DMT, OR N,N-DIMETHYLTRYPTAMINE, IS AN extremely powerful yet short-acting psychedelic drug, derived from tryptophan, a chemical substance that is found universally in living systems. (1) Pharmacologically, DMT is a relatively simple molecule. It has been used for centuries by various cultures for ritual purposes in that it induces alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, and cognition. For example, in South America, indigenous tribes have long consumed ayahuasca, which is derived by decocting two plants native to the Amazon forest--Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis. Taken separately they have no hallucinogenic effect, but when brewed together they can induce an extraordinary visionary state lasting for several hours. (2)
It was not until 1931 that Western science became aware of DMT after it was synthesized in a laboratory by Canadian chemist Jeremy Manske. In 1946, a Brazilian chemist and ethnobotanist, Goncalves de Lima, isolated DMT from plant sources. The psychotropic effects of DMT were first described in 1956 by the Hungarian-born chemist and psychiatrist Stephen Szara after he self-injected the synthesized substance. (3) In 1965 a German team announced that they had discovered DMT in human blood. (4)
The "clandestine chemist" and advocate for psychedelics, Nicholas Sand, is credited with being the first person to discover that DMT could be smoked. (5) DMT has been called "the crack of ayahuasca." (6) Physiological changes under the influence of DMT include a rapid increase in pulse (up to 150 bpm) and in blood pressure, but both tend to fall quickly once the peak of the trip had been reached. (7) Inasmuch as DMT metabolizes very quickly, users typically reach a peak high about five minutes after taking the drug. When DMT is smoked, the full "trip" typically lasts between 20 to 25 minutes. In order to "breakthrough"--to reach the DMT realm--a user has to inhale and hold three hits of the smoked drug. Unlike most other drugs, people who use DMT over time do not build up a tolerance for it. Smokable DMT is in a sense a rediscovery of a mechanism that has long been used by shamans to access what they believe to be hidden realms in order to obtain sacred knowledge.
DMT and the Shamanic Tradition
DMT has been employed by shamans in the Amazon jungles, where they are referred to as "vegetalistas," or those who work with plants. (8) Ayahuasca is regarded as an entheogen, an ethnographic term used to describe a plant or drug that evokes a sense of the numinous or a mystical experience. (9) Encounters with entities in the form of jaguars and snakes are frequently reported. According to the Amazonian tradition, jaguars represent power, while snakes represent knowledge. (10) The shaman's role is important, for he serves in the name of the community and conducts intermittent commerce with the spirits of nature. During his journey, the shaman goes somewhere and brings back information that he uses to improve the well-being of the community. The entities with whom the shamans entertain a relationship are morally ambiguous. Whereas some have healing knowledge, others have destructive knowledge. It is usually easier to get knowledge that can harm people faster than to get knowledge that can heal them. For this reason, it is crucial for the community to keep a close eye on the shaman so that he uses his skill to benefit the group. (11)
In his 2007 book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, journalist and "alternative archaeology" writer Graham Hancock linked cave paintings dating back 35,000 years with shamanic traditions throughout the world. He noted that many of the paintings depicted therianthropic (human-animal hybrids) images not unlike the descriptions of entities that people had reported meeting under the influence of ayahuasca. The paintings depict these figures in various stages of their transformation and have appeared diachronically and across cultures.' (2) Hancock speculates that perhaps the total darkness of the caves facilitated the production of melatonin and DMT that contributed to spiritual voyages. (13)
As Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffman, and Karl Ruck have argued, shamanic plants and practices played a vital role in the genesis of many of the great world religions. (14) In that same vein, Hancock adduces evidence that that the Abrahamic religions were inspired by hallucinogenic visions. He notes, for example, that the ordeal of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ followed by his death and subsequent resurrection is essentially the narrative of the wounded man, which is commonly found in visions of Amazonian shamans. Similar stories are told by shamans everywhere of their own initiatory agonies, death, and resurrection. (15) In recent years, Rick Strassman has advanced the idea that the Hebrew Bible could be the accounts of people who entered a prophetic state under the influence of some hallucinogen, possibly DMT, and he calls this model "theoneurological." (16)
The Varieties of DMT Experience
When DMT is smoked, initially users will often hear ringing sounds followed by a feeling that they are traveling through a tunnel. After that, there is a feeling that one has entered another realm that appears to be hyper-dimensional with intricate morphing patterns. The environments often appear to evince landscapes with hyper-advanced structures and vessels of complexity beyond human imagination. (17) Users report seeing extraordinary visual phenomena, including kaleidoscopic lights, geometric forms, tunnels, and a variety of unusual entities. (18i) The experiences often seem veridical to the users; indeed, the realms are often described as more real than normal reality.
In his self-published book, DMT & My Occult Mind-lite, Dick Khan, who describes himself as a "working-class man from the North of England," chronicled his experiences under the drug. (19) They are consistent with the accounts of other users. In most of his experiences he first heard a high frequency sound, then his room would seem to pulse with energy and images, then he perceived the presence of some form of conscious intelligence even if it was not visible. Occasionally he felt a distinct pressure bearing down upon him from above in the early moments of his experiences, perceiving this feeling as a psychospiritual entity's effort to interact with him. At times he felt as if the entities were forcing him to laugh, and quite often they appeared joyful and happy and shared in his delight. From what Khan could infer, the entities seemed to operate interactively and communicatively across a wide spectrum of human emotions. His varied experiences led him to believe that he had rediscovered something primordial about the nature of humanity and his relation to other realms that shamans in the past had known.
Mostly, Khan's experiences were positive, but occasionally his DMT experiences were frightening. For instance, sometimes he thought that some entities were warning him to leave the area of the realm that he had entered. He felt as if his thoughts and feelings were not private to the entities and that they were adept at misdirecting the human mind as his thoughts seemed exaggeratedly amplified. There were times in which the entities would seemingly argue among themselves about how they should deal with him. In one such case, he perceived one entity to be very angry at him while another one seemed to be holding him back. Likewise "Ken"--a subject in Dr. Rick Strassman's DMT study (discussed below)--felt that he had actually been sexually assaulted during his trip: see original post.
In a bizarre experience, a journalist and DMT researcher, James Oroc, claimed to have once encountered a female friend who had died years earlier. Another female friend of his watched over him during his DMT trip but abstained from the drug throughout the experience. She told Oroc that a vision of a woman appeared in the room while he was in his DMT trip, seemingly occupying some place between two worlds. She claimed that she saw a beam of light the size of an American quarter come out of his chest. Then Oroc split into two perfect copies of himself, sitting side by side on the couch. Soon thereafter the spirit of Oroc's dead friend suddenly appeared. His living friend claimed to have been sober throughout the entire incident and not influenced by any drug, but of course we have only their account on which to rely. (21)
DMT users who smoke even higher doses can experience an even greater breakthrough that engenders a feeling not unlike a Near Death Experience. A very potent form of the drug derived from the Colorado River toad--5-MeO DMT--is reported to facilitate this breakthrough. (22) It has been described as an "utter blast-off into hyperspace" followed by a dissolution of the ego and everything that makes up consensus reality. Surroundings completely disintegrate, time ceases to exist, and all individual traits, including personality, memories, intelligence, and language, are forgotten and all that is left is an energetic essence that feels like floating in an ether of eternity. This powerful dissociation effect can leave one with the feeling of profound insight into the nature of reality. (23) Some voyagers recount living all of their life experiences in an instant. Many people report the DMT experience as an event that brings about a total awareness, a cosmic consciousness of sorts; however, this profound sense of knowledge and awareness is often fleeting and dissipates after a day or two. (24) After the DMT experience wears off, the voyager often feels a sense of disorientation, asking himself "who am I?" (25)
The dosage of 5-MeO DMT needs to be carefully calibrated to have the desired effect. A certain amount is needed to breakthrough, but too much can result in the user remembering little or nothing of the experience other than a bizarrely frightening "white hole." James Oroc reported bursting through a realm that he described as pure light with an indescribable radiance and beauty that pulsed with its own intelligence. (26) Voyagers report the feeling of expanding outward and becoming part of everything as if connecting with the entire universe from within their very being. Such descriptions are not unlike the Tibetan Book of the Dead which posits that in the bardos--a state of existence between death and rebirth--a soul possesses a body of light that is capable of crossing into universes in faraway dimensions at the speed of thought. The experience often has a transformative effect, occasioning a change in the user's worldview. For that reason, Oroc counsels that the drug should be regarded as a life-changing sacrament and used with the utmost respect. Considering the profundity of DMT testimonials, the medical community was bound to eventually take notice.
The Medical Community's Research into DMT
From 1990 to 1995, a physician named Dr. Rick Strassman conducted a government sanctioned study of DMT at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque. Adhering to a painstaking protocol, he recruited 60 volunteers with prior experience using hallucinogenic drugs. He found that almost 50 percent of his subjects reported encounters with bizarre figures, described as "beings," "aliens," "guides," and "helpers," which they perceived as residing in different dimensions. (27) Initially, Strassman thought that these encounters were entirely subjective experiences that his subjects had conjured from their own psyches. But as his research continued, he began to believe that these entities were "autonomous non-corporeal beings." Because of the lucidity of his volunteers' accounts, he decided to act as if the realms they described and the inhabitants with whom they interacted were genuine. (28) Not unlike the psychedelic researchers Aldous Huxley and Albert Hoffman who came before him, Strassman felt compelled to consider the possibility that certain hallucinogens might change the receiving wavelength of the brain enabling it to make contact with unseen realms and their denizens that are opaque to us in normal states of consciousness but are nonetheless real. (29)
More recently, Professor Roland R. Griffiths led a study to examine the variety of experiences users had under the influence of DMT. The fact that this study was conducted by personnel at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine added much gravitas to the subject. (30) To recruit their subjects, the researchers posted notices on a variety of websites, including Facebook, Reddit, and recreational drug websites, between February and December 2018. Volunteers had to be at least 18 years of age and had at least one "breakthrough" experience while using DMT. If they had more than one experience, they were asked to recall their most memorable one. The majority of the participants reported having communicated in some way with an entity, 49 percent recalled only the entity communicating with them, and 40 percent claimed to have two-way communication. Not surprisingly, 99 percent reported having an emotional response. Although a sizeable minority--41 percent--felt afraid of the entities they encountered, most respondents felt "love," "kindness," and "joy" from the entities, describing them as "conscious," "intelligent" and "benevolent." Roughly 60 percent said the experience occasioned a change in their perception of reality. Not surprisingly, the experiences often changed the spiritual beliefs of the participants. (31) The bizarre nature of these experiences could perhaps explain the oft-derided claims of UFO abductees.
Can the Alien Abductee Experience be Explained by DMT?
When skeptics challenge UFOlogists to produce physical evidence of UFOs and close encounters of the third kind, one response is that aliens might have originated from other dimensions beyond our space-time. (32) The late Harvard psychiatrist John Mack conducted some of the most extensive research on alien abduction cases. Initially very skeptical, over time Mack concluded that the vast majority of those subjects that he interviewed were psychologically healthy persons that were trying to contend with an extraordinary experience. (33) Reviewing the research of the UFOlogist Budd Hopkins, for example, Mack was intrigued by the consistency of the abduction accounts, (34) employing hypnosis as a tool in the study of the abduction phenomenon. (35)
In his books, Abduction and Passport to the Cosmos, Mack referred to the abductees as "experiencers," shifting the focus from something that happens in the physical world (say, a bedroom) to something that happens in the minds of abductees. Experiencers often reported humming sounds, strange bodily vibrations, paralysis, or sometimes being placed on an examining table. Some abductees claimed to have received implants that were designed to monitor them, not unlike those that scientists use to track bears and wolves. (36) Mack and other researchers found that some of the abductees bore small scars that seemingly corroborated their claims of implantations. (37) They commonly reported seeing energy filled tunnels and cylinders of light during their experiences. The typical alien was usually described as short, with a large head, skinny body, big eyes, gray skin, and a small mouth. Some, however, were described as reptoid and insectoid. Not unlike the ordeal of Betty and Barney Hill, many abductees reported that the aliens seemed to be interested in the reproductive apparatus of humans, possibly to breed some kind of human-alien hybrids. (38) The abductees recounted that the aliens attempted to communicate with them, often by way of telepathy, as if they heard alien voices speaking inside their heads. It was not uncommon for abductees to feel that there is one alien in particular with whom they have a special relationship. (39)
According to Mack, interactions with extraterrestrials often had a transformative effect on the experiencers as many of them became committed to a number of progressive political causes, including environmentalism, and peace and disarmament movements. (40) He speculated that the aliens performed a role not unlike shamans, insofar as they come to Earth to open the minds of humans and awaken them, opining that the encounters seemed "almost like an outreach program from the cosmos to the spiritually impaired." (41)
Similarly, under the influence of DMT many of Strassman's subjects reported experiences not unlike those detailed by alien abductees. (42) Their experiences were lucid and did not seem dreamlike, although Strassman observed that some of his subjects displayed rapid eye movement, and he wondered if the DMT had induced a wakeful dream state. (43) Strassman found striking commonalities between the reports of John Mack's subjects and those of his DMT volunteers. (44) For instance, sound and vibration would build prior to the encounter just before the scene explosively shifted to an alien domain. The "autonomous noncorporeal beings" were usually described as insectoid or reptoid in appearance. In some instance, the beings were described as bearing a resemblance to praying mantises, albeit in humanoid form.
Like Mack's subjects, Strassman's volunteers often found themselves on a bed or landing bay, or some high technology room, placed on an examination table. Usually, one particular alien seemed to be in charge. The aliens sought to communicate with the subjects using gestures, telepathy, or visual imagery. Some abductees report a feeling of neuropsychological reprogramming or a transfer of information involving unusual symbols, rather than words or sounds. (45) The purpose of the contact was uncertain, but some subjects believed that the aliens were attempting to improve humans individually or as a species. (46) Perhaps the setting influences the experience. Opining on Strassman's research, Nicholas Sand noted that the clinical setting might have contributed to the accounts that told of alien doctors conducting probes. By contrast, if the setting would have been a temple with pleasant music and the smell of incense, the trip reports Sand conjectured, might have been quite different. (47)
The DMT experience has some overlap with the alien abduction phenomenon. According to many accounts, the abductee is awoken in his or her bedroom in the presence of some humanoid entity and is then transported through solid surfaces and onto an awaiting craft. (48) But if these entities are real, then where do they reside?
What is the Nature of Hyperspace?
Most users and dedicated researchers to the topic believe that DMT actually does provide access to alternate dimensions inhabited by independently existing intelligent entities. (49) Hyperspace is the name given to the realm that DMT users enter when their experiences begin. Various theories have been propounded to understand its essence. One theory held by shamans in Peru is that it is the abode of departed souls that people enter when they die. Graham Hancock says that shamans in Africa who follow the spiritual discipline known as Bwiti frequently report meeting with deceased fathers and grandfathers who serve as guides to them in the spirit world. (50) Similarly, Peter Meyer, a software developer and one of the first researchers to write about the DMT realm, posits intelligent beings in hyperspace are what we might conceive as "souls" who are born into human bodies. He speculates that most of us were once souls inhabiting this limbo-type province and have been incarnated this way. To make his case, he notes that psychonauts often feel an odd sense of familiarity when entering hyperspace. (51)
In that same vein, Terrence McKenna, who arguably did more than anyone to popularize DMT, recounted that entities often lavished him with presents, as if he were being received in a kind of homecoming ticker tape parade. Elves presented gifts that resembled Faberge eggs devised from complex arcane symbology and constructed in patterns that were not immediately comprehensible. Objects appeared like puzzles to be solved, messages to be translated, and hieroglyphs to be interpreted. These features suggesting that there was some mystery to be unlocked comprised the esoteric core of the DMT experience. (52)
Others speculate that DMT allows access to a kind of universal conscious, such as the Theosophical notion of Akashic Records or Carl Gustav Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious that is purportedly pervasive throughout the universe. Consistent with that theme, one user reported the feeling of entering an open space where a kind of Internet opened up to him that seemed to take the form of a web of particles that connected the universe together. He felt as if he was moving through some type of advanced grid-like matrix made up of numbers, characters and symbols that he could not understand. As he looked in one direction of one part of the grid, he sensed as if he could take in the experiences of all the collective civilizations that existed in that part of the matrix. (53)
Interestingly, the DMT experience does not seem to be culturally dependent, that is, people under the influence of the drug report similar occurrences across time and cultures. Graham Hancock argues that this similarity lends credence to the theory that these realms are free standing:
[W]hen huge numbers of people over enormous periods of history from
entirely unrelated cultures keep on experiencing the same "unreal"
things--as we know has consistently and continuously been the
case--then perhaps the time has come for us to stop dismissing and
discounting such visions and to seek out a proper explanation for them
instead. (54)
Hancock describes DMT as a form of technology, not unlike a telescope or a microscope, which allows users to see something real that is normally not accessible to their senses. Perhaps, he speculates, there is a secret doorway inside our minds through which we can project our consciousness into other dimensions. In these rarefied areas, intelligent sentient beings can teach us things that we did not know before. (55) Hancock did, however, report important qualitative differences between his ayahuasca and DMT experiences. While the former seemed to be filled with organic and supernatural entities and surroundings, the latter seemed to exhibit high tech landscapes with seeming biotechnic entities. (56)
Where, exacdy, do these entities exist? One suggestion by believers is that there may be spatial dimensions that we are unable to see. Since the latter part of the 20th century, research in string theory has dominated theoretical physics in an attempt to unite Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. According to string theory, there are a number of unobservable dimensions in which the building blocks of nature--extremely tiny vibrating strings--developed. (57) Curled up, these dimensions are purportedly infinitesimally small, perhaps the size of the Planck length. (58)
Similarly, Rick Strassman speculates that perhaps DMT provides access to "other" channels, or dimensions that we cannot usually perceive with our five senses. (59) Under the influence of DMT, the brain might switch channels that enable the person to access other domains. To support this view, he points out that the images are often so vivid and spectacular that they could not have been endogenously produced by the brain because the construction of such worlds would be beyond the imaginative capacity of most individuals. Perhaps, Strassman wonders, these mysterious realms might reside in dark matter. He speculates that humans may actually have parallel "dark matter bodies." Based on this assumption, subjects could indeed undergo surgical procedures, such as implants during alien encounters, but there would be no physical evidence of the procedure in our world. (60)
DMT Skeptics
Skeptics are loath to accept such fantastic claims without more evidence and a plausible causal explanation. Although they do not necessarily impugn the emotional intensity and vividness of the users' experiences, they are more likely to believe that the experiences most likely are hallucinations concocted by the human mind. Psychologist James Kent, for example, notes that people have a natural tendency to perceive anthropomorphic shapes when they see random data, such as seeing faces in inkblots, dragons in clouds, or the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. Furthermore, the landscapes that the psychonauts observe frequendy morph and lack a solid and consistent structure, not unlike dreams. After the experience, they often reconstruct their memories so that they produce a more consistent and coherent narrative. (61)
While Kent conceded that DMT is often stunning in its effects (he used the drug on a number of occasions), he concludes that the experience is an exotic aberration of the brain's perceptual mechanics. He points out that the drug acts primarily at the 5-HT2A receptor where the hallucinogenic tryptamines seemingly work their magic. Using the analogy of computer programming, he notes that a single line of code consisting of just a few characters can drastically alter the way a computer screen presents data, appearing to make it flicker, blink, warp, or twist into intricate patterns. Likewise, the DMT molecule can induce similar effects on the brain. Furthermore, the perception of encountering aliens and elves is not unique to DMT users, as similar experiences occur in people diagnosed with psychosis.
Kent rejects the notion that DMT is a gateway to an alternate dimension with autonomous entities. The more he experimented with DMT, the more he came to believe mat the entities were merely machinations of his own mind, as he developed the ability to both think them in and out of existence, not unlike a lucid dream. What is more, UFO abduction cases are often surreal and dreamlike in character and often end up as hallucinogenic journeys. In many cases, humanoid aliens shapeshift into birds, giant insects, and other phantasmagoric creatures. (62) One explanation is that hypnagogic (toward sleep) and hypnopompic (awakening from sleep) anomalies induce fantasies in some individuals who then attribute the experience to an alien encounter. (63)
As far as certain recurring themes or archetypes in reported DMT experiences--such as encounters with jaguars and elves--Kent sees this as a form of pareidolia, or the tendency for people to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. To be sure, the DMT-scape is startlingly sophisticated and complex, leading some users to believe that they could not possibly have envisaged such things on their own. But Kent suggests that people sell the human imagination short. Think of the fantastical worlds concocted by J. R. R.Tolkien or J.K. Rowling. Moreover, the messages that DMT users receive from entities that are of putatively superior intelligence seem to amount to generalized common wisdom applicable to the user's own life. Nevertheless, he concedes that there are aspects of the human mind, including creativity, which can be amplified under the influence of DMT. (64)
Furthermore, the DMT experience often seems very personalized, which would suggest that it ultimately derives from the individual psyche and not some free standing realm. Perhaps aliens and entities do exist but are ultimately psychological and transpersonal in nature. That is, they are unfamiliar aspects of ourselves. (65) But how could that ever be tested?
What is more, the perception of alien entities can also be artificially induced. For example, the Swiss neuroscientist, Olaf Blanke and his colleagues were able to produce a "shadow person" in a patient by electronically stimulating the left temporoparietal junction in her brain. "When the woman was lying down a mild stimulation of this area gave her the impression that someone was behind her; a stronger stimulation allowed her to define the 'someone' as young but of indeterminate sex." (66)
Additional natural explanations include migraine headaches, which can produce hallucinations. A longtime suffer, the noted neurologist Oliver Sacks, recounted in his book Hallucinations, that when his migraine headaches came on he experienced visions that included a dazzlingly bright shimmering light that stretched from the ground to the sky, with sharp glittering, zigzagging borders and blue and orange colors. In his autobiography, On the Move, Dr. Sacks recounts an incident in November of 1965 during which he was putting in marathon work weeks as a medical intern and downing huge doses of amphetamines to stay awake, topped off with generous measures of sleep inducing chloral hydrate. One day while dining in a cafe, as he was stirring his coffee, "it suddenly turned green, then purple." When Sacks looked up he noticed that the customer at the cash register "had a huge proboscidean head, like an elephant seal." Shaken by this image, Sacks ran out of the diner and across the street to a bus, where all the passengers "seemed to have smooth white heads like giant eggs, with huge glittering eyes like the faceted compound eyes of insects." At that moment the neurologist realized he was hallucinating but that "I could not stop what was happening in my brain, and that I had to maintain at least an external control and not panic or scream or become catatonic, faced by the bug-eyed monsters around me." There may even be an evolutionary basis for the sensed presence of others, as Sacks conjectures: "Thus the primal, animal sense of 'the other,' which may have evolved for the detection of threat, can take on a lofty, even transcendent function in human beings, as a biological basis for religious passion and conviction, where the 'other,' the 'presence,' becomes the person of God." (67) Sacks explained that the reason hallucinations seem so real "is that they deploy the very same systems in the brain that actual perceptions do. When one hallucinates voices, the auditory pathways are activated; when one hallucinates a face, the fusiform face area, normally used to perceive and identify faces in the environment, is stimulated." (68)
Another factor to consider is how the brain processes information. As Michael Shermer explained in his book Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia, the way the brain operates, it does not perceive its own neural processing. For that reason, mental activity is often attributed to some other source, whether it be a "mind, or "soul" or "consciousness." (69) As a result, although the DMT hyperspace may be endogenously produced, those people who experience it may ascribe it to some agency beyond the human brain.
Original Post can be found here.
REFERENCES
(1.) Luke, David. 2011. "Discarnate Entities and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Psychopharmacology, Phenomenology and Ontology," Journal of the Society of Psychical Research, Vol. 75.1, No. 902, 26.
(2.) Don Jose Campos. 2011. The Shaman & Ayahuasca. Studio City, CA: Divine Arts, xiv.
(3.) Rettig Hinojosa, Octavio. 2016. The Toad of Dawn: 5-MeO DMT and the Rise of Cosmic Consciousness. Studio City, CA: Divine Arts, 28.
(4.) Luke, "Discarnate Entities and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)," 27.
(5.) DMT: The Truth about Dimethyltryptamine. (Self-published, n.d.).
(6.) St. John, Graham. 2015. Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT. Berkeley, CA: Evolver Editions, 176.
(7.) Luke, "Discarnate Entities and Dimethyltryptamine," 30.
(8.) Campos, 2011, 3.
(9.) Oroc, James. 2009. Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 3.
(10.) Campos, 2011, 113.
(11.) Narby, Jeremy. 2018. "Amazonian Perspectives on Invisible Entities" in David Luke and Rory Spowers, DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 79.
(12.) Hancock, Graham. 2007. Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. New York: The Disinformation Company Ltd., 68-98. Likewise, John Mack, who conducted extensive research on UFO abduction cases, noted that the aliens appeared to be consummate shape shifters, often appearing initially as animals.
(13.) Ibid.
(14.) Ibid., 341.
(15.) Ibid., 311.
(16.) Strassman, Rick. 2018. "The Nature of DMT Beings, DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 282-294 and Strassman, Rick. 2014. DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.
(17.) Michaelson, Jared. 2018. "The DMT Drug Is not a Drug, it's Much Stranger," Kahpi, https://kahpi.net/dmt-drug/.
(18.) Luke, 2011, 31.
(19.) Khan, Dick. 2019. DMT & My Occult Mind-lite. Self-published, 51.
(20.) Strassman, Rick. 2000. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences. Rochester, VT: Part Street Press, 252.
(21.) Oroc, 2009, 46-47.
(22.) In 1965 5-MeO DMT was discovered in the venom of the Bufo al-varius toad (also known as the Colorado River toad and the Sonoran Desert toad) which inhabits the Sonora Desert, an area of 200,000 square kilometers extending from California and Arizona in the United States to Sonora, Mexico. Oroc, 2009, 23 and Hinojosa, 2016, 17.
(23.) Michaelson, 2018.
(24.) Wojtowicz, Slawek. 2008. "Magic Mushrooms," in Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frecska, Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds though Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 142-161.
(25.) Oroc, 2009, 11.
(26.) Oroc, 2009, 46.
(27.) Strassman, Rick, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frecska. 2008. Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds though Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 5.
(28.) Strassman, 2000, 201.
(29.) Hancock, 2007, 104.
(30.) Davis, Alan K., John M. Clifton, Eric G. Weaver, Ethan S. Hurwitz, Matthey W. Johnson, and Roland R. Griffiths. 2020. "Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects," Journal of Psychopharma cology, Vol. 34, No. 9,1008-1020.
(31.) Gander, Kashmira. 2020. "Taking DMT Can Lead to Experiences Similar to Those Reported by People Who Claim to Have Been Abducted by Aliens, Study Shows," Newsweek, May 18, https://bit.ly/30g20ic
(32.) Marrs, Jim. 1997. Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us. New York: Harper, 483.
(33.) Moroney, Jim. 2011. "An Alien Intervention," In Michael Pye and Kirsten Dalley (eds.), UFOs & Aliens: Is There Anybody Out There? (Pompton Plains, NJ: The Career Press, 59.
(34.) Marrs, 1997, 340.
(35.) Marrs, 1997, 337.
(36.) Steiger, Brad and Sherry Hansen Steiger. 2011. Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds. Canton, Ml: Visible Ink Press, 44.
(37.) Marrs, 1997, 355.
(38.) For more on the ordeal of Betty and Barney Hill see: Friedman, Stanton T. and Kathleen Marden. 2007. Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. Pompton Plains, NJ: New Page Books.
(39.) Strassman, 2011, 217-219.
(40.) Salla, Michael E. 2004. Exopolitics: Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence. Temple, AZ: Dandelion Books, 21.
(41.) Wojtowicz, Slawek. 2008. "Hypnosis, Past Life Regression, Meditation, and More," in Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frecska, Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds though Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 256.
(42.) Gander, Kashmira. 2020. "Taking DMT Can Lead to Experiences Similar to Those Reported by People Who Claim to Have Been Abducted by Aliens, Study Shows," Newsweek, May 18, https://bit.ly/30g20ic
(43.) Strassman, 2011, 200.
(44.) Strassman, Rick. 2008. "The Varieties of the DMT Experience," in Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frecska, Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds though Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 73.
(45.) Strassman, 2008, 73.
(46.) Strassman, 2011, 199.
(47.) Davis, Erik. 2018. "How to Think about Weird Beings" in David Luke and Rory Spowers, DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 133.
(48.) Marden, Kathleen. 2011. "Alien Abduction: Fact or Fiction?" In Michael Pye and Kirsten Dalley (eds.), UFOs & Aliens: Is There Anybody Out There? Pompton Plains, NJ: The Career Press, 99-100.
(49.) Luke, "Discarnate Entities and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)," 36.
(50.) Hancock, 2007, 6.
(51.) Meyer, Peter. 2018. "Concerning the Nature of the DMT Entities and Their Relation to Us" in David Luke and Rory Spowers, DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 95-113.
(52.) St. John, Mystery School in Hyperspace, 352.
(53.) Fabrikant, DMT: Alien Encounters in Hyperspace, 28.
(54.) Hancock, 2007, 264.
(55.) Hancock, Graham. 2018. "Psychedelics, Entities, Dark Matter, and Parallel Dimensions" in David Luke and Rory Spowers, DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 254-255.
(56.) Hancock, Supernatural, 240.
(57.) Kaku, Michio. 2004. Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time. New York: W.W. Norton, 226.
(58.) Minutely small, measuring at the Planck's length, it is estimated that these strings are 100 billion billion times smaller than a proton in an atom. See: Kaku, Michio and Jennifer Trainer Thompson, 1997. Beyond Einstein: The Cosmic Quest for the Theory of the Universe. New York: Anchor Books, 4-5; Greene, Brian. 2011. The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 78-79.
(59.) Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 315.
(60.) Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 314-322.
(61.) McGreal, Scott A. 2014. "DMT: Gateway to Reality, Fantasy, or What?" Psychology Today, August 30, https://bit.ly/3sRndql
(62.) Talbot, Michael. 2001. The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality. New York: Harper/Perennial, 278.
(63.) Marden, "Alien Abduction: Fact or Fiction?" 101.
(64.) Kent, James. 2004. "The Case Against DMT Elves," Trip, https://bit.ly/3e7DK57
(65.) Luke, 2011, 36.
(66.) Shermer, Michael. 2018. Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia. New York: Henry Holt, 93-94.
(67.) Sacks, Oliver. 2015. On the Move: A Life. New York: Random House, 142.
(68.) Sacks, Oliver. 2012. "Seeing God in the Third Millennium." The Atlantic. December 12. http://theatln.tc/1bP4IK4
(69.) Shermer, 2018, 72.
BY GEORGE MICHAEL
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Skeptics Society & Skeptic Magazine
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