Reflections on the Timewave by Elfstone, April 2006 I read closely the materials in the appendix of The Invisible Landscape back in the early 80s while taking my graduate research and methodology courses and learning statistical programming on a mainframe computer. During the early years of my training, I became quite interested in Terence's theory of the timewave because I felt it was a reflection, in mathematical form, of certain aspects of the psilocybin experience, particularly as it unfolds over a series of consecutive sessions.
Serial exposure to psilocybin, that is, experiences that occur within one to two weeks, or less, of one another, can result in a set of exeriences, each of which appears to build upon the previous ones. It is like establishing a dialogue with "the Other", which results in something like a transformative dialogue between the totality of oneself (conscious and unconscious) and the spiritual agency that animates the mushroom, los santos niños or Piltzintli. Of course, this presumes that the individual has already established a relationship with this deeper, spiritual dimension of the mushroom. It appears to be something that opens only to those it chooses to reveal itself to, or who have a special calling or temperament predisposing them to this type of experience. I have known many to try and fail, and only an extremely rare few who have had it open up to them. Even among those rare few of us who have been blessed with a glimpse of this deeper dimension, more rare still are those who have been initiated into the most secret teachings of the mushroom.
Initially I got in touch with Terence because of a very deep experience elicited by combining harmaline with psilocybin, having been inspired by his accounts of "hypercarbolation" in the "Experiment at La Chorrera" chapter of The Invisible Landscape. At that time I was convinced that the timewave theory was an attempt to bring back some of the perceptions such an experience can evoke.
I see the timewave as a reflection of the structure of reality within the four-dimensional space-time continuum that we inhabit here in our physical bodies. As such, it represents an attempt to express the initiatory mushroom experience, which opens one subjectively, on a microcosmic level, to the process that is happening to the whole planet over vast eons of time.
After my first experience with this combination in early 1984, which I also found to have a heavy body load, I have not felt the need to repeat it! In speaking with Terence, he also noted that there was something very uncomfortable about it. That being said, my experience with this combination was a shamanic initiation in the fullest sense of the word. As the experience developed, I had an encounter with a "dragonish" entity which completely devoured me, took me down the tunnel of death/rebirth, back to the beginnings of life on Earth, while narrating this rap about the origin and purpose of DNA, eventually leading me down the long and ancient corridors of time to the present and then into the future, explaining how this planet is approaching an energetic shift that will lead it into awakening to its purpose as part of the larger galactic intelligence. The timewave is the only expression of this experiential manifold that comes close to capturing its essential structure. Although I have come across hints of this type of experience in various accounts of ayahuasceros, I have yet to find anything that captures the coherency and detail offered by Terence's timewave theory.
Essentially, the idea is that the multidimensional, fractal, interconnectedness of reality that characterizes our experience over the course of a lifetime (or many lifetimes) is telescoped and collapsed into a 6-hour experience. It's a glimpse, from a vantage point that lies outside of time and space, of the course of the evolutionay process as it unfolds individually, collectively, and on a cosmic scale. The ideas expressed in the book Hamlet's Mill comes close to capturing the ancient ideas expressed along these lines. That the I Ching was probably based on a similar astrologically-based calendrical system makes it a useful structure to try to capture this type of insight, as does the Maya calendrical system.
That something along the lines of what Terence proposed is happening, I have no doubt whatsoever. As an initiate of the DNA Dragon, through achieving the harmine/psilocybin hypercarbolation of my neural DNA, the vision has been fully revealed to me and, though my thoughts have varied about this experience over the years, I have come to see that I was touching on an experiential manifold that appears to be unfolding itself in just the way that Terence predicted, leading to a impending temporal singularity (December 21, 2012) where we shift into a greater awareness on a collective level.
This experiential domain also appears to be repeatable and verifiable through comparison of the subjective data that initiates can bring back from the experience. To those who have not touched this domain of visionary experience, it sounds unintelligible and delusional. You can observe something similar in discussions between theoretical physicists or between meditation masters in discussing the states of "absorption". Among those who have shared the experience, easy communication and ready understanding is possible, but for those who have not touched on these experiential domains, nothing that is said makes any sense at all to them.
Since the initiatory experience back on December 31, 1983, I have had repeated encounters with the "galactic intelligence" through use of psilocybin alone, without recourse to the harmala alkaloids. My wife, who has not done the harmala combination, also has shared in these encounters; some of our experiences being simultaneous encounters with this, during which we could share detailed observations with one another about it. I am fully trained in the scientific method and am quite aware of the tendency to self-deception, which rigorous research methodology seeks to control and reduce as error bias. As a meditation practitioner in the Southeast Asian vipassana tradition, I am also familiar with the peer review process utilized in meditation training to counter the partial perception of the egoic mind. I am convinced that the experiential domain articulated by Terence and quantified in the timewave theory represents his attempt to bring back something that is very real. Whether it captures it accurately or completely remains to be seen, but that it is touching on a fundamental reality I have no doubt.
Peter Meyer's quantification of the timewave has been a helpful way of exploring this domain, with many synchronously emerging patterns being seen over the years. I initially worked with the early version, that was based on the original "half-twist" sequence. That one, for some unknown reason, seems to be the one that has coincided best with changes in my personal life, as well as the collective. It is the version that I continue to experiment with most since it is the one that I am most familiar with.
I view Terence's original version of the theory as an inspired utterance from contact with "the Other" at La Chorrera. There have been some impressive coincidences of personal changes accompanying the timewave that leaves me feeling it intuitively captures something of the "ingression of novelty into time". Changes in job, relationships, living place, etc., have often been marked by changes in the timewave, though I am also mindful that one can certainly impose patterns on such an amorphous thing as a wave. If nothing else, it makes for a great projective instrument!
Timewave Zero and the Fractal Time Software