Earlier parts of this series featured storytellers and provocateurs, and with Roland Griffiths the careful scientist. Rick Strassman belongs in that last camp, with a remarkable subject of his own: DMT. Up front, honestly: DMT is not legal in the Netherlands and we do not sell it. This portrait is educational.
The psychiatrist who brought DMT back to the lab
Strassman is an American psychiatrist who, in the early nineties at the University of New Mexico, achieved something that had seemed impossible for decades: approval for legal, government-sanctioned research with a powerful psychedelic in humans. It was the first study of its kind in the United States in almost a generation, at a time when psychedelics were all but taboo in science.
The research
Between roughly 1990 and 1995, Strassman administered DMT to dozens of volunteers under strictly controlled conditions, and meticulously documented what they experienced. Many participants described extraordinarily intense journeys, and to his own surprise a striking number of them reported encounters with beings. That phenomenon, which he had not expected, became one of the most discussed outcomes of his work. More about that in the machine elves.
The spirit molecule and the pineal gland
In his 2001 book DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Strassman went beyond his data. He suggested that the body may itself produce small amounts of DMT, perhaps in the pineal gland, and speculated about a role during special moments such as dreaming, birth and dying. Important to be honest about: these are hypotheses, not proven facts. The presence of DMT in the body is a serious research topic, but the big claims surrounding it are not proven. Strassman himself also presented it as speculation.
What we take from Strassman
Strassman showed two things. That careful, formal research into even the most extreme psychedelics is possible. And that a good scientist guards the difference between what he has measured and what he suspects. That distinction, between data and speculation, is exactly the attitude we value. Read the basics too in what is DMT and about the natural variant in endogenous DMT.
This article is historical and educational. DMT is not legal in the Netherlands. It describes the work of a researcher and is not an encouragement to use.