.

Suddenly, I am transported to a different place and time. I eagerly await profound epiphanies and heavenly prophecies, but instead, I see my mother leaning over me, shaking me as I lie in my bed. I hear her saying,
"Steve, wake up, you little bastard—you shat your bed again!"