komando de autodefensa animal!

EMFs, Melatonin and your Pineal Gland
January 10th, 2008 · No Comments

-excerpts from an Australian Senate Discussion Paper 10/2007

Both human and animal circadian rhythms are driven by the day/night cycle and are synchronized with natural geomagnetic electromagnetic fields. The major control gland over this natural cycle is the pineal gland which secretes the neurohormone melatonin. During the day, light falling on the eye’s retina produces signals which are biochemically amplified to stimulate the pineal gland to reduce its melatonin output. At night the absence of light with sleep stimulates the pineal gland to produce melatonin.

The circadian production of melatonin is thought to control important processes in the eyes, including restoration of rods (for night vision) at the end of the night, and renewal of cones (for colour vision) at the end of the day. One theory on how man made EMF’s may affect the pineal gland is that the pineal gland may ’sense’ EMF’s as light and therefore reduce melatonin production. A possible cause for such an effect is from insoluble granular material contained within the pineal gland.

Research by Dr. Sidney Lang, an expert on piezoelectricity, which is the production of electric fields by pressure on crystalline structures, has shown that the pineal gland has piezoelectrical activity. Dr Lang hypothesizes that this activity is a function of this granular material and if so it may be responding to narrow wave lenghts.

Once melatonin is produced, its ability to pass through the cell membrane allows it to pass directly into the blood stream. Once in the blood melatonin has access to every cell in the body where it passes through the cell membrane to the cell nucleus, which has receptors for it. A few cell membranes also have receptors for melatonin, which may control the 24 hour circadian rhythm of the endocrine system.

In the cell nucleus, melatonin plays a role in regulating gene expression. The ability of melatonin to enter all cells is also essential for one of the other important functions of melatonin, which is to act as a scavenger of highly toxic oxygen-based free radicals. The production of these free radicals is a consequence of the utilization of oxygen by all organisms. About 1 - 2% of inspired oxygen ends up as toxic free radicals which can damage macromolecules such as DNA, proteins and lipids. This damage is referred to as oxidative stress.

Because of its ability to eliminate free radicals, melatonin is probably the most efficient natural cell protection and oncostatic agent in our bodies. At night, melatonin production floods our bodies, eliminating the build up of free radicals that are being produced, allowing the DNA synthesis and cell division to occur with a far lower chance of damage and hence producing more healthy cells. Melatonin also dampens the release of estrogen, prolonged exposure to which may increase the risk of breast cancer.

Bioelectromagnetics 23:488495 (2002)
Calcite Microcrystals in the Pineal Gland of the Human Brain
First Physical and Chemical Studies
Baconnier, Lang et al.

It should be noted that these are initial findings of an ongoing study. Given the proper opportunity this study may yield results that are of great significance in the area of mobile phones and health. One thing that could adversely affect the impact of any such results would be the exaggeration or misrepresentation of the findings so far, or premature claims relating to studies still under way. This could discredit the research and make it difficult to have genuine findings taken seriously.

The researchers have isolated and studied calcite microcrystals which they have found in human pineal glands.

Quotes from the paper:
“The pineal gland … converts a neuronal signal into an endocrine output. … [It] is located close to the anatomical centre of the human brain.” “A total of 20 glands from [human] subjects ranging in age from 15 to 68 years were studied.” “Microcrystals were found in every gland in quantities ranging from 100 to 300 crystals per cubic millimetre of gland. No attempt was made to correlate the quantity of crystals with either the age of the subject or pathological details.” “Length dimensions of the crystals varied from 2-3 to about 20 micrometres.” “These results (referring to various forms of analysis described in detail) and the electron diffraction measurements definitely prove that the microcrystals are calcite.” “These calcite crystals bear a striking resemblance to the otoconia of the inner ear.” “The calcite in otoconia has been shown to exhibit piezoelectricity.” “If piezoelectricity were to exist [in the pineal calcite microcrystals], an electromechanical coupling mechanism to external electromagnetic fields may be possible.”

“The possibility of nonthermal coupling of electromagnetic radiation to biological systems has been considered recently [Kirschvink, 1992]. Reiter [1993] has reviewed the literature on the possible effects of static and low frequency electromagnetic fields on the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. A study by de Seze, [1998,1999] showed no influence of microwave frequency radiation on melatonin secretion. However, Kirschvink et al. [1992] and Kirschvink [1996] have shown the presence of minute crystals of magnetite in the human brain and have suggested a mechanism for coupling of microwave radiation to them. Additional research on the nonthermal effects of microwave radiation is definitely warranted.”

“In conclusion, we believe that even a very small risk of possible nonthermal coupling of radiation to microcrystals in the pineal gland merits further detailed study. Our future research will address these questions.”

To my mind, the significant features that can be used in the current debate are:

The human pineal gland, in the centre of the brain, has been found to contain large numbers of calcite micro-crystals that “bear a striking resemblance” to calcite crystals found in the inner ear. The ones found in the inner ear have been shown to exhibit the quality of piezoelectricity. If those found in the pineal gland also have this quality then this would provide a means whereby an external electromagnetic field might directly influence the brain.

Both the Stewart Report and the NRPB Report consider at some length how it might be possible for non-thermal levels of microwave radiation to affect a living organism.

In the Stewart Report, Section 5 paragraphs 12 through to 26 detail the sort of requirements that might have to apply in order for an electromagnetic field to directly affect biological tissue – living cells. Nowhere in these paragraphs is the possibility considered of any form of crystalline deposit which might provide the ‘missing link’ between electromagnetic radiation and biological effects. It’s interesting to note, though, that paragraph 18 does refer to a suggestion by Frohlich that a biological system might behave in some way like a radio receiver, amplifying a very small signal through a process of resonance; this idea is dismissed due to the unlikelihood of biological material resonating in this way – but of course one of the earliest types of radio was the ‘crystal set’, in which a mineral crystal was made to resonate (by tuning with a ‘cats whisker’) with an incoming radio wave, which is simply an electromagnetic wave of rather lower frequency than microwaves. The conclusion of this section was that “…there is little evidence to support resonant behaviour…”. The existence in the pineal gland of crystals which may prove to exhibit piezoelectric properties puts the whole issue in a totally different light – particularly in a scenario where the absolute requirement is to ‘play it safe’ (Stewart’s ‘Precautionary Principle’).
(It’s worth noting that paragraph 5.6 of this report considers the possibility of the magnetite crystals (see above) providing a causal link, and discounts this on scientific grounds. It goes on to say: “Indeed, it seems to be generally agreed that any biological effects from mobile phones are much more likely to result from electric rather than from magnetic fields.” Note that piezoelectric qualities do link electric fields to mechanical effects.)

In the NRPB Report on TETRA, paragraphs 78 to 102 consider the effect of radiation, amplitude modulated (pulsed) at around 16Hz (cycles/second), on calcium efflux in the brain – the basis of the Stewart Report warning against using this pulsing frequency. Paragraphs 92-96, a substantial proportion of the latter half of this section, are devoted almost entirely to highlighting the fact that no clear mechanism has yet been identified to explain the effects observed by some researchers. The obvious inference that readers are expected to draw is that, because no clear explanation is apparent, these effects are highly questionable – indeed, one sentence in paragraph 95 almost says as much. Again, with the sort of causal link that may be provided by microcrystals interspersed among the organic matter of the brain, the perspective on this aspect of the issue is dramatically altered.

In brief, then:

Two things can be definitively stated from this research so far:

1. Calcite microcrystals have been positively identified, in substantial quantities, in every one of 20 human pineal glands studied;

2. These crystals bear a striking resemblance to those found in the human inner ear, which have been shown to exhibit piezoelectric qualities.


These two facts alone are sufficient to call into question the basis of conclusions in both the Stewart Report and the NRPB Report on TETRA. Neither of these reports considered the possibility of the sort of coupling that might be provided through crystals of this type. The reassurances given in both of these reports are thus based on a false premise, that any coupling of microwave radiation to cellular activity in a living organism must be direct, acting through the medium of biological material. It is of course entirely possible that other similar phenomena exist elsewhere in the brain (and/or other parts of the body), as yet undiscovered.

Whilst the means by which microwaves might directly affect living cells are rather obscure, the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and certain types of crystal structures is well understood; the possibility of this then affecting living cells is very real.

The ICNIRP guidelines must therefore be considered inadequate, since they take no account of such a possible causal mechanism. The fact that such a mechanism has not yet been proved to operate in no way lessens the responsibility of those setting or implementing guidelines to allow for its possibility – a precautionary approach.

(Dr.) Grahame Blackwell.

Acacia plant controls ants with chemical
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

Plants have systems for keeping their six-legged inhabitants in check

In Africa and in the tropics, armies of tiny creatures make the twisting stems of acacia plants their homes.

Aggressive, stinging ants feed on the sugary nectar the plant provides and live in nests protected by its thick bark.

This is the world of "ant guards".

The acacias might appear overrun by them, but the plants have the ants wrapped around their little stems.

These same plants that provide shelter and produce nourishing nectar to feed the insects also make chemicals that send them into a defensive frenzy, forcing them into retreat.

Nigel Raine, a scientist working at Royal Holloway, University of London in the UK has studied this plant-ant relationship.

Dr Raine and his colleagues from the universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh and Reading in the UK and Lund University in Sweden have been trying to work out some of the ways in which the insects and the acacias might have co-evolved.

He explains how the ants provide a useful service for the acacias.

"They guard the plants they live on," said Dr Raine. "If other animals try to come and feed on the rich, sugary nectar, they will attack them."

"If a giraffe starts to eat the leaves of an acacia that is inhabited by ants, the ants will come out and swarm on to its face, biting and stinging," says Dr Raine.

"Eventually, the giraffe will get fed up and move off."

In the New World tropics, the Pseudomyrmex genus of ants fulfil a very similar guarding role.

For both species, the acacias provide little, reinforced structures that the ants hollow out and nest within, as well as sugar-rich nectar for them to eat.

"In return, both groups of ants protect their host plants from herbivores - both hungry insects and larger [animals]," explains Dr Raine.

Give and take

That is the plus side for the plants. But being inhabited by aggressive insects could make one important aspect of a plant's life difficult - flowering.

Flowers need to be pollinated so the plant can reproduce. So what stops the ants from attacking the helpful little pollinators or stealing all the tasty nectar that attracts them?

"Some plants do this structurally, with physical barriers to stop ants getting on to the flower, or sticky or slippery surfaces that the insects can't walk on," said Dr Raine.

"Acacias don't have these barriers. They have very open flowers, but still, the ants don't seem to go on to them. We wanted to know why."

One clever approach by the plant is a food "bribe". "Extrafloral nectaries" are small stores of nectar on stems, from which the inhabitants can feed without going on to the flowers.

These, Dr Raine explains, are nutritious structures produced by the plant to feed its resident colony of ant-guards.

But when this isn't enough, it is a case of chemical warfare.

Flowers can produce a variety of chemicals. We can smell some of the volatile organic compounds they release when we sniff our favourite summer bloom.

But there is a more manipulative side to these scents.

Floral volatile compounds can act as signals - drawing in pollinators such as bees and hummingbirds in with their irresistible aromas.

To the ants, however, they are far from irresistible.

"The flowers seem to produce chemicals that are repellent to the ants," said Dr Raine. "They release these particularly during the time when they're producing lots of pollen, so the ants are kept off the flowers."

In recent studies, described in the journal Functional Ecology, Dr Raine and his colleagues found that the plants with the closest relationships with ants - those that provided homes for their miniature guard army - produced the chemicals that were most effective at keeping the ants at bay.

"And that was associated with the flower being open," he says. "So the chemicals are probably in the pollen."

When the pollen has all been taken away - by being brushed on to the bodies of hungry pollinators and helpfully delivered to other plants - the flowers become less repellent.

"So at this point, the ants can come on to the flowers and can protect them from other insects that might eat them, so that the developing seeds aren't lost," he explains.

Dr Raines' team was able to test this using young flowers that had just opened and that contained lots of pollen.

The scientists wiped them on older flowers and on the acacia's stems.

This showed them that the effect was "transferrable" - the stems and older flowers that had been wiped became more repellent.

"It gives this really neat feedback system - the plant is protected when it needs to be protected, but not when it doesn't."

Selective deterrents

The repellent chemicals are specific to the ants. In fact, they attract and repel different groups of insects.

"[The chemicals] don't repel bees, even though they are quite closely related to ants. And in some cases, the chemicals actually seem to attract the bees," says Dr Raine.

The researchers think that some of the repellents that acacias produce are chemical "mimics" of signalling pheromones that the ants use to communicate.

"We put flowers into syringes and puffed the scent over the ant to see how they would respond, and they became quite agitated and aggressive" he explained.

"The ants use a pheromone to signal danger; if they're being attacked by a bird they will release that chemical that will quickly tell the other ants to retreat."

Dr Raine says this clever evolutionary system shows how the ants and their plants have evolved to protect, control and manipulate each other.

The ants may be quick to swarm, bite and sting, but the harmless-looking acacias have remained one step ahead.

HIGH TIMES Interview: James Oroc
by Elise McDonough

The January 2010 issue of HIGH TIMES featured a conversation with James Oroc, author of Tryptamine Palace, titled “Psychedelic Desert Toads.” The following is the complete and uncut interview with Oroc.

HT: What are the differences between 5-MeO-DMT and DMT?

JO: There’s a lot of confusion here because there’s very little information available about 5-Meo-DMT which is one of the reasons why I ended up writing the book, like many people I was interested in DMT through Terence McKenna’s writings, but it is a very difficult compound to find, not to mention the fact that it is illegal, but it’s always been very, very rare. For a brief period from 1990 to the early twenty-first century you could buy 5-Meo-DMT over the Tnternet, because it is a different compound in its molecular structure from DMT, it has an extra methoxy attached to it, and because of that it is not illegal. It potentially falls under the analog act, but I’m not aware of anyone who has been persecuted for 5-Meo-DMT. For this brief period of time you had a lot of research chemical companies offering a variety of chemicals over the Internet, and 5-MeO-DMT was one of those, which is how I initially was able to try some.

Anyone who knows about DMT is probably familiar with Terence McKenna’s descriptions, which are almost like a comic book effect, lots of visual hallucinations, lots of visions, For many people who hoped to have visions like on mushrooms or LSD, DMT is a compound that is most likely to produce a vision or a hallucination, 5-MeO-DMT works very differently from that. It takes you to a much more transcendental zone, out side of thought, which makes it a very difficult thing to try and explain, but it is closest to the definitions of the true mystical state that I have read, people talk about a void, which is paradoxically a plenum, full of energy, sense of an otherworldly state of energy and being that doesn’t really relate to the dimension we occupy now. So phenomenally they are very different and not everybody gets the effect of 5-MeO-DMT, some people get a white hole where they don’t really experience much at all. Other people can achieve all kinds of trips and effects.

When a lot of people take DMT, they report the same phenomena (elves, etc.) Do you find that to be true with 5-MeO-DMT?

Well I think you’d be hard pressed to say that people have the same experience on DMT, other than they have very fantastic experiences, we commonly hear about the tryptamine elves and Indian goddesses, but I would certainly not say that two people who smoke DMT side-by-side are going to have the same visions, they will probably have very different visions, 5-MeO-DMT users may have had similar experiences, when I go somewhere and give a talk, there’s usually one person in the audience who knows what I’m talking about. One of the things I really like about my book is that numerous people have come up to me about experiences they’ve had on DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, and they’ve said that their experiences were so outside of their own memory, and reading about my experiences helped them remember the words to delve into their own experiences, so I am glad about that.

If you could briefly describe what a 5-MeO-DMT experience is like?

It is different for everybody, and I think only a small percentage of users achieve the same kind of effects that I have experienced. Typically, when I do it, I encounter a bright light, everything is dissolved into fractals of light, I feel the presence of people I really love around me, the possibility or question hanging right in front of you, and if you can actually let go of your own ego, you can access this sort of transcendental zone where you actually can experience being consciousness without identity, which is one of the strangest experiences that ever happened to me. I’m aware, observing, in a realm of information and energy, but I don’t know who I am or where I’ve come from, or how the universe began, it’s an omnipotent feeling, but terrifying and I start grasping for meaning or identity of some shred of ego, and then a little voice will say “you’ve smoked the DMT” and a few minutes later I find myself in a crumpled heap on the ground, which is disorientating. That’s really bizarre.

You report being enveloped by a white light, and then you went back later and did your research, what is your theory about the source of that white light?

The reason I wrote the book it that I was very much an atheist person, before my 5-MeO-DMT experiences, and after the first experience I felt that I had come across a source of energy that I could only identity as God. It was the word that attached to it, even though previous to that I would have said, “I don’t believe in God,” suddenly I had encountered this entirely different realm of energy and I thought it was God, so I had to discover a way to rebuild my worldview. I posed a series of questions to myself and one of them was: Where does that source of light come from that was inside my brain, but it is this powerful light? Through quantum physics, I delved into Terence McKenna, Alexander Shulgin, then I soon fairly exhausted that information and looked into mysticism, quantum physics, that sort of thing, there’s a theme in mysticism that identifies consciousness with light and everything of God as being a source of light, so that started me on my path. along with an excellent book called The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby, about his experiences on ayahuasca and the idea that our DNA is transmitting messages to us through biophotonic emission, which is basically light that comes from our DNA. Narby believes that the visions we see on DMT, which is the psychoactive ingredient in ayahuasca, are from your DNA, and you are actually tapping into the collective memory of the species, that then evolves in our mind as light from these emissions. That started me on the path from where they may have originated from and that led me to a new emerging field of physics called zero-point field physics, which talks about a field of energy that many believe underlies all existence, that is the source of this biophotonic emission and is the source of all the energy in our universe that is coming out of this inexhaustible sea.

So the zero-point field you think is the Akashic Field?

The Akashic Field was the name given by Ervin Laslo who was a Hungarian systems theorist, and he has written a number of books on the subject and he renamed it the Akashic Field, which is kind of tipping the hat to the Hindu concept of Akasha, or the Akashic library or record which was this energy that the Hindus believed permeated the universe and was the source of all knowledge and information. It’s basically the same idea, this field is constantly receiving the information of our existence, as the universe evolves and all the various entities of matter in the universe generates a field, the zero-point field is basically a repository of everything that ever happened, everything that ever will happen, the distance between potentiality and reality that is our existence. We are the actuality, if you like, in a sea of potential. I think that compounds like 5-MeO-DMT immediately cause you to question consciousness, “What is consciousness, how does it work, what is its source?” And you realize that we don’t know very much about consciousness meaning that we have learned many things over the past two centuries but consciousness has been kind of ignored. There are two main ideas that have existed in history: one is that we are all matter and consciousness is a phenomena of matter, and the other way of looking at it, which is the way that the Hindus have always looked at it, is that everything is consciousness, and matter, is a phenomena of consciousness, and I think our scientific paradigm is beginning to shift to the idea that consciousness is actually more important than the physical universe and not the other way around. If we actually continue in this paradigm shift, it’s going to change the way we view our universe.

So if someone wanted to try 5-MeO-DMT, how would you suggest they prepare themselves?

If you’re going to try any serious entheogen, entheogen being a compound that generates God within, in its literal term, I think it’s almost impossible to prepare yourself for a brush with the divine, these things really happen, it’s not something you can prepare yourself for and it’s not something you can chase – I think the whole idea of looking for visions can often preclude you from actually having them. I think the culture revolving around DMT and ayahuasca, especially on the West Coast, is a little too looking for it as an answer to something. None of these visions are answers, but they certainly are very powerful tools for exploring your own consciousness or spirituality if that’s the path you’re on, so I would say the best way to prepare yourself for any entheogen is to really know yourself and having been interested in finding out the most about yourself, your consciousness, and your spirituality that you can find – be open to the experience and don’t try to go into it with too many preconceptions. If you’re a person that does a lot of unhealthy things, then some of these substances won’t jive with what you’re doing, because it’s better to be healthy, have a clear mind, It’s very unfortunate that entheogens get lumped into the same category as every other drug, because for example, there’s a world of difference between DMT and crystal meth. They are on opposite sides of the universe as far as I’m concerned but they get lumped in as the same kind of thing. A lot of it has to do with your own mindset and 5-MeO-DMT especially will produce better results for a better prepared mindset – meditation, yoga, on the beach or in the country, calming yourself down is probably the hardest thing. I’m at the point where I’m lucky if I can do it once or twice a year.

At your most frequent experimentation, how often were you doing it?

After I discovered it, I went through a very heavy stage of doing it probably two or three times a week for several months, when I was living at my home in the Caribbean, and I didn’t have a lot of distractions. After a series of increasingly powerful experiences, that caused me to drastically cut down my consumption, but I think that’s pretty common of most DMT users. You really need to think about your experiences, and that’s part of it, if you have these experiences, you really need to sit back and read and absorb and try to understand some concept of what’s happening to you. I got an email recently from someone who had been in Peru doing ayahuasca for a number of months, and he had come back to the United States and found himself very disorientated and adrift really, in society, finding modern America very difficult to handle. Someone gave him a copy of Tryptamine Palace, probably at Burning Man, and he sent me an email thanking me, because he said that I had showed him that there are many realms of our own knowledge that he had ignored, he had been looking for ancient knowledge and he had ignored our own modern knowledge, and there’s a lot of modern knowledge that can shine light on the entheogenic experience, so I think it’s important to balance mysticism and alchemy with things like physics, and it’s fine to read about shamans, but also mystics, and it balances out our view. I think we tend to rush towards ancient technologies without recognizing that any type of technology we evolve will be a Socratic one, modern technologies as well as ancient technologies, I think that’s part of what we’re living in, the point where you know most chaps living in America these days don’t have the same mindset as Peruvian Amazonian Indians, so they shouldn’t really expect that ayahuasca would have the same effect.

What do you think is the value of Burning Man to society at large?

Well for me, Burning Man is an art movement, and I think this is something that is not really well understood: the idea for the first twentieth century art movement, taking pop art to its final conclusion, making art that only lasts for a week, and you have to be there to be part of it, to enjoy and experience it truly amazing art that exists on the Playa for that week, you cannot take it away from the artists that actually create it. Without the art it would only be a music festival, and I think a lot of people view it as a big rave, where a lot of people who go to Burning Man don’t even go to the dance domes at all, I think it’s their artistic sense that’s spreading out through the Burning man community at large, more and more projects all over the world that have the same effects that Burning Man has, creating art out of lost objects and just a whole new way of integrating art into our lives. I was very proud to write my book and gift it on the Playa, I think it was the first book that was written as part of the Burning Man movement. And that was my intention at the time, to give something back to the Burning Man community. Now I’m quite surprised to see it coming out a few years later, from a proper publisher, but really, Burning Man is all about art, and there’s BM offshoots now, the community is spreading out globally, more and more it’s kind of spread out, a good example of that is the PEX festival held over July 4 - it’s become a much more international event, a lot of the energy is fading in the Bay Area, and now coming from New York, Detroit, New Orleans, Europe, there are as many non-Californians at Burning man as there are Californians by now, people that bring all their shit all the way from the East Coast, putting a lot of energy into it and I think it should be more of an international movement.

Do you think that psychedelics experience leads people to greater spirituality?

Yeah I think there’s no doubt of it, I think it’s even been scientifically proven since Walter Pinke’s experiment saying that experiences with psilocybin have produced lasting spiritual effects in their users. I think that a lot of the things in the 60s that came out of the psychedelic movement like the eco-movement, the concept that earth is actually a living organism that we need to nurture - these are all common intuitions to people who have done psychedelics. They definitely affected our societal view whether we admit it or not.

Do you think resurgence in spirituality is necessary in order for people to confront our environmental crises?

In my book I talk about a concept called extinction denial, and I honestly believe that our society is born into it, we’ve all been born into an exponential experience of change so dramatic that we don’t really understand it because it’s all we’ve ever known. Through the historical record you begin to realize what a tremendously bizarre time it is that we are living through, I picked up the latest issue of National Geographic and there’s a great big article about food and the numbers in there are absolutely staggering concerning the amount of food we will need to produce versus the population, versus the depleting sources that are being created because of how we’ve treated the land all these years… Twenty years ago, these ideas were extreme, now they’re really commonplace. Still, we just go about our daily lives and there’s not one politician out there who’s talking about population and the problems that this planet is really facing. I think the machine is just going to chug along until something really dramatic happens, and what that is, is hard to say, unless we can gain rationality back in our thinking, we’re pretty much on a one-way trip towards a mass breakdown of our society.

I found, with my own spiritual epiphany, that I cared to do something about it. I think one sign of a true spiritual epiphany is that you take on a sense of responsibility, I think it’s how Jung said “enlightened consciousness is like a burden of guilt,” and once I believed I had a real spiritual epiphany, one of the reliefs was a sense of responsibility and a feeling that I had to try and do something. Whatever it was I could do, I had to try to do something, and that’s what this book has been about, this year of promoting the book, getting out and talking to people…. Yeah, I think we have been conned, because spirituality is a very personal thing and we’ve bought into a society that is telling us that spirituality is a superstition or a myth, things that educated people don’t believe in, and I think there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary, and that getting back in deeper touch with our spirituality would definitely help clean up the planet.

How is the 5-MeO-DMT created synthetically different from the toad venom?

Bufo toad venom is up to 15% 5-MeO-DMT by volume, and there are a lot of other things in the venom as well. It produces an amazing amount of 5-MeO-DMT, so the molecule would be pretty much identical as well, molecular engineering is creating - one of the big misconceptions of organic versus synthetic, is most of the DMT available is an extract from plants, for a little while these research companies were making 99% pure 5-MeO-DMT by a laboratory process, just as Sandoz would have made LSD back in the day. I think it’s no longer available anyway. If you can find 5-MeO-DMT these days, it would probably have been extracted from a plant, but I have never seen it.

In your opinion, is the fascination with the 2012 end time a detrimental phenomenon within the counterculture?

Well, I think unfortunately it draws a line in the sand that we’re just going to get to, and then everything is going to change, there is a very good book called The Prophet and the Astronomer, by an Italian, Marcello Coradini, who is a cosmologist and the book is about comets and stars and their appearance throughout human history, about how there have been many, many, many apocalyptic viewpoints, many, many predictions about the end of time, and none of them have ever come true. So I find it a little difficult to believe that any society could predict such a thing because I think none of these things are set in stone – the possibilities and the probabilities are constantly moving and changing. I do believe that within the next 25 years we have far too few resources on the planet and far too many people, and that’s a paradigm shift that we are not going to be able to avoid, so whether or not 2012 is a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t really know. There’s an end coming, I agree with that, but I don’t think it necessarily has to be in 2012, if it’s twenty years later, does it make that much difference? We went through the same thing with the Y2K thing – everybody wants something to happen, then, nothing happens. We don’t really do anything, we wait for the next thing, we need more action at the moment, and there are people …. I think we’re going to wake up with a hangover in 2013 and things aren’t going to be that much different. People want change, it’s easy to feel like something needs to happen, so no grasp on anything…

Do you smoke cannabis?

Yes, I have enjoyed cannabis plenty in various countries around the world, it seems like it is the one thing that is every where I go and I have been to quite a few places in the world over the last 25 years! It’s amazing how weed just pops up everywhere you go— this was actually the premise for my first book of short stories, Passport to Argotia. I wrote these more than 10 years ago, but they have just being reissued and are available on Amazon. All the short stories in this collection involved cannabis in one form or other, and I took a quotation from Terrence McKenna's book Food of the Gods in the front of my short stories, where Terrence points out the lingual connections between rope making, which of course was one of the original uses of the cannabis plant, and the equally ancient art of story telling. How we, "follow the thread of a story, weave a yarn, spin a tale etc." So weed is the center thread thru all these tales in my own youthful collection. It's a fun book, and in truth I prefer to consider myself a fiction writer - I have been writing a novel for a number of years - and Tryptamine Palace was an unintended foray into the world of non-fiction. But in The Art of the Novel, Milan Kundura says that every writer has to write the book that only he can write, and Tryptamine Palace is undoubtedly my story and no one else’s.

Can you explain to our readers how the zero-point field works?

The best way to visualize the ZPF, is to imagine a square box 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet that has all the matter sucked out of it until it becomes a vacuum and then has its temperature lowered to Absolute Zero. According to the laws of Newtonian physics, this box should be devoid of any energy, since it is (according to Newtonian physics) perfect empty space. But what we have discovered is that in this 'vacuum' there are still tiny fluctuations that when added up amount to a maelstrom of energy which far exceeds the amount of energy in our "known" universe of matter. The physicist Richard Feynman estimated that there is enough energy in our hypothetical box to boil all the oceans in the world! So what we are talking about here is vacuum energy, the energy contained in what we have previously been told is "empty space.” Physicists have known that this energy has existed for years, but they "normalized" their own equations by simply zeroing it out ... saying that this energy didn’t affect the world of matter. But it does ... in fact now, the cutting edge of physics believes that EVERYTHING in our universe comes in and out of this vast underlying field of matter ... both the energy to hold physical structures together and the organization to allow complex structures to evolve.

In Tryptamine Palace I put forth the theory that the entheogenic experience also originates from this field of energy and information, which is itself the mechanism for Carl Jung's ideas on the collective unconsciousness, and to my surprise I discovered that Ervin Laszlo, the systems theorist, and Stanislav Grof, the transpersonal psychologist who has done more approved work with entheogens than any other man alive, agree with my theory. Which is one of the things that I think makes Tryptamine Palace unique within its own genre of books ... I went looking for answers to my experiences and I think I actually found some.

In a lot of ways I think this paradigm shift that is going on physics and many of the other sciences relates to these two opposing views of reality, whether reality is the world of matter and consciousness is simply an off-shoot phenomena of little consequence, or whether consciousness is primary, and the world of forms is merely a construct of the power of consciousness. In the old Newtonian view, everything was about particles, single points of matter with very predictable trajectories and behavior ... but as we move into the new paradigm of quantum physics, we now are beginning to recognize that the universe is not made up of solitary particles, but of vast fields which can cross over both time and space. Now predicting the behavior of fields is much more complex than predicting the behavior of particles, and some physicists now believe that the particles themselves are simply 'aberrations' or 'occurrences' within the fields themselves ... so the primacy of matter is being superceded by the realization of the existence of pre-existing fields that are presumed to carry both energy and information ... and from there it’s not too much of a stretch to recognize that these fields themselves could be forms of consciousness. And that the universe is, as one famous cosmologist put it back in the 1920's, “more like a thought than a machine.”

Do you have anything else you would like to say to our readers?

Firstly I would like to state that I believe that God Consciousness is real, and that it is within the capability of every human to find his or her own personal transcendental dialogue with God. Our society has taught us that such a concept is archaic and superstitious, but the reports of mystics are virtually the same regardless of their age or location, and there is just as much a need for a mystical understanding of man's place in the universe as there ever has been, perhaps more than ever.

I also believe that the more people that can find the deep and reverent spiritual current that runs through life by experiencing the transcendental recognition of the reality of this “God Consciousness,” the greater chance that some of us may have of surviving the inevitable melt down that is coming in our lifetimes. And while the link between these two things may seem tenuous, all I can say is that in my own experience, having a personal vision of God that I can believe in has released an incredible amount of energy into my own world, and produced a great deal of positive change, so I can only hope that if this phenomena can affect enough of us, then when can direct that energy towards significant societal change as we confront an uncertain future.

The illegal nature of many entheogens is in itself a religious persecution, and it is very ironic that our control-orientated World Government considers the very plants that can teach humanity so much about the nature of God so dangerous. Allegiance to organized social structures that interpret God's word for you are compulsory, but let's not have any personal knowledge of the Numinous ... for look at the agents for social change that this has produced! They didn't nail Jesus up to a cross because his message was popular ... but We are all the Children of God, and the Kingdom of Heaven is indeed located within.

¿La molécula del espíritu?
Si damos validez a todo la información que hemos ido presentado a lo largo del capítulo, es fácil concluir que como dice Rick Strassman la DMT es la puede indentificarse como “la molécula del espíritu”. Sin embargo, desde otros lugares del ciberespacio surgen críticas bastante sofisticadas ante esta postura. Desde el sitio web Erowid, el psiconauta Scotto argumenta:

En un capítulo del libro [Strassman] nos recuerda que disposición, entorno y sustancia son los componentes esenciales de la experiencia psiquedélica. Entonces, ¿por qué nos enfocamos exclusivamente en la “molécula del espíritu”? ¿No es obvio, usando la propia afirmación de Strassman sobre disposición/entorno/sustancia(*), que si estás buscando una etiqueta para definir la espiritualidad psiquedélica simplemente no puedes escoger únicamente la de sustancia dejando de lado la disposición y el entorno? Hay cierto reduccionismo en dicho concepto que pasa por alto la complejidad de la experiencia mística: la DMT solo se vuelve espiritual a) cuando interactúa con un amplio y complejo rango de moléculas en el cerebro y b) cuando el cerebro se halla situado en un entorno que permita a la experiencia desplegarse.

El debate que propone Scotto tiene su reflejo en otras cuestiones que a día de hoy existe en los círculos de occidentales que se dedican a la práctica del vegetalismo ayahuasquero.(*) La ayahuasca—uno de los psiquedélicos de uso más popular en sudamérica—se compone básicamente de una mezcla de dos tipos de plantas: unas ricas en DMT y otro segundo grupo de vegetales ricos en inhibidores de las mono-amino-oxidasas (IMAO), que como hemos visto anterioremente inhibirían las barreras del cuerpo ante la acción de la DMT. Mucha gente se está plantando a día de hoy que el químico responsable de la conexión con la experiencia psiquedélica de la ayahuasca no sería la DMT, sino las propias IMAO—a la ayahuasca se le llama también “la Soga de los Muertos” en relación con una de las plantas más populares en la mezcla: la Banisteriopsis caapi, una liana rica en el alcaloide harmalina que a su vez es un potente IMAO.

El investigador Jerónimo MM relata en su cuaderno de campo “The Chacra Diaries” como una práctica habitual en el vegetalismo—considerada en algunas zonas más potente que la ayahuasca—es la ingestión de “palos” combinada con la práctica de la “dieta”:

la lógica que subyace a la dieta, tal y como la pude entender, consiste en debilitarse (o abrirse) con el objetivo de fortalecerse. Ellos [los vegetalistas] afirman que las plantas que se tomen (los palos) tienen grandes propiedades medicinales, pero que si se toman sin dietar no funcionarán., o lo harán pobremente. ¿Por qué? Porque el cuerpo se defiende de la planta para protegerse. Todo el mundo tiene una serie de protecciones, escudos que se mantienen activos para poder desenvolverse en un entorno no siempre amistoso (léase la vida diaria). Durante una dieta uno se hace artificialmente (¿o sería naturalmente?) muy vulnerable, así que en primer lugar te llevan a un lugar seguro. Esto significa aislamiento en un tambo—básicamente una pequeña choza—en una zona apartada de la jungla, usualmente cerca de la chacra (huerto) del propio curandero. Quien realiza la dieta permanece allí durante semanas o meses, viendo a nadie más que al curandero, el cual le trae plantas a diario más algo de comida básica, usualmente plátanos y arroz sin absolutamente sal o ningún condimento. El aislamiento y la dieta sin sal poco a poco traen abajo tus defensas.

Jerónimo describe su experiencia dietando durante 15 días como “ayahuasca a cámara lenta, con el mismo proceso de anámnesis y comprensión pero a un ritmo humano”. Puede que la fijación del discurso psiquedélico dominante en aislar “la molécula del espíritu” una tendencia cultural reduccionista que despreciaría la información de la disposición, el entorno u otro tipo de técnicas usadas en lugares con una tradición chamánica más asentada. ¿Son los psiquedélicos, como dice William Irwin Thompson, "comida rápida dentro del consumismo Americano"?

Otras informes de tomadores de ayahuasca ponen de relieve la importancia de la disposición/entorno: hay personas que con dosis muy elevadas de la sustancia no consiguen ninguna experiencia y de otras que sin embargo viven experiencias muy fuertes con una dosis reducida; algunos tomadores que atestiguan ser incapaces de reproducir cierto tipo de experiencias—como por ejemplo conectar con el espíritu de un jaguar—fuera de un entorno selvático(*). Por otra parte, la mayoría de psiconautas coinciden en que la calidad del vegetalista que dirige la sesión es fundamental en el desarrollo de esta. No existe solo la medicina, claro: existe también el médico (la disposición).

En una cultura pues obsesionada con La Verdad™ es de recibo que cualquier información que la ponga en duda quede relegada a la periferia—no es de extrañar entonces el enorme reguero de miseria que nuestra civilización ha dejado también en la periferia. En nuestro camino hacia la mierda cósmica argumentaremos como esta obsesión podría de hecho hallarse en el seno del programa tecnocientífico de la cultura occidental.