You are here

Home

Rick Strassman - collected non-fiction

Primary tabs

Tue, 03/23/2021 - 23:15 — euxalot
SizeSeedsPeersCompleted
7.01 MiB0093
This torrent has no flags.

File Rick Strassman - collected non-fiction.torrent
  • DMT - The Spirit Molecule - A Doctors Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
  • DMT and the Soul of Prophecy - A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible
  • Inner Paths to Outer Space - Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies

He also wrote one work of fiction but I haven't been able to find it online ("Joseph Levy Escapes Death" --> which kinda sums up the ego-dissolving experiencing of most psychedelics, no?)

Comments

Tue, 03/23/2021 - 23:52 — euxalot

In addition to the regular stuff we all know he wrote about DMT (and, really, is it so different from Aldous Huxley, Terrence McKenna, Graham Hancock, Joe Rogan, Hamilton Morris, etc.?) Strassman does have some unique thoughts for those of us interested in the history of visions/mysticism:

From this interview with Strassman: https://boingboing.net/2011/05/03/strassman.html

Strassman began studying Buddhism as a young man. He trained for 20 years in Zen Buddhism, received lay ordination in a Western Buddhist order, and led a meditation group of the order. But his work with DMT led him to feel Buddhist models may not be the most suitable way for us to explain and integrate the spiritual dimensions of the DMT experience:

"I worked through various models' methods of understanding the DMT volunteers' experiences, and found them wanting. The Buddhist psychological model didn't comport with the data—the "more real than real" element of volunteers' experiences (Buddhism proposes these phenomena are all generated by the mind, rather than "real" observations of external reality); [this] did nothing to suggest a satisfactory evolutionary explanation for the presence of DMT in the human body."

Strassman suggests that DMT experiences may most closely resemble those found in the Hebrew Bible's model of prophecy:

The Hebrew Bible's model of prophecy is appealing because it comports well with the reports of the DMT volunteers. One's sense of self is maintained, there is an external free-standing independent-of-the-observer spiritual world. One relates to the content of the experience, rather than being dissolved into it.

I think we here on these boards would recognize the value of both frameworks BUT I thought it was interesting to share his thoughts about this.