by Ray Manzarek
And when I finally opened my eyes…I had been reborn. I was a new Ray Manzarek. I was the same man but I was the new man. I had left my fears behind. I had left my childhood behind. I had “put aside the things of a child,” and I had become a man. A free man on the planet. Completely responsible for my actions. Completely responsible for all of the things I would now do in the future and had done in the past and very possibly—a philosophy I came to later—completely responsible for everything. Responsible for the destiny of the planet…as all of us, each and every one of us, are. We are responsible for this planet. This is our playground. It’s our sun in the sky and this is our Garden of Eden. We’ve never lost it. We’ve only forgotten the key to unlock the door of perception.
Have you forgotten the keys to the Kingdom?
Have you been born yet, and are you alive?
This is what I realized on LSD. This is our playground and we are here to laugh and dance and sing in the sunshine. To sing and laugh and dance and play music in the moonlight….to play drums and to play guitars, to play Vox Continental electric organs as a shaman/poet leads us in a mad, passionate Dionysian revelry around a great, blazing bonfire. That is the purpose of being alive. An absolute delight in the senses! And the profound responsibility for being the creators of the world. The tenders and maintainers of the garden.
I closed my eyes again, overwhelmed by the multiplicity of objects. The choices were infinite. The sheer number of things in this universe of ours is beyond calculating. The void is stuffed to overflowing with the objects of our creation. Just look about you. Look up from this book for a second, dear reader. Look around the room, out the window. Lots of things, lots of stuff…lots of life, right? Now, imagine none of it there. Imagine nothing. A state of nothingness. Close your eyes and imagine…nothing.
I was doing time in the Universal Mind,
I was feeling fine.
Imagine you can feel only energy. Outside of you is nothing. You are everything, all there is, and you are rested, relaxed, charged with energy, and ready to create a world to occupy. You are eternity. You are infinity. And now you want some relativity. You want some things to exist with you. You want forms and shapes and flesh. You want to occupy some flesh of your own for the purposes of dancing and singing and lovemaking and feasting. You want all the attendant fears and dangers that go along with being temporal. You’re ready for both the fun and the turmoil, the delights and the suffering, the pleasure and the pain. And you have to take both, of course. That’s the yin and the yang of it. You don’t get the sweet without the bitter. And, as I was later to find out, you don’t get the highs without the lows. But who would want the one without the other? Life without suffering would be boring. Love without heartache would be sugar syrup. How much goody-goody could you take? Imagine being like the Eloi in H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. No, sir. That’s not the life we want. We want action, excitement, adventure, danger. We want passion and love. We want to be living, breathing human animals. Conscious and alive!
We want the world and we want it…Now!
So go ahead. Make up a world. Make up a universe out of your nothingness. And here’s the irony…it would most likely be exactly what we have. A blue-water planet, spinning around a sun, filled with green and liquid and sky and clouds and good things to eat and life in thousands of forms and a spinal column, nervous system, and brain for self-realization and male and female for sex and procreation and…well, you get the picture. What you’d make is what we already have. And it’s fabulous.
And now it was time for me to dive back in. To come back into life. I was lying on the floor, on Fraser, in the fetal position with my eyes closed, realizing I was going to be born again, realizing I was going to come out of the womb again, this psychological womb I had gone into; and I said to Dorothy, “Hand me that orange….” It was one of the things I had seen when I briefly opened my eyes and was flooded by sensory input. We had halved an orange and made wedges on a plate; individual segments to refresh ourselves. “What?” she said as I called my love out of the void, or out of some ecstatic reverie of her own. “An orange, hand me a slice, honey,” and I held my hand out like a blind man. She placed a cool, moist slice in my hand and I could smell orange blossoms in the afternoon air. I held it up to my nose, eyes closed, and inhaled the intoxicating essence of that orange. The fragrance of that slice was so refreshing and absolutely delightful. The odor of an orange is simply overwhelming. It seemed so thirst-quenching. So refreshing. I put the slice in my mouth, holding one end, and licked it. And that orange essence on my tongue just took over, just occupied my mouth…I felt my taste buds begin to tingle…then I bit into it with my teeth and punctured the tiny flavor sacs of juice. Man, they just exploded! Liquid everywhere. My mouth filled with orange juice. Sweet and tart at the same instant. The juice started to trickle down my throat and I chewed the flesh and swallowed. Delicious. I was completely refreshed. Completely revivified. The energy—the chi, as the Chinese say—in that fruit literally brought me out of the womb, gave me birth again. I came to life on that orange. And I opened my eyes and looked at that half slice in my hand and I saw thousands of tiny sacs attached to the central pith of the orange. Thousands of little flavor sacs. Each sac holding a bit of juice. Thousands of little amorphous, Indian-shaped, teardrop, membrane-skinned juice containers in a single slice. Clinging to each other, and all somehow attached to the cottony central pith. And this marvel of construction is repeated in segment after segment after segment. I looked at it and thought, This is the most complex thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Who made this? My brain paused….God made this. But wait a minute, we’re all God. I was breathing hard now. Did my mind think of this? Did the mind of all of us think of this? Is this the mind, the Creator at work? Am I the Creator? I had to smile at the sheer joy of my thoughts. Are we all the Creator? Are we the Creative Mind? Is the mind of God…our mind? I had mentally stepped into the fourth dimension. Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum. The realm of Nietzsche’s Übermensch. The land of the Arborians.
I’m the freedom man,
That’s how lucky I am,
I’m the freedom man…
My thoughts raced on: The orange has been put here for our pleasure. The point in occupying this fleshy form we call the body…is the pleasure we receive from the body. That’s why we’re here. For our pleasure. The delight and pleasure I received from that orange, the sheer sensuality of it, was absolutely overwhelming, and intoxicating, and…joyous!
Lying on the floor, in that little apartment in Venice Beach, that little apartment in which my girlfriend, Dorothy Fujikawa, and I had begun our nest, that little one-bedroom on Fraser Street overlooking the roofs and the palm trees of Venice…I had, on that day, entered William Blake’s Palace of Wisdom. He had been there, too. And, I was to learn later, so had many others. And so can you. It’s our birthright. We are all supposed to dwell in the mansion at the top of the hill (the crown chakra). It’s our ultimate destiny. It’s cosmic consciousness. Nirvana. Satori. The kether of the Kaballah.
Later that afternoon I explained the whole thing to Dorothy and she said, “Let me try that orange.”
She took a slice, broke it in half, looked deeply into it, and said, “You’re right! There are thousands of little flavor sacs. Look, each one is a unique little thing and they’re shaped like those paisley forms on our Indian bedspread.”
I said, “Eat it, eat it! Try it! Feel the juice in your throat.”
She bit into it and her eyes lit up. “Oh, God. It’s so good.” She smiled. “Ray…we’re alive!” She looked at me, “We’re alive and we’re in love. I love you!”
And I said, “Dorothy, God, I love you, too.”
And I took her in my arms and held her and she wrapped her arms around my body in a sensuous, serpentine coil. She had little tears in her eyes, overcome with joy. We stripped our clothes off and made love there on the floor of our nest. Her flesh was all of creation to me. Her legs wrapped around my back as I
entered her. She enfolded me and secured me within her. The female gesture: open, rounded, enfolded, entwined. Little moans of pleasure involuntarily passed over our lips as I began the male gesture of thrusting forward. Into the essence of her. Into her depths. And I realized where I was: “My God, I’m inside of you. I’m on the inside of your body.”
She wrapped her legs tighter, “I love you, Ray,” she said through those beautiful parted lips of hers, “I’ll always love you.”
I pushed myself into her again, she moaned.
“We’re one flesh now,” I whispered. “We’re Adam and Eve…” And we both closed our eyes and gave ourselves over to that deepest and sweetest of all sensual pleasures. We made love into the night and we created the world with our bodies. LSD-25!
Jim Morrison and I never really discussed our LSD trips in any great detail. They were personal, private, and, dare I say it, sacred. There were things best left unspoken between friends, and this was one of those things. However, the knowledge lived in the eyes. There was a certain shine, a luminosity projecting out through the cornea of the devotees. The carbon-arc of the brain was flooding the entire brain pan with holy light and that understanding would radiate outward through the eye sockets. The eyeballs of the initiates were fields of fire, and Jim’s were especially radiant. He exuded a glow of energy and spirituality that was warming just to stand next to. There was no need to discuss the voyages because you could feel the journeys in the other person’s emanations. And, hell, what was there to say, anyway? It was the understanding beyond words. It was the place beyond intellect. It was the proper home of the human animal and it is always there, awaiting our presence, yearning for us to enter the new dimension and cast off our chains.
Break on through to the other side
And Jim Morrison had broken through the closed circle of the ego. He was free. I was free. Dorothy was free. And you can be free, too. All you have to do is…do it. We’re waiting for you, and we very much “hope someday you’ll join us.” And then we can begin the changing of the guard. The changing of the power structure. The dismantling of the military-government-industrial complex. We can begin the creation of the New Time…and the New Man. And the New Garden.
Please, please, listen to me, children
You are the ones who will rule the world
And perhaps that day is just around the corner. Perhaps we’re almost there. Why not?
Wake up, girl, we’re almost home
Although we didn’t share our inner journeys, Jim did share one of his hallucinations with me. He had dropped a tab with Felix Venable at Felix’s place in the Venice canals that he shared with his then inamorata, Mary Morhoff. Mary was at work (another good woman supporting her vagabond artist boyfriend), and Felix was flat on his back, unable to move, demanding beer. His voice had an irritating timbre to it and he usually got his way.
“Morrison, you got to get some beer,” Felix whined.
“Hey,” Jim responded, “I’m not going all the way to the liquor store for a six-pack. It’s too far.”
“What are you talking about, Morrison? It’s only a block away!” (Sort of nasal-whine that to yourself and you’ll get the picture of Felix’s voice.)
“Felix, that’s an eternity away. I just want to look at the water in the canals, that’s all I want to do. It’s beautiful.”
“Come on, Jim…you gotta get me some beer.”
“Why don’t you go, then. And get some beef jerky while you’re there. I could really go for a Corona and some beef jerky. Eat some meat, you know?” Jim said.
“I can’t move,” Felix said from flat on his back. “I’m pinned down to the earth and I can’t get up. If I had a beer I could get up. You gotta go and get a six-pack…if you don’t I could be here on this fucking floor forever. You don’t want me to die here, do you, Jim?”
Jim laughed. “There is no death, Felix. Don’t you get it?”
“I’ll fuckin’ die right here, Morrison,” Felix protested. “I swear to God…I’m dying right now.” Then the odd timbre. “Please, man, get me some beer, will ya?”
“All right already. Just stop! Enough, I’ll go.” Jim was beaten down by the annoying insistency of Felix’s will. Felix loved to exercise his will. He was doing it now, even on acid. And that was quite a trick, considering that LSD breaks down mind games and ego barriers…but not in Felix’s case. Although it had pinned him to the floor like a butterfly in a display case, acid still hadn’t shut him up. There was a saying at the time: “May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind.” Well, the little Yeshua ben Joseph had a tough goy to crack in one Felix Venable.
Jim continued, “Give me some money and I’ll go.”
“I don’t have any money. Mary’s got the money and she’s at work. Come on, you buy,” Felix begged.
Jim shook his head. “I left my wallet at Ray’s. I don’t have a cent on me.”
“Shit, shit, shit!” whined Felix as he flopped his arms and legs on the floor. Jim later said that watching him thrashing made him think of a big turtle turned on its back. A big loggerhead sea turtle up on the sand, out of its element and stuck on its back. Felix on acid was out of his element. He was a boozer. He probably should have just stayed a boozer. LSD was definitely not his substance.
“Why don’t we just forget it, then?” Jim said.
Encased in his ego and stuck in his bodily hallucination, Felix said, “No, man, we can’t! I can’t get up unless I have a beer. Go back to Ray’s and get your wallet.”
“Fuck you,” Jim said. “I don’t want to walk one block to the store and you want me to walk eight to ten blocks back to Ray’s and then come back and buy you beer? Felix…go fuck yourself.”
“All right,” Felix said. “Just go to the store and ask the guy for credit. He knows me.”
“Ask who?”
“The chink who owns the store,” said Felix, ever the racist. “Just tell him it’s for Felix and get a six-pack and some beef jerky. Get me a pony of Ripple, too. Okay?”
“When should I tell him you’ll pay him back?” Jim asked.
“He won’t ask that, he’s cool,” Felix replied.
And Jim did it. He went out the door, crossed an eternity, bummed a six-pack of Corona, beef jerky, and a pony of Ripple, crossed another eternity, and walked back in the door.
“Got it,” Jim said.
“Thank God,” said Felix, still pinned to the floor. “Open one, quick.”
Jim did, handed it to Felix, who downed the entire can without taking a breath…and sat up! Simple as that. “Whew,” said Felix. “I needed that.”
Jim could only laugh. “Yeah, I’ll bet you did, Felix.”
“Did you get the Ripple, too?”
Jim dug into the paper bag, pulled out the pony, and tossed it to the alcoholic-to-be. Felix cracked it and began to walk around the room, sipping the sweet syrup. “Good acid, huh?” he absurdly said. Jim was oblivious. He was back in his spot, viewing the water of the canal and munching on a strip of beef jerky, alternating bites with sips of Corona.
After consuming his snack, Jim turned to Felix. “So when are you going to pay him back?”
“Who?” asked Felix.
“The guy at the store,” answered Jim. “He seems like a nice guy. He said he knows you.”
“Of course he knows me. He gave you the beer, didn’t he?”
Jim cocked his head. “He didn’t give me the beer. You have to pay him back.”
“So?” Felix grinned.
“So, when?” Jim replied.
And then Felix looked him in the eye, and his true nature came forth: “Never,” Felix snarled. “Fuck him…the chink asshole.”
Jim was speechless. He just got up, belched one time, and walked out the door. He hung a right on Main and began the ten-block walk north to Fraser. And along the way his own hallucination kicked in.
He said he saw a satyr following him from across the street. A little satyr with horns and pointed ears, a man’s
head and upper body, walking on two goat legs. A little Greco-Roman satyr. A faun, as in Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, so brilliantly danced and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. Pan, the god of the forest. And this little satyr was popping in and out from behind parked cars and waving to Jim, clowning and joking and making silly faces. Jim later said he thought the satyr was inviting him to dance or to frolic. He said the little forest dweller followed him for about five blocks. Always staying on the opposite side of the street, never crossing over to Jim, but continually beckoning him and smiling and just carrying on as fauns are wont to do. As Jim approached Fraser, the satyr simply leapt behind a palm tree and was gone.
“I was just followed home by a satyr,” he said as he walked in the door. His eyes were wild and blazing. He looked not unlike a satyr himself.
“Is it still with you?” I asked, sure that he was on acid.
He looked back outside, behind him. “No, he’s gone,” he said. And then he silently went into the bedroom, closed the door, collapsed on the bed, and slept for the next twelve hours.
I believe that little satyr was the spirit of his own freedom. On this one acid trip he had been attended upon by both the devil and freedom. Felix was the spirit of human darkness: power and manipulation, selfishness, mendacity, greed. Alcohol brought out these negative traits in Felix and, once unleashed, they completely dominated his personality. At school or when he was sober, Felix was a good guy. He was bright, relatively hip, and older than everyone else. He had a lot of experience under his belt. And Jim liked him as a much older brother or perhaps even a father figure. And what Felix was selling would eventually insinuate itself into Jim’s psyche, where it would germinate, take root, and breed a tiny monster. Jimbo. After all, Jim and Felix were of the same ethnic lineage, the same tribe, the same bloodstock, they had the same southern frame of reference and shared a penchant for alcohol. Of course they hit it off. And when Felix spoke, Jim listened. But when Jim drank, in those days, he just got silly. When Felix drank, however, the devil came out. And Jim saw that devil on this particular acid trip…looked him in the eye…didn’t blink…turned his back, and walked out the door. Felix was very big on making the other guy blink. Making the other guy avert his eyes from a hard, cold stare. The cowboy/Western man manipulation of power on the psychic plane. The American Indian averts his eyes from a hard, penetrating stare. He considers it to be rude and somewhat crazy. “Why does the white man stare at us in the eyes like that? What’s the matter with him, is he insane?” asks the Native American. But the new tribe of psychedelic native Americans, the heads, had gone soft in the eyes. They had become what Jesus had talked about in the beginning of the Piscean age: lovers. “Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” said the Galilean. Felix, however, had never gone soft. He was still a hard guy. A power freak. A seeker after dominance. An American. The very traits Jimbo would emulate. But there was no point to Felix’s wanting of the power. He had no great ideas. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t want to change the world. He didn’t want to re-create the Garden of Eden. He just wanted the power! For himself. So that he would have it and you wouldn’t. In that, he was not unlike Oliver Stone. Felix once revealed the “secrets of the race” to Dorothy. He was drunk and he really shouldn’t have told her. He violated the unspoken code by telling an Asian person the secrets of the white man. The booze had clouded his judgment and given him a too loose lip. Dorothy told me of their conversation. It was at a party we all had gone to at Colin Young’s house. Colin was the head of the UCLA Film Department, and a very cool Scot.