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Machine elves (also known as fractal elves, self-transforming machine elves) is a term coined by the late ethnobotanist, writer and philosopher Terence McKenna to describe the apparent entities (described as "elves") that have been reported by users of dimethyltryptamine.[1] References to such encounters can be found in many cultures ranging from shamanic traditions of native Americans to indigenous Australians and African tribes, as well as among western users of these substances.[2]
Description by McKenna
McKenna's first published mention of the machine elves in his and his brother Dennis' book The Invisible Landscape (published 1975):
We especially refer to the apparently autonomous and intelligent, chaotically mercurial and mischievous machine elves encountered in the trance state, strange teachers whose marvelous singing makes intricate toys out of the air and out of their own continually transforming body geometries.[3]
Other mentions of the DMT elves
In a book entitled Psychedelic Monographs and Essays Volume 5,[4] Peter Meyer, a philosopher, mathematician and developer of Terence McKenna's "Timewave Zero" software, spoke about the DMT elves. He reported a subject's experience of the elves after ingestion of DMT: "The elves were dancing in and out of the multidimensional visible language matrix". Meyer associates this experience with that talked about by Walter Evans-Wentz, who expressed that a world of entities such as fairies and elves exists "as a supernormal state of consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, trances, or in various ecstatic conditions".[5]
Psychiatrist Rick Strassman, who made extensive research on DMT, encountered many DMT smokers who had experienced beings similar to McKenna's machine elves. Since, at the time, all of the subjects were from California, his first guess was that this was just a "West Coast eccentricity". In Strassmans words, "Also surprising were the common themes of what these beings were doing with so many of our volunteers: manipulating, communicating, showing, helping, questioning. It was definitely a two-way street".[1]
The subject of machine elves is one that occupies the works of author and scientist Cliff Pickover and has been a major theme in his book Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves.[6]
See also
- Apparitional experience
- Astral projection
- Ayahuasca
- Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar
- Ego death
- Fairy
- Near-death experience
- Out-of-body experience
- Shamanism
References
- ^ a b Rick Strassman (2001). Dmt: the Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of near-Death and Mystical Experiences. pp. 187–8, also pp.173–4. ISBN 978-0-89281-927-0.
I had expected to hear about some of these types of experiences once we began giving DMT. I was familiar with Terence McKenna's tales of the "self-transforming machine elves" he encountered after smoking high doses of the drug. Interviews conducted with twenty experienced DMT smokers before beginning the New Mexico research also yielded some tales of similar meetings. Since most of these people were from California, I admittedly chalked up these stories to some kind of West Coast eccentricity- ^ Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness and the Spirit of Nature. ISBN 978-1-56025-160-6.
{{cite book}}:|editor1-first=missing|editor1-last=(help)- ^ The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching Terence McKenna, 1975
- ^ Lyttle, Thomas (1991). Psychedelic Monographs and Essays Volume 5. P M & E PUBLISHING.
- ^ Evans-Wentz, Walter (1990). The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. New Page Books. ISBN 1-56414-708-8.
- ^ Pickover, Cliff (2005). Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes, and the Quest for Transcendence. Smart Publications. ISBN 1-890572-17-9.
External links