Book Review: Lightquest by Andrew Collins

LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences by Andrew Collins

There are plenty of UFO books out there. More than you can probably count. Most of them do not offer anything new, if they offer anything at all. The majority of them are stuck in the extra-terrestrial paradigm. Through the years, there have been books in the field that stand out, notably the work of people like Jacques Vallee, John Keel, John Mack, Whitley Strieber, etc. The people who were willing to try and truly understand the phenomenon. 

I believe that Lightquest from Andrew Collins belongs on that list. Is it the definitive book that clearly explains everything? No. We may never have that. But this book, may very well be a step in the right direction. Expanding primarily on the work of another novel researcher, Paul Devereux, Andrew proposes that what we see as space ships, fairies, etc, are really plasma formations. This is not a new idea, although it is not a well known theory, where Collins differs, is he proposes a definite intelligence behind the phenomenon. He suggests a combination of altered states of consciousness, and what he calls a 'bubble reality' to explain what is happening to people who come in close contact with these plasma intelligences. He starts the book by debunking Roswell, the flagship of the ET Hypothesis. Following that, he explores areas that have earth lights, probable plasma formations, that show up regularly, such as Marfa, Texas. He then takes it deeper into UFO territory and explores encounters and how strange they really get. He deals with cutting edge science to try and understand what we may really be experiencing, rather than what it looks like on the surface. 

Like all of his books, he shares information you will not find anywhere else. He shares some personal accounts and some never before published accounts that support his theory. He even, at the end, takes a look at the Rendlesham case. 

All throughout, as he explores 'window areas', UFO hotspots, and why they may be such, he also gives you tips if you wish to visit them yourself, and where you are most likely to see something. Personally, I have been a fan of Andrew Collins for a long time now, and the majority of his books have had to do with archaeology and lost civilizations, but there are a few exceptions, like this. He has never disappointed me. He always has something worthwhile to share when he authors a book, and with the number he has out, that is quite impressive. This one is around 400 pages, detailed, well written, easy to read, and just packed with information. There is even a brief Q&A section at the end just to clarify some of the points in the book. 

If you are at all interested in the UFO Phenomenon, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Even if you disagree with his overall theory, I can almost guarantee you will get something out of it of value. 

You can find out more about Andrew Collins at his official website.

Book Review: Whitley Strieber "Communion" 1987

Communion: A True Story was one of the two books back in the late 80's that brought the face of the grey alien into popular culture. Strieber took a lot of heat for his story, from both sides of the tracks. Believers in the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis attacked him for claiming that he didn't believe that was necessarily the answer, and, of course, the closed minded skeptical community attacked him for suggesting that something like this may be real. 

For the record. I believe his story. I believe he is telling the truth as he knows it. I read this originally back when it came out, and felt that after 20 years, I should re-read it and see how I felt about it from my current perspective. My feelings haven't changed. This was an important book. It made people more comfortable about talking about their own experiences. Whitley approaches this with common sense and skepticism. He spends a lot of time trying to see if his experiences were somehow caused by hallucinations or medical issues, like temporal lobe epilepsy, which they were not. Even at this early point, though, he realizes that dealing with the UFO Phenomenon, literally challenges our view on what reality is. As I read this, I got the feeling of someone painting a painting, representing their normal life, while all the while another painting was being painted underneath, and only a crack reveals it's existence. And as that crack is widened, more of the painting underneath, this hidden world, comes into awareness. It was always there, and we have no idea how it got there without us knowing. It's disturbing. And enlightening. If you are interested in the paranormal and have never read this classic piece of work, you should. It is as valid today as when it was published. It is pure, straight to the point, and free of any kind of agenda. As Whitley takes your through his awaking into what happened to him, you can feel what an impact it had on him. As strange as it all may sound, I am sure it was 1000 times worse for him. 

I do plan on reading, at very least, Transformation again as well, as I think that had even more of an impact on me than this did. Hopefully, I will also eventually have Whitley on my new radio show, Where Did the Road Go?, which, if you are reading this blog, you should really be checking out.

What I am Reading Right Now...

I have some book reviews to do, but until I get around to that, I felt like sharing what I am digesting right now. 

LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences by Andrew Collins. Collins is by far one of my favorite authors. This actually is similar, but different, to my blog entry from back in May about rethinking reality. Where I focus more on the role of DMT, he focuses on plasma. Where we meet is around Paul Devereux and his Earth Light work. Anyways, Andrew starts with Roswell, and moves on to Marfa and then the English Countryside. Slowly and clearly making the case against physical nuts and bolts ET's and for something very different. He does an amazing job, bringing things to light that have not be published elsewhere. I find that every time I read one of his books, I learn a good number of things I had never heard about before. This is not always the case, and for him to do such consistent work in the fields he writes about is impressive. Being about halfway through this book, I would highly recommend it.

The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, Ufo Encounters, and Mind at Large by Kenneth Ring, PH.D. This is a re-read. Granted the first time I read it was about 20 years ago, and it has always stuck with me as a phenomenal and groundbreaking piece of work. I decided to see if a re-read would hold up, and what I am finding is that I am even more impressed by this work than I was originally. Ken started out just working on Near Death Experiences, but has expanded here to include UFO Encounters. When I first read this, I was sold on the 'nuts and bolts' ET hypothesis of UFO's, partly because of the rather good work of Budd Hopkins. As Dr. Ring shows that there are a lot of similar factors to people who have NDE's and UFO encounters, it pushes against the purely physical idea, and the first time I read this, it really hurt my brain trying to figure these connections out. Now, they make a lot of sense, and I see from this perspective that he was way ahead of the curve. A definite must read for anyone serious about this phenomenon.

Lost Star of Myth and Time by Walter Cruttenden. Also a re-read, although from a much more recent time. I started to re-read this to prepare for the interview I did with Walter at the end of September. That interview can be found here. I didn't get through the whole thing in time for the interview, but  I am greatly enjoying the re-read. In short, it deals with the cyclic nature of time, a rise from a dark age, to a golden age, and back again, the evidence for this, as well as the common belief in so many cultures of this cycle, it's connection to the precession of the equinox, and the theory that we may be in a binary star system that drives said cycle. Awesome book, and I was very happy with the interview we did.

Lost Cities of Africa and Arabia (The Lost City Series) by David Hatcher Childress. Haven't gotten too far into this one yet, but like all of David's work, this one is entertaining from the beginning. It records his travels around Africa in search of lost cities and legends. This series has a nice balance of fact with legend with travel stories. David has no problem going off on wild speculation, and in this case, it's usually entertaining. He does a good job differentiating the facts from theory and speculation. 

Earth in Upheaval by Immanuel Velikovsky. After finishing Worlds in Collision a short while ago (full review will be up eventually) I immediately starting reading this. Velikovsky will clearly be proven wrong on some points, but overall he seems to be more right than wrong. The scientific establishment doesn't like that at all. To this day, over 50 years later, they still seek to distance any new discoveries that support his theories with a buffer that makes him sound wrong, even if he wasn't. This one is more geological than Worlds, since he was criticized for referring to myths in that volume. Haven't made it very far yet, but I have high expectations. 

Gateway to Atlantis: The Search for the Source of a Lost Civilization by Andrew Collins. Yup, I am reading 2 Andrew Collins books currently. Three actually, but I haven't picked up The Cygnus Mystery: Unlocking the Ancient Secret of Life's Origins in the Cosmos in a while, so that doesn't count right now. I will get back to it eventually. This is Collins attempt to find atlantis based on information in ancient maps, legends, and, of course, Plato's writings. His end result is that it was in Cuba to some extent. A good piece of work I am about halfway through. All his evidence is well supported and fleshed out in great detail. Anyone with an interest in Atlantis, as well as lost civilizations, should find this a damned interesting read.

Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld by Patrick Harpur. This is also a re-read, because as blown away by it as I was the first time through, I failed to remember it in any detail.  Harpur approaches the paranormal by shifting how we view reality. It is an impressive piece of work. Comprehensive as well, and he is likely, to some degree, right about how we interact with this phenomenon. Highly recommended. 

The Way Toward Health: A Seth Book by Jane Roberts. As much as I tend to be VERY skeptical of channeling, Seth has always been an exception. Detailed and specific, and when we look at what we have learned scientifically in the last few decades, and how Seth claimed things worked, he seems to have been accurate. Jane was always skeptical of her channeling, and as to whether or not Seth was really what he claimed to be or if it was just a part of her own mind somehow. I think the wealth of information, though, speaks for itself. This is not all light and love like a lot of New Age channels. This is very real and down to earth. However, this is by no means their best work. This was actually dictated while Jane was dying in the hospital. A good portion of the book is her husband Robert's notes about her condition and such, with short little spurts of dictation. The quality of material is still there despite Jane's state. If you have read most of the other work, this is interesting, if a little sad. You can really feel for what Robert is going through watching Jane deteriorate. If you are not familiar with Jane's work, go read something else, like Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, which is a good place to start...

The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. Yet another re-read. I first read this over 20 years ago, and found so much that I loved about Crowley. Re-reading it I find myself feeling the same level of respect all over again. This book had a HUGE effect on me, and Crowley's work and view on things has always been a inspiration to me. He was such a unique individual, and had such a huge effect on our culture, not that most people realize it. In fact, most people have no idea what Crowley was really all about, and if you are one of those people that thinks he was just some evil, black magician or Satanist, you really need to read this book and understand just how fully wrong that idea is.  What is also remarkable is how relevant some of what he has to say is to today's world...

Last one for now, and yes, I know, I read a LOT of stuff at the same time. I tend to bounce back and forth depending on my mood and what I feel like learning about.

Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America by Russ Baker. The man behind the WhoWhatWhy.com website, this book is awesome. Russ started working on it after hearing Bush Sr. say that he had no idea where he was during the assassination of JFK. Russ finds out just where he was, why he doesn't want anyone to know, and builds from there to show just how much influence the Bush's have had over our history, going back to WWII and beyond. Everything is notated and you can find every bit of information he refers to. There is little speculation, just following the facts. Russ Baker is what a news reporter should be. His website and this book both attest to that. You will find here information about the JFK assassination that you have never heard about before. You will see how interconnected the Bush family has been to our government for longer than most of us have been alive. It's actually a bit disturbing...

Ok, that is the mass of stuff I am working my way through right now. I have Velikovsky's book to review eventually as well as Laird Scranton's The Velikovsky Heresies: Worlds in Collision and Ancient Catastrophes Revisited, which I can say right now, I recommend if you have read any of Velikovsky's work. 

Chasing UFO's

As I am watching Chasing UFO’s on National Geographic, I find myself feeling much the same way I do about any shows of this nature. Lots of filler, no real substance. The current episode is entitled Alien Baby Farm. They are investigating some pretty interesting footage of an unknown object spewing out a line of other unknown objects, that was captured by two different people in two different locations. The footage looks genuine. They go down to Mexico City, where it was shot, and talk to the two witnesses. I would say, both witnesses have more sense about them than any of the people doing this show. They both referred to the object as possibly organic, like it was alive. And the second person pointed out that more UFO’s are seen when the volcano is active just outside the city. Now, this brings to mind the work of Paul Devereux, books like, for example, Earth Lights Revelation: Ufo's and Mystery Lightform Phenomena : The Earth's Secret Energy Force where he presents his evidence that UFO’s appear more often along fault lines than anywhere else. Andrew Collins also seems to be onto this idea with his latest work, LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences. It seems like what the second witness was indicating is that volcanic activity may be a factor, instead our crack team goes with the idea that extra-terrestrials are visiting the volcano for some reason and set off to explore the volcano. So we get some nice shots of them hiking over a beautiful area and such, but really, this has nothing to do with the video at hand. Then we jump to another quite interesting video. But... what happened to working with the footage that they started with? Were those the only two witnesses?

On another episode, Alien Castaways, we see them investigating what they are calling a South American Roswell. Well, sure, considering Roswell was not a crashed UFO, this seems like a good comparison. Andrew Collins does a good job of debunking Roswell in his above book, as has John Keel for a few decades now. This 'investigation' really goes nowhere. They talk to a bunch of people and run around in the woods a bit. The 100,000 witnesses that supposingly seeing aliens run around down there, don't seem to be available for interview. The one group of women they do interview, seem very genuine, and likely had a real experience. It was, however, completely detached from any UFO sighting or crash. At the very end they decide to look at the photo that got them interested in the case, and oh, they realize it's a fake. Shouldn't they have done that first? There was no investigation, really, and at the end they had NOTHING to show for going down there.

These shows are not about the paranormal. This is what these big media outlets THINK that people want to see. You get the same formula on Ghost Hunters, Chasing UFO's, Destination Truth, etc. It's all about the people running around and usually making fools of themselves. Oh, and lets cut to commercial just when it seems like something major is happening, only to come back to reveal that it's absolutely nothing. Personally, the only show I think this formula works on is Ghost Adventures, or at least I find it amusing rather than aggravating. Here they make the people very two dimensional, you have three people here, one is a skeptic, one a true believer, and the other somewhere in between. Same formula as on UFO Hunters, and rarely are people like that in real life. James Fox, one of the main people on this show, does not seem to be so simple. I heard of this show from an interview he did on Coast to Coast AM, and at first wasn't sure what to make of him. By the end of the interview, I was mostly impressed with his open mindedness and intelligence. Watching this pile of crap, though, I find it hard to believe it's the same guy. In his defense, he did post to his facebook wall that he, himself, was very upset about the way the show turned out. This is what he wrote;

James Fox  I know how disappointed all of you are. I am too. It’s not the show that was sold to both myself and scientist Ben.

Two months into it, we were off to a great start; good locations, solid witnesses and some opportunities for Ben to apply his field research as a geologist at some crash sites. Very exciting stuff. Unfortunately, when we actually got out in the field we began to realize that they were more interested in poking around a night then allocating the time necessary during the day as apparently (so we were told) Americans love watching others sneak around at night from the comfort of their couches. Ben and I reluctantly played along…and it wasn’t always bad. We really set up field maps and surveillance at the Roswell crash site (with a slew of high tech gear) and ran out of daylight.

As it was in the middle of no-where we all decided to work through the night and did find something…there were other cases in the show where when witnesses claimed to see strange lights appear in certain areas and that too made some sense for us to go out at night…but for the most part it was gratuitous night time boloney. As far as the title, it was UFO Investigations until they switched it to Chasing UFOs after it was all shot and edited. So with a lack of control in the field and zero in post the show is what it is.

Having said that, all my previous works are circulating Nat Geo headquarters and I’ve been influencing and establishing contacts in the mainstream (middle america mainstream) and will continue to do so and I will only return if I’m on as a producer all the way through to the end. Will it ever be I Know What I Saw or Leslie’s great work…? No, but I’ll do my best to make is a credible while entertaining as possible (as that’s most important to Nat Geo). I promise I’ll either quit or change my position within the show because at least I can make it all make some sense. The show does get a bit better further down the road but not a lot.

Please bare with me a bit longer as I’ve jumped into the lions den to see what I could do from the inside. My credibility and reputation has, deservedly, taken a serious hit but know that I’m hoping to come out with an opportunity that otherwise would;'t have presented itself. Fingers crossed. James

So, at least he sees the problem. Overall, I wouldn't recommend to anyone serious about the subject that they waste their time on this series. It's not that entertaining, and really, aside from the Travis Walton interview (in the episode Abducted in Arizona I believe) and a few good videos, hasn't really been worth a damn. I think this is meant to entertain people who really don't know much about the subject, and who like reality shows. Lets hope that James and company do something more worthwhile in the future. 

Near Death, UFO's, and The Rethinking of Reality...

“I believe there is an perichoresis, an interpenetration. It is possible, indeed, that we three are now sitting among desolate rocks, by bitter streams.

…And with what companions?”

- Arthur Machen

When most people think of Near Death Experiences, they think of a tunnel of light, meeting heavenly beings, etc. A good number of people also think it’s bullshit. Those are the people who have never actually researched the subject. Does a NDE prove life after death? No. Absolutely not. However it is a genuine mystery that a few brave scientists over the years may have finally made some headway into.

Make no mistake NDE’s are a joke among conventional scientists, not because there is nothing to them, but because they fall into that fringe that they stay far away from. That fringe starts to unravel accepted theories, and is really just inconvenient. So the mainstream scientists stay far away. There are however, doctors who often starting out as skeptical, eventually admit that there seems to be something to the experiences. Michael Sabom wrote a book back in the late 90's called, Light and Death about a particular case that can’t be explained by accepted theories. But this case is not unique, often people who are dead on the operating table find themselves hovering over their bodies and can describe in detail what was happening on the operating table, or in other rooms nearby. The standard explanation for this is that they are just hearing it and their brains are making up the rest. There was a cardiologist, whose name escapes me at the moment, who after hearing numerous stories of NDE’s, and being completely skeptical, decided to mount his own study. What he did was this, over the coarse of a year or so, every patient he worked on was asked to fill out a questionnaire. Said document asked IF the person had a NDE, as well as questions about what happened during the procedure. What he discovered after many 100’s of patients was interesting, and turned him away from being a skeptic (a common thing for cardiologists who actually do any research on the subject). He found that, as we already knew, not everyone who died had a NDE. BUT, he also discovered that some people who did not die, and weren’t even near death, DID have a NDE. He also found that the people who had NDE’s could describe in clear and precise detail what was happening in the operating room, not just conversations, but actions, tools, etc. The people who did not have NDE’s, also filled out this portion, and he found that what they thought was happening could not have been more wrong. This disproved the idea that people were just making up what was happening in the operating room or just dreaming about it. Every indication is that these people were seeing what was going on in the room, even when all brain activity had ceased. There is, of course, also the famous story of the woman who, while having a NDE, floated out of the operating room, was able to recount a conversation, that was verified, happening in the waiting room, and then finally floated outside the building. In the last part, she saw a red shoe sitting on the ledge. When she woke up and told the doctor about it, she decided to check it out. She went to where the shoe was supposed to be, and sure enough, there it was, just as described. What was more, the shoe was not in a location anyone would have been able to casually see it.

All of this, however, does not say anything about an afterlife, what it displays is the probability that consciousness can move without the body. Now that we have established certain facts about NDE’s, we have to look at other research.

There were studies done at a certain point using Ketamine, and it was shown that under certain conditions, the drug could create visions similar to NDE’s. The problem with this, however, is that there is no known mechanism for the body to create Ketamine naturally. This did not stop various skeptics from latching on to the theory that somehow Ketamine explained away NDE’s. After all, when your only goal is to dismiss something, and you have already made up your mind, any explanation will do. Skeptics don’t use facts, they use belief. The very people who did the study said that they did not believe that this explained NDE’s in any way. Yet it was sighted repeatedly as the solution to NDE’s.

On the other hand, Dr. Rick Strassman, who was the only doctor since the 70’s allowed to do research on hallucinatory drugs, found that DMT, which is naturally occurring in the human body, also created experiences similar to NDE’s. Not exact, but he theorized that the circumstances may also be a factor, and that we don’t know what a natural release of DMT may do. Some of the experiencers also reported encounters very similar to alien abduction scenarios. He was not prepared for any of this, and after years of research he finally concluded that DMT didn’t cause hallucinations, per se. He felt that what was more likely happening was that DMT was re-tuning the brain, allowing consciousness to interact with a different reality. He termed our reality, channel normal, comparing the re-tuning to a TV set. In his book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, he shows, in detail, why he doesn’t feel that what people were experiencing on DMT were mere hallucinations. There was too much consistency between trips, and between the patients. Hallucinations simply don’t work like that.

But this makes a strange connection, that of alien abductions and NDE’s. Oddly enough, Dr. Kenneth Ring made the same connection back in his 1992 book, The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, Ufo Encounters, and Mind at Large. Originally, Dr. Ring’s research was into the NDE. In this book, he expanded his research to not only explore the after effects of the Near Death Experience, but also to explore the alien abduction phenomenon. What he found was stunning, and rather confusing. He found that the aftereffects of both experiences had similar effects on the experiencer. Dr. Ring identified various value and belief changes associated with people who have had either experience. Some of these changes in personality involve having a greater appreciation for live, higher self-esteem, more compassion, a better understanding of life, as well as a sense of purpose, a desire to learn new things, an increase in spirituality (do not confuse this with religion), and many other things, including a raising of IQ. On the other hand both experiences can also create negative effects, where people have trouble dealing with the experience and life afterwards. But what stands out in this research, aside from the similarities, are the verifiable changes in the people who experience these things. Hallucinations do not cause core changes in a person, these experiences do. The late John Mack also dealt, on the abduction side, with these personality changes in great detail. He was, of course, ostracized for even attempting to study such a field. Again, his research confirms what Dr. Ring discovered. That there are changes to the individual, and that both experiences seem to have some common core.

One of the things that Dr. Strassman did not find, were any kind of long lasting personality changes in the individual. It is possible, however, that the amount of DMT, or the setting may have been to blame. Or maybe DMT is not the catalyst. But there is more.

As I said at the start, not everyone who dies has a Near Death Experience. This would seem to be a puzzle. On explanation may be, that only some remember it. Like dreams. Everyone dreams. Everyone. However, it is not hard to find people who rarely or never remember their dreams, or who believe they do not dream. Dreaming is also an altered state of consciousness, so perhaps there is a connection. Dr. Ring’s research led him to the idea of the Encounter Prone Personality. The EPP is someone who is more likely to have a paranormal experience. Could this be connected to DMT? Dr. Strassman wonders the same thing. Could it be that some people have more DMT running through their systems than others. Or maybe some people’s bodies create DMT more easily, then allowing them to access another reality. It could even be an environmental factor that sets it off. Consider that UFO sightings often happen in flaps, or flap areas. Paul Devereux has his Earth Lights theory (Earth Lights Revelation: Ufo's and Mystery Lightform Phenomena : The Earth's Secret Energy Force), which shows that such lights, perhaps generated by the Earth itself, happen most often along fault lines. All of these things may be connected. The same mechanism that causes Earth Lights, may have an effect on certain people, whose brains then release a dose of DMT, allowing them to access another world, or have an alien abduction experience, whatever it really is. This theory seems rather effective. There is only one problem. There are many UFO encounters with physical evidence. Granted never enough to fully claim the UFO Phenomenon as real to many people, but take for instance, there was a UFO landing case, where the witnesses watched a bright object come down and land in their woods. They went out to investigate. When they got there, it shot off and disappeared. It broke some of the tree limbs, and left a white circle on the floor of the forest. The mother of the group, reached out and touched the circle, and lost all feeling in her hand. It never returned. The area where the circle was is now, still, dead, decades later. Nothing can grow there. What does this prove? Nothing but that something odd happened. There are enough of these cases, enough radar traces, and other tantalizing pieces of evidence to rule out a purely mental phenomenon. At the same time, there is no evidence that UFO sightings like this are in any way extra-terrestrial. What they are is a total mystery.

I could go on for days about examples to back up all of the above. What it boils down to, though, is that there is more going on here than we currently can comprehend. A Near Death Experience may have nothing to do with what actually happens when we die, any more than UFO’s looking like saucers mean they come from outer space. They may have more to do with each other than most suspect. There is a legitimate mystery here, and one that may need a complete reorganization of our view of reality to even begin to process.

One take could be this. These experiences allow us access to another world. Another dimension. Under the right circumstances, we can interact and access that world. The above DMT theory would allow for this to happen. However, the inhabitants of that world, may also be able to come here, maybe not fully, but just enough to create the type of odd UFO sightings and such that occur, occasionally leaving puzzling evidence. This would account for all the evidence. It is not currently provable, and may be completely wrong, but at least it takes everything into account.

Lets look at one more piece of the puzzle. In his book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, Graham Hancock suggests that the alien abduction scenario, the fairies and elves of the past, and shamanic experiences are all of the same ilk. Jacques Vallee had previous, in Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds, and DIMENSIONS: A Casebook of Alien Contact, shown the link between fairies, UFO’s, Fatima, and more. Graham goes a bit further and shows how the ancient cave paintings are not of hunted animals, but of shamanic journeys. All of these factors collide to create a rich and varied picture. Vallee shows that this phenomenon, whatever it truly is, has been with us throughout history. Graham adds into the picture the Shamanic element, which then aligns with the DMT research. When all is said and done, we are looking at something that has interacted with and been of part of the foundation of mankind throughout time. Some, like John Keel, feel that this phenomenon may not have our best wishes at heart. Mack and Hancock show that with bad experiences, growth comes, so maybe what Keel sees as dangerous, may eventually be beneficial. Or maybe, like us, some of what is there is helpful and some is not.

So let us look again at the NDE, in this new light. What do we know? Well, the out of body experiences suggest that consciousness is not confined to the body, and MAY survive death. It does not, however, necessarily show us what death is like. This reminds me though, of another strange connection between the UFO phenomenon and NDE’s. One of the common elements of the NDE is meeting of dead relatives when they go towards or reach the light. There have been numerous abduction accounts of people on ‘ships’ meeting dead relatives aboard. Whether or not these are their actual dead relatives in either case, is an open question, but the appearance of said factor in UFO accounts is very strange. Whatever is happening has a common factor. The experiences may be different, but yet, not so much at times. The other interesting thing is the personality changes that NDE and UFO experiencers have. As mentioned above, a simple hallucination does not cause this, nor does the DMT doses that were given by Strassman. I find the raise in IQ especially interesting, as being dead should not expand your intelligence, if anything, one would think small amounts of brain damage would likely be more common. Current science can not explain any of this. Nor will it even address the subjects. Death may have nothing to do with NDE’s, but the near death state may open up doors in some people.

It is easy for the skeptic to dismiss this data, they will never accept it anyways, so proving anything to skeptics is pointless. They have made up their minds. Luckily, there are those open minded skeptics, who are willing to do open and honest research and not dismiss things out of hand. It is because of these people that we may have finally reached something NEW about these types of experiences. For the foreseeable future, I suppose we will all find out when we do die. What happens will happen. I often wonder how these closed minded skeptics (and atheists for that matter) react when they die and their consciousness continues. Do they stop and look back, realizing how ignorant they were? On the other hand, if they are right, and when you die that is it, well, we won’t know anyways, now will we. I believe that there is more than enough evidence to suggest the independent nature of consciousness without the body, as well as the idea that consciousness is not a by product of matter, but that matter is a creation of consciousness. A very eastern idea, that western science is slowly finding itself having to deal with. Ah, but that is another subject...

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

- Teilhard de Chardin

Book Review: DMT - The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman, M.D.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Rick Strassman M.D.

There are people who feel that science and the paranormal cannot co-exist, usually forgetting that many things were paranormal until explained by science. In today's world, talk of things like Alien Abductions and Near Death Experiences often get one ridiculed by people who are more, scientific. In DMT, The Spirit Molecule, Dr. Strassman proceeds in a completely scientific manor to investigate the effects of DMT on various volunteers. The results though, may help to identify certain mechanisms that may be involved in such ridiculed events such as Alien Abductions. Make no mistake, this is not a New Age book. Dr. Strassman is an accredited and peer reviewed scientist, who did not set out to deal with the subjects that he eventually did. Like any good scientist, he followed the data. It led him to very surprising places.

DMT Experiences, although often unique, also have certain common qualities to them. One of them is meeting ‘beings’, and experiencing some of what happens in an Alien Abduction. Dr. Strassman, as much as he seems to have resisted it, eventually had to admit that the experiences did not bear the markings of being just an hallucination. The fact that DMT occurs naturally in the body, being secreted by the Pineal Gland, makes it even more interesting. The book itself is very well, written, very scientific, and quite enjoyable. Just reading about all the hoops he had to jump through to get to do the research in the first place is amazing.

It has made me wonder about paranormal experiences in new ways. For example, anyone who studies UFO’s seriously will point out that DMT can’t explain multiple witness sightings, radar tracking, and physical traces. But what if we are dealing with two different things. What if the only connection between the odd lights in the sky and the alien abduction scenario is that whatever causes the ‘physical’ UFO, sets off a release of DMT in the observer, who then has an internal experience? I think this could be a potential breakthrough in the study of UFO’s. It doesn’t explain what causes the lights, but if whatever does, affects people in the right way, it may lead to an encounter that is not ‘of’ those lights. Like a heavy wind blowing open a door you didn’t know was there. The wind and the room beyond may not be directly related, but one unlocked the other. It could also be that the beings that are contacted via DMT are also trying to come here, and they do so in what appear to us as UFO’s (and possibly other unexplained phenomena).

I have never been sure what to make of implants in UFO abduction cases, but people in DMT studies receive implants. There is no physical implant in these people, but plenty of abductees have claimed to have found physical implants right where they say they were implanted. Some of these implants, when removed, seem to be, at the very least, odd. Now, as I said, I am not sure what to make of this. There isn’t enough conclusive evidence one way or another, but I would say that Dr. Strassman’s research into DMT may be a very important clue in understanding the UFO Phenomenon, as well as consciousness and the human condition in general.

If any of this even vaguely interests you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book. You can look at it as DMT causing hallucinations or as DMT tapping into another realm, either way, the book is very interesting and opens up all new avenues of questions. Personally, I believe that it retunes us to another world. How much so probably depends on the situation and amount of DMT received, either naturally or by design. Dr. Strassman uses the analogy of the brain as a television, tuned by default to ‘channel normal’. DMT tunes it to other wavelengths.

I would like to thank Dr. Rick Strassman for the courage to see this study through and the strength it took him to actually get to do it. If you read this, you will understand what I mean. His research may have broken new ground in various fields, but only time will tell.