From: Gibson, Katherine <[email protected]>
To: Daniels, Troya M. <[email protected]>
CC: <none>
BCC: <none>
Date: Apr 2, 2008, 8:04 AM
Subject: RE: Contract sent for approval
Hi Troya,
We’re so glad to hear your team will be able to take this on! I know it’s a slightly odd request, but it’s not every day you get a literal message-in-a-bottle, is it? Our team has managed the preservation as well as we could, but the analysis of this type of document is definitely well within your organisation’s wheelhouse.
I should have some preliminary scans that we’ve taken sent over by the afternoon, but expect the document to be in insulated freight before the weekend. We’ve attached a few personnel of our own to the courier just to ensure it gets through customs without too many issues… we almost lost a quarter of the Old Bailey Archives when the driver left his paperwork in the hotel! I hope the abundance of caution with this important historical artefact isn’t seen as an inconvenience.
What we’re interested in, of course, is the authenticity and veracity of the documents. By building from your organisation’s analysis, we will be able to corroborate a number of associated documents from similar collections. As such, I’ve attached a number of material samples from the area where the item was recovered. There will obviously be a hard copy of this along with the item, but in brief, you can expect:
- One (1) Tattered Paper Journal, Unmarked
- One (1) Round Ceramic Jar, Unmarked
- One (1) Round Ceramic Jar Lid, Waxed
- One (1) Tattered Handkerchief, Initialled “AW”
- Three (3) 36” Soil Sample Canister
Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be in touch!
Thanks!
Katherine Gibson
Assessment Coordination Specialist
The National Archives
(+44) 020 7946 1312
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A Journal. April 4, 1769.
I AM no longer filled with the same assurance of self which I had enjoyed when in the company of the Comte at his most wondrous estate. There my mind had been filled with such mysteries and questions that I found myself almost overfilled with a curiosity which would treat any attempt at containment with a gleeful obstinance. I was entranced, mesmerised by by the stories of the connaissances anciennes, the scientia antiqua, the ancient knowledge that must have provided the ancient civilisations which we all owe our provenance to the ability to maintain themselves and reach into the future, which I find, myself, to be an almost unbearably onerous task. How did they carry on? What was it that they knew?
The Comte used his words as camphor, silencing the storm within my mind. It was with his blessing and good word, to which I owe him greatly, that I attended meetings of all sorts of Enlightened Gentlemen of many different associations, of which I suppose it would be improper to document even in this most private of environments. I bore witness to tales of the Hermetic Truths which can be found in the religions of Isis in Egypt, of the Jews in their Qaballah, and so forth. It, they posited, is the same Truths exposed to the Mahamdans of the Near East and the Veddic Lamas of the Orient, which jointly and uniformly spring forth from, all, a common source, as all things do, and – although it is something I find uncomfortable admitting to myself and others, although the Comte shared little of this difficulty – surely motivated the Catholic Church and broader Christianity as well, insofar as those esteemed institutions are also privy to a certain knowledge of the world.
Although my curiosity has not waxed and waned in the same cyclical passage that many of my passing interests and fancies tend to do, I do find myself troubled by a new sensation, a kind of doubtful remorse on the account of my brash impulsivity. New, of course, in this particular time and place, for it is not a sensation that I am utterly unfamiliar with – it is one I have an almost too-intimate familiarity with – but to-day, looking out upon the torrential storms and the waves they manifest, it seems to grow anew, given a burning vibrancy within my thoughts that its brightness washes out any other thought. This torrid passage to the colonies is simply dreadful.
I simply hope, upon my landing in Baltimore, that I should find my assurance of self experiences a similar renewal, and that perhaps finally seeing at-once the Benevolent Enlightened Gentlemen who I am to board with will shock into me a passion for inquiry and research as lightning strikes a tall tree. We are to stay a-while in Baltimore, then make haste northwards toward the Province of Pennsylvania. There are whispers and rumours suggesting we will continue towards Fort Niagara, into lands contested by the American Indian, although I am assured that, following the conclusion of their recent military campaigns, they represent little risk to personal safety.
I wonder, has the same Hermetic Truth which permeates all knowledge of the world, too, shared by the American Indian, or do they wander hopelessly in the darkness? Surely, their knowledge of the lands around them stem from at-least rational inquiry, which suggests a mind at least bearing the capacity for enlightenment. I will have to engage more with their kind upon my landing, as I know little of them beyond what I’ve been graced to learn through studying the negotiation of Sir William Johnson, which I felt presented itself as most pertinent considering our passage into the New Purchase. Judging, at least from the analyses available to myself and made popular on the continent, the Iroquois have made excellent statesmen of themselves and bear much wisdom in the art of statecraft and governance. I would be most excited to see this “Memphis of the West”.
The crew is beginning to stir; although I find myself lusting little for hardtack and small beer, it would simply be deception to say the notion of a meal is motivating me, too, to stir. The Indiaman will meet land, I’m told, in the coming days. I hope this passage ends peacefully and without more hesitation, on the part of myself or the weather, as there is an inclement mood seeming to cast itself over us both.
In search of meaning.
Arthur Wickham
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Connecting to blog: e-x-t-r-e-m-o’s trip log
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[12/30/2007 00:07]: Well, it’s here. I finally got the malachi I read about on that shady Italian website. Its “government name” is 2DM-A-A, which is a bit of a mouthful, so it’s no wonder people just call it malachi. Visually, it resembles a sort of crystalline powder with a kind of “moist” texture to it, like that kinetic sand stuff you’d play with as a kid. Remarkably dense, there is a significant weight to even a small baggy. Odor-wise, it’s very gassy. If there’s such thing as a “bitter smell”, this thing has it. There seems to be a sort of volatility to it, which is INCREDIBLY rare in these “mystery powders” you get online (they are typically very stable and do not produce much odor, if at all). I can’t describe the taste as anything but the most sickening flavor possible, like the bitter, sour sting of alkaloids getting intimate with the metallicity of copper or batteries. This is even after buffing it with dissolvable base powder, as the chemical in its raw form is INCREDIBLY potent and difficult to measure safely. However, to dilute it enough that you wouldn’t taste anything, I think you’d have to be eating protein shake amounts of this powder, cups and cups.
For dosage, I will be taking the recommended 25 micrograms. According to my prior research, 5μg seems to be a threshold amount for noticeable effects with very little documentation of any dosage beyond 100μg. As this chemical is pretty new to the research drug scene, this isn’t cause for alarm itself, but let’s take it slow. Trip is expected to last for 12-24 hours, so thankfully, I’ve got a long holiday.
10:00AM: I take 25μg orally, in a capsule, with water, after a large breakfast.
10:15AM: Heart rate increasing. I feel a stirring in my chest. It may be simple anxiety as this is a new substance.
10:30AM: Colors are amplified. Heart rate still elevated but beginning to feel a sense of euphoria or “spirit pleasure”??? If that makes sense?
11:03AM: Senses are beginning to change in some dramatic ways. I can feel my fingertips but they feel like they’re drifting apart. like the feeling is offset from the fingertips I see. I might be dissociating or just beginning to peak.
11:42AM: NO I am DEFINITELY still peaking. Filled with sense of excitement. Attention is being pulled somewhere inside. I can feel parts of me turning inside. This may be my last log of the trip
12:12PM: WALLS UNFOLDING. COLORS!!!!! folding and unfolding churning and silver chrome mirrored//. i cant feel my eyes but i can feels yours
…
That was my last log of the night before being overcome by the sensation of being pulled away, as if by an ineffable force. It was difficult to coordinate muscle movements with intention, so it became onerous to simply type (much less organize my thoughts into something useful). I’ll simply catch you up with the remainder of the events that I remember.
I took the 25 micrograms around 10 in the morning on the 27th, it’s almost the 30th now. I am just now collecting my thoughts and memories enough to put them together into something to post, but there’s still plenty I can’t recall. Within a couple hours, as you can see in the log, I started getting pretty intense visuals. Every color in my vision grew to be as bright as possible, almost blindingly so. The blues of my carpet and reds of my posters combined into a kind of police siren effect, which was jarring, but never enough to spiral into a bad trip. There was some nausea, but not nearly as much as you’d expect from the smell and taste – I’d compare it with the more middle-of-the-pack 2C-derivative drugs in that regard.
After a couple hours of that, the trip expanded into my mind. It wasn’t simply perception but a lot of existential stuff too. It was INCREDIBLY hard to understand and even harder to articulate, but it felt as if I was stepping out of my body, through the inside, and out of another body. Like you had the things my body felt, and the things their body felt, and a DJ slider fading between them, back and forth, left and right. It caused in me a great sense of both detachment and unity, like we are all one organism feeling different experiences and isolating those experiences from itself. Like there isn’t any difference between my life and a different life other than some little on-off switch in our head that says “think you’re an individual”, and we’ve all got it flipped, but that’s it. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was like my most intense DMT experiences, where I was audience to a thousand human lives, as it was way more detached and spacy. There wasn’t nearly enough focus to the experience. However, it was INCREDIBLY strange how it felt like it was affecting every sense, and like I was participating in creating the trip, not just experiencing it. That’s the big departure from any trip I’ve ever had, honestly – this one felt interactive, like… this is the weirdest shit ever… but a merit-based trip? I think I could’ve pushed further. Knowing that twice my dosage is verified in literature as “typical” is crazy to me.
My brain felt flooded with empathy, definitely betraying the empathogen-entactogen origins of this stuff, but there was far too much stimulation for it not to be operating in that scheme, too. I believe there are amphetamine-group clusters, but it’s unclear their pharmacokinetic role or effect. It’s possible that some of the “focus” I’m looking for will become apparent at higher dosages. I’ll make sure to keep up this trip log with any new trips, as this malachi stuff is definitely something I’ll be playing with more. One of the best part about these high-potency drugs, too – just one gram is gonna last you a WHILE. I have a feeling I'm on the verge of something truly special with this… keep posted.
Signing off
e-x-t-r-e-m-o
