Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad

714 Pages·2010·2.98 MB·English

by  James Oroc

Dedicated to the Fathers of Western entheogenic
literature:

William James (1842—1910)
Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
R. Gordon Wasson (1898—1986)
Albert Hofmann (1906—2008)
William S. Burroughs (1914—1997)
Ken Kesey (1935—2001)
Terence McKenna (1946—2000)

And to Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, for continuing to
stoke the fire.

But most of all, to my beautiful wife, for marrying a
madman!
“You’re assuming,” said Dr. Robert, “that the brain
produces consciousness. I’m assuming that it
transmits consciousness. And my explanation is not
more farfetched than yours. How on earth can a set
of events belonging to one order be experienced as
a set of events belonging to an entirely different and
incommensurable order? Nobody has the faintest
idea. All one can do is accept the facts and concoct
hypotheses. And one hypothesis is just about as
good, philosophically speaking, as another. You say
that the moksha-meditation does something to the
silent areas of the brain, which causes them to
produce a set of subjective events to which people
have given the name ‘mystical experience.’ I say
that the moksha-medicine does something to the
silent areas of the brain, which opens some kind of
neurological sluice and so allows a larger volume of
Mind with a large ‘M’ to flow in to your mind with a
small ‘m.’ You can’t demonstrate the truth of your
hypothesis, and I can’t demonstrate the truth of
mine. And even if you could prove that I’m wrong,
would it make any practical difference?”
ALDOUS HUXLEY, ISLAND (1962)
Use the light that dwells within you
To regain your natural clarity of sight.
LAO-TZU
Acknowledgments
Iwould like to first and foremost give thanks to my
wife, the “Large Laser” and my shining light, for
supporting me unconditionally throughout all of my
adventures; to Rob for listening to hours and hours of
my ideas as they slowly emerged; to Y. for taking me
toading; to Kelly N. for being a role model of a truly
open intellect; and of course to J. for turning me on in
the first place—I love you my mad toad brother.
Through my gifting of copies at Burning Man, an
early draft of Tryptamine Palace ended up in the
hands of Jon Hanna, who I ultimately hired to edit the
book for what I thought would be self-publication. Jon
has played an important part in challenging me to
really understand my own ideas as well as providing
me with a wealth of information and references. His
support has been invaluable, his intellectual
antagonism stimulating, and I must thank him for his
dogmatic insistence that those wiggly little things
called “facts” really do exist. His efforts to wake me up
from my complacency resulted in a much better book.
I would also like to thank specifically Goody for all
the times he had to take care of the practicalities
while my head was still in the clouds; Flashy for her
unwavering enthusiasm; and Ronnie for lighting up
when he read this book and for letting me know. Also
my Burning Man tribemates, past and present, for
always making me think that this work was important
—with special thanks to Brother Dance, Jeff, and
Uncle Andy for their invaluable support and trust. Love
to King Weep, sorely missed. I would like to thank
Lorenzo Hagerty for giving me the opportunity to
speak at the Palenque Norte dome at Burning Man in
2007; Love and appreciation to the Burning Man
organization, the DPW, and the entire Burning Man
community for all the hard work that is accomplished
each year to make Black Rock City a reality. Finally, I
would like to thank my editors, Chanc VanWinkle and
Nancy Yeilding, for their hard work and invaluable help
in clarifying my views and thus making this a much
better book, and I would like to thank Jon Graham
from Inner Traditions for allowing my voice to lift off the
playa and out into the greater world.
True liberation is in our hearts and in our minds.
Namaste, peace, love, and light.

The author can be contacted at
[email protected].
Remember these teachings,
remember the clear light,
the pure bright shining white light
of your own nature.
It is deathless.
ATTRIBUTED TO THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
Table of Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Alex and Allyson Grey
Preface
Introduction: How This All Began
ONE—The 5-MeO-DMT Experience
TWO—5-MeO-DMT: Science, Discovery, and the
History of Human Use