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Concluding Remarks

Two related questions motivated me to write both DMT: The Spirit Molecule and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: What is the DMT effect? And why does the DMT state matter? The first question led me to “enlarge the discussion” regarding the DMT experience. However, enlarging the discussion by taking it into the furthest reaches of science did not immediately answer the second question, which we may also express by our familiar refrain: “If so, so what?” To determine the meaning of the DMT state, I needed to expand the scope of my investigations even further than I had anticipated. This then led me to the Hebrew Bible’s notion of prophecy. There I found a solution to the task of determining the personal and social meaning of the results of my drug studies as well as novel metaphysical mechanisms to explain them. Both charges combined to push me out of the familiar and relatively well-circumscribed confines of the scientific worldview and into the religious one that takes such a prominent place in this book.

My initial intuition that the Hebrew Bible contained the model I was seeking impelled me to pursue various topics as they appeared. Some were dead ends, and others resulted in valuable discoveries, either in and of themselves or for where they subsequently pointed. During the course of this project, I have immersed myself in the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible; learned the astonishing power of the biblical Hebrew language; and gained insights into the social, historical, theological, and metaphysical worlds of both the original text and the medieval Jewish philosophers who labored so mightily to explain it.

The final outcome has been the development of a new model—theoneurology—for a particular type of spiritual experience with striking similarities to the DMT effect: Hebrew biblical prophecy. In this model, the contemporary scientific and the medieval metaphysical- religious worldviews meet as equals. It provides a theoretical framework for certain practical applications for students of the Hebrew Bible and for those who use psychedelic drugs for spiritual purposes.

Let me now close this book by summarizing its main findings.

1. The effects of administering the endogenous psychedelic substance DMT in a controlled clinical research setting replicated many of the features we read about in the Hebrew Bible’s accounts of prophetic experience. These resemblances are especially pronounced in the perceptual sphere, but emotional, physical, cognitive, and volitional similarities also are quite striking.
2. The interactive-relational properties of the two states also are highly congruent. In this they differ profoundly from the unitive-mystical state which has become the default position for much of contemporary clinical research into spirituality as well as the goal for those who use psychedelic drugs for spiritual purposes.
3. While the informational content of the DMT and prophetic states overlap to some degree, that of the canonical prophets is much more highly articulated, profound, and meaningful. We can easily determine this by noting the enduring and pervasive effects of the prophetic message on world civilization. While the message of the non-canonical prophets is substantially less voluble, it also possesses a truth value that also far outshines the DMT one. Herein lies the essential meaning of any spiritual experience, prophetic or psychedelic. That meaning resides in the truth and beneficial effects of its message.
4. Utilizing the medieval Jewish philosophers’ model of God, God’s intermediaries, emanation, and the rational and imaginative faculties of the human mind, I have proposed mechanisms by which to explain the similarities and differences between the DMT and prophetic states. The DMT experience predominantly reflects enhancement of the imaginative faculty, whereas the prophetic one also includes the operation of a highly developed rational faculty as well as God’s will to bestow the state.
5. This model suggests both pharmacological and educational approaches to enhancing the likelihood of contemporary prophetic experience. Study of the Hebrew Bible and the natural sciences will enhance the rational faculty, and the judicious use of psychedelic drugs will enhance the imaginative one. True prophecy—bestowal of divine emanation—is more likely to take place in someone who is qualified, one in whom exists the highest possible development of these two vital mental functions.

For an educated, contemporary Western secularist, the most challenging aspect of the theoneurological model’s reliance on medieval Jewish metaphysics is the role that God plays in it. According to this model, God created and sustains all the natural and moral laws of the universe, and prophecy is nothing other than a direct relationship with that God. Any model for prophecy that relies on the Hebrew Bible must either accept this theocentric orientation or not. By rejecting it, the text immediately becomes metaphoric, and the medieval Jewish philosophers rarely approach the text metaphorically to derive their sophisticated metaphysics. The value of their model is that, paradoxically, we can study it using modern science.

Thoughtfully grafting the medieval model on the biological one leads to a God-based theoneurology that provides a counterpoint to a brain-based neurotheology. The biological concomitants of prophecy are how God communicates with us, rather than how the brain creates the impression of that communication. A faith-based individual may find confirmation of his or her beliefs in such a proposition, whereas a secularist may find it of value to conduct a thought experiment exploring the implications of such a model.

The disproportionate aesthetic features of the psychedelic drug state relative to its intellectual ones is of critical importance, as it reflects its primary effects on the imaginative rather than the rational faculty. While biblical aesthetics are at least as impressive as those of the DMT experience, it is the prophetic message that has exerted the more profound and enduring effect on the world. The verbal teachings of the Hebrew Bible’s God and His angels gave birth to and continue to sustain Western law, theology, ethics and morality, psychology, natural and social science, history, finance, and government. In contrast, a uniquely psychedelic influence on these foundations of Western civilization as yet is nowhere near as visible.

This minimal non-aesthetic impact may be due to the relative paucity of the psychedelic experience’s message or the lack of a culturally appropriate religious and intellectual model for understanding and communicating it. The theoneurological model provides potential solutions to these challenges. It suggests strengthening the rational faculty through appropriate education in addition to using the Hebrew Bible’s vocabulary and concepts to mine the psychedelic state for its message.

For those intent on attaining a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible, studying it with the judicious assistance of the psychedelic drug state may provide greater resonance with the mind out of which the text emerged; that is, the mind of prophecy. And for those seeking an intellectual and religious foundation upon which to interpret and apply the contemporary Western psychedelic drug experience, Hebrew biblical prophecy, sharing as many features as it does with the DMT state, may provide just that foundation.