love all the beutiful people here on tribe if any one wants to help me throw a party or book me im new to sf and will play for free

ELF HARVEST 4/20/2002





N,N,dimethyltryptamine Extraction By: Don Juan CornelliusN,N,DMT Image




Are you ready???

Please read through entirely before attempting.

You may also want to read this for a reference of sorts: QT's DMT Extraction

Disclaimer: All information is intended for informational purposes only. One should never add household chems to anything they intend to consume.

The first thing you will need is supplies:

Listed here are the elements used. In no way should these be the only ones applied to this tek where legal. Other, perhaps better chemicals may be procured. One might also look to LAB GRADE glass and equipment. Always find the best chems available and test them befor hand.

Non-corrosive pots (2 3).........5 - 10 liters

Mason jars (4-8).....................1 pint - 1 quart

Small to medium sized funnel Turkey baster

Eye dropper

pH papers (full range) or pH Meter

Pastry Cloth or Cheesecloth Coffee filters

Non-corrosive Glassware (cake baking dish of some sort)

Non-corrosive stirring utensil

Gloves

Small fan

Razor Blades

The substances used in this extraction are as follows:

Distilled water ........................3 - 5 gallons

Hydrochloric acid, muriatic acid ( 34.45% )

VM&P Naphtha.........................1 gallon

Red Devil brand lye crystals

Now we will try and explain this simple process which is based on many of the existing methods plus a little twist. With these next few paragraphs we will outline and discuss an extraction that will not take 1 - 4 weeks to accomplish but 10 - 12 hours. So if you start at 10am, you should have a freebase form of N,N,DMT by 8 - 10pm. This tek has been proven to work on a few plants so far.

Now the basic theory behind this is to pull the alkaloids from the plant material. This can be accomplished a few ways:

1. Grind plant material...soak in a mason jar with 2 times amount of distilled water to plant material...pH adjusted to 1...let sit for a week...shaking it once or twice a day 2. Grind up plant material...put in a large pot and alot of water...3 - 5 times the amount of distilled water to plant material...adjust pH to 2 - 4 and cookdown a few times 3. Ask someone who knows what they are doing to do it for you.

This tek will concentrate solely on #2. This tek employs the idea of the ayahuasca brew. The shaman (brujo) will cook down plant material in large amounts of water to extract the necessary alkaloids for use orally. It's simple. Take a large pot, place shredded plant material in it. Then cover plant material with enough distilled water to cover it fully and then some. Add enough HCL (muriatic acid) slowly to drop the pH to between 2 and 4. This will cause the alkaloids to form there 'salt'. This is where you have to watch. We like to cook hard, slight boil for awhile and get the material good and saturated and in a state of flux. Heat up for a few minutes then down for a few. Do this until the liquid is part of the way down your plant material. Don't let the water become thick like oil. When this amount is reached place strainer over another pot and place pastry cloth (cheesecloth) in the strainer. Then slowly pour the contents of you brew into strainer that is over another pot. After all the liquid is out of first pan dump plant material into strainer and squeeze it like there is no tomorrow. Depending on the amount of plant material you may have to strain a few times.

Now place plant material from strainer into original pot. Cover with more distilled water just like the first time. Get it to a slight boil again before adjusting the pH. Back to the filtered product: Take your funnel and place it in a jar. Then place a coffee filter inside the funnel. Slowly pour you pastry cloth filtered brew into the funnel. This may take some time to strain through but well worth the wait. After all is filtered pour contents into a third pot and simmer on low heat. You now have a pot with plant material cooking down again and another pot with a 2 stage filtered brew cooking down (simmering) also. Repeat these steps 3 to 4 times. Each time the plant material is cooked down to a good level, filter with pastry cloth (cheesecloth) and then filter again with funnel and coffee filter then combine all 2bd staged filters into the same third pot. After 2 - 4 cook downs of the plant material, throw out all remaining plant material, all alkaloids have been extracted. The final part of this step is to allow the 2 - 4 combined cook downs to cook down to a reasonable amount. It should be somewhere between 800 - 1000 milliliters, depending on amount of material. After that goal is reached, filter through the coffe filter again. You don't want the liquid to become to viscid. Clean, smooth and colored clear/reddish/brown is the goal, like tea.

Alright, now you are going to want to place the simmered down filtered brew into jars. You only want to fill each jar a third of the way with the brew. Now to each jar pour approximately 50 milliliters of naphtha into them. Take an instrument that will not corrode in the acid solution and stir the naptha into the solution. Keep stirring for a few minutes. By adding the naphtha you are defatting the brew, removing a lot of the nasty stuff that resides there. Now wait for the emulsion layer to form. Now here is where it can get kind of tricky so bare with us. It may appear as 3 layers. The dark bottom layer, then directly above it is a milky looking thin layer, and above that a clear layer. Now in this clear layer may be some fat floating. This is what we have found to be easy. Place a small, tall, thin glass or dish next to your jars. Then, take your turkey baster or eye dropper and suck off the top layer (clear) and middle layer (milky) and deposit that gunk into the dish. Place the discarded stuff from all jars into this dish. You are going to want to save this dish stuff because it will continue to settle a little more and then when its done and you have moved along a bit, you can place your eye dropper back into the dish and siphon the good stuff off the bottom and place back into your brew. In an empty jar or 2 or 3 depending on amount needed, pour enough distilled water to fill them up 3/4 of the way. Then slowly start adding lye crystals to the water while stirring it profusely. You may need to add around 2 teaspoons of lye to the water, this will raise the water pH to around 11 - 12. After the adding is done and you have stirred it a bit, place the lid on it and shake it vigorously for a minute or 2 untwisting the lid every so often to release any pressure. You will be adding this lye water solution to your brew jars shortly. This will unhook the salt form of the tryptamine to the freebase form. But first you must add 50 milliliters of fresh naphtha to your brew jars. When you add the naphtha do not stir or shake yet.

Slowly add lye water to the brew jar and stir the brew while doing so. A slow steady stirring will do wonders. Now pay attention things are about to happen. The brew may very well take on a thick grayish looking color. This is not bad but not good. You must continue adding lye water until it turns to black or a darker version of its former self. The pH should be around 9 - 11. This is the magic, the salt converting to freebase. Keep stirring; stir the brew for 5 minutes or so then let sit. Emulsion layers will form. Let it sit. If it doesn't look right or emulsions are not forming then refer to earlier steps. Try adding a bit more lye water and some naphtha and stir it gently in.

After the emulsion layers have settled you should see 3 layers again. By unhooking the salt to freebase cause the tryptamine to rise to the surface in the naphtha. When the top layer is clear begin the process of siphoning off the clear stuff with the eye dropper. Place the siphoned naphtha into a glass baking dish. After you have siphoned all the clear naphtha off, add 50 milliliters more naphtha to each jar, stir, wait, then siphon. Repeat this process a total of 3 times.

You can now discard the black brewed jars. REMEMBER to discard the left overs. Dump it into some freash kitty litter or sand and dump it on a gravle road somewhere. NEVER dump it down the sink!!! Now place the baking dish in front of your small fan and let evaporate. Having it in a very cool or chilled enviroment also helps in the crystal forming proccess. When it is as dry as it will get, softly scrape the white crystals into a pile with a razor blade.

Crsytal scraping

You don't want to press hard on the razor yet. Just try and get most off the dry white crystals into a pile. After that's complete, scrape that baking dish for all its worth.

N,N,DMT scraping

Basically that's it in a nutshell. Forthcoming updates soon.

copyright 2002 Don Jaun Cornellius


______________________________

i will keep updateing my tribe trying to make it a fun insightful experience

Hallucinogenic mushrooms have been part of human culture as far back as the earliest recorded history. Ancient paintings of mushroom-ed humanoids dating to 5,000 B.C. have been found in caves on the Tassili plateau of Northern Algeria. Central and Southern America cultures built temples to mushroom gods and carved "mushroom stones". These stone carvings in the shape of mushrooms, or in which figures are depicted under the cap of a mushroom, have been dated to as early as 1000-500 B.C. The purpose of the sculptures is not certain, but they may have been religious objects.

The Mixtec culture of central Mexico worshipped many gods, one known as Piltzintecuhtli, or 7 Flower (his name presented in the pictoral language as seven circles and a flower) who was the god for hallucinatory plants, especially the divine mushroom. The Vienna Codex (or Codex Vindobonensis) (ca 13th-15th century) depicts the ritual use of mushrooms by the Mixtec gods, showing Piltzintecuhtli and 7 other gods holding mushrooms in their hands.

Psilocin, which is what psilocybin quickly becomes as it enters your metabolism, is 4 hydroxy dimethyltryptamine. It is the only 4-substituted indole in all of organic nature. Let this rattle around in your mind for a moment. It is the only 4-substituted indole known to exist on earth. It happens to be this internal linkpsychedelic substance that occurs in about eighty species of fungi, most of which are native to the New World. internal linkPsilocybin has a unique chemical signature that says, "I am artificial; I come from outside." I was suggesting that it was a gene - an artificial gene - carried perhaps by a spaceborne virus or something brought artificially to this planet, and that this gene has inssinuated itself into the genome of these mushrooms."

Further experiments with the psycho-audible warp phenomenon yesterday raise some interesting new questions and enhance our ongoing understanding. I chose the term "audible" because my experience thus far, coupled with what I have been told, leads me to believe that this all has to do with vocally generating a specific kind of energy field which can rupture three dimensional space. I do not understand if the field is internal linkelectromagnetic, but it seems to bend space in such a way as to turn it upon itself through a higher internal linkdimension. Here is how it is done:

One must take enough internal linkpsilocybin to allow the sound to be audible. This sound we understand to be the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) of the psilocybin alkaloids within the internal linkmushroom. The presence of rapid metabolizing high-energy tryptamines within the ayahuasca acts as an internal linkantennae that sensitizes the neural internal linkmatrix to the spin resonance energy of the Stropharia psilocybin. It is this principle that allows the signal to be made audible. It must then be amplified via the tryptamine admixture antenna to what is felt to be its fullest amplitude. Then, via vocal sound, this energy is placed into the harmine complex within the body and within the mushroom which has been, in some small part, cooled to absolute internal linkzero - the temperature at which molecular vibration ceases, through absorption of the psilocybin ESR internal linkpulses. Once this ESR internal linkwave has been detected, it will be possible to amplify it within the neural circuits by channeling it through the harmine complex: i.e., by imitating the psilocybin ESR with the voice, causing the amplified sound to strike a internal linkharmonic tone with the harmine metabolizing in the brain and thereby exciting the harmine ESR. Since harmine complexes are merely further down the same bio-synthetic pathway that converts tryptophane into psilocybin, it is possible to consider the ESR tone of the psilocybin as a harmonic overtone of harmine and vice versa.

Using harmonic overtones, it is possible to sound a tone which will cancel one or more of its octaves reflected in the harmonic scales above and below it. This is easily demonstrated on a cello: Suppose a tone, say the open string A, is sounded, The sound is a wave vibration of air molecules caused by the string, which then acts as a internal linkresonator. The tone is heard mostly loudly in the key in which it was sounded, but it also sounds every other key of "A" in the octaves above and below it. It is possible to cancel out the original tone by touching the string very lightly at certain harmonic points. When this is done, the overtones in the higher and lower registers become audible. If one understands the theory of harmonic resonators well enough, one can determine which overtones will be resonated if certain points on the string are touched.

When this understanding is applied to molecular ESR resonation, it remains essentially the same in principle. What the ESR tone of the psilocybin is heard via tryptamine antenna, it will strike a harmonic tone in the harmine complexes being metabolized within the system, causing its ESR to begin to resonate at a higher level. According to the principles of tonal physics, this will automatically cancel out the original tone, i.e., the psilocybin ESR, and cause the molecule to cease to vibrate; however, the ESR tone that sustains the molecular coherency is carried for a microsecond on the overtonal ESR of the harmine complex. This leaves the momentarily internal linkelectrically canceled and superconductive psilocybin suspended in a low energy electromagnetic field generated by the harmine ESR. In so doing, it will regain its original but now superconductivity amplified, ESR signal, which will permanently lock it into a superconductive state. DNA

As this phenomenon proceeds, it will automatically trigger the inverse of the initial internal linkprocess. The psilocybin, superconductively charged by mind, will harmonically cancel the ESR resonance of the harmine within the brain. The energy of the harmine-psilocybin complex ESR will be absorbed instantly into the matrix of the mushroom. This will cause those molecules metabolizing within the body and bonded to the neural internal linkDNA to instantly drop to absolute internal linkzero. Clearly this harmine-psilocybin-DNA complex must internal linkimmediately separate itself from the cellular internal linkmatrix. There is a great danger at this moment, but pathways exist to deal with it. We will find that these molecules condense out of our bodies accompanied by a sound. This sound will be the harmonic ESR tone of this complex amplified superconductively and broadcast and frozen into the superconductive matrix of the mushroom. The superconductively charged psilocybin acts as an internal linkantenna which picks up the amplified ESR signals of the complex and condenses vibrational signals into a superconductive matrix. The result will be a molecular aggregate of hyperdimensional, superconducting matter that receives and sends messages transmitted by thought, that stores and retrieves internal linkinformation in a holographic fashion in neural DNA, and that depends on superconductive harmine as a transducer energy source and superconductive RNA as a temporal matrix. This aggregate will be a living and functioning part of the brain of the molecular "singer" who creates it. It will be composed of higher dimensional matter; i.e., matter that has been turned through the higher dimension via the internal linkprocess of cancelling its electrical charge with a harmonic vibration, transmitting that vibration across space (from superconductive transmitter to superconductive receiver), and then recondensing that vibration onto a superconductive template (the charged psilocybin in the mushroom), until the harmine-psilocybin-DNA complex condenses into a superconducting molecule. A molecule that is higher dimensional matter would, by this theory, be stable as long as it remains in a superconducting configuration, probably forever, since it is powered by its own ESR energy. It will then be responsive to command via endogenous tryptamine ESR (thoughts), it will be keyed into our collective DNA, and it will contain harmine as a superconductive transceiver and power source.

Always love what you have because its a gift!!!!

3K in Three Weeks... And we're nearly half the way there!
Deep Metaprogramming Trip
Pharmahuasca & Mushrooms
by Cope Head


DOSE : 400 mg oral Harmala (capsule)
75 mg oral DMT
1.5 g oral Mushrooms (tea)


Saturday, December 6th I finally got the opportunity to try DMT, something I had been looking forward to for some time. Through a complex series of coincidences (synchronocities) I was introduced to an urban shaman who was running ayahuasca sessions from his home. I was invited to participate in the next session.

I arrived around 5:15 pm. I was introduced to the my two fellow travelers, then we sat around and discussed the details of the impending session. We would be taking our ayahuasca as pharmahuasca. That is, the components were in capsules for easier ingestion. We took the harmine/harmaline mixture first (400 mg, 266 of which was harmine hcl and 133 mg harmaline hcl). After approximately half an hour, I ingested a capsule containing 75 mg DMT freebase, washing it down with a tea made from 1.5 gm of mushrooms and 1/4 of a lemon. This broke an 18 hour fast.

When I try a new drug I like to do so straight, without anything else to cloud up my perceptions of the drug. However, DMT is a special case, since orally by itself it does nothing. You need a MAO inhibitor to activate the DMT. The harm(al)ine mixture was the MAOI in this case. The mushrooms were added as a tryptamine 'boost'. In truth, the drug I experienced was ayahuasca, and there are as many different ayahuasca brews are there are people brewing it.

As the effects became apparent, I began to feel ill. As is often the case with my mushroom trips, my nausea and the psychedelic effects developed side by side. Our guide was playing music for us. I began to get very deeply involved with the music. It sounded extraordinarily clear.

My nausea continued to increase. I was thinking about a lot of things that I felt were somewhat out of hand in my life. I was focusing on a lot of negative aspects of my life. I was disconcerted, and wasn't much enjoying the trip. I had the thought that this wasn't about enjoyment, but about healing. I felt like the spirit of ayahuasca or DMT was suffusing my being and healing me. It felt like it was raking through my soul, finding all the twisted up clots and breaking them up, integrating them with the rest of my being.

I am amazed at just how much I got done. My mind was moving at incredible speed. I think I examined almost every aspect of my being. Every time I found something out of sorts, I was able to examine it easily and fix it. It was like I was being taught how to operate my mind (and to a lesser degree, my body). It felt like the DMT contained (or unlocked) operating instructions for my brain. When I came across emotionally sensitive spots, I would feel the pain associated with them, but was still able to examine the problem and reach a solution.

The whole time I felt remarkably clear headed. The DMT felt very 'at home' in my brain. It didn't have a lot of psychedelic 'noise' associated with it. It didn't have that tendency to drift into strange tangents like LSD and mushrooms sometimes do. It was similar to, but different than the clarity I experience on 2CB.

About an hour or so into it, I puked. It was a painful, violent vomit, probably the worst I have ever experienced. While I was throwing up, I wasn't thinking about anything but my stomach. I was busy being sick for a while. When I finished, my guide was there to hand me a tissue and take my bucket away.

Being sick was very cathartic. Soon afterwards, I was able to move away from all the negativity that had been the focus of the first part of my trip. I moved on to other areas. My thoughts were very fluid, flowing, and easy. I was able to look deeply into any aspect of whatever I was thinking about. I was able to pull out and examine my relationships from many different angles. I feel like I escaped my expectations and was able to look at things very clearly. This allowed me to resolve a lot of inner turmoil. It also felt like a decompression from the stress that had been mounting for the last few weeks.

This trip felt totally sacred. I was made aware of the importance of integrating the sacred with every aspect of life. I suddenly realized how far I had to go to make this real. It was humbling.

The experience was humbling in many ways, actually. It didn't so much flatten my ego as it deflated it. I saw I was becoming full of myself, and was able to take steps to correct this tendency. I also saw that healing and growth are ongoing processes, never finished.

I felt compelled to speak and make noise. I didn't, not wanting to disturb the others present, or interfere with the music, which was really awesome. I enjoyed the music (mostly Indian classical and electronic) greatly, but in the future I will have to try it without music, for comparison. I will likely explore the desire to make noise in the future as well.

My visuals were deep and complex. By thinking about various things I was able to visualize them very well. I would think about something I was doing, and see the results of this action. It was like 'If you keep doing this, then this will happen'. That was very interesting, and quite useful. The tracers or trails were amazing. LSD trails are almost strobe like, after images of movement. 2CB trails are somewhat smeary. DMT trails contained whole geometries. They were deep, almost as if you could fall into them.

My perceptions and awareness felt heightened. I was able to go into a trance of sorts, but a substantially different trance than mushrooms evoke. I felt more in control, or at least more lucid during tranced parts, and the trance kind of came and went. I suspect this may be dose related.

The trip felt very evolutionary. I though about my own evolution, and helping others to evolve. I also was very aware of my connections to the past (my parents, grandparents, etc) and to the future (my child, and any future children I might have). I thought about my childhood, and was able to see how events there shaped my current behavior. I saw what my parents had done right and where I could improve on that.

I had this idea of drugs as molecular language. As I was thinking about this, the phrase 'Mushrooms are a dialect of DMT' popped into my head. I saw the tryptamine family like a language family, with DMT as the prototype language, and the rest as descended from it.

I gave a lot of thought to the book 'Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert Heinlein. It is one of my favorite books, and I thought about how it had affected me and thousands (or millions) of other people. I was awed by the beauty of it, and took a moment to thank RAH for writing it. The ideas presented therein are very psychedelic, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.

After some time I was feeling more sober, and I sat reflecting on the experience. I was amazed at the incredible density and clarity of the trip. I feel like I examined nearly every aspect of my existence. I think I could spend months unraveling it all. My mushroom trips have a similar depth, but they are generally more cosmic and far out, and therefor harder to remember. DMT was very clear and to the point.

I smoked some cannabis with my guide and one of my fellow travelers and we all settled down to sleep. My sleep was light but refreshing. I awoke in excellent spirits at around 8:30 am.

I am eager to try smoking DMT as a comparison. I understand, to a degree, the speed of DMT. It felt like greased lightning in my mind. It raced through my ideas and my visions came almost too fast to be absorbed. I experienced so much during the trip, it is hard to remember it all.

I got an amazing amount accomplished on this trip as far as metaprogramming goes. I was able to think through and resolve several knotty issues I have been dealing with, and it gave me new perspective on a few that resisted easy solutions. I look forward to my next opportunity to experience this state. DMT is a teacher of similar stature to the Mushroom


Exp Year: 1998 ID: 1766
Added: Jun 12, 2000 Views: 52426


Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the individual authors who submit them.
Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid.
Erowid Experience Vault © 1996-2004 Erowid

In November, 1999, I traveled to Basel, Switzerland, for a meeting called "Worlds of Consciousness," a forum for research on altered states. At the meeting I met and interviewed scientists such as Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD; the Swiss psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider, who is mapping the neural effects of psychedelics in humans with brain-scanning research; and the pharmacologist David Nichols of Purdue University, who probes the biochemistry of psychedelics with animal studies [see Chapter Eight of Rational Mysticism for an account of the meeting].

The most colorful character I met was the German anthropologist Christian Ratsch. If scientists like Hofmann, Vollenweider, and Nichols represent the rational superego of the psychedelic community, Ratsch is its id. Throughout the meeting, he was dressed in black leather: pants, hat, boots, fringed jacket. His slouch and half-lidded eyes gave him a reptilian air. His features were vaguely Asian; I learned later that his mother was Mongolian, his father German. Ratsch had reportedly never cut his waist-length, raven hair or Fu Manchu beard.

Because most of Ratsch’s books and articles are in German, he is less famous than Terence McKenna, but he is renowned among the psychedelic cognoscenti. I first heard about him from the chemist Alexander Shulgin, who praised Ratsch’s encyclopedic knowledge of the plants and fungi used in shamanic practices. Others described Ratsch as not only an expert on but also a practitioner of psychedelic shamanism, and ayahuasca shamanism in particular.

When I asked Ratsch for an interview on the first day of the conference, he eyed me suspiciously and replied in a gravelly, insinuating, German-accented voice that he was too busy; maybe later in the conference. Actually, Ratsch was busy. In spite of his stoner’s demeanor, he was a dervish of activity. As a co-organizer of the conference, he introduced speakers, led panel discussions and served as master of ceremonies during an evening homage to Albert Hofmann.

In a lecture titled "Keys to Other Worlds," Ratsch informed us that there are an infinite number of keys--pharmacological and non-pharmacological—to the spiritual realm, and each of us must find the key for his or her individual psyche. As Ratsch spoke, he prowled around the stage caressing a "key" that looked suspiciously like a phallus.

Ratsch finally agreed to speak to me on the morning of the meeting's last day. We sat at a small plastic table in a cafe in conference center's lobby. Nursing a bottle of Coke, Ratsch seemed hungover, or stoned, or both. His eyes were slits, his voice a croak. Even in this brightly lit, antiseptic setting, he seemed to be peering at me through the smoke of a fire in some primeval jungle.

He expressed amusement with a kind of groan-grunt, keeping his mouth closed as if to minimize the expenditure of energy: "Hmm hmm," or, if he was slightly more amused, "Hmm hmm hmm." When truly merry, he laughed through a barely open mouth: "Heh heh heh."

His demeanor made it clear that he found this interaction—me asking him questions, him responding—absurd. I felt absurd myself, preparing my tape recorder and yellow pad and pen as he drowsily watched me. I nonetheless forged ahead in my plodding, earnest fashion, and Ratsch played his part, too, giving me a view of spirituality that was as nihilistic--anti-Buddhist, anti-Christian, anti-religious--as any I had encountered yet.

He was born in 1957 in a Bohemian community in Hamburg, Germany, where he still lived. His father was an opera singer, his mother a ballet dancer. He started learning about shamanism and sacred plants at 10 and had his first drug experience at 12. He earned a doctorate in Native American cultures, and he spent three years living with a tribe in southern Mexico, investigating shamanism first-hand. He is an independent scholar, who supports himself primarily by writing and by organizing conferences such as this one. Universities "don't pay enough, and there's too much censorship," he explained. "I call the universities the graveyards of science. Hmm hmm."

When I mentioned that another scientist described him as a modern, westernized shaman, Ratsch shook his head. "I am just a researcher, nothing else," he replied. "To be a shaman means to be called by the Gods and heal people and help people, and that's not my way. I'm here to translate the shamans’ work into our culture, to understand them better and maybe to protect them."

Does he believe, I started to ask—but Ratsch cut me off. "There is no belief involved," he said, spitting out "belief" like an expletive. "It's pure experience, nothing else. Belief is the forerunner of faith, and that's religion." He waggled his head, looking at me, then grunted approvingly: "Hmm."

What about the claim that shamans have supernatural powers that allow them to harm and heal others? I persisted. Does Ratsch believe this? He laughed out loud. "If you start getting into shamanism," he assured me, his eyes narrowing, "then you better believe the unbelievable and expect the unexpectable."

What about the ghosts and spirits that shamans and others supposedly see during ayahuasca trips? I asked. Are those just in your head, or are they out there? "It's outside. If it's in here," Ratsch said, pointing to his own pitch-black pate, "we're sick." He added that visions are truth, but "believing in ghosts is maybe not the truth."

Ratsch distinguished between shamanic experiences and those induced by meditation. "Meditation is the way inside," he explained, "and shamanic traveling is to go outside." Ratsch has little respect for meditative paths such as Buddhism. "I don't think of Buddhism as a spiritual path. It's a religion," he said. "It's based on very strange, paradoxical ideas. For example this notion: ‘Don't kill.’ But then they eat meat." The Dalai Lama "loves meat."

Surprised, I said that I had assumed the Dalai Lama was a vegetarian.

"No. Hitler was a vegetarian."

Ratsch also objected to Buddhism's encouragement of monasticism and celibacy. The Dalai Lama and other Buddhists monks are "incomplete," Ratsch said, because they deny their sexuality. "You get crazy and weird if you don't have a partner." Ratsch assured me that he has "a lot of sex." (I could hardly doubt him. Although Ratsch’s wife, the anthropologist Claudia Muller-Ebeling, was at the conference, one or more young women always seemed to be orbiting around him.)

Ratsch believes in enlightenment, which he defines as "a state of complete understanding," "total loss of ego structures," and "just being one with everything." The spiritual path "starts with the enlightenment, and then you can try to get this integrated into your life. It's not the other way around." Ratsch abhors so-called spiritual leaders who claim that enlightenment can only be achieved through decades of meditation and other spiritual practices.

"That’s such a bad lie, and an exploitation of needs," he snarled. His cool irony had vanished; he was momentarily vehement, passionate. Then he paused, regaining his composure, his lizard-like, Mona Lisa smile. "This is my point of view."

Enlightenment "has nothing to do with all these spiritual teachings." It merely requires "the right molecule to hit your brain." Enlightenment is an intrinsically transient state, like an orgasm; in fact, some Amazonian societies use their term for orgasm to describe mystical states. "You are not in a permanent state of orgasm," Ratsch said. "It's one peak, and then you have to recharge your batteries."

Orgasms loom large in Ratsch’s worldview. "We are like almost crystallized orgasms from our parents," he said. "Hopefully, my parents had the greatest orgasm when I was conceived. Heh heh heh."

Asked about his drug preferences, Ratsch replied that ayahuasca "is the best shamanic medicine ever discovered. And I like it--definitely not as a recreational drug. I love recreational drugs, of course." Ratsch enjoyed taking small doses of LSD when going to a party or the opera.

"Richard Wagner is the greatest on acid," he said. Twilight of the Gods is "the greatest piece of art ever written, the most shamanic and mystical play ever. From Ring of the Nibulungs you can learn everything."

Have his psychedelic experiences convinced him that there is life after death? "I don’t know." Ratsch shrugged. "I have a certain vision I got on a DMT trip, and it will be the most beautiful..." He smiled dreamily.

Can he be sure this will happen? "How can I?" he replied with a snort of incredulity. Well, I said, some Buddhists and Christians have very specific beliefs about life after death. "That's their problem. Hmm hmm."

When I told Ratsch that a psychedelic trip years ago had left me with a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with reality, or even God, he nodded. "I have seen many people tripping. And it happens from time to time that they think everything went wrong, or they did something wrong. Because of them, they destroyed the universe, and stuff like that. That's"—he waited a beat—"not healthy. Hmm hmm."

I laughed too, and asked him if he had ever had such a trip. No, he had never had a bad trip. "I don't know what that is."

You're very fortunate, I said.

"Yes! Definitely. Very fortunate."

I asked him if he had any thoughts on why life is so filled with suffering. "The universe is about life and death, and both belong to each other. It's two poles of the same thing. And every minute we kill to live." Buddhism attempts to deny this basic fact, or suggests that it can be altered. "That's why Buddhism is based on a lie."

I asked what he thought of Terence McKenna’s time-wave theory and his prediction that the apocalypse could occur in 2012. "Complete bullshit. Hmm hmm." Ratsch had once asked McKenna if he really believed the time-wave theory, and McKenna had answered, No, not really. "But that is because we are good friends," Ratsch said. "He wouldn't admit that in the public."

Ratsch said he has much more to learn from drugs about "the shamanic world, and the use of plants, the meaning of nature." This search for meaning is endless, he emphasized. "If the search for knowledge stops, then you're basically"—he paused—"dead, as a living, exploring being." The universe "produces people like us to learn about itself." This self-exploring process "goes on and on and on. And nobody knows where it goes and what happens. And I think that's part of enlightenment, to understand that there is no aim."

A waitress clearing a table beside us knocked a bottle onto the floor. Ratsch watched bemused as the bottle ponderously rumbled toward us and clanked against the base of our table.

Certain rare mortals are so cool that they seem transhuman. They appear immune to embarrassment, angst, guilt--all the negative emotions that wrack us ordinary mortals. Christian Ratsch has this quality. I believed him when he told me that he had never had a bad trip. I used to envy those who had attained transcendent coolness, but now I wonder whether it represents a deficit of feeling, of empathy. I prefer sages with hearts, like Huston Smith.

I found Ratsch’s sorcerer schtick entertaining, though. Moreover, as I went over his views of mysticism and enlightenment, I realized that they are not as outrageous as they sounded to me at first. His comparison of enlightenment to orgasm echoes the hypothesis of the brain-scientists Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili that our mystical capacity evolved out of our orgasmic capacity. Ratsch’s rejection of monasticism reflects that of Kabalists, who believed that only happily married men are stable enough to follow the mystical path.

Like the skeptical mystic Susan Blackmore, he does not believe in ghosts or life after death. He rejects the notion of enlightenment as a state of final knowledge, contending that if the search for knowledge ends, life ends. The point of visionary experiences is the experiences themselves, Ratsch suggests, not the knowledge or beliefs that might be gleaned from them. In the same way, the aim of life is to understand that there is no aim.

Actually, Ratsch qualified that principle somewhat at the end of our conversation. After he yawned pointedly, I said I had just one more question: What is the secret of life?

"Get high. Heh heh heh."