DMT And Physics

I have left around a number of (what I would call) psychedelic books, which you will notice consist very largely of photographs of pattern in nature: crystal structures, shells, bone structures, leaf structures, animalcules, erosion patterns, patterns in marble, all kinds of pattern in nature. Because, for some reason or other, one of the strongest effects that I had from the use of psychedelics was a vastly renewed appreciation of this dimension of the natural world; a kind of perception that the whole world is pattern.

This is a very strange feeling, because our common sense normally bases the world on substance. We think of primordial and more or less solid stuff, which is found in dense forms as in granite or a ball of steel, and found in very refined forms such as a gas. And we think that all the world is shapes of, forms of, this primordial stuff. But one of the extraordinary consequences of using psychedelics is that everything suddenly turns into transparency. I think that’s what some physicists have tried to say. I’m thinking of Sir Arthur Eddington in particular, when he remarked that it seems to turn out that the stuff of the world is the same as the stuff of our consciousness—as if awareness itself and material substance were really not different.

And whatever this means scientifically, the psychological implication of it is somehow to make the physical world light lighter—in every sense: somehow less heavy, less burdensome, and lighter in the sense of more permeated with light. If you look, for example, at those reproductions of Persian miniatures that I brought out, you will see what I mean by the vision of the world as being lit internally; illuminated from within. But the interesting thing about this from a scientific point of view is that the physical description of the world does not require the concept of substance. It requires only the concept of pattern. Because upon a physical analysis, all substances (however solid) are finally described in terms of patterns: the patterns of their molecules, atoms, electrons and so forth. And it is always the description of the pattern that seems to count.

Common sense seems to urge us to ask the question: but what’s the pattern made of? In other words, if we see everything reduced to a lot of circles or winding lines, we want to know what are those lines made of? But when you think it through, the only way anybody can ever tell you about them is to describe still smaller patterns within them. Nobody can really think of a way of talking about stuff. Because if it has no pattern and it’s just sort of homogeneous all the way through and has really no shape in itself, I can’t imagine a way of talking about it. But you can number and describe and make out, delineate, patterns.

And so the world takes on (from this point of view) what I would best call a musical quality—music having the peculiarity of being a language, a form of art, in which the principal delight is pattern, and the whole meaning is in the pattern. Music, you see, really doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s a great art. But one can have absolutely magnificent music which represents nothing and describes nothing; one enjoys it simply for itself in the same way as you might enjoy fireworks, or watching ripples on water, or watching the shapes of clouds. They don’t mean anything, and yet they’re orderly. And so one becomes peculiarly aware of this world as play.

Alan Watts says psychedelics like DMT can provide religious insight, but should be used with spiritual discipline to integrate the mystical experience into everyday life. He critiques psychiatry’s lack of metaphysical grounding and calls for medical and religious professionals to work together on psychedelics. Watts emphasizes psychedelics’ potential as a bridge between mystical and ordinary consciousness, while warning against spiritual inflation or romanticizing substances. Overall he presents a balanced perspective, exploring psychedelics as tools for self-knowledge that require wisdom in application.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6hNcnlTmbdI