Caveat: it is of course not really necessary for DMT to have the function of a neurotransmitter or even to be present in the brain in order to make reality a massive ‘hallucination’ – serotonin is after all a tryptamine, a trip drug, so reality is already something ‘induced’ by a tryptamine.
Still, it is fascinating that DMT appears to be present in large numbers in the brain, that we most likely owe our dream life to the substance, and that Wim Hof’s breathing method (and mine) can indeed activate DMT in the brain, albeit in smaller quantities.
How wonderful to see that overseas, open scientific discussions about one’s own brain are possible again. Here in The Netherlands we still have to deal with the CDA and the RIVM, the institution that has been pretending for 50 years that psychedelics have no medical applications. And this while there is enough research available, the ‘scientific principles’ of this civil servants’ club have, to put it euphemistically, a political edge. Woke with Jesus when things weren’t so woke yet, in other words.
I myself would prefer to see the Netherlands become a guiding light again, to be on the frontline again. Now that psychedelics are becoming legal in almost the whole US and scientific research on them is exploding, it is strange that we have ‘Have you heard of Lord Jesus?’ at the helm, the meat industry to the full, and behind the scenes they also seem to be particularly good friends with…Mexico.
The entanglement of the ‘moderate left’ with conservative religion is a huge problem in the Netherlands. Even at universities, a kind of package deal has been made: you can represent the entire left-wing spectrum, as long as you continue to give us space. According to the late David Graeber, such deals were the real reason that anarchist representation at Universities is virtually non-existent. A carefully defined ‘left-wing narrative’ is meticulously presented but seems to have little to say in most areas.
When the scientist John M. Allegro concluded, on the basis of the Dead Sea Scrolls in which he was an expert, that Jesus Christ was a code name for the Amanita Muscaria and that Christianity was a result of an Essene shamanic cult that ate psychedelic mushrooms, he could hang up his professorial title in no time. The conservative religious powers got rid of him; indeed, I discovered that his main opponent later turned out to be involved in all sorts of church sex scandals.
All this calls for something that is still far too shadowy in this world: secularism. The government, the universities, the judiciary: they should be given a completely secular basis, to prevent the above from happening.
Religious gang politics should play no role in the direction of science, the administration of justice, yes, even literature, where through inattention we also see more and more ‘men with good intentions’ roaming around.
Back to the conversation and my Christmas message. I wish the world a lot of real science, but we will have to find a way to make that real science possible again, just like we will have to find a way to allow real literature and real poetry to be discussed again instead of Discover Your Place.(1)
I wish you a secular government that works on neutrality.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from Jurgen Eissink. He said that he had bought Ginneninne a while back and that he had read that book with so much pleasure that he immediately bought O Kolle Klokkenspin / Zeefjesdans as well.
If the Netherlands had had a secular basis, that book would have received a lot of attention, because it is one of the best poetry books that have ever appeared in our language area. However, we have Woke with Jesus at the helm, always the same colourless guy, and so I can only wish everyone a nice, long episode of Ontdek je Plekje.
- Ontdek je Plekje (Discover Your Place) was the name of a really tedious semi-religious television program in the 80’s/90’s)