5-MeO-DMT can be used in a way that intends to overwhelm the system. With unnecessarily high doses, often the system has no choice but to submit to what is often described as power. In this way, the 5 practitioner somehow guarantees the experience of a full release via force. Much like frenetic force is typically used to achieve the release that is orgasm, for example, a submission approach uses the very high dose to force the full release.

But release can also occur using a contrary approach. Through surrender, a genuine and intentional opening allows for release to occur easefully. After all, the direct experience of primordial/pure consciousness (that is, a threshold crossing beyond subject–object structure) reveals that it is always, already there. By using a gradual approach to find how the One can be revealed, the system is met with a ‘soft power’. The ‘power’ of an experience with 5 is can be revealed via surrender, genuinely empowering the individual.

Submission: a developmentally regressive retreat from maturity and genuine surrender.
Surrender: a progressive step beyond egocentricity toward a fuller connection with being.

Submission is a forceful approach that reveals the direct experience of primordial consciousness via overwhelm, engaging the individual through force rather than surrender. Seen in this lens, one could say that the forceful approach is a violation and that the gentler approach is a liberation.

The Approach to the Summit
Descriptions and reports of the full release suggest that it is not always experienced the same way, much like each dip in different parts of the ocean has a different feel, or that no one steps into the same river twice. Ancient bodies of wisdom as well as contemporary explorers have gifted us different cartographies of the psyche, the nature of existence, and the multi-dimensional and holographic aspects of reality. Moreover, the idea that there are myriad experiences of the One are apparent upon learning about different descriptions, ancient and modern, of the direct experience of pure consciousness. My own cartography involves identifying thresholds that an individual experiences in the reflux and efflux of pure consciousness.

My discourse here, however, is about how a full release is arrived at. Reliable technologies and methods reveal the Source in a variety of ways: certain styles of meditation; dark rooms/light deprivation, the hypnagogic/flickering effect, excessive quantities of certain substances (many DMTs, LSD, mescalines, etc.), sound (i.e., isochronic beats), movement (shaking, dance, etc.), and sex. Some of them are approached gently and some forcefully. The gentle approach could be argued to be the most refined one.

A good example is orgasm. Orgasm is often more easily achieved through an escalation of stimulation where ‘more’ is required to achieve the release desired, a sort of escape velocity. This usually results in submission. In Karezza or some Tantric practices, for example, however, orgasm is approached through a more subtle process, allowing the release to be revealed through relaxation—which leans towards surrender. Similarly, some meditation approaches use sharp attention, mental concentration/control/discipline; others emphasise a diffuse or relaxed attention. Again, the former suggest submission while the latter suggests surrender.

Generally, the gentler approaches of surrender take more time, allowing the nervous system to relax; the mechanics of letting go are honed to the point where a transcendent crossing of the final threshold is reached via the absence of contraction as opposed to a sometimes dissociative crossing that occurs even with force. With large doses of external, exogenous substances however, it’s not so much about time but rather about the quantity of the substance. An exception is 5-MeO-DMT. Taken at certain quantities by certain methods (injected, inhaled, insufflated, etc.), this substance reliably allows the full release of pure consciousness from the constraints of the ego structure with a relatively small range of factors to be considered.

Factors unique to the God molecule
 The quality of the approach to a direct experience of pure consciousness (which is perhaps the crown jewel of experiences with this molecule) can change from genuine surrender to forceful submission in just a few hundredths of a gram. The approach—not the length of time—is of most interest in regards to the quality of the journey that reveals what lays beyond the threshold. **

If a full release is the goal, what happens when the desired state is not achieved? Often the remedy is an increase in the quantity of the substance—more attempts at submission. But what about more surrender? What about gradually exercising the muscles of surrender? What about loosening the grip on what could be ‘in the way’? There would be less need for more of the substance. However, this would require more time. More time is often used with methodologies and orientations that are psycholytic, trauma-informed, etc.

I have pointed out here that using more substance generally indicates an approach I call submission. More, in this case, basically means excessive. But what is excessive? It is the power that is in excess of what is required to allow for a full release:  what Ralph Metzner named a dissociative dose (DD). Discovering that dose is a process of discovery. As one approaches the direct experience of pure consciousness (big ‘S’ self), we can discover the horizons of the small ’s’ self in degrees.

I will use an analogy to explicate. The helicopter can take us to the summit while we sleep, while we are ‘blindfolded’, or even against our will, plowing through myriad fears (heights, abrupt movement, noise, etc.). The helicopter can also take us to the summit more consciously, with open eyes and a welcoming but not insistent window view, maybe taking breaks and checking in with the passenger along the way. The latter is the empowered, intentional choice of the person—a conscious and consensual ascent. The former is the prescribed offering of a forced ascent, usually initiated by the pilot making sure you get to the top regardless of the quality of your experience on the way up and all too often without regard for the quality of your experience on the way back down.

“Submission has a narcissistic quality, in that followers seek to bask in the reflected glory of their leader as a way to inflate their self importance.”

The dissociative dose is unique to the individual for a variety of reasons. Discovering that unique DD requires time: less time than with other modalities of psychedelic or ‘medicine’ use, to be sure, but more time than the submission approach used by some practitioners and psychonauts. The helicopter either needs to have a bigger engine (velocity/dose) to get to the top or needs the load to be lighter (surrender/letting go). One solution is for the passenger to consciously lighten their load. This makes the ride up more of a conscious choice: the individual releases the material that makes up the threshold, past which a direct experience with pure consciousness (the summit, so to speak) and in so doing less power/velocity (dose) is required. Indeed, empowerment results from the conscious, genuine surrender.

Surrender empowers us

As I argue for a surrender approach in the use of bufo alvarius or 5-MeO-DMT, I do not negate the value of a dosing regime that overpowers the system by way of submission. From a non-therapeutic perspective, absolute mystical events where all subjective reality is absent —regardless of how it happens—may be ultimately what propels or accelerates humanity’s evolution. With this lens, would it matter how empowered a person is when having a full release?

“An abrupt awakening is always to be preferred above a sweet but unconscious sleep”

On an interpersonal level, it is compelling to opine, that yes, empowerment liberates the person from constricted/contracted ways of living. A liberated life probably leads to the further empowerment of others—the hundredth monkey myth. On an extra-personal level, it may be that a full release in and of itself is enough to catalyse the same effect. Yet even with the hundredth monkey hypothesis, after the rate of population growth is considered, is facilitation that emphasises empowerment (by way of arriving at the full release via genuine surrender) able to match or overtake the rate at which humans are being born?

This is where the topic potentially dovetails to epigenetics. Those who have a full release through submission, if we are to trust/believe/hypothesise that a genetic transformation is occurring, or at least seeded, may be, just by having children, catalysing the transition toward a collective new dawn/awakening. This idea would then champion the submission approach. In this case, large doses (without needing to discover the DD) served indiscriminately to as many people as possible would be the fastest approach to ensuring that full release seeds are planted and the hundredth monkey myth is enacted most expediently. The interpersonal concept would champion the surrender approach, used by those practitioners offering 5 in a gradual way, maybe a psycholytic methodology, perhaps in a therapy context. Empowering the individual to arrive at the full release through genuine surrender would be the most comprehensive (and time-consuming) methodology; the interpersonal field thus being the level at which humanity will thrive and evolve best.

Those practitioners betting on a submission approach may not have the time to consider these ruminations and I don’t expect that they, as I describe them, are reading this right now. Those practitioners who are interested in empowering individuals via genuine surrender in their approach may be more inclined to take the time to read this. In any case, it’s likely that there isn’t a ‘best’ way. The full release of pure consciousness from the constraints of the ego structure can happen many ways.

One of them is with surrender in mind.