Do you believe that are ancestors such as the ancient egyptians and Greeks figured out a way to extract pure dmt? If so how do you think they would have done it?

Why should I believe this? What if ancient aliens just gave it to them? Considering that neither option is supported by any form of evidence, I see them as equally likely.

I wonder if there is a natural way they could have extracted dmt. I guess it really doesn't matter.

Is a brew not a natural extraction using only water?

They did not have the advanced chemistry knowledge in ancient times that we have today, so I would expect any plant based sacraments used would be rather crude & probably not smoked like we do now.

If you think about it, how far back can we really trace ayahuasca brews or similar plant based sacrament that may have been used in different areas? Is it not possible the same constituents had been used across the world but coming from different plants that grew locally?

There is actually quite a bit of evidence for use of freebased tryptamines in South America.

There is also quite a bit of evidence of advanced extraction knowledge in Vedic India as well.

Not the mention the ancient alchemical traditions of China, Egypt, and the Middle East.

Why would it be unreasonable to suspect cultures with advanced alchemical knowledge and complex pharmacopoeias would have had the knowledge to perform simple alkaloid extractions?

Why? By that logic anything is as unlikely as aliens giving ancient humans DMT if we haven't managed to uncover evidence for it yet...But why would these ideas be on even ground? This is not far fetched or groundbreaking. Psychedelic usage permeated a good part of the ancient world, and there is evidence of smoked tryptamines. Can't say the same for aliens giving humans DMT.

Thank you dreamer042! I find this stuff interesting so I'm definitely going to study the information that you provided.

Oh come on guys, read the original question carefully:


I thought about giving a more extensive answer, but it was about bedtime when I made the posting, so I kept it a bit terse with an admittedly hyperbolic reductio ad absurdum.

IMHO it is clearly not reasonable to assume that early cultures were able to extract and purify dmt. The presumption is so unlikely that it would require some good evidence.

Ancient forms of chemistry revolved around metallurgy, not organic chemistry - that is also what dreamor042's pdfs say. The relation between pharmacology and chemistry is a very modern one. I do not doubt that ancient cultures had developed advanced pharmacological practices, there is plenty of evidence for that. It just wasn't related to modern day chemistry and it did not involve the methods and standards that advanced organic chemistry has provided us with.

Freebasing tryptamines in seeds by digesting with ashes is not the same thing as crystallizing very pure dmt freebase from non polar solvent. I am quite willing to entertain reasonable speculation, but there has to be some minimum amount of realism involved. For example, the least demanding extraction procedure that I know of is endlessness vinegar, soda and ethanol tek. Vinegar and soda (or alternatively: potash) are within reason to be available, but 95% pure ethanol? I seriously doubt that this was available in ancient times - stories of strong liquor would have surely made the historical record. Even if, this method still doesn't produce pure dmt.

If we like to speculated, then I would prpose that the ancient greek god Pan with his flute made from reeds could be interpreted as a hint towards knowledge of the tryptamines found in many reeds. Personally, I think that if ancient greeks or egyptians wanted to smoke dmt, they would not bother with freebase crystals and glass pipes, but simply create an enclosed space, heat some boulders in a fire and toss the right plant parts onto the hot stones in the enclosed space. Walk-in vaporizer.

Hmmm...

I don't believe it was ever extracted, though I'm certain it's use was more widespread in the ancient world than we give it credit for...


There is conjecture that our ancient ancestors did have some form of chemistry though...

In kings chapter 18 Elijah is trying to win his followers back from the followers of baal, each side builds an alter, and if God sets the alter a flame, that will reveal who's God is "real", Elijah used water to start his fire...

Could Elijah have used: burnt limestone = quicklime, sulphur, and naptha?


http://tv.ark.com/transcript/ancient_discoveries-(lost_science_of_the_bible)/6324/HISTP/Saturday_November_14_2009/107422/

...Though while chemical bits of knowledge do appear through out the ancient world, sadly, there is no evidence of chemical extractions involving psychoactives, as far as I Know.

Though the Greeks had naptha and strong bases, I can't imagine how they would have understood how to use them for this very specific procedure...

Could the ancient Greeks or Egyptians have done this, it probably would have looked something like the "lazymans tek", soaking the plant matter in a water solution blended with a strong base for an extended period, then floating naptha on the basic solution to "grab" the DMT, occasionally agitating the mixture, then collecting the naptha after sufficient time had passed, and then allowing the naptha to evaporate to give DMT...

This type of speculation really does not seem very welcome though...and while it's fun to imagine these things, it seems to get an overall negative response.

-eg

https://books.google.com...epage&q&f=false
Organic Chemistry By Jonathan Clayden, Nick Greeves, Stuart Warren; Page 1156


http://www.answer-my-hea...al-oils-extraction.html

We have a variety of teks on the forum demonstrating routes to smoakable DMT using things like vegetable oils, alcohol, and simple acids and bases. The fact that the evidence for smoking of tryptamines dates back to over 2000 years BC means there would have been plenty of time for Andean cultures to fiddle with purification methodologies beyond just mixing a few seeds with a base and throwing it in a pipe.

Maybe they didn't make 98% pure crystalline freebase DMT and smoke it out of a meth tube. That is no reason to discount the idea that ancient cultures had the knowledge to extract and vaporize alkaloids. Vaporizing acacia essential oil out of goat fat in a sealed chamber inside a pyramid sounds like exactly our kinda party.

I'd say the hypothesis that ancient cultures had the ability to ingest dimethyltryptamine via vaporization is fairly well supported by the scant evidence available. We are talking about cultures all over the globe with advanced knowledge of plant medicines and advanced knowledge of alchemical practices, and thousands of years to experiment. Is it really reasonable to assume that cultures that figured out how to extract metals from ores, make pottery and glazes, ferment wines and beers, extract plant essential oils, render soap, make glass, and create alloys would have missed vaporizing acacia resin?

Dreamor042, notwithstanding the walk-in vaporizer technology that I surmised, I remain wholly unconvinced of antique chemical procedures to isolate dmt. Certainly I am not overwhelmed by the suggested evidence.

But since you seem to like memes:

Argumentum ad ignorantiam - http://rationalwiki.org/...gument_from_incredulity

Jesus loves your proof too.

Yes! I can say that there is zero evidence because I have surveyed all of the available data (which is required to make such a claim as zero evidence, of course, but forget what we might not have uncovered yet), and, since there is no evidence, it is therefore just as likely that aliens landed and gave them DMT!

..ok coming in for dreamer042..
but not with big guns, just some conjecture...

dreamer042's references to ancient alchemy was a good start...a lot of this knowledge is as advanced as a lot of modern chemical procedure (if not having an empirical/structural basis behind it) ..certainly more advanced than most nexians and modern dmt extractors...

entheogenic-gnosis made a very good point with the observation that the ancient greeks had naptha and strong bases..

..an example par excellence of ancient greek chemical technology was Greek Fire, a military technology which would be hurled by catapult at ships, and would stick and burn underwater...it is still not understood today how or from what it was made...
one ancient reference mentions: "From the pine and the certain such evergreen trees inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulfur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath..."

of course, like many ancient chemical things, the formula was a highly guarded secret...like the Kykeon..

or the ancient Indian alloys which it is still not certain how they were made (and i don't find aliens a very likely explanation)

and this is a big point when people are talking about source based evidence...in most of the world, most of the time advanced preparations of plants were highly guarded secret knowledge (not like south america and its often very loose lips) ...in short, they just weren't or aren't going to tell you, so the evidence won't be written down...we can only infer from their level of procedural knowhow..

and it is well evidenced that indigenous and ancient peoples knew how to (and did) separate oils or non-water-solubles from solutions, and could basify things..as they did the dmt containing seed snuffs which were smoked in the ancient Andes (Schules and Hofmann) ..

i think it comes from a modern naivety and assumption of the 'apex' of current scientific paradigms to think that ancient peoples could not have gotten to smokable tryptamine extracts to some degree..say 90% alkaloid, good enough..

i mean, ancient pre-modern science worked out things like dart poisons that are lethal with just a prick to the skin, but orally ingested are medicinal...and indeed the ayahuasca synergy itself...which our modern scientists scratched their heads over for a while, and learned from..

so i personally think quite firmly that they (we) did in the past...but no one was going to write it down, or tell you unless you swore an oath on pain of death, or could be known to keep your mouth shut - still won't...

the likelihood, however, of aliens from another star system arriving in physical space ships (with presumably above light speed travel to do this) i find lower than smokable tryptamines from plants by intelligent humans with a lot of time on their hands, and databases like the library of Alexandria, or thousands of years of customary knowledge passed down (till the Roman/Christian Empire dealt with most of that)

keep up the conjecture nexians !