that at 2:30 Patrick had said, “I went into my lungs and saw two spots.
They were no big deal.
“I was being told (without words) not to worry about the cancer . . . it’s
minor in the scheme of things . . . simply an imperfection of your
humanity and that the more important matter . . . the real work to be
done is before you. Again, love.”
Now Patrick experienced what he called “a brief death.”
“I approached what appeared to be a very sharp, pointed piece of
stainless steel. It had a razor blade quality to it. I continued up to the apex
of this shiny metal object and as I arrived, I had a choice, to look or not
look, over the edge and into the infinite abyss . . . the vastness of the
universe . . . the eye of everything . . . [and] of nothing. I was hesitant but
not frightened. I wanted to go all in but felt that if I did, I would possibly
leave my body permanently . . . death from this life. But it was not a
difficult decision . . . I knew there was much more for me here.” Telling
his guides about his choice, Patrick explained that he “was not ready to
jump off and leave Lisa.”
Then, rather suddenly around 3:00 p.m., it was over. “The transition
from a state where I had no sense of time or space to the relative dullness
of now, happened quickly. I had a headache.”
When Lisa arrived to take him home, Patrick “looked like he had run a
race,” she recalled. “The color in his face was not good, he looked tired
and sweaty, but he was on fire. He was lit up with all the things he wanted
to tell me and all the things he couldn’t.” He told her he “had touched the
face of God.”
• • •
EVERY PSYCHEDELIC JOURNEY is different, yet a few common themes seem to
recur in the journeys of those struggling with cancer. Many of the cancer
patients I interviewed described an experience of either giving birth or
being reborn, though none quite as intense as Patrick’s. Many also
described an encounter with their cancer (or their fear of it) that had the
effect of shrinking its power over them. I mentioned earlier the
experience of Dinah Bazer, a petite and mild New Yorker in her sixties, a
figure-skating instructor, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in