The Great Elf Debate

Six hundred fractal thank yous to everyone (yep, 600 folk) who made it along to Canterbury at the beginning of April for the extraordinary Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness extravaganza, Breaking Convention. After a sleepless few days chipping away at the coalface of the new neurochemical renaissance there emerged a number of legendary quotes, cries of an epic and historic weekend, oodles of inspired blog reviews and even the odd manifesto manifesting online - all of which have been assembled here for your delight.

Attempting to bring as many of the departed Breakeros back together again, the ECC salon will now resume this Tuesday 19th April (tomorrow) at the October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London, in an effort to bridge the hyperdimensional divide between Kent's Breaking Convention and Daimonic Imagination with The Great Elf Debate, which will be led, widdershins, by Dr David Luke with help from friends. Elves, induced by DMT or otherwise, are of course a hot topic on Psychopraxis.

The Great Elf Debate

Dr David Luke + friends + you

Tuesday, 19^th April, 2011

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

Please RSVP on Facebook (afraid so) so that we can anticipate numbers – Please pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

A few saucy comments and mischievous taunts and counter-taunts to get the ball rolling on the ontology of elves and then over to the good people of the floor to take the debate on a merry dance. We'll throw in some DMT, mushrooms, aliens and preying mantises into the faerie ring for good measure and then probe the audience for some thoughts on imps, piskies, gnomes, self-transforming machine elves and possible pro bono proctologists. Representatives from the Social Constructivist quad and from Tir Na Nog will be on hand to stir the pot.

Dr David Luke directs and curates the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series at the October Gallery, which occasionally zoops off in new and interesting co-creative directions like the Breaking Convention. He has often considered taking McKenna up on his elfin call for creating an embassy for the invisible but is really just too busy being a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, the President of the Parapsychological Association, a Research Associate of the Beckley Foundation, a guest lecturer on the transpersonal masters at the University of Northampton, and an explorer of lost pirate utopias. He hasn't written a single book but promises to finish editing the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness anthology very soon.

VIGIL: Haunted space, psychometry and spectatorship

Artist Blue Firth, writer and attractor of the strange Mark Pilkington, and myself are (g)hosting an art-science experiment at the Royal Academy of Art... all souls invited...

VIGIL

An Investigation into Haunted Space, Psychometry and Spectatorship

Royal Academy Schools, 1-2 October 2010

Researching a series of unexplained incidents at this historic building, artist Blue Firth uncovered a first-hand account of apparent poltergeist activity in the artists’ studios.

While patrolling the 18th century corridors one night in 2008, Red Collar guard Nathan Phillips experienced something that prevented him from finishing his shift: ‘When I got back to where the skeletons are kept, the doors all slammed shut — like boom, boom, boom one after another. I tried to make out what it could be and checked all the doors again. I got to the same point in the same sequence and the bangs happened all over again. I didn’t finish my patrol that night.’

To make sense of what happened to Nathan, Blue has collaborated with parapsychologist Dr David Luke and writer Mark Pilkington. As preparatory research they undertook investigative training sessions with the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP).

Bringing together their knowledge and experience of the paranormal and arts fields, the trio have devised an event that merges Blue’s art practice with David and Mark’s expertise in making sense of the unexplained. The end result is a unique participatory experiment in which the audience are both observers and the observed, the haunters and the haunted.

Participants will be asked to complete psychological and physiological assessments before and after entering the site of the haunting, which will be monitored for any unusual occurrences. The vigil will take place under carefully controlled conditions and in total darkness.

Combining authentic investigative procedures with subtle performative aspects, Vigil examines and subverts the roles of audience expectation, spectatorship and belief.

Spaces for both nights are extremely limited so we advise reserving your position soon.

Visit the Royal Academy web site (www.royalacademy.org.uk) to buy tickets, or email vigilroyalacademy@gmail.com

DMT and Death meme mutates into zombies

The infectious weirdness of the association between DMT, Death, and the God of a Thousand Eyes that I can't stop talking or writing about appears to be a meme mutating into some unexpected mediums. Glass artist Agelos Papadakis based one of his latest exhibition pieces on the Disembodied Eyes article behind this DMT lecture, and then generously reinvigorated my recent rant in Edinburgh with some otherworldly projections. Occult wordsmith Duncan Barford, over at The Baptist's Head, also appears to have been inspired by the mutli-eyed mind-blowing muse. He's inked a curiously Cthulhoid short story fusing the parapsychopharmacology research with a juicy zombie plot to make for a strangely compelling and only minimally fictitious horror epic in miniature. Lovecraft would love it! The snippets below from The Guardian of the Threshold dangle nicely in the mind, methinks....

The Armed Response Unit has just been. I counted seventeen head-shots, but I don't think they finished the job. Usually it's quiet afterwards, but as soon as the van left the bodies were hammering on the gates again and making that moaning noise…

The absence of DMT from the living dead indicated at the very least that they had somehow bypassed the normal process of dying. It might one day lead to an understanding of why they were still walking around. Read more...

Image - Zombies storm London and take over world - www.nowpublic.com

Bard medicine: Psychedelic plant poetry blossoms in London

Due to some fortuity and randomness the entheogencia poet, author and performer, Dale Pendell, happens to be gracing our shores next week and has agreed at the last minute to come and give a talk on Wednesday 22nd July for the increasingly ad hoc Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series. Being moved by the Muse in the moment (and possibly also due to the on-the-hoof spontaneousness in arranging this event) there is no accompanying blurb for Dale’s talk, but rest assured having read some of his books and seen him speak and perform I expect we are in for a shamanarchic, poethnobotanical delight of some strange and wonderful variety.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

(Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). – email: rentals “at” octobergallery.co.uk

RSVP so that we can anticipate numbers – Please book in advance by credit card to guarantee a place or pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Imagination and Fire: New Work and Conversation with Dale Pendell

Dale Pendell is the author of the award-winning Pharmako trilogy on shamanic ethnobotany (Pharmako/Gnosis, Pharmako/Poeia, and Pharmako/Dynamis), Inspired Madness, a book about Burning Man, and Walking with Nobby, a book of conversations with the philosopher Norman O. Brown. Works in progress include The Great Bay, a futuristic novel of a post-collapse society, and Stealing Fire, a new book of poems.

He and his wife Laura and a familiar cat live in the foothills of the Sierra in California, where they grow pine and oak trees, along with some manzanita. Their performance group, Oracular Madness, most recently appeared at Burning Man. http://dalependell.com

Inner paths to outer space

In collaboration with Dr. Slawek Wojtowicz, Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, and Dr. Ede Frecska; Dr.Rick Strassman's new book Inner Paths to Outer Space is the natural sequel to his first book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, in which Strassman documented his extraordinary medical research administering the potent endogenous psychedelic neurochemical, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), to human volunteers. After receiving intravenous injections of DMT, Strassman’s participants reported a range of exceptional phenomena from entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences to near-death like experiences. Inner Paths considers the DMT-induced entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences from Strassman’s research in further depth, particularly in the contexts of quantum physics, science fiction and shamanism, proposing that access to alien worlds in outer space occurs in the inner space of the psyche. A full review of the book appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Death, and the God of a thousand eyes

Following up on the sold-out lecture on "shamanism through the ages" that was given by Pablo Friedlander at the October Gallery at the end of November, the series of lectures on Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness we are organising continues this year, every last Tuesday of the month. Next up on 27th January is Dr. David Luke (yeah, I had to take the slot to get things started) who will be giving a talk entitled "Death, and the God of a thousand eyes". I´ll be there, obviously.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk
Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

This talk discusses both the scientific and the mystical understanding of people's experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places people have had profoundly real experiences of deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Sometimes these occur when a person is in altered state – dreaming, on drugs, or is near death. The connection between the altered state and the 'visitation' is explored in a vivid illustrated talk, which takes a personal tour through folklore, mythology, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, the Luciferian witch cult, brain anatomy, Tibetan demonology, the pineal gland, art, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients. A lively slide lecture format followed by discussion.

Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in parapsychology and altered states of consciousness. He has studied paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney.

Thanks to Alex Grey for the image

Day of the Dead

Brace yourselves for a night of magic, ancestor veneration, voodoo, visionary art and music, brought to you by those titans of weirdness and bastions of peculiarity - Strange Attractor, Dreamflesh and Liminal Nation. Themed talks on altered states, magic, death and the archaeology of consciousness by Gyrus, Donal Ruane and Dr David Luke, and Voodoo shamanigans by Stephen Grasso. Raagnagrok All Stars will be providing sonic succor and sustenance. Saturday, 1st November, 7pm till late at the Horse Hospital, London. It's likely to sell out so reserve a place, below the flyer, by flying to the place below...

Day of the Dead

Are we being kept in the dark about the nocturnal chemistry of the pineal?

It was 50 years ago this week that news broke from Yale that they had isolated a new hormone from the pineal gland, which they did not know the function of but which lightened the shade of skin when tested in frogs. They called it “melatonin”. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) was found to be endogenous (made in the body) and yet, largely because DMT is a legally controlled psychoactive substance and has been seriously under-investigated as a consequence, it still remains essentially hypothetical that it also created within the pineal gland. I gave a talk a couple of nights ago about the extraordinary experiential effects of taking DMT and the possible ontology of the entities commonly encountered with this substance, be they elves, aliens, demons, gods or angels.

The talk was sold out and people were turned away (although another talk has been planned), but the people who were present, some of whom were mental health professionals, were very curious to know what research was being done into the role of DMT in mediating mental health. DMT having once been a contender for potentially explaining the occurrence of certain mental disorders I was loathe to admit that, since the 1970s, prohibition has curtailed practically all psychedelic research with humans (although the tide is now turning) and virtually no studies have been done into the position of DMT in mediating mental health. However, the recent discovery of trace amine receptors in the brain for which DMT shows greater affinity for than does serotonin – its more common neuro-amine cousin – has lead to a paper in Medical Hypotheses by Michael Jacob and David Presti speculating on the role of DMT in mediating mental health and may lead to a resurgence of interest in this simple yet extremely potent endogenous chemical. Psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia have been linked to irregular levels of trace amines.

Also appearing in Medical Hypotheses, but 20 years ago, was a proposal by Jayce Callaway that, at night, serotonin becomes converted into DMT by the pineal gland and plays a central role in activating dreams. Are we being kept in the dark about our own nocturnal chemistry? Currently, although the role of melatonin in the regulation of circadian patterns is now far more understood than it was 50 years ago, the function and even the very presence of DMT in the pineal gland remains a mystery that threatens to challenge much of what we understand about consciousness, and yet remains actively ignored as a topic of legitimate scientific research because of its taboo status. Currently there are at least two very important questions that need answering about DMT. Why should substances that activate extremely potent mystical-type experiences be naturally occurring in the human brain, and why if they are present in our own brain are they placed in the most punitive legal category for controlled substances, thereby making everybody criminals?

References and links:

Callaway, J. C. (1988). A proposed mechanism for the visions of dream sleep. Medical Hypotheses, 26, 119-24.

Jacob, M. S., & Presti, D. E. (2005). Endogenous psychoactive tryptamines reconsidered: An anxiolytic role for dimethyltryptamine. Medical Hypotheses, 64, 930-937.

DMT elves and higher-dimensional space

Coming back to the endless and unresolved issue of DMT entities, I thought it only reasonable to make mention of one of the seminal articles on the topic. Originally published in Psychedelic Monographs and Essays #6 in 1993, the article by Peter Meyer entitled “Apparent Communication with Discarnate Entities Induced by Dimethyltryptamine” puts forward a discussion of DMT entities, including elves, that accepts their existence at face value. Advancing on the proposal by Evans-Wentz that elves occupy “…a supernormal state of consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, trances, or in various ecstatic conditions”, Meyers suggests that “…the faerie world studied by Evans-Wentz and the space into which one may enter under the influence of DMT are parts of a common higher-dimensional space which transcends and encompasses consensus reality as understood at present”. As such, for Meyer, the DMT elves are real denizens of hyperspace. The entire article, later revised by Meyer, is well worth a read.

DMT elves not fond of maths apparently

In further consideration of the Rodriguez paper on how to test the reality of DMT entities, it would be instructive to consider James Kent’s essay on The Case Against DMT Elves. Rodriguez suggests that we can ask the entities to give up some information that we don’t already know, in this case the answer to a maths problem, and the entity can then tell someone else on DMT later. Trouble is, according to Kent (who has tried something similar himself), the DMT entities are not so keen on helping out, which doesn't seem very sporting…

…the more I experimented with DMT the more I found that the "elves" were merely machinations of my own mind. While under the influence I found I could think them into existence, and then think them right out of existence simply by willing it so. Sometimes I could not produce elves, and my mind would wander through all sorts of magnificent and amazing creations, but the times that I did see elves I tried very hard to press them into giving up some non-transient feature that would confirm at least a rudimentary "autonomous existence" beyond my own imagination. Of course, I could not. Whenever I tried to pull any information out of the entities regarding themselves, the data that was given up was always relevant only to me. The elves could not give me any piece of data I did not already know, nor could their existence be sustained under any kind of prolonged scrutiny. Like a dream, once you realize you are dreaming you are actually slipping into wakefulness and the dream fades. So it is with the elves as well. When you try to shine a light of reason on them they dissolve like shadows.

More of… The Case Against DMT Elves

Asking DMT entities to solve maths homework... not as weird as it sounds?

Following on from the trialogue on the ontology of Discarnate Entities by Sheldrake, McKenna and Abrams, I thought it topical to put up a link to a recent paper in the Journal of Scientific Exploration that proposes a methodology for studying the reality of DMT entity encounters. For those who don’t know, DMT is an extremely potent psychedelic substance that is found naturally in the human brain and which, if consumed, quite often gives rise to the meeting of extraordinary entities. Although these meetings generally take place in one’s “mind space” (whatever that is) they are of such an ineffable and numinous nature that many people tend to be convinced of the reality of the seemingly sentient beings that they meet, often causing considerable turbulence to one’s sense of what reality really is.

Grossly simplified, the admirable article by Marko Rodriguez proposes obtaining from the entities solutions to complex mathematics puzzles that the DMT experient does not know. Regrettably, this ingenious method for testing the independent existence of entities encountered on DMT is subject to a number of flaws, not least of which are the huge assumptions involved in expecting our supposed hyper-intelligent beings actually having the desire to cooperate and make themselves proven (let alone the DMT experient’s capability to ask them). The most crippling problem for his test, however, is what is known as the "super-psi hypothesis"; an issue long proved difficult to surmount in parapsychological attempts to validate the existence of discarnate entities considered spirits of the dead, e.g. those apparently communicating via trance mediums.

The problem is that, because clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition (collectively called psi) have no theoretical (or even apparent) limits, it always remains a possibility that any information provided by ostensibly discarnate entities may actually be due to the “super” psi of the person (e.g., the medium) receiving the information. One of the most cogent articles on the super-psi hypothesis in relation to survival after death comes from Prof. Stephen Braude and also appeared in the Journal of Scientific Exploration several years earlier in 1992. Anyway here’s the abstract of the Rodriguez paper and a link to the full pdf.

A Methodology for Studying Various Interpretations of the N,N-dimethyltryptamine-Induced Alternate Reality

N,N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is an endogenous psychoactive chemical that has been shown through repeated human subject experimentation to provide the subject with a perception of an ‘alternate reality’. When administered a sufficient DMT dose, subjects have reported the presence of intelligent beings that do not appear to be the projections of their subconscious in the Freudian sense. Furthermore, and of particular interest to this article, many subjects believe that the percieved alternate reality is persistent in that it exists irrespective of their subjective momentary perception. Past research into the DMT-induced alternate reality comes solely from subject testimonies and to date, no analysis has been conducted to understand the objective aspects of these extraordinary subjective claims. This article provides a methodology for studying the nature of the DMT-induced alternate reality by means of various simple information theory experiments. These experiments can be used to test which of the presented interpretations of the DMT-induced alternate reality appears most plausible.

Trialogue on discarnate entities

Concordant with a talk I gave a couple of weeks ago about DMT and discarnate entities, Rupert Sheldrake (just for a change) has just announced the online release of the ninth in the series of trialogues between Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham and, well, Rupert Sheldrake of course. The three heavy weight thinkers conduct one of their classic brain-offs and rap about entities in all their glorious (dis) incarnations, be they angelic or psychedelic. Mckenna's call for an embassy for the invisible has a certain appeal...

Are disincarnate and non-human entities mental projections or non-physical, autonomous entities? What can we learn from them? Their variety and persistence in human history. Early modern science and angelic communication. The shamanic model. The aversion to the irrational in Christianity and science. The need to analyze the entities’ messages. A mathematical model of body, soul and spirit. Entities as inhabitants of the spiritual domain of the logos. The evolution of their multifarious representations. The dogma of purgatory. Contacting these entities through dreams and psychedelics. The deepest layers of the faery tradition. Metaphors of light? Entities as artificers and their use of language. Is the world soul behind these entities?

Part one of two

Over-the-counter “paranormal” drug used by 3.1 million Americans to get high

According to a new report in the US based on SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, “…the cough suppressant dextromethorphan (DXM) is found in more than 140 over-the-counter (OTC) cough and cold medications. In 2006 about 3.1 million persons aged 12 to 25 (5.3%) had ever used an over-the-counter cough and cold medication to get high; that is, used it nonmedically. Nearly 1 million persons aged 12 to 25 (1.7%) had used an over-the-counter cough and cold medication to get high in the past year.”

What isn’t popularly known is that at high enough doses the dissociative drug DXM causes subjective paranormal effects similar to those of ketamine, such as out-of-body experiences (OBEs), near-death experiences, a loss of the sense of causality, a sense of presence, encounters with entities, and the occasional experience of extra-sensory perception (White, 1997, Price & Lebel, 2000). These reports were also corroborated by a recent survey on paranormal experience with psychoactive drugs that I conducted with Dr. Marios Kittenis of the University of Edinburgh. We found that several of our survey respondents acknowledged having experiences of clairvoyance, psychokinesis, OBEs, mystical-type experiences, and telepathy in particular (Luke & Kittenis, 2005). Several respondents also independently reported using DXM with others for the explicit purpose of having group telepathic experiences, which they believed to be real and recurrent.

DXM remains a legal drug at the present time, and with increasing numbers of people taking it for non-medical purposes the prevalence of subjective paranormal experiences occurring amongst the public due to this drug must be becoming quite considerable, though no statistics are currently available. Furthermore, no research to date has tested the possibility that these reported telepathic and other experiences with DXM might actually be genuine. Previous research testing the efficacy of psychedelic agents in the production of ESP, mostly conducted throughout the 1960’s with psilocybin and LSD, showed some promising results, despite frequently using novice trippers (Luke, 2005). By the same token, however, much of this research also needed much better controls but certainly encouraged the idea that these drugs may be able to induce genuine psychic experiences, as claimed by shamans across continents and since antiquity. The latest such research project of this kind, using psilocybin and cannabis, was conducted with seemingly adequate controls at the University of Amsterdam by Prof. Dick Bierman and generated very interesting results, partially supporting the apparent efficacy of these substances in stimulating legitimate psychic (i.e., telepathic, clairvoyant or precognitive) phenomena (Bierman, 1998). Further research is certainly begging at this time.

David Luke

(Thanks to James Kent at DoseNation.com for reporting on the SAMHSA paper)

References

Bierman, D. J. (1998, October). The effects of THC and psilocybin on paranormal phenomena. Paper presented at Psychoactivity: A Multidisciplinary Conference on Plants, Shamanism, and States of Consciousness, Amsterdam.

Luke, D. P., & Kittenis, M. (2005). A preliminary survey of paranormal experiences with psychoactive drugs. Journal of Parapsychology, 69 (2), 305-327.

Luke, D. P. (2005). Paranormal phenomena and psychoactive drugs: Fifty-years of research Bulletin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, 15 (3), 15-16.

Price, L. H., & Lebel, J. (2000). Dextromethorphan-induced psychosis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157 (2), 304.

White, W. E. (1997). Altered states and paranormal experiences. In W. E. White, The Dextromethorphan FAQ: Answers to frequently asked questions about DXM, (version 4). Retrieved April 2, 2002, from http://www.erowid.org/chemical/dxm/faq/dxm_paranormal.shtml