Peer Beyond The Veil

Since the beginning of time, man has used substances to alter his mind. Tobacco has been smoked since around 5000BC, its origins in Mesoamerica. Alcohol has been drunk since a similar period in time, its first evidence traced to ancient Persia in modern-day Iran. But to truly open the mind, man needed to involve hallucinogens. The Mayans drank Spanish Ash mixed with honey which was known as Balché, imbibed in group rituals to achieve a trance-state. The Olmec, Zapotec and the Aztecs took naturally-found substances such as mescaline from the peyote cactus, psilocybin from mushrooms and lysergic acid from ololiuqui seeds. Indeed there is evidence that taking peyote dates back to around 5000BC too, and mushrooms to 3000BC. So the notion of using external influences to change the impulse within the mind are older than most of what we know in our world. It predates most of the lasting evidence we still have from those times, the cloths and pottery and artwork, the buildings and the tombs and the writings. It predates the pyramids by nearly 2000 years. It could be said, therefore, that our modern mind and 21st century brain has evolved into one which is perfectly tuned to connect with such things, and that whatever realms such hallucinogens open up within us, or around us, are as much a part of us as any other external factor. We each have cell membrane receptors in our brains to regulate and accept cannabinoids, the compounds found exclusively in the cannabis plant and its derivatives. It’s in our genetic make-up. One such substance which has been used in shamanic practices in central and south America since the pre-Colombian period of Mesoamerica is Dimethyltryptamine, known more commonly as DMT. Naturally occurring in many plants and animals, it is known for its quick onset and big-hitting power whilst maintaining quite a short ‘trip’. It can last fifteen minutes if smoked, or up to a few hours if eaten with another substance, and is making what can only be described as a ‘come-back’ in recent years, giving psychonauts the next level of progress to other states of consciousness. Known colloquially as the ‘spirit molecule’, DMT can take its user on a wild trip to alternate realities, providing glimpses and full encounters with extraterrestrial existences, meetings with other-worldly beings or entities, and the ability to see things that are more real than reality itself. It provides the power to look at oneself internally, to analyse the way you are and the things you do in ways you have never done before, offer life transforming decision-making and reckoning. Alternatively, it can strip away what curtain we seemingly have drawn around our own abilities to see the world through truly open eyes, showing that there are entities here beyond description, moving around our world and interacting with us every day, just beyond our understanding or recognition. At the front of the pack in the field of DMT research is Dick Khan. A writer and frequent psychonaut with such things, he has began to dig into the other planes of consciousness which seemingly open up when DMT is taken. Dick joins us tonight for a frank and honest take on the experience, and about how it is one of history’s oldest methods to Peer Beyond The Veil. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/peerbeyondtheveil/support