Diviner's Sage

With the house empty and the curtains closed, Graham decided that the setting was as good as he was likely to get for his experiment.  He knew that for full effect he should wait until dark, all of his reading on the subject had told him that darkness would enhance the experience. Unfortunately, if he waited, the house would begin to fill with people again and the tranquillity which he placed at paramount importance would be shattered.

At the age of 25, Graham knew that this type of experimentation should be out of his system, but the idea had entered his head months ago and rather than settling down into the background noise of his internal chatter, the idea perched itself foremost in his attention.  

Salvia Divinorum is a plant which grows in the Oaxaca region of Mexico where it has been used for thousands of years by the Mazatec Shamans in their rituals to produce visions. It is a small hardy plant that grows in dark, moist conditions and Graham had found the website of a man who cultivated it in Scotland. For €20 he could have a plant posted to him. If he didn’t try it soon it would be made illegal with the upcoming government ban covering the substances sold in Head Shops. He knew that if he did not try it before the ban came into effect, he never would.

He sat on the edge of his bed and packed the dried leaves into the bowl of the pipe. He held the lighter to the bowl and inhaled deeply, drawing the thick, acrid smoke into his lungs where he held it for a few moments before he hastily breathed out. The smoke was harsh and his lungs constricted against it, he didn’t know if he would be able to inhale more. Still holding the lighter to the bowl, he took another deep puff and held the smoke once more. He placed the pipe down and lay back on his bed. Nothing was happening. He continued to hold onto the smoke. Still nothing happened. His lungs began to scream for relief so he breathed out and gasped for fresh clean air. On his back, looking up at his green lightshade he began to wonder if anything was going to happen at all.

The lightshade didn’t look like a lightshade anymore, it was the screen of a radar with a bright green meridian line rotating around it's diameter like a hand on a clock. He continued to look at the radar screen, tiny green blips of light appearing on it. He could hear a gentle voice singing from behind the wall.

“She’s singing to me,” thought Graham, “she wants me to come to her.”

His wall wasn’t really a wall, it was a curtain and she was waiting for him on the other side of it. The words of the song were in no language Graham had ever heard, but he understood perfectly what she was singing to him in her sweet soft voice.

“Come to me. Follow me. If you come to me, you can never go back again.”

Graham was simultaneously frightened and filled with a joy that radiated through his whole body. He knew that he had to go to her, he couldn’t disobey the voice, he didn’t want to disobey the voice. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to stand up, draw back the curtain and go to her. He knew what she was and he wanted to go to her.

Graham tried to move, to peel himself away from the bed and to follow her but his body felt strange. He couldn’t tell where he ended and the bed began, it was like he wasn’t really there. He was a part of his surroundings and they didn’t want to let him pull free. 

The voice began to fade. He couldn’t quite hear the words anymore, maybe it was because the curtain was gone and the wall had reasserted itself. He strained to listen for her, he didn’t want her to go away but she was fading fast now. He looked around and noted that the radar screen was gone too now. His bed was his bed and his body was his body. He could move freely.

Graham sat up. He knew that the vision was over and that the things he had seen and heard and felt hadn’t been real. He walked over to where the curtain had been and placed the palm of his hand against the wall. Moments before, he had known exactly what the woman was but now he couldn’t quite find the words or concepts to describe what that had been. He had wanted with all of his heart to follow her, but now he couldn’t understand why the compulsion had been so strong. He couldn’t recapture the sense of what that feeling had been.

Over the following months, Graham occasionally removed mature leaves from his Salvia Divinorum plant and dried them carefully. From time to time he would fill his pipe again and inhale the smoke of the Diviner’s Sage, but each vision proved to be a vastly different experience. As much as he wished for it, he never heard that voice beckon him to follow her behind the curtain again.