Back when Terence McKenna was alive, none of the neoentheogen enthusiasts would have dared the heresy found in James Kent’s passionate discourse The Case Against DMT Elves . These days few are left who debate the number of elves that can dance on a DMT molecule. (Note: If you do take DMT and want to report elf experiences, you can do so on Deoxy.org) James Kent returns us to the concerns of an earlier era He begins:
“I do not believe DMT is a gateway to an alternate dimension, nor does it induce contact with autonomous elves and alien entities. Yes, DMT produces a vivid other-worldly landscape when ingested, often including elves, aliens, insects, snakes, jaguars, etc. This is true for the majority of people who try it. Some people do not have such vivid responses, but many do. Although this may appear at first glance to be “shocking,” it is actually no more shocking then the fact that most people dream at night, or that most people see geometric patterns (pressure phosphenes) when they close their eyes and press against their eyeballs. But the difference between pressure phosphenes and DMT is that DMT is illegal and very hard to come by, so most people never have the opportunity to experience it.”
Further along he says:
“since this particular alien landscape is produced by a specific rare substance (DMT), people seem to think it is akin to unlocking the mysteries of the universe when they actually get their hands on it.”
Now don’t get me wrong, DMT is stunning in its effect, no doubt. But, like anything, when you do it many times the magic tends to wear off and reveal itself for what it is; an exotic aberration of the brain’s perceptual mechanics.
My own experiences with the stuff pretty much confirm Kent’s opinions. For instance, I have always come down from the experience. Also I never saw any machine elves or even any elves at all. However, I did quite a bit of what the meme archetype kinda stuff — enough to have developed a healthy respect for DMT.
I would have to say about the experience is that opinions by the Leary-Alpert group that you could not remember the rapidly changing visionary world of DMT is not correct. Some of the vividest memories of my life were produced by the compound.
For another take on DMT, there is the an entire book about DMT available by Rick Strassman, “DMT The Spirit Molecule.”
Image credit: the image at the top of this post is “diosa madre tierra by Carey Thompson who is the featured artist on the Vaults of Erowid. His own web site is found here. The crystal photo is from Jeremyy Bigwood whose website is here.
Hi Bruce,
I responded to Kent’s critique when it was firstp published here:
http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000217.html
Although I may be a little harsh in my response, I believe Kent is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is a peculiar tendency among overly reductionist types. I have never claimed that DMT opens open a door into another ‘physical’ dimension, but I have also never claimed that it does not, as James does. How can we know? Can it be verified? Probably not, which is why reductionism will ultimately fail to solve the consciousness problem. I have covered this delima in many other places on Future Hi, such as here:
http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000094.html
http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000071.html
http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000120.html
Here is a good way to test the theory of the alternate reality hypothesis:
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~okram/papers/paralleldmt.pdf
Has Kent ever tried the stuff?
DMT is released in massive quantities at the point of death. Wouldn’t this suggest that DMT could be a key into something spiritual and not just psychological. Many people have described the same “elves.” Just because someone else hasn’t means nothing. Plus Mckenna spoke of experiences with multiple hits of PURE synthetic DMT. The pic you have up here is far from pure. And DMT is MUCH more shocking than dreaming or pressing on your eyelids. Come on, really. This guy must not have done much or he did some really impure stuff.
I agree with Jake, For someone to have a true DMT experience, one has to have a massive amount of DMT in their system. From many other experiences from others that have experienced DMT, the experience comes with a profound alteration in their perception of reality and life. It’s like an awakening of one’s perception of life and beyond. And another thing that others recall is that when they experience DMT, it’s so euphoric and beyond reality that to keep pushing further into their trip would mean they would have to die. Very profound, not something the author of this article experienced though.
Judging by the photo of the dmt crystal, that is very impure and low quality dmt. In its natural state it is white, with impurities yellow, more impure orange…. so whatever the heck that is, it certainly would not be the highest level reachable and may have left the author with only half the story.
brain or not, having a 10 dimensional fire in front of me is not only dreaming, I do beleive DMT is a way to connect to the other worlds. I havnt had a breakthrough yet and I feel, I know there are things in the universe humans arnt meant to understand. i beleive the elves are the gods of the universe and DMT is an easter egg type object: ” hey, you found it, you deserve to come chill with us =) ”
I have never taken DMT but I had an experience which sounds like descriptions of Near-Death experiences and DMT usage I read on the Internet: multi-dimensional objects, fractal tunnel and feeling of having a consciousness which was always there and will always be there.
This completely changed my life and beliefs and there is only one single belief I can stick to:
conscious people are gods and consciousness exists infinitely (=it cannot die). It plays games in a virtual reality setting: games like this one. We, the gods are all the same and we will never get better, because we are already perfect. We enter a finite existence, then infinity again, then a different finite existence…
DMT might be some kind of “cheat” or as I read above “easter egg”. Many computer games also have bots – non-conscious characters. Some make the game more difficult, others make it easier. Maybe James Kent is a bot whose job it is to make DMT less than what it really is. This way, he does not encourage people to take it, because they are supposed to get the impression that “if you take it, it is all in your brain”. He “protects” the matrix in which we live from too curious people who could mess it up. Not as harsh as the government’s drug policy but still a tricky bot I must say.
What is that red stuff he has a picture of? Lol Surely it cannot be any type of fine quality product. I would have never guessed that its DMT.
What an age we live in now a days.
redish colored DMT=major impurities
Also, from personal experience i’ve found that if you don’t WANT it to work, it wont. At least, not nearly as well. If everyone’s brain functions a bit differently, and everyone’s body reacts to things differently, then how can so many people see/feel/be shown so many of the same things? That isn’t a coincidence. I couldn’t type a novel about this, but it sounds like the writer has already decided how he feels about it and i’ve come to realize you can’t MAKE anyone feel a certain way about DMT…they’ll maybe just get it on their own someday.
One of the problems that come up with reducing the DMT effects to “an exotic aberration of the brain’s perceptual mechanics” is that it doesn’t really give rooooooooooooom for a plethora of realitybuilding and possibilities.. It (this article) displays one possibility in a very harsh manner. And in such a manner that -at least in my experience- it locks itself in… a.k.a Reductionism…
I have met “the elves” (and many other spirits), and cannot honestly not say if they are projections of my “own” consiousness or autonomous beings. What i do know is that they feel pretty real and when meeting such beings at the same time and together with fellow travelers, who confirm ones direct experience, its hard not to extend ones vision of the world to encompass “other worlds” and those possibilities.
Hej Bruce!
)
I think it would be nice if you linked to this http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?id=soma_letter in your original article…
James ellaborates his thoughts quite nicely..
i know its an old posting…but people still find it (i did
~Peace~
The assumption that spiritual experiences/epiphanies are nothing more than hallucinations, is kinda silly, assuming that all you need is ” an over excited visual cortex and an imagination” SWIM’s first LSD trip definately shattered his reality, pretty colours and all, but he soon found out that visuals are trivial. Speaking of Occams razor, yes, if you do a psychedelic, have no assumptions. Assume that what you SEE is just as trivial as what you SEE when you are sober(?
). SWIM has done Psilocybe, mescaline, LSD, and Salvia, and through meditation (shedding assumptions/”truths”) he now has NO hallucinations while on psychedelics. NONE, no visual, aural, tactile, he can if he wants, but finds them distracting. Psychedelics are merely amplifiers, and if you want to amplify you visual imagination, you can do it. If you want to amplify your idea of an elf, you can do it, jaguars, snakes, ect. SWIM on the other hand, uses psychedelics for 2 purposes; 1, amplifying his “emotional circuitry” and 2, amplifying nothingness.
In a nutshell, one does not need visuals in order to have a religious experience. Visuals, Beatific visions are translations, much like how a radio turns radio waves into music. Music is nice, but it is merely a translation of the radio waves, and not the full picture.
Or maybe he’s just a gatekeeper whose job is to say “It’s no big deal”, so that people who otherwise would be too scared to take DMT may experience it: like clown doctors and terminal cancer patients.
hmmm, i met a machine elf, tagged the experience in these memory archives as one of the “most realest”(if the memory shtuff is at all a good judge of them).
And there was no question in my experience, from what i recall, as to whether it was or not a conscious entity who was showing, quite full of selfless joy, me a couple of tricks.
Very nice ones in fact.
Not the same as what i read from Terrance Mcenna.
I only read about his after my own… amazing how the details match up.
If somebody said they met some amazing person who shared something which changed your outlook on life, no one would really question the whether or not the person actually existed, just the validity of the info imparted, change person to being… accept that there are more or less different versions in how being can interface… different appearances.. familiarities… architectures/algorithms … it’ll make it much easier to contact without the all this super psycho infrastructure bullshit to navigate around… it’s just so… meh/pfft&argh! pull ya finger out of yer brain sphincter wouldya? Is the funniest thing that the world people create is usually the one which supports the world they created… it’s oh so inception with or without/guns/grey/gloombots
You create the boundaries of your experience of “the world”…
Why not? and if whynot, whynot go for infinity+ …? I’m sure there’s infinity+ awesome reasons… but really, one would only need to focus upon the culturally relevant ones… allure/dissuading
thanks for all the ups yea of the interweb
im familiar with the molecule and SET took the words out of my mind!
It's only as good as the equipment using it.. As one South American shaman put it, the transfer of wisdom is based upon worthiness. As far as comparing pressure phosphenes to DMT visions, one of the infinite "DIFFERENCES" is DMT visions are highly organized and influnced by humming and or chanting, whereas presssing against one's eyeballs are fleeting and nowhere nearly as complex. My guess is it allows one to access a much older & sophisticated form of awareness called topological consciousness.