DMT Dialogues

These dialogues are a promising and positive attempt to create a pivotal shift in consciousness. Centered on the farthest reaches of human experience, they offer fresh perspectives and open new doors. They merit being read--and read over and over again, in our own as well as in humankind's most general interest. * Ervin Laszlo,The Intelligence of the Cosmos * DMT Dialogues is a courageous attempt in the best tradition of the scientific process to wrestle with the meaning of anomalous DMT experiences, reported by a substantial number of people, involving the sense of being in touch with alien intelligences. Like all great mysteries, there is no single interpretation that everybody who participated in the DMT Dialogues arrived at by consensus. Reading DMT Dialogues will not bring you certainty but rather will bring you in direct contact with profound minds struggling to plumb the depths of consciousness. * Rick Doblin, Ph.D., executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies * Foreword About the Entheogenic Plant Sentience Symposium Rory Spowers Preface Objectives of the Symposium David Luke Acknowledgments DAY ONE The Origins, Evolution, and Esoteric Culture of DMT Introduction Exploring Entheogenic Entity Encounters Anton Bilton Chapter 1 The Pineal Enigma: The Dazzling Life and Times of the Spirit Gland Graham St. John DISCUSSION Chapter 2 Is DMT a Chemical Messenger from an Extraterrestrial Civilization? Dennis McKenna DISCUSSION DAY TWO Frameworks for Thinking about DMT Chapter 3 Amazonian Perspectives on Invisible Entities Jeremy Narby DISCUSSION Chapter 4 Concerning the Nature of the DMT Entities and Their Relation to Us Peter Meyer DISCUSSION Chapter 5 How to Think about Weird Beings Erik Davis DISCUSSION Chapter 6 Why May DMT Occasion Veridical Hallucinations and Informative Experiences? Ede Frecska DISCUSSION DAY THREE Exploring the Whole of Reality Chapter 7 The Neurobiology of Conscious Interaction with Alternate Realities and Their Inhabitants Andrew Gallimore DISCUSSION Chapter 8 Morphic Resonance, Psychedelic Experience, and Collective Memory Rupert Sheldrake DISCUSSION Chapter 9 Psychedelics, Entities, Dark Matter, and Parallel Dimensions Graham Hancock DISCUSSION Chapter 10 The Nature of DMT Beings: Perspectives and Prospects Rick Strassman DAY FOUR Summary and Departure Chapter11 What We Think We Know about DMT Entities David Luke Afterword What Next? Rory Spowers Speaker Citations Speaker Biographies Discussant Biographies Editor and Symposium Curator Biographies Index DMT has a rich cultural history, a radically vibrant contemporary social context, complex biological mechanisms, theological and philosophical implications, and far-reaching implications for the science of consciousness. In DMT Dialogues, David Luke and Rory Spowers have curated an accessible anthology that sparks off in many of these directions and then kindles them together into a Promethean fire for our times. Where do we go as a species with all this rising knowledge of the extraordinary farther reaches of the mind? Only time will tell, and I'm sure this book will help us find the way. * Oliver Robinson, Ph.D., author of Paths between Head and Heart * DMT Dialogues showcases the incredible, groundbreaking work of the Tyringham Initiative, which convenes cutting-edge thinkers and scientists exploring the edge-realms of the psyche, with the intention of furthering humanity's understanding of what lies beyond the edge of the known. * Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head * Preserved in the pages of this book are some of the most extraordinary presentations I have ever had the pleasure to read. It was my privilege to attend the 2017 Tyringham Initiative DMT Symposium and to learn firsthand from the assembled scientists and scholars about their research into DMT. This substance opens doors into a hidden world, and to listen to--and read--these presentations is to discover that powerful advances are being made into understanding its meaning and potential. * Whitley Strieber, author of Communion and The Super Natural * DMT is famous in the world of psychedelic research for inducing experiences that are short, a matter of minutes, but with effects that are profoundly dazzling and lead to lengthy essays that try to explicate the puzzle. It clearly affects the language centers of the brain! It has led to the recognition of DMT entities, which may or may not be a new class of weird beings, neither animal nor plant, molecular nor metaphysical. This book is a fascinating series of explorations of the paradigm-busting and mind-blowing experiences triggered by this substance. Just reading about them is mind-blowing! * Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author of Searching for the Philosophers' Stone * DMT Dialogues represents an important step in the scholarly conversation about the DMT world and the entities which inhabit it. By presenting insightful contributions from experts in psychology, anthropology, religious studies, and neuroscience, as well as the interdisciplinary discussions that followed, the editors have provided the theoretical tools needed to start interpreting and understanding the DMT experience. As part of the Beckley/Imperial Research Programme we are currently investigating how DMT has its effect in the brain in a pioneering study using EEG and fMRI. * Amanda Feilding, founder of The Beckley Foundation *