Rick Strassman, MD, is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. He is author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule — A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds Through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies, and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: a New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. He has also authored a novel titled Joseph Levy Escapes Death. His website is https://www.rickstrassman.com/

In this interview, rebooted from 2019, he describes how he was an active Buddhist meditator for twenty years while he was also engaged in DMT research. Eventually he left Buddhist practice, and began a deep study of the Hebrew bible. Initially, he thought that the DMT “spirit molecule” might be responsible for spiritual experiences. In retrospect, he now believes that DMT serves as a placebo to amplify that which is already in the mind. He has developed the concept of “theoneurology” — suggesting that the divine acts upon human imagination that then inspires the rational intellect.

(Recorded on September 27, 2019)

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Published on July 3, 2025