Posted by Michael Hoffman, April 7, 2025
Contents:
- Join Us on April 20th, 2025 to Learn from Rick Strassman!
- Announcement of Strassman at Sacred Garden Church at Alembic Community Center in Berkeley
- Invite by S (a Leader)
- Berkeley Alembic Building
- DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible (Strassman, 2014)
- The Mysticism Wars: Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
- This Is Not a Rush Trivia Site or Announcements Site or Current Events Site
- See Also
Join Us on April 20th, 2025 to Learn from Rick Strassman!
The Alembic community center is associated with Erik Davis and is in Berkeley, California. Sacred Garden Community church has moved to that location.
Sacred Garden Community church is multi-city (meaning, they never think of us over here 😭 – but my town gets me instead 🤷♂️).
At the Alembic, Rick Strassman is attending in person, if I’m reading right. Reservation required.
Announcement of Strassman at Sacred Garden Church at Alembic Community Center in Berkeley
“On April 20th we will be joined by Dr. Rick Strassman
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sacred-garden-sunday-service-tickets-1287639898599?aff=oddtdtcreator
who is a psychiatrist, researcher, and author best known for his groundbreaking clinical studies on DMT, detailed in his influential book DMT: The Spirit Molecule.
“As the first person in over two decades to conduct U.S. government-approved psychedelic research, his work helped catalyze the modern psychedelic renaissance. A former tenured professor at the University of New Mexico, Dr. Strassman has published extensively and continues to serve as a consultant and advisor in the psychedelic field.
“Sacred Garden has found a new home at The Alembic in Berkeley!
Join us in person (or virtual) on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month from 11am – 12:30 pm pst, followed by a potluck to connect and be in community.
“We’re also launching our Seeds & Starts Giveaway, sharing the wisdom of our sacred plants by gifting seeds and plant starts from our four plant families—Deep Forest, Bright Night, Big Sky, & Infinite Other. 🌱✨
Personally copypasted by Michael Hoffman:
“Come check out the interfaith church that I am a part of, dedicated to facilitating direct experiences of the Divine through entheogenic sacraments. I’d love for you to be part of it!”
📍 The Alembic, Berkeley
📅 Every 1st and 3rd Sunday | 11 AM – 12:30 PM | Potluck to follow
#SacredGarden #EntheogenicChurch
Invite by S (a Leader)
Personally copypasted by Michael Hoffman:
composed by S:
“Hey ya’ll – I’m reaching out to invite you to something that means a lot to me.
“The Sacred Garden Community (SGC) has a new home at The Berkeley Alembic, and their Sunday Services happen every 1st and 3rd Sunday in person from 11 AM – 12:30 PM, followed by a potluck celebration.
“If you’ve ever been curious about this community I care so much about, this is the perfect time to come check it out — they’re also launching their Seeds & Starts Giveaway, sharing seeds and baby plants from their four sacred plant families — Deep Forest, Bright Night, Big Sky, and Infinite Other. Come for the service, stay for the potluck, and take home some plant babies to start your own sacred garden.
“I want to share a little about why this community means so much to me. The long and short of it is — I believe in its potential to help shape a future worth living in.
“SGC’s “least dogma” approach makes space for everyone — every belief system and its opposite — which, to me, feels like something between Ken Wilber’s Teal paradigm and the Buddhist concept of Emptiness.“
But Tim Freke lately says Emptiness is full of it 🤷♂️
“On top of that, they hold deep knowledge about sacred plants — how to grow them, live with them, process them, and practice with them.
“All of this, held with humility, curiosity, and care, is why this community means the world to me …and I’d love to see you there.
“Whether you’re an old friend of the garden or you’ve just been curious from the sidelines, I hope you’ll come.
“Let’s plant some seeds together — literally and metaphorically.
📍 The Alembic, Berkeley
📅 Every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month | 11 AM – 12:30 PM (potluck to follow)
“Bring a dish if you can, bring your curiosity if you can’t — and bring a friend either way. Let’s grow something beautiful.”
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/sunday-service-4122643
Berkeley Alembic Building
https://www.berkeleyalembic.org — Associated with Erik Davis.
“Welcome to The Alembic
“A nonprofit center devoted to consciousness culture
Hosting classes, events, and workshops in the core domains of meditation, movement, psychedelics, inquiry, and the creative arts.
“We are a community-focused spiritual learning center – and our core desire is to intensify the kindness, good, magic, and intelligence in the world.
“We are crafting a broad curriculum that allows individuals to explore a range of modalities, learning from the highest quality instructors in an atmosphere of discernment, play, mutual respect, and scholarly/experiential depth.
“Our classes, workshops, and special events are led by contemplative masters and scientists, fringe scholars and somatic wizards, imaginal artists and seasoned psychonauts. Think of the Alembic as a transformational festival, without the dust.”
DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible (Strassman, 2014)
Rick Strassman a few weeks ago joined our book club finishing reading his new autobio book. After Houot, author of Rise of the Psychonaut, joins the book club in a couple weeks, we are maybe reading Strassman’s Old Testament Psychedelics book:
DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible
Rick Strassman M.D. (Author), 2014
https://www.amazon.com/DMT-Soul-Prophecy-Spiritual-Revelation/dp/1594773424/ —
Strassman made the HRS questionnaire:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/12/23/hrs-hallucinogen-rating-scale/
Book blurb:
“Naturally occurring DMT may produce prophecy-like states of consciousness and thus represent a bridge between biology and religious experience
- Reveals the striking similarities between the visions of the Hebrew prophets and the DMT state described by Strassman’s research volunteers
- Explains how prophetic and psychedelic states may share biological mechanisms
- Presents a new top-down “theoneurological” model of spiritual experience
“After completing his groundbreaking research chronicled in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Rick Strassman was left with one fundamental question:
“What does it mean that DMT, a simple chemical naturally found in all of our bodies, instantaneously opens us to an interactive spirit world that feels more real than our own world?
“When his decades of clinical psychiatric research and Buddhist practice were unable to provide answers to this question, Strassman began searching for a more resonant spiritual model.
“He found that the visions of the Hebrew prophets–such as Ezekiel, Moses, Adam, and Daniel–were strikingly similar to those of the volunteers in his DMT studies.
“Carefully examining the concept of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, he characterizes a “prophetic state of consciousness” and explains how it may share biological and metaphysical mechanisms with the DMT effect.
“Examining medieval commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, Strassman reveals how Jewish metaphysics provides a top-down model for both the prophetic and DMT states, a model he calls “theoneurology.”
“Theoneurology bridges biology and spirituality by proposing that the Divine communicates with us using the brain, and DMT–whether naturally produced or ingested–is a critical factor in such visionary experience.
“This model provides a counterpoint to “neurotheology,” which proposes that altered brain function simply generates the impression of a Divine-human encounter.
“Theoneurology addresses issues critical to the full flowering of the psychedelic drug experience.
“Perhaps even more important, it points the way to a renewal of classical prophetic consciousness, the soul of Hebrew Bible prophecy, as well as unexpected directions for the evolution of contemporary spiritual practice.”
/ end of book blurb
The Mysticism Wars: Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
After Houot, author of Rise of the Psychonaut, joins the book club in a couple weeks, we are maybe reading Strassman’s Old Testament Psychedelics book. Strassman is a scientist leading the field so it’s a given that Strassman is approved by A. M. Houot.
Houot certainly does not think that religion enthusiasts are irrational, immature, & mentally unfit to do Science discovery exploration, any more than Matthew Johnson would — as a hypothetical example — file ethics violations complaints against his own Psychedelic Science research group at Johns Hopkins, claiming that they are pushing a religious cult to re-introduce Psilocybin into Christianity.
Which Side Are You On (Defined for Us by Chris Letheby & Matthew Johnson)?
- Only mind exists.
- Only matter exists.
3rd side:
Cognitive Phenomenology of Mind Manifestation
This Is Not a Rush Trivia Site or Announcements Site or Current Events Site
my church forced me to post this 😞 or else be cast out through the {gate} into the darkness outside, among those who failed to do their laundry, separated from the tree of life
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.” – Revelation 22:14 (the last page of the Bible), NIV
See Also
Search this site on “book club”
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=%22book+club%22 — pages:
Sacred Garden Community psychedelic church
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/29/my-questions-for-houot-at-psychedelic-church-book-club/
The Egodeath theory 