Transcription
Um, well, so the guiding principles, you know, for the work after I completed my DMT study 20 years ago now, uh, were the words of two mentors. One was a psychiatrist, Daniel Freeman, whose mantra about psychedelics was, um, "If you know, so what if DMT, you know, causes these effects? You know, so what? You know, what's it good for? What does it mean? What can we learn from it?" Okay? You know, so hopefully I've, you know, covered or been influenced by those guiding principles, like, "If you know, so what?" And we must, at the very least, enlarge the discussion about psychedelics.
Um, so, as quite a few of you know, uh, when you take a full dose of DMT, it starts to work very quickly. Uh, you know, there's a rush of inner pressure and acceleration. Um, and then within a, you know, minute or so, you know, there's the experience of the separation of the mind and body, and you enter into a world of bright, bright, rapidly moving light. Uh, your sense of self is maintained. There's not really, very often, merging with a white light. Uh, there's intense emotion, sometimes, you know, sometimes there's not much emotion at all. And it's usually, you know, uh, contains some intelligences of some sort or another, you know, more or less, you know, recognizable. You know, um, you know, they may look, uh, you know, kind of humanoid, or reptilian, or bird-like, mammalian, robotic. I even furniture could, you know, you know, seem, you know, to possess an intelligence and a sentience. Um, even the patterns, uh, you know, seem to contain intelligence. Well, they're unformed, you know, visual patterns. Um, and it's quite highly interactive. Um, it isn't like you're just, you, you know, kind of unified with anything. Um, you're dealing with all that stuff out there. It's dealing with you. You're dealing with it. Um, you know, there's a lot of give and take. You're able to control your awareness. Um, it isn't a, you know, passive state in as much as you're immobilized, but your mind is active and, you know, kind of determining what's going on around you.
Um, so, you know, since I stopped my work 20 years ago, I've been, you know, thinking about it, obviously, most of the time. Um, and so one of the, you know, things that has been helpful in thinking about the spiritual or the religious, you know, properties of these, you know, substances, or more of any spiritual experience, is a, um, is, you know, to dichotomize them between, you know, what I call a, you know, mystical unitive state and an interactive relational one.
Um, so to read the Hebrew Bible is not easy. Um, yeah, it's a very tough nut to crack, let me tell you. Um, you know, there's a certain, uh, you know, resonance, you know, between the spoken be, between the spoken, you know, voice and the words and your brain and your spirit that I think are, you know, um, you know, well, they're optimally activated when you read out loud. Um, and if you really study the book, you know, carefully, once you read it through a number of times, you begin entering into a specific state, like it's an altered state, which was very curious. Um, so you're kind of, you know, resonating with the state out of which, you know, the text emerged. And it's a prophetic text, you know, so you're kind of entering into a prophetic altered state. Yeah.
You know, so if you want to, you know, get a, you know, sense of the, you know, psychedelic quality of, you know, of, you know, some of the visions in the Hebrew Bible, you know, the first chapter of Ezekiel is pretty DMT-like. Um, well, so the heavens open and, uh, well, and he saw visions, a stormy wind, he was being blown around. Uh, there was a, you know, great cloud flashing fire, you know, brilliance all around, lightning, uh, uh, and, you know, beings emerged, you know, from the fire, uh, with a number of different, you know, faces on. They ran to and fro without their legs moving on their backs, and wings were full of eyes. Uh, the beings were flying through space. Um, you know, the sound of the wings, the expanse over their heads like blue sapphire, or like a rainbow. It's just too much for Ezekiel, and he just falls down. And, you know, so the angel picks him back up and starts speaking to him, you know, pulls him by the hair, carries him through space. You know, what could be more DMT-like? Yeah.
You know, so one of the, uh, we have to kind of, you know, wonder about, you know, the power of, you know, the Bible. And, um, I think it's because it's a prophetic text. It's like a spiritual, uh, text, uh, which, you know, came out of a specific state. Um, and I think that state has a tremendous amount of power. You know, look at all of you, uh, because you're here, you know, because of, you know, the psychedelic state. And there's, you know, clearly an overlap between the psychedelic and the prophetic state. And, um, the staying power, the, um, influence of the text, I think, you know, relates, you know, to being a description of spiritual experience of a certain type.
Well, well, so shamanism also proposes, you know, the reality of the DMT beings and the DMT world. Um, and specifically, you know, for, well, um, you know, specifically, you know, for goals like for healing, for harming, uh, you know, locating lost objects, um, you know, for the benefit of the community. Uh, you know, so in comparing, you know, religious models and, you know, scientific models, um, you know, concerning, well, the nature of the DMT world, um, well, they're both interested in these previously invisible worlds. Um, and also they provide, you know, mechanisms by which to understand what's happening. So one of the ad, well, so one of, uh, so one of, uh, uh, so one of the advantages of, you know, the religious models is, you know, that, um, is, you know, that they suggest, you know, why things are configured in this way, like a purpose, as it were. Um, it's a reflection of a higher order, uh, of intelligence or wisdom or will.
Well, uh, well, so the model that I, you know, propose, you know, towards the end of my first, you know, DMT book, is what one might call, you know, soft, you know, neurotheology. In other words, um, you know, as a result of brain chemistry, you know, changes, your consciousness is, you know, now able, you know, to perceive things which are normally invisible but objectively real. Um, you know, such as dark matter and parallel universes. Um, and also it would, you know, provide, you know, the ability to interact with and apprehend, you know, the contents, uh, of those parallel sorts of worlds, ongoing, you know, parallel levels of ongoing reality. Um, you know, so that proposes, you know, the reality of the DMT world. Um, you know, so I, you know, came up with a new model to kind of, you know, you know, counterbalance the, you know, neurotheology model. And, you know, this is what I call, you know, well, you know, the neurology, which is kind of a, um, which is kind of a, you know, top-down model, as opposed to the bottom-up, you know, neurotheological model. You know, so hopefully, you know, um, uh, uh, you know, people will think about it and and, you know, begin developing it. And, you know, hopefully, it will, it will integrate, you, you know, theistic, um, and, you know, materialistic models. You know, so it will, in, it will include both rigor and wisdom. And, and ultimately, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, based on, um, medieval metaphysics, you know, from my Maimonides in particular. And it, you know, proposes, you know, mostly, or, you know, more or less, you know, that the activation of our intellect and our imagination takes place by God. You know, so the activation of our imagination is responsible for the contents of the state, you know, the visions and the voices. And the activation of our intellect, you know, then allows us to extract the meaning, you know, from those visions and those voices.
Um, so one new category I came up with when I was comparing the two states, like I spent a, maybe three years, you know, looking, you know, through the Bible over and over and over again, and, you know, bending the the descriptions in the Bible, uh, into the categories I had developed, you know, using the the, uh, the scaffold, you know, for the DMT state, like perception, cognition, um, emotion, those kinds of things. You know, and, uh, you know, so in the description of Ezekiel falling on his face, you know, well, that, well, so that's a, you know, physical effect. You know, so I would, you know, bin, you know, that description, um, into physical effect. You know, but after a while, it, you know, didn't, uh, uh, in making that comparison, it didn't quite, you know, seem like I was, you know, capturing all of the, you know, similarities or the differences. And so I developed a new concept called relatedness, which then started to, you know, tease apart or make, you know, uh, you know, clearer, um, well, the difference between the DMT and the prophetic states. You know, because the quality of, you know, the relatedness was, you know, much more highly articulated in the descriptions of the prophetic experience as compared, you know, to the descriptions of, you know, the relatedness that my DMT volunteers brought back. Um, you know, so it's a means of, you know, communicating and, you know, primarily verbal. Um, you know, well, um, when you're in, you know, the DMT state, you know, there is an attempt, you know, by the beings to communicate. And, you know, one of the, you know, common, uh, complaints of the volunteers is they couldn't quite to understand what the beings were saying to them. Either they were too anxious, or they didn't understand the language, or it was too soft. Um, you know, so, uh, you know, one of the, you know, things, well, that you'll see in the Hebrew Bible is, you know, that is, you know, mostly verbal communication. You know, there, you know, there are, you know, clearly visions, you know, but the visions either represent some, well, some verbal message, or are just intended to get the attention of the prophet in order to start speaking with him.
Um, so when you begin to do deep study of the text, it is an altered state, and it is stimulated by and it resonates, you know, with, you know, the visions and the voices and the feelings. But I think more importantly, it, you know, resonates, you know, with the message of the state. It's as if you're being spoken to about, you know, something that's quite, you know, fundamental. Um, as opposed to, uh, just, you know, seeing things which are amazing and unusual, you know. So, this is one of the most important points I want to make is, uh, you know, when you're tripping, you know, there are these visions, you know, but there's also this, you know, sense of knowing, you know, something new. You're kind of, you know, you're kind of getting something that you've never gotten before. Um, and you, that's an intellectual apprehension. That's not a perceptual apprehension. So when you're, you know, reading the Hebrew Bible, you start to get a glimpse of what that intellectual apprehension might possibly, you know, be that you're glimpsing in the psychedelic state, or that's, you know, kind of how I started to, um, you know, con, well, to conceptualize it. Yeah.
You know, so you're kind of, you know, uh, in a way closing in on God's mind. If, you know, the text is a prophetic text, and and, you know, prophecy is communication between us and, you know, the divine, you know, then you're getting into or approaching, you know, the mind of divinity. Um, and you can also, instead of opening up to love or pray, uh, or being mindful or, you know, letting go, you could pray. Uh, you could pray to God, you know, for help. Um, as opposed to, you know, letting go or, you know, feeling love or those kinds of things. Um, you know, it's a more in, it's it's more of an interactive way of, you know, dealing with, you know, the psychedelic state. If you're in a tight spot, you could pray, you know, um, you, you could pray to something, you know, which isn't you. You know, because it isn't all you.
Well, yeah. Well, if you are then able to start to understand the text as, you know, kind of a specific way of approaching the psychedelic state, you know, then it adds a dimension, uh, you know, to the experience, um, like on top of the emotions and, you know, the perceptions, you know. So we can think about it, um, and we can talk about it. Um, it isn't ineffable anymore. You know, everything's ineffable, you know, but, you know, you know, some things are, you know, more ineffable than others, you know. So if you can make it, you know, less ineffable, I think you've, you know, got, you know, like a head start. Um, you know, as opposed to saying you can't talk about it, you can say, well, you can talk about it, and it's kind of like this, and it's kind of like that. You know, there's one God, and there's intermediaries, and there's providence, and there's reward and punishment. You, you know. So how does that, you know, you know, kind of, you know, uh, uh, you know, manifest within your own psychedelic experience, let's say, you know? So it isn't, you know, that you're purely, uh, you know, remembering a sense or a, you know, feeling that you had back then. You've got, you know, more to take home and to chew on and to write about and to think about, you know, to converse with your colleagues and friends with. Uh, yeah, you know, so, you know, the phenomenology is, you know, one thing, but, you know, the phenomenology kind of expresses the message. It's, you know, like a symbolic representation of the message. Um, and, you know, the message is more verbal in the prophetic text. Um, and, you know, so that makes you wonder, you know, can the Hebrew Bible, which is a spiritual text describing a DMT-like world, help us extract information from the DMT state? You know, so, you know, what is the prophetic message? Uh, well, it mostly, you know, has to deal with the nature of reality and, you know, how to relate to it in the highest possible manner, uh, to do the least harm and do the most good. Yeah.
You, well, well, so the other aspect of, you know, the message of, you know, the text is, you know, relating to everything else other than the spiritual world. And, you know, so that's the Golden Rule, which is in Leviticus. And, you know, the Golden Rule in, you know, the Hebrew Bible is, you know, different than the Golden Rule in the Christian Bible. Uh, in the Hebrew Bible, it's a little more elevated. It's a little more idealistic, I suppose, you know, "Love your neighbor as yourself," as opposed to, you know, as, as opposed to, you know, treating others as you would like to be treated. You know, so this, uh, speaks about, you know, love, for example, rather than, you know, narcissism or, you know, self-servingness.