The Entheogen Review׃ Vol. 16, No. 2 (2008)

THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEWVolume XVI, Number 2 � Summer Solstice 2008 � ISSN 1066-1913

The Journal of Unauthorized Research on Visionary Plants and Drugs

CONTENTSAnn & Sasha Shulgin Speak…in discussion with Earth and Fire Erowid 41

Beyond Prophecy: Or How I Learned that the Languageof Transformation is Already in Motion 48

Hyperspatial Maps 54

Salvia and Consciousness 54

Ketapoetics 55

Network Feedback 62

4-Flouroamphetamine Produced Headache 62

Psilocybin and Mystical Experience: 14-Month Follow-up 64

Events Calendar 66

Sources 67

Book Reviews 68

Albert Hofmann: January 11, 1906 — April 29, 2008 71

Bibliography 72

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Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose: This journal is a clearinghouse for current dataabout the use of visionary plants and drugs. Think of it as a community of subscrib-ers seeking and sharing information on the cultivation, extraction, and ritual use ofentheogens. All communications are kept in strictest confidence—publishedmaterial is identified by the author’s initials and state of residence (pseudonym orname printed on request only). The mailing list (kept encrypted) is not for sale,rent, or loan to anyone for any reason.

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The Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen Review

The Journal of Unauthorized Researchon Visionary Plants and Drugs

Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor: David Aardvark

Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor: Keeper Trout

Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor: E.V. Love

ContributorsContributorsContributorsContributorsContributors

Sasha ShulginAnn ShulginEarth ErowidFire Erowid

Jason W.A. TuckerJ.T., CA

Fork, CAMr. Zoom, Basel

LuxJon Hanna

Castor PolluxDavid Aardvark

Design & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & Layout

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AddressAddressAddressAddressAddress

The Entheogen ReviewPOB 19820

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Ketamine HClPhoto by Shadow, © 2006 Erowid.org

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Ketamine CreamPhoto by Fork, © 2008

�VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 2 SUMMER SOLSTICE 2008

� 41THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, POB 19820, SACRAMENTO, CA 95819-0820, USA

Ann & Sasha Shulgin Speak…

in discussion with Earth and Fire Erowid

Adapted from an interview recorded at Mind States Costa Rica, June 15, 2007

Earth: What question do you get asked most often?

Ann: We were just remembering that—the onewe have heard too often: What is your favoritematerial?

Sasha: Probably a moderately inexpensiveZinfandel.

Fire: Is that question asked both in interviews andby people who just come up to you at conferences?

Ann: Yeah, over and over again. I would ask itmyself. Yet by the two-hundredth time, I wish thatI could come up with something really clever anddifferent in response…

Fire: But your favorite substance doesn’t changeevery time people ask, so…

Ann: Well, I don’t really have one.

Fire: Oh. Even worse.

Ann: Right!

Earth: Do you like caffeine?

Sasha: Yes, except that it makes me urinate toomuch. So I drink decaffeinated coffee. Do you knowhow they get caffeine out of coffee?

Ann: Oh my God, no… (audience laughter)


42 � THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, POB 19820, SACRAMENTO, CA 95819-0820, USA

Earth: Let’s hear it.

Sasha: Many people say, “Oh they extract withsuper-heated water,” or solvent, or something likethat. While that would remove the caffeine, itwould also remove the flavor of the coffee. So sud-denly you are standing over here with a littlebeaker filled with caffeine andcoffee flavor, and you still haveto separate them. After lookingfor it for years, I finally got theanswer a couple of years ago. Youremove the caffeine before youroast the coffee, so there is no fla-vor. Then having removed thecaffeine, you roast the coffee andgenerate the flavor. It’s so simple.

Earth: We interact with a lot ofpeople through our web site,many of whom are younger.When you were young, whatwere the social pressures or theconstraints around drug use?Were you worried about gettingarrested? Your first time tryingpeyote/mescaline/goop, or what-ever, were you concerned aboutyour parents finding out? Whatwas it like back then?

Sasha: My interest in the area ofdrugs was psychoactive, not psyche-delic, because there really werevery few psychedelics back then.But I tried all sorts of things that were known toaffect your attitude and your feelings, from yo-himbe—presumably giving you an erotic point ofview, to amphetamine—presumably making thingsgo faster. Then I had my experience with mesca-line, and that was what really directed me in thisway. It was about 1955 or so, and it was not illegal.

Fire: Was there a sense that it was somehow so-cially unacceptable, even though it wasn’t illegal?

Sasha: No, it was socially unknown—almost un-known at that point. Some people had heard ofpeyote. But there are areas in Mexico where peyote

is grown, where the “peyote” has no mescaline.They call it peyote, because in Tarahumara, “peyote”is any small cactus that has a medical use. Ourpeyote is one of those, but there are many others.The term, even there, is ambiguous. So I had noconcern about the legal situation, as there was nolaw to be concerned about.

Fire: Among your peer group atthe time, was there any hesita-tion to talk about those experi-ences? Did you think that therewould be any judgment againstthem?

Sasha: I was working for DowChemical Company at the timeas a research chemist. I had thegood fortune of having seen thatthey were working on an inter-esting compound. The person inwhose lab I was working at Dowhad found a very easy way ofmaking an almost unknowncompound. They said, “We’d liketo find some use for this,” and Isaid, “Gee, if you added a methylgroup on this side instead of onthis side, as well as on this side,and put an amine down there andmake the carbamate, you’d prob-ably have an insecticide.” “Oh?”So they put the methyl groupover here, and put an aminedown here—a dimethylamine—

and a carbamate, and it became a commercial in-secticide. And the attitude there was, “Gee, if youcan predict things like that, you can just go dowhatever you want to do!” That was about the timeI had first tried mescaline, and I knew what Iwanted to do. So I started synthesizing new com-pounds like mescaline, and patenting some of them.They paid not quite a dollar for your patent. Youcould technically get a dollar with your patent. Butthe patent officer would flip a coin; if it came upthe way you called it, you would get an extra dol-lar, and if it came up wrong, he got the dollar. So itaveraged out to a dollar. Eventually, they were alittle bit disturbed by the fact that I kept publishing

Among yourpeer groupat the time,

was there anyhesitation to talk

about thoseexperiences?Did you think

that there wouldbe any judgment

against them?



all of this information, and they said, “We don’tlike you publishing with the Dow return addressin the literature.” “Okay, I’ll use my home address,”which I did. When I left Dow to go back to medicalschool, I decided that since I had already been us-ing my home address, I might as well make my labthere as well, and I did. I still publish from my homeaddress, but it is my lab.

Fire: So even though you were working at Dowdoing the synthesis work for them, you werepublishing without the Dow address.

Sasha: Well if you get a patent, then you are freeto publish it. I just kept publishing the early stuffthat I did on psychedelics in the 1950s.

Earth: Did you mention your mescaline experi-ence at work?

Sasha: Oh yeah, they were quite interested in it.I think I helped probably half a dozen peopleduplicate the experiment.

Fire: Is there any different answer for you Ann,so far as your social group at the time?

Ann: When I was growing up, you got faint noisesabout narcotics and people getting into very strangeplaces. I don’t think anyone talked about the law.It was just something that some people did, andthey got “addicted,” whatever that meant. When Iwas a young working woman, I mostly worked inhospitals, and the first I ever heard or read aboutpsychedelic drugs was in the famous LIFE maga-zine article by Gordon Wasson. Everything that Ihad always been interested in—why people werethe way they were, and certain kinds of experi-ences that had happened to me when I was small—all of a sudden this whole psychedelic world seemedto promise some answers. I had never even con-ceived that drugs could be involved with these sortsof things, and I thought, “Wow, that’s what I wantto find out about.” My great ambition in life was totest out telepathy and different forms of psi, withor without psychedelic drugs. It never happened.Well, I think it did happen, but other people did it.

With the first psychedelic I ever had—I think itwas DMT, given to me by two friends, one of whomread from The Book of the Dead before I launched—I don’t remember the experience. So I don’t thinkit was much of an experience. But no one mentionedthe law. I don’t think that anybody knew about thelaw. Nobody cared. This was just experience, andlife opening up, and no one talked about legalities.However, I think most of us knew, intuitively atleast, that you don’t broadcast inner experiencesof any kind unless you know your audience very,very well. People sometimes described strange,weird stuff that had happened to them, and youdidn’t tell too many people about that. So nope,there was no concern about legality at all.

Earth: That seems very different than people’sexperiences today.

Ann: I’m not too sure. I’ll make you a bet that anyhigh school kid who wants to have a psychedelicexperience never thinks about the law either. Theymay, if they have had a DARE class, know that thereare certain people whom one doesn’t tell. But I don’tthink the illegality concerns them that much. Mostpeople don’t know half as much about the laws asthey should, and so they get trapped very easily.One of the great attractions for very young peopleis that, if they find out something is illegal, thenit’s worth exploring.

Earth: Right.

Fire: So Sasha, obviously you had been publishingin peer-reviewed journals for many years beforeyou guys wrote PIHKAL. How did the idea firstcome about for that book? Was it a project thatyou had been thinking about for a long time? Howdid you decide to include the narrative content withthe chemistry, and put it together in the way thatyou did?

Sasha: One of the things that convinced me that Ishould do a book like PIHKAL was… what was thename of that fellow?

Ann: Wilhelm Reich.



Sasha: Right. He was the one who could shootbullets at clouds and make it rain…

Ann: And he invented the orgone box, I think…

Sasha: The orgasm box?

Ann: Orgone.

Sasha: Orgone box, that’s right.I get things mixed up. But he wasarrested for some reason or otherin New York. He was being heldin jail, preliminary to a trial, andhe died. The New York authori-ties went to his house, took all ofhis notes and papers and burnedthem in the 103rd Street incin-erator. They destroyed all of hisrecords. It occurred to me that ifI were ever to get into that situa-tion myself, I would want thosethings indestructible. The answerwas a book like PIHKAL—put inboth the background and the ac-tual wet chemistry information.

Fire: When did that idea comeabout?

Sasha: In the later part of the 1980s. The book waspublished in 1991, I believe.

Ann: I’m trying to remember exactly when we cameup with the idea. Or was it always sort of floatingthere? I mean it was pretty obvious that we shouldwrite a book.

Sasha: We decided to write it together. We bothhave names that begin with an “A,” so “A. Shulginand A. Shulgin” works very well.

Ann: And I asked my older daughter if I couldborrow her name, so I’m “Alice” in the book.

Sasha: By changing the names of people you knowhere and there, the book becomes totally fiction.We call it a fictional book, and from the govern-ment’s point of view, it is fiction. Although there

is a lot of chemistry in there, none of the chemis-try has ever gone into Chem Abstracts. I sent a copyto Chem Abstracts and they sent it back saying, “Thisis fiction.” Many times people have to refer to thebook as the source of the chemical information,as they can’t have a Chem Abstracts number.

Ann: I was very glad on the daythat the invasion happened,which is described in the firstchapter of the second book. Ilooked the agent straight in theface; he was asking me, “Who arethe members of your researchgroup?” I said, “Mr. So-and-so, theresearch group is total fiction.”He looked at me with a look thatsaid, “I do not believe you, lady,”and remarked, “Well, that may be,ma’am, but if we ever find outwho is in your research group, wewould really like to have a longtalk with them.” I replied, “It hasnever existed.” That’s my story,and I’m sticking to it.

Earth: Was PIHKAL the first timethat you put your name, Ann, ona document published aboutpsychoactives, fictional or not?

Ann: Yes, absolutely. I wrote interesting lettersbefore that, but nothing else.

Earth: How big a decision was that for you? Howmuch anxiety did it produce?

Ann: Writing was something I knew I wanted todo all of my life, except that I hadn’t found the rightsubject, and this was the right subject. No, I wasnot nervous about that. We did have visions ofblack-masked men coming in the middle of thenight with baseball bats to destroy the lab. Butnothing happened for about four years. Washing-ton, DC did not discover PIHKAL for about fouryears.

Fire: They’re kinda slow.

…he was asking me,“Who are the

members of yourresearch group?”

I said,“Mr. So-and-so,

the research groupis total fiction.”



Ann: Thank God. And then everything hit the fan.

Fire: So you did predict, or think, that you mightattract legal attention.

Sasha: Oh yes.

Fire: As we have gotten to know you guys, Ann,in some ways you are a more private person, aquieter person than Sasha.

Sasha: She doesn’t have the same sense of humor.

Fire: Did you expect the level of cultural attentionto the book that it got? Obviously you expectedsome legal attention, but did you expect as muchof being invited to conferences, interviews…

Ann: No, I don’t think that you ever quite expectthat. PIHKAL was not the first thing written aboutpsychedelics for sure, but it was certainly the firstbook written with the second part as recipes forpsychedelics. I mean, that was sort of asking fortrouble. But we felt that such a presentation wouldmake the book more interesting, and that if we didnot separate them—in other words, story in onevolume, recipes in the second—it would be muchharder for any government, anywhere in the world,to censor one of the volumes and allow the other.You either took the whole thing, or nothing. Wefelt that if we wrote it well, it would be meaning-ful to a lot of people. But we had no idea how much.That was pure guessing. And the greatest satisfac-tion is in how many other people who had beenwanting to write about psychedelics decided thatif we could do it, they could have the courage to doit, too. So a lot of writing started after that.

Sasha: That was quite a nice compliment.

Fire: Do you know of any place other than Austra-lia where the books are specifically banned? Well,that’s not exactly correct about Australia, but it isclose.

Sasha: It may be banned in Australia, but the lasttime we were in Sydney I went into a bookstoreand it was on a shelf.

Fire: It is illegal to import into Australia. I thoughtit was illegal to sell in Australia. I don’t think thatit is illegal to buy, and I don’t think that it is illegalto possess. But I know that it is illegal to import. Isthere anywhere else that you know of where that’sthe case?

Sasha: I don’t know. I have not kept track of that.

Fire: I wonder about Asia…

Ann: I know Japan has a very active psychedelicunderground. But I don’t know how much readingthey do, whether it has to be in Japanese, orwhether they are familiar enough with English.

Sasha: I was just transcribing the title of a Japa-nese book on MDMA to go in my new book, thePsychedelic Index, and it had a five-syllable slangword for MDMA meaning “to jiggle the head.” Theyhad the Japanese term in English, so I am puttingthat in the book as a synonym.

Ann: China may or may not have a psychedelicsubculture, but they do a heck of a lot of the cook-ing of drugs that are scheduled in this country.

Fire: One person we’ve talked to went to Chinaand said that there was an active rave culture withMDMA being taken by large groups of people.

Ann: I wish we knew more about Asia in general.

Earth: How difficult has the transition to beinginterviewed in TIME magazine, and on nationaltelevision, and international media been? Has thatworked out for you okay?

Sasha: It’s worked out fine, but the trouble is thatit takes lots of time. When you’re talking to jour-nalists and they’re writing things about it, you don’tget any writing done yourself. That’s annoying.

Ann: It’s very seductive. You keep being invited toplaces, and your way is paid. All you have to do isgive a talk, which is always a little hard for me. Butit’s so easy to say “yes.” Because you don’t know ifany other invitations are going to come along andyou’d like to see that country anyway. We have done



far too much traveling in the last few years. We’veseen some interesting places, but Book Three hasonly got a few chapters written, and travel is partof the reason.

Earth: Are thereparticular placeswhere you wouldlike someone toinvite you tospeak? Countriesyou would like totravel to?

Ann: I’d like tosee New Zealand.I was born there,and I haven’t seenit since.

Sasha: We areglad to see CostaRica. We hadn’tbeen here before.So these events are little treasures, in their ownway.

Ann: And the other seductive thing is seeing peoplewe know, and other people we haven’t met beforewho have the same interests. I really believe thatthe psychedelic network contains the most inter-esting people in the entire world. They are peopleinterested in consciousness, and psychedelics, hyp-nosis, psychic experience—these are people withopen minds and they’re fun to talk with. A lot ofthem are doing very important work in the world.I’m so glad to be part of that. That’s a really nicething. My feeling has been, if I get on the otherside—after death—and I discover that I was to-tally wrong, and what I did was really bad, so I go“down” instead of “up,” or whatever, that I will stillbe happy that I did it (laughs).

Fire: Are there any particular visionary or wisdomtraditions that you have wanted to participate in,but haven’t had the right opportunity for. Have youwanted to participate in an iboga ceremony, or asweat lodge?

Sasha: Well, we had always wanted to go to Burn-ing Man, and we did last year.

Earth: As wisdom tradition, it’s long-standing(laughs).

Ann: We’re goingagain this year, as amatter of fact. Ican’t imagine why.

Earth: Can you saya few words aboutyour experience atBurning Man lastyear?

Ann: It’s interest-ing. A lot of peoplewe know are reallyscared of BurningMan. They want toexperience it, butthey’re afraid some-

how, that it’s going to be… I dunno, shocking. Orafraid that they are going to see things they don’twant to see. It’s the great unknown. First of all, theartwork is amazing. It’s five miles in some direc-tion, on an ancient lake bed. The one great nega-tive, which you learn to live with—it’s not reallydust, it’s like powder: like fine baby powder. It risesfrom the lake bed all of the time, and it gets intoeverything: every camera, every R.V. motor, all ofyour hair. It’s very discouraging. You wash yourhair, and it is all nice and healthy looking, andthen…

Sasha: …and then you comb it the next day andthe comb is filled with hair.

Ann: The artwork is sometimes in big yurts aroundthe outside of the lake bed. Then in the middle ofthe lake bed, scattered across it, there are art in-stallations. There are these marvelous pieces ofwork that belong in museums, every one of them.

There are two burns: one Saturday night, which isthe burning of the Man—a great big electrical bluething that sits on top of a building that itself is



filled with artworks. But those artworks are takenout before they burn the Man. The burning of theMan is a big revelry. People get a little drunk, alittle stoned. Not everyone uses psychedelics atBurning Man—just about a third of the people,I gather.

The second night, Sunday, is the burning of theTemple. The Temple is different every year. It ismade, I think, of plywood. It is very delicate, like aSiamese, Burmese, or Thai pagoda. There are 37,000people seated in a huge circle around this Temple,and they are absolutely silent. When the Templewas set on fire and began burning, we were withEtienne Sauret, who’s a documentary filmmaker,and I told him, “Look to the back of you.” All thefaces were turned to the Temple, and all of themwere absolutely serious—a sort of daydreaming,focused on the fire. Not a word was said. Not asound. Somebody started to whoop, and somebodyelse must have clobbered him on the head imme-diately. It was the most moving thing I have seen ina long time. 37,000 people is a lot.

Fire: So you didn’t expect that.

Ann: No.

Earth: Burning Man is a big space, it’s extremelytiring for me to walk around. How did you guys getaround?

Ann: You have to have a golf cart. Without a golfcart, you have to have… youth. But the one thingthat everyone has to have is lots of lights to put oneverything. It is so much fun at night.

Fire: Are there other non-Burning Man traditionalceremonies or wisdom traditions that you have nothad a chance to but would like to participate in?

Earth: Ayahuasca, peyote ceremonies… have youparticipated in those?

Ann: A traditional peyote ceremony? No. I thinkthat would be wonderful. We did try ayahuasca…

Sasha: …in a ceremonial way, but not in SouthAmerica.

Ann: That was a funny experience.

Sasha: It had its good and its bad. The second day,the fourth time that I had it, I went into a strangeplace in which, with my eyes closed, I would havealmost no color. Then I would have a very deepblue, becoming a red, becoming an orange, becom-ing a yellow, becoming a white—blinding white. Iwould open my eyes and vomit into the little vomitbucket, then sit back and close my eyes and gothrough it again. And again. And again. And I said,“I don’t really think I’m advancing in this man-ner.” That was my last ayahuasca experience.

Earth: That sounds lovely.

Ann: I would like to try Holotropic Breathwork.I don’t really think that I will have the time to doit here. But I would really like to experience that.And a native peyote ceremony would be justgreat—that would be wonderful.

TO BE CONTINUED…

JOIN EROWID and receive a copy of the 24" x 36" Visionary Synthesisposter depicting Sasha Shulgin’s lab, exclusively available as amembership gift. Tendrils of ivy frame the lab’s window to the left,counterposed on the right with the laboratory door ajar to itsalchemical interior. The pair of photos, taken by Michael Rauner, evokethe balance between the plant world and the world of chemistry.For more information, see www.erowid.org/donations.



Beyond Prophecy:

Or How I Learned that the Language of

Transformation is Already in Motion

by Jason W.A. Tucker

If you’ve ever considered your experiences onpsychedelics to be something more than just druganecdotes, you’ve probably been inclined to re-search those who have been there before you.At which point you will have discovered a shortlist of charismaticpsychedelic punditswhose goals haveshifted over theyears. Instead of sell-ing you on a particu-lar psychedelic, thesedays such folks areproselytizing aboutan approaching col-lective shift in con-sciousness connect-ed to the long countend-date of the Mayancalendar: December21, 2012.

The end-date of the Mayan calendar has alwaysbeen the end-date of the Mayan calendar, but whythis date is currently considered by some as sig-nificant to global transformation stems from theminds of José Argüelles and Terence McKenna.Therefore it is of interest to know that—aside fromtheir 2012 prophecies—the beginnings of theirideas concerning an impending global shift inconsciousness intersect largely around a synthesisof language, art, alchemy, and the ritual use ofpsychedelics.

TRANSFORMING LANGUAGEBefore embracing the Mayan calendar, JoséArgüelles once espoused that a collective shift in

consciousness would come in the form of a newarchetypal language. In one of his earliest books,The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Natureand History of Human Expression, he connects this shiftto the realization of a “language of renewed arche-

typal significance”:

Symbols may bedescribed as com-pressed informa-tion… Because thelanguage of thenew vision is sym-bolic, it is capableof conveying im-mediately throughsimple forms amultiplicity ofmeaning; becauseit is androgynous,it evokes the mar-riage of heavenand hell, the phy-

sical and the psychic, man and woman, thearchaic and the evolving, the terrestrial and thecelestial, the sacred and the profane. What iscoming into being is a language of renewedarchetypal significance based on a profoundlyreligious orientation (Argüelles 1975).

Terence McKenna made similar connections. In a1988 interview published in Mavericks of the Mindhe proposed that, “Consciousness can’t evolve anyfaster than language. …we have thousands andthousands of words about rugs, and widgets, andthis and that, so we need to create a much richerlanguage of emotion. …[P]lanned evolution oflanguage is the way to speed it toward expressingthe frontier of consciousness” (McKenna 1993).



McKenna and Argüelles are reasoning that it is specifically a newmedium of communication that brings about a change in conscious-ness, and that unless we fundamentally transform the way we com-municate, there can be no shift in consciousness. Language and con-sciousness are inextricably tied to one another. The premise is thatthe language we use dictates our reality, so in expanding our defini-tion of language we are in effect expanding our consciousness. Thinkof the alphabet as a technology that has enabled us to record, read,and speak to one another. The medium of the alphabet, or the formof the alphabet, is linear. Thus our view of consensus reality is lin-ear. Usurp the linear and you kick the pace at which language andconsciousness evolve into overdrive.

WHAT IS BEGINNING TO HAPPENIn The Transformative Vision, Argüelles makes a compelling case thatthe beginnings of a collective shift in consciousness, or a significant“change in the medium,” came with the arrival of the Impression-ists. The visionary dreamscapes of artists such as William Blake andHieronymus Bosch foreshadowed the modern upheavals in artisticconventions, but it was the Impressionists who solidified a pioneer-ing social movement that spawned “modern art.” This was the firsttime in art history that artists collectively and deliberately movedaway from representing objective reality, toward expressing theinward experience of the mind and spirit.

Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan said, “I think of art, atits most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning systemthat can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginningto happen to it” (McLuhan 1969). With this in mind, consideringthe profusion of developments in art over the last century, a collec-tive transformation has already been conceived. But McLuhan didn’tstop there; he also aptly stated, “The affairs of the world are nowdependent upon the highest information of which man is capable.The word information means pattern, not raw data” (McLuhan &Nevitt 1972).

NATURAL PROCESS, PRACTICAL PROCESSWhen I was young I was captivated by an abstract mosaic that wasdisplayed above the doors of a modern Protestant church in my home-town (see photo above right). Though it was called art, I recall see-ing it clearly as a pattern of nature, just as organic as a pattern foundon a leaf. The difference, of course, was the human connection. Hav-ing made this distinction I soon felt a deep urge to participate and toexperience art as information coming from within. Over time, draw-ing became a natural process, consisting of several stages of develop-ment. I started with symbols and abstract patterns (see images tothe right), discovering the beauty and meaning connected to theform and function of a line. This encounter with creation opened

St. Luke United Methodist Church,San Angelo, Texas.



my eyes to the actuality of an art in which expres-sion is not a consciously creative act but an im-pulse. For me, drawing had become an automaticphysical engagement geared only toward concen-trating on hand–eye coordination. The sensationthat arises during this process is a transformativeone of having made contact with something otherthan myself, or quite possibly my future self, ormyself from a distant past. Argüelles wrote, “At itsmost primary level, art is not a thing done but adissolution of the ego; nor is anything ‘created.’Whereas the materialistic view is that creation isan addition to reality, from the point of view ofinternal technology, creation is actually a dissolu-tion of duality and a merging into a unitive state,producing a transformation of reality….” This “dis-solution of duality” evokes alchemy and the driveto unify opposites. Perhaps at the core of Argüelles’(and McKenna’s) message is an earnest attempt tomake sense of the writer’s psychedelic experiencesin relation to his knowledge of alchemy. Psyche-delics are a technology of the psyche, not just an-other dogma. To a person educated in the liberalarts—steeped in an academic world—a psychedelicexperience could easily be understood as the real-ization of the alchemist’s dream to concoct the elixirvitae—and this dream quite possibly illuminates apath toward a healthy future for the species.

Alchemy is synonymous with the Great Work, thesearch for the philosopher’s stone, and the unifi-cation of opposites. In Alchemy, The Great Secret,Andrea Aromatico notes that its early practitionersin Europe “did not draw fine distinctions betweenscience and magic,” they claimed it as an art, “bywhich they meant something similar to a technol-ogy, or practical science.” The necessary metallur-gical research was also a quest for spiritual purifi-cation, “That a practical process should be part ofthis form of knowledge is key…”

BIRTHING THE COLLECTIVE CHILDIn Mysterium Coniunctionis, Carl Jung intuited thata new Anthropos figure is forming in the collec-tive unconscious, a kind of figure like the “roundor square man” or “true man” of the alchemists, amore complete Christ figure, containing the oppo-sites of the one and the many, male and female,

good and evil, spirit and matter. In a lecture titledLight of the 3rd Millennium, Terence McKenna ex-pands on Jung’s vision with a provocative call toaction, suggesting that:

[A] collective over-soul exists, dispersed,through all of us… and if we seek to produce areasonable simulacrum of it, it will come to be…we will summon it out of ourselves… and Ithink at a certain point, we will understand thenature of the enterprise. The alchemists dreamof something like this… the summoning intoexistence of the cosmic Anthropos (1996).

When I heard McKenna relate the visionary expe-rience to the twenty-fourth fragment of Heraclitus:“The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls,” Iwas truly taken aback at the synchronistic connec-tion to the anthropomorphic entities that had beenpouring out of me at the time through my paint-ings. It literally intersected with my own directexperience, which is why I am moved to explorethese ideas in the first place.



It is important to consider that Heraclitus—alive between 535 and475 BCE—was living during a time of major transformation in hu-man communication. In a remarkable essay on the history of lan-guage, “Alphabet, Mother of Invention,” authors Marshall McLuhanand R.K. Logan state:

The Greek alphabet first came into use around 700 B.C. Within300 years the Greeks had developed from dependence on an oraltradition based on myths, to a rationalistic, logical culture whichlaid the foundations for logic, science, philosophy, psychology, his-tory, political science, and individualism (McLuhan & Logan 1977).

Heraclitus was pre-Socratic. He came up with the idea of the logos asthe controlling principle in the universe, proclaiming that all origi-nates from it: “He who hears not me but the logos will say: All isone.” Perhaps this source unity was interrupted as the phonetic al-phabet took hold and paved the way for us to divide and separatenature:

In addition to serving as a paradigm of abstraction and classifica-tion, the alphabet also served as a model for division and separa-bility. With the alphabet every word is separated into its constitu-ent sounds and constituent letters. …The Greek capacity for divi-siveness and separation extends way beyond their atomicity ofmatter (McLuhan & Logan 1977).

This understanding of the phonetic alphabet and how the logos pre-ceded it is revelatory when you relate it to the definition of alchemy.In alchemy, “it was necessary to separate, distribute, and bring outthe diverse natures of which matter was formed, and then conjointhem once more into a harmonious whole. This was the definitivespiritual act that transformed matter into the Philosopher’s Stone”(Aromatico 2000). By this description of alchemy, our immersioninto the alphabet looks a lot like an alchemical process, enablingus to master “divisiveness and separation.” But the endgame inalchemy is always to recombine this division and separation—tounify opposites.

In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung cited Heraclitus as preced-ing his own understanding of the correlation of opposites: “Just asall energy proceeds from opposition, so the psyche too possesses itsinner polarity, this being the indispensable prerequisite for its alive-ness, as Heraclitus realized long ago” (Jung 1963). Like Heraclitus,Jung understood that within the conflict of opposites there is har-mony because both positive and negative naturally orbit one an-other. Jung based his theory of individuation on this principle,relating that a higher state of consciousness is achieved by anindividual’s capacity to carry opposites.



COLLECTIVE HARMONYJosé Argüelles emphasizes that a unifying process begins with theindividual artist embracing a holistic approach:

Beyond merely pointing out the present stagnation in the humancondition, the responsibility of the artist of renewed awareness ispersonally to bring about a new harmony beginning with his ownorganism. In other words, the internal technologist has the poten-tial of becoming a center by coordinating his own organism’s physi-cal, emotional, and mental functions. Since the human species it-self is potentially a network of centers, and hence an organismwhose rhythmic and harmonious order depends on the rhythmand harmony of its individual centers, the artist as internal tech-nologist has a definite role to play in human survival (Argüelles1975).

In his book 2012: The Return Of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeckcovers the ideas of José Argüelles extensively. Pinchbeck exhorts that,“It was clear from meeting [Argüelles] that he was not a lunatic, buthe operated at the extreme edge of the cultural imagination, wheresignal meets static.” My feeling is that Argüelles’ “signal” was at itsstrongest in The Transformative Vision, where he clearly advocates anew archetype—not borrowed from another culture, but borne outof an individual’s disciplined use of psychedelics. Argüelles remarks:

The initial use of drugs to reacquaint Faustian man with the real-ity of this wisdom acts as a stick of dynamite to break up the log-jam of materialistic confusion and error. But used continually with-out an appropriate ritual prescription, psychedelics can only be apoison. More important is the development of the discipline—theinternal technology—that an understanding of the inner realmdemands.

We are in a unique evolutionary position, and when I speak oftradition and the necessity of developing an internal technology, Iam by no means advocating the thoughtless or wholesale embraceof the traditions of another culture. Yet to begin at the beginning,to begin again, is to embark on an archaic path. Though the sha-mans and the yogis of the existing archaic traditions may offer thepost-Faustian refugee essential help, the point is not to becomethem but to become ourselves. The vision of what we are to be-come is already within us, awaiting the proper discipline throughwhich it might be appropriately expressed (Argüelles 1975).

Argüelles’ essential idea is to not make use of an archetype fromanother culture but to create something new: the point is not tobecome them but to become ourselves.

I have made numerous psychedelic journeys over the last decade,duly advancing the “appropriate ritual prescription” which Argüellesdescribes. This prescription has led me to many stages of conscious-



ness, including multiple visions of the humancollective consciousness whereby a simulacrum hasmanifested itself through my art. I don’t considerthe patterns I draw—this information, in Mc-Luhan’s verbiage—as a part of my own psycho-therapy. I’ve come to view my art as a patternreflecting the language of the Self living as deeplyin the past and as far into the future as one canlive, a Self that is one step away from the dualismsthat separate us fromthe planet and fromone another.

The “cellular” natureof the mandala is awell-known symbol ofwholeness. I see mydrawings as a trans-mutation of this ar-chaic image coupledwith an anthropomor-phic entity that cantransform itself infi-nitely. An aestheticdiscovery of a compos-ite psyche made up ofmany entities.

In an interview with information artist MichaelO’Callaghan, the late Jungian psychiatrist Dr. JohnWeir Perry remarked on the mandala as a potentsymbol for the emerging collective shift in con-sciousness:

[R]egarding the current cultural upheaval in theworld today, I think we must be prepared…fora change in world outlook, that is, a new worldview or mandala. The original mandalas wereconceived and designed as world-images, mean-ing that they are condensed compact versions,in symbol form, of a way of perceiving the world.Simply put, the new world view will becomeexplicit when its symbol moves into conscious-ness (O’Callaghan 1982).

If language defines our way of seeing the world—our reality—by operating as a code for us to navi-gate through the particular dimension of space inwhich we exist, if we expand our definition oflanguage, we are expanding our consciousness.

Novel patterns are not so much created as they arediscovered or seen. Seeing the mandala in terms ofwholeness is a matter of consciousness. The pho-netic alphabet and our current notion of a linearhistory are intertwined. Given that our immersioninto the alphabet has been an alchemical processempowering us to divide and separate nature, whendo we begin the collective process of conjoining all thisinto a harmonious whole?

If you think, evenfor a second, that2012 could mark atransformation inhuman conscious-ness, then you’reeventually facedwith the awkwardquestion: Whatwill the worldlook like whenthat time comes?Since it’s impos-sible to reallyknow, maybe it’sbest to find mean-ing in the questionitself, a question

that compels us to view human history in terms ofa process embedded in the deeply transformativematrix of nature’s cycles. Y2K had a meaning farbeyond the year 2000 that was attached to it.Wasn’t it really about raising our awareness of howconnected to and dependent on technology we’veall become? Perhaps the meaning of 2012 is to raiseour awareness that a collective transformation isan essential feature of human nature. �

Jason W.A. Tucker is a painter, writer, and film editor living

in Marin County, California. He currently works as the

Supervising Editor on George Lucas’ forthcoming CG-

animated feature film and television series, Star Wars:

The Clone Wars. His art was previously featured on the

cover of the Fall 2006 issue of The Entheogen Review.

For more images, see www.actualcontact.com.



Hyperspatial Maps

SALVIA AND CONSCIOUSNESS

I have twenty-five years of experience with psy-chedelics and other drugs including Cannabis,mescaline, psilocybin, LSD, cocaine, amphetamine,opium, Salvia divinorum, etc.

I purchased some “20x” reinfused Salvia leaf froma recommended online vendor. Salvia divinorum islegal in the state of California where I live.

I was slightly high on medicinal marijuana whenI decided to try the “20x” to test its quality. I am anexperienced Salvia user, having taken it overtwenty-five times during the last five years. I put asmall amount, about one hit’s worth, in my bong. Ihad my wife with me as a sitter. I explained to herthat I might act weird for about ten minutes, butshe shouldn’t worry. I fired it up and deeply in-haled, holding the smoke for about thirty seconds,while sitting on the carpeted floor of my homestudio.

The onset occurred shortly after exhalation. Withinthe first minute, I had entered what I think of as“Salvia space.” But my voyage didn’t stop there. Iexperienced this particular Salvia high as follows:

The Salvia was a conscious entity. My own indi-vidual consciousness was transformed to the pointwhere I was simply a small component of the largerSalvia entity. I perceived that all users of Salvia tem-porarily become components of the Salvia entity.That doesn’t mean that my individual conscious-ness was destroyed, just that a shift in focus/attention/consciousness occurred in which my in-dividual consciousness was transformed into a partof this larger entity. However, identifying with theentity in some way made me actually share itsidentity/consciousness/space. So my consciousnesswasn’t subsumed, but rather altered and thenincorporated.

About three minutes after smoking, I was tryingto explain this to my wife. She started laughingdespite herself and I joined in. It was quite funnyto try to explain this bizarre concept to someonewho hadn’t experienced such an alteration of con-sciousness. The humor and laughter temporarilyreturned my consciousness to something closerto normalcy, but I could still see the altered stateof Salvia entity-hood, and I quickly moved backinto it.

Externally, I was saying something like, “Oh myGod,” while lying on the floor. Internally, I wasundergoing a series of revelations. The main onewas that if my consciousness could be transformedso completely by this experience that I identifiedwith a larger consciousness/entity, a number ofthings logically followed:

1. Entities are composed of consciousness.

2. Consciousness is utterly transmutable. If I cango from being me to being the Salvia entity/spaceso quickly, and then come back, this means myconsciousness is capable of radical reorganization.

3. Consciousness can be liberated from normal con-straints, which most obviously includes consensusreality, but also perhaps embodiment.

4. For the Salvia entity/consciousness, its reality isutterly real and our normal consensual reality is acomplete mirage—and a very hollow one.

5. Salvia consciousness is a specific state, and onethat can be shared by other people on Salvia. It isnot an individual effect, it is a collective effect.

6. Consciousness itself is like a buzzing electricalcurrent. It is “thin” in the sense of being a movingsensor; however, it deals with levels of experienceand reality, phenomena that are “thick.” (Thushelping move toward a resolution of the “thin” vs.



“thick” views of consciousness that are debatedbetween philosophers.)

7. Consciousness can be turned on or off, like alight switch or a computer. Since we all are com-posed of consciousness, this simply means that wetravel between states of activation and deactiva-tion. Consciousness cannot be lost or gained, sincelike electricity, it exists even when in an “off” state.Deactivated consciousness is still consciousness.

8. Essentially, we are the buzzing electrical energycalled consciousness. Although we identify withentities, such as our Selves, this is only a tempo-rary identification, which will eventually be trans-muted into identification with other entities (ornon-entities, as the case may be).

These realizations all came to me rather quickly,but not without effort, because I had to—whiletripping—ponder the nature of consciousness andhow this experience altered my perceptions of it.But focusing my attention briefly on this issue ledto these revelations, which occurred over perhapsfive more minutes.

At about the ten-minute mark, I was beginning toapproach normal reality. I tried to integrate myexperience in a mellow way, since I wanted to besocial with my wife and we had planned on spend-ing time together watching videos. I ate somethingsweet, which helped ground me. I came back downwith an excellent recollection of the trip and theconclusions that I had reached on it. I had a sort ofdreamy, relaxed evening, falling asleep on the couchfor a bit before going to bed at my normal bedtime.The next morning I felt fine—perfectly clear, withno adverse effects whatsoever.

As I wrote up these notes the next day, I realizedthat I was not some sort of lucky beneficiary ofworld-shaking new information. Any of my Salvia“revelations” may have occurred to others, andmany probably have been transmitted to me pre-viously by books or other sources. And any of them,in fact, may not be true. After all, I was on drugs atthe time. Still, it was an interesting experience, andone that gave me some new questions to ponderthe next time I enter Salvia space. — J. T, CA

KETAPOETICS

Ketamine taste:Like a soupmade out ofyour face.

While on ketamine, I occasionally channel unusualphrases and robotic stutterings. These strange bitsof prose or poetry can be humorous, and theyusually convey certain insights about the state ofmind that I am adrift in. I call such ramblings“ketapoetics,” a term I coined for them while un-der the influence of ketamine. I have had ketamineexperiences that were pleasant, I have had ketamineexperiences that were disturbing, and not infre-quently my experiences are both pleasant and dis-turbing. The above poem, which came to me dur-ing a ketamine experience, aptly describes how Ihave come to feel about the drug. Like soup, it iswarm, it is flavorful, it is comforting and familiar.But it then becomes too familiar, as I realize thatwhat I am slurping down consists of chunks of myown lips and nose, or bits of my cheeks and eye-brows. Horrific. Frightening. Yet it is a damn tastysoup, and I am compelled to keep eating.

Ketamine frequently provides me with the senseof having a disembodied vantage point. This is of-ten an aerial perspective, above some textured to-pography. I might be viewing fields of grass, flyingover hills and valleys, soaring up and down overthe landscape. These visions tend toward the mono-chromatic: sepia-toned dreams. I can be travellingat a fast clip, then target some specific area to focuson, and suddenly shift into a hyper-slow-motionMatrix-like examination of the tiniest section of thelandscape, viewing it in incredible richness. Myspeed slows dramatically and the details becomeintensely macroscopic. For example, I might be soar-ing above an industrial city, with smokestacksbelching filth into a muddy sky. Then I will honein on, zoom up to, and move through tiny brightorange burning embers surrounded by a river offeathery dark ashen soot—all of the particulatematter that makes up the wafting smoke. AlthoughI can retard the motion to a crawl and check outthe details, a driving force behind my “vision” keeps



me moving along, scanning more and more land-scape.

During my very first IM trip, which happened in1996 at Burning Man, I found myself floating abovethe playa, looking down at the tents, the Black Rockcitizens, and the art installations. Later that nightwhile I was walking through the city, I was amazedwhen I twice recognized certain areas that I hadnot previously been to, and I realized that thiswas because I had “seen” these spots “from above”during my ketamine voyage.

Frequently the landscapes I see are somewhat bar-ren—like the cracked surface of the Black RockDesert—and/or monotonous. The sense of motionincorporates a repetitive “piling up” of images, likebales of beige cotton candy filling in a landscapeuntil there is no more space at all. Then when Izoom into the smallest super-fine detail of the cot-ton candy fiber, that too will be comprised of lay-ers building on top of layers building on top of lay-ers, with the entire visual field smothered in suc-cessive images. Sometimes the imagery is organicin nature; other times it is artificial and mechani-

As an aside, my favorite “paranormal ketamine tale” comes from a former colleague, the lateD.M. Turner. In his book The Essential Psychedelic Guide (available online), Turner notes that hehad been addicted to ketamine. He mentions that “…DMT proved to be a strong ally, teachingme to be a dragon, and offering encouraging glimpses of what my experiences could be like if Idefeated the addiction,” but he does not provide any specific details about the visions that DMTprovided to help him. A memorial appearing in TRP magazine stated that, “DMT conveyed to[Turner] that ketamine was a sort of ‘Frankenstein molecule’ that didn’t obey the shamanicrules, and he was given several warnings to drop it from his program.” A mutual friend later toldme the following specifics:

One night during the period when Turner was struggling with ketamine addiction, he wasleaving a Bay Area nightclub via a back door that opened into a sketchy alleyway, and he wasmugged at knifepoint. Although scared and shaken, he escaped with his life—if not his wal-let—intact. Some days later, while smoking DMT, Turner was propelled back in time and hefound himself with his hand on the exit door at the nightclub, pushing his way again into thealleyway. Overwhelmed with déjà vu, he knew exactly how it was going to play out. There wereno bright colors, no self-transforming machine elves, no psychedelic visuals of any sort. Heremembered that he had just smoked DMT, and yet for all intents and purposes he appeared notto be high on a drug, but rather to have been pushed through a wormhole and physically re-turned to a time and place from his recent past. Feeling totally lucid, not believing that whatappeared to be happening could actually be taking place, and unable to stop himself in any case,he pushed through the door and was confronted by the mugger, who again held a knife to histhroat. “This can’t be possible,” Turner thought to himself, as his pulse quickened. Yet it allseemed much too real. Then the scene froze as time stopped. Turner heard a voice in his head,which he recognized as belonging to the spirit of DMT. It explained to him that it had broughthim back in time to re-experience his recent brush with death as a warning. “Continue to useketamine, and it will kill you,” the voice insisted. After this, Turner found himself returned tohis trip room, still holding his DMT pipe, entirely sober without any residual tryptamine effectsat all. Although Turner severely restricted his ketamine use from then on and kicked his addic-tion, he ultimately died from drowning after injecting ketamine in a bathtub on New Year’s Evein 1996. While this tale might more accurately be said to describe the paranormal effects ofDMT, rather than the paranormal effects of ketamine, it is nevertheless a spooky story, and onethat I have not yet seen mentioned anywhere in print.



cal, compounded from Borg-like nanobots, evok-ing Eric Drexler’s apocalyptic grey goo scenario.

There can be a sense that I am getting a behind-the-scenes look at fabric and forces binding theentire universe—a microscopic view at the chasmsof space between atoms and the vibrational quali-ties that hold everything together. Could this be avision of the monumental motion, the ongoingdance of matter and energy, that is required forthe constant process of creation?

At times, the landscapes I visit are populated. Some-times I appear to be viewing real-world geogra-phies, like the people on the playa at Burning Mandescribed previously. Other times I catch glimpsesof lifeforms that are entirely alien, such as gianttranslucent beings with skeletal humanoid bodiesand heads like jellyfish. Occasionally the environ-ments are brightly colored and feel sacred. But moreoften they are in darker, muted colors, and it seemsas though I am underground.

Largely, I have the sense that I have moved intothe place where all consciousness resides when itis not inhabiting a material form. Part of this realmincludes the idea, at least, of a resting place for soulswho have departed. Yet I have never met any deadrelatives or friends (even when that has been a goalof my trip), so I don’t have anything more than avague sense of the possibility that unique personalconsciousnesses might reside in an area within thisrealm. The experience, as I have had it, is more likeuniting with a larger pool of disembodied con-sciousness that remains outside of the physicalworld until it chooses to (re)incarnate into somematerial life form.

D.M. Turner has done an excellent job describingvarious aspects of the ketamine experience. Aftercharacterizing the bulk of a typical trip, Turnerwrites:

Some 30 minutes to an hour into the experi-ence I come to an apex. At this point I have feltthat my will determines whether or not I exist,and whether or not the universe exists. And Icould toggle between existence and non-exist-ence many times within a second. I’ve even had

the impression that I could cause the universe(which is quite fluid in the moment) to crys-tallize in whatever format I desired, although Ihaven’t had the impetus to actually try this.

After this comes the return to regular conscious-ness, which begins with one perception out ofeach million seeming like it’s within my famil-iar perceptual structure. These “personal per-ceptions” increase in frequency, one every100,000, one every 10,000. Soon I remembermy previous identity. … Although there is afeeling that the ride’s almost over, this part ofthe experience is quite interesting, with part ofmy mind still running circles around the cos-mos, and another part reintegrating with myidentity (Turner 1994).

Turner’s description of the “come down” from aketamine trip provides a framework for interpret-ing one aspect of my difficult ketamine trips. As Iregain some memories of my personal existence inthe material realm, cycling back and forth betweenwhat feels like a larger disembodied consciousnessand a more focused and limited individual incar-nated consciousness, I get the strong sense that amyriad of parallel dimensions exist, any of which Icould ultimately end up in. These dimensions rangefrom being very similar to the one that I left be-hind, to being quite a bit different. For example,on one trip where this was happening, I focusedon the ceiling of the room that I was in. In “real”reality, the room had a natural-colored woodenceiling. But during the waves when I was momen-tarily “returned” to a physical form, before shiftingback over into the disembodied realm, on one oc-casion the ceiling was made of metal, on anotheroccasion it was white stucco, on another occasionit was grey tiles, and so forth. Physical objects inthe room appeared different with each return cycleas well: a painting on the wall was larger in onecycle, smaller in another cycle, and entirely miss-ing in several cycles.

At first I am intrigued by the possibility of return-ing to a different dimension. And frankly, I am notreally sure that I remember enough details to actu-ally know which dimension is the correct one toinhabit. Eventually I become worried about possi-bly returning to a dimension that doesn’t contain



my most important loved ones—the friends andfamily who make my life worth living. Furthermore,I somehow know that once I have made the choiceto return to a particular dimension, to a specificversion of “me,” I will be convinced that it was theone that I departed from even if it is not the same one.I will entirely forget about anyone who I hold dearif that person is not a part of my life in the newparallel world. Things may have happened quitedifferently in that world—both good and badthings. Maybe in the new world, my father hasn’tdied yet. Or perhaps I never met my wife; or wedid meet, but didn’t have a child. Or we had a dif-ferent child. Or several children. By this point, nu-merous specifics about what I believe to be my “real”life have returned to me, but reality neverthelessseems malleable enough that the fear of not get-ting back to the “right” dimension becomes a para-mount concern.

I was inspired to write this report (and typed outthe bulk of it) immediately after coming down froma ketamine session that included the sort of expe-rience described above. A few other aspects of thatvoyage have also happened to me previously—oncewhen taking ketamine cream as an enema, a pro-cess described in a previous issue of The EntheogenReview. These aspects are particularly prone to oc-cur with the combination of ketamine and nitrousoxide, which is what I was on during the trip inquestion. (I’d also taken MDA earlier in the day,but that had largely worn off by the time of theketamine/nitrous experience.)

Nitrous oxide, either by itself or in conjunctionwith various psychedelics, has catalyzed someamazing experiences for me. At times while on it, Ihave felt as though I comprehended a completeunderstanding of everything. But the feeling isfleeting, and I must inhale more gas to get it back.Eventually while redosing, the voice of someOther—who seems to be controlling the show—mocks my futile attempts at retaining (or evenglimpsing) the big picture. “Ha, ha, sucker. You’reback again. Nothing to see here at all, but I don’texpect that you will learn. This is the cosmic joke:you, and your feeble attempt at understanding.When you truly understand, you will laugh alongwith me at what you are trying to do. You will

realize that you are just deluding yourself. Thematerial realm is a game you only keep playingbecause the rules require you to forget the truenature of reality. Whatta chump. But I’m sure thatyou will take another hit, grasp only some smallpart of it, and believe that you are getting a com-plete understanding. Keep playing, sucker. All ThatIs will keep laughing at you and will enjoy the show.”

Such an experience doesn’t make up the lion’s shareof my nitrous trips; if it did, I would be less in-clined to use the drug. Sometimes nitrous justboosts the intensity, motion, and color of closed-eye visuals produced by some other psychedelic,providing little in the way of insight or emotion.I nevertheless appreciate such experiences from anaesthetic/artistic perspective, and would continueusing nitrous in conjunction with various psyche-delics for this reason alone. But on other occasions,the effects are truly joyous and celebratory. My wifedescribes such trips as voyaging to a place whereevery favorite memory that you have from your lifeis combined into one simultaneous experience: allof the fun times as a kid at the state fair, all of theparties that you went to, spending time with fam-ily members, playing with your friends, falling inlove, engaging in intense late-night philosophicaldiscussions, all of the countless bliss-filled highsthat you have ever had.

A portion of the mind state that I am trying tocharacterize is touched on in the forthcoming bookTryptamine Palace (Inner Traditions, 2009) by Oroc.Although the author is talking about an effect thathe achieves from smoking 5-MeO-DMT, his de-scription strongly resembles the initial stage of myrecent ketamine/nitrous experience. In a draft ofhis manuscript, Oroc provides an analogy describ-ing how 5-MeO-DMT affects him:

Suppose that G/D [God] wanted to talk to youin an indirect and yet totally effective way. Imag-ine that you are dropped in on your favoriteparty ever, a party that is more than just a party:a hedonic Garden of Eden, blissful Norse heavenof Valhalla, and the Islamic version of Paradise,all rolled into one. Every person you know ispresent—your friends, your family, and thosewhom you love and admire. They are wearingfine costumes and appearing as archetypal im-



ages. Everyone is there. Now imagine that witheach conversation you have that night, everyinteraction with friends and strangers alike,you are actually talking to G/D. And these varia-tions, these millions of permutations, are onlya small fraction of the forms in which G/D canappear. This idea is one of the cornerstones ofmythology: the intervention of the divine dis-guised amongst the physical workings of themortal world. Can you imagine how effectivesuch a strategy would be? There’s G/D with acold beer, G/D with a joint in his hand, G/Dtalking to you in a thousand loving voices, G/Ddressed in silk, feathers, and lingerie—wigglingher tight little ass in your lap as she whisperseternal wisdoms in your ear…

It is worth pointing out that 5-MeO-DMT can besimilar to both ketamine and nitrous with regardto the “disembodied” state that it sometimes pro-duces. In any case, my own recent experience onketamine and nitrous resulted in me being pro-pelled into a space not unlike the one describedby Oroc above.

THE KETAMINE & NITROUS TRIPI find myself in a thumping den of iniquity—theparty of all parties. There’s an expensive, glamor-ous, tinge to it, resembling the private “back rooms”of nightclubs as depicted in hip-hop music videos.Everything is soaked in bling and excess, cham-pagne flowing, lines of coke laid out, scantily cladbabes dancing seductively. It is not particularly thesort of party that I am used to attending, but “whenin Rome…” There is a sense of every one of myfriends being there. They all are present in someway, even if I don’t actually see each of their faces.There are several specific friends whom I acknowl-edge and interact with. (Those people are notpresent in my real-world environment, althoughtwo female friends are lying next to me on a largebed in reality, and they are also voyaging on ket-amine and nitrous.) The overall vibe of my visionis a pulsating mass of ecstasy and temptations. Thisplace exists, these people are tangible. It is a truehallucination. I am there. Somehow the swirlinggood times slow to a point where I can see the over-lapping of several realities. Most of these realitiesseem to have an incredibly solid physicality andthey present a selection of very palatable options.

With eyes open, my actual reality bleeds into thevision, and I am flanked by a couple of hot chicks.We’re reclining on a large bed/booth in the club.Eventually the scene reaches a point where it isclear that some decision needs to be made by mein order to sustain the party. Other people are wait-ing on that decision. It is like a roulette wheel thathas come to a stop (the whole thing has a Casinovibe). There is a girlfriend to my left holding out aloaded ketamine needle, and another to my rightoffering a nitrous dispenser. I have to decide whatto do next. And I get a strong suspicion of thefollowing:

Time has basically stopped. A choice needs to bemade. I am the one who is being asked to make thechoice. Another spin of the wheel?

At this point, despite the hyper-realism of the worldthat I am in at the moment, I start to become awarethat I am at a place where various timelines in al-ternate realities cross. Some situations in somealternate realities will have better outcomes, somewill have worse outcomes. The familiar worry be-gins to plague me: I might make a choice where Iwould not have the people whom I love the mostin my life any more. By simply taking another spinat this wheel, I could end up choosing a differentreality to go back to.

A wave of realization hits me like a ton of bricks: Ihave been here before many times. A number ofsimilar, parallel realities are coming so close that Ican decided to jump into another one. And again,two things seem certain: once I make the decision,I can’t go back. And once I make the decision, Iwill forget my previous reality, forget all of thepeople who were the most important to me, andincarnate into the new life, which will be con-structed so that I believe I had come from that one.

At the moment, in this place between, I feel asthough I understand the mind of God; I know howthe universe works, and I can chose from a seem-ingly unlimited number of options. But strangely,making any choice is starting to feel like a trap.I begin to realize that I have already made everysingle choice that is and ever has been possible.Not only have I already done all of them, but I have



done many of them multiple times. I’ve repeatedlyforgotten that they were all illusions. Perhaps Irepeatedly wanted to forget the constrictions andthe boredom imposed by the total knowledge ofan eternal disembodied consciousness—like theangel Damiel in the movie Wings of Desire, wholonged for the fleeting, intense richness of a tem-poral existence. But now, finally (and once again),I knew that I had done it all before, and that real-ity creation was a lie.

Neitzsche’s cyclical description of time, the idea of“eternal recurrence,” makes perfect sense. If thereis a finite amount of matter, and an infinite amountof time, then eventually every action in physicalreality will happen over and over again. And count-less variations—from the slight to the grand—willalso all happen over and over again. The multipledimensions postulated by quantum physics makeperfect sense. The never-ending expansion andcontraction of the universe as described by Hindureligious writings makes perfect sense.

I flash on a scene from Waking Life, where the pro-tagonist, who can’t seem to wake up from the luciddream he is having, finally starts to worry aloudthat he might be dead. Richard Linklater makes hiscameo in the film, playing pinball while describ-ing Philip K. Dick’s idea that a demon created theillusion of time to make us forget that Christ wasabout to return, and that we are all actually stuckin 50 a.d. Linklater then begins describing a dreamwherein the corpse of Lady Gregory remarks:

“Let me explain to you the nature of the uni-verse. Now, Philip K. Dick is right about time,but he’s wrong that it’s 50 a.d. Actually, there’sonly one instant, and it’s right now. And it’seternity. And it’s an instant in which God isposing a question. And that question is, basi-cally, ‘Do you want to, you know, be one witheternity? Do you want to be in heaven?’ Andwe’re all saying, ‘No, thank you. Not just yet.’And so time is actually just this constant say-ing ‘no’ to God’s invitation. I mean, that’s whattime is. I mean, it’s no more 50 a.d. than it’s2001, you know? I mean, there’s just this oneinstant, and that’s what we’re always in.”

And then she tells me that actually this is thenarrative of everyone’s life. That, you know,behind the phenomenal difference, there is butone story, and that’s the story of moving fromthe “no” to the “yes.” All of life is, like, “No, thankyou. No, thank you. No, thank you.” Then ulti-mately it’s, “Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, Iembrace.” I mean, that’s the journey. I mean,everyone gets to the “yes” in the end, right?

Then I get the sense that by deciding whether ornot to take another dose, I am not just dealing witha “more drug effect” or “less drug effect” result. Isuspect that am actually making the choice betweenliving and dying. And my ties to my family andfriends are too strong. I don’t want to die. I wantto stay with them. Why did I come to be faced withthis choice again, after so conveniently forgettinghow it all works?

All of my friends are now with me there. They aresmiling and laughing. “Yeah,” they say, “We all doit over and over. We all forget and go back in for arun. But don’t you want to really get off the wheelnow for good, maybe?”

The room becomes palpably warmer, as my visionshifts in hue toward more burgundy, chocolatebrown, and black-ash char. Beads of sweat form asthe environment takes on a slightly sour smell. Ibegin to taste the unpleasant flavor of remnants offood stuck in my teeth that had previously goneunnoticed. Images of fiery hell realms whisperacross my mind, along with a clear memory of thefirst of Buddha’s four noble truths. The room nowseems uncomfortably warm.

The illusion of material reality is shown for whatit is: a facade. Ethereal sky writing—at one timeedged with golden light—is now clearly seen tobe held up by hooks and wire. The words solidify,turning into jello. The wire pulls through, andthe letters cascade onto the bed in a jumbledCronenbergian heap of fetid waste. (As the increasein temperature melts the jello, I realize that it wascomprised of vomit.) The attractive woman’s handthat I was holding pulls off—it turns out to be apoorly made prosthetic. Chunks of the nightclub’sceiling start falling down. I look at the other woman



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next to me. Where there was a beautiful face ear-lier, now lies a bearded lady, who then transformsinto a man in drag, voice suddenly becoming husky.He calls me “Hon,” asking me for help disconnect-ing his garters and getting him out of his heels,croaking: “These dogs are barking!” The nightclub’sbartender—a man who previously had the appear-ance of Adonis, with a body sculpted from marble—turns, and I see that he is actually a dwarf standingon a fake prop body resting on a short, dirty plas-ter replica of a Greek column. He hops down inthe awkward way that little people move, and scur-ries off. The stark, tangible, physicality of the illu-sion, the cheap waste that I am adrift in, becomes aleaden albatross. Fuck, do I really want to partici-pate in an illusion? Maybe I need to “choose” God.Maybe I need to “wake up!” But if not, what if Idon’t pick the right reality to return to? Is it pos-sible that I will get stuck here in what is rapidlybecoming a cesspool? Will I have to start cleaningup all of the crap that is congealing in this bullshit“real” material universe. The party’s over…

“Make a choice.”

I shake my head, shake it off, and look again. Nowmy friends’ faces are slightly different. Yet they arethe same people. Sort of. We always seem to findeach other—drawn together somehow, even indifferent lifetimes, even in alternate dimensions.Things look a little better at that moment, but for

how long? I now know how it is all fake and howit can all melt so quickly into duct-tape and fishingline. And I don’t want to be left in some junky backalley on a cockroach infested mattress wonderingwhat the hell happened.

The illusion of the material world going bad, andthe assorted alternates that my drug-induced vi-sion is ponying up—the “reality” of those alter-nates—is incredibly high-def. I don’t feel stoned,or happy, or cloudy, or confused. I am experiencinga moment of crystal clarity where everything hasslowed but is disintegrating, a point between shifts,and I am being asked to make a choice.

The nagging feeling that there are actually twochoices before me remains. One is simply whetheror not to do more drugs. Do I send the roulettewheel around again and get to have more experi-ences? But the deeper choice seems to involve myhand on death’s door. Do we ultimately “wake up”into an all-knowing state of disembodied collec-tive consciousness? If so, is that a good thing? Or isit a trick—the last resort of a God so weary frombeing everywhere and everyone at all times, thathe just wants to get some rest himself? Perhapsdeath is when God finally sleeps.

Banging a needle into my leg, I relax and drift offonce again, hoping that I made the right decision.— Fork, CA



Network Feedback

4-FLOUROAMPHETAMINEPRODUCED HEADACHE

I have taken 4-fluoroamphetamine approximately20–25 times. All of the experiences have been ex-tremely pleasurable for the most part. I find it tobe qualitatively similar to MDMA, but milder.Whereas MDMA is much more emotionally force-ful, 4-fluoro is comparatively relaxed, while stillbeing euphoric. I have found it great for socializ-ing and dancing in a party environment. There isnot quite the drive to enter into a deep confessionalconversation space, but it would probably be easyto do so if desired. Generally I have taken 120–200 mg. With 200 mg, it feels approximatelyequivalent in intensity to 125–130 mg MDMA—but again, with less of the emotional push of thelatter substance. I’ve found the lower range (120–140 mg) to be pleasurable as well, in contrast tohalf doses of MDMA, which I have found unsatis-fying. The high lasts 1–2 hours longer than MDMA,the comedown is not as precipitous, and the hang-over the next day is usually not nearly as unpleas-ant or lethargic as from MDMA.

However, there was one evening in particularwhere, within the first hour after reaching the peak,I developed the most excruciating headache I haveever experienced. It felt like an entirely differentcategory of what I had previously known as “head-ache.” It may very well have been a migraine, but Ihad never experienced one before (although mymother used to have migraines). The pain built andbuilt over the course of five minutes, ultimatelyreaching a peak where I became concerned for mysafety. The best way I can describe it is to say thatthere were waves of pain rising from the back ofmy neck and moving to the front of my head wherethere was a strange combination of dull, throbbingpain and fiery stabbing pain that pulsed to its ownrhythm.

I was at a small electronic music event where Iwould have ordinarily felt perfectly comfortable. Idid not notice any particular correlation with lightor sound and the intensity of pain, but I did feelinclined to curl up while sitting, and to close myeyes. After 20–30 minutes, the pain was not abat-ing, and I wondered if I was having a stroke. I urgedmy two friends to accompany me to an emergencyroom, and the three of us got in a cab. At the ER, Iwas able to communicate coherently without as-sistance from my friends and fill out the initialpaperwork. I told the hospital worker that I hadtaken “some amphetamines” and I was worried Iwas having a stroke. It was not a busy night, thank-fully, and within five minutes I was moved to abed. A nurse took my blood pressure and said itwas a “little high,” but no one seemed at all alarmed.They gave me a stiff dose of benzodiazepines, whichmade me nauseated and for the next hour or so Ithrew up and dry heaved. The pain remained rela-tively steady during this time. I received some anti-nausea medication. After about three hours in thehospital, the pain began to abate, and then withinthe next 10–15 minutes it completely evaporatedwithout a trace. In fact, I felt quite nice—relaxedand at peace, obviously due in part to the benzodi-azepines. I said I was tired of being there, got alecture from the nurse, then left with my friendsand we returned to the party.

My friends were amazed at my sudden change incondition, as was I. They had been incredibly sup-portive of me during my time in the ER. I haveabsolutely no idea what precipitated this headache,but it scared me to such an extent that I did not trythis substance again for over a year—and then atthe relatively low dose of 100 mg. Since that expe-rience, I have taken it 5–6 times, but never againat 200 mg, and I am not inclined to repeat thatdose level in the foreseeable future. The most I havetaken since then was 160 mg (after creepingmy way up with smaller doses), and I did notfeel threatened by a repeat of the headache. The



experience that night was quite frightening, al-though I retained my wits for the entire time. Ihave racked my brain to come up with an explana-tion for what happened, to no avail. I was not onany other meds at the time. I may have taken asingle capsule of Schizandra herb earlier that day,as I was experimenting with this herb around thattime as an agent to induce mental focus. I believe Iwas reasonably hydrated that evening (but perhapsnot as much I should have been?). I drank a fullcup of water in conjunction with the dose.

I really enjoy 4-fluoroamphetamine, and were itnot for my headache experience I would give it anenthusiastic thumbs–up without any reservations.I could almost chalk it up as being a totally anoma-lous experience, since I personally have known 30–40 people who have tried the drug, many at the200 mg dose level, and the responses have beenhugely positive. However, I do know another malewho, since my experience, had a similar headacheresponse. It was his first time taking the drug, heconsumed 180 mg, and his weight is close to 200pounds. His headache was of shorter duration andperhaps less intense—it lasted only 45–60 min-utes. To my knowledge, he was not taking any othermedications or herbs. At the peak of his experi-ence, this man climbed into a hot tub—somethingI would not have recommended—and while he wasin there the pain abated as it had done with me.He is not inclined to try it again at all. His descrip-tion of the peculiar quality of the pain matchedmine completely, and he also had never beforeexperienced a headache of this nature.

Based on these two experiences, I would recom-mend the utmost caution in experimenting with4-fluoroamphetamine. The dose should be weighedaccurately. I suggest to any chemists that thefreebase amphetamine be distilled or run througha column and the salt recrystallized to achieve thehighest purity possible, because I cannot rule outthat the headaches were due to some trace impuri-ties in the material. Even 1% impurity at this doselevel amounts to many millions of molecules of theimpurity(ies), so it is in everyone’s best interest tohave this substance as pure as possible. I am greatlysaddened to have had this headache experience, andeven more so to know someone else to have had it

too, because I would otherwise have remained com-pletely enamored with this compound. I thought Ihad found a wonderful substitute for MDMA,which I still love but cannot take very often any-more, due to the comedown. If anyone else has hadan experience of this sort or feels that he/she mayhave some insight into the nature of what tran-spired physiologically to result in such a headache,please write to The Entheogen Review or post a reportonline at Erowid. — Mr. Zoom, Basel

Unfortunately there is rarely a way that most consumers canhave any assurances related to the purity (or even the iden-tity) of assorted research chemicals available on the greymarket these days, and few people seem to be actively pub-lishing analysis of materials. Preliminary results from anunderground analysis described in 2003, which is posted atwww.maps.org/pipermai l /maps_forum/2003-July/005542.html, found most of the chemicals tested to be fairlypure, but remarked of the 4-fluoroamphetamine: “‘What amess.’ Contains about a dozen impurities, at least one of whichis a major component of the sample. Chemist is unable toidentify the impurities exactly.” These days research chemicalcompanies are sometimes only open for a short window oftime, making it even harder to find reliable sources of purechemicals. We encourage anyone with the ability to testsamples to post their results on the web. — Eds.

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Psilocybin and

Mystical Experience

14-Month Follow-up

by Lux

In 2006, Griffiths et al. published the results oftheir study focusing on the subjective effects ofguided psilocybin sessions provided to a carefullyscreened population: drug-naive, mentally healthyadults with an ongoing spiritual practice. Volun-teers were led through two or three guided ses-sions: one with psilocybin, and the other one(s)with the active placebo methylphenidate (Ritalin).Neither the session guides nor the volunteers knewwhich drug had been administered. Near the endof each session, the guides were asked to speculatewhether they thought the volunteer had receivedpsilocybin or some other drug (the specific chemi-cal that was the active placebo was not revealed).The double-blind was highly effective, as the guidesguessed incorrectly 23% of the time.

The study’s primary goal was to determine whetherpsilocybin experiences resembled spontaneousmystical experiences. Volunteers were given a bat-tery of assessments measuring their states of con-sciousness, mood, and behavior. Follow-up testingtwo months later measured the persistence of thesessions’ effects related to mysticism, spirituality,and personality. Psilocybin produced mystical ex-periences as measured by the study’s instrumentsin nearly 60% of the volunteers:

22 of the total group of 36 volunteers had a“complete” mystical experience after psilo-cybin…while only 4 of 36 did so after meth-ylphenidate” (Griffiths et al. 2006).

Considering the effectiveness of the double-blind,the fact that mystical experiences were measuredin many psilocybin sessions but very few Ritalinsessions provides powerful evidence that the ex-

perience was due to psilocybin’s effects, and notjust due to expectancy or suggestion by the guides.

ROBUST LONG-TERM RESULTSIn July 2008, the Journal of Psychopharmacologypublished results of the follow-up evaluations con-ducted 14 months after the volunteers’ psilocybinsessions. The main finding of this follow-up studyis that the remarkable gains in several domainsare robust and are still reported or measured a yearlater. The paper notes:

The most striking finding from this 14-monthfollow-up evaluation…is that a large proportionof volunteers rate their ‘psilocybin experience’as among the most personally meaningful andspiritually significant of their lives. Fifty-eightper cent and 67% of volunteers, respectively,rated the experience as being among the fivemost personally meaningful experiences of theirlives, and the five most spiritually significantexperiences of their lives; 11% and 17%, respec-tively, indicated that it was the single mostmeaningful experience, and the single mostspiritually significant experience. Furthermore,64% of the volunteers also indicated that thepsilocybin experience increased their sense ofwell-being or life satisfaction moderately or verymuch, and no volunteer rated the experienceas having decreased well-being or life satisfac-tion (Griffiths et al. 2008).

Of the 22 subjects who were originally scored ashaving a complete mystical experience during theirpsilocybin session, 21 subjects continued to fulfillthe criteria. In addition:



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Compared with methylphenidate, the psilocy-bin session experience produced significantincreases in ratings of positive attitudes, moods,social effects and behavior when rated retro-spectively at both 2 months and at 14-monthfollow-up…. The ratings at the 14-month fol-low-up did not differ significantly from thoseat 2 months (Griffiths et al. 2008).

A significant correlation was found betweenwhether or not a mystical experience was scoredduring the psilocybin sessions and the high or lowratings of personal meaning and spiritual signifi-cance during the follow-up. This provides evidencethat the mystical-type experience itself was stronglyrelated to the sense of meaning felt during theevent. High ratings of personal meaning or spiri-tual significance were not correlated with severalother factors, including monitor-reported levelsof drug effect, anxiety, fearfulness, distance fromordinary reality, tearing/crying, joy/intense hap-piness, or peace/harmony (Griffiths et al. 2008).

Unlike the original study, the 14-month follow-upis limited by a lack of objective corroboration forthe self-described improvements of the study par-ticipants. In the 2006 study, each volunteer wasmatched with three community observers, andeveryone’s accounts were compared. The commu-nity observers are not mentioned in the follow-upstudy. It may not have been possible to gather datafrom the observers over such a long period—peoplemove, relationships change over time, etc. This isa significant limitation to the follow-up study,

as people are notoriously bad judges of long-termchanges in their own behavior.

Nevertheless, the follow-up study represents animportant extension of the original findings from2006. The authors provide evidence that the per-ceived significance and gains related to the psilo-cybin sessions persist over time. It is extremelynoteworthy that an intervention occurring overonly seven to eight hours would produce long-lasting effects that are so highly valued by amajority of study participants.

Some critics have said, “I could have told you fortyyears ago that mushrooms produce mystical expe-riences!” While that may be true, it misses thepoint. The question is not what an entheophilewould find to be compelling evidence, but what aprospective future director of the National Insti-tute on Drug Abuse, or a potential Circuit CourtJudge, would find persuasive. This series of studiessets a new precedent with their excellent designand their impressive results. �

Note: For an expanded version of the currentarticle, see www.erowid.org/chemicals/psilocybin/psilocybin_article2.shtml. For a more detailed treat-ment of the original 2006 study, see Lux 2006.“Psilocybin, Science, and Sacrament: A Look at theResearch of and Response to the Johns HopkinsStudy on Psilocybin and Mysticism,” ErowidExtracts. 11: 4–9, online at www.erowid.org/chemicals/psilocybin/psilocybin_article1.shtml.



Events Calendar

VISIONARY HOLLYWOODOCTOBER 4, 2008

An “esotouric” bus adventure hosted by Erik Davisand inspired by his book The Visionary State. JoinErik on a journey of exploration through the mys-tic realms of Los Angeles, visit five extraordinaryreligious sites, meet followers of their respectivefaiths and explore the fascinating history of alter-native spiritual practices in Southern California.The tour will visit: The Aetherius Society, foundedin 1955 by UFO contactee George King; KrotonaApartments, a former Theosophical retreat foundedin 1914; the Parsonage of Sister Aimee SempleMcPherson—a museum of her life and work; ThePhilosophical Research Society, a non-denomina-tional repository for the wisdom of the worldfounded in 1934; and The Vedanta Society of South-ern California, founded in 1930 to bring Hinduphilosophy to the West. $64 tour cost includes acoffee break, snacks, and a seat on a luxury coachclass bus equipped with monitors, air condition-ing, and restroom. Tour meets at 10:30 am, departsat 11:00 am, and runs until 3:30 pm. For moreinformation see the link at www.techgnosis.com.

WOMEN’S VISIONARY CONGRESSOCTOBER 10–12 (13), 2008

Held at Wilbur Hot Springs October 10–12 (witha special event on October 13th), the Women’sVisionary Congress supports women healers, schol-ars, educators, and artists involved with the expan-sion of consciousness. $425 admission includes alllectures, meals, camping, and access to the mineralhot springs. A limited number of rooms at theWilbur Hotel are available at an additional cost.Presenters include Valerie Corral, Carolyn Garcia,Annie Harrison, Mariavittoria Mangini, Ann andSasha Shulgin, and more. To purchase tickets,e-mail Sarah at [email protected] call (831) 252-0023. For more info seewww.visionarycongress.org.

AYAHUASCA HEALING RETREATOCTOBER 21–28, 2008

An experiential introduction to the sacred vine inthe Eden-like environment of Bahia, Brazil. Par-ticipants partake in three ayahuasca ceremonies,workshops, guided meditations, and lectures deal-ing with the topics of consciousness expansion andhealing. The retreat is held in a private eco-centeron 39 acres of lush preserved area within MataAtlantica, the second largest rainforest in Brazil.Located seven miles from the coastal town of Itacar,and only minutes away from pristine beaches. Formore information see www.ayahuasca-healing.net.

VOYAGE BEYONDOCTOBER 22 — NOVEMBER 1, 2008

Spend thirteen days on the shores of Lake Titicacain Bolivia, exploring a syncretization of neuro-feedback psychotherapy and shamanic ayahuascaceremonies with Australian psychologist MurielTurner, Peruvian shaman Percy Garcia, and Ameri-can physicist Lincoln Stoller. The $2,900 fee in-cludes bus transport (La Paz—Copacabana—LaPaz), eleven nights accommodation and most mealsin a newly built eco-lodge, English speaking inter-preters, plus two days and one night visiting theIsland of the Sun, three traditional night-timeayahuasca ceremonies with a shaman, and mesaceremonies with other native healers. Explore theBolivian cultures near the snow-capped AndesMountains. There will be time to visit the localartisan markets to purchase hand made craftworksand products. You may also like to take some extratime to visit the sacred Incan sites such as MacchuPicchu and other ruins scattered throughout Peruand Bolivia. If you wish, we can provide details forreliable travel agents and/or guides. Travel to andfrom La Paz not included. For more informationsee www.tengerresearch.com/grow.



Sources

by Jon Hanna

MINDPAPERShttp://consc.net/mindpapers

David Chalmers’ massive annotated bibliographyon the philosophy of consciousness, MindPapersconsists of 18,416 entries. Both online and offlinematerial is included, and there’s even an extensivelist of names of individuals who have made theirphilosophical writings available online, with linksto learn more whenever possible. Categories in-clude: Philosophy of Consciousness, Intentional-ity, Perception, Metaphysics of Mind, MiscellaneousPhilosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Artificial Intel-ligence, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, and Sci-ence of Consciousness. Within that final categoryis the subsection Drugs and Consciousness, whichlists a mere seventeen entries. Despite the lack ofcitations related to mind-altering chemicals, the siteis an excellent resource for those interested inmind/brain/consciousness issues.

PSYCHONAUT CHANNELwww.youtube.com/profile?user=psychonautchannel

In a previous “Sources” column I mentioned theweb site Psychonaut.com as a fun spot to surf onoccasion, checking out news items and forum posts.Late last year they started the Psychonaut Chan-nel on You Tube, and to date they have thirty-threevideos available. Several of the more recent postingsare clips from the World Psychedelic Forum thathappened earlier this year in Basel; if you weren’table to attend or didn’t catch all of the talks thatyou wanted to see, the Psychonaut Channel is agood place to get a taste of what was presented atthat event. There is an ever-increasing number ofvideos related to entheogens available online thesedays, ranging from hoovered clips of archival newsreels, to sometimes disturbing depictions of teen-age drug use, to amateur music video slideshows,to interviews and conference clips. Simply surfingYou Tube via keyword can turn up some gems, butit can also result in a lot of crap, and separating the

wheat from the chaff requires real-time viewing.Starting at the Psychonaut Channel is a good wayto narrow the field down to some videos that maybe more worthwhile.

REALITY SANDWICH151 1st Avenue, Apt # 136New York, NY 10003www.realitysandwich.com

Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordon’s web-basedmagazine/blog, which has been around for over ayear now, isn’t entirely—or even mostly—relatedto entheogens. There’s eco-cheerleading, doom-and-gloom end time predictions, new age spirituality,alternative pop culture, conspiracy theories, cropcircles, art, humor, and a myriad of other topics.However, the site also features a peppering ofpsychedelic articles, interviews, and video clips.Recent postings include a written interview of RickStrassman by Martin Ball, a video interview ofJeremy Narby about the dark side of psychedelics,some commentary on the 14-month follow-up ofthe Johns Hopkins psilocybin and mysticism study,and an interview with Rocky Caravelli about hiswork with the Dream House ibogaine addictiontreatment center. Definitely worth checking out.

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Some years ago a friend who had a Cannabis growoperation explained that the oven roasting bagsused for cooking turkeys were an indispensable toolfor transporting pot. These bags are much moreodor proof than standard zip-lock bags or garbagebags, and my friend claimed that double-bagging a kilo of buds in them went a long waytoward keeping suspicious smells at bay when



several kilos were locked up under a truck bed’scamper-shell on a long, warm day of moving thegoods. The bags should be equally useful whentransporting any other drugs, even small personalamounts, since no one wants to have a drug-sniff-ing dog “alert” on their belongings if they have thebad luck to come across such a beast. In particular,DMT and some tryptamine research chemicals, aswell as a few of the phenethylamines, can put offquite a stink. Odor-proof bags are something thatevery reader of The Entheogen Review should beaware of, and this fact occurred to me when an-other friend recently told me about an option nowavailable that is even better than oven roasting bags:bear bags.

Sold online by Watchful Eye Designs, their newbarrier bag O.P. SAK is a resealable element-proofstorage bag. It comes in several sizes, is transpar-ent, flexible, airtight, watertight, puncture resis-tant, and odor proof (they claim it is “100% odorproof”)—perfect for keeping the bears away whencamping, and the cops away when transportingCannabis and/or other illicit drugs. The O.P. SAK iscertified waterproof to 60 meters, it can withstandcold to -40 degrees F and heat to 165 degrees F,and it will only allow trace amounts of oxygentransmission. You can even pour boiling water intothe O.P. SAK to rehydrate or cook food.

Watchful Eye Designs also sells a product calledShieldsak, which protects against unauthorized RFID scanning of passports, credit cards, and mobilephones. In the likely future when surreptitiousscanning for RFID data becomes commonplace,the Shiedsak could be a valuable tool for those wish-ing to protect the privacy of their information.

Along with being available online from the website listed, the O.P. SAK can be purchased at yourlocal REI camping supply store.

Book Reviews

Sage Spirit: Salvia Divinorum and theEntheogenic Experience by Martin W.Ball. 2007. (Kyandara Publishing,www.lulu.com/content/939768)ISBN: 978-0-6151-5708-5 [6" 5 9",paperback, $14.95], ISBN: 978-0-6151-5708-4 [e-book, $10.00], 140pages.

Martin Ball’s Sage Spirit: Salvia Divinorum and theEntheogenic Experience is a milestone, both forshamanic and entheogenic circles. The book ex-plores the use of Salvia divinorum extracts in theauthor’s contemporary shamanic practices, andserves as a practical guide for creating one’s ownritual Salvia journeys.

Prevailing attitudes regarding Salvia extractsoften suggest that their effects are too bizarre anddiscomforting to be useful as sacramental tools.Undeterred by such nay-sayers, the author hascourageously and systematically established a newapproach for the modern shaman.

I first saw mention of Martin Ball in the pagesof Shaman’s Drum magazine. Ball originally studiedwith the Arapahoe and Apache tribes in NewMexico, as a student of native culture. Thoughneither tribe uses entheogens, Ball has been ableto draw upon this past experience and training,grounding his personal shamanistic approach witha knowledge of established ceremonial practices.

Much of the book is comprised of journal-styledescriptions of the author’s Salvia voyages: fromhis first experience at Burning Man, to the laterdevelopment of his ritual approaches. At varioustimes, Ball uses rattling, singing, didjeridoo, anddrumming to facilitate a workable shamanic space.His most intriguing results, however, come fromthe combination of a rattle and his own take onTuvan-style throat singing. His descriptions of theeffect of sonic variations while journeying arecompelling and beg further investigation.



Ball has also written some fantasy fiction over thepast few years that has clearly been inspired by hisentheogenic experiences. He incorporates a fewpassages from these writings to flesh out some ofhis ideas, and to draw analogies between the realmsof the mythic and the realms of altered mind states.This is a novel (pardon the pun) approach, and itworks pretty well, depending on your tolerance formystical fiction.

The book concludes with a short section provid-ing thoughtful guidelines on how to conduct aSalvia ceremony, mixing common sense advice withnot-always-apparent truisms (for example, justbecause someone has opened his eyes, doesn’t nec-essarily mean that he is “finished” with his experi-ence). Some good tips related to understanding thedynamics between participants and a group leaderare also described.

I really enjoyed this book, and extracted a numberof usable concepts from it. Ball’s last book, Mush-room Wisdom, was a little too “Metaphysics 101”(“You will notice patterns in everything”) for anentheo-geek like me. But he has definitely coveredpreviously unwritten ground in his discussion ofSalvia. This is a significant contribution, whichhelps flesh out Terence McKenna’s oft-repeatedurgings for us all to “map out hyperspace.” I ap-plaud the many authors who have braved the seasof the ineffable, sharing their personal insightsthrough the written word. Along with old schoolnames such as Tim Leary, Terence McKenna, andthe Shulgins, as well as the latest flavors like ZoeSeven, Daniel Pinchbeck, and Oroc, we can nowadd Martin Ball. With all the easy talk of entheo-genic shamanism this past decade or so, Ball stepsup to the plate and provides concrete examples andstructures to work with. — Castor Pollux

Peopled Darkness: Perceptual Trans-formation through Salvia divinorumby J.D. Arthur. 2008. (iUniverse,2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100,Lincoln, NE 68512, (800) 288-4677,www.iuniverse.com) ISBN: 978-0-595-45583-6 [5" 5 8", paperback,$11.95], ISBN: 978-0-595-89884-8[e-book, $6.00], 88 pages.

Cataloging one’s psychonautical experiences is along-standing tradition in Western writing—fromThomas de Quincey’s struggles with laudanumaddiction detailed in his 1822 biography Confes-sions of an English Opium-Eater and Fitz HughLudlow’s philosophical flights of fancy conveyedin his 1857 book The Hasheesh Eater, to HenriMichaux’s poetic 1956 grumblings about the Mis-erable Miracle of mescaline, which Aldous Huxleymore favorably characterized as a “gratuitous grace”a couple of years earlier in The Doors of Perception.There’s a laundry list of published authors tack-ling the topic in more recent years, and the adventof the web has inspired thousands to post trip re-ports online. Indeed, the easy access to computers,word processing software, and on-demand publish-ers means that anyone can sell their writing thesedays. (The previous book reviewed and this onewere both produced by web-based publishers, withthe e-book options, allowing instant access to vir-tual copies at a reduced price.) With his new bookPeopled Darkness: Perceptual Transformation throughSalvia divinorum, James D. Arthur has made athoughtful contribution to this legacy of literature.

I should point out from the get-go that this authoris not the same James Arthur known to some inthe entheomycological community for his poorlyreferenced speculations regarding Amanita musca-ria and Christianity. That James Arthur hunghimself in 2005 while in jail facing his latest roundof pedophilia charges. It would be unfortunate ifanyone got the two authors mixed up.

There are already a number of books that deal withSalvia divinorum in a general way, and there is avast amount of historical, botanical, chemical, andcultural data available online at Daniel Siebert’sSalvia divinorum Research and Information Center

�VOLUME XVII, NUMBER I VERNAL EQUINOX 2008


(sagewisdom.org). Hence, Arthur wisely chose tofocus Peopled Darkness entirely on his own first-person experiences with the plant, and the philo-sophical questions that those experiences raised.While many people try any given drug once ortwice, and can write up spectacular trip reports oreven hit the lecture circuit as “experts,” relatingriveting tales of their limited encounters, it is muchmore difficult to take the time to develop a long-term relationship with a single plant ally, likeArthur has done with Salvia divinorum. His firstfew experiences smoking the plant were chaoticand disorienting:

The visions…were meaningless, repulsive im-ages…. Cartoon characters, crooning trios fromthe ’40s, roller-skating carhops—all made theirappearance in a maddening swirl of nonsense.…I was being sucked into this cacophonous vortex,while trying desperately to hold onto my sanity.

In the face of such effects, it is admirable thatArthur stuck with his trials. But he comes to no-tice a few consistencies. Each trip seems somehowconnected to the previous one. He begins to feelthat the space that he is visiting has a level of psy-chological and physical “reality.” And he has a vaguebut increasing sense that this realm is populatedwith other consciousnesses.

Eventually Arthur visits other people during hisjourneys into the Salvia space. The environmentsto which he is transported seem both foreign andfamiliar. He starts to remember his own existencein this other realm, while at the same time he for-gets his existence in consensual reality. At pointshe even strongly feels that the Salvia world “is thereal world, not the contrived world of personality,ideas, and thoughts, that insulates us from the

infinite—that coddles us into clinging desperatelyto the known.” He senses that he is being taughtsomething about how to act while in that realm.Sometimes the people he meets seem a bit put offby the fact that he has arrived and they have todeal with him. Occasionally they are disturbed thathe is there at all, and a few times they make re-marks that lead him to believe that the space he isvisiting is populated by dead people. One youngwoman in the Salvia realm, who at first was laugh-ing and joking around, recoils on getting a closerlook at him, exclaiming, “You’re not dead!”

Using examples taken from his tripping journal,Arthur makes some intriguing comparisons be-tween Salvia space and dreaming consciousness. Hepresents ideas about the different sort of languagethat seems to be employed in Salvia space. And hecharacterizes particular sorts of somatic reactionsthat he has to the drug.

Arthur’s experience with Salvia divinorum is vast.He has a keen ability to describe the states of con-sciousness to which the plant allows access, andhis musings about the ontological challenges posedby such mind states are well considered while re-maining humble. Arthur is not telling anyone howit is, but rather he is questioning aloud how it mightbe, and proposing some challenging answers. Morethan any other entheogenic plant, Salvia divinorumseems to provide the greatest evidence that thereis more to the universe than meets the skepticaleye of our serotonin-soaked view of “reality.”

Despite its slim size, Arthur has written a compre-hensive treatment of the phenomenological effectsof Salvia divinorum. It is an insightful book, whichI highly recommend. — David Aardvark

www.palenquenorte.com

PODCASTS OF THE ENTHEOCOGNOSCENTI

A l b e r t H o f m a n n

January 11, 1906 — April 29, 2008



Bibliography

AREYOUBACKYET?

for details and ordering information see

www.zoe7.com

Argüelles, J.A. 1975. The Transformative Vision: Re-flections on the Nature and History of Human Expres-sion. Shambhala.

Aromatico, A. 2000. Alchemy: The Great Secret. HarryN. Abrams.

Griffiths, R.R., Richards, W.A., Johnson, M.W.,McCann, U.D., Jesse, R. 2006. “Psilocybin can oc-casion mystical-type experiences having substan-tial and sustained personal meaning and spiritualsignificance,” Psychopharmacology 187(3): 268–283.

Griffiths, R.R., Richards, W.A., Johnson, M.W.,McCann, U.D., Jesse, R. 2008. “Mystical-type expe-riences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attri-bution of personal meaning and spiritual signifi-cance 14 months later,” Journal of Psychopharma-cology 22(5): 1–12.

Jung, C.G. and A. Jaffé 1963. Memories, Dreams,Reflections (Erinnerungen Träume Gedanken). Pan-theon Books.

McKenna, T.K. 1993. “Mushrooms, Elves and Magic,with Terence McKenna,” in D.J. Brown and R.McClen Novick’s Mavericks of the Mind: Conversa-tions for the New Millennium. The Crossing Press.

McKenna, T.K. 1996. Light of the 3rd Millennium —Part Two, Chicago (Part One was at the Whole LifeExpo in Austin, TX). Audio recording of a lecture.

McLuhan, M. 1969. The Distant Early Warning.Card deck published as an adjunct to The MarshallMcLuhan DEW-Line Newsletter.

McLuhan, M. and B. Nevitt 1972. Take Today: TheExecutive as Dropout. Harcourt Brace Jovanovic.

McLuhan, M. and R.K. Logan 1977. “Alphabet,Mother of Invention,” Et Cetera 34: 373–383.

O’Callaghan, M. 1982. “A Conversation with Dr.John Weir Perry,” When The Dream Becomes Real:The Inner Apocalypse in Mythology, Madness and theFuture. Global Vision Corporation.

Oroc 2009 (forthcoming). Tryptamine Palace: A Per-sonal Journey Towards Understanding. Inner Tradi-tions. (Quote taken from a 2008 manuscript draft.)

Pinchbeck, D. 2006. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.Tarcher.

Turner, D.M. 1994. The Essential Psychedelic Guide.Panther Press.

ETHNOGARDEN BOTANICALSPOB 20059

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THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEWVolume XVI, Number 3 � Autumnal Equinox 2008 � ISSN 1066-1913

The Journal of Unauthorized Research on Visionary Plants and Drugs

CONTENTS

Where is God in the Entheogenic Movement? 73

Ann & Sasha Shulgin Speak…in Discussion with Earth and Fire Erowid, Part Two 79

“Jungle Spice” Mystery Alkaloid(s) of Mimosa Root-bark 87

Cactus Updates 109

Book Review 111

Events Calendar 112

Remembering Thomas Lyttle 113

Bibliography 114

Errata:Errata:Errata:Errata:Errata: In the previous two issues of The Entheogen Review, a mistake was madewithin the header information, and the issues were presented as Volume XVII (17),when they should have been presented as Volume XVI (16). (The correct volumenumber was, however, included on the front covers of those two issues.) We aresorry for the mistake.

Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer: Information presented in The Entheogen Review comes frommany different sources and represents the opinions and beliefs of a highly diversegroup of individuals. The Entheogen Review’s editors assume no responsibility forthe accuracy of any claims or representations presented in the text, illustrations, oradvertisements of this journal, nor do they encourage illegal activities of any type.Manufacture, possession, or sale of a controlled substance is a crime that can resultin a lengthy prison term and significant fines.

Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose: This journal is a clearinghouse for current dataabout the use of visionary plants and drugs. Think of it as a community of subscrib-ers seeking and sharing information on the cultivation, extraction, and ritual use ofentheogens. All communications are kept in strictest confidence—publishedmaterial is identified by the author’s initials and state of residence (pseudonym orname printed on request only). The mailing list (kept encrypted) is not for sale,rent, or loan to anyone for any reason.

Submissions:Submissions:Submissions:Submissions:Submissions: Your input is what keeps this journal alive. Don’t hesitate toshare your experiences, inspirations, and questions. Confidentiality respected;after transcription, all correspondence is shredded and recycled or incinerated.Although we may edit for brevity or clarity, keep those fascinating letters coming in!

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Back-issues:Back-issues:Back-issues:Back-issues:Back-issues: A limited supply of back-issues of The Entheogen Review areavailable. See www.entheogenreview.com for descriptions and prices.

Copyright © 2008 by The Entheogen Review. Nothing in this journal may be reproducedin any manner, either in whole or in part, without written permission of the editors.All rights reserved. All advertising and advertised products void where prohibited.

The Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen Review

The Journal of Unauthorized Researchon Visionary Plants and Drugs

Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor: David Aardvark

Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor: Keeper Trout

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ContributorsContributorsContributorsContributorsContributors

James OrocFire Erowid

Ann ShulginEarth ErowidSasha Shulgin

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Front CoverFront CoverFront CoverFront CoverFront Cover

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Mimosa hostilis in flower, Maui, HawaiiPhoto by dcopeland, © 2003 Erowid.org

�VOLUME XVI, NUMBER 3 AUTUMNAL EQUINOX 2008


Where is God

in the Entheogenic Movement?

by James Oroc

Ironically, I have discovered that the greatestproblem that this investigation presents is whatto do with my conclusions, now that this bookis nearing its natural end. For I have come torealize that I am writing about the most diffi-cult and controversial subject in the history ofhumankind: the existence of God, and our abil-ity as humans to be able to know or directlyexperience God.

As I have enthusiastically expounded myideas over the last few years to those close tome, I have come to realize that the whole con-cept makes a lot of people very uncomfortable,even hostile. The word “God” creates such im-mediate emotions, often negative, in this mod-ern age. I can remember back to my pre–5-MeO-DMT days how skeptical and derisive I wouldhave been, if I had been blindly presented withthe bulk of these ideas. “Direct experience is thehighest of all ways of gaining knowledge.” Sosaid Swami Rama, and I have to agree with him.Experience is the only path to understanding.Explanations just won’t do.

— James OrocTryptamine Palace:

5-MeO-DMT and the Bufo alvarius Toadforthcoming June 2009, Park Street Press

In recent years I have slowly but steadily re-immersed myself in what some might call “the en-theogenic movement.” Now, I’m not exactly surethat this is what it should be called; it’s a move-ment that doesn’t have an official name. Neverthe-less, I have noticed one curious thing common toall of the different facets—scientific, social, andeven spiritual—of this enigmatic movement. Youhear a lot of interesting facts and speculations aboutchemistry, cluster headaches, ayahuasca shamans,neurobiology, aliens, elves, and the impending Endof Time. But you hardly ever hear any mention ofthe word “God.”

This seems rather strange to me when consideringthat the word entheogen means “God generatedwithin.” So we have the word God used within thedefinition of the movement, but near silence aboutGod from within the movement itself. The reasonfor this seems obvious; as I noted in the quote thatstarts this essay, the word God can make peopleuncomfortable. It is one of the few words left thatstill has any power. But thanks to medieval Chris-tianity and modern science, it mostly has a nega-tive connotation amongst society’s intellectualcommunity. I believe this presents a problem forthe entheogenic movement, because it makes itharder to discuss (or even know) what it is thatthe movement is trying to achieve.

But I should back up a bit. I have spent a good partof the last four years writing Tryptamine Palace.Writing this book has largely been my reaction toan overwhelming spiritual epiphany that I had thefirst time I smoked 5-MeO-DMT. Despite being aconfirmed atheist at the time, during this voyage Icame to believe that I connected with a force that Ican only describe as the transcendental experienceof God. This was not the Christian God, of course,but rather the God perennial to mysticism: the voidthat is a plenum of conscious, omniscient love. Ican assure you I most definitely was not expectingsuch an encounter at the time.

Tryptamine Palace is the story of my quest for a firmerunderstanding of what it was that I experienced,and how I was able to experience it. During mysearch, I read a vast number of books on psyche-delics, Eastern religion, philosophy, and anythingelse that might help provide some clues. It waswithin the literature on quantum physics that Idiscovered the concept of an underlying energetic



scaffolding for the universe called the zero-pointfield. I traveled to Burning Man, to India, and evenwent to the Sonoran desert in search of Bufoalvarius. By the time I finished my book, I had man-aged to find a lot of answers that satisfied me, al-lowing me to believe that there is both a spiritualand a scientific explanation for God.

My spiritual epiphany on 5-MeO-DMT directed me back into theentheogenic movement. What Ihave found is that this movementparadoxically consists of a largenumber of people embracing as-sorted New Age philosophies inan attempt to explain their psy-choactive drug experiences, anda much smaller backbone of sci-entists, chemists, and pharma-cologists engaged in research thatis often counter-productive totheir mainstream careers. Whilethere are a smattering of ayahua-sca and peyote churches, as wellas the Council on Spiritual Prac-tices1 (which is dedicated to pro-moting the idea that direct expe-rience of the sacred can be ac-cessed through the use ofentheogens), such organizationsare rarities; they appear to me to be regarded al-most as “throw-backs” within an otherwise “mod-ern movement.” Even mysticism itself, comes off assome kind of dirty word, despite the fact that ourcurrent use of entheogens is clearly a continuationof this historically ancient philosophy.

These days, God is often dismissed as an antiquatedidea. Our inherited intellectual resistance to theword “God” is so great, that the closest some peoplewill come to addressing it is by calling themselvesagnostic. I am no more immune to these inheritedprejudices than anyone else. For example, at theWorld Psychedelic Forum in Basel, there were asmall number of priests and nuns in attendance.During the course of the week, I had the opportu-nity to speak to many of the people there, but Ididn’t bring myself to approach this singulargroup—a fact that I now greatly regret, for I am

sure that I would have been interested in theirpoints of view. But the intellectual and moral aver-sion I have for the Christian Church is so over-powering, that it kept me at arm’s length from theseindividuals, despite the fact that we were presum-ably there as a result of the same phenomena: ourdirect experiences of God.

Thus, I have come to realize thatthe face of our entheogenic com-munity is not so different fromthat of mainstream society; thechoice appears to lie betweenconventional science (the cult ofreductionist materialism) and asteep dive into unproven NewAge philosophies. We seem tohave become more interested inhow many psychoactive drugs canbe invented or experienced, thanwe are in defining which onescan truly be characterized asentheogens. I hear a lot of com-pounds being called “entheogens”that I personally feel don’t war-rant such a classification. By mydefinition, an entheogen shouldbe able to produce the mysticalresult of a transcendental union-with-God. (This is not merely

feeling “close to God,” or having a heightened ap-preciation of one’s humanity or of the natural en-vironment.) If a compound can’t do that, then it’snot a true entheogen. And the more often it is ableto allow this transcendence, the more powerful anentheogen it is. The problem with this point of viewis the simple fact that not many compounds canconsistently produce such a result, and none areguaranteed to do so.

But a lot of people are still interested in “psyche-delic” drugs, so perhaps we should admit that the“entheogenic movement” is actually only a splin-ter group of the “psychedelic movement.” One likelyreason that “entheogen” has been so widely adoptedby proponents of such drugs is the fact that itthrows a cloak of obscurity over the taboo topic ofpsychedelics: enthusiasts may not be as interestedin finding God as they are in staying out of jail.

Even mysticismitself, comes off assome kind of dirtyword, despite the

fact that our currentuse of entheogens

is clearly acontinuation of thishistorically ancient

philosophy.



Furthermore, once the term is understood bymainstreamers, it can add an air of respectabilityto the dialog. Images of freaked-out 1960s youthare less likely to spring to mind, when the discus-sion appears to focus on community-based spiri-tual groups making positive changes in the world.Mainstream respectability is clearly a goal for somepeople in the movement, who put a great deal ofeffort into obtaining government approval for theiractivities. Yet within such a matrix, science stilltrumps spirituality. For example, in 2008 I was toldthat the Multidisciplinary Association for Psyche-delic Studies would only allow lecturers to speakon topics related to scientific studies about psy-choactive compounds in its dome at Burning Man.No mystics allowed. Apparently mystics can knowonly about God, but nothing about science. MaybeEntheon Village, where the MAPS camp is based,should consider changing its name! Burning Manas a whole isn’t much better. We build a temple inthe middle of the playa each year, but if you searchthe hundreds of thousands of words on the Burn-ing Man web site, you’ll find scant appearance ofthe word “God.” (Although there are various reli-gious groups represented at Burning Man, theylargely keep to themselves.) So it seems that evenat Burning Man, which many participants wouldargue is one of the most open-minded places inthe world, you can’t talk about God without freak-ing people out. What is going on here?

I don’t believe this has always been the case in theentheogenic movement, but I think one has to goback to a time when they were all called “psyche-delics” for this to be true. Aldous Huxley had nofear of discussing the transcendental experience ofGod even before he discovered mescaline and LSD,because that’s what he was looking for; his lastbook, Island, wholeheartedly embraces the spiritualuse of entheogens. Albert Hofmann mentions hisrelationship with God in his book LSD: My Prob-lem Child, and he presents his scientific argumentfor God’s existence more directly in his bookInsight Outlook. R. Gordon Wasson, Huston Smith,Alan Watts, and other old-school authors in thefield had no aversion to eloquently expounding onthe meat of the matter: the transcendent union-with-God.

Perhaps it’s a generational thing. The psychedelicauthors that followed these elder statesmen havelargely avoided any direct mention of God. Self-transforming machine elves, alien abductions, plantteachers, the Mayan calendar, even the absurd ideathat smoking DMT is somehow going to bringabout a fundamental change in the nature of real-ity—such concepts are fair game; but avoid talk-ing about God, because you end up sounding odd,old fashioned, and will generally weird people out.This situation results in the paradox of one of theforemost champions of the word “entheogen,”Jonathan Ott, stating in an interview for The En-theogen Review that he has no belief nor disbeliefin God. Or Sasha Shulgin describing himself in aninterview as “agnostic,” despite the following state-ment that kicks off the book PIHKAL:

I deem myself blessed, in that I have experi-enced, however briefly, the existence of God.I have felt a sacred oneness with creation andits Creator, and—most precious of all—I havetouched the core of my own soul.

Even the Peyote Way Church, a devout state-sanctioned religious group in Arizona since 1978,recently removed the “of God” that appended theirchurch’s name, in order to make agnostics and athe-ists also feel welcome (Hanna 2008). If nothingelse, such situations illustrate the strange contra-dictions that can pop up, when one chooseswhether or not to use the word “God.”

Contemporary conventional scientists have thesame issues. Albert Einstein, Sir Arthur Eddington,Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg all had theirmystical sides, but discussion about the nature ofGod among scientists virtually stopped after WorldWar II. Maybe it was due to the unholy slaughterof the two “great” wars only about twenty yearsapart, and the sustained genocides by Stalin andHitler. Or maybe it was due to the fact that theUnited States unleashed the forces of hell into theworld at Hiroshima and Nagasaki—acts of terrify-ing aggression (made possible through scientific“advances”) that our society has never really pro-cessed. I think there can be no doubt that thosetragedies severely affected our confidence in God—for if there was a God, why would it allow such



things? As the next generation grew up knowingthat they were just one itchy trigger finger awayfrom annihilation, science became the more pow-erful concept. In a post-WWII society, the twin tow-ers of Science and Industry were whole-heartedlyaccepted as substitutes for Religion.

But ironically, that same science was responsiblefor reintroducing experiential spirituality back intothe Western world, since with the invention of LSD,millions of people could now have direct knowl-edge of transcendent states. When just a few yearslater humanity saw the first photographs of theearth floating in space, the realization began tosolidify that we are all indeed one. Issues likehuman rights, sexual equality, ecology, and worldpeace dominated a generation. But our own spiri-tuality was too damaged—fraught with propa-ganda and contradiction—to be of much use to us.After John Lennon pointed out that the Beatleswere more popular than God, they went off to In-dia and sat at the Maharishi’s feet. Our new soci-ety invested itself in a thousand different philoso-phies, turning its back not only on mainstream re-ligion, but also, to a degree, on mainstream science.A New Age dawned: one where the channeledmissives from Pleiades became as credible to somepeople (and were received with more interest) asthe results from the Hubble telescope.

Mainstream science and the entheogenic move-ment both ended up suffering the same predica-ment: they no longer have much room left in theirranks for a discussion of God. Existentialism hascome to reign so supreme, that some in our ownentheogenic movement will explain away transcen-dent union-with-God experiences as a “by-prod-uct of consciousness.” And science tells us that con-sciousness is just “a by-product of matter.” So it goes.We break the sacred compounds down, looking atmolecules and receptor sites in search of an an-swer based on the “scientific” belief that the physi-cal nature of the compounds causes their entheo-genic effects. Most scientists give little attentionto the possibility that entheogens, rather than pro-ducing particular states of consciousness, may in-stead operate by allowing us to access a broaderband of consciousness. (And virtually no scientistsare willing to discuss the possibility that they can

allow us to access God.)2 It’s no wonder that peopletoday are more interested in MDMA than 5-MeO-DMT—they just want to get high so they can es-cape their random, pointless lives. There seem tobe very few people willing to go out on a limbwithin the entheogenic movement to tell anyonethat they can find God.

I belong to a group of scientists who do not sub-scribe to a conventional religion but neverthe-less deny that the universe is a purposeless ac-cident. Through my scientific work I have cometo believe more and more strongly that thephysical universe is put together with an inge-nuity so astonishing that I cannot accept itmerely as a brute fact. There must, it seems tome, be a deeper level of explanation. Further-more, I have come to the point of view thatmind—i.e., conscious awareness of the world—is not a meaningless and incidental quirk ofnature, but an absolutely fundamental facet ofreality.

— Paul DaviesThe Mind of God: The Scientific Basis

for a Rational World (1992)

Yet this position is beginning to change in themainstream sciences. It is changing because we areundergoing a massive paradigm shift in our knowl-edge of the universe. And the cause of this para-digm shift is exactly where mainstream science andthe entheogenic community meet. It is changing,because the new scientific paradigm that will cometo dominate the direction of knowledge in thetwenty-first century is one that no longer recog-nizes the primacy of matter as the stuff of our real-ity. Rather, it recognizes that consciousness and in-formation are the precursors of existence. Or as theastrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote in The Myste-rious Universe “the universe begins to look more likea great thought than like a great machine.”

This revelation is not news to the mystics, for thishas been a perennial intuition in mysticism sincethe beginning of language. And the primacy ofconsciousness clearly lies at the heart of theentheogenic movement. But there is no doubt thatthis is a revolutionary transformation of scientificbelief, as it opens up some obvious spiritualpossibilities: for if consciousness is primary, then



human consciousness is not its only form. Someform of consciousness must have been around sincethe beginning of time, long before we arrived onthe scene. So perhaps our consciousness is simplya limited form of that consciousness, after all.

There are a host of other factorsin this scientific reappraisal ofthe possibility of God (or someform of higher consciousness):the zero-point field, the specula-tion that we occupy a flat uni-verse, the increasing awarenessof universal constants, the under-standing of how finely tuned forthe creation of life our universereally is—discoveries like theseare challenging reductionist ma-terialism,4 and there are toomany to detail here. Science isincreasingly at war with itself,as the old guard of the old para-digm dig in their heels and tryto shield themselves from an ava-lanche of data that is provingthem wrong, just as those whobelieved that the Sun revolvedaround the Earth came up withincreasingly complicated at-tempts to explain away the datathat confirmed Copernicus’shypothesis.

This fact is neatly demonstrated by the recent pub-lication of a couple of books by two scientists whooffer radically different points of view. In 2006,noted biologist Richard Dawkins released his bookThe God Delusion. The same year, respected astro-physicist Bernard Haisch took the polar oppositeapproach in his book The God Theory: Universes,Zero-Point Fields, and What’s Behind It All. Dawkins’book has been by far the more popular, with world-wide reviews and over a million copies sold.Haisch’s book received much less fanfare. But if youcompare the two, you quickly realize that Dawkins’book is full of tepid ideas, surprisingly little hardscience (other than extrapolated Darwinism), anda tone that is brimming with righteous anger. Incontrast, Haisch’s book quietly and soberly takes

the mind on a journey through some amazing newscientific discoveries and important transcenden-tal concepts.

I find it interesting that this shift in the mainstreamsciences seems to be coming at about the same time

as I have been witnessing a shiftwithin the entheogenic commu-nity. People I have met clearlywelcome the return of experien-tial spirituality to their lives, butthey want to be able to believe inthe validity of it, and science cur-rently forms the foundation formuch of our belief system. Nev-ertheless, a number of people arebeginning to have faith-basedtransformations of their lives dueto their experiences with entheo-gens like 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, andayahuasca. These experiences areso powerful, that the people whohave them no longer fear the so-cial stigma of talking about theirpersonal relationship with a tran-scendental God. These experi-ences are so real, that those whohave them are willing to take thepromotion of divinity back intotheir own hands. I know, becauseI am one such person, and I havebeen meeting more and more ofus as I travel the globe.

The driving force behind this transformation isdescribed within the concept of “liberation theol-ogy,” which explains that a true faith-based spiri-tual epiphany creates a social and political trans-formation in an individual that cannot be ignored.This transformation creates a contemplative activist;Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa,Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama are all ex-amples of contemplative activists. These contem-plative activists have been “some of the most effec-tive agents for encouraging the liberation of indi-viduals and systems in all of human history,”(Cairns 2001) since in liberation theology, “[t]hereis not first the mystical and then the political….The political is of the substance of the mystical.”

Nevertheless,a number

of people arebeginning to have

faith-basedtransformations oftheir lives due totheir experienceswith entheogenslike 5-MeO-DMT,

DMT, andayahuasca.



(Lee and Cowan 1986, in Cairns 2001). By experi-encing the full reality of God, these individuals havefound the inner strength to set about changing theworld.

So perhaps there is still hope for our society to re-discover God. As science turns toward an under-standing of the primacy of consciousness, I thinkthere is one area where both society and sciencecan agree: the use of entheogens is a very effectivetool for both exploring consciousness and for re-appraising mystical states. The realization of Godbased on a scientific understanding of “how-this-could-be-possible” would be a radical transforma-tion of our own understanding, and it could pro-duce enough contemplative activists to bring aboutthe massive societal shift in awareness that human-ity may need to survive the twenty-first century.But to do this we must confront our own preju-dices about the word “God,” and we must rescue itfrom the tyrannies of its recent history. If there isone group in our modern society that should be ableto embrace a new concept of God, it is those withinthe entheogenic movement. It is high time for usto open up both our hearts and our minds, to letGod back in. �

1. The Council on Spiritual Practices published two ofmy favorite books on this topic: Entheogens and theFuture of Religion and Psychoactive Sacramentals. The CSPwas also one of the sponsors of the John Hopkinspsilocybin study, which provided scientific evidencethat psilocybin can produce complete mystical experi-ences that can have profoundly positive life-changingeffects.

2. Rick Strassman is somewhat of an exception on thiscount, in that he has suggested that it may be the pro-cess of DMT being released by the pineal gland thatallows the human soul to enter and leave the body(Strassman 2001); however, this does not relate directlyto God—it only relates to the idea of a soul.

3. Stanislav Grof’s work is the main exception to this,though his revelations are often cloaked in heavypsychiatric jargon. Alex Grey also champions this idea,but because he is an artist, scientists may be inclinedto explain away his views as artistic metaphor.

4. Reductionist materialism is the belief that things canbe broken down into smaller and smaller parts to ex-plain how they operate, and that matter forms the basisof reality.

JOIN EROWIDand receive a copy of the 24" x 36"

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Sasha Shulgin’s lab, exclusively avail-

able as a membership gift. Tendrils

of ivy frame the lab’s window to the

left, counter-posed on the right with

the laboratory door ajar to its al-

chemical interior. The pair of photos,

taken by Michael Rauner, evokes the

balance between the plant world

and the world of chemistry.FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE

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Ann & Sasha Shulgin Speak…

in discussion with Earth and Fire Erowid, part two

Adapted from an interview recorded at Mind States Costa Rica, June 15, 2007

Fire: Have you ever done a sweat lodge?

Ann: No, I’d love that.

Earth: You people are from Northern California,right?

Ann: (laughs) Have you done that?

Fire: We’ve done two sweat lodges.

Ann: How is it different from an ordinary peyoteexperience?

Earth: Well, without the peyote. We did just thesweat lodge, with the heat, and the unpleasantness,and the singing… (laughter)

Sasha: You can probably use your imagination forthe rest of it.

Fire: It’s an endurance ceremony. There’s a prac-tice of sitting with the heat…

Earth: It’s really, really hot.

Fire: It’s very interesting.

Earth: And they don’t let you leave. Theoreticallyyou could leave, but you’d be a big wimp.

Fire: (laughs) It’s peer pressure.

Earth: Yeah, I think that it is a lot of peer pressure.Sweating, like in a sauna, but for two hours…

Fire: …three hours.

Earth: It felt like forever.

Ann: But what does it do to you?



I remember adidgeridoo perfor-mance in Jamaica,where I really hadmy consciousness

altered, justlistening to that.

Earth: You sweat.

Fire: It’s a bit of a meditation. In the way thatsitting for three hours anywhere, not reading orentertaining yourself in some other way is a bitof a meditation. Then add in changing physicalcircumstances.

Ann: How do you feel when youcome out?

Earth: Very soft. Like jelly orsomething, poured into… what-ever I was. For four or five hours,until I went to sleep that nightafter my sweat lodge experi-ences—I felt like I was onMDMA.

Ann: Really?

Earth: I felt love for the world.I felt so good. “Everyone’s sogreat!” It was very pleasant, ex-cept that the experience was notpleasant. However, it was morethan just the feeling of being glad to be done withsomething unpleasant, definitely. I felt cleansed,and moved, and tired, and…

Fire: …connected to the people who had been partof the ceremony.

Ann: Wow!

Earth: The ceremonies that we took part in, whichwere both led by the same person, included con-tent that was part of his tradition. There was oftensinging, and the person led chanting. Fairly innocu-ous Native American stuff.

Ann: Was it rhythmical?

Earth: Very rhythmic.

Ann: Was there any drumming?

Fire: I can’t actually remember.

Earth: There was a beat. It might have just beenclapping, but there may have been a drum. It hasbeen a while.

Ann: I remember a didgeridoo performance in Ja-maica, where I really had my consciousness altered,just listening to that. Do you think that the rhythmis the reason that you have the alteration?

Fire: I think that it is a combina-tion. The ceremony itself, thefocus, and the physical conditionsare clearly playing into it, thechanting…

Earth: It felt like entering into awaking dream state. In a lot ofways I think of visionary sub-stances as catalyzing wakingdream states—a kind of soften-ing or breaking of the veil be-tween consciousness and thesubconscious in some ways.

Ann: Yeah, okay, right. A little bitof a sort of telepathic feeling?

Earth: It definitely felt as though the group hadmerged in some way. Like I was aware of the peoplearound me, yet it was dark—totally dark.

Ann: Which gives you a good clue that you don’tneed drugs to get into that sort of a state. One dayI met a lady standing in line to get tickets for some-thing. She had just come back from the Peace Corps.We got into a discussion—it was a long, slow line—about different cultures. I remarked, just casually,that every culture in the world seemed to have aplant that could be used for alteration of conscious-ness. She had been, I think, in Kenya—whereverthe Watusi live. So I asked, “What do they use?”She said that it’s pretty well desert and there’s noplant. But if you’ve seen them in documentaries,they are tall and thin, and they leap up and down,and the hair on their headdresses sort of swirlsaround—and she said that’s the way that they gointo an altered state. I said, “Oh my God.”

Fire: That sounds like a lot of work.



Ann: But that’s the way that they do it. If youhaven’t got a plant, you use what you’ve got. It wasvery interesting.

Earth: There are definitely quite a lot of traditionaldances that intentionally create an altered statethrough physical duress, exhaustion…

Ann: Yes.

Fire: Are there any classic visionary states of con-sciousness that you haven’t ever had, which youwish that you had had? Out-of-body experiences,or…

Earth: …entity encounters, auditory hallucina-tions…

Sasha: People often say, you should have tried this,you should have tried that. But my main interest isnot in exploiting a drug and getting all of the pos-sible effects out of it; rather, it is keeping my liverin reasonably good shape and making new drugs.That’s my main contribution: new things.

Earth: How is your liver, by the way? Have youhad it tested?

Sasha: It’s in good shape.

Ann: It’s a Zinfandel color.

Sasha: That’s why I stick to inexpensive Zinfandels.Actually, what’s that thing with the five-letter lastname that I get the Burgundy of? Carlo Rossi. Mar-velous stuff. I’ve been following that now for sev-eral years. Four liters used to cost you $12.99. Fourliters is now $7.99. Gas prices are going up per gal-lon, wine prices are coming down, and I am kindof interested to see…

Fire: Wine-powered vehicles?

Sasha: No, what do you call this thing—2012—the Armageddon day, Timewave, whatever it is. Theprice of gasoline and wine may become the same.

Earth: The heralding of the Apocalypse.

Sasha: There’s only a couple of things wrong withthe Carlo Rossi $7.99 per four-liter thing. That’sless than $2.00 a liter, which is okay. The thing is,if you get the Cabernet, or you get the Merlot, orsomething, it’s yuck. But if you get just the plainBurgundy, which doesn’t mean much other thanthe fact that it is red, then it is rather okay. I had anice experience at the Bohemian Grove a coupleor three years ago. A very good wine expert cameout with some $30 or $50 bottles of wine to havethem tasted and compared, and I just happened tohave a little bit of the Carlo Rossi $7.99 per four-liter thing there. While he was preparing some-thing else, but he had one sample ready to go, Iswitched glasses with him. He came back to trythis, and made a comment. His face went into astrange place, and with a hint of curiosity he said,“This particular bottle has a slightly different bou-quet than the one I am familiar with.” Then hegave quite a complimentary series of comments,and I decided not to tell him that I had switchedwines, as a courtesy. But the other disadvantage ofthe Carlo Rossi is that, usually when you buy acase of wine, you get 10% off. A case of four-literbottles is four bottles, and you don’t get 10% off.So you lose a little bit there.

Fire: Back to any other types of effects that youhaven’t had…

Earth: Alien/entity encounters? Have you evermet a DMT elf? One of Terence’s friends?

Sasha: DMT is not a warm thing to me. I’ve tried itabout half-a-dozen times. I find myself lying backin bed, completely stoned, completely in a strangeplace, asking myself, “Why am I doing this?” I mean,it is a ridiculous statement, but I don’t get positivefeedback, as many people do. I just don’t get that,and I have not explored it any more since.

Fire: I assume that you get visuals.

Sasha: Oh yes. But so what? They’re not excitingvisuals. They’re not interesting. They’re just there.I would rather use my energies and time on newthings.



As soon as he hasfinished the book heis working on now,we are going to puthim in the lab and

lock the door.

Fire: Is there a particular material that you feel hasthe most interesting visuals?

Sasha: What are the visual situations with theflies? How many people have experience with 2C-B-fly, for example?

Ann: None?

Fire: Nobody raised a hand.

Sasha: This is a series of com-pounds that were worked out inPurdue by David Nichols’ group.How many people have evenheard of flies? Okay, quite a few.They have flies, which are tworings, one up, one down, on ei-ther side of the benzene ringwith a bromine down here and atwo-carbon chain up there. Thenthere are what I call the pseudo-flies and the semi-flies. So youhave semi-flies, pseudo-flies,flies, and dragon-flies. They areall simple compounds with a little ring plasteredonto the side, looking like the wing of a fly. An-other with a ring plastered on the side here and onthe other side, but they are plastered at eight-o’clockand at four-o’clock, so they are opposite one-an-other, and those are the pseudo-flies. You have onewith the ring plastered here and here, so they areopposite one another, so they are the regular flies.And if they are made aromatic by taking out acouple of hydrogen bonds, you call them dragon-flies. The ones that were most explored by Nicholsat Purdue are the flies and dragon-flies. They aremore active than the bare 2C-B itself. 2C-B-fly isabout twice the potency of 2C-B, perhaps of com-parable duration in time, and the erotic is everybit the same—even better. But the dragon-flies havenot been talked about much. They are apparentlyquite a bit more potent. The potency is less than amilligram—you are down in the multi-microgramlevels. So this is a weird little simple molecularstructure that has the potential for a great deal ofexploratory research. I can see putting a trifluro-methyl group in the four position, putting a nitrogroup in the four position, all kinds of neat things

in the four position, and all of the compoundswould probably be comparably active, and new, andas dragon-flies could very well be active in themicrogram level. It’s a whole area to be exploredthat has not even been touched—I love it!

Ann: As soon as he has finished the book he isworking on now, we are going to put him in thelab and lock the door.

Sasha: They’ll bring over foodtwice a day… I think. Of course,if I am experimenting with newthings, I don’t need food, do I?

Earth: Leg irons. He’s a trickyone. Locking the door might notbe enough.

Ann: Two or three months in thelab, I think it’s about time. A lotof stuff needs to be worked on.By the way, I would like to makea request of anybody who wouldreally like to be of tremendous

help to Sasha—and especially people who knowhow to get onto Internet medical sites. I think thatthe only real hope—and I think that it is a realhope for the macular degeneration that he is suf-fering from, which is what they call the “dry” type,for which there is no present medical help—is stemcell research. I think that stem cell research is go-ing to be the answer. I know that it is starting witheyes, because there is some sort of retinal work that,at least in animals, has been successful. If you findor hear of any research involving eyes and stemcells, please let us know, so that we can see if wecan sign up for it. Otherwise, this is a very annoy-ing thing to have happen.

Sasha: It is so maddening not to be able to hit letters onthe typewriter—to miss them by about two inches.

Ann: It’s not good for lab work.

Fire: Two inches, here or there, how important canthat be, really? (laughs) Switching gears a bit, arethere any decisions that you have made aboutpsychoactives in the past, that in retrospect, you



thought were very bad decisions that you regret-ted making, which you think that other peoplecould learn from? So not just, “I shouldn’t have triedthat 4-acetoxy-MJP-something” that no one elsewould ever try. Are there ways of using psychoactivesthat you have learned are better or worse?

Sasha: I have to kind of skirt around the questiona little bit, because I don’t really look for ways touse psychoactives. My dream is still creating newones, and letting others work out the combinationsand the set-up. The one thing that I have done isput a lot of the ideas where I have made two orthree things here, and I would love to make twelvemore around the outer edge there, and I have notdone it—because there are other things that I wantto do also. But in writing up the commentaries forthe books, I often tell what I have done and whereI would have gone if I had had the time. And otherpeople have exploited that nicely. For example, thewhole 2,4,5-world, I’m pretty convinced is paral-leled by a 2,4,6-world. Of the ones I’ve explored,some were potent, some less potent, but all inter-esting. There’s been dozens in the 2,4,5-world, butmaybe only a half-a-dozen in the 2,4,6-world. Ithink that whole area could be explored very richly,and there are a lot of things to be found out there.This is the value of the commentaries in the lastpart of the second half of the books.

Fire: So you are aware of a few substances that otherpeople have made because of commentaries inPIHKAL or TIHKAL. How many would you say thatthere have been?

Sasha: Well, there have been a lot of them. For ex-ample the whole 2C-T world. I took it up to 2C-T-22 or -23. It’s now been taken, in Europe and onthe East Coast, up into the 30s. People just keptgoing up, adding different marvelous groups on thesulfur and giving these creations the next num-bers. But this is your territory. You probably have alot of the 2C-Ts up on your web site, don’t you?

Fire: Yes, but nothing in the 30s.

Sasha: They exist out there. If folks want their nameattached, that can be done. But if they don’t want theirname attached, it could be posted anonymously.

Fire: Certainly.

Sasha: But the information should be up there.

Fire: Although there is hesitation on the part ofsome people to want things published if they arenot yet illegal, if those people are intending tomarket them.

Sasha: That’s right.

Earth: Do you have any hard lessons that you havelearned, Ann?

Ann: The more I hear about people experiment-ing, the more I believe in “sitters.” Having a sitteris very, very important. There’s so many people whohave taken a lot of drugs, and they feel that theycan handle anything. But you don’t know whatmight be around the corner. Anything might beunexpectedly rough, or worse than unexpectedlyrough. Like the ayahuasca experience I had. It’s re-ally funny looking back. You go to a special placewhere they do ayahuasca, you have an evening ex-perience, then you sleep, and then you have anexperience in the daytime. I think that’s usuallythe way it goes. Sasha and I had a perfectly niceexperience the first and second time. I think wedecided it was not going to be the greatest thing inthe world for us, but it was pleasant enough. Sixmonths later, we did not hesitate when we wereinvited to come and do it again. We knew thepeople conducting the ceremony—they wereamong our best friends. We knew a lot of the peoplewho were in the group. It was a small group. Andthe second time, with the same people conductingthe ceremony, just the sound of the dry palm leavesrattling was the most amazing experience—sort ofholophonic. But the second time, we were verycautious about the level we took, because we tendto be very cautious anyway—even if we’ve takensomething before. So we took a low amount. I thinkit was the same as we had taken before. We werenot going to go higher. And this time, I had to trynot to get run over by a fast-moving train. It wasall lights and noise and it was coming at me. Thiswas the first time in a long time that I began to bescared. I think of myself as pretty experienced. Butholding on for dear life, trying to not get run over,



was not a very pleasant thing to go through. I didn’thave any of the vomiting, or diarrhea, for that mat-ter. That was perfectly fine. But the train justwouldn’t stop. Then a voice came into my head andsaid, “Don’t come here again.” And I thought, “Oh,I can see why you might suggest that.” (laughter)Sasha was having an equally bad time, but with acompletely different kind of visuals, and he men-tioned a little bit of that. We both agreed that wasnot pleasant to go through. But we were withfriends, and we decided the next day, when every-one was having their daytime experiences, that wewould take a teeny little tiny bit—less than half ofwhat we had taken the night before—so that wecould at least participate with the group. And herecame the train again. It was just as nasty, and I wasjust as occupied with trying to stay alive.

Earth: Maybe you should have listened to thevoice? (laughter)

Ann: Wait a minute. The only difference is that itwas a shorter duration. Sasha was having, I think,an equally bad time. So the voice came back, and itasked, “Didn’t you hear me the first time!?” I havenot taken ayahuasca since, and I am not going to.

So I think you have to be careful. There are somepsychedelic drugs that are not your ally. It’s yourown chemistry. 2C-B-fly, to me, is one of the great-est things that has ever happened in the psyche-delic world. But I do not know a single other per-son who has had the same results that I have had.So I have stopped explaining why it’s the greatestdrug in the world, because I think I may be one ofthe only people who has that reaction to it.

Fire: Because of something in your brain.

Ann: You just can not forget that drugs are differ-ent in everybody, with the possible exception ofMDMA.

Sasha: We had a somewhat similar “negative insome people” thing with the Pachycereus pringlii. Wegot a sample from Baha, California. The extract ofthe cactus had been put into four containers. Therewere twelve of us at the experiment. By threes, wetook the contents of each container. All of the

people who had the contents of the second andthe third container had to go downstairs becausethey were violently ill. Fortunately only one ofthem had diarrhea, and he locked himself into thebathroom. Each of us had different medical prob-lems. The other six people had marvelous experi-ences. It all came from the same cooking of the samecactus. So we decided that maybe something hadgotten into those two containers, that was not inthe other two. I took a sample from residues in eachof the good and the bad containers, to run massspecs on them. One of the people there was a bio-chemist—a bacteriologist—and he took samples torun bacterial growths, to see if something wasgrowing in one of them and not in the other. Weboth came up with blanks. No explanation at all.I’ve looked at the contents of the Pachycereus pringlii,and there’s no trace of mescaline in there at all.But there are a lot of isoquinolines, and there are alot of interesting small and not-active phenethy-lamines. So I’m pretty convinced that—I’ll call itcactuhuasca maybe—the isoquinolines inhibit thedestruction of the phenethylamines that are oth-erwise not active, and that the cactus is active butnone of its individual components are. So that’sstill being explored.

Ann: That brings up another cautionary thought.Wherever you are taking a drug, whether you havetaken it before or not, make sure that there is adoctor on call—somebody who knows about psy-chedelics and who can come over pretty fast. Andmake sure there is some kind of sedative on hand.For instance with this cactus thing, I had an ex-tremely rapid heartbeat, which was a little scary,and it happened to be in a house where there wereno sedatives I could use. There was a Chinese herb,which didn’t do that much. You need somethingthat can smooth down the body if it is overreact-ing. You need something for the stomach, in caseyou have unexpected cramps or nausea. Be sure thatthere are the basic remedies available. It doesn’tmatter if it is the most familiar material to you ornot. Because sometimes things happen that youdon’t expect.

Fire: Agreed. When you said “having a sitter,” oneof the things that occurred to me is that it is sur-prisingly difficult to describe—obviously not to the



people who are here, but to the eighteen-year-oldswho make up a not insignificant portion of thepeople who visit Erowid, for example—that it isworth their while to have somebody not be trip-ping. How do you describe to them that having asitter is useful enough that somebody should bemissing out on the fun? It’s tough. It’s like a desig-nated driver, which is also difficult to adequatelyconvey the importance of to eighteen-year-olds.

Ann: If not, then natural selection comes in again.You don’t want it to be your kid who is selectedout.

Earth: Here’s a thought experiment for Sasha…

Fire: …given two piles of 2C-B. Let’s just imaginethis in a world where it was legal, although thatdoesn’t matter for the question. One pile you made,and one pile was commercially produced by a labsomewhere. They have been tested and identifiedas both being pure 2C-B. Do you have a connec-tion to the one that you synthesized? Do you feelsome sort of bond, an emotional connection…

Earth: …a preference?

Ann: A fatherly glow?

Sasha: Well, I know how I assayed its purity andits identity.

Fire: Let’s say that you assayed the purity of bothof them, but one of them was the one that youmade. Is a pure chemical a pure chemical, and youdon’t care at all?

Sasha: It definitely would not matter. I can not seewhere it would matter if it went through my crite-ria of identity and purity. They would be inter-changeable.

Earth: And for you Ann? If you had two piles of2C-B, one that had been produced by Sasha, andone that had been produced by Sigma. Sasha veri-fied that they were both identical. Do you have afeeling about that?

Ann: I know there are a lot of people who havetaken MDMA that they thought was made by Sashaand not by someone else, and they felt that it hadan extra something-or-other. I think out of polite-ness, I might take the Sasha-made one.

Fire: You don’t want to make him feel bad.

Ann: Well, I mean, you know… loyalty. (laughs)But I wouldn’t worry about there being any realdifference. Except I don’t put down people who’dthink that there is a difference. Because there issomething in the spirit of the person—Sasha wouldnever say this—who makes something, and someof that spirit does, perhaps, go into the materialthat emerges. In a lab, the people who make mate-rials very often don’t care—it’s just part of theirjob. And you could argue that maybe there is some-thing that is missing from that, which is presentin the other.

Sasha: This answer has absolutely no scientificmerit whatsoever, but it’s believable. (laughs)

Earth: It sounds like the two of you have a littledifference there.

Ann: Oh yeah, sure.

Sasha: Not serious.

Ann: Well, I don’t know… (laughter) We manageto tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies.

Earth: Are there visionary artists, or particularpsychedelic artists, whom you like?

Ann: Mati Klarwein is my favorite. He died a fewyears ago, and he is amazing. There’s a little bookcalled Inscapes: Real-Estate Paintings. He paintsbushes, and rocks. In one bush you can see theBuddha face emerging. I stare at one of those paint-ings, and I go into what we call a “plus-two.” It’sjust extraordinary. Looking at the Klarwein paint-ings is an inexpensive way of turning on. That’smy feeling about it. What about you?

Sasha: Very much so, but also I’d mention MartinaHoffmann.



Ann: Martina Hoffmann, and Robert Venosa. Ter-rific work. But also the art of Van Gogh—take alook at his paintings and you will see the psyche-delic experience without question.

Sasha: As he got older in age, they became quitedifferent.

Ann: Yeah. The trouble is, it was an agonizing ex-perience for him. But his consciousness was defi-nitely… he was seeing the energy in trees. Hecouldn’t have painted them that way if he hadn’tseen them, or felt their life energy. And there aresome other artists who were living during our time.Morris Graves, who did strange birds and strangetrees. I remember the title of one of his paintingsis Little-Known Bird of the Inner Eye. He was a prettyturned-on artist, too.

Earth: If you could pick one currently Schedule Idrug to make legal, where would you start?

Sasha: Just one? Or can I have the whole works?

Fire: Just one, but who knows what happens fromthere. Maybe the choice would be because that drugwould then break down the legal system into some-thing more rational. A lot of people would pickCannabis, because there are so many people whoalready use it.

Sasha: I think the idea of Cannabis may be a goodone, because there is increasing understanding ofits medical validity, and it is more widely acceptedin state law than any other drug. I wonder if thatmight not be an easy way of breaking the tightlock on all drugs by the federal government—totake one that has already some body of approval.That would be my guess offhand.

Ann: Without question, MDMA. Because that, asfar as I’m concerned, has proven itself to be anextraordinary therapeutic drug. There’s nothinglike it. So that would be my choice.

Sasha: On the other hand, with the MDMA… Ihave just been reading over some of the reports ofdeath due to this, death due to that, death due tothe other… probably ten or twelve causes of death

of young people—usually between seventeen andtwenty-one, somewhere—they are publishing pa-per after paper after paper of lethality in the scien-tific literature. And this is an inventory of thingsthat it would be very hard to have to battle against.These papers often start with the phrase, “This is adrug that has a general attitude amongst the usersin the street of being without risk, but in truth ithas very serious risks, and some of them lethal.Here’s another example.” Then they present theirpaper. I can give you a dozen examples.

Earth: But you get to be God in this little fantasyworld, so you can just choose which one to makelegal. You don’t have to worry about all of that.

Fire: Let’s imagine that you’ve finished the Psyche-delic Index, and you magically have the time andenergy for some other really large project—it couldtake twenty years. What else would you do? Maybethat’s to go off and do something completelyunrelated to chemistry, I don’t know…

Sasha: If I could get this book done and get thatout of the way and I had a number of years aheadof me, I would be back locked in that lab that en-tire length of time. I want to get back into reallycreative work.

Ann: I used to paint a great deal. I’d like to take uppainting again, if I had the energy and the time.And I’d like to get Book Three done. And I’d like togo horseback riding and learn hula dancing.

Earth: Are there any questions or issues that youthink are really important that never come up ininterviews?

Ann: No. I think some of the best questions thatwe’ve ever had have been asked today. We haven’tbeen asked once, “What’s your favorite drug?”That’s so nice.

Earth: Let that be a warning.

Fire: And thank you very much! �



“Jungle Spice”

Mystery Alkaloid(s) of MIMOSA Root-bark

by Entropymancer

The following has been edited, condensed, and annotated by The Entheogen Review. Although the resulting article remains much longer than anything we

have previously published in a single issue of ER, the information within it is representative of several categories of content regularly featured in any givenissue. From questions and speculations about chemistry, to hyperspatial maps, to network feedback, extraction processes, analysis reports, and botanical

musings, there’s something here for almost everyone, including a mystery that we are hopeful some ER readers might help to solve in the future.

We first heard about the isolation of what was thought to be a potent novel tryptamine from Mimosa tenuiflora root-bark from an informant in Canada inFebruary of 2004. This informant had experience smoking pure DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, and bufotenine, and he felt certain—due to the potency and dramatic

quality of effects he experienced—that it was none of these compounds; but he did describe the effects as being “tryptamine-like.” We were thereforevery excited to discover the article reprinted below, and be made aware of the latest findings in this area. Although we feel that the information in this

article is fascinating and begs further investigation, we are unsure that the explanation for the variety of experiences reported is due to some novelchemical(s) in every case presented. Most people who have smoked pure DMT a hundred times know that they can have 80–90 “similar” experiences,

with the remaining 10–20 of them being all over the board: entirely lacking colors, becoming threatening/terrifying, insanely intense, strangely realistic,or presenting most of the other aspects attributed in this article to “jungle spice.” Several of the accounts included below are contradictory in describing

the effects of jungle spice. And comparing effects without knowing weighed dose amounts is also problematic.

Many of the texts used in this article were sourced from web postings; as such, the finer details of linguistic expression were often ignored in the originals.We therefore made the choice to substantially edit these texts for clarity, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and length. We feel confident that we have

retained the relevant content and flavor of the original accounts, but have placed these texts within ••paraquote marks •• to make it clear that they arenot direct quotes. Those unfamiliar with web-based psychonautic acronyms will benefit from knowing that SWIM stands for “someone who is not me.”

It is also worth pointing out that the term “spice” by itself is frequently used on-line as a synonym for DMT. Due to the large number of web-based textsincluded, we have employed a superscript numbering system to cite these, and one can refer to the bibliography to locate URLs where most of the

verbatim accounts can be found on-line. The original version of this entire article, which includes a couple more extraction techniques, some TLC specs,and several useful color photographs, can be found at: entheogenreview.com/junglespice.html. — Eds.

“Jungle spice” is one of several names applied to anintriguing and potent psychoactive extract that canbe isolated from some Mimosa spp. root-bark.2,3,11

Synonyms include jungle DMT, red spice, red DMT,dark spice, and dark DMT. It is the alkaloid frac-tion obtained from the aqueous basic phase of anextraction by pulling with xylene or toluene afterDMT largely ceases to be pulled by an aliphatic hy-drocarbon solvent (naphtha, heptane, etc.). Thisproduct usually also contains at least some DMT,in addition to one or more alkaloids of apparentlynovel psychoactivity; some extractors choose toremove the DMT in a hot naphtha wash to obtaina pure “jungle” experience, while others use thejungle spice/DMT mixture as it is.

Several compounds can be isolated by extractingthe aqueous basic phase with xylene or toluene.9,15

Which compounds are isolated may depend onthe source and botanical identity of the root-bark,conditions of cultivation/harvest, and various pH,temperature, and airflow considerations through-out the extraction process.2,3,18,20 Based on theirphysical properties, we can classify three distincttypes of material that can result from the xylene/toluene pull: a red/brown crystalline goo, a tanwaxy material, and a yellow oil.

Some have suggested that the mysterious psycho-active component may be yuremamine, a novelphytoindole isolated from Mimosa tenuiflora stem-



behind a red solid that is insoluble in the naphtha.This red material has been isolated both by acid/base extraction and by straight-to-base extraction(Noman 2008).6,15,16,18,20

The crude extract is a mixture of compounds. Inmost cases, pulling the alkaline aqueous phase withxylene extracts a bright yellow color into the sol-vent, and the red pigment isn’t seen until the sol-vent is evaporated.18,22 When the DMT and otherimpurities are removed from the crude extract viaa warm wash in an aliphatic hydrocarbon (naph-tha, heptane, etc.), several extractors report thatthe recovered DMT crystals remain stained yel-low.11,14 This yellow fraction of jungle spice that issoluble in warm naphtha could be several differ-ent things (see Yellow Oils).

However, some people obtain an explicitly browngoo from the xylene pull, with no indication of redcoloration whatsoever.11,16,18 Although this may ap-pear similar to the crude red/brown goo on initialinspection, exclusively brown extracts appear toyield a different product, distinct from the redmaterial (see Tan Waxes). Lighter tan waxy speci-mens have been obtained after a brown goo waswashed with hot naphtha.18

While the red material may be a mixture of mul-tiple alkaloids, it also seems plausible that the redmaterial might have essentially the same chemicalcomposition as the tan waxes, with the addition ofa small amount of a red pigment that’s responsiblefor the differences in color and consistency betweenthe red and tan materials.

Tan Waxes

•• A xylene pull of a basified acidic extract of thismaterial yields a crystalline slightly orange waxysubstance that smells of tryptamines and glowsorange under a blacklight. ••

— Archaea11

•• Ended up with tan waxy non-oily stuff that isstronger than hell (10–20 mg) and terrifying.It’s not just residual DMT, its too strong for that. ••

— Noman18

bark (Vepsäläinen et al. 2005).13,18 However, thisspeculation appears unlikely based on yurema-mine’sinstability at lower pH and its speculated instabilitywhen exposed to heat (Vepsäläinen et al. 2005).18

On-line threads discussing jungle spice containposts claiming that the chemical kokusaginine islikely responsible for jurema’s reported oral activ-ity.1,8,11,18 These posters generally (mis)cite an is-sue of The Entheogen Review (J.S., OR et al. 1999) toback their claims. Based on physical descriptionsas well as reports of its effects, it appears that thecompound that some people have wrongly calledkokusaginine is identical to the tan waxy material,which is usually described as being very hard.11,12

Particularly with this fraction, it’s been reportedthat as the chemical ages, the stuporous effects dis-sipate, and are replaced by a novel and fully psy-chedelic activity profile (Delafonze19 2008;Toresten 2008).14,15,19

Red/Brown Crystalline Goo

•• After doing two pulls with naphtha I did twopulls with toluene, evaporated the toluene, andwashed the solids with naphtha, which made themdark red. ••

— Entheogenist6

•• The jungle spice I got is just like a piece of a redcrayon. After evaporating off the solvent, it lookedlike crystals on the dish. But when scraped up, itall stuck together to make this waxy homogenousstuff. It has a strong smell of indole when burned,but otherwise it has an odor similar to DMT, butwith a fruity kind of a smell. ••

— QuantumBrujo6

•• SWIM succeeded in pulling the red spice. It’s adark, deep crimson color, almost the color of driedblood. ••

— Spicemeister11

The red/brown crystalline goo that one can findpictures of on-line are what I think of as junglespice, but washing this goo can yield a diversity ofproducts. As the above quotes indicate, in somecases washing the dark gunk with naphtha leaves



The tan waxes are obtained in the same way as thered material above: an aqueous hydroxide solutioncontaining Mimosa root-bark alkaloids is extractedwith several volumes of naphtha until no moreDMT is pulled. The spent solution is then extractedwith a few volumes of xylene or toluene to obtainthe crude jungle spice. Washing this crude mate-rial with hot naphtha yields a waxy solid, thatranges widely in color from extraction to extrac-tion (Noman 2008), appearing light yellow/orangeto tan to brown.9,11,16,18 This material has also beenisolated from both acid/base and straight-to-baseprocedures (Noman 2008).11,18 The reported phar-macological activity of this material suggests thatthere may be more than one compound here. Tanwaxes are the fraction of jungle spice that are mostfrequently reported to change in psychoactive ef-fects over time, indicating that some chemical re-action (presumably oxidation) is occurring.5,9,19

Yellow Oils

•• The material that was evaporated out of thefiltered xylene defat of the powdered root-bark wasa yellow creamy color prior to purification, and atranslucent orange, almost oily residue, whichwould not dry to a hard substance. ••

— Lycaeum Member20

•• It’s yellowish. Even a yellow crystal. Smells thesame as DMT, with a musty overtone. ••

— Heyoka10

•• After two recrystallizations on the DMT thatcame out with the jungle spice, SWIM tells me it isirretrievably stained yellow and resembles egg yolk. ••

— Spicemeister11

This is by far the most ambiguous fraction thatcomes out of the xylene/toluene pull. Some yellowoils isolated from Mimosa spp. have been speculatedto be plant fats, and another fraction is suspectedof being an oxidation product of DMT.1,4,10,18 WhenDMT is extracted with xylene/toluene or diethylether (without using naphtha first), it also tendsto come out with a bright yellow-orange discol-oration.5,9,11,18,22

The most substantial evidence that there is morethan one compound in the yellow oil is the am-biguous solubility of the material. Yellow oil is sepa-rated from jungle spice based on its solubility innaphtha, while at the same time a yellow oil canbe removed from DMT (extracted by standardstraight-to-base methods), due to its insolubilityin hot naphtha. Clearly these must be differentyellow oils.

To further complicate the issue, it’s difficult to iso-late the yellow oil on its own. Many people doingotherwise normal extractions report obtaining ayellow product when the naphtha pulls areperformed using heat.1,10,18 The resultant yellowcrystals are sometimes reported to be qualitatively“better” in effect than pure DMT (delafonze192008).10.22 Also, when washing the crude junglespice extract with warm naphtha, some extractorsreport that any DMT they recover from this pro-cess is strongly yellow-colored, and that this pig-ment seems impossible to remove by typical puri-fication methods. Unfortunately, I haven’t been ableto find any experience reports using such yellow-stained DMT that specifically resulted from thisprocess.11,18

Investigating the possibility of the yellow oil be-ing DMT-N-oxide, I found a paper reporting theisolation of this compound from a methanolextract of Acacia confusa (Buchanan et al. 2007).However, the paper didn’t provide any descriptionof the physically observable characteristics of thecompound (such as color), it only gave the mea-sured NMR data. Someone with access to protonNMR spectroscopy who obtains a sample of yel-low “oxidized” DMT could use this NMR informa-tion to conclusively establish or refute the identityof this material as DMT-N-oxide. TLC analysis men-tioned on the web of whole and purified extractsof Mimosa root-bark described DMT-N-oxide as ayellow oil, but I have been unable to corroboratethis description in the published literature.4

Looking at Radio879’s LC/MS of a crude xylene pullof jungle spice reveals a peak at 205.1 m/z, whichcorresponds to the expected molecular ion of DMT-N-oxide,15 so it seems like a pretty good bet that



this chemical is generated as a side-product of theextraction process, although it may exist in the root-bark as a trace component, as there is a barely per-ceptible peak at 205.1 m/z in the paper reportingthe characterization of yuremamine from stem-bark(Vepsäläinen et al. 2005). It’s also possible that thistrace peak was an artifact of the isolation processas well. [DMT-N-oxide certaily could be psychoactivewhen smoked (Shulgin 2008), and it should be simpleenough for experimentalists to make some and try it.DMT-N-oxide forms by the action of hydrogen peroxideon DMT: 50 mg of DMT dissolved in 2 ml of ethanol istreated with 2 ml of hydrogen peroxide; after two hoursat room temperature, crystallization is induced by add-ing ether and chilling; the granular DMT-N-oxide isremoved and recrystallized from ethanol-ether. — Eds.]

General Comments on Colored Spice

•• The old-school heads at the festivals keep talk-ing about red or orange DMT from back in the day,and how strong it was. I’m wondering if that old-school DMT was actually just a mixture of the twospice alkaloids in one product, because as far as Ican tell, pure DMT is white or clear crystals. ••

— Anonymous18

•• I have had the orange DMT that Terence McKennaand old heads speak of. It was different than the snowwhite DMT people extract these days. ••

— Anonymous18

•• No. They’ve never had the current forms of col-ored DMT back then. These new forms are the mostridiculously potent DMT SWIM has ever smoked.Since 1999, there have been the red (also calledpurple by some), yellow, orange, and white spicesavailable at music festivals. These have been keptunderground until recently. At the last SCI showsin Red Rocks, CO, all colors were available, beingoffered quite openly. You could smell that sweetplastic smell every few thousand feet while walk-ing the lot. ••

— Anonymous18

There has been a great deal of discussion about “yel-low DMT” and “orange DMT,” some of which hasbeen reported to produce effects different than

white DMT.3,5,10,11,18,21,22 These colored materials arereported by some to be more potent than regularDMT, and by others to be less potent. There areseveral factors that can lead to yellow or orangeDMT. The discussion will be organized based onthe reported origins of the colored crystals.

Old Spice

•• The yellow oils oxidize to a ruddy-orange colorwhen stored at room temp for a month in a metalcontainer. This is not good to let go any further.It’s degrading as the color goes yellow to orange.I have thought that this “aged” yellow DMT, whichbecomes orange, looks how McKenna’s DMT musthave: a reddish and smelly mix of oils and clearcrystals. But beware! It keeps oxidizing and defi-nitely goes “off.” It becomes blackish-rusty-red andsmells different. When this happens, it does notlaunch you—you get dragged behind the hyper-space shuttle. Bleah! ••

— El Ka Bong9

The simplest form of colored DMT may come fromsamples that were originally white. As thesesamples age, they turn yellow, then apricot, andeventually become orange and waxy over time.10,12

There is substantial disagreement over the amountof time it takes for this process to occur.10 Somepeople report a change in color after several weeksto a month, while others have samples over a yearold that remain without discoloration.10,12 One po-tential variable is the type (and amount) of impu-rities present in a sample. This is corroborated bydifferences in the DMT’s shelf-life positively cor-relating with differences in the clean-up processused when extracting it; multiple samples thatturned color rapidly with age had not been washedwith ammonia or bicarbonate, while the samplesthat remained white for over a year had.10 This mayindicate that either residual hydroxide from the ex-traction, or perhaps some trace phytochemical thatthe alkaline polar wash removes, is responsible forthe change in DMT as it ages. Anecdotal reportsindicate that higher temperatures speed discolora-tion.5,12 It is unknown whether other environmen-tal factors, such as exposure to oxygen or moisture,also play a role in the rate of degradation.



Since white DMT can turn orange over a period oftime, it is tempting to consider the discolorationan oxidation product of little consequence. Unfor-tunately, it may not be quite that simple, since we’vealready fingered a yellow oil as the most likely can-didate for the simplest DMT oxidation product(DMT-N-oxide). The orange color must come fromsomething else.

When stored at room temperature for a long pe-riod of time, a small amount of the DMT may be-gin breaking down into DMT-N-oxide. This DMT-N-oxide is now also being exposed to environmen-tal conditions for a long period of time, and it maybegin breaking down into another degradationproduct, which is either deep orange or red. Thisshould mean that starting with a crystal contain-ing a trace amount of DMT-N-oxide will more rap-idly lead to the material turning orange. This ex-planation is consistent with observations that havebeen made on yellow oil, but it remains a specula-tion. It is also possible that the orange/red degra-dation product forms independent of the yellowoil; there isn’t enough information to draw any hardconclusions. (Anyone want to run TLC, GC/MS,or LC/MS on old orange DMT that started out white?)

To the people smoking it, what any discolorationdoes is a more important issue than what it is. Comb-ing through anecdotal reports on the issue, therelargely seems to be a consensus that as the DMTturns orange over time, it becomes qualitatively“different” in terms of the experience, but it is notany less potent at first. Then gradually, the sampleloses potency and it eventually becomes qualita-tively unpleasant in effect.12,18 Smoking very oldDMT has been compared to smoking the residuethat collects inside of the DMT free-base pipe.5

[Dark DMT (including pipe residues) can have a morethreatening feel, but this could be reflective of an in-crease in pain from smoking breakdown products likeskatole, which is demonstrably harmful to lung tissues;the oppressive feelings that can arise may simply bedue to ingesting something that the body recognizes as apoison while coming on to a sensitive altered mind state.— Eds.]

Synthetic vs. ExtractedWhen talking about DMT from the 1960s, 1970s,and 1980s, it’s important to recall that we’re likelynot talking about the beautiful snowflakes ofDMT that any Joe Blow can extract these days fromMimosa tenuiflora/M. hostilis root-bark. It was onlyin 1996, within a review of a Botanical Preserva-tion Corps seminar in Palenque (which appearedin the summer issue of The Entheogen Review), thatdosing specifics for M. hostilis root-bark as anayahuasca analogue were first reported in print(Forbidden Donut 1996), although Jonathan Otthad hinted that the roots of this plant might be agood choice for such purposes a couple of yearsearlier in Ayahuasca Analogues: Pangæan Entheogens.And most extraction processes posted to the Inter-net in the mid-1990s were geared toward obtain-ing a smokable DMT-containing goop. There isn’ta lot of clear information on whether the DMT cir-culating in previous decades was of synthetic orextracted origin. [While this is true, one can speculatefrom the preponderance of published synthesis proceduresin the underground literature (Brown & Associates1968; Superweed 1969; Darth 1977; Smith 1981) andthe dearth of published extraction methods in the un-derground literature, that most DMT available betweenthe 1960s and the 1980s was synthetic. Our discus-sions with underground chemists support the conten-tion that the vast majority of commercial DMT prior tothe 1990s was synthetic, as does the fact that the vend-ing of DMT-containing botanicals to the psychonauticmarket only began in the late 1980s and early 1990s.— Eds.] These are important considerations, as theinitial purity and the chemical properties of thecontaminants may be key factors in determininghow the material ages. The discussion within thisarticle assumes that most of the currently avail-able DMT has been obtained via extraction pro-cesses published in the last decade.

Evaporated MaterialAnother common form of colored material resultsfrom people evaporating off their nonpolar solventinstead of freeze-precipitating.1,22 The yellow pig-ment contained in DMT that has been extractedwith an aliphatic hydrocarbon and collected byevaporation is most likely inconsequential traceimpurities, such as plant fats. It is reportedly



harsher to smoke, but roughly the same potency aswhite DMT.1,22 This yellow fraction can be removedby recrystallization.18 There is no indication thatthis sort of discolored DMT contains any uniden-tified psychoactive chemicals.

However, it appears that there is another form ofyellow material that can be obtained by evaporat-ing off the solvent, depending on the evaporationconditions. People report a much more oily yellowproduct when the solvent is evaporated with highairflow from a fan, particularly at warmer tempera-tures.1,18 Others have obtained yellow crystals bymelting off-white DMT in an attempt to do a“solvent-less recrystallization” (see Preparation ofYellow Spice). Yellow crystals obtained in this fash-ion are reported to be qualitatively different thanplain DMT, and slightly more potent (Delafonze192008).1,22 Based on this information, it sounds likethese methods are producing DMT that containsthe type of yellow oil that may be DMT-N-oxide.

Alternate SolventsHeptane and naphtha have not always been thesolvents of choice in DMT extraction. Some olderextraction processes recommend ether or dichloro-methane (DCM), or aromatics like xylene andtoluene18,22 (and decades ago, extractors might haveused benzene as their nonpolar solvent). All ofthese are effective for pulling DMT, but they areless specific and also pull other fractions. All havebeen reported to yield yellow or orange DMT.3,11,18,22

Xylene and TolueneBoth of these solvents are known to pull a mixtureof DMT and jungle spice when used on a nonpolarsoup that’s been largely exhausted of DMT, whichwas extracted with an aliphatic hydrocarbon.6,15,18

It’s therefore reasonable that they could be used asthe primary extraction solvent to pull a similarmixture that contains a great deal more DMT.15,22

One experimenter did just that:

•• SWIM decided to extract 100 grams of Mimosahostilis root-bark (MHRB) with xylene and evapo-rate, just to see the difference between this processand a naphtha/freezer precipitation. After collect-ing three xylene pulls he had about 130 ml of piss

yellow xylene. He evaporated it off to leave a cir-cular pattern of yellow spiky crystals.

•• Oh… my… god! SWIM just finally sampled thisbatch and for the first time in almost a year, it’s thereal deal. He has been searching and searching forthis. SWIM tried just about every known vendor ofMHRB and it was all the same: not what DMTshould be like. So he e-mailed a little-known ven-dor asking for a sample, and received 100 grams.He finally got a chance to extract, and holy shit ishe satisfied. Entities, geometry, self-transformingmachine-flowers. Blown away.

•• He will always extract the same way from nowon: pull with xylene and evaporate all the waydown, wash with ammonia, and blast-off. •• 22

Although we can’t rule out the possibility that theremay have been something idiosyncratic to the spe-cific root-bark used in the above description, thisreport supports trying xylene as an extraction sol-vent if you’re looking for an orange material thatmay have something that white DMT lacks. An-other extractor also obtained an orange materialusing xylene as the extraction solvent, and had asample analyzed by LC/MS, which allowed for somediscussion of the identity and abundance of othercompounds extracted by this solvent15 (see MassSpectrometry Analysis).

Ether or Ether/HeptaneExtracting with ether, or a binary solvent of ether/heptane (8:1), invariably leads to product with ayellow discoloration.11,18 Since the ether is evapo-rated off, it’s not surprising that the product is yel-low, as one might expect plant fats or other impu-rities to extract into the ether. On the other hand,ether/heptane is known to extract a brown waxycompound along with the DMT, so it’s possible thatthe yellow color in ether extracts is a trace amountof the jungle spice fraction. Based on reports ofether extracts smelling “strongly floral,” it’s alsopossible that ether is extracting some skatole (seeGC/MS Analysis). While ether, dichloromethane,and aromatic solvents have all been reported to pulljungle spice, ether is the only one of these solventsnot reported to produce orange crystals when usedalone as an extraction solvent. This is particularlyinteresting when one considers that ether is also



the solvent associated with the hard tan wax extract,and has never been reported to extract a red productwhen used as a solvent to obtain jungle spice.11,18

Dichloromethane (DCM)Recommended by some older extraction techs,recent literature suggests that using DCM as adefatting solvent may allow for the formation ofN-chloromethyltryptamine, a chemical of unex-plored pharmacology (Brandt et al. 2008; Buchananet al. 2007). It is possible that this compound mightform when using DCM as an extraction solvent.Orange crystals that result from the use of DCMcould be colored for the same reason that the or-ange crystals result when DMT is extracted by xy-lene. There’s also the possibility that the color re-sults from a pigment pulled specifically by the DCM.

DMT has been found to be reactive toward DCM,either during work-up or long-term storage therein,which led to the formation of the quaternary am-monium salt N-chloromethyl-DMT chloride(Brandt 2008). N-chloromethyl-DMT chloride isunlikely to be psychoactive based on its presumedlow bioavailability; potential toxicity concerns areunknown. One extractor decided to perform someexperiments to establish whether the orange colorwas extracted from the plant, or whether it mightbe the rearranged N-chloromethyl derivative. Af-ter obtaining an orange material from a Mimosaroot-bark extraction with DCM, he tried extract-ing Psychotria viridis leaves by the exact same pro-cess, and found the result in the latter case to bepure white DMT.1 This result strongly indicates ifN-chloromethyltryptamine and/or N-chloro-methyl-DMT chloride do form via the use of DCMas an extraction solvent, that they are not respon-sible for the resultant color when Mimosa spp. root-bark is extracted, and that the color is due to thesolvent’s lower selectivity (as compared to typicalalkane solvents), resulting in the extraction of somecolored compound from the root-bark.

Odds and EndsAs the mention of Psychotria viridis above alludesto, other plants are commonly used as DMT sources.DMT-containing Acacia spp. can yield an orange

crystalline product on extraction, for example.While some of this color could be due to plant fats,Acacias have a diverse chemistry, so it is possiblethat some of this color could come from other al-kaloids (Buchanan et al. 2007).18 Some of the colormight even come from 5-MeO-DMT, which is sub-stantially more potent than DMT by weight. Fur-ther, a colleague recently encountered some brightred DMT that had been extracted from a species ofPhalaris grass (Anonymous 2008).

I have seen two unrelated references to a “purplespice.” One was accompanied by a blurry photo-graph showing unmistakably purple material. I can-not conceive of this coloration having come fromany of the botanicals discussed above. Until someexperiences are reported with such material, it’sprobably best to recrystallize any such spice onehappens to run across.

Infrequent references to “green spice” are a mys-tery I think that I can solidly put to rest. It is onlyknown to have been isolated by evaporating thesolvent to collect the material, and it has only beenreported in cases where the extractor used unsa-vory brands of naphtha (like Sunnyside). In one ofthese circumstances, the extractor evaporated afrom-the-can sample of the solvent and discoveredthat it left a blue residue. Thus, it appears that greenspice comes from yellow material plus a blue non-volatile solvent additive. Long story short: avoid“green spice” like the plague.

ExperiencesBelow is a collection of experiences that people havehad consuming jungle spice. The reports do notallow us to paint a conclusive picture about theactivity of the materials, but they have value in pro-viding evidence that there appears to be an as-yet-unidentified psychoactive compound (or com-pounds) at work here. The sheer volume of reportsdetailing different or more potent effects at lowerdosages than are used with ordinary DMT is strongevidence that there is an unsolved piece in thispuzzle.



Smoked Red Crystalline Goo

•• Easy does it; 10–15 mg ofthis stuff is insanely potent andjust a bit more scary/intense thanDMT. •• 18

� � �

•• I took three full tokes fromthe red oil. The effects were a lotlike regular DMT, but there wassomething different. It seemed tobe missing the loving presence.The “other place” hallucinationwas there, but the colors werenot—or at least they were verydark and dull. My friend and Iboth felt like we would muchrather stick to the regular, defin-able, loving, white DMT (Warren-Saged 2008). ••

� � �

•• There is a distinct differ-ence between DMT and the redspice for me. When smokingDMT, I want to smoke as muchas possible. But after a few puffsof the red spice, I was completelyrevolted. The anxiety and inten-sity of DMT was not present, butit was very odd and frightening.It’s flavor was a spicy barbecuesauce, which was tolerable. Theeffects of it were much moresubtle with an “easing in” insteadof a blast-off. The room becametwisted, grotesque version of it-self, something out of The Night-mare Before Christmas. It felt like agraveyard that I was alone in (ina bad sense), but then some be-ings started to appear. They wereblack, fuzzy balls of energy, aboutone-and-a-half feet tall and one

foot wide. They were very frien-dly, and investigated me likechildren might do. However, theexperience made me draw up intomyself, and I was quite dissatis-fied with the feelings. Subse-quent DMT use, about a half-hourlater, brought me to a bad part ofthe “city,” with clown beings ofintense negative emotions andideas who did not like me at all.(They were in no way jester- orjoker-ish.) They also beat up myGuardian, when he tried to pro-tect me from them. •• 16

� � �

•• This red jungle spice isthe best thing I have ever seen.Terence McKenna must have beensmoking the jungle spice think-ing it was DMT. I’ve smoked a lotof DMT and read a lot of TerenceMcKenna, and I had never seenanything like what he describes.But from two tokes of this redjungle spice, I had his trip wordfor word. This stuff is so muchbetter, stronger, deeper, moremeaningful, and more pleasant touse than DMT. I smoked it withmy eyes open while watchingShpongle. The stage began tomorph, and suddenly a self-trans-forming machine elf ripped thestage in half and jumped out todance on top of the ravers. Hewas made out of what appearedto be glossy molded plastic (likea kid’s toy), and he was extremelycolorful, changing shapes anddancing. This was with my eyesopen. I had my rational mind in-tact; I knew I was at a Shpongleshow smoking jungle spice. Yet Icould not believe my eyes. I evensquinted at the stage in disbelief,

trying to make things return tonormal. If you smoke it with youreyes open, it completely trans-forms reality before your eyes.This is absolutely the most amaz-ing chemical I have ever encoun-tered. I passed out about threegrams of the stuff in individualdoses at the show, and everyoneagreed that it blows DMT out ofthe water.

•• The second time I smoked it, Iclosed my eyes. I was shot like alaser beam into God-conscious-ness. I was God. I created the uni-verse and spawned life on earth.I saw the beginning, the end, andeverything in between. I beheldevery thought that had ever ex-isted in one instant. Then I re-turned to reality and was back atthe rave. But I still thought I wasGod. I was walking around tell-ing people I was the reincarna-tion of Jesus, Buddha, TerenceMcKenna, and Tim Leary rolledinto one. I truly believed this atthe time. I felt omnipotent. Iknew everything. But this beganto fade and I started to feel stu-pid for walking around claimingI was Jesus and believing it. Sothen I started experiencingkarma. I left the concert area andhid in the dark to meditate. Ithought the people at the ravewere going to crucify me. Ithought they had already killedmy son and were coming for me.I accepted this though, and em-braced my imminent death. Iknew I was going to die that day,and it was okay. It took aboutthirty minutes for the junglespice to wear off, and by that timeI was a new man. My ego hadbeen lifted up to the point ofthinking I was a walking God,



and then it was crucified. Thisstuff makes DMT look downrightboring. •• 16 [From what we know ofthe DMT market, it is very unlikelythat the DMT accounts TerenceMcKenna wrote about were describ-ing extracted DMT. — Eds.]

� � �

•• The reddish oil was not asvisually overwhelming as thewhite crystals but was far moreintrusive on my psyche. I usuallydid not go back for more at a sit-ting. I’d get almost a nervoushangover from it, whereas DMTleaves a pleasant afterglow. •• 15

� � �

•• It is active in tiny smokeddoses like 5-MeO-DMT is, andthere are no visions: just thatcrazy “tryptamine look” to every-thing. SWIM was not preparedfor what was coming and the tripwas indeed dark and scary. SWIMwill try again once the negativevibes have abated. •• 3

� � �

•• I’m traveling through theirworld now. I cannot interact withthem and they are not aware ofme, but I can affect their environ-ment. They are solitary, lonelybeings, living out their existence.They are oddballs. One being is afloating bust of an angry man,another is a pastel red colored“cat” with a bejeweled back. Thisland was not overtly unfriendly,but definitely an uncomfortableplace to be in. The experience wasshort-lived, due to my purpose-ful grounding. •• 16

� � �

•• On my first attempts to extractDMT (which were barely suc-cessful) I used chloroform, and Iwould get this red DMT extract.I smoked the lot. I was dosing low,because I didn’t know what toexpect. Almost all the experienceswere fantastic, like an enhancedmushroom trip condensed intofive minutes, although I neverhad a breakthrough at theselow doses. Once I smoked a salt-precipitated Syrian rue extractand then smoked a very low doseof this red extract, and I was inpure ecstasy. I had never felt likethat before (not even once). Itwas like a spiritual orgasm. Ithink what you expect from thetrip influences it a lot. I say thisbecause when I tried it, I knewnothing about red or jungle DMT.I had never read it could be a darkor scary trip, and I am sure thatis why it wasn’t (although it wasa bit shocking). Anyway, freeyour minds, don’t be afraid, andyou should be all right. •• 18

� � �

•• Start with a small dose.Try between 5 and 10 mg. I thinkthat 15 mg is probably as muchas I would do, if I was to do itagain. I wouldn’t recommenddoing over 25 mg of this stuff,whatever it is. It definitely feelslike a tryptamine. •• 6

� � �

•• SWIM once extracted abatch of a reddish-brown DMTfrom MHRB. It was qualitativelydifferent from the white-yellow

extract from the subsequentbatch. At first it was her favoritecolor to smoke (over white oryellow). But as it aged andbecame darker red, the effectsbecame “evil,” opening only toblack, twisted hyperspaces. It wasas though the DMT in the redspice had deteriorated and oxi-dized, leaving mostly mysteryalkaloids that were having agreater effect. •• 9

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•• The effects of the red spicewere on the body only, no visu-als. However SWIM found it verynice to put a chunk of the redbehind the DMT in the pipe. Twolarge hits of DMT, with the thirdbeing the red. It seems to makethe DMT extremely more potent,and much longer lasting. •• 11

Smoked Tan Waxes

•• For the amount smoked,not that much at all, the effectswere outstanding. I’m not sure ifit was a “breakthrough” or not (oreven if that term has any rel-evance for dark DMT goo), but Iwas traveling—with no con-trol—through a strange, slightlyblurry landscape with subduedcolors. I can’t remember thatmuch, but I do recall that at theend (although I didn’t have theconcept of “I”), I came to a brownbox or door, but couldn’t go anyfurther. When I woke up/openedmy eyes, I was still getting somevisual effects: very bright colors,the greenest plants ever, and mywalls were incredibly yellow. Thepatterns on my ceiling were mov-



ing about, and the angles and dis-tances in my room appeared dis-torted too. This continued overabout 5–10 minutes, lessening ineffect. •• 8

� � �

•• The material is tan andhas the consistency of wax with-out being oily. A friend was overand wanted to try it. Not want-ing to yuck up my DMT pipe(and thinking that the stuff wasshit anyway), I threw a fewcrumbs on top of a bowl of bud:20 mg max. I figured that itwould mostly just taste bad. Myfriend took a hit, and then passedit to me. The bud was still burn-ing so I just flamed the top, fig-uring that he had gotten most ofit…

•• PUT IT DOWN, PUT ITDOWN, PUT IT DOWN!!!!!!

•• Fuck, I couldn’t get rid of thepipe fast enough. I leaned back inmy chair. Why did I do that? Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck. NO-NO-NO,I DO NOT WANT THIS; I DONOT WANT TO KNOW THIS!Please just let me out. I’ll nevercome back. Just make this stop.

•• I don’t know what I was re-acting to. I was aware of no sen-sory input, hallucinogenic orotherwise, just that horrible feel-ing of NO-NO-NO. It went onforever and an instant. Then Istarted to become aware again ofmy body and myself and I openedmy eyes trying to pull out of thathorrid fuckhole. Nope. Horridfuckhole out there too. I had thatcrazy DMT vision where every-thing is fuzzy and lit from withinand exists standing apart in itsown dimension. But rather than

the jewel-like beauty of eachatom, I was aware of the uglinessand nastiness of every line, shape,color, and texture. Everythingwas made of puss and overlap-ping and falling and oozing andsuffocating and vomiting on me.I closed my eyes again and I be-came the ugliness. I opened themand settled for just being suffo-cated by it.

•• Around this time my hearingcame back on line and I realizedthat the Tool album that we werelistening to was no ordinary Toolalbum, but a direct communica-tion to me to reaffirm just howrotten and horrible every aspectof existence is. This came not asa paranoid flash of conspiracy likeon marijuana or acid, but just asa fundamental understanding,like info gained from mushrooms.How can this be? How? How didthey know that I’d be listeningto this exact song right now?Despair washed over me as I re-alized just how horrible andsqualid everything that I’d everknown or loved was.

•• The psychoactive was wearingoff. I white-knuckled it back, said

good night to my friend, andwent to bed. The next day, thefeeling was still there. Nothingovert—I was just wearing a wetblanket of sorrow and despair.Beautiful things made me sadbecause I now knew what a liethey were. Nothing was nice. Ev-erything had sharp teeth andwanted to bite.

•• The feeling faded over the day,and now—two days later—Ihave to think about it to bring itback. But it’s still there. Thiscould merely be a DMT trip gonebad. The substance was definitelyused with inadequate prepara-tion, but I’ve used DMT underless than ideal circumstances be-fore and never had it go that side-ways. Such a small dose too—I’msure that the total quantity in thebowl was less than 25 mg. Myfriend hit it first, I only had onetoke, and in the morning I dis-covered that there was still somein the bowl. Twenty-five mg ofpure DMT doesn’t get me as highas that shit did. It seems like itlasted longer than a DMT hit too,but I couldn’t say for sure, as I wastoo out of my mind to take note. ••19

� � �

•• SWIM once extracted

some stuff using limonene andeverclear that had no real psyche-delic effect worth mentioning,but it did produce a long-lastingbody high that felt really good,kinda like rolling or maybe a10,000-X blue lotus extract orsomething. He smoked it withtwo chicks. He and one of thegirls ended up falling asleep,while the other girl stayed awakefor about five hours and contin-

Everything wasmade of puss andoverlapping and

falling and oozingand suffocating and

vomiting on me.



ued to feel it the whole time. Itfelt good, but to use her words,it was like a “sinking spell.” •• 9

Smoked Colored DMTThere don’t appear to be any ex-perience reports by folks whohave extracted, purified, andsmoked a yellow oil. However,there are some reports availablewith yellow or orange coloredDMT.

•• SWIM melted his big hunkof red/orange waxy xylene ex-tract in hot naphtha and thenfreezer-precipitated what hecould out of it: yellow crystals.He’s smoked the yellow crystalsthree times now. It worked sowell that after three or four pullson the pipe, he found himself ina different house, with differentfurniture, trim, etc., but the plantspirits in the yard were the same!Holy mother of God! He’s prettysure that something else camethrough in the naphtha, hencethe yellow color. In any case, it’salmost prohibitively strong. •• 22

� � �

•• Twenty mg of the mysteri-ous crystal was smoked, and avery strong, powerful body loadcame on quickly. There were ba-sically no visuals: no light, dark-ness behind closed eyes. Yet theexterior world was altered anddistorted, with black outlines,more definition, and distance andsize were screwed. •• 24

� � �

•• In terms of the subjectiveeffects, breakthroughs couldroutinely be achieved with 30–35 mg. I never noticed any of thedirty visuals or other unpleasanteffects that seem to be plaguingmost of the commercially avail-able Mimosa hostilis root-barkextracts these days. •• 21

Oral Activity of Jungle Spice

•• I have eaten capsules packedfull of this extract and its defi-nitely active without an MAOI—seems those other alkaloids inthere will work as MAOI enoughto activate the DMT for an houror so: it just feels like DMT andnothing else. But if I ate some aMAOI beforehand, those otheralkaloids do work orally and theyreally ruin the DMT experience. •• 15

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•• It does make DMT orallyactive. I can put 200–300 mg ina capsule and eat it, and it willfeel like a weakish dose of DMT,not last that long, and I don’t feelthe other alkaloids. But if I do takeharmaline, it tends to activatethese nasties and make the expe-rience, well, suck completely. •• 13

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•• SWIM informs me that hehas just taken an oral dose of 150mg to see if this is orally activewithout the use of an MAOI. Thiswas taken on an empty stomach,no additives, and he is on nomedications prescription or oth-erwise. SWIM knows this isprobably a very large dose, if

active and as potent as people say,but SWIM couldn’t measure itvery well. When he tried toscrape it up, it turned into darkorange goo; he could not put thatshit on a scale, so he weighed anempty capsule and then dabbedsome in and weighed it again, atfirst it was 300+ mg. SWIM tookout as much as he could, but onlygot it down to about 150 mg. Atthis point he said, “Fuck it,” andpopped the capsule. It has beennearly three hours since SWIMconsumed the capsulated dose.SWIM reports minimal results:slight body buzz, mental cloudi-ness, and very slight visual dis-turbances. •• 11

Changes in Activity withAge and HeatSince most samples of junglespice appear to contain some re-sidual DMT, it will be useful tofirst address changes in activityover time observed in “pure”(white) DMT. Discussion belowwill be confined to the drasticchange in activity that seems tooccur when mild to moderate en-vironmental heat is involved.After that, we’ll consider the re-ports of changing effects overtime as they pertain to the junglespice. No reports could be foundon the red crystalline form ofjungle spice changing in effectover time, but the phenomenonwas reported several times withthe tan waxy fraction.3,11,18

Experiences with Old Spice

•• SWIM left a vial of DMTin an automobile for about a half-hour while inside the bank. It



was a pretty hot day out. WhenSWIM returned home, he de-cided to take a hit. To his dismay,he found that the vial previouslyfull of white DMT crystals wasnow half-full of brownish beigeshit that had melted together andonto the inside of the vial. Heused a poker to scrape all the shitout, and then chopped it back upwith a razor blade. It was muchdryer than before. The sameweight looked like half as muchas it did before.

•• SWIM decided to smoke itanyway, and found the effects tobe more akin to Salvia divinorumthan DMT. The “coming up” and“after effects” were all but non-existent. The experience ren-dered the room unrecognizableand SWIM was definitely some-where else instantly—then re-turned to normal just as quicklywith no residual visuals or eu-phoria. He later tried a smallerdose, and before he could get wellinto the second hit, objects in theroom began to bounce back andforth as if being tossed around byan unseen force. He heard chuck-ling and had to stop his hit andjust stare at what was happening.It was not DMT-like. SWIMknows DMT, and this came onmuch too quickly and was verybizarre, but in a different waythan DMT. Literally, there was no“coming up.” He hit the pipeonce, held the hit for maybetwenty seconds, went to take an-other hit, and maybe two secondsinto it everything was ping-ponging. (Well, not everything,but the alarm clock, the lizardcage, etc. Other things remainedthe way they originally were.)This happened much too fast for

DMT, and the absence of any af-ter effects leads him to believethat the crystals left in the carsomehow transformed into some-thing else that, while very inter-esting, is not DMT. SWIM didn’tcare too much for it by itself, butmixed with a new batch of DMT,about 70% new, 30% changed, it isquite interesting; this brings back thecolors/richness and euphoria, butkeeps some of the weirdness. ••12

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•• The subjective effects ofDMT are most certainly affectedif the material is exposed to lightand heat. I won’t waste timespeculating on why, but it abso-lutely does happen. To preservethe quality of your spice, keep itin the freezer in an amber vialwhen it is not in use. SWIM evenhas a little zipper lunch sack withtwo ice packs for when he bringsit to a remote location, to helpprevent its degradation. •• 12

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•• SWIM once decided tohide about 0.75 of a gram of spicecontained in an airtight glass vialunder the hood of his car. Hethought, “The engine is cold andits less than two miles, the spicewill survive.” The spice meltedand turned to rock. Its effectswere different. Very abrupt on-set and downfall. Straight to al-most unconsciousness withoutthe lucidity. SWIM has meltedand heated, and played aroundwith spice many times since andyes, he thinks something is go-ing on. Certainly degradation,but not limited to just that. •• 12

� � �

•• Take some white/clear

crystals and gently melt themdown to form a nice little rock. Itwill probably turn off-white ifnot yellow. Start with yellow, andyou’ll likely end up with some-thing orange-ish that, whileprobably harsh, will blow yourtop off.•• 24

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•• SWIM had a few daysbreak from DMT and when hecame back to it, it had becomemulti-colored, non-formattedcrystals. So he thought to him-self that it would be a good timeto recrystallize it to make it niceand uniform. SWIM did a re-extraction, and wound up withsignificantly less material than hedid when he began.

•• The DMT put into the re-extraction was good: very nice,fully visual, etc. Now SWIM isn’ta chemist, so he has no idea whathappened; that’s why he is put-ting this out there. Perhaps some-one can shed some light. Ammo-nia was added to some solvent ofdiethyl ether and heptane,shaken vigorously, and this madea nasty looking layer between thesolvent and ammonia. The sol-vent was removed and was sup-posed to be cleaner than before.The smell of the solvent was notchanged by the ammonia. Overlow heat, SWIM dissolved his ex-tract into the solvent, placed it inthe freezer, and precipitated abeautiful yield of uniform,slightly yellow crystals, which helaid out to dry.



•• SWIM now thinks the crys-tals were not fully dry. A situa-tion arose, where everything hadto be put up quickly. They wereplaced in a lightproof, snap-toptube and placed in the freezer.There they sat for five or six days;when the tube was opened, theextract reeked of ether, so thetube was left open for abouttwenty hours and then returnedto the freezer for another day orso.

•• SWIM then removed the crys-tals (which were entirely dry,with no ether smell) and pre-pared to smoke some. SWIMworks alone on top of a moun-tain guarding heavy machineryall night. SWIM breaks out hispipe, loads a small amount of thestuff and proceeds to toke. SWIMalmost pukes! The stuff nearlyripped the tissue from SWIM’schest, it was so harsh. SWIMthinks, “What the hell?” and triesagain, with the same result. It ismuch more plastic tasting, likesmoking some horrible chemicalfrom the abyss of Hades. SWIMmanages to hold the second toke,at a cost of tasting blood after heblows it out. SWIM feels noth-ing. Damn, what happened to hisspice?! There are no visuals,there’s no body load, nothing.

•• SWIM waits a couple of min-utes, then rises to grab his ciga-rettes and curse under his breathwhile turning his headlights on,and what does he see? Why twoyellow demons copulating on topof a bulldozer! SWIM is dumb-founded. He has never had a hal-lucination with such texture. Hesteps out of the truck, completelysober—except for the vision ofthese two copulating demonoid

creatures—and approaches them.When he gets within about tenfeet, one of them looks at him andscreams in this horrible voice,“Go back from whence thee cameand mind not us slugs!” SWIMlooks all around: no visuals what-soever of anything, no shapes,odd colors, no movement of ob-jects, nothing. Then lights kickon, as does all this machineryaround SWIM: the stereo startsmaking this horrible static noise,

his cell phone makes a loud pop-ping sound and goes dead (andit will still not power on). SWIMhears engines starting up allaround him. SWIM is terrifiedand jumps back into his vehicle.SWIM watches the lights con-tinue to go on and off all aroundhim, and still—these demons arenow fighting each other, and oneappears to be trying to eat theother… it does eat the other. Themoment it consumed the other,the lights went off, the sounds ofthe engines died, and the crea-ture faced toward SWIM. Thenit simply took its hand, drew/cuta hole in the air, and climbedthrough it. And the trip was over.

•• No strange tryptamine land-scape. Nothing. Not that thereever was any tryptamine land-scape, because their wasn’t.SWIM is dumbfounded. He real-izes his nose is running, as wellas his eyes, and when he reachesup to dry the moisture, he dis-covers there must be half a quartof liquid running from every ori-fice on his face. SWIM tastesblood in his throat, and his chesthurts horribly. He does not un-derstand what he saw. He knowsof no such effect on mucousmembranes by any tryptamine.This was not DMT. What the fuckhappened to SWIM’s spice?What the fuck happened toSWIM?! •• 24

Experience with TanWaxes Over Time

•• The effects of the tan waxyextract are amazing to say theleast. SWIM has pulled it severaltimes and every time it has beenthe same. It changes radicallywith oxidation, becoming waymore potent and qualitatively dif-ferent as time passes. If smokedwithin the first few days of pull-ing it, it produces a heavy bodyload that feels like you’ve beenshot with elephant tranquilizer,and lasts about fifteen minutes.There are no pronounced men-tal effects of any kind. However,upon repeated exposure to airover a few weeks, this extractbecomes the most “trippy” sub-stance that he has ever encoun-tered. It produces wild hystericallaughter, massive size distortionin objects, and insane colorfulhallucinations of things like cot-

Damn, whathappened to hisspice?! There areno visuals, there’s

no body load,nothing.



smell. SWIM smoked it maybefive times during the first sevento ten days after pulling it, pro-ducing only a heavy body loadwith no trippy head effects what-soever.

•• SWIM tried it again when hewas bored after a couple of weeksand found that it had gonethrough some serious changes inthe effects it produced, aside fromthe change in texture and color.It became really trippy. No realmental breakthrough or extremeDMT visuals or anything like thatwere produced, but it carried thisinsanely pleasant laughing/sing-

ton candy, pink clouds, puffypink dragons, and giant bluemarshmallows. I know thissounds like total bullshit.I probably wouldn’t believe iteither, but it is true. It is veryeasy to find out—I highly suggesteveryone try the oxidized tanwax at least once. •• 24

� � �

•• The rock stuff SWIMpulled carried only a heavy bodyload. After several weeks the sub-stance got increasingly harder,darker in color, and it changed in

ing. There were no more heavybody effects. SWIM smoked fivehits on his bed, and had difficultygetting the last one because hewas laughing so hard. The nextthing SWIM knows, he is raisingup and down off the bed likeLinda Blair in The Exorcist, laugh-ing his ass off in this incrediblevery “tryptamine-like” state thatlasted at least a half an hour.SWIM wound up smoking abouttwenty hits over a four-hourperiod and it was great! SWIMsmoked all he had left the nextnight. Whatever it was, it wasphenomenally wonderful! •• 11

Isolation TechniquesThe original version of this article contained a few addi-tional isolation techniques, including “Critical Switch’sTek,” which was the first process posted on-line (onVovin’s boards) that described a method for obtainingjungle spice. However, as that tech was both overly longand lacked useful details related to pH (making it harderto replicate), it has not been included here. For spacereasons, we have limited the number of extraction pro-cesses included to three that will return the three differ-ent sorts of material discussed in the article. — Eds.

Red Jungle Spice Tek18

by Entheogenist•• This process will not only produce very potentjungle spice, but it will also pull out any DMT thathas been left behind in the basified solution.

•• After you have done your nonpolar extraction(see the Marsofold Tek or the Noman Tek atentheogenreview.com/dmt.html), save your bas-ified solution. For 500 grams of root-bark, use 500ml of toluene. Heat it in a water bath until it’ssteaming. Add the toluene to your basified jug andtilt for five minutes. It’s best to divide the tolueneinto three or four pulls. While waiting for the lay-ers to separate, put the toluene jar back in the wa-ter bath to keep it hot. After you have siphoned off

the toluene layers, evaporate the toluene and letthe solids dry. This material contains the junglespice, but there is usually quite a bit of DMT inthere also. Scrape up this material and put it in atest tube.

•• Now heat some heptane in a water bath and fillup the test tube with hot heptane and agitate themixture until the heptane clouds up and an oilylayer forms in the bottom of the tube. Let this mix-ture cool for a minute or two so the oily layer willthicken a bit. Now quickly pour off the heptaneonto a plate for evaporation, making sure the oilylayer stays in the test tube. When the heptaneevaporates you should be left with DMT (you willwant to recrystallize this product). Add more hotheptane to the test tube, then pour it off and evapo-rate one or two more times until no more DMT isbeing pulled out.

•• You should be left with a thick, deep red oil inthe bottom of the test tube. This is your jungle spice.To get it out of the test tube, place the test tube ina hot water bath. This will cause the oil to pourmore easily, and evaporate any remaining toluene.When it’s nice and hot, remove the tube from thebath and immediately pour it out on a plate. (Someoil will still stick to the test tube, which you canrinse out with a very small amount of hot tolueneand pour out for evaporation on a different plate.



It will yield slightly less pure jungle spice.) The oilyou poured off will slowly harden into a waxy solid.It takes quite a while to dry out, but you can speedthe process by smearing it around with a razorblade, then scraping it up and smearing it aroundagain, and so on. Make sure all the toluene hasevaporated before you bag this stuff, or it will turnto oil again in the bag.

•• As to the water bath temperature, heptane boilsat 98.42••C, so as long as the water bath is not boil-ing, you’ll have no problem. It won’t ignite in awater bath. Just be sure to “burp” your test tubeperiodically so the pressure doesn’t build up. Itneeds to be hot so it will melt the insoluble junglespice and pull out any DMT that is trapped insidethe insoluble solids. Shake up the test tube so thered oil goes all through the solution and then settlesagain at the bottom. At this point I would set thetest tube in the water bath for a moment to helpthe layers separate, then pour off the heptane onone plate and the red oil on another plate. The hep-tane will evaporate very quickly since it is hot, leav-ing white DMT. The oil will slowly harden intopure red jungle spice. This jungle spice is verypotent; 25 mg is comparable to 50 mg of DMT! ••

Isolation of Tan Wax24

by an unknown authorThis isolation process is fairly unique in its use ofa binary extraction solvent. From the availableevidence, it seems reasonable to assume that thisheptane/diethyl ether solvent is pulling a fractionthat is also pulled by xylene or toluene, thoughthere is some evidence it may leave behind the redmaterial that aromatic solvents will pull.11,18

•• Extracting the tan wax is trickier; it requiresthe use of a solvent blend of roughly eight partsdiethyl ether to one part heptane. It also employsnaphtha and acetone.

•• One follows a normal DMT extraction process(see the Marsofold Tek or the Noman Tek atentheogenreview.com/dmt.html), except one usesthe diethyl ether/heptane blend as the solventinstead of naptha. Freeze precipitation for crystal-lizing is a must here. Your material will be veryyellow. Some of this yellow tint is natural plantfats, some is oxidation caused by the extraction

process, and more still is the targeted mysteryalkaloid(s). The yellow you would have seen if youhad used only naphtha, would have been only theformer two—none of the mystery alkaloid(s)come(s) out unless you use diethyl ether.

•• Pull all of your extract from the root-bark, allowit to dry, and you’ll have a nice big pile of yellowmaterial. Next you will recrystallize in the freezerand get your tan wax. Pour all of your extract pow-der into a glass container for recrystallization. Thecontainer needs to have an absolute flat bottom.Place it on an electric stove or hot-plate at the low-est setting, cover your powdered extract with a mea-sured amount of naphtha (use increments of 10 mlfor the amount of naptha added) and proceed todissolve it into the naphtha. Use enough naptha toentirely dissolve the extract, but try to keep theamount on the lower side of things (adding 10 mlmore at a time as needed). After the extract hasdissolved, add one drop of acetone for each 10 mlincrement of naphtha you used. You should note athick yellow oil coat the bottom of the container.This is your mystery alkaloid. Use a glass eyedrop-per to remove all of the liquid solvent (this con-tains your DMT), and place that solvent in a sepa-rate container for freeze precipitation.

•• Now you have a glass in which the bottom iscoated with your mystery alkaloid(s). It takes for-ever to dry, so before it does you should clean it alittle further. Drop some more naphtha on it whileit is still hot (return it to the electric hot-plate ifneeded). Don’t add any acetone this time. Stir thisup a bunch, and traces of DMT should come out ofthe oil at this point and migrate to the naphtha. Ifyou don’t mind yellow DMT, put this naptha intothe container with the rest of the DMT that youjust removed. Then let the material in the bottomof the container dry. Scraping it around a bunchwhile it is drying helps tremendously. In the end,you should wind up with something hard as a rock. ••

Preparation of Yellow Spice

by Delafonze19•• After freeze-precipitating DMT, the naphtha ispoured off and the solids are allowed to dry in ajar. Hot water is then run over the outside of jar,melting the DMT. This process promotes the con-version of the white crystals into yellow oily crys-



tals, which are reported to be more enjoyable thanwhite spice. If the yellow oily crystals are left outwith moderate exposure to air for a week, the pro-cess appears to proceed further toward “comple-tion,” turning the material into a yellow goo(Delafonze19 2008).••

The Hard DataAttempts have periodically been made to shed lighton the nature of jungle spice by use of GC/MS,LC/MS, or TLC.4,5,8, 15,23 While the evidence is lim-ited at this point, preliminary data substantiatesthe idea that some people are isolating DMT-N-oxide, and possibly a degradation product ofyuremamine.5,15 The other major conclusion thatseems to have come out of these attempts is estab-lishing that no unique chemicals besides DMTcan typically be seen in GC/MS analyses, whileLC/MS shows a wider range of compounds(Vepsäläinen et al. 2005).8,15

Mass Spectrometry AnalysisLet’s first consider the case of a “clean” extraction.In The Entheogen Review 13(2): 49–50, MamboPachano presented an “Extreme Condition Extrac-tion of Mimosa tenuiflora (= M. hostilis) Root-bark.”The initial extraction was done with aqueous etha-nol acidified to pH 1 with citric acid. The extractwas evaporated, taken up in warm water, and de-fatted with xylene (presumably removing anyjungle spice). The water was basified to pH 14 withsodium hydroxide, extracted with toluene and thespice recovered by evaporation. “This method hasreliably produced a pale yellow, waxy-crystallinesolid that crushed to white powder” (Pachano2004). GC/MS was performed on the resultingproduct alongside a DMT reference standard (seetinyurl.com/6od8qm). On the standard, there’s anabundant molecular ion at 189.1 m/z, and a lessabundant peak at 144.1 m/z indicating the loss ofthe dimethylamine moiety. I’m curious what thetrace just above 400 m/z is, since the same traceappears on the analysis of the extracted sample,but it’s likely of no particular consequence. Theextracted sample appears to be extremely clean,especially when we consider that it was collectedby evaporation instead of freeze-precipitation or

recrystallization, and using toluene, which isknown to be less selective than the usual alkanesolvents. There is a small impurity (abundance ~2)at 205.1 m/z, which could easily be accounted forby DMT-N-oxide. This helps to substantiate the ideathat the yellow oil is DMT-N-oxide, since the prod-uct was collected by evaporation, and was describedas “pale yellow, waxy-crystalline” material.

Next we consider a crude extract of the “jungle”alkaloids. This analysis was communicated byRadio879 from the Nook, who remarked, •• I thinkthis was the one where I used xylene instead ofnaphtha, but I did not wash it with naphtha. […]In that sample it looks like there’s 86% DMT, thenfour other unknown compounds.••21 There actuallyonly appear to be three unidentified compoundsin this spectrum. I assume that the “fourth com-pound” is the peak at 144.1 m/z, which is gener-ated from DMT. For all three of the unidentifiedpeaks, I believe I can propose some reasonable as-signments.

130.1 M/Z

This peak had me mystified for a long time. It’s toosmall to be a tryptamine, and barely large enoughto be an indole. But reading through Ayahuasca:Alkaloids, Plants & Analogs by K. Trout, I saw thatone concern related to the extraction process wasthe elimination of an indole called “skatole.” Whilelarge amounts of skatole smell like shit, lower con-centrations of it have a flowery smell (it is actuallya component of several flowers and essential oils).The Mimosa root-bark extract discussed by Trout“had only a faint floral smell indicating substan-tial purity and lack of skatole. […] Alkali solutionsof pH 14 will destroy skatole (the strong smellingcompound that many people mistakenly think isthe smell of DMT…)” (see tinyurl.com/6od8qm).This description may shed some light on thefloral aroma that has been reported when usingless selective solvents.

Skatole, or 3-methylindole, is a white crystallinecompound that turns brown over time, and hasbeen described as “mildly toxic.” It has been shownto cause pulmonary edema in some lower mam-



mals, apparently targeting Clara cells, which arethe major site of cytochrome P450 enzymes in thelungs. These enzymes convert skatole to a reactiveintermediate, 3-methyleneindolenine (Miller et al.2003), which damages cells by forming protein ad-ducts. I have been unable to find any source thatexplicitly verifies skatole as a known compound inMimosa spp., but it certainly seems conceivable. Itcould explain why people sometimes get a mate-rial that looks like DMT and “smells like DMT,”but lacks the effects of DMT when smoked. The130.1 m/z molecular ion corresponds perfectly witha methylated indole. While this issue requiresfurther analysis to confirm the identification, itseems entirely plausible. Especially if a sourceidentifying skatole as a component of Mimosa spp.root-bark can be located, I would be satisfied withthe identification of this peak as 3-methylindole.

205.1 M/Z

This is the same peak that was seen as a trace com-ponent of the “clean” extract’s GC/MS. Being ex-actly 16 m/z higher than DMT’s molecular ionimmediately suggests that this could be an oxideof DMT (the most reasonable place being at thetertiary amine). Since the sample was obtained byevaporation and not cleaned with alkanes, wewould expect some of the yellow oxidation prod-uct to be present. The issue requires further study:specifically someone running GC/MS and NMR onthe purified yellow oil. But until then, I am fairlycomfortable with the assignment of this peak asDMT-N-oxide.

350.1 M/Z

This one is a doozy, and is the primary clue sug-gesting that people may have been isolating abreakdown product of yuremamine. The peak issubstantial: less abundant than the proposed3-methylindole, but more abundant than the DMT-N-oxide. It’s heavier than DMT, and lighter thanyuremamine. In any case, it hardly seems possiblethat yuremamine could survive the extractionprocess (Vepsäläinen et al. 2005).13,18,20

But when yuremamine is degraded during an ex-traction (presuming that it is present in root-bark),

it’s not as though it would just disappear. Unless itloses the ethylamine moiety, the breakdown prod-uct still ought to be amenable to acid/base extrac-tion. Some quick calculations indicated that the lossof either hydroxylated phenyl group could get themolecular mass in the ballpark of 350 m/z. Andthere’s that handy hydroxyl adjacent to each ofthem that could participate in the degradationchemistry. In the end, I came up with two plau-sible degradation products that would give rise toa molecular ion at 350.1 m/z. Unfortunately, thepeak is not abundant enough to analyze its frag-mentation pattern. I should also note that I’m notparticularly qualified to suggest a mechanism toeither proposed 350.1 m/z compound, so it’s diffi-cult to tell how reasonable my assignment may be.Nevertheless, it would not be surprising if the mol-ecule giving rise to this peak turns out to play acritical role in the psychoactivity of the jungle spice.It’s also worthwhile at this point to discuss whatwe would expect to see if the jungle spice were infact yuremamine, which to date has only been re-ported from the stem-bark of Mimosa tenuiflora.Yuremamine has a molecular ion at 477.2 m/z(Vepsäläinen et al. 2005). This peak has beenclearly absent from every known analysis of thejungle spice. It also was not seen in any of the ana-lytical work on M. hostilis root-bark or jurema con-ducted during the 20th century. This has led to thespeculation that yuremamine is subject to degra-dation under most extraction conditions, particu-larly under high temperatures or alkaline environ-ments (Vepsäläinen et al. 2005).13,18,20

Finally, we have a more recent account of GC/MSanalysis run on the red spice that reportedly camefrom either a toluene or a diethyl ether pull of anacid/base extraction:

•• GC/MS and GC/FID indicate that the main com-pound is DMT (nothing else showed up in theGC/MS, but there were minor additional peaks inGC/FID). This is curious, because the whole rea-son SWIM has this stuff is because it was not solublein hexane. ••8

This is a confounding result. The material was ared crystalline solid isolated based on its insolu-



bility in hexane, which certainly sounds like junglespice.15,18 We would expect very little of the mate-rial to be DMT due to the hexane wash, but DMTwas still the primary peak in the sample.8 [Hexaneis a somewhat lousy solvent for DMT; while it most cer-tainly can work, it tends to be used for crystallizationand not extraction for just this reason. — Eds.]

While it’s possible that the sample analyzed wasnot the same material that others are calling junglespice, this seems unlikely since it matches the samephysical description and was isolated in the samefashion. The material was also reportedly storedfor several months prior to analysis,8 so it’s pos-sible that the compound(s) of interest degradedduring that time. Or, for whatever reason, the redcomponent may not be amenable to GC/MS; basedon the presence of more diverse peaks in LC/MSspectra, I tend to lean toward this possibility. [It isworth noting that it has been claimed that tryptamineN-oxides readily degrade in the injection port of the gaschromatograph, apparently making them undetectablevia GC/MS (Kamata et al. 2006). — Eds.]

There are two other possibilities, if we take thespectra at face value and assume that DMT is over-whelmingly the main component in the red spice.The first of these possibilities is that the red col-oration comes from a biologically inactive tannin,and the activity of the red spice is solely the resultof DMT. I don’t consider this possibility to be verylikely, based on the wealth of experience reportsreporting breakthroughs on significantly smallerdoses than DMT could provide. The other possi-bility, assuming that DMT is overwhelmingly themain component in the red spice (which I’m notnecessarily convinced of), is that the trace impu-rity responsible for the red discoloration is biologi-cally active and accounts for the reported effects ofsmoking red jungle spice. If this is the case, it couldeither be acting as an agonist in its own right (add-ing its effects to those of the DMT), or it could bepotentiating the DMT in some fashion. Since notrace components were identified in this particu-lar analysis, it is impossible to speculate further.

Thin Layer Chromatography Analysis4

To view color photographs of some of the TLC platesdescribed below, and to obtain more specific informationabout the processes used to run the plates, see the origi-nal version of this article, posted at entheogenreview.com/junglespice.html. — Eds.

•• I did some TLC tests recently that showed atleast three compounds in a Mimosa hostilis root-barkextraction. #1 was DMT, and at first I thought that#2 might be 5-MeO-DMT, and that #3 might beeither DMT-N-oxide or 5-MeO-DMT-N-oxide.None of the spots showed up as what I would con-sider trace amounts.

•• Further TLC runs on this same extract (afterfour days) failed to show the blue spots in #2. Thisis not 5-MeO-DMT, as I thought that it might havebeen. In the solvent system I used, it showed thesame Rf and color reaction to xanthydrol as 5-MeO-DMT. However, the compound on the plate is un-stable and disappears. A recent post on the Ayahua-sca Forum leads me to believe that this may beyuremamine.

•• To obtain the extract, I used a standard acid/base extraction for the first lane in my TLC, andtoluene for the third lane. I’m interested in the red/pink/purple coloration that is common to manytryptamine-bearing plants. It comes from tannins(lots in this case) and I also believe an oxidizedtryptamine. Its the oxidized compounds that aretricky…

•• After the blue spots no longer showed up, I ransome other tests on this same extract. I used a dif-ferent developer for the plates (one that resolves5-MeO-DMT and DMT better). There was no bluespot (as expected), but the one trace in the origi-nal plate remains. I ran this against an oxidizedsample of the initial extraction, and the trace isnot DMT-N-oxide (it shows as a very different Rf);it’s yet another trace compound. Not sure what yet.The oxidized sample, when left to evaporate,yielded a yellow oil that smells very floral and didnot want to crystallize.

•• Yuremamine shows up in methanol extractions,and it seems not to show up in a standard acid/base extraction. Yuremamine decomposes underalkali conditions, and these decomposition prod-



ucts are likely to be the “jungle spice,” which I willrefer to here as “yuremamine degradation product,”or “YDP.” Bioassays published in The Entheogen Re-view indicate that cold water extracts of Mimosahostilis root-bark sans additional MAOI are orallyactive; yuremamine is suspected as the reason forthe oral activity. [The author of this analysis report ispresuming that one chemical he has found is yuremamine,and the text that follows states this as though it is afact. The idea that other chemical(s) are degradationproducts of yuremamine is also a presumption. Althougheither or both of these presumptions may be true, eitheror both also may not be true, and the identification ofyuremamine was not verified with a reference standardso far as we can tell. — Eds.]

•• Two grams of ground Mimosa hostilis root-barkwere extracted for an hour in 10 ml of room-tem-perature water. This was done twice, with the ex-tractions combined. These extractions were spot-ted directly on the plates. The first lane was thecontrol: a standard acid/base extraction completedearlier. Visualization was done with the bare plate,and xanthydrol.

•• Plate #14 was run in an acid environment, soas not to degrade the yuremamine. Lane 1 is thecontrol showing DMT (Rf @ B) and a YDP (Rf @A). Lane 2 is the water extract and Lane 3 is themethanol extract both showing DMT (B) and verylikely yuremamine (C). Lanes 4 and 5 are lanes 2and 3 before visualization with xanthydrol. What’sinteresting here is that the pre-viz lanes show the Cspots as blue and the spots as purple after visualiza-tion. The YDP does not show up in lanes 2–5 (thepencil lines on the right just indicate all Rf positions).

•• Plate #12 was run in an alkali environment.The layout of lanes 1–3 remains the same, but wesee a reversal of yuremamine and the YDP Rf val-ues in relation to DMT. However, since this is runin an alkali environment, we see the YDP showingup in lanes 2 and 3 as the spots travel up the plateand degrade the yuremamine, which now onlyshows as a smaller trace component. By the timethe plate was fully developed the blue spots on theplate before visualization had disappeared. Theyremained for about half of the run and then weregone by the time the plate finished.

•• In Plate #18, the reference is in lane 1, the vi-sualized methanol extraction in lane 2 and the pre-

visualized methanol extraction in lane 3 run in analkali environment for half of the plate (half of thedistance to reduce the time spent in the alkali en-vironment). Here A is DMT, B is the YDP, C isyuremamine, D and E I believe are yuremaminebeing broken down and have not had a chanceto settle into a true Rf value as the plate run hasbeen shortened. [The blue E spot in lane 3 is a tannin.— Entropymancer]

•• My conclusions are thus: both methanol androom-temperature water will extract both DMT andyuremamine, and a trace component found in stan-dard acid/base extractions is a YDP. Yuremamineseems to be visible on the plate without a visual-ization agent, and I suspect that it fluoresces (but Ihave not checked). The oral activity of a coldwater extraction could very well be due toyuremamine acting as an MAOI making the DMTorally active (since DMT is being extracted), and/or it could be active by itself. Also, while water willextract DMT, methanol seems to be a little moreefficient. Lastly, the tannins are hard to deal with,and reading the plates would be easier withoutthem present (they are the red streaking).••

Botanical ConfusionMimosa tenuiflora has been accepted by many as thecorrect taxonomic orthography (considered synonymouswith M. hostilis) since the 1991 publication ofSensitivae Censitae: A Description of the GenusMimosa Linnaeus (Mimosaceae) in the New Worldby Rupart C. Barneby. While Barneby noted that theleaves of Brazilian M. hostilis were slightly differentfrom those on the M. tenuiflora of Venezuela, he basedhis decision to lump them on the fact that within a popu-lation of either one, an individual could be found thatwas identical to another individual that could be foundwithin a population of the other one. He never statedthat the larger populations could not be told apart (justthe opposite), but rather he simply lumped them basedon the idea that the range of expression within bothdidn’t merit each one being described as a unique spe-cies. Further study may show that M. hostilis is de-serving of being awarded subspecies status within M.tenuiflora, and it is certainly possible that the chemis-try of these plants may vary, regardless of what one callsthem. — Eds.



I’m not satisfied with the extent to which Mimosatenuiflora and M. hostilis are identical. Nevertheless,it is well-established in the literature that theseLatin binomials are synonymous (they will be usedinterchangeably in the text below) and they areboth legitimate names to apply to the white-flow-ering tree from which root-bark available on theentheobotanical market is theoretically being har-vested. But to complicate matters, there are indica-tions that the M. tenuiflora name is sometimes be-ing applied to another Mimosa tree, which does nothave white blooms.7,151

Following some catastrophic events in Mexico inthe 1980s, M. tenuiflora stem-bark—under the nametepescohuite—was hailed as a miracle-treatment forburns when applied as the active ingredient in atopical ointment (Camargo-Ricalde 2000). Thisgave rise to a proliferation of tepescohuite through-out southern Mexico, which may have resulted intwo problems. First, it seems possible that somesources claiming to sell Mexican root-bark to theentheogen-interested market are actually distrib-uting stem-bark, due to it being already widely avail-able. The second problem is that I’m not convincedthat everything harvested from the “tepescohuitetree,” whether stem-bark or root-bark, is actuallycoming from M. tenuiflora.

There are several vendors peddling tepescohuiteointments, soaps, and skin products, whose adver-tising depicts a tree with either bright yellow orbright pink flowers; in both cases it’s claimed to beMimosa tenuiflora (search Google Images for“tepescohuite” to see some pictures). Since therehas been a high demand for these products, andsince several Mimosa species have similar appear-ances, someone may have unknowingly or unscru-pulously begun propagating another species astepescohuite. On the other hand, some kitchenchemists claim that the commercially availableMexican root-bark has a higher alkaloid content,28

so the possibility of misidentification doesn’t nec-essarily mean an inferior product for extracting pur-poses. And since it is common for web-based ven-dors to hoover photographs and illustrations fromother sites, these errors in flower color could be

largely due to ignorance and sketchy web-site cre-ation morals on the part of advertisers, rather thanon misidentified botanicals.

However, another factor casting doubt on the iden-tity of the root-bark relates to some of the seedsthat have been made available on the entheobo-tanical market. Consider what Torsten of ShamanAustralis had to say a couple years ago:

•• Mimosa species can contain some nasty alkaloids,which is why correct identification is paramountin my opinion. That is why I am so appalled at thecallous nature of Mimosa hostilis root-bark farmers,distributors, and retailers. I am also a little surprisedat the ignorance of the customers. I mean seriously,you folks seem to only care about the fact that aplant contains DMT regardless of what else youmight consume along with it.

•• So is there a conspiracy to supply dodgy mate-rial? I don’t know. All I know is that two of thelargest Mimosa hostilis root-bark farmers also sup-ply seed from their plantations to various whole-salers and retailers. I have purchased plenty of thisseed for my own shop and have bought seed frommost major retailers. None of it has turned out tobe from M. hostilis.•• 15

More recently, Torsten remarked:

•• My remarks above are a few years old and thingschange. There are now reliable bulk seed sourcesin Brazil and all around the world from collectorswho got some good seed. However, I think it willstill be years before the seed trade could be regardedas reliable. For the moment, most retailers still havethe seed that grows into pink-flowered plants.

•• As for root-bark, I don’t think much has changed.The main sellers are still those who have pink-flow-ered plants. Some of them know they have thewrong species, but don’t care because they just sellfor the effect and Mimosa verrucosa works well. Someof them insist that M. hostilis has pink flowers andhence their material is accurately labelled as far asthey are concerned.

•• Retailers by-and-large don’t care as long as theroot-bark works. But even if they did care, I doubtthey would get much reliable info for the reasons



outlined above. I only got these admissions becauseI grew their seed and proved to them that they werewrong.•• 23

The seeds that have been distributed in the past asMimosa hostilis usually produced plants that are ofthe genus Mimosa, but which are definitely notM. hostilis (Torsten 2008).13,15 At present, while atleast one vendor has begun selling seeds that actu-ally give rise to a M. hostilis tree, most of what’savailable produces other Mimosa species, particu-larly M. verrucosa (Torsten 2008).7

Mimosa verrucosa as “jurema branca,” is used bysome indigenous South American populations, andMimosa tenuiflora is known by some as “juremapreta.” However, nomenclature appears to be vari-able among indigenous populations, with bothnames (and others) being applied to both species,depending on which tribe is discussing the plants.14

Consider the following from an issue of the MAPSBulletin:

After interviewing many people, and participat-ing in different Jurema rituals with the Indians, Ialso realized that the Jurema they drink in theirbrew is not Mimosa hostilis, but the root bark fromMimosa verucosa (sic). Different tribes will call M.hostilis, the Jurema Negra and M. verucosa (sic), theJurema Branca, as well as other tribes call M.verucosa (sic), the Jurema Negra. That means thatwhen they say that they drink Jurema Negra, it doesnot necessarily mean they are drinking M. hostilis,but M. verucosa (sic) which is called both: JuremaBranca and Jurema Negra (Silveira Barbosa 1998).

Jonathan Ott has pointed out that assorted indig-enous groups employ “one or another type ofjurema branca, of which some 10 species have beenreported from 4 genera,” citing references forAcacia jarnesiana, A. piauhyensis, Mimosa burgonia,M. pudica, M. verrucosa, Pithecellobium acacioides,P. diversifolium, P. dumosum, P. tortum, and Vitexagnus-castus (Ott 2000).

In years past, commercially available misidentifiedseeds produced Mimosa pudica or Mimosa scabrella,34

but these appear to have faded from the market-

place. Sometimes genuine seeds have been acquiredthrough trades with people in possession of genu-ine specimens. Properly identified live plants arealso sometimes traded amongst the entheobotani-cal community.

The scarcity of genuine seeds and the concurrentabundance of misidentified seeds begs the ques-tion: Have imported root-bark samples been simi-larly misidentified? After all, it doesn’t make muchsense that a vendor would be able to acquire legiti-mate Mimosa tenuiflora root-bark, but unable to ac-quire legitimate seeds from the same source.13 Ontop of this, Torsten of Shaman Australis has re-ported seeing a photo of the Mimosa plantation fromwhich a major vendor obtained its root-bark, andthe flowers on the trees were pink.14,15 And noneof the vendors I contacted had any idea what colorflowers were produced by the trees that their root-bark was obtained from.

Mimosa tenuiflora has whitish or greenish-whiteflowers. It does not have pink flowers or yellowflowers. Theorizing about a pink- or yellow-flow-ering subspecies of M. tenuiflora (as some forummembers have), is inconsistent with the establishedbotanical definitions.

This leaves us with a jumbled picture that casts asignificant shadow of doubt over the botanicalidentity of the root-bark that’s being imported. Ihave a hard time imagining that 100% of the ven-dors have been selling misidentified product, so I’dwager that at least some of them have been sellinglegitimate Mimosa hostilis root-bark. But consider-ing the scarcity of genuine seeds, I’d be hesitant tospeculate that authentic M. hostilis root-bark isprevalent on the market.13,15 Further, it seems likelythat some of the root-bark available on-line comesfrom M. verrucosa. Unfortunately, unless vendorscan find out what color flowers their suppliers’ treesproduce, it is impossible to speculate on the degreeto which M. verrucosa is being sold as M. hostilis(Torsten 2008). 13 [It is worth noting that Mimosaverrucosa root-bark looks quite different than M. tenuiflora/M. hostilis root-bark; see www.entheogenreview.com/root-bark— Eds.]



Yet despite all of the indications that some com-mercially available root-bark may not be from M.hostilis, I’ve only heard a few reports, some yearsago, of alkaloid-free batches of root-bark being sold.Extractions of these would yield a clean white ma-terial with the physical appearance of DMT, whichproduced no effects when smoked (possibly indi-cating that the root-bark was from another spe-cies).13,15 There are still periodic reports of low-yielding root-bark from various vendors, but thesesamples contain at least some DMT. It is worth-while to note here that at least one former vendor,JLF, openly advertised that the product they soldwas the stem-bark from Mimosa hostilis, which is ofa different chemical composition than the root-bark, and likely contains much lower quantities ofDMT (Meckes-Lozoya et al. 1990).

For those concerned solely with isolating DMT,it probably doesn’t matter whether the availableroot-bark is actually Mimosa tenuiflora. Whateverit is, it has for the most part been reported as aneffective source of DMT.

There has been some speculation about the pos-sible dangers of a misidentified root-bark. The mostfrequent concern is that the unknown root-barkmay contain mimosine, a toxic clastogen (chromo-some-breaking chemical). First discovered inMimosa pudica (Renz 1936), mimosine has beenfound in several leguminous trees (Soedario et al.1994), and it could possibly be a component ofother Mimosa species. Although stem-bark ofM. verrucosa has been analyzed for antioxidantchemicals (Desmarchelier et al. 1999), no analysisof M. verrucosa root-bark has yet been formally con-ducted or published (Ott 2000; Trout 2007), so itremains unknown if mimosine is present in com-mercially available root-bark. If, for safety’s sake,one assumes that it is present in the root-bark, itappears easy to make certain it doesn’t end up inthe final chemically isolated product. Mimosine ismuch more polar than DMT, and is practically in-soluble in higher alcohols, ether, benzene, chloro-form, etc. This means that very little mimosine isapt to end up in the nonpolar pulls when one ex-tracts the DMT free-base. Since mimosine is sub-stantially more soluble in water than in nonpolar

solvents, a sodium carbonate wash ought to removeany residual mimosine. [While we agree that possibletoxins from unknown root-bark are not too worriesomefor those who are isolating DMT, there is a greater po-tential risk for those who are merely doing a cold-waterextract of jurema, or who are using the root-bark as anayahuasca analogue via a tea brewed with a MAOIplant. — Eds.]

That’s all well and good for the average DMTisolator, but what about the folks pulling junglespice? It is tempting to speculate that some of thevariability among jungle spice extractions may bea result of root-bark from different species ofMimosa being sold. Unfortunately, until someoneruns extractions of jungle spice using confirmedsamples of M. tenuiflora and M. verrucosa, we sim-ply don’t know.

There is also the possibility that variation in junglespice extracts may be accounted for by differencesin environment or harvesting conditions.2 Maybethe tree needs ample access to a particular soil nu-trient to produce a good portion of jungle spice.Maybe the quantity of this alkaloid fraction varieswith the time of year, or even with the time of day.Maybe the tree must reach a certain age before itbegins producing it. Or maybe the variability ofextracts has to do with unrecognized nuances inthe extraction process. Set, setting, and dose couldalso contribute to the variation in reported effects.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that confusion overthe botanical identity of available root-bark mayexplain why a few people have been unsuccessfulin verifying Jonathan Ott’s claims that jurema isorally active without an added MAOI (J.S., OR etal. 1999). The individuals who were unsuccessfulmay have been using M. verrucosa, while Ott wasusing M. tenuiflora.

Clearly there are a lot of loose ends that need to bewrapped up. It is my hope that this article will sparkfurther investigations that may someday providemore answers to the mystery alkaloid(s) of Mimosaroot-bark. �



Trichocereus cuzcoensisAs previously mentioned in The Entheogen Review,there is substantial variation in what one may en-counter as Trichocereus peruvianus, both in terms ofappearance and psychoactivity. A number of grow-ers have come to the conclusion that the commer-cial cacti vendor Karel Knize has sold a substantialamount of T. cuzcoensis mislabelled as T. peruvianus(including some of his KK242 Matucana, f. Ancash,KK338, blue form, etc.). The true extent of thesemislabelled plants still stands in need of actualstudy (based on wild populations), but recent ana-lytical forays published in the journal Quepo mayprovide some insight into possible misidenti-fications. In contrast to Stig Agurell’s account re-porting small amounts of mescaline in Europeangrown T. cuzcoensis (Agurell 1969), Carlos Serranoanalyzed wild specimens collected from four popu-lations in southern Peru and he did not find mes-caline in any of them (Serrano 2008). This mesheswith information from Peruvians around Cuzcotelling friends that the plant is used locally as ahair wash, and the only people eating it hoping forpsychoactive effects are ill-informed tourists.

Serrano did find significant levels of mescaline inboth Trichocereus puquiensis and in T. schoenii.T. puquiensis is known to contain mescaline basedon bioassays of its monstrose form, but it lackedany published analysis. Serrano looked at fourT. puquiensis populations from Ayacucho and foundmescaline concentrations ranging from 0.11% to0.50%. He also analyzed three populations ofT. schoenii from Arequipa and reported mescalinevalues from 0.14% to 0.22%. T. schoenii is now con-sidered to be lumped into T. cuzcoensis (= Echinopsiscuzcoensis) by David Hunt and the InternationalCactaceae Systematics Group (Hunt et al. 2006).We cannot help but wonder if this perhaps under-lies the occasional report of entheogenic activityfor T. cuzcoensis. (While rare, such reports do ex-ist.) The need for more work is clearly indicated.

Petrified Peyote?The first mention of “petrified peyote” was appar-ently a misnomer; it appeared in reference to theunique find of peyote effigies approximately 6,000years old recovered from a non-funerary contextin the Shumla Caves near the mouth of the PecosRiver in Texas (Taylor 1956; Bruhn et al. 2002; Terryet al. 2006). These were recently found by MartinTerry’s group to not be actual peyote buttons; rather,they were crafted items that had been shaped toresemble the crown of a living peyote plant (Terryet al. 2006). They were assumed by Jan G. Bruhn’sgroup to be peyote based on the identification ofmescaline within them (Bruhn et al. 2002).

Intriguingly, Terry’s group determined that theseeffigies contained not only tissues from C

4 plants

(i.e., from a crassulacean acid plant like a cactus)but also C

3 plant tissues (i.e., from plants with nor-

mal photosynthesis). Terry’s observation above,combined with the Bruhn group’s assertion thatthe effigies contained 2% mescaline and no otherdetectable alkaloid (Bruhn et al. 2002; El Seedi etal. 2005) suggests that these may be the earliestknown prepared form of a psychedelic drug. How-ever, the Bruhn group’s report has been challengedby Sasha Shulgin as being implausible. Shulgin’smain point concerned the claim that 2% mescalinepersisted after more than 5,000 years; however, thelack of any other peyote alkaloids being reportedby Bruhn et al. (some of which are known to bemore stable than mescaline) also seems unusual.Questions directed to Bruhn about his group’s find-ings have not received any response.

Sadly, the radiocarbon and analytical work done todate has consumed most of the available material,so there may never be more answers available, asthis was the only find of its kind. From the origi-nal specimens, only one still exists, and it is now ahollowed out shell of its former self (see Terry etal. 2006 for more details).

Cactus Updates

by Keeper Trout



Book Review

Four and twenty birds of MayaBaked into an atom youPolarized into existenceMagnet heart from red to blue […]

If your limbs begin dissolvingIn the water that you treadAll surroundings are evolvingIn the stream that clears your head

Find yourself a caravan like Noah must have ledAnd slip inside this house as you pass by.

from “Slip Inside This House”Tommy Hall and Roky Erickson (1967)

EYE MIND: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th FloorElevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound by PaulDrummond. Foreword by Julian Cope. 2007. (Process,POB 39910, Los Angeles, CA 90039, (323) 666-3377,http://processmediainc.com) ISBN: 978-0-9760822-6-2[6" x 9", paperback, $22.95], 421 pages, 120 photos.

In the early 1960s, several years before the LSD-fueled psychedelic culture bloomed in San Fran-cisco, students at the University of Texas in Austinwere already experimenting with peyote and mes-caline. Marijuana was in common use, but posses-sion was a felony that could automatically land onetwo to five years in prison, or up to a life sentencefor a second-time offender. The years 1962–1965saw students, proto-hippie beatniks, and intellec-tuals congealing into a hipster underground, which

In the last several years “petrified peyote buttons”have been appearing for sale at the Tucson Gem &Mineral Show and elsewhere. Recently I had thegood fortune to meet a person who had purchasedone of these ersatz petrified peyote buttons (for$50), and I had opportunity to closely examine it.

It appeared at first glance to vaguely resemble adried peyote button, but without any doubt it issimply either an agate or another form of chalce-dony with a fine drusy quartz coating on one side.It was absolutely not a petrified peyote button, asit lacked all of the critical features (such as ribbedor tuberculate divisions, areoles, or the distinctiveapex) that are typically preserved in peyote but-tons. While a beautiful natural creation, it wasclearly not of botanical origin and was either solddeceptively or ignorantly. It seems likely that all“petrified peyote buttons” sold commercially aresimilarly misidentified. �

TOP: So-called petrified peyote. Photo by K. Trout.BOTTOM: Dried peyote button. Photo by Justin Case.



included the likes of Janis Joplin, Chet Helms (whopromoted the first psychedelic concerts in San Fran-cisco), and Gilbert Shelton (author of the under-ground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers).Among this group was one Tommy Hall, a brilliantphilosophy and psychology major. When LSD hitthe Austin scene in 1964, Hall became enamoredwith its mind-expanding possibilities. He began toformulate an elaborate multi-layered approach tolife, inspired by such luminaries as Gurdjieff,Ouspensky, Hesse, Huxley, Ginsberg, Kerouac, andfamed semioticist Alfred Korzybski.

Meanwhile, the hottest rock ’n’ roll band in townwas The Spades, led by guitarist Roky Erickson, whowas blessed with an astounding and mighty howlof a voice that many locals say influenced JanisJoplin. Eye Mind recounts in elaborate detail therise and fall of the 13th Floor Elevators, the bandformed from the union of these two amazing andeccentric characters. It is a tale almost Shakespear-ean in its ascent and downward trajectory, fromthe formation of the psychedelic scene and theirfirst hit record, to label mismanagement, policeharassment, mental and drug problems, busts, andthe dissolution of the band and their dream.

Documented as the very first self-professed “psy-chedelic” band, the Elevators were a true culturalphenomenon. The liner notes for their debut LPexpound Hall’s theories, including passages about“Man’s quest for knowledge,” and how, by the useof “certain chemicals” one can pursue the “questfor pure sanity…”

The Elevators saw some success with their song“You’re Gonna Miss Me,” an impassioned garage-rocker distinguished by Roky’s howling vocals andwhat would become their signature sound (for bet-ter or worse): a burbling, hooting background noiseproduced by Tommy Hall scat-singing into an “elec-tric jug.” (ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons had a band inAustin at this time, The Moving Sidewalks, whowere totally influenced by the Elevators’ sound.)The Elevators even made it onto Dick Clark’s Ameri-can Bandstand. When Clark asks the band, “Who isthe head of the band here?” Hall replies, “Well,we’re all heads…”

Band leader Hall’s insistence that the band trip onpsychedelics like LSD and DMT at rehearsals, per-formances, and recordings invariably led to somevery intriguing music, and ultimately some not-so-intriguing mental health problems. Drum-mond’s exposé contains great descriptions of theElevators playing the Texas teen club scene, mix-ing standard dance classics of the time with theirnew “psychedelic message” songs. In 1966, the bandalso frequently played the California Bay Area, tosupportive and receptive audiences who were to-tally in tune with their sounds. They shared billswith artists such as Janis Joplin, Big Brother, Quick-silver, and Grace Slick’s Great Society; they evenended up living in San Francisco for a while. Oneinteresting speculation made in the book is that ifthe Elevators had stayed in San Francisco, theymight very well have gone on to become as suc-cessful as their kindred Bay Area bands.

At over 400 pages, Eye Mind is a fascinating book,written by an obviously loving fan. Regardless ofyour taste for their music, this is an invaluable ac-count of not only a seminal American band, but ofthe very roots of the psychedelic counter-cultureitself. The book is full of priceless anecdotes on whatit was like to be a head in the then-hostile Texasenvironment, as well as insights into the WestCoast musical and cultural scenes. Innumerablepunk, new wave, and psychedelic bands havecounted the 13th Floor Elevators as an influence.Busted for a miniscule amount of marijuana in1969, Roky Erickson was incarcerated One FlewOver the Cuckoo’s Nest–style in a psychiatric hospi-tal for several years, where he received shocktherapy against his wishes. Yet between variousmental conditions since that time, Erickson hascontinued his career in music to this day. He re-mains one of my favorite American songwriters.Eye Mind is an unforgettable read about an unfor-gettable time. — David Arnson



Events Calendar

ENTHEOGENESIS AUSTRALISDECEMBER 6, 2008

The Entheogenesis Australis Symposium will takeplace at the University of Melbourne’s CoplandTheatre on Saturday, December 6th, from 9:00 amuntil 9:00 pm (two tea breaks and a one-hour lunchbreak). There will be nine lectures and one paneldiscussion. Featuring Michael Bock (on absintheand toot), David Caldicott (on psychoactive mush-rooms), Deva Daricha (on shamanism), Twix Elbert(on ketamine and schizophrenia), Anna Kokavec(on wine), Tim Payne (on drug consumption),Julian Raxworthy (on psychoactive books), DesTramacchi (on Ephedra), and Torsten Wiedemann(on iboga). With Martin W. as MC and KathWilliamson as panel moderator. Tickets are $95(Australian) available via international money or-der sent to: Entheogenesis Australis, POB 118,Mitcham, Vic 3132, Australia. For more details, see:www.entheo.net.

COSM NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTYDECEMBER 31, 2008

This New Year’s Eve party will feature the finaltour of the New York City CoSM Gallery with AlexGrey, as the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors will be relo-cating during 2009. From 6:30 pm until 4:00 am.Space is limited; advance tickets are available for$100 from www.cosm.org.

HOW TO SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSEJANUARY 16 & 17, 2009

Join us for the first incarnation of How to Survivethe Apocalypse, a Burning Man–inspired event thatcombines rock opera, vaudeville, and freaky cultritual. The evening will feature talks, performances,and, as its centerpiece, a Rock Operetta that ex-plores the early days of the festival and the perilsand possibilities that grace the event to this day.Music by Mark Nichols, lyrics by Erik Davis.

Tickets are $20 general, $15 student or in costume. Advance ticket purchase is recommended. 8:00 pmat Stagewerx, 233 Sutter, San Francisco, CA. Formore information see www.burningopera.com andwww.Stagewerx.org.

CONFERENCE ON SHAMANISMJANUARY 23–27, 2009

The Seventh International Conference on Shaman-ism will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Featur-ing presentations by David Cumes, Deborah Davis,Jorge Luis Delgado, Chalise Brooke Medicine Eagle,Philip H. Farber, Ohki Simine Forest, Raven Hicks,Sandra Ingerman, Kahuna Harry Uhane Jim,Stanley Krippner, Kristin Madden, Joe Miguez,Ernesto Ortiz, Medicine Story, Tina de Souza,Maboud & Tara Andrea Swierkosz, Barbara Tedlock,Dennis Tedlock, and Alberto Villoldo. Tickets are$595 before December 29, and $645 after. For moreinformation, see www.bizspirit.com/shamanism/sh_index.html.

MAGICKAL PLANTSFEBRUARY 2009

Entheo-Educational Experience presents elevenclasses/workshops, to be held at Joshua Tree onFebruary 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, and 22, which featurediscussion of Amanita muscaria, Anadenantheraperegrina, Argyreia nervosa, ayahuasca and its ana-logues, Heimia salicifolia, Leonurus spp., Nelumbonucifera, Nymphaea caerulea, Psilocybe mushrooms,Salvia divinorum, Sceletium tortuosum, and Trichocer-eus cacti. Historical shamanic applications, contem-porary medicinal uses, plant chemistry, first-handreports, processing procedures, availability and ac-cess, and the laws will be discussed. All elevenclasses are $200, any six classes $125, any threeclasses $75, individual classes $30. Payment canbe sent to K.J. Berman, 3753 Piper Trail, Yucca Valley,CA 92284. For info, e-mail [email protected] call (415) 686-2805.



Remembering Thomas Lyttle

T h o m a s L y t t l e

May 5, 1955 — September 5, 2008

Thomas Lyttle was best known as the editor of the periodical Psychedelic Monographs and

Essays, and as the first person to have blotter art autographed by psychedelic luminaries,

dramatically increasing the value of and interest in this unique form of visionary art.

He was interviewed by Jim DeKorne for an early issue of The Entheogen Review (Spring

1994), and over the years he contributed his own interviews and book reviews to the

publication. Tom was a valuable sounding board for us, as well as being a fan of The

Entheogen Review—he is the only person I know of who went to the trouble and expense

of having his back issues of The Entheogen Review hardbound in library cases. Although

we didn’t always agree, we nevertheless had mutual respect and admiration for one

another, and I will miss the spirited e-mail discussions that we shared.

— David Aardvark



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WEB CITATIONS1. Anima (@ Entheogen.com Forums). 2007.

“MHRB, Yellow Oil and DMT-N-oxide,”w w w . e n t h e o g e n . c o m / f o r u m /showthread.php?t=12542.

2. Doctorcito (@ Ayahuasca Forums). 2006.“Yuremamine: Solving the Mystery of JuremaPreta?” http://forums.ayahuasca.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=9912.

3. DonPeyote (@ Drugs-Forum). 2006. “JungleDMT?” www.drugs-forum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=26468.

4. Dozuki (@ Entheogen.com Forums). 2006.“MHRB H

2O/Methanol Extraction & TLC,”

w w w . e n t h e o g e n . c o m / f o r u m /showthread.php?t=6617.

5. Dravidian (@ Entheogen.com Forums). 2006.“DMT Melted?!” www.entheogen.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6381.

6. Entheogenist (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2007.“So I Extracted the Red DMT…” www.dmt-nexus.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=254.

7. Entropymancer (@ The Corroboree Forums).2008. “Concerning the Identity of CommercialMimosa Root-bark,” www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17525.

8. Entropymancer (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2008.“‘Jungle Spice’—Mystery Alkaloids of MimosaRoot-bark,” www.dmt-nexus.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=1115. [Note: This postis an html version of the original article thathas been edited, condensed, and annotated inthe current issue of The Entheogen Review.]

9. Fuego (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2007. “DoingXylol Extraction,” dmt-nexus.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=398.



10. Heyoka (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2007.“Yellow Oil—DMT-N-Oxide?” www.dmt-nexus.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=454.

11. Lemmiwinks (@ Entheogen.com Forums).2007. “Red Spice?” www.entheogen.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11191.

12. Lemmiwinks (@ Entheogen.com Forums). 2007.“DMT possibly changing?” www.entheogen.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11309.

13. Marsofold (@ Drugs-Forum). 2005. “The OtherAlkaloid in Mimosa hostilis,” www.drugs-forum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=13507.

14. Marsofold (@ Mycotopia Forums). 2005.“False Mimosa hostilis Being Sold?” http://forums.mycotopia.net/dmt-spice/6258-false-mimosa-hostilis-being-sold.html.

15. Marsofold (@ Mycotopia Web Forum). 2006.“How to Extract an Alternate Alkaloid fromMimosa; Red ‘Jungle’ DMT [Not],” http://forums.mycotopia.net/dmt-spice/7902-how-extract-alternate-alkaloid-mimosa-red-jungle-dmt-not.html.

16. MisterGypsy (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2007.“Red Spice Experiences,” www.dmt-nexus.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=754.

17. Napolean Blownapart (@ Ayahuasca Forums).2003. “Hummingbirds Brew—Phosphoric Tec,”http ://forums.ayahuasca .com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=851.

18. Noman (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2006. “DarkDMT—the Other Alkaloid,” www.dmt-nexus.com/forum/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=90.

19. Noman (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2006. “DarkDMT,” www.dmt-nexus.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=78.

20. Noman (@ The Lycaeum Forums). 2006. “DarkDMT,” http://forums.lycaeum.org/index.php/topic,17215.0.html.

21. Salvia_Antics (@ DMT-Nexus Forums). 2007.“Dark DMT Extraction?” www.dmt-nexus.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=12003.

22. TheAngryGolfer (@ Entheogen.com Forums).2006. “Orange Spice?” www.entheogen.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7041.

23. Torsten 2008. Posted at www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17525&hl=farmers.

24. With these citations the web reference waseither noted as having been lost in the originalarticle, or else it simply was not included inthe original article.

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The Entheogen Review׃ Vol. 16, No. 2 (2008)

Documents

Transcript of The Entheogen Review׃ Vol. 16, No. 2 (2008)