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What's NeXT? Software, Psychedelics and the Origins of OS X & iOS - Andrew C Stone @twittelator | 10 | ||||
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 participating in the first government-sanctioned human psychedelic trials in over 20 years with Dr. Rick Strassman. He was investigating the effects of DMT in a scientifically rigorous way. Regarding the experiments, that's a very long conversation we'll have to have later! I concluded that DMT was critical to understanding and healing our relationship with the natural world, to understanding the paradox of being separate and joined, and that this research must not simply end up behind a paywall in a journal but needed to reach a wider audience. 
Because of my friendship with John Barlow, we asked the Grateful Dead's Rex Foundation to donate $10,000 to Rick so he could take the time to write the results of the volunteers' experiences into layperson accessible book, "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" A Doctor's Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences.Needless to say, in the Psychedelic community, this book was a runaway hit because there was very little information concerning this endogenous - that is, produced naturally in our own bodies- chemical. Historically, the West's embracement of materialism has limited research of consciousness - even questioning its existence. Materialism holds that the body is a machine, the mind is a phenomen of the physical brain, matter is inanimate, etc. And so the West was the last to the DMT table, where scores of South American tribes have discovered different herbal formulas to allow DMT to enter the brain before being metabolized, allowing the experient to watch the core manifestation of Existence and perceive that you are part of it, and You are All of it in some paradoxical manner. 
Luckily, the experience is 100% scientifically replicable and it affects people at a very intense level that has nothing to do with the beliefs of the individual.I believe that our circuitry has this avatar-state capability, and techniques like yoga, meditation, fasting, dance, drumming, chanting, psychedelics engage it. Computers and information are like a pale shadow against the backdrop of a fully operational brain. The Cosmic web is our true home, and it is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, nonow and everwhen. I look forward to the day when the meta mind evolves as | |||||
