Date: 10/28/2018
Time: 1pm
Location: Urth Cafe
Do you have faith? I don’t because I believe firmly in logic and science. Do you think God exists? Or Gods exist? What about spirits? Angels and demons?
What if there’s a way to see God? What price would you be willing to pay?
I know how. Let me tell you a story…
In ancient Northern China, in the deepest mountains of Hebei province, there was a special village of indigenous people. The village was way outside of the Great Wall, hundreds of miles from current day Beijing City. The indigenous people, isolated from Han Chinese, had no place at all in Chinese history. Nobody knew they existed. Six thousand years ago, when language and civilization blossomed in China, an era when metal weapons were first invented and wars raged across the continent, they stayed tucked away in their jungle. The forest was their home, fort, safe haven.
The sacred part of the forest lied in a humid valley within Mount Cangyan. The valley was difficult to reach. There was no large area of flat land for agriculture. One day, a group of young indigenous teenagers ventured out of their normal hunting route, got lost, and discovered the valley by accident. At first, they didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. After all, trees were trees, clouds were clouds, meadows looked the same, but then there was this sensation when they walked the mushy forest floor.
One of the teenagers stepped on something soft. He looked down on the ground. There were a few round objects around the size of his fingernails.
He bent down and picked up one of the brown round objects. It was not like any plant he had ever seen before.
“The color green is missing.”
He thought to himself. Curious, he went on to gather more specimens of the same organism. They each had a long white stem with blue bruises connecting to the round brown head.
This teenage boy’s surname was Bao（包）. He went on to become the first in a long line of shamen and shawomen in the Bao family. The most famous of whom, Bao Zheng, also known as Bao Gong or “Lord Bao,” was a politician in Northern Song Dynasty who had a reputation for justice, extreme honesty and uprightness. Unbeknownst to the civilian world, he behaved the way he did because the Bao family had a secret through which for generations they were able to see and communicate with the spiritual world. Yes, it was through psilocybin mushrooms.
On the night the first Bao boy discovered the mushrooms, he took them home and in his own personal small hut, he created a safe, quiet environment in which he decided to taste a psychedelic mushroom.
“Okay. Here we go!”
Bao put one in his mouth. Chewed six times. And he swallowed.
“It’s a little bit bitter, but not bad. Shouldn’t be poisonous?”
He thought. However, in no way was he sure. He waited. Nothing happened in forty minutes. Well, there was no physical mechanical timepiece for an ancient Chinese indigenous to use as a stopwatch to count minutes. They used shadows in the sun during the day to distinguish which hour it was. In the night, however, most of them just carried on their routines and then went to bed. There were no beds, of course. On the ground with large mats made by soft dried grass they slept every night.
Bao couldn’t sleep. He felt a strange sensation running all over his body. It was difficult for him to put into words. He could feel the gentle breeze blowing in between his fingers and a glowing warmth within his chest cavity. Lying down, as he took deep breaths, he saw the roof of his hut turning blue in lines resembling the shape of tall grass. He was amazed at the lack of fear in his mind and the ample blithe curiosity in his heart.
“This feeling is euphoric. I can see rainbow colors!”
Suddenly he felt an urge to move. There was a voice calling him from the outside. It was distant, and yet so close enough he thought maybe it was one of his mischievous friends pranking him.
“Pitch black outside. Who is there?”
The voice sounded deep and commanding. Bao reluctantly got up and walked out. Then it struck him!
“What is this!? What are these?? WHERE AM I???”
He saw a whole new strange world. There were colors and shapes that resembled but not the same as everyday black, red, green, trees, clouds, and the moon. The moon! He saw a giant stern pale face in what was supposed to be the sky.
“Who are you? Why are you talking to me? What do you want from me????”
The pale face in the sky spoke. He listened. For what felt like hours the face told him fascinating stories about life and death, good and evil. How you must behave according to ten rules of life to achieve seven great virtues and avoid seven deadly sins, pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and acedia. In the end, Bao asked the pale face to identify itself because he wanted to listen to it speak again. He would practice what the face preached for the rest of his life.
“I am God. The almighty GOD!”
After the night Bao first encountered God, everything changed. He was no longer that introvert village boy anymore. He became wise, brave, resilient, determined to spread the teachings of God to everywhere he could go.
First, the villagers ignored him.
Then, they witnessed his prophecies come true, one by one.
Finally, he solidified himself as the de facto spiritual leader. A shaman, a guru, a sage.
Bao founded a folk religion, what later became Taoism, 道教. It was the first religion in China. The Gods, spirits, qi, yin yang, bao ying, and many other concepts he taught the villagers eventually developed into morals to live by thousands of years after his death. His heirs and the Chinese ethnic majority followed Taoism to the modern day.
Six thousand four hundred twenty four years five months and seven days later, a boy was born.
His name was Robert Bao. He was me.
(To be continued… click here for the next episode)
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