About the Book
Cutting-edge explorations and discussions of DMT experiences and plant sentience from leading luminaries in the field of psychedelic research
• Includes contributions from Rupert Sheldrake, Rick Strassman, Dennis McKenna, Graham Hancock, Jeremy Narby, Erik Davis, Peter Meyer, David Luke, and many others
• Explores DMT beings, plant sentience, interspecies communication, discarnate consciousness, dialoguing with the divine, the pineal gland, the Amazonian shamanic perspective on Invisible Entities, and the science behind hallucinations
Encounters with apparently sentient beings are reported by half of all first time users of the naturally occurring psychedelic DMT, yet the question of DMT beings and plant sentience, interspecies communication, discarnate consciousness, and perhaps even dialoguing with the divine has never been systematically explored.
In September 2015, ten of the world’s leading luminaries noted for exploring the mysterious compound DMT (dimethyltryptamine) gathered with other researchers at Tyringham Hall in England to discuss the subject. Over three days, they pooled their expertise from a wide range of subjects--archaeology, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, neuroscience, chemistry, and psychopharmacology, to name a few--to explore the notion of “entheogenic plant sentience” and the role of DMT as a conduit between Spirit and Matter.
Offering cutting-edge insights into this visionary domain, this book distills the potent exchange of ideas that occurred at Tyringham Hall, including presentations and discussions on DMT entities, the pineal gland, the possibility of DMT as a chemical messenger from an extraterrestrial civilization, the Amazonian shamanic perspective on Invisible Entities, morphic resonance, and the science behind hallucinations. Contributors to the talks and discussions include many leading thinkers in this field, including Rupert Sheldrake, Rick Strassman, Dennis McKenna, Graham Hancock, Jeremy Narby, Erik Davis, Ede Frecska, Luis Eduardo Luna, Bernard Carr, Robin Carhart-Harris, Graham St. John, David Luke, Andrew Gallimore, Peter Meyer, Jill Purce, William Rowlandson, Anton Bilton, Vimal Darpan, Santha Faiia, and Cosmo Feilding Mellen.
Table of Contents:
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
About the Author :
David Luke, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich and a guest lecturer at the University of Northhampton. He has published over 100 academic papers on transpersonal experiences and altered states of consciousness and regularly gives public lectures and conference presentations. A cofounder and director of Breaking Convention, a biennial international conference on psychedelic research, he lives in East Sussex, England. Rory Spowers is an ecological writer, filmmaker, and author. He is the founder of The Web of Hope, a UK charity and ecological education resource, and the creative director for the Tyringham Initiative. He lives in Ibiza, Spain.
Review :
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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!”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
