Eddie Jessup is an ex-religious scientist investigating altered
states of consciousness. He goes to Mexico and joins an Indian tribe in a
mushroom smoking ritual, where he experiences a sense of return to an
earlier period in man’s evolution. He takes some of the mushroom stuff
back to the lab where the active drug was identified and then
synthesized. In an effort to study the drug’s effects further, he takes
some and goes into an isolation tank, with some colleagues standing by
to observe. He transmogrified into an earlier man-form and x-ray
pictures proved it. His colleague could hardly take in what happened and
tried to discourage him from further testing himself with the drug.
Some felt he was getting mad and out of hand, and his wife just returned
from Africa on a study was constantly worried for him.
He
takes the drug again and enters the isolation tank, alone this time. He
changes into an ape-like creature, attacks some of the college staff
working the night, follows a pack of dogs and ends up in the African
Savannah section of a zoo, where he changes back to normal human form
and is found naked asleep by a night guard. His wife and colleagues
could hardly believe him and he tries the experiment again under their
eyes, to convince them. This time he turns into a black ape and his
colleagues do some tests and take blood and tissue samples. But after
they leave him he continues transgressing backwards, to the horrifying
beginnings of the planet, and is about to turn into thin air but for his
wife who could no longer stand it and rushes in to hold him. A terrific
climax to a story about a drug that could change one physically to an
earlier evolutionary form lasting 4 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment