Death by astonishment

Death by astonishment Confronting the mystery of the world's strangest drug

Andrew R. Gallimore

Book - 2025

"For fans of the compelling critical and investigative style of best-selling authors Graham Hancock and Brian Muraresku, the first detailed account of the history and science of the world's strangest and most mysterious drug - DMT. DMT is the world's strangest and most mysterious drug, inducing one of the most remarkable and yet least understood of all states of consciousness. This common plant molecule has, from ancient times to the modern day, been used as a tool to gain access to a bizarre alien reality of inordinate complexity and unimaginable strangeness, populated by a panoply of highly advanced, intelligent, and communicative beings entirely not of this world. In a story that begins in the Amazonian rainforests and end...s somewhere beyond the stars, Andrew Gallimore presents the first detailed account of the discovery of DMT and science's continuing struggle to explain how such a simple and common plant molecule can have such astonishing effects on the human mind. The history of the drug involves many fascinating characters from the scientific and literary worlds - including legendary ethnobotanist Dr. Richard Schultes; renegade beat writer and drug aficionado William S. Burroughs; philosopher and raconteur Terence McKenna; and the high priest of the 1960s psychedelic revolution, Dr. Timothy Leary. In the end, the story of DMT forces us to reconsider our most basic assumptions about the nature of reality and our place within it"-- Provided by publisher.

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615.7883/Gallimore
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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 615.7883/Gallimore (NEW SHELF) Due Dec 1, 2025
Subjects
Drugs.
Dimethyltryptamine.
Hallucinogenic drugs.
Dimethyltryptamine > History.
Dimethyltryptamine
Published
New York : St. Martin's Press 2025.
Language
English
Main Author
Andrew R. Gallimore (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xiv, 302 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), color portraits ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781250357755
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Pharmacologist Gallimore (Reality Switch Technologies) argues in this eccentric account that psychoactive drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, has the ability to introduce users to worlds full of noncorporeal intelligent beings that are "both everywhere and nowhere." He explains that DMT users often report encountering visions of elflike creatures and other "discarnate intelligences" as well as shapes and patterns unlike anything they have previously seen, and he argues that because these observations make up "a world that the brain should not know how to build," it's plausible they're due to the presence of otherworldly intelligence that humans can "live among and learn from." Though he falls short of proving that theory, Gallimore offers plenty of insight on the history of DMT, covering its use by Indigenous South American tribes and its involvement in the 1960s "psychedelic revolution." The narrative's cast of historical figures includes William Burroughs, who brought DMT to the attention of scientists; LSD researcher Timothy Leary, who also experimented with DMT; and pharmacologist Harris Isbell, who conducted morally suspect drug experiments on federal prisoners throughout the 1950s. Though colorful, Gallimore's prose can be repetitive and jargony. This one's long on strange and short on science. (July)

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