DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
by Rick Strassman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rick StrassmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-01
ISBN: 0892819278
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Park Street Press
Book Reviews of DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
Book Review: Apocalyptic spirits for our de-caffeinated existence?
Summary: 5 Stars
In LSD - My Problem Child, Albert Hoffman wrote that retarded people would often be taken aback and somewhat surprised as to how boring and completely ordinary a figure he cut; he being the inventor of LSD and all. Neil Armstrong was also an intensely private and very boring character; this is why NASA picked him, and not the charismatic Buzz Aldrin to be the first man on the moon; the fame wouldn't go to his head, you see. So there really is something to be said for boring people, isn't there? It's as if the boringness of a person is in adverse proportion to their honesty; or something like that. Now along comes a real charisma vacuum, made flesh in the form of Dr Rick Strassman. Softly spoken and seriously boring; Dr Strassman is a safe pair of hands to conduct the first human studies with the drug N,N-Dimethyltryptamine; and what amazing good news he's discovering for our nihilistic times. Dr Strassman's test subjects are reporting worlds of Galileon proportions, with titanic implications for our decaffeinated world. Dr Strassman's unique study deserves to be recognised for what it is then; a spiritual cleansing ointment to wipe away the dreary materialism which troubles our sad world (no really!). So forget atomic colliders and our fascination with human genome projects; because what Dr Strassman's study has uncovered, and this is science at the cutting edge remember, what he's done is to point towards salvation after death and a real delving into the possibility of a post death reality for you, me and the girl selling crack down the road.
The studies in this book, Strassman argues, are suggestive of doorways to something lurking before birth and existing beyond life. I haven't figured out the implications yet, but radical psychonauts, like the late, great, Terence McKenna, who was the opposite of boring Dr Strassman incidentally, thought big about DMT, the spirit molecule. McKenna argued that "the DMT molecule is a trapdoor to the lesser lights, made flesh by the dark Gods that turn the millstones of the world". McKenna's somewhat fetishtic worshipping of the DMT `modalities' is understandingly off-putting to those who enjoy thinking for themselves; however, he did have a great story to tell.
Terence McKenna often spoke in reverence of the DMT world; with the oratory power of an ecstatic poet, and, more impressively, he wasn't even high at the time (I might add). McKenna was convinced that "this experience is of a fundamentally different order than anything this side of the yawning grave" (Terence McKenna). And Cambridge biologist Rupert Sheldrake agreed, he calls DMT a necroptic substance; because of its catalysing powers, that is, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine has the ability to throw the mind into the post death state. Terence McKenna agreed, believed the DMT experience to be the closest thing you will ever get to the after death state and still come back. The molecule is the door-frame and we step beyond it and see wonderful things. McKenna was convinced that these things had an ontological validity independent of our thoughts and feelings about it. "More like shifting fantasy land than good old positivist rock n roll" (McKenna).
If only these themes could be pumped out into the 'sane' world of Simon Cowell's flabby tits, then the DMT truth would be a phenomenal hit because, to my mind anyway, these ideas are more fascinating than all that Dan Brown rubbish which passes for the mysterious these days. And that mystical, 'get a fit girl my thinking her into existence' 'The Secret' windbaggery is hucking in the retarded herd; get them all to try DMT; thus they shall learn!!! DMT is the real secret and the experiences we hear so much about in the UFO Times and the Discovery Channel really can't touch the DMT flash for scientific validity and, more impressively, for spookiness.
This is high blown philosophical silliness for those who haven't had the experience but, as Terence was forever arguing, the drug only lasts about seven minutes and it is physically safe and so the sceptics should try it for themselves. Alas I'm not aware of the sceptics taking McKenna up on the offer. The sceptics, you know, may be mind-locked drones, terrified of the void which lurks outside their peer reviewed living rooms, but I suspect the real reason they ignored McKenna's challenge was because of the oratory firework show that spewed from the bards mouth! Terence, you must understand, was at the extreme end of the DMT cult, and these days the DMT community really does feel like an obese cult, and this is why, Rick Strassman is important; I am not joking when I say that his boringness can pop the New Age trappings of the DMT flash and bring legitimacy in through the back door. Compared to Terence McKenna, Strassman is safe and straight and his script is so down to earth when compared to the spellbinding oratory tricks of the bard McKenna, that his boring elocution is much needed over a charisma god! Smart people have had enough of spellbinding orations and, time and time again, eyeballs just roll at maniacal prophets with idols to smash: Like St Terence of McKenna.
Terence was indeed an overly excited prophet; he could just let rip with lines off the top of his head; like; ' clap the gods into town and the voice of a thousand elves thunder into local fields of awareness; and these "local fields are foetal human minds, being born, hurried and buried into the bones of our dying world". You will never feel this because our brain is a filter that cuts your mind off from the DMT place. McKenna went on the speculate that the evolutionary purpose of this cutting us off is obvious (well to him it was!). If our cave dwelling ancestors had access of the radiance the DMT space, 24/7, then they would be getting eaten by sabre toothed tigers at an alarming rate! So the brain protects us from this radiance; thus we can say, using modern concepts, that the brain acts like a protective firewall and N,N-Dimethyltryptamine can override this neurono firewall". McKenna can talk like this for hours and hours, and without notes too! When assaulted by his vocal range, we are converted to his way of thinking, and so we are hypnotised with the spellbinding trick of McKenna's oratory power. McKenna argued that DMT is a neuro-hacking agent to God. Unfortunately you need a massive personality to convey these ideas and not come across as all silly sounding. But this is the realm of the saint rather than the scientist. St McKenna sure was bananas to us scientific typse, and he may well have been pulling our legs; he once referred to himself as being a functioning schizophrenic, a unique genius who was convinced of the banana realms inhabited with extra elves! Again, Dr Strassman covers similar weird things but with a different personality. So what i am saying, if anything, is that two opposite personalities are coming up with the same message ergo, the DMT realm (whatever that may mean) is a real place. (I'm aware that the concept of 'real' is a sloppy word, but thats the limits of the English language for you).
Strassman's study then is less titanicaly hatched than Terence McKenna's scipt. What Dr Strassman's subjects are reporting, and this is in the book, are multi formed high definition elf embodiments that are impossible to exist in this world are revealed to your startled eye. Angels of demonic intensity, syntactically shifting gestalts of life and death representations, and in high definition too. Apparitions made out of silicon and trees that resemble demigods from Indian art that gallop around inside the hospital room and carry multiple meanings all at once, such as punning in many domensions. They flicker like this in chaotic frequencies that leave the mind trailing and so the more you look the less you are able to pour language over. Most of Strassman's subjects say that they understand the DMT message, but on awakening the message quickly dissolves and they cannot remember anything; "it's like an involved dream that we forget as soon as our feet touch the bathroom floor" (McKenna). The subjects also report floating in deep space, looking at long dead alien machinery from the end of time (seriously, just read the books or listen to You Tube) and space-stations orbiting fantastic forgotten worlds. You will be greeted by telepathic elf machines from this universe that communicate in syntactical information that are extraordinary complex, impossible to fathom but very ordered. It somehow all makes sense. Now I must add that this all sounds stupid and this again is why Strassman is important. He seems completely sane is what I'm getting at.
Terence McKenna used to tell a story of giving a huge dose of DMT to a very old Tibetan monk whilst travelling through Aisia. The monk was "not one of those alcoholic fundraiser Lamas, but the real thing" (McKenna) and the monk told him that the DMT experience was the lesser lights and that you cannot go further than this and return to your body. The monk told him that when we die our mind is cut off from its host (brain) and falls through the brains physical barrier and journeys back through the lesser light and into the spirit realms. ("I believed him, McKenna said," the guy took it like a man, I mean; he must have been over 90 years old"). In the presence of this spirit then, all the capability of human conception sinks exhausted, with nothing to hold onto but a fall into a place outside of metaphysics; a palace of radiant light. The misery of trying to pin down weird experiences with words, and saying that it would be like trying to eat fire with an axe. Profound experiences you see can never be embodied or wrapped up into words. Those who know would never tell anyway! This is the original doctrine of awakening you see; the original Buddhahood. When done correctly, this doctrine will break open your hopelessly dreary reality and set you on your way to Nirvana. Unfortunately, only the special adepts achieve this goal; Nirvana was not meant for the peasants. (Forget all that Mahayana 'everybody for the ride' rubbish peddled in the west). Fortunately, we now have the new-kids on the block; the psychedelic experience and the DMT flash. These drugs can open the gates to worldwide Enlightenment, that is, they are for the masses. The DMT flash is an especially fast track to the above. It is even more unfortunate then that the DMT experience really is impossible to describe with a voice box and a pen. It's this impossibility of 'solid' evidence that leads those who refuse to step off the merry-go-round of consumerism to conclude that these things are mere hallucinations. It is all an illusion apparently and so smart people just refuse to look at DMT and other possible worlds. This great refusal to see isn't a new phenomenon.
Galileo experienced the same frustrations with his peers a few centuries ago when his fellow professors refused to take a look through his telescope. So it behooves us to remember that it wasn't the peasants who refused to look through Galileo's telescope but the scholars with their learning from Aristotle and the Bible. That was 400 years ago but this conservative archetype resonates today. Today it is the psychologists and philosophers, with their learning from Darwinism and Einstein, who refuse to take a glance at psychedelic drugs (they argue that it is all an illusion), whilst outside the academy, the peasants if you will, are partying hard!
So those today, who are claiming it is all an illusion, have to remember that the same thing was said about Galileo's discoveries. Casare Cremonini, the most renowned Aristotelian philosopher of the early seventeenth century, is remembered today as the professor who refused to look through Galileo's telescope (for this Galileo called him 'simplicio'). It was in 1610 when Galileo looked through his telescope and saw the moons of Jupiter. He then realized then that what Aristotle said must be wrong, and the Bible too. Galileo hurried to tell his fellow peers, including his good friend Cremonini, that what they have all been doing for 2000 years was completely wrong and that he had the proof, "look through here and see the proof for yourselves", Galileo would have said. But amazingly, instead of wanting to see these new truths for themselves, Galileo's peers stubbornly refused even to look through the lens! The churchmen of Galileo's day dismissed his telescopic insights as being an optical illusion or hallucination and so not worth further investigation. These medieval professors didn't have to look through Galileo's telescope because they knew what they saw with their own naked eyes (they just knew they 'knew' from 'pure reasoning' in those days!). For thousands of years the naked eye was the only tool available for science and it worked just fine; from advanced mathematics in Greece and India to gothic architecture and beautiful art, this progress was all done with the naked eye. We naturally induce that `this is all there is', but paradoxically, without evidence. This has become known as the paradox of inductive reasoning. It is not logical to infer from an observation, even if that same event happens a thousand times; but the old dogma just kept sticking around. So if Galileo saw the heavens in conflict with the prevailing Aristotelian dogma, then what he saw must be a hallucination. Because astronomers could already see, they concluded that a greater seeing was not possible and so a telescope was impossible! (Gremonini was well rewarded for his junk philosophy by the way. Just like today's academics). Today it is the professors of psychology and philosophy dons who refuse to look into psychedelic drugs. Humanity has made great progress with the naked (unperturbed) mind they say; indeed, we have built brain splittingly complicated intellectual atom smashers with just our normal conscious awareness and so conclude that this is it and that nothing lurks beyond the normal local mind space.
Well today telescopes (and microscopes) are legal and thus we have made progress in the material places. It's a crying shame then that the perturbing of mind is frowned upon by otherwise very intelligent people who really should know better. (Even some reviews of this book dismiss it as some sort of druggy fuelled stoner hippy fest! This is a stupid point to take, but as the saying goes, "against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain": Schiller). Today it is worldwide illegal to study these spiritual molecules or even to disprove this spiritual springboard hypothesis. Instead we only allow science which completely gives up the ghost in favour of advanced technology, but, in so doing, reduces all matter to flying atoms screaming through empty space, blind and indifferent to our whims. Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg captured this weltanschauung beautifully when he said: "All the explanatory arrows point downward, from societies to people, to organs, to cells, to biochemistry, to chemistry, and ultimately to physics." He thus concluded, "the more we know of the cosmos, the more meaningless it appears". Thus science is meaningless for salvation. Are we not taught this version of reality in school?
Human institutions are carved up into many metaphysical millstones, grinding away at our spirits and, according to this world view, printing stamps of stupidity onto the minds of men; alas, this is a very hard stamp to shake off. This stupidity has forced psychedelics underground with the other good things of life! N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is seen as evil because it does not fit the prevailing orthodoxy of our times, and even more so, Terence McKenna argued that it threatens our moral bourgeois institutions and the entire capitalist ethic of fearing your neighbour as you fear yourself. This stamp of fear runs deep in our nature. We naturally fear weirdness and clench our fist in moral rage at anything deemed divergent. This fear archetype is imprinted deep in our collective history. For example, in ancient Rome, charitable Christians had to contend with furious emperors and a blood thirsty colosseum. During the middle ages, hurried and harassed families had to dodge an oligarchical priesthood and a stern Church dogma; and today's free spirits must look over their shoulder, in fear of a furious busy-body class, cultural cardinals (politicians, media editors), and an overly enthusiastic police force. The stamp of human nature runs deep indeed.
It may well be a human nature which deems the laboratory of mind as escapism. This is wrong. It is not escapism, or cheating, to use drugs in philosophical endeavours, just as it is not cheating to use a telescope to view the moons of Jupiter. Ok you need an education to use a telescope (or microscope) so educated people should be able to at least have the chance of disproving Strassman's hypotheses. This is how science is done. The collective stamp or the foot print of genius then has come so far. Our foot is printed on the map of the ontological process, and all progress is driven by a cerebral cortex and the imagination; DMT will turn this purple prose into a reality argued McKenna! This other world is a puff away (if smoked that is).
Is there proof? Well, apart from McKennas talks, you can if you read DMT: The Spirit Molecule; it's the strongest conclusion I can think of. Well that, or Rick Strassman and his many subjects are lying through their collective teeth for some strange reason!
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Summary of DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
A clinical psychiatrist explores the effects of DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known.
? A behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge of psychedelic research.
? Provides a unique scientific explanation for the phenomenon of alien abduction experiences.
From 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain. In Strassman's volunteers, it consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences. Many reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences, aliens, angels, and spirits. Nearly all felt that the sessions were among the most profound experiences of their lives.
Strassman's research connects DMT with the pineal gland, considered by Hindus to be the site of the seventh chakra and by Rene Descartes to be the seat of the soul. DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the bold case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul's movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexual transcendence. Strassman also believes that "alien abduction experiences" are brought on by accidental releases of DMT. If used wisely, DMT could trigger a period of remarkable progress in the scientific exploration of the most mystical regions of the human mind and soul.
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