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DMT: The Spirit Molecule [2000] �� ★★��1/2

“Psychedelics affect every aspect of our consciousness. It is this unique consciousness that separates our species from all others��, and that gives us access to what we consider the divine above. Maybe that’s another reason why the psychedelics are so frightening and so inspiring: they bend and stretch the basic pillars, the structure and defining characteristics, of our human identity�� [Strassman, 2000: 40].

This non-fiction book tells of a study conducted in the 1990s in New Mexico on the effects of DMT, “an extremely short acting and powerful psychedelic�� [Strassman, 2000: xv]. DMT, which is closely related to serotonin and present naturally in human bodies, was administered intravenously to human participants whose reactions and sensations were then carefully recorded. In particular, Rick Strassman was looking for evidence of a “transcendent experience��. On DMT, his subjects experienced vivid visual and auditory hallucinations (“saw all sort of imaginable and unimaginable things��), and some reported a sense of awe, euphoria, timelessness, separation of consciousness from the body and the presence of “the other�� in the room.

The book starts with a discussion of different types of drugs, their origin, composition and usage in various experiments throughout history, including so-called “magic mushrooms�� and LSD. It then goes to discuss the nature of the experiment involving DMT, its aims and who were the participants. The following chapters talk about the participants�� reactions to the drug, their joy, fear and otherworldly feelings. Chapter 15 is particularly good since it talks about the link between DMT and the near-death experience, though it hardly arrives to any single conclusion in this respect. The problem is that DMT: The Spirit Molecule is not as eye-opening a book as one would have hoped. There is much more inside the book about the author’s biographical details and the rather dull nuts and bolts of the experiment itself than about the precise conclusions about DMT. “The three pillars of self, time, and space all undergo profound transfiguration in a mystical experience��, states the author, as though divulging to us some secret, previously unheard-of knowledge. DMT: The Spirit Molecule is also a controversial book in many respects, but, as the author states, at the very least it has the ability “to enlarge the discussion on psychedelics��.