It's A Hallucination And You Know It Is!

From the files of "Don't do drugs, kids", a one 26-year old and old enough to know better, Jarrod Wyatt who is "...believed to have taken psychedelic mushrooms" is accused of (even though it's fairly obvious that he did this) "...brutally murdering his 21-year-old friend, Adam Powell" and, among other atrocities, "...cutting out his victim's tongue and heart." All of this according to the Times-Standard, which appears to serve Eureka and California's North Coast. Eww.

Now, I'm not suggesting that I have never imbibed in any sort of mind altering substances. I am frequently fueled by the grape or by the wheat (more frequently when writing this sort of blather, can't you tell?). In my rowdier days, I will even admit to having imbibed in substances that were not of a liquid variety. And all of that being said, I am going to state that regardless as to what I was indulging in, I knew that I was willfully (and more importantly) purposefully altering my brain. Thus, anything that I encountered during said state of alteration, was not to be taken too seriously. As a good friend of mine once said, "You know a hallucination is a hallucination!" But apparently, not everyone is aware of that.

Such seems to be the case with Mr. Wyatt. See, Mr. Wyatt and his friend (soon to become victim) "...became preoccupied with the idea that a tidal wave was coming, that the end of the world was upon them and that a struggle between God and the devil was taking place." That's a pretty wide variety of stuff there. Which one do you start to worry about first? The tidal wave? The end of the world? (It's unclear if the end of the world was to be caused by the tidal wave.) The God v. Devil attraction? (It's unclear if the end of the world, which possibly would have been cause by the aforementioned tidal wave, would have been the scenario for the God v. Devil showdown.) Hard to say.

The events that transpired after those preoccupations are also hard to determine. But what seems to be clear is that at some point, Powell was stabbed and hopefully, to death because also, "The body had had the majority of its face removed, and an 18-inch incision in its chest cavity." Yeah, that chest cavity was where his heart used to be. Mr. Wyatt took it out. That's right. Out. And then he did just about what you'd expect a nutjob like this to do. That's right. He cooked it in a wood burning stove. Wait. He did what?

You heard me. He took out his heart and cooked it in a wood burning stove. You know. To get rid of the devil and all. OK, then. I'm sure that at this point, you're kind of wondering what a fellow such as Mr. Wyatt looks like. Let me just tell you that he looks precisely as you probably think that he looks. Behold!

See? Told you. Now, I'm not thinking that it's going to be all that hard to convince Mr. Wyatt. After all, when the cops found him in the house where Mr. Powell had been killed, he was "...standing near a body on a couch, naked and covered from head to toe in what appeared to be dried blood." He also allegedly said, ”I killed him.” Yep. That oughta do it.

Now, listen, I'm not saying that the psychedelic mushroom tea that they are purported to have drank before all of this "tidal wave-end of the world-he is the devil" talk had nothing to do with it. Clearly, it had a lot to do with it. But what in the world did he think was going to happen when he was trippin' on shrooms? Seriously now. That's the point of ingesting the psychedelics. They make you see things that aren't there. Some people seem to enjoy that. ( Though I'm not quite sure why. I get annoyed enough at things that are actually here. I don't need stuff that doesn't exist hanging around and bugging the crap out of me, too.)

This gets back to what my good friend told me. You're taking a substance that is a known hallucinogenic. Therefore, you're going to hallucinate. You could (translation: most likely) see some pretty weird stuff going on. But that's only because you've induced yourself to the point where that's what is supposed to happen in those circumstances. You know what you do in those instances? That's right. You go with it! You don't stab your friend because you think he's the devil! You never rip off his face and you most certainly do not remove his heart from his chest and bake it in an oven, wood burning or otherwise!

People that say that they have no control over themselves in these situations are wrong. This is evidenced by the thousands of people who take psychedelic mushrooms and don't remove someone else's internal organs. You know what you're doing at the time that you're doing it. You just need to take the time and think about why you're doing it at the time that you're doing it. If you're doing it because you're suddenly under the belief that you need to intervene with the devil, you might want to just sit down for a moment or two and see what happens. Chances are that nothing will. (I know, I know, there's a first time for everything, but I really think that you're going to be OK in this instance.) And above all, you have to remember that you're under the influence of (in this case) shrooms! You wanted to hallucinate! And now you are! That doesn't mean that it's any more real just because it's not all bunnies and puppies and you don't like it! Now, put the knife down and get a grip on yourself.