Dr. David Luke – Death, near-death, DMT & discarnate entities

A misadventure into magic, myth, folklore and potent neuro-hacking chemicals. This talk discusses both the scientific and the mystical understanding of people’s experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places, people have had unnervingly real encounter experiences with deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Sometimes these occur when a person is in an altered state – dreaming, on drugs, or is near death. The connection between the altered state and the ‘visitation’ is explored in a vividly illustrated talk, which takes a personal tour through folklore, mythology, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, Death and the angel of a thousand eyes, brain anatomy, Tibetan demonology, the pineal gland, art, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients.

DAVID LUKE is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK, where he has been teaching an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience since 2009, and he is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, and Lecturer on the MSc Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology for Alef Trust and Liverpool John Moores University. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience (2^nd ed., 2019). When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics, London, and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness. He has given over 300 invited public lectures and conference presentations; won teaching, research and writing awards; organised numerous festivals, conferences, symposia, seminars, retreats, expeditions, pagan cabarets and pilgrimages; and has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Sussex.