Main description:

After completing his groundbreaking research chronicled in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Rick Strassman was left with one fundamental question: What does it mean that DMT, a simple chemical naturally found in all of our bodies, instantaneously opens us to an interactive spirit world that feels more real than our own world?

When his decades of clinical psychiatric research and Buddhist practice were unable to provide answers to this question, Strassman began searching for a more resonant spiritual model. He found that the visions of the Hebrew prophets--such as Ezekiel, Moses, Adam, and Daniel--were strikingly similar to those of the volunteers in his DMT studies. Carefully examining the concept of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, he characterizes a "prophetic state of consciousness" and explains how it may share biological and metaphysical mechanisms with the DMT effect.

Examining medieval commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, Strassman reveals how Jewish metaphysics provides a top-down model for both the prophetic and DMT states, a model he calls "theoneurology." Theoneurology bridges biology and spirituality by proposing that the Divine communicates with us using the brain, and DMT--whether naturally produced or ingested--is a critical factor in such visionary experience. This model provides a counterpoint to "neurotheology," which proposes that altered brain function simply generates the impression of a Divine-human encounter.

Theoneurology addresses issues critical to the full flowering of the psychedelic drug experience. Perhaps even more important, it points the way to a renewal of classical prophetic consciousness, the soul of Hebrew Bible prophecy, as well as unexpected directions for the evolution of contemporary spiritual practice.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Books of the Hebrew Bible: Names, Abbreviations, and Versification

Prologue
A Hebrew Prophet in Babylonia and a DMT Volunteer in New Mexico

Part I
From Psychedelic Drugs to the Hebrew Bible

1 Setting the Stage
2 Defining Our Terms
3 The Path to DMT: Psychedelic Drugs, Meditation, and the Pineal Gland
4 The DMT World: Where Is This?
5 Candidate Religious Systems

Part II
The Hebrew Bible: Basic Notions

6 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: What It Is and How to Study It
7 God
8 Prophet and Prophecy: The Biblical Record

Part III
The Prophetic State: Comparison with the DMT Experience

9 Overview
10 The Body
11 Emotions
12 Perception
13 Cognition
14 Volition and Will
15 Relatedness: A Unique Prophetic Category
16 Kavod: God's Glory
17 Message and Meaning I: Belief and Behavior
18 Message and Meaning II: History, the World to Come, the Messiah, Resurrection, False Prophecy, Wisdom, and Poetry

Part IV
Mechanisms: Spiritual and Material

19 The Metaphysics of Prophecy
20 The Metaphysics of DMT: A Theoneurological Model of Prophecy

Part V
The Past, Present, and Future of Prophecy

21 The End of Prophecy
22 The Once and Future Prophet
23 Concluding Remarks

Appendix Sacred Texts: Translations, Commentaries, Philosophical Works, and Scholars

Notes

Bibliography

Biblical Index

Index