In Strassman's new book, he essentially tries to have his cake and eat it too. There are similar sentiments to what he said to snozz (you wouldn't get it because you're not an expert on the Hebrew bible like me) as well as the converse (you wouldn't get it because you're not an expert on DMT like me). Essentially his expertship is in question no matter which angle you look at it from.

Yea, that's quite funny i suppose, and also quite insulting. You gotta remember that only a certain % of what he says is probably true, and a certain % absolute crap. I think every expert is guilty of that, and it illustrates the potential close mindedness in certain individuals. Perhaps Rick would elaborate if he was questioned a bit more?

Greetings.
I'm glad to have found this thread and want to join in.
I immediately regretted my response to SnozzleBerry's question that he asked toward the end of my Skyped-in presentation at Breaking Convention earlier this year and apologize for it. It wasn't helpful.
I'm open to revisiting his question.
Rick Strassman

I appreciate the acknowledgement and apology, as well as you taking the time to join the discussion here.

I would still be interested in your reply to the original question and think this thread is as good a place as any to have the discussion.

If I may take a moment to add some slight emphasis, perhaps it will help provide some context for where I'm coming from.

In both the interview you gave with The Nexian and your Breaking Convention presentation, it seemed to me that you placed a rather strong emphasis on the claim that religious models are important/valuable because of their potential to "gain traction" with "Western" audiences.

In the Nexian interview, for example, you stated that



For me, personally, I'm not particularly interested in models designed to "gain traction", but rather models that are designed to accurately model. Perhaps the ineffable is just that, ineffable, and any attempts to model it may be inherently doomed to failure. If this is the case, I think it might be more productive to acknowledge the failings of attempting to model, and instead focus on phenomenology and the pluralirty/diversity of experiences.

Then again, perhaps the ineffable only seems to be ineffable because we have not modeled it well enough to bring it into relatable language and concepts. And perhaps, with enough modelling, a coherent picture (or coherent pictures) may emerge.

Either way, focusing on "gaining traction" rather than accurate modelling seems, to me, to be a serious pitfall. It seems almost like creating a marketing strategy prior to producing even the design schematics for the product to be marketed.

Take, for example, a tesseract. I could decide that the model of a tesseract that is capable of gaining the most traction is that of a 2d square, as most people are familiar with a 2d square. It's easy for me to tell people to think of the tesseract as a cube within a cube, or internally stacked 2d squares, and this would no doubt result in mental projections of a concept that the person projecting would label a "tesseract".

However, the 2d model is clearly lacking when compared to the rotating 3d models that attempt to show an object with as many right angles as a tesseract has in its true 4d form. And even the 3d model is lacking compared to the visual effects I (and many others) have reported when encountering tesseracting objects in hyperspace.

So in this example, even though the 2d model is capable, imo, of gaining the widest traction and allowing the most people some level of relatability to the phenomenon being discussed, it actually does the worst job of all of the presented models, as far as actually conveying the nature of a tesseract. My preference would be for a model of a tesseract that is as accurate as possible, even if it limits the overall relatability.

I'll leave it at that for now and look forward to this continued discussion.

Thanks, SnozzleBerry.

I like models because they help make sense of data, which is inherently satisfying for many of us. If the model accuratelys reflect the phenomena, they may also have predictive value--the model will let us know what would happen if we did x, y, and z in a, b, and c set of conditions.

I think there are many ways to model data; e.g., mathematical, verbal, musical, visual. Stapledon in his book, Star Maker, describes a species of human that experiences the world primarily through taste and smell; thus, the psychedelic state on that planet might be modeled using taste and smell.

To the extent that verbal models apply to the psychedelic drug state, in particular the DMT one, the theoneurological model I have been working on is "verbal." That is, I'm using words, ideas. concepts. This model takes into account the data from my study, where the DMT experience is highly interactive and relational. It is also felt to be as real or more real than real. In these ways, it shares many features with the "data" of prophetic experience as laid out in the Hebrew Bible. Prophetic experience is highly verbal, and posits a higher-order level of reality to what is apprehended in that state.

I believe that with the proper cognitive preparation--afforded by learning the vocabulary and concepts of the HB--more verbal information might be extractable and transmittable from the DMT experience.

There's a dictum of the rabbis, "The Bible is written in the language of humankind." This means that it is intended to be understood by as many people as possible. If it were written in the language of mathematics--which I'm sure could be done by someone with the skill and patience--it would be less accessible, would benefit less people.

There's also a dictum that the teachings of the HB could be just as easily attained through scientific experiments, trial and error, rational deduction, and so on. But that the prophetic state or revelation is quicker and is communicated in terms, ideas, narratives, and so on that are understandable to more people.

Thus, my short-hand expression "gain traction" refers to developing a model that, while is as accurate (consistent with the data and with known principles) as possible, is also as accessible as possible. There may be equally true models that very few people would understand. I believe that an accurate model that's easier to understand, to educate more people with, has benefits that a difficult-to-understand model may not.

Rick

Having nothing at all to do with the current discussion, I would like to say thank you for all of your work, Rick. Had it not been for your research and book, I would likely never have discovered this amazing phenomenon which has shaped and changed my life in extremely meaningful ways.

To touch on some previous comments concerning Strassman's desire to bring this information to the public by way of the Hebrew Bible...

I know there some immediate objections to this scenario however, it is important to understand the Old Testament as a book of prophecy that was written by prophets in a prophetic state of mind.

Key phrase here 'prophetic state of mind'

Prophet means 'to be with God' roughly translated

Therefore the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was supposed to have been written while the Prophets were in a prophetic state of mind. It is also said by Jewish mystics that reading the Old Testament in certain places out loud, in Hebrew that you may achieve the prophetic state of mind, or visiting with god/ being with god. I am not a Rabbi nor a Jewish mystic so my understanding and depth of that topic is limited to merely what I have recently learned.

There is an excerpt from the book of Ezekiel where a place is described. This place described is very much like other worlds of DMT some of you may have experienced. This particular experience/story is referred to as 'Ezekiel's Chariot' and I invite you all to look into it if you are not familiar with it.

I propose that Mr. Strassmans mission to correlate DMT and the Hebrew Bible may have been confused by some people. And that's ok because he does not do a great job of explaining some things in some cases.

For instance, the poster who mentioned Mr Strassmans rather harsh response to the question of 'Why the Hebrew Bible' he likely meant well by telling you to do your research. I can not speak for him obviously but I feel as though he should have said 'without you knowing what I am about to tell you, it would be a pointless conversation' although it did come out slightly condescending.

If you were in fact to read the Hebrew Bible you would discover that there are many instances where one could relate the prophetic visions to a DMT like experience. It is a lot more in depth than that and if you have never read the Bible in particular the prophetic books both old and new testament I encourage you to read it subjectively.

If you hate the Bible, or object to the teachings you should read it so that you know why you hate it. If you are like me and dispute the concept of organized religion created by politicians and tyrants over the centuries in the name of the Hebrew god, that is a different topic in itself.

Also consider that the Santo Daime church is a Christian teaching that implores ayahuasca (might need a fact check here but im pretty sure this is what Ive read so correct me if I am wrong here)

I dont think Strassman deserves the harsh criticism by trying to correlate the Hebrew Bible with DMT experiences. If one paid close attention to what he is saying, its merely a bridge for western cultures to embrace the concept that DMT might in fact be the compound responsible for religious/spiritual/mystical experiences.

Think about trying to convince the American and British government for instance that a compound used by what they might consider 'tribal' people is the core of all spirituality. You can not achieve this by ways of this means due to the stigma that has been placed on topics of such. Essentially, in order to further his research into the relationship between DMT and spiritual experiences he was forced to use a data model that westerners could easier understand. And what better data model to behold in western cultures other than Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible? It adds a degree of legitimacy to his research as well. Most people, when you tell them you think you have discovered a compound you think is THE spirit molecule, will most likely recommend you to rehab or suggest that you've lost your marbles.

I think what he is doing is great research. For him, he is qualified, the research is sanctioned and legal and a wealthy majority of his colleagues who are highly revered support him. I can not think of any other people so qualified that are currently so outspoken about the importance DMT might have on the human biology, psychology and evolutionary aspects.

Sorry for the wall of text. This is a big topic :-)

By the way, if we follow the same calendar, Happy New Year Nexians!

Edit : At the time of writing this I somehow overlooked the fact the Dr. Strassman had joined this discussion. Feel free to correct me / elaborate with me :-)

Holy crap I just noticed Mr. Strassman joined this discussion!

I'd just like to extend Uncle Knucles's acknowledgement of all your devoted work, Rick. And how it has played a positive and supportive role in understanding the spirit molecule. It has provided me with extensive information and knowledge regarding DMT and its potential use within various frameworks.

Be well. And welcome to the Nexus.

Just to address a few points that came up, before replying to Rick...



This would be a perfectly fine hypothesis except for one thing...I'm Jewish and spent much of my youth in an intensive Hebrew afterschool program. I was Bar Mitzvah'd and used to spend my time in synagogue reading the rabbinical debates that our congregational Sifrei Torah included alongside the hebrew, english translations, and english transliterations. Hell, I even had what could best be described as a "moment of pure visual clarity" during a Yom Kippur service. That said, to me, the aspects of my Judaism that I actually find meaning in tend to be more cultural/diasporic than religious.



I don't think my criticism has been harsh in the slightest and I do bristle a bit at the insinuation that I'm not paying close enough attention. For me, I feel that Judaism has enough of its own baggage and issues. While mystical Judaism and/or the Hebrew Bible may share certain commonalities with DMT experiences, to my mind, this does not justify utilizing it to map DMT experiences, especially because, imo/ime, it falls way short. I see similarities between DMT experiences and many mystical traditions. I'm happy to point to the similarities where I see them, but for me, utilizing longstanding religious systems/texts to map, explain, or convey DMT experiences seems littered with problems that literally arise from using those systems/texts and not from the DMT experiences.


I see no reason to try to convince anyone of that first point, not only because I don't necessarily think it's true (just in the realm of endogenous psychoactives, there are other viable candidates such as bufo and 5-meo, to say nothing of endogenous beta carbolines and the potentiality that the whole neurological cocktail works in tandem), but also because I see no merit to attempting to convince people of this without evidence, and anecdotal similarities between DMT and the Hebrew Bible is a pretty weak basis from which to declare your determination to convince people (faint echoes of the crusades come to mind).

I also don't think that drug stigma somehow logically concludes with making appeals to religious similarities in order to advance drug research. That line of reasoning doesn't make sense to me, personally.



I think you will find a number of people in the psychedelic science community who disagree. I certainly found significantly more legitimacy in the research presented in The Spirit Molecule. Like many others here have already stated, Rick's work as outlined in that book was some of the earliest encounters I had with DMT and modern psychedelic science. It was certainly a seminal book in my own history with DMT.


I'll be elaborating on some of these points in the next monster of a post, so apologies if you feel anything here was insufficiently expounded on.

In my experience with various non-Western theologies, the DMT experience is equivalent to the Aboriginal Dreamtime and the Buddhist Nirvana. It also correlates with the Abrahamic Jannah in Islam and Heaven in Christianity. I cannot speak for Judaism, since I know very little about it.

Dreamtime is initiated by the yidaki, or the didgeridoo as it is known in the West. It is the original trance music, a psychedelic state where you journey to the Great Beyond. The noise made by the yidaki is OM, a Hindu and Buddhist concept. It is a deep sound, known as the primordial sound of the universe. To feel the vibration of OM through a yidaki is highly meditative. There are 3 instances where I performed sober astral traveling. One was deep meditation with no sounds, the other was sky gazing for 6 hours, and the final one was getting lost in the yidaki.

In my books, yidaki = Dreamtime = DMT = Nirvana = Heaven. All theologies have different interpretations of the same divine state. Hence the saying, "There are many paths up the same mountain".

I don't think that Judeo-Christianity will help other people understand DMT. Purely due to the fact that most people do not fully grasp their own religion in the first place. They use it as an excuse, or because they were not taught critical thinking, or they believe the Bible is 100% literally true. I talked to this Creationist girl once. She did not even know her own religion, and I think she only believes in it because she wasn't taught anything else. And she was scared, she did not want to know anything that may dissolve her very fragile beliefs. She was very content with living in her fantasy, even if it means total and complete apathy.

I don't think the DMT experience can be discussed with anyone that hasn't experienced something similar. When we say the word "potato", a clear picture is formed in the mind of the listener. They will envision a potato, but their visualisation of it will not be EXACTLY the same as someone else's. Does that mean that they are not thinking of a potato? Of course not, the mind will picture the potato based on experience. The variability in visualisations are due to the limitedness of language, both written and spoken. Similarly, when a novel gets to a very emotional part, the reader will feel these emotions. Not because of the way the words are expressed (although it does play a huge role), but because the reader knows these emotions. All due to experience.

When I asked A LOT of people that have never taken any psychedelic substance, "What do you think psychedelic substances do?", they all said they make pretty colours. And the reason why they say that is because they've seen "trippy art" and correlate that with psychedelia. When I told them that psychedelics is more about feeling than seeing, they were lost. They don't know what I'm talking about, because they've never experienced anything remotely similar. Only when I relate the psychedelic trip with something more commonplace, like nostalgia for example, then they get a gist of it.

The song Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix talks about the same thing.


"If you can just get your mind together
Then come on across to me
We'll hold hands an' then we'll watch the sun rise from the bottom of the sea
But first

Are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have

I know, I know
You'll probably scream n' cry
That your little world won't let you go
But who in your measly little world are trying to prove that
You're made out of gold and -a can't be sold

So-er, are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have

Ah, let me prove it to you
Trumpets and violins, I can hear in the distance
I think they're calling our names
Maybe now you can't hear them, but you will
If you just take hold of my hand
Ah! But are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful..."

I'm on board with the notion that there are correlations and similarities between mystical experiences and DMT experiences. For me, the questions arise around the modelling of DMT experiences using any of these individual mystical systems in particular.



I like models, but I don’t believe that models inherently grant predictive value to things outside of the model, even when they are compelling constructs. A model can do a great job of predicting some things within the confines of the model (and even the real world) while being significantly less than successful when dealing with certain other real world phenomena it’s attempting to model.

Of course, models can also be biased depending on the inputs used to create them. When it comes to mapping hyperspace, some people may find significantly higher reports of entities “probing” subjects and engaging in apparent “medical procedures” when the setting for their DMT experiences is relatively clinical or sterile. Dosing the same people in a sunny meadow may yield drastically different experiences. Modelling “the DMT experience” according to either range of experiences would present a model based on a severely limited set of inputs. Of course, this also presumes there is a somewhat singular experiential input/output that can be modeled.

Or consider the fact that many people find that breakthroughs are not necessarily dose-dependent. More than a few experienced psychonauts have reported mindblowing breakthroughs with what they expected to be a threshold dose. These experiences don’t seem to correlate to the technique used or amount taken, but seem to be chance occurrences to which no one has been able to attribute a causality beyond it being “one of those things” that DMT does. For people who have had this experience, it tends to significantly revise their personal dose/response model and introduces a non-conforming potentiality that could ‘randomly’ occur whether they are taking 15mg or 40mg.

Part of what I’m suggesting is that, in many ways, my experiences with DMT have presented a certain capacity for rapidly obliterating and/or revising models, concepts, and expectations (potentially from one experience to the next).

A metaphor that comes to mind are Escher's penrose triangles...you can see that they appear to present triangles (or at least the gestalt of them) but when you actually go in to measure the three angles and confirm that it is, indeed, a triangle, you realize that none of the triangles you are seeing have three corresponding angles, they were merely crafted in such a manner so as to leave you with that impression. In fact, the only triangles to be found exist within the negative space, against which the penroses are drawn.




Sure, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an experienced DMT psychonaut who couldn’t identify the components you have selected/identified as being part of at least some of their experienced DMT phenomena. However, for me, the jump from DMT phenomenology to prophetic experiences as laid out in the Hebrew Bible is too much for me to make with you. This is not to discount the similarity, but to question the use of saying “A is like B (thus B models A)” when in fact A may be like B, but A may also be like C-Z.

I’m not a doctor, so forgive me if this analogy falls flat, but I think you’ll be able to see where I’m going. When I run I sweat, my heart rate increases, and I feel fatigued. When I get a fever I sweat , my heart rate increases, and I feel fatigued. When I have a nightmare, I sweat, my heart rate increases, and after I wake up, I may feel fatigued. Personally, I would not choose to use any of these particular experiences to model any of the other experiences. I might point to various similarities in an attempt to convey to others a sense of what I experience in these situations, but I think that’s categorically different. For example, if someone has never experienced fever delirium, relating my experience with a nightmare might help convey a sense of the experience, but I would be hesitant to map one experience onto the other as there are qualitative (and physiological) differences.




I would suggest that your claims about the accessibility of the Hebrew Bible are not quite as straightforward as I understand you to be presenting them. As I read it, you find the Hebrew Bible particularly relatable/accessible/meaningful. You actually use a rabbinical dictum to secure that claim, which feels a bit like employing circular logic.

By stating that the Hebrew Bible is written in the language of humanity, you simultaneously present the religious claims of the Rabbis about the Hebrew Bible's accessibility as “truth” while glossing over the fact that traditional rabbinical study takes a lifetime+ (thereby implicitly demonstrating that there is a level of biblical expertise expected of those tasked with providing the accepted interpretations). To me, this presents a rather contradictory vein running through the “language of humanity” claim. From my perspective, a language of humanity that requires intermediary entities to arbitrate and declare true meanings can’t really claim to be a language of humanity as it ultimately subjugates definitions that fall outside of orthodoxy.

As a kid, when I was in synagogue, I found the rabbinical commentary to be the most interesting part of our congregation’s Sifrei Torah. The fact that people actually formed schools of rabbinical thought to debate Biblical and Talmudic minutiae was fascinating in a litigious sense...especially when they were debating things like exactly how unclean a man was after experiencing a nocturnal emission and removing himself for however many days. But, I think we could all agree that the legal profession requires a certain expertise to participate in. So the fact that we find similarly constructed debates between rabbinical schools and authorities gives us a major hint that this framework is not as open/egalitarian as the “language of humanity” label implies.

To say just a bit more the accessibility of the Hebrew Bible:

First, I feel that the premise that the Hebrew Bible is less specialized than the language of mathematics (or any other conceptual system) is a rather tenuous one at best. How many Jews are there who are “well-versed” in the Hebrew bible? How many mathematicians are there well versed in higher-level mathematics? I would be willing to wager that the mathematically fluent outnumber those fluent in the Hebrew Bible.

So, it appears that no matter what, a model of DMT experiences is going to require some specialized understandings, and I think that makes sense. We are dealing with experiences that literally challenge the ontological and epistemological frameworks many of us have been utilizing since birth. The experiences themselves require a willingness to ask questions to which there are no clear and obvious answers. Does it not follow from this that any model of these experiences--which is by default a translation into a lower “plane” (i.e. experience is more immediate than a story of an experience which is more immediate than a freeform model of DMT experiences in the abstract)—would require some degree of specialized understanding(s)? The best chance at "understanding" (and it is an experiential understanding, rather than an intellectual understanding) comes from the most specialized education possible in this realm: taking DMT.

This brings me to my second point. If the Hebrew Bible was selected for its relatability to the broadest number of people, why not the Qur'an or Upanishads? I believe that from a statistical perspective, both of those texts have a significantly larger readership and are likely already familiar to a greater number of people than the Hebrew Bible. Based on reports that we have gotten here (as well as the work of people like Wahid Azal), it seems like there are quite a few similarities between DMT phenomena and Islamic and Hindu mysticism. This also points back to my suggestion that while A is like B, it may also be like the rest of the alphabet as well (hey, they’re all letters, right?).

Based on my understanding of the Hebrew Bible and prophetic states from a childhood of Hebrew school, Bar-Mitzvahs, and synagogue, and an adulthood of psychedelic experiences (the majority of which have involved DMT in one form or another) I’m left with my earlier sentiment that existing similarities don’t make a compelling enough case for me to adopt the Hebrew Bible/Jewish prophetic states as a model for these experiences in light of the phenomena I have experienced personally and encountered through others, as well as “universal” religious experiences DMT seems to facilitate on occasion, which appear to cross sociocultural/religious boundaries.

Ultimately, to underscore the question I initially raised back at Breaking convention and have attempted to flesh out in this post, I’m left wondering if the baggage of the Hebrew Bible isn’t also problematic. Given the number of people whose experiences don’t map onto the prophetic experience, as well as the various cultural artifacts of mystical Judaism, I’m still left pondering the merit of using a system with readily identifiable flaws, rather than working to build our own system. After all, if the prophetic state has XYZ characteristics that make it similar to the DMT experience, surely we can construct a model that has XYZ characteristics but lacks the problematic components that exist within the Hebrew Bible, no? Wouldn't this potentially provide us all with more benefits than utilizing a model (whether mystical Judaism or otherwise) that may start from a position that already has flaws and limitations vis a vis DMT experiences?

For me, the question is still why the Hebrew Bible, above all else? How does your model account for the problematic aspects of the Hebrew Bible (which are intimately intertwined with the prophetic experiences that helped construct Judaism)? Why is the Hebrew bible more compelling than other religious systems that present similar experiences/phenomena? Why is the Hebrew Bible (or any set of religious experiences/doctrines) more compelling than a "psychonautic and phenomenological" model of DMT experiences? And if it's not, then why the emphasis on the Hebrew Bible?



And fwiw, I just wanted to reiterate my appreciation that you found this thread and decided to join the conversation. I look forward to your reply and thank you in advance for your willingness to engage my verbosity.

Thanks to those who have said positive things about my work and its influence on them. And to Hyperweb for adding some focus to the issues. Snozzleberry's post raises a lot of issues, most of which I think I have covered in my new book on prophetic states, some of which I tried to hone in on in my post yesterday. Hopefully, we'll all be able to meet in real time and real space at some point(s) and continue discussing these topics.

Rick

Excellent points, Snozz.

Having finally read that huge post of yours, i have to entirely agree with the points you are making. I think Rick would be wise to seriously consider your points, and it's a great pity this excellent debate happened after he published his book!

Maybe in his next book?...

Yes.

Aww man... I was sincerely hoping that Rick would have posted a more in-depth rebuttal to all of Snozzleberry's well articulated and thoughtful points. I guess I'll have to go pick up a copy of his book then...