The Mystery

The main modern field theory of global consciousness is John Hagelin’s unified field theory of consciousness (Hagelin 1987). This theory is a direct descendent of the Vedic tradition, arising from its author’s practice of Transcendental Meditation, a method of teaching Advaita Vedantist meditation that was franchised in the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Hagelin was originally trained as a quantum mechanic, and the unified field theory of consciousness proposes that consciousness is identical with his own idiosyncratic mathematical version of the putative unified field. The main supporting evidence put forward for the unified field theory of consciousness is the reported existence of the Maharishi effect. The Maharishi effect is an increase in quality of life and decrease in violent offending that is reported to occur when approximately 1% of the population of any given geographical area repeatedly meditates in such a way that all the practitioners in the group achieve pure consciousne...

There’s been much speculation pertaining to the Wim Hof Method (WHM) and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), an endogenous hallucinogen produced by the human body. This is due to the fact that many practitioners of WHM report having hallucinatory/visionary experiences especially when partaking in the breathing exercises for extended periods of time (over 30 consecutive minutes). It’s a reasonable hypothesis based on there being no other endogenous hallucinogens currently identified (other than DMT related compounds 5-MEO-DMT & Bufotenin).  In the past, much of the discussion surrounding endogenous DMT has been in regards to the pineal gland. This gland is a small endocrine organ located in the middle of the mammalian brain. It was found to secrete DMT in a 2013 rat study published in the journal Biomedical Chromatography. Being that the internal physiology of rats, humans, and many mammalian counterparts are extremely similar, it is believed that the pineal gland of humans also secretes ...

A major portion of the book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, is devoted to detailed descriptions of what the volunteers encountered during their sessions. These include the exploration and resolution of personal psychological issues; out-of-body states in which people experienced their own deaths; a variety of mystical states in which volunteers experienced a unifying presence of God within and without the self and a felt sense of love as the underlying fabric of the universe; and—surprising to Strassman—a large number of reports of contact with alien beings of various kinds doing intrusive experiments and/or healing work. Most volunteers had positive experiences, but there were some scares and some 'bad trips'. One volunteer nearly had a heart attack because DMT normally leads to a flight-or-fight physiological response. Another older volunteer almost went into shock. One young man had a traumatic vision of being raped by alligators. Despite some of the beautifully uplifting experie...

In DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Rick Strassman provides insight into the U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research he carried out at the University of New Mexico between 1990 and 1995. As part of this research, Strassman injected sixty volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain. In Strassman’s volunteers, DMT consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences. Many reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences, aliens, angels, and spirits. Nearly all felt that the sessions were among the most profound experiences of their lives. This is a severely underrated book...

This book is a highly readable, intriguing, provocative description of Rick Strassman’s theories and research concerning the effects of N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT)—a short-acting and powerful plant-derived psychedelic chemical that is endogenously produced in the human brain—and what its evolutionary and psychological function might be. In this intellectually courageous book, which reads more like a novel than a scientific text, Strassman, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, recounts the history of psychedelic research; the bureaucratic labyrinth he had to navigate to begin the first clinical research with psychedelic substances approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration in more than 20 years; his methods and results (including case descriptions of what his volunteers encountered while taking the drug); the dangers of experimentation with psychedelics as well as possible beneficial effects; and speculations regarding the...

About 2300 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tau dreamt of a butterfly. He got up in the morning and asked himself a question: “How would I know if I was Chuang Tzu dreaming of a butterfly — or if right now I’m a butterfly dreaming I’m a man named Chuang Tzu?”. French philosopher Rene Descartes, in his vision of understanding what’s real and what’s not, asked an interesting question through a Thought Experiment: “Is someone stimulating my brain in such a manner as to make me believe that I’m here and I’m touching the ground and seeing those people and hiring those sounds?”. Is that too much to ask from approximately 2,500 square centimeters of our brain? Scientists have been working on getting a better understanding of the functioning of our brain. We, as humans, have just managed to scrape though the surface. We work with finite number of neurons, which need to multitask all the time. This multitasking of neurons have their own issues, as we fail to register the reality as it ...

You talk about, again in your first book, about how cells automatically move away from toxicity, and towards nutrition. And it seems that, as human beings that’s something that we’re trying to do, but we get it wrong a lot of the time. We’re trying to move away from unhappiness, or what we think makes us unhappy and towards what we think makes us happy. But we get it muddled up don’t we? Well, yah.  But do you see… the key word you said there was “what we think makes us happy". I mean, I was caught in that whole daze too before I became aware I thought at one point, wow I’m going to buy that little… you know that car. I bought a car that looked like a Ferrari called a Pantera back in the 70s. And I thought, “Okay I’m going to be happy, I got this great car.” So I got the car and about three days later it’s like, “Now I got this car, and I’m not any happier and as a matter of fact I got three speeding tickets every day I took the car out, because of course I couldn’t go 30 miles an...