Astral Intoxication and the Intermediate Zone...

There is in fact an intermediary state, a zone of transition between the ordinary consciousness in mind and the true knowledge. One may cross without hurt through it, perceiving at once or at an early stage its real nature and refusing to be detained by its half-lights and tempting but imperfect and often mixed and misleading experiences. Or one may go astray in it, follow false voices and mendacious guidance, and that ends in a spiritual disaster. Or one may take up one’s abode in this intermediate zone, care to go no farther and build there some half-truth which one takes for the whole truth or become the instrument of the powers of these transitional planes - that is what happens to many.

- Sri Aurobindo


(Satchidananda [not Aurobindo] on a rainy Swiss mountain in 1987)