Refer to the 2001 original English edition : DMT: The Spirit Molecule reviews what we know about psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular. It then traces the DMT research project from its earliest intimations through a maze of committees and review boards to its actual performance. I was drawn to DMT because of its presence in all of our bodies. I believed the source of this DMT was the mysterious pineal gland, a tiny organ situated in the center of our brains. Modern medicine knows little about this little gland's role, but it has a rich "metaphysical" history. Descartes, for example, believed the pineal was the "seat of the soul," and both Western and Eastern mystical traditions place our highest spiritual center within its confines. I therefore wondered if excessive pineal DMT production was involved in naturally occurring "psychedelic" states. These might include birth, death and near-death, psychosis, and mystical experiences. Only later, when the study was well underway, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the "alien abduction" experience. It is so important for us to understand consciousness. It is just as important to place psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular, into a personal and cultural matrix in which we do the most good, and the least harm. In such a wide-open area of inquiry, it is best that we reject no ideas until we actually disprove them. It is in the interest of enlarging the discussion about psychedelic drugs that I've written DMT: The Spirit Molecule.