The Invisible Landscape

1. Psychedelics as Keys to Liberation and Consciousness

We believed that the widespread use of psychedelic drugs in modern society was somehow rooted to the intuition that exploration and reassimilation of so-called magical dimensions was the next valid step in humanity's collective search for liberation.

Humanity's core drive. The authors propose that the fundamental motivation behind human history and individual striving is the search for liberation, a return to a paradisiacal state. This quest has manifested in diverse forms throughout history, from religious movements to political revolutions.

Psychedelics offer a path. They argue that psychedelic drugs represent a modern intuition that accessing "magical dimensions" or non-ordinary reality is crucial for collective liberation. These substances are seen not as mere recreational tools, but as powerful probes for exploring the relationship between mind and the physical world.

Shamanism provides context. Their interest in psychedelics led them to study shamanism, the ancient practice of accessing altered states, often through psychoactive plants, to navigate the spirit world and heal. This tradition suggests that manipulating the biophysical state can unlock hidden realms of consciousness.

2. Shamanism: The Healed Madman's Access to the Unconscious

The schizophrenic who has managed successfully to complete this final adjustment is in every sense superior, for he is truly a healed madman, one who not only has crossed over to the other side but has returned and hence possesses access to both spheres of reality.

Shamanism vs. Schizophrenia. The book draws parallels between the shamanic journey and certain forms of schizophrenia, particularly the "essential" or "reactive" types. Both involve a crisis, detachment from ordinary reality, inundation by unconscious content, and a potential for psychic reorganization.

Integration is key. The crucial difference lies in integration. While the schizophrenic may be overwhelmed by unconscious processes, the shaman, through initiation and learned techniques, integrates these experiences, becoming a "healed madman" capable of navigating both the ordinary and non-ordinary realms for the benefit of the community.

Cultural context matters. The authors suggest that the difference in outcome is heavily influenced by cultural attitudes. Primitive societies provide a framework for understanding and integrating these states, validating the shaman's experiences, whereas modern society often pathologizes them, leaving the schizophrenic isolated.

3. Beyond Materialism: Organismic and Quantum Views of Reality

Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly.

Critique of classical science. The authors challenge the limitations of classical scientific materialism, which views nature as merely inert matter with simple location, devoid of mind, purpose, or value. This reductionist view, inherited from Newton and Descartes, creates a dualism between mind and nature that is philosophically unsatisfying.

Quantum physics changes the view. Modern physics, particularly quantum theory, reveals a different picture. Matter is not static but dynamic, existing as vibratory processes or events rather than solid objects with simple location. This view is more consistent with our everyday experience of organisms and mind.

Organismic philosophy. Drawing on Whitehead, they propose an "organismic" philosophy where the universe is a structure of evolving processes. Mind is not separate from nature but an intrinsic quality of organisms, even at the most fundamental levels. This allows for the reintroduction of value and teleology into our understanding of the cosmos.

4. The Holographic Nature of Mind, Brain, and Universe

If each mind is a holographic medium, then each is contiguous with every other, because of the ubiquitous distribution of information in a hologram.

Brain as a hologram. The book explores the idea that the brain functions holographically. Research by Lashley and Pietsch suggests that memories and information are stored ubiquitously throughout the cerebral cortex, rather than in specific locations, similar to how any part of a hologram contains the whole image.

Mind as a hologram. Extending this, the mind itself may be holographically structured. This could explain phenomena like imagination (containing the whole universe), associative recall, and the mind's tendency to create symbolic "totality metaphors" like mandalas.

Universe as a hologram. The holographic principle might apply at all levels of nature, from DNA (ubiquitous genetic information) to the quantum level (wave-particle duality, Leibniz's monads). This suggests reality itself might be a holographic matrix, where each part reflects the whole, potentially existing in a higher spatial dimension.

5. Molecular Hypothesis: Nucleic Acids, ESR, and Consciousness

What we experience as thought or consciousness has its physical basis in quantum-mechanical phenomena.

Neurotransmitters and hallucinogens. The authors delve into the molecular similarities between hallucinogens (like tryptamines and beta-carbolines) and neurotransmitters (like serotonin). They suggest these substances interact with the nervous system, potentially acting as "false transmitters" or influencing neurotransmitter function.

Nucleic acid receptor sites. They propose a speculative model where neurotransmitters and hallucinogens intercalate (insert) into nucleic acid (RNA or DNA) receptor sites in neural membranes. This intercalation could cause conformational changes and form charge-transfer complexes.

ESR and consciousness. The core hypothesis is that these molecular interactions generate electromagnetic waveforms via Electron Spin Resonance (ESR). The combination of these modulated waveforms from millions of synapses is what we experience as thought or consciousness. The pineal gland is speculated to act as a transducer, detecting these signals.

6. The La Chorrera Experiment: Subjective Revelation and Objective Claims

We could feel the presence of some invisible hyperspatial entity, an ally, which seemed to be observing and sometimes exerting influence on the situation to keep us moving gently toward an experimental resolution of the ideas we were generating.

Testing the hypothesis. In 1971, the authors conducted an experiment at La Chorrera in the Amazon, ingesting Stropharia cubensis mushrooms (psilocybin) and Banisteriopsis caapi (harmine). They aimed to vocally amplify the hypothesized molecular ESR signals, attempting to induce a superconducting state in nucleic acid-harmine complexes.

Intense subjective experience. The experiment triggered profound and bizarre subjective experiences, including:

• Hearing an interior harmonic tone/buzz.
• Spontaneous, non-ordinary vocalizations.
• Seeing vocalizations become visible waveforms.
• Shared "schizophrenic" ideation and telepathic rapport.
• A sense of an alien, insectoid intelligence.

Claim of objective phenomenon. Despite the similarity to psychosis, the authors argue their experience was an objective phenomenon, citing the sudden onset, shared nature, and specific, predicted effects (like the interior tone). They maintain the experiment tapped into a real, albeit peculiar, aspect of reality.

7. The I Ching as a Model for a Fractal Time Hierarchy

The I Ching, through its concern with detailing the dynamics of change and process, may hold the key to modeling the temporal dimension that metabolism creates for organisms, the temporal dimension without which mind could not manifest.

Post-experiment insights. The intense subjective experiences at La Chorrera led the authors to explore abstract systems that might model the perceived nature of time and reality. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese divinatory system, became central to their investigation.

I Ching's structure and order. They analyzed the King Wen sequence of the 64 hexagrams, noting its specific, non-random ordering principles:

• Hexagrams paired by inversion or complementation.
• Precise ratios of line changes between hexagrams (3:1 even to odd).
• Deliberate exclusion of certain change values (e.g., five lines).
• A unique closure property when the sequence's "first order of difference" is graphed and superimposed on itself.

A model for time. They propose that this ordered sequence, particularly the graph of its changes, represents a neolithic intuition about the structure of time itself. This structure is seen as a "modular hierarchy," where the same pattern repeats on different scales, analogous to the nested structure of the I Ching (lines -> trigrams -> hexagrams -> sequence).

8. Timewave Zero: Quantifying Novelty and the 2012 Concrescence

The end date is the point of maximized novelty in the wave and is the only point in the entire wave that has a quantified value of zero.

Quantifying the wave. Building on the I Ching structure, the authors developed a mathematical method to quantify the "novelty" or "density of connectedness" at any point in the hierarchical wave. This involves assigning numerical values based on the patterns of change within the nested cycles.

The Timewave Zero software. This quantification led to the development of "Timewave Zero" software, which graphs the ebb and flow of novelty over any chosen time span. The wave shows periods of increasing novelty (steep descents) and increasing habit/order (movement away from the baseline).

Predicting 2012. By aligning the wave with known historical events (e.g., the rise and fall of civilizations, technological leaps), they found a strong correlation when the wave's ultimate "zero state" (maximum novelty) was set to December 21, 2012. This date, coincidentally the end of the Mayan calendar, is predicted as a point of ultimate concrescence or transformation.

9. Cosmology of Concrescence: A Photonic Transformation at Time's End

The spiral implosion of time may entail the universe, and every entity in it, meeting and canceling its antimatter double to create, through this union of opposites, an ontological mutation from matter to photonic form, which represents tremendous freedom.

Time's spiral involution. The Timewave model suggests time is not linear but a progressive spiral involution towards a final point of concrescence. This process involves cycles of increasing novelty and decreasing duration, accelerating towards the zero state.

Universe as a quantum event. Drawing on physics, they speculate the universe itself might be a large-scale quantum fluctuation, potentially consisting equally of matter and antimatter coexisting in a higher dimension.

Matter-antimatter union. The final concrescence in 2012 might involve this universe meeting and canceling its antimatter reflection, not in a destructive explosion, but a simultaneous, ubiquitous transformation across a higher dimension. This union of opposites could result in an "ontological mutation" from matter to pure photonic form.

10. Language Origin: An Ecstatic Activity of Signification

Language is an ecstatic activity of signification.

Language as novelty. Language is viewed as a relatively recent and significant instance of concrescence and novelty in human evolution. Its emergence represents a leap in coordinated organization and self-reflection.

Psychedelics and language. The authors speculate that the origin of language might be linked to early humans' use of psychoactive plants, possibly discovered around fires. The ingestion of tryptamine-containing plants could have induced states of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) or spontaneous, modulated sound.

Logos emerges from ritual. This ritualistic use of sound in altered states, combined with the human capacity for signification, could have led to the discovery of a "more perfect archetypal logos." Language, in this view, emerged from an ecstatic, ritualistic engagement with the unconscious and the chemical pathways that access it.

Last updated: June 28, 2025