A Secret Third Place
On psychosis, the thin line between truth and insanity. Enter Chapel Perilous.
They dare not touch you with a ten-foot pole.
According to Robert Wilson in Cosmic Trigger, there is no third way. “You can stand at the door for decades never realizing you have arrived.” It seems off to stand right at the gate and not enter…
“Everything you fear is waiting for you in Chapel Perilous, but fear is failure and the forerunner of failure.”
But in the depth of madness, I think of where the secret meets at the crossroads of paranoia or agnosia. You cannot repackage the exceptionally wrapped incoherent ramblings. The thought of being perceived as utterly mad is unsavory. Even more complicated when accompanied by large-eyed glances that glimmer with bewilderment from the erratic behavior induced by peril.
That’s where chapel departers fall short in attempts to wake everyone to their newfound knowledge. In such a state, the mind may willingly pull anyone within a 14-mile radius into a red string whirlpool.
Because, yeah, that was crazy!
Only on return can you recognize where you were and are silenced by shame or otherwise. But me?—No.Oh, I’m not crazy!
You receive the secret third place as a reward, delivered as a round-trip ticket with a travel schedule. Live Laugh Love. It will find you if it’s a part of you. Some never make it back. Forgotten is the intentional transience of the third option as not a place to dwell but a vacation.
A place for mind.
I’ve heard stories through the grapevine of mycelia-induced ego death that ultimately led to psychosis. It’s explainable the result of rushing a process that never ought to be fought, sought, or bought. A taste of unbridling light and joy. A bridging of consciousness. A lifting of the veil.
Only to slingshot right into darkness. Transforming perception demands time, as perceptive visitors require a perspective passport. The process in detail is specific in more ways with varying conditions and variables than I can summarize.
But release expectations of being met with warm fuzzy feelings. It’s not what you or I need when enough of life has been numbingly comfortable to unleash boredom and desperation for chaos. All of which leads to misinformed choice, an indifference to experienced failure—fundamentally, washing over as regression and disintegration of pivotal chapters—in servitude to your higher good.
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P.S. the lights are on but you're not home.
Among unhealed people, yesterday’s trauma informs today’s perspective. Heed caution to what’s in your purview. Those who are fearless realize the carrot is on a stick and can avoid the headache. You can’t wake anyone, who first is not interested in being woken and second if they have no idea they’re asleep.
Robbing someone of their enlightenment process is criminal. That’s how I felt when I had guides present, in a constant crutch seeking assurance and hand-holding through self-discovery. Emphasis on self…
Third places are only as good as the psyche of the visitor. The nourishment people crave from their home and work ties to integrity. The lack thereof is a denial of self—a dismissal of being and community.
Convinced to remain out of sync and undone—the lines blur—your work from home morphs into a slippery 2 for 1, pushing the third place into a distant reality. “Chapel Perilous is tricky that way.” Docile in a state of delirium, you unwittingly become a pawn, objectified within a system that would just as easily replace you.
Enter Chapel Perilous, the secret third place.
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