Customer Reviews

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Although this book reads more like a journal paper than one might expect based on the trade paperback format and trippy Alex Grey cover art, Dr. Rick Strassman is, after all, a research scientist, not a novelist, and thus may be forgiven for not having a thorough grasp of pacing and the value of dramatic intrigue. Specifically, about a quarter of this book deals with Strassman's convoluted attempts to gain permission to study DMT (which is, for the unfamiliar, LSD's faster-acting, shorter-lasting, knockout-punching cousin), which is admittedly an interesting story, but I am sure I'm not alone in wishing he'd given us a few extra chapters of DMT case studies instead.

And the case studies are intriguing indeed. Through various permutations of set, setting, and dosage, Strassman's volunteers experience DMT trips ranging from explorations of personal emotions and thoughts to full-blown sojourns into Cosmic Consciousness. And somewhere between these polarities of personal ego and impersonal Absolute there reside experiences of an altogether different order. It is these experiences that perhaps set the DMT molecule drastically apart from the other major psychedelic drugs. They're perhaps best explained with an example, and generally go something like this: A person is injected with DMT; within fifteen seconds the person feels a rush and suddenly finds him- or herself perceiving a completely different environment, with no major alteration in the quality of awareness, and usually there appear one or more "beings" in this environment who interact with the person and are felt, with certainty, to be entirely "real" entities, independent of, but not exactly separate from, the DMT tripper's mind. Here is how one of Strassman's subjects describes his experience:

"I felt like I was in an alien laboratory, in a hospital bed like this. . . . A sort of landing bay, or recovery area. There were beings. . . .

"They had a space ready for me. They weren't as surprised as I was. It was incredibly un-psychedelic. I was able to pay attention to detail. There was one main creature, and he seemed to be behind it all, overseeing everything. The others were orderlies, or dis-orderlies.

"They activated a sexual circuit, and I was flushed with an amazing orgasmic energy. A goofy chart popped up like an X-ray in a cartoon, and a yellow illumination indicated that the corresponding system, or series of systems, were fine. They were checking my instruments, testing things. When I was coming out, I couldn't help but think `aliens.' "

As Strassman explains, it was these consistently similar experiences with what could only be identified as "aliens" or "elves" that he found most baffling in the course of his DMT research, and these reports eventually persuaded him to alter his whole relational approach to his volunteers. Rather than interpret and explain away, as psychiatrists are wont to do with just about everything, he decided to proceed with an open mind, to listen and encourage, and then later try to fit the pieces into some coherent theoretical framework, perhaps even invent one if current preconceptions of the nature of reality couldn't accommodate the data (such a novel approach!, sadly enough). It is this open, inquisitive attitude that makes this book eminently satisfying, despite any narrative sluggishness, because rarely does one find this caliber of fastidious, empirical-phenomenological research coupled with investigations into alien encounters, near-death experiences, and ecstatic glimpses of God. Usually, a researcher with this degree of scientific experience has already been too thoroughly digested by the modern religion of scientism to be able to see the very real duality between mind and matter, let alone to entertain such ideas as these: (1) that DMT is produced naturally in the human body by the pineal gland, and the appearance of the pineal gland in the developing human fetus at 49 days post-conception corresponds to the arrival of the soul in the body (with the DMT chemical serving as a kind of doorway between material and astral worlds); (2) that certain meditative practices, such as chanting, cause a vibratory effect in the brain that stimulates the pineal gland to release DMT, thus inciting certain spiritual experiences; and (3) that the phenomenon of alien abduction is so similar to certain DMT trips that they're likely the same thing, which in no way diminishes the "reality" of alien encounters, because, as Strassman theorizes, "Returning to the TV analogy . . . DMT provides regular, repeated, and reliable access to `other' channels. The other planes of existence are always there. . . . But we cannot perceive them because we are not designed to do so; our hard-wiring keeps us tuned in to Channel Normal. It takes only a second or two--the few heartbeats the spirit molecule requires to make its way to the brain--to change the channel, to open our mind to these other planes of existence" (pp. 315-316). A typical alien abduction, then, might either be caused by an unusually high, but naturally occurring, release of DMT by the pineal gland in the brain, or by a similar release of DMT effected by an external, alien source: in both cases the same effect is achieved, and one is able to perceive that "other plane" whence the little gray men spring forth. (And while not as far out as those ideas, Strassman's proposal that an aberrant, consistently high-enough emission of DMT in the brain forms the basis of schizophrenia is also very persuasive, and anyone with some experience with psychedelics should appreciate how someone who had this problem could go completely crazy rather quickly.)

In conclusion, if you're at all interested in psychedelics, brain/mind relations, or parapsychology in general, this is definitely required reading. And if I could recommend only five books from the voluminous library of ufology that are actually well worth reading by any sensitive, intelligent human being, they'd be (in this order): "Angels and Aliens" by Keith Thompson, "Dimensions" by Jacques Vallée, "Communion" by Whitley Strieber, "Abduction" by John Mack--and "DMT" by Rick Strassman.

The book reveals and analyses Strassman's clinical research into DMT, a plant-derived substance which is also produced by the brain. As such this is one of the most thought-provoking studies on altered states and the nature of consciousness. The volunteers reported an amazing array of positive mystical or frightening hallucinatory experiences including encounters with intelligent entities.

Strassman's research connects DMT with the pineal gland; this corresponds to the esoteric belief that the pineal, connected with the Crown, Keter or Sahasrara chakra, eases the spirit's movement into different levels of consciousness or various dimensions of existence. Graham Hancock's Supernatural similarly explores the use of psychedelics to induce altered states or allow the soul to explore other dimensions.

Psychedelic substances in science and society, the chemical qualities and molecular structure of DMT, the pineal gland and its role in the psychedelic experience are all discussed in the first part. Part Two relates the history of the author's research, from the actual research proposal through the process of obtaining permission; this section may be skipped by the average reader.

Next Strassman describes the process of selecting volunteers, obtaining DMT and the first experiments, whilst in Part Four he examines the case reports: what the volunteers said and did, their behavior, etc. This makes for strange and fascinating reading. Some experiences were positive and illuminating, resembling uplifting meditative states, whilst others were eerie or deeply unpleasant.

Part Five takes stock of these reports and considers the question of whether the experience was worth the effort for each individual that took part. Strassman attempts to assess the ultimate benefit that each person derived. Definitions come into play and determining something so subjective is difficult but it would appear that the experiments did reward each individual in some way or other.

Then follows a discussion of the soul/psyche and states of consciousness. It seems that spontaneously occurring psychedelic experiences are mediated by elevated levels of endogenous DMT. This `spiritual' molecule thus unlocks unknown territory. If the brain is a receiver, DMT fine-tunes this organ so that the individual consciousness moves beyond familiar awareness into other realms, most of which are inhabited. Many volunteers mentioned a `ripping' sound as they made the transition.

There's a difference between this awareness and normal dreaming. Current psychological theory does not satisfactorily explain the phenomenon or the peculiar experiences, especially as regards the entities encountered. This leads to a speculative discussion on cosmology, the possibility of parallel universes, a multiverse and dark matter with reference to David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality.

The author concludes his extraordinary work by looking at the practical use of psychedelics in therapy, as promoters of creativity or as entheogens (substances that trigger spiritual/religious experiences). In this regard I recommend Huston Smith's Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals.

A varied body of literature is available, from the old classic Phantastica by Louis Lewin through Aldous Huxley's collection of 1960s essays Moksha, to the more recent contributions by Abraham, McKenna and Sheldrake and Giorgio Samorini's Animals and Psychedelics. Plants of the Gods by Schultes et al is a valuable encyclopedic reference work on ethnobotany that is occasionally revised and updated.

Rich Stassman's account of his ground-breaking research program with the psychedelic drug DMT is more than a scientific chronicle. His tale of the rigors of such an extraordinary undertaking, from the years he spent gaining permission for the study, getting access to the drug, and carrying out the experiments with human subjects, is suspenseful to the end.

DMT or di-methyl-trptamine is produced by many organisms and is found abundantly in plants and animal tissue. In humans it is believed that it is produced in the tiny pineal gland, which is situated deep within the brain. Its location in the brain corresponds with Eastern Ayurvedic traditions of the highest "chakra". In reptiles, the pineal is a light sensitive organ, and though this function has been lost in humans, it has been referred to as the "third eye". Descartes called it the "seat of the soul", and in modern times it has been a focal point of consciousness research.

Though the academic purpose for the research at the University of New Mexico from 1990 to 1995 was to find the purpose and function of "endogenous" (produced in the body) DMT, as well as its relationship to psychosis, it was Strassman's emersion in the teaching of Buddhism that was his inspiration throughout. Ironically, the findings of his research undermined many of his beliefs and left him alienated from the Buddhist community.

Many of his research subjects were experienced psychedelic users, but they were unprepared for the intensity of DMT. One volunteer described his acute ten minute voyage into another dimension as being hit by a "nuclear cannon." While LSD allows the user a self-guided trip, the DMT experience has its own agenda, stripping the subject of any goals, expectations, and ego. As Stassman said, "DMT as the true spirit molecule, gave the volunteers the trip they needed, rather than the trip they wanted."

But it wasn't only the volunteers of the experiments that were shocked. Strassman was completely unprepared for his subjects' reports of contact with alien beings, reptiles, and other strange entities. In other cases, they described out-of-body experiences, going through tunnels of light, and meeting relatives, spirits, and angels. Strassman soon realized that these reports were very similar to the modern cultural phenomena of alien abductions and near death experiences (NDE)--neither of which were familiar to him prior to his research project.

He theorized that these two phenomena might be caused by excess releases of endogenous DMT from the pineal gland under conditons of stess, such as child birth or severe trauma, causing an NDE. Similarly, a close cousin of DMT, namely melatonin and perhaps DMT itself, is released during the nighttime hours. This, Strassman thought, could give rise to the alien abduction experience, which most often happens in the early morning hours.
Near death experiences have often been used to support religious teachings. Perhaps the reverse should be considered. Religion was invented to explain the strange phenomena experienced due to an excess release of DMT in the body.

Because of the intense reality of the DMT experience, and the volunteers' rejection of psychological, or biological explanations for their journey, Strassman was forced to consider an even more intriguing explanation. Perhaps, DMT does not cause hallucinogenic experiences, but rather, allows our brain to sense different forms of existing reality. The information we receive from the world is limited by our five senses. It is possible that DMT allows us to sense other dimensions and other realities.

In the end the rigors and stresses of the study took a huge toll on Strassman costing him his job and alienation from the Buddhist communtiy. Even though many of the monks, had entered the monistary as a result of the influence of LSD use, their rise to elected power left them unable to support Strassman's research. AS Strassman stated, "Holiness won out over truth."

Rich Strassman's writing style makes this book extremely readable, and the DMT subjects' reports and anecdotal stories make the book difficult to put down. This book warrants a "5 star" rating. I highly recommend DMT the Spirit Molecule.

This review by David Kreiter, Author of "Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective."

This is an interesting, sometimes confusing, work about DMT, probably the most powerful of psychedelics (entheogens). It is interesting when it focuses on the personal experiences of the individuals in the research study that is the focus of the book. It is confusing in that Dr. Strassman at the onset stresses the importance of "setting," the physical environment in which entheogens are taken. He then goes on to give DMT to his research subjects in a hospital room with all manner of distracting noise frequently going on just outside the door or window. This can be highly counterproductive. Strassman knows that, but he carries on the research in that environment anyway. (True, he had no legal alternative.) I was surprised more people did not go bonkers. A few did.

Strassman seemed to undergo a change of heart during the studies. He started with a scientific outlook, which is not surprising. He is a psychiatrist. Toward the end, he began to see that he was in a realm he could not really understand. That is because entheogens have the capacity to alter our reality in momentous ways. They are beyond our science, and they can do things we cannot fathom. Strassman was in over his head.

As my old daddy used to say: It is like trying to explain the workings of the internal combustion engine to a dog.

The book has one huge problem: It is in sore need of an editor's red pencil. Almost the first half is devoted in excruciating detail to the intricacies of obtaining official permission to do this type of research. This book, literally, should be about half its length.

Start reading about halfway through. It gets interesting.

Dr. Strassman describes his research with dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a very powerful psychedelic drug that can produce very profound experiences that go beyond the explanations of our current scientific model. In this bold treatise he explains how this simple chemical induces mystical states that were previously reserved for religion and the occult. Not since Robert Monroe and his Institute's "Hemi-Sync" sound technology have I seen such potential to facilitate such events.

I was relieved to read that this Doctor of Psychiatry didn't reduce these extraordinary experiences of the volunteers down to creative imaginations, and I was impressed with his mature methods of studying a psychedelic drug. This isn't Timothy Leary tuning us in so that we can drop out. This is a scientist who is sincerely searching for something that can enhance our lives in areas such as creativity, therapy, and spirituality.

Dr. Strassman has a good grasp of our culture's perceptions about drugs and he not only discards the militaristic attitude against drug use, but also the naive acceptance that they are always beneficial. His clear insights allow this book to have a wide appeal to a mature audience. Hopefully, as he states, this research will at least be the start of more open discussions of practical applications of psychedelics.

What I liked:

1) He proposed a good model of how DMT, produced in our bodies, could be the active agent behind a broad variety of "mystical" experiences commonly reported by people, - as well as how it could play a role in various psychological disorders such as schizophrenia.

2) Even though he is a doctor and medical researcher and his project was a medical study, I liked that he wrote this book from a metaphysical angle, - exploring the metaphysical possibilities of this drug rather than attempting to explain away the mystical experiences.

What I would have liked to see:

1) 1/3 of the book deals with logistical details of his study, such as how he negotiated the FDA approval process, - BORING.

2) Although he provided many accounts of DMT "trips" they were fairly brief, - a few paragraphs at most. I would have liked more extensive descriptions from the volunteers themselves and what THIER interpretations were (not just his).

3) He related the volunteers' experiences with reports of alien abductions and briefly explored some physics theories about parallel universes. I would have liked to see a more thorough investigation of these lines of thought.

5) Given that most participants encountered non-material, intelligent life forms I would have liked to see a discussion of why they took on the forms they did (clowns/elves and insects/aliens). I'm assuming that even if the beings were "real" that these forms were just constructs (a "user interface" or "front-end", if you will) the volunteers created while tripping so that they could interact with these beings (i.e. I don't believe there is a parallel universe where metaphysical clowns really exist) What is there in our collective consciousness that would cause so many of the volunteers to come up with these same constructs? i.e - why clowns and insects instead of game-show hosts or cats?

Fascinating book for anyone interested in the science of consciousness, and the intersection between the material and the spiritual.

Covering a groundbreaking psychedelic substance that is actually found in human cerebrospinal fluid, Rick Strassman tells a first-person story of his research on the profoundly mysterious substance dimethltryptamine (DMT). We learn the political, medical, and ethical obstacles that surround the creation of Strassman's research program in 1990's America. Also explored are a far-ranging array of puzzling questions: foremost, WHY does this tryptamine compound exist naturally within the brain? Is DMT flooded into serotonin receptors to help mediate trauma, meditation, and near-death experiences? If so, why? And could DMT yield a framework for defining consciousness? The topics are explored through the vivid experiences of research volunteers at the University of New Mexico and the sincere, contemplative hypotheses of the author. This is a nicely crafted book which nimbly treads a thin line between restraint and enthusiasm, between cold objectivity and speculation. At the end, the reader is left with many intriguing puzzle pieces. "The Spirit Molecule" is perhaps the first title to break ground on what might be a Pandora's Box of the upcoming century.

This is a fascinating tale of a scientist trying to squeeze what can't be described scientifically (save mundane things like what DMT does to your blood pressure, etc.) into an acceptable scientific research program. Strassman is definitely more bolted down than Leary, though Strassman, without being judgmental, learns what he can from the Leary psychedelic research disaster at Harvard in the early 60s.

The book is well-written and, above all, sincere. Strassman really wanted to see if short DMT experiences could a) be legally studied and b) be useful. It is a tale of persistence: getting university and government permission, getting research funding, getting "human grade" DMT, trying to get an adequate setting, trying to dot every "i" and cross every "t" possible so that his research was above board.

Interestingly, he explains how psychedelics are really difficult to study in the scientific/clinical setting (which we already knew - but the scientific community is, after all, the legitimizing agency of chemical tools for psychological and other uses)and can also threaten the organized religious community (in this case, a particular sect or branch of Zen Buddhism that Strassman adheres to - I would suspect, however, that you could generalize from Strassman's experience to other religions).

Strassman comes across as genuinely curious, compassionate, and determined in his efforts to find out if psychedelics can evolve from their sordid recent past to an acceptable tool for insight, inspiration, creativity, or as an aid for helping to solve personal problems. This text will probably be one of the classics of psychedelic literature (though that's not for me to say!).

If you are seriously interested in psychedelic research you will want to have this book on your bookshelf.

This is the best you'll find regarding DMT.

This was a great book that covered very well the legal, medical, and technical parts of getting the research approved and the actual study in the first half of the book. The second half had the actual experiments with some fascinating personal accounts.

I would personally reccomend this to both people who are interested in psychedelics as more than just an intoxicating good time, as well as people wishing to learn more about the "near death" phenomena.

Dr. strassman's book was one of the first I read when I decided to embark upon an entheogenic spiritual path. I highly recommend it to those considering entheogens as spiritual agents and catalysts.

Dr. strassman is to be commended on at least two counts. He dared to apply for permission to study psychedelics under controlled scientific conditions. Second, as a Buddhist he dared to propose to a close-minded Buddhist community that psychedelics could be a useful agent for spiritual growth.

This is a wonderful book for those first considering embarking upon an entheo-based spiritual path. It is one thing to read the largely unfiltered experiences of people who experience DMT on the Erowid experience vaults ( www.erowid.org ) and quite another to read the experiences as recounted by subjects in a controlled scientific experiment. This book marvelously demonstrates the similarity of various persons' "contact" experiences. I call them "contact" experiences because the world of DMT is a world of sentience, of other beings, of contact with (sometimes terrifyingly) alien minds.

A whole host of interesting spiritual, theological and philosophical questions are raised by these experiences. People sometimes describe the DMT experience as more "real" than waking daily life. What then is the "primary" reality, when dualistic mundane consciousness appears more a dream than the psychedelic experience? And the DMT experience comprises a world of myriad beings, of many "spirits", all alive and communicative. Does the well populated and diverse animate universe of the DMT experience suggest that the pantheistic and animistic world of the aboriginal shaman describes the noetic spiritual world better than the simple God/Devil Heaven/Hell model handed to us by Christianity? Further, the common experience of contact with apparently nonhuman minds seems to throw us into new territory not really mapped out by any conventional spiritual path (though Hinduism and shamanistic paths seem to be the best fits for these visions).

Dr. strassman's book is also valuable as a diary of one researcher's attempts to fulfill the nearly impossible conditions that the government imposes on researchers attempting to do work on prohibited psychoactives. This book should serve to discourage all but the most determined scientists from doing further research on psychedelics, at least in the United States. In this age of neurochemistry, the pharmaceutical industry is devoting increasing money to research into brain chemistry. If the United States is to retain its economic lead, these unreasonable restrictions on research into potent brain agents must come to an end. If they do not, we will increasingly lose scientific talent to Europe and Asia (just as is happening already due to our bans on stem cell research).

On the downside Dr. strassman's book is not a handbook to the entheogenic path for the practitioner. The intravenous mode of DMT delivery that he uses is not available to the layman. And, the clinical settings that Dr. strassman was forced to use were highly inappropriate and unconducive to a positive entheogenic experience.

Those who are about to undertake a DMT experience should be in a comfortable, safe place; have a sitter; and use a precisely controlled dose. I do not trust the commonly used path of smoking DMT or working with it through the medium of ayahuasca, because of the difficulty of proper dosing. I believe that the most common cause of terrifying or negative experiences with most psychedelics is due to overdose, and bad set (mindset) and setting (environment). I would like to see intravenous DMT become available to laymen, so that DMT dosing can be more precisely controlled.

Overall, this book is a valuable and lasting contribution to 20th and 21st century human understanding of the psychedelic experience, and essential reading for every walker of this spiritual path.