As above so below.

I've heard that McKenna turned Buddhist monks on to DMT and they said it takes one into the lesser lights described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. They said that the trip is the farthest one can go into the afterlife with still being able to come back.

My question is: do y'all think that it is possible to reach the greater lights and still come back?

Just a question... not something I'd want to attempt lol

I once had a fortunate opportunity of being able to turn a very prominent Tibetan lama onto DMT—a name that you would recognize, although not one of the top five, but a more wizened, older, stranger character. And I, you know, he did it, and I said, “So what about it?” You know, these people, these Tibetan Buddhists, have a pretty good map of the territory. He said it’s the lesser lights. He said you can’t go further than that without breaking the thread of return. He said beyond this, there’s no returning. And so, in a very real sense, it’s a look over the edge. But then even that doesn’t solve all the mysteries. I mean, what is it about this wish to convey a language that is seen? What’s that all about? Is it that perhaps language has always been a gift from the other? -terence mckenna

He said you can’t go further than that without breaking the thread of return.

The Chikhai Bardo is the after death state described in the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) wherein the consciousness of the dead person fully enters into the light of the dharmakaya or "truth body." (explained in the first part of this series).

In this state, the person temporarily experiences for the first time the state of awareness without a second, that is to say, a state of pure consciousness.

This is the state of non-duality. The first experience here is the sight of the Primordial Clear Light or the "Clear Light of Reality." This is the pure mind of the Buddha, Christ, and all the perfected saints and mystics.

It is generally accepted among various spiritual traditions that the total amount of time it takes to transition between two consecutive earthly incarnations is 49 days. During this period, the first 3 to 4 days are spent in the Chikhai Bardo wherein the Awareness-body is formed. The formation of the awareness-body is a significant point in this process since it will carry one’s consciousness when it travels the path through the afterlife.
chikhai bardo link

The lights of the six Lokas will dawn again; into one of these worlds the soul must be born, and the light of the one he is destined for will shine more brightly than the others.The soul is still experiencing the frightening apparitions and sufferings of the third bardo, and he feels that he will do anything to escape from this condition. He will seek shelter in what appear to be caves or hiding-places, but which are actually the entrances to wombs. He is warned of this by the text of the Bardo Thodol, and urged not to enter them, * but to meditate upon the Clear Light instead*; for it is still possible for him to achieve the third degree of liberation and avoid rebirth.

http://www.near-death.co...an-book-of-the-dead.html

so, in a very real sense, it’s a look over the edge -TM

1. The First Bardo Afterlife Realm

The first bardo comes at the very moment of death, when there dawns the Clear Light of the Ultimate Reality. This is the very content and substance of the state of liberation, if only the soul can recognize it and act in a way to remain in that state. The instructions intended to be read at the moment of the person's death are designed to help him do this. He is told, first of all, to embrace this supreme experience not in a selfish and egoistic way but rather with love and compassion for all sentient beings. This will aid him in the second step, which is to realize that his own mind and self is identical with the Clear Light, implying that he himself IS the Ultimate Reality, "the All-good Buddha", transcending time, eternity, and all creation. If he can recognize this while in this supreme state at the moment of death, he will attain liberation-that is, he will remain in the Clear Light forever. This condition is called the "Dharmakaya", the highest spiritual body of the Buddha.

Most souls, however, will fail to do this. They will be pulled down by the weight of their karma into the second stage of the first bardo, called the Secondary Clear Light seen immediately after death.At this point, there are separate instructions to be read according to the spiritual condition of the person while in life. For an individual advanced in meditation and other spiritual practices, there is repeated over and over the same instructions as at the moment of death, enjoining him to recognize himself as the Dharmakaya.For a person who was still at a student-level on the spiritual path, there is the injunction for him to meditate on his "tutelary deity", that is, the particular god for whom he performed devotional practices while alive. Finally,"if the deceased be of the common folk", unpracticed in any spiritual disciplines, the instruction is to "meditate upon the Great Compassionate Lord", which is to say an "Avatar" worshipped by the multitude, equivalent to Jesus as conceived by the average Christian.
http://www.near-death.co...an-book-of-the-dead.html

I see what you did there


Oh, and it was Alpert who dosed the monks


You're referring to the bardo states as lights, yes? As for whether you can, Tim Leary's famous psychedelic trip manual is based on the Tibetan book of the dead and is designed to guide one on a high dose LSD journey through said Bardos. It has been said more than once that deep psychedelic states can and do reflect or even are Bardo states.

Many people have said that taking 5meoDMT can be much like what they would think dying is, and from anecdotal reports, it does seem to have many parallels with the death experience, as related to us by those have had near death experiences I would through personal experience experience wager that a good 5meoDMT dose could catapult one into one of the higher death realms, or bardos. Whether you come back or not, probably depends on how prepared you are to die

‘How does DMT compare to more familiar psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD?’

Let me say this about mushrooms. Mushrooms are my thing. They enlightened me, they straightened me out, they love me. But the way to do mushrooms is, the very first move – if you’re interested in mushrooms – is, for God’s sake – buy a scale, buy a scale. You wouldn’t think that this would be considered such an exotic suggestion to people who are going to put their bodies and minds on the line. Because people don’t take enough. They don’t take enough mushrooms. They take piss ant amounts and then they claim that they’re initiates. You must take a measured 5 dried grams on an empty stomach, measured! And when you see what that is, you’ll realize that, you know, you weren’t even camped in the atrium, you were camped in the driveway. And mushrooms to my – in some way, I mean, DMT is the most terrifying, astonishing, thing in the universe. But it’s very hard to know what to do with it. Psilocybin is your friend. It wants to teach. It will take you by the hand and forgive you and lead you and be with you. And it speaks. This is the amazing thing. And you’re hearing this from, you know, somebody who graduated from Heidegger and S.H. [Inaudible]. It speaks. No other psychedelic does that in my experience. Occasionally a phrase will pop into your [Inaudible] on another substance that is like a gift in that surround. -terence mckenna

One of the interesting characteristics of DMT is that it sometimes inspires fear - this marks the experience as existentially authentic. One of the interesting approaches to evaluating such a compound is to see how eager people are to do it a second time. A touch of terror gives the stamp of validity to the experience because it means, "This is real." We are in the balance. We read the literature, we know the maximum doses, the LD-50, and so on. But nevertheless, so great is one's faith in the mind that when one is out in it one comes to feel that the rules of pharmacology do not really apply and that control of existence on that plane is really a matter of focus of will and good luck.

I'm not saying that there's something intrinsically good about terror. I'm saying that, granted the situation, if one is not terrified then one must be somewhat out of contact with the full dynamics of what is happening. To not be terrified means either that one is a fool or that one has taken a compound that paralyzes the ability to be terrified. I have nothing against hedonism, and I certainly bring something out of it. But the experience must move one's heart, and it will not move the heart unless it deals with the issues of life and death. If it deals with life and death it will move one to fear, it will move one to tears, it will move one to laughter. These places are profoundly strange and alien. -terence mckenna

ND: You have said that an important part of the mystical quest is to face up to death and recognize it as a rhythm of life. Would you like to enlarge on your view on the implications of the dying process?

TM: I take seriously the notion that these psychedelic states are an anticipation of the dying process-or, as the Tibetans refer to it, the Bardo level beyond physical death. It seems likely that our physical lives are a type of launching pad for the soul. As the esoteric traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death, and we should learn to recognize the signposts along the way, so that when death comes, we can make the transition smoothly. I think the psychedelics show you the transcendental nature of reality. It would be hard to die gracefully as an atheist or existentialist. Why should you? Why not rage against the dying of the light? But if in fact this is not the dying of the light but the Dawning of the Great Light, then one should certainly not rage against that. There's a tendency in the New Age to deny death. We have people pursuing physical immortality and freezing their heads until the fifth millennium, when they can be thawed out. All of this indicates a lack of balance or equilibrium. The Tao flows through the realms of life and nonlife with equal ease. -terence mckenna

The metaphor of a vehicle--an after-death vehicle, an astral body--is used by several traditions. Shamanism and certain yogas, including Taoist yoga, claim very clearly that the purpose of life is to familiarize oneself with this after-death body so that the act of dying will not create confusion in the psyche. One will recognize what is happening. One will know what to do and one will make a clean break. Yet there does seem to be the possibility of a problem in dying. It is not the case that one is condemned to eternal life. One can muff it through ignorance.

What psychedelics encourage, and where I hope attention will focus once hallucinogens are culturally integrated to the point where large groups of people can plan research programs without fear of persecution, is the modeling of the after-death state. -Terence mckenna http://deoxy.org/t_ondeath.htm

Have you guys heard of one experiencing a way-to-long-and-drawn-out DMT Bardo flash of epic proportions with high doses of Lucy (many milligrams)? I've heard that Lucy cuts off the brains serotonin supply... is it possible that in high enough doses, this causes a massive dump of endogenous spice and other neurotransmitters that don't normally run free? Due to the massive "elephant on chest" feeling, I'd guess it might be mostly 5-MeO

LSD affects a large number of the G protein-coupled receptors, including all dopamine receptor subtypes, and all adrenoreceptor subtypes, as well as many others.[citation needed] Most serotonergic psychedelics are not significantly dopaminergic, and LSD is therefore rather unusual in this regard. LSD's agonism of D2 receptors contributes to its psychoactive effects.[63][64] LSD binds to most serotonin receptor subtypes except for 5-HT3 and 5-HT4. However, most of these receptors are affected at too low affinity to be sufficiently activated by the brain concentration of approximately 10–20 nM.[58] In humans, recreational doses of LSD can affect 5-HT1A (Ki=1.1nM), 5-HT2A (Ki=2.9nM), 5-HT2B (Ki=4.9nM), 5-HT2C (Ki=23nM), 5-HT5A (Ki=9nM [in cloned rat tissues]), and 5-HT6 receptors (Ki=2.3nM).[6][65] 5-HT5B receptors, which are not present in humans, also have a high affinity for LSD.[66] The psychedelic effects of LSD are attributed to cross-activation of 5-HT2A receptor heteromers.[67] Many but not all 5-HT2A agonists are psychedelics and 5-HT2A antagonists block the psychedelic activity of LSD. LSD exhibits functional selectivity at the 5-HT2A and 5HT2C receptors in that it activates the signal transduction enzyme phospholipase A2 instead of activating the enzyme phospholipase C as the endogenous ligand serotonin does.[68] Exactly how LSD produces its effects is unknown, but it is thought that it works by increasing glutamate release in the cerebral cortex[58] and therefore excitation in this area, specifically in layers IV and V.[69] LSD, like many other drugs, has been shown to activate DARPP-32-related pathways.[70]

LSD enhances dopamine D2R protomer recognition and signaling of D2–5-HT2A receptor complexes.

-Wikipedia

Oh, and it was Alpert who dosed the monks

Have you guys heard of one experiencing a way-to-long-and-drawn-out DMT Bardo flash of epic proportions with high doses of Lucy (many milligrams)? I've heard that Lucy cuts off the brains serotonin supply... is it possible that in high enough doses, this causes a massive dump of endogenous spice and other neurotransmitters that don't normally run free? Due to the massive "elephant on chest" feeling, I'd guess it might be mostly 5-MeO

I feel the DMT flash is identical to what one experiences at death, and this is not just my opinion, it's actually ingrained into the history of the compound, for example, "aya" is the quechua word meaning "corpse", "dead", "ghost" or "soul" and "huasca" is the quechua word meaning "cord", "rope" or "vine", making the translation of ayahuasca "the vine of the dead" or "the vine that gives access to death" or "ghost vine/spirit vine", so it was even clear to the ancient Amazonian ayahuascqueros that this experience was a venture into the realm of the dead and death...

While 5-methoxy-DMT can do this as well, I feel DMT is the actual "death molecule", though in the west people have a very poor understanding of death, just the word itself conjures up anxieties, negative connotations and associations in the western mind, so a name like "death molecule" would surely be misconstrued to mean "the molecule which causes death", so, it was softened to the acceptable "spirit molecule"...

Nobody ever takes LSD in milligrams.

As the esoteric traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death

ND: You have said that an important part of the mystical quest is to face up to death and recognize it as a rhythm of life. Would you like to enlarge on your view on the implications of the dying process?

TM: I take seriously the notion that these psychedelic states are an anticipation of the dying process-or, as the Tibetans refer to it, the Bardo level beyond physical death. It seems likely that our physical lives are a type of launching pad for the soul. As the esoteric traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death, and we should learn to recognize the signposts along the way, so that when death comes, we can make the transition smoothly. I think the psychedelics show you the transcendental nature of reality. It would be hard to die gracefully as an atheist or existentialist. Why should you? Why not rage against the dying of the light? But if in fact this is not the dying of the light but the Dawning of the Great Light, then one should certainly not rage against that. There's a tendency in the New Age to deny death. We have people pursuing physical immortality and freezing their heads until the fifth millennium, when they can be thawed out. All of this indicates a lack of balance or equilibrium. The Tao flows through the realms of life and nonlife with equal ease. -terence mckenna

*David Flattery and Martin Schwartz*
In discussing the ordinarily invisible spiritual world of the after-death state, called menog existence in the Avestan religion, Flattery says this:

The consumption of sauma [Soma] may have been the only means recognized in Iranian religion of seeing into menog existence before death; at all events, it is the only means acknowledged in Zoroastrian literature . . . . and, as we have seen, is the means used by Ohrmazd when he wishes to make the menog existence visible to living persons. In ancient Iranian religion there is little evidence of concern with meditative practice which might foster development of alternative, non-pharmacological means to such vision. In Iran, vision into the spirit world was not thought to come about simply by divine grace or as a reward for saintliness. From the apparent role of sauma in initiation rites, experience of the effects of sauma, which is to say vision of menog existence, must have at one time been required of all priests (or the shamans antecedent to them).10
10. David Flattery and Martin Schwartz, Haoma and Harmaline, Near Eastern Studies, vol. 21 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)

We are not primarily biological, with mind emerging as a kind of iridescence, a kind of epiphenomenon at the higher levels of organization of biology. We are hyperspatial objects of some sort that cast a shadow into matter. The shadow in matter is our physical organism.

At death, the thing that casts the shadow withdraws, and metabolism ceases. Material form breaks down; it ceases to be a dissipative structure in a very localized area, sustained against entropy by cycling material in, extracting energy, and expelling waste. But the form that ordered it is not affected. These declarative statements are made from the point of view of the shamanic tradition, which touches all higher religions. Both the psychedelic dream state and the waking psychedelic state acquire great import because they reveal to life a task: to become familiar with this dimension that is causing being, in order to be familiar with it at the moment of passing from life.

The metaphor of a vehicle--an after-death vehicle, an astral body--is used by several traditions. Shamanism and certain yogas, including Taoist yoga, claim very clearly that the purpose of life is to familiarize oneself with this after-death body so that the act of dying will not create confusion in the psyche. One will recognize what is happening. One will know what to do and one will make a clean break. Yet there does seem to be the possibility of a problem in dying. It is not the case that one is condemned to eternal life. One can muff it through ignorance.

Apparently at the moment of death there is a kind of separation, like birth--the metaphor is trivial, but perfect. There is a possibility of damage or of incorrect activity. The English poet-mystic William Blake said that as one starts into the spiral there is the possibility of falling from the golden track into eternal death. Yet it is only a crisis of a moment--a crisis of passage--and the whole purpose of shamanism and of life correctly lived is to strengthen the soul and to strengthen the ego's relationship to the soul so that this passage can be cleanly made. This is the traditional position...

Psychedelics may do more than model this state;
they may reveal the nature of it.

What psychedelics encourage, and where I hope attention will focus once hallucinogens are culturally integrated to the point where large groups of people can plan research programs without fear of persecution, is the modeling of the after-death state. Psychedelics may do more than model this state; they may reveal the nature of it. Psychedelics will show us that the modalities of appearance and understanding can be shifted so that we can know mind within the context of the One Mind. The One Mind contains all experiences of the Other. There is no dichotomy between the Newtonian universe, deployed throughout light-years of three-dimensional space, and the interior mental universe. They are adumbrations of the same thing.

We perceive them as unresolvable dualisms because of the low quality of the code we customarily use. The language we use to discuss this problem has built-in dualisms. This is a problem of language. All codes have relative code qualities, except the Logos. The Logos is perfect and, therefore, partakes of no quality other than itself. I am here using the word Logos in the sense in which Philo Judaeus uses it--that of the Divine Reason that embraces the archetypal complex of Platonic ideas that serve as the models of creation. As long as one maps with something other than the Logos, there will be problems of code quality. The dualism built into our language makes the death of the species and the death of the individual appear to be opposed things.

From a talk given at the invitation of Ruth and Arthur Young of the Berkeley Institute for the Study of Consciousness, 1984. New Maps of Hyperspace is chapter 7 of The Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna.

(with an unknown but large amount, smoked) I observed the subject pass very quickly into an almost coma-like state. Within seconds his face became purple and his breathing stopped. I pounded his chest, and breathed for him, and he seemed to emerge in consciousness, with the comment, "This is absolute ecstasy." He stopped breathing a second time, and both heart massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was provided. Again, he recovered and managed to maintain a continuing consciousness and achieve a partial recovery. In the awake condition he was increasingly lucid, but on closing his eyes he became possessed with, what he called, "The energy of terror." He could not sleep, as upon closing his eyes he felt threatened in a way he could not tolerate. Three days later, medical intervention with antipsychotic medication was provided, which allowed the recovery of an acceptable behavior pattern in a few more days. -TIHKAL;shulgin

PiHKAL Chapter 3 Burt
One morning, a couple of weeks later, I took a small, double-ended vial to Burt in his analytical lab down the hall, and asked him to please weigh out for me a small quantity of material into a separate container. The actual amount was not important, a few milligrams; what was important was that I wanted the weight accurate to four places. He disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared with the vial I had given him and also a weighing container holding a small amount of an almost white powder. "Here is 3.032 milligrams, exactly," he said, adding, "And it's slightly bitter." "How do you know?" asked I. "After I weighed out the psilocybin, there was a trace of dust on the spatula, so I licked it off. Slightly bitter." I asked him, "Did you read the label carefully?" "It's the vial of psilocybin you just received, isn't it?" he asked, looking at the funny-shaped tube still in his hand. He read the label. It said Lysergide. He said, "Oh." We spent the next several minutes trying to reconstruct just how much LSD might have been on the end of the spatula, and decided that it was probably not more than a few score micrograms. But a few score micrograms can be pretty effective, especially in a curious but conservative analytical chemist who is totally drug naive. "Well," I said to him, "This should damned well be a fascinating day." And indeed it was. The first effects were clearly noted in about twenty minutes, and during the transition stage that took place over the following minutes, we wandered outside and walked around the pilot plant behind the main laboratory building. It was a completely joyful day for Burt. Every trivial thing had a magical quality. The stainless steel Pfaudler reactors were giant ripe melons about to be harvested; the brightly colored steam and chemical pipes were avant-garde spaghetti with appropriate smells, and the engineers wandering about were chefs preparing a royal banquet. No threats anywhere, simply hilarious entertainment. We wandered everywhere else on the grounds, but the theme of food and its sensory rewards continued to be the leitmotif of the day. In the late afternoon, Burt said he was substantially back to the real world, but when I asked him if he thought he could drive, he admitted that it would probably be wise to wait a bit longer. By 5:00 PM, he seemed to be happily back together again, and after a trial run -- a sort of figure-eight in the almost empty parking lot -- he embarked on his short drive home. Burt never again, to my knowledge, participated in any form of personal drug investigation, but he maintained a close and intimate interest in my research and was always appreciative of the slowly evolving picture of the delicate balance between chemical structure and pharmacological action, which I continued to share with him while I remained at Dole. One periodically hears some lecturer holding forth on the subject of psychedelic drugs, and you may hear him give voice to that old rubric that LSD is an odorless, colorless and tasteless drug. Don't believe it. Odorless yes, and colorless when completely pure, yes, but tasteless, no. It is slightly bitter.
Shulgin;PIHKAL;chapter3