Irvine Welsh says psychedelic drug proves there is 'life before and after death'
The Trainspotting author can be seen taking DMT in a new documentary about his life and career
Irvine Welsh has revealed how a psychedelic drug turned him from being an atheist into believing in the afterlife. The Trainspotting author can be seen taking DMT in Canada in a new documentary about his life and career.
In the film - Reality Is Not Enough - he is seen going into an altered state in a controlled environment to help him experience what life felt like "before he was born". Welsh, 66, had taken a different version of the drug previously, during which he says he experienced the existence of the afterlife.
The Edinburgh-born writer told The Record: “I saw after I died when I first took DMT, which it’s all inner emotional vocabulary.
“The first time I did it was on my mate’s couch back in London. I realised I’d been a complete atheist and that my atheism doesn’t stand up.
“Not that I believe in a one person, an omnipotent God, but it did change my previous belief that once you died there was nothing more.
“I realised that this life is like a working holiday. This is not really who we are. It's just a small slither in our existence.”
DMT, or Dimethyltryptamine, is a psychoactive drug that naturally occurs in plants and animals.
It is known for its hallucinogenic effects and is used in some cultures to induce altered states of consciousness.
Welsh is seen lying down wearing an eye mask in much anticipated documentary, which has its premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Through this unique lens, viewers also join Welsh on a brutally honest examination of his life and how his creativity was fostered by his childhood in Edinburgh.
The film sees him meet childhood pals and also covers the influences he gained living amongst 1970’s London’s punk counterculture.
He also talks about how his groundbreaking works such as Trainspotting and Filth pulled him out of a self-destructive cycle.
Recalling the publication of Trainspotting in 1993 and the success of the film three years later, Irvine said: “When Trainspotting first came out, I was public enemy number one. People were basically saying, this is going to make people take drugs.
“Within six months, every single drug prevention ad that was like an outtake from Trainspotting.
“It changed the way the authorities looked at it almost overnight.”
He added: “I don't think anybody in the world has a handle on a drug use anywhere. I don't think it's possible to have a handle on drug use anywhere.
“The whole world we live in is set up for addiction and street drugs.
“It's like we're a Big Pharma telling doctors what to stock and tell them what to prescribe for different forms. Doctors can't spend the time to do anything other than just dispense the drugs that Big Pharma give them.
“Working class people can't eat or afford to have access to proper food, so they're eating these chemicals that are pumped into them by the food industry.
“You see people that are morbidly obese and yet suffer from malnutrition at the same time because they're just pumping empty carbs in to sustain themselves. That's what all these foods are, sugars, fats, salts and empty carbs.
“So that's an addiction. The biggest addiction is the phones, people walking around with them stuck to their face.
“You’ve got online gambling, online pornography, online delivery services. People can’t walk two yards down the street.”
Welsh was born in Edinburgh in 1958 and grew up on the Muirhouse housing estate in the West of Edinburgh.
After moving to London in the late '70s, he spent ten years dabbling in punk rock before returning to Scotland at the end of the '80s, where he worked for Edinburgh Council, completed an MBA at Heriot-Watt University and started to write.
Reality Is Not Enough is being premiered at the EIFF on Wednesday, August 20 before general release on September 26.