Observations placeholder
Masters and Houston - On becoming a machine
Identifier
007218
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience – Dr Robert Masters and Dr Jean Houston
The body is variously regarded by the subject as an instrument or tool, an operated vehicle, a plaything, an encumbrance, a source of pain or pleasure, a regrettable necessity, a source of wonder, a source of contempt, as the 'temple of the spirit' on the one hand, or as a mere machine on the other. The body may be thought of as a prison or a trap; as a traitorous agglomeration of imperfectly operating parts.
A description of the experience
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience – Dr Robert Masters and Dr Jean Houston
Case Study ; female, late twenties, wife of a Naval Lieutenant
Becoming a mechanical woman, S described herself as reacting with instantaneous and profound aversion 'to this thing I have become'. She explained that her only neurosis... consisted of a deep rooted......... dislike of machines. She wondered why, since this was so, she should now have become one; and went on to express her strong opposition to such ideas as a mechanical universe and 'man is nothing but a machine'. She was particularly distressed at the thought that 'this mechanising of myself may mean I don't believe what I've always thought I've believed. Maybe this is the way my unconscious has of telling me that I am a machine......