Review: 'Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad'

Its the premise of The Tryptamine Palace that truly excites. A toad, yes a mere toad of all creatures, carries a pseudo-human neurotransmitter to God! Only a masterfully impressive writer can handle this kind of subject and not come across as all silly sounding. James Oroc is a brave man indeed.

What is conveyed in our world, Oroc believes, is only illusion for the production-line people. Oroc soars free from this world, he's uncovered the secret and, in so doing, he has managed to untangle the world knot of existence. Gulp!!

You see, when assaulted by the tryptamine exegesis, we are as poor and as dumb mouthed as our Neolithic ancestors, and they were as knowledgeable as an iPod! This long trip from the Neolithic; into the all knowing present, there exists an abyss of real immensity. In the presence of this abyss, all the capability of human conception sinks exhausted, with nothing to hold onto but a fall into a place outside of metaphysics; a palace of radiant light; a Tryptamine Palace will thus emerge from this light. Now nobody is talented enough to pull this off. Mot even James Oroc.

This is why James's book is all over the place. Be it grammar that reeks of brain damage, lazy sentences that make no sense at all or just individual narcissism (such as, "this book you hold in your hands" blah blah and he even re-invents the name of God!). The paragraph structure is a bizarre mix of childs blogging, screeching mid flow only to jump around like a demented grass hopper looking for an idea to pin down.

There are some plus sides though, like the chapter on how the CIA flooded the youth movenment with pure LSD in the early 1960's and by doing destroyed the New-Left. LSD apparently helped boost the narcissistic powers of he counterculture leaders. I happen to agree with that bit. Oroc is also good at knocking holes in our consumer culture and pointing out the poverty of our present economic situation. All goes well there then, it's only his God complex which I find hard to digest.

Aside from politics, Oroc quotes tons of new age books based on quantum physics and Buddhism . These are the best bits (though it does feel very cut and paste), especially, like I mentioned above, the long passages from the Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying. Like I said, the power of metaphor and poetry shines bright in Sogyal Rinpoche's masterpiece and I was feeling somewhat jealous of the Buddhists. Why can't we psychedelic people enjoy similar works?

Oroc really should have invited a few philosophers, ghost writers and poets onto his boat; just to give a helping hand here and there. Metaphysics is a vast dark ocean; strewn with many a philosophical shipwreck; in other words, it's completely mindboggling and so the experience cannot be articulated alone. But still, assailed by the furious toad, the man hangs in there!

So, just to conclude, Tryptamine Palace could be a classic if a bunch of people got together and worked on each chapter with care and attention, because (just my opinion here) the chapters read like leaflets or synopses for a planned book. But what a great title to boot hey! I feel even more let down that the book preachers to the converted. That is, it takes the psychedelic thing for granted. James underestimates the weirdness of a toad carrying a pseudo human neurotransmitter; this neurotransmitter is a pipeline to God! Now that's weird isn't it? If only we can package that fact to the wider world, rather than focus on a tiny psychedelic community? It's obvious that James Oroc's been around the world, he's very experienced and he actually comes across as a very nice guy in these pages, but his book is a mess and can only withdraw us away from a real mystery and another way of thinking that doesn't involve the giggles.

oh, and regarding the mental masturbation comment...sure. but what really is any philosophy (except maybe more edited)? i shall flow my mind onto you...

...and maybe we'll progress.

yeah, was wondering what people thought about the scheduling of 5-meo...coincidence? can't blame Oroc for this, though. f-it. this stuff should not need to be underground, and the more informed the better, i think. i want to keep the prizes for myself too, but this stuff is culturally monumental, and should not need to be hid from plain sight. i'm not quite through the book yet, but, despite the way out there ideas (its 5-meo, c'mon they need to be), the ideas are intelligently thought out and conveyed (but sometimes too quickly, or without acknowledging the flaws in a theory). keep pushing the truth...

at what point does this become mental masturbation? Or is that already acknowledged?

Addendum: My apologies, there is an appendix at the very back of the book that talks about the dangers of 5-MeO-DMT, including a tragic account of turning a friend on to a bad trip and having his friend's accidental death coincide a few days later. This is buried in the back of the text between five other appendixes including the list of resources and the index so I must have flipped past it accidentally. Most of the warning is metaphysical in nature, linking bummers to the inability to succumb to ego death or out-of-body encounters. The handful of paragraphs on people having violent reactions on 5-MeO-DMT with absolutely no recall reminds me of many experiences I have witnessed. Wish there were a whole book on that subject instead of a couple pages at the end of the last appendix.

I'm pretty sure there is a section on the dangers of 5meo at the end of the book.

"links consciousness to quantum Bose-Einstein condensates as interference patterns of space interacting with time"

duh

never read DMT: the spirit molecule because it's about one type of infortmation I already know how to find. the fact this book forsakes the classical concept of heirarchical ontology and tries to cover "everthing" means I might actually read it.

dea moves to schedule substance shortly after this book was published. more harm then good, imo. this information is redundant for anyone who is truly into the compound.