Excerpt from "DMT and the Soul of Prophecy"

The preceding two chapters addressed physical and emotional aspects of the DMT and prophetic states. They have begun accommodating us to the notion that the two sets of experiences resemble each other to an impressive degree. Now I will consider perceptual properties: taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. This chapter brings nearly overwhelmingly convincing evidence that the two experiences share profound phenomenological similarities.

Vision

The DMT effect and prophecy are extraordinarily visual. These features are the most numerous and detailed of any perceptual category, and for that matter, of any category of the syndromes’ phenomenologies. I will begin with darkness and proceed to colors and their characteristics.

Darkness
- DMT
Rex: It looked like it was in a field of black space (DMT 208).

- Prophecy
At the onset of Abraham’s vision: A great darkness fell upon him (Gen. 15:12). In the vision itself, the text qualifies the nature of the darkness: . . . and it was dense darkness . . . (Gen. 15:17).

View from High above Earth
Those in either the prophetic or DMT state refer to viewing things from great height.

- DMT
Philip: Then I was above a strange landscape, like Earth, but very unearthly (DMT 182).

- Prophecy
Ezekiel finds himself high above earth, but not in deep space: . . . a wind lifted me up between the earth and the heavens . . . (Ezra 8:3).

Clouds or a Cloud
We find accounts of a cloud or clouds--sometimes smoke or clouds of smoke--in both sets of altered states. In the Hebrew Bible, such images often occur in the context of God’s glory. Prophetic clouds frequently are fiery and occupy relatively well-demarcated space. They fill parts or all of the Tabernacle or Temple, and pillars of smoke and/or fire travel with the Hebrews in the wilderness. Clouds also are relevant to the notion of “emerging,” a process by which an identifiable image appears or takes shape out of a relatively amorphous visual matrix.

- DMT
Sean: There were bright yellow clouds I was floating through. As an example of emerging, Philip described a humanoid figure: . . .coming out of the clouds . . . .

- Prophecy
In the beginning of Ezekiel’s vision in Babylonia, by the Kevar River, he sees: . . . a great cloud with flashing fire and a brilliance surrounding it . . . (Ezra 1:4).

After dividing certain sacrificial items in half, Abraham’s vision begins with: . . . a smoky furnace and a torch of fire which passed between the pieces . . . (Gen. 15:17).

Moses receives the Ten Commandments on the top of Mt. Sinai where: . . . the mountain was burning with the fire up to the heart of the heavens, darkness, cloud, and thick cloud (Deut. 4:11).

Daniel witnesses the emerging phenomenon: I was watching in night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a man came (Dan. 7:13).

Flashes, Sparks, Fire: Equivalence of Imagery
The Hebrew Bible constantly refers to fire and fiery images, either by themselves or with clouds or smoke. While DMT volunteers rarely used the word “fire” to describe what they saw, images in the DMT state do flash, shoot off sparks, and are “fiery.” Many of the colors they described are common to fire--red, yellow, and orange.

It seems that the DMT volunteers and those experiencing Biblical prophecy may be calling by different names visual imagery that appears to be quite similar. This finding led me to the idea of “equivalence of imagery.” The same image receives a label consistent with that person’s psychological and cultural repertoire. This repertoire comprises the raw materials with which one constructs a notion of--and labels--what she or he sees. The research subjects and someone in a prophetic state both see red, yellow, and orange light that glows, shoots off sparks, and vibrates. Whereas DMT volunteers see much less fire in their lives than did nomadic and agricultural tribes from the ancient Near East, our Biblical figures never saw neon lights and Day-Glo paint. Thus the prophet sees “fire” while the research volunteers described more modern- day facsimiles.

- DMT
Mike was a married 30 year-old psychology graduate student, who during a session glimpsed: . . . a large orange-ish sphere, flaming, flashing, sparkling, but not on fire.

Seth described an example of the “emerging” phenomenon from a fiery background: Out of the raging colossal waterfall of flaming color expanding into my visual field . . . they stepped, or rather, emerged (DMT 344).

- Prophecy
David describes his vision: From out of the brilliance that is before [God] burned fiery coals (2 Sam. 22:13).

Similarly, Ezekiel notes: There was a brilliance to the fire, and from the fire went forth lightning (Ezra 1:13).

Daniel sees: [God’s] throne’s fiery flames, its wheels blazing fire (Dan. 7:9).

Beings themselves may be fiery. Ezekiel describes the Chayot he sees in his initial vision: Their appearance was like fiery coals, burning like the appearance of torches (Ezra 1:13).

A being emerges from fire at the onset of Moses’ initial theophany at the burning bush: An angel of YHVH appeared to him in a flame of fire from within the thorn bush (Exod. 3:2).

Ezekiel also reports something emerges: . . . a great cloud with flashing fire and a brilliance surrounding it, and from its midst came a semblance of Chashmal from the midst of the fire (Ezra 1:4).

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DMT and the Soul of Prophecy by Rick Strassman © 2014 Park Street Press.
Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com

Rick Strassman, M.D., is clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and president and cofounder of the Cottonwood Research Foundation. From 1990 to 1995 he performed the first new human studies with psychedelic drugs in the United States in more than 20 years, focusing on the powerful naturally occurring compound DMT. The author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule and coauthor of Inner Paths to Outer Space, he lives in Gallup, New Mexico.