Cracking the Code
The rise of a digital-folk spirituality based on DMT, lasers and a supposed hidden code
In 2022, a curious phenomenon began spreading through psychedelic communities online. Danny Goler, an actor, editor, clothing entrepreneur and former Israeli soldier, claimed a breakthrough: by gazing at a specific red laser (650nm) projection on a surface while high on DMT, anyone could see the "Code of Reality" - visual proof that we live in a simulation. With over a thousand alleged witnesses seeing the same pattern in their experiments, the claim caught fire.
Participants report seeing consistent visual phenomena, described as three-dimensional, Katakana-like characters rotating independently that recall the imagery of The Matrix. "I'm about to claim that I have proof that we live in a simulation," announces Goler in one of his YouTube sermons, wearing a cap from his lifestyle skater brand, 'F*ck It!' "Now, I know it's a lot to live up to. So either I just shot myself in the foot, or I have something that is truly enormous and profound for you."
Goler’s unusual claims caught the interest of New Age luminaries like Charles Eisenstein, the spiritual author and adviser to RFK Jr. Joe Rogan, the top podcaster in the world, discussed the phenomenon - and this very article! - with veteran DMT researcher, and friend of our Substack, Rick Strassman.
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On TikTok, Goler content has at times exploded, with the trailer for his documentary, The Discovery garnering 372,000 likes and 4.6 million views. His appearance on Danny Jones’ podcast has achieved more than 300,000 views. The comment sections on his own channel are overwhelming in their positivity: comment after comment congratulating and encouraging Goler in his “revelation” and pondering whether established science can handle its depth. “Watch your back, bro”, one commenter warns. “I genuinely hope you continue your investigation and that no one ever silences you”, another says. “The code is there and this IS a simulation.”
Surprisingly, Goler’s claim isn't being immediately dismissed by scientists. While few are interested in the metaphysics of simulation and the Code, the possibly-repeatable experience itself is intriguing. DMT researcher Andrew Gallimore has called it "potentially very important" - a consistent neurovisual signature that could challenge allegations that DMT visions are mere hallucinations. University of Sydney researcher Anna Lutkajtis noted to me that seeing the Code engenders a profound sense of gnosis in respondents she’s met and compares it to other psychedelic citizen science projects like ClusterBusters.
The scale of Goler's personal experimentation with DMT is staggering - he claims to have used it thousands of times. When asked about this extraordinary frequency, he explains: "That never was an issue for me. I don't know, I just kind of stayed stable in these spaces. In fact, I thrive in that kind of environment... I'm almost perfectly poised to be in that space because I don't get too tangled in it."
For Goler, the Code isn't merely a hallucination but a fundamental truth about reality itself. "The word simulation does not mean fake," he explains. "We tend to associate that with the word because of everything we know from the movie The Matrix…The actual proposition is that the world at large, the actual constituents of what the world really is, is computational."
Goler is confident he has received a revelation from the ‘simulators’ who run the cosmic programme. "It was more like an official message from the government, like it was sanctioned by whomever is yielding the most amount of control in that space," he explains. "It was like an official message from Apple versus some kind of a side app." This wasn't, he insists, the work of "renegade" entities but rather an authorised disclosure from the highest levels of whatever intelligences oversee our reality. He admits, however, a possibility that the entities behind these experiences are simply "fucking with me".
Goler is a distinctly modern type of prophet. While transhumanism has struggled to produce compelling spiritual exemplars - often defaulting to cold technocrats like Ray Kurzweil, eccentric futurists like Zoltan Istvan, or controversial figures like Martine Rothblatt - Goler’s experimental spirituality is reminiscent of 19th-century spiritualists experimenting with Ouija boards or ‘spirit photography’ to try and peer beyond the veil.
With his Jesus-like appearance, articulate manner, Israeli military background, and media marketing skills, Goler has a certain charisma that others making similar claims might not enjoy. While he stresses the ethics of his mission, questions arise about the commercialisation and scaling of such profound experiences. He offers $150 private consultations, lasers as part of a $153 bundle, solicits donations, and entry into a "global community" of initiates through a detailed protocol of instructions. Goler believes that "The Discovery” will be co-created by larger humanity, each interpreting the code and coming to a coherence about what it means.
The rise of crypto-funded ‘alt-research’
The Code’s popularity marks another vista in an increasingly weird psychedelic research environment, in which extended state DMT infusions and think-tanks exploring psychedelics-for-business-innovation are slotting alongside more traditional areas of focus like psychedelic therapy for depression.
According to Goler, the phenomenon has attracted serious attention and experimentation from Silicon Valley philanthropists and even government figures. Among those intrigued is Eugene Jhong. Former Google engineer and a crypto-millionaire philanthropist, Jhong has become a significant funder of what the fringe archeologist Graham Hancock calls the ‘alternative research community’, which explores areas dismissed by mainstream academia. Hancock characterizes it as a ‘liberation movement battling against powerful and overwhelmingly dominant forces’. As alternative media like Joe Rogan have become the new mainstream, alt-research has also been mainstreamed and found funders, particularly among the crypto new-rich. Hancock paid Jhong a personal tribute in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, calling him a “brilliant guy” whose funding has opened up hitherto-neglected areas of inquiry.
Jhong has given $1.5 million to fund DMT research at UC San Diego, another $1.5 million to search for the astrobiological origin of life at Arizona and $250,000 in seed funding to launch the Galileo Project at Harvard to search for UFOS. Jhong is not funding Goler’s research but his Twitter stream enthusiastically promotes it. Jhong tells me he came to appreciate ‘De-Sci stuff’ - decentralized science, ‘where there’s a lot more feedback and visibility and input from people. If that takes off, that might be an area I’d love to interact with more, as opposed to the traditional academia thing, because maybe that’s going to be much more efficient, open, and just do better, quicker research’. He thinks the systemic biases and group-think of academia was exposed by its attitude to crypto:
I could tell [academic economists] didn't know what they're talking about, and yet they speak on it in an incredibly authoritative manner and probably prevented many people from buying Bitcoin.
Another philanthropist of alt-research is Anton Bilton, heir to a real estate empire and organiser of the Tyringham Initiative - a UK think-tank which funds fringe / frontier / alternative research including on DMT entity encounters. Bilton conducted an informal test of the Code protocol with ten volunteers.
After the paywall, alternative explanations for the Code, from visual processing to social priming, and one Code-seeker spirals into an existential vortex after a retreat in Costa Rica.
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