Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) - News, Stories, Legends, Myths and Poetry

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, spiritual teacher, speaker and writer on many subjects; such as human consciousness, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and the end of the universe, cybernetics, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings. Early life Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado. He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home. From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature. At age 16, Terence moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA. In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of The Village Voice that talked about psychedelics. Terence claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing." In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday. Studying and traveling In 1965, Terence enrolled in U.C. Berkeley to study Art History. In 1967, while in college, he got involved with shamanism after being lead there by studying Tibetan religions That year, which he called his "opium and kabbala phase," he also traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife. In 1969, Terence traveled to Nepal lead by his "interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism." During his time there, he studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs." He was forced to move to avoid capture by Interpol. He wandered through Southeast Asia viewing ruins, collected butterflies in Indonesia, and worked as an English teacher in Tokyo. He then went back to Berkeley to continue studying biology, which he called "his first love." After he completed part of his studies and his mother's death from cancer in 1971, Terence, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing DMT. Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca, or "yagé," and gigantic psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition. In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic experiment which he claimed put him in contact with Logos: an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience. The voice's revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his "Novelty Theory."[1] During their stay in the Amazon, Terence also got romantically involved with his translator, Ev. In 1972, Terence returned to Berkeley to finish his studies. There he decided to switch majors to a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Conservation, in a then-new experimental section of the same university called the Tussman Experimental College. During his studies, he would also develop techniques for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis. In 1975, he parted with his girlfriend Ev, when she left him for one of Terence's friends from Berkeley. Their parting left him "tormented with migraines and living alone. "[ He graduated in 1975. That same year, he began a relationship with a friend he met in Jerusalem, Kathleen. Soon after graduating, Terence and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching. Terence also began lecturing. The brothers' experiences in the Amazon would later play a major role in Terence's book True Hallucinations, published in 1993. In 1976, the brothers published what they had learned about the cultivation of mushrooms in a book entitled Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric. Later life In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting weekend workshops. Though associated with the New Age and human potential movements, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of felt experience, as opposed to dogma. Timothy Leary once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet." “ It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. These are the two things that the psychedelics attack. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy. ” Terence McKenna, "This World...and Its Double", He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture. His growing popularity culminated in the early to mid-1990s with the publication of several books: True Hallucinations, relating the tale of his 1971 La Chorrera experience; Food of the Gods; and The Archaic Revival. He became a popular personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word performances at raves and contributions to psychedelic and goa trance albums by The Shamen, Spacetime Continuum, Alien Project, Capsula, Entheogenic, Zuvuya, Shpongle, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the Starwood Festival, documented in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes. His lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD. McKenna was a colleague of chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, creator of the theory of "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with the mainstream usage of the same term. He conducted several public debates known as trialogues with them from the late 1980s until his death. Books containing transcriptions of some of these events were published. He was also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them. He was a personal friend of Tom Robbins, and influenced the thought of many scientists, writers, artists, and entertainers. His influences include comedian Bill Hicks, whose routines about psychedelic drugs drew heavily from McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby. In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on the subjects of virtual reality, which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics; techno-paganism; artificial intelligence; evolution; extraterrestrials; and aesthetic theory, specifically about art/visual experience as information representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics. In 1985, McKenna co-founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Kathleen, a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in Hawaii, where he lived for many years before he died. In 1997 he and Kathleen divorced. Before moving to Hawaii permanently, McKenna split his time between Hawaii and Occidental, located in the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County, California. Death A longtime sufferer of migraines, in mid-1999 McKenna returned to his home on the big island of Hawaii after a long lecturing tour. He began to suffer from increasingly painful headaches. This culminated in three brain seizures in one night, which he claimed were the most powerful psychedelic experiences he had ever known. Upon his emergency trip to the hospital on Oahu, Terence was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to Wired magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumour was caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis; though his doctors assured him there was no causal relation. In late 1999, Erik Davis conducted what would be the last interview of McKenna. During the interview McKenna also talked about the announcement of his death: “ I always thought death would come on the freeway in a few horrifying moments, so you'd have no time to sort it out. Having months and months to look at it and think about it and talk to people and hear what they have to say, it's a kind of blessing. It's certainly an opportunity to grow up and get a grip and sort it all out. Just being told by an unsmiling guy in a white coat that you're going to be dead in four months definitely turns on the lights. ... It makes life rich and poignant. When it first happened, and I got these diagnoses, I could see the light of eternity, a la William Blake, shining through every leaf. I mean, a bug walking across the ground moved me to tears. ” Terence died on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53, with his loved ones at his bedside. He is survived by his brother Dennis, his son Finn, and his daughter Klea. The library fire On February 7, 2007, McKenna's library of rare books and personal notes was destroyed in a fire which burned offices belonging to Big Sur's Esalen Institute storing the collection. An index maintained by his brother Dennis survives, though little else. Ideas “ There are these things, which I call "self transforming machine elves," I also call them self-dribbling basketballs. They are, but they are none of these things. I mean you have to understand: these are metaphors in the truest sense, meaning that they're lies! [...] I name them 'Tykes' because tyke is a word that means to me a small child, ... and when you burst into the DMT space this is the Aeon - it's a child, and it's at play with colored balls, and I am in eternity, apparently, in the presence of this thing. ” Terence McKenna, "Time and Mind", Terence McKenna advocated the exploration of altered states of mind via the ingestion of naturally occurring psychedelic substances. For example, and in particular, as facilitated by the ingestion of high doses of psychedelic mushrooms, and DMT, which he believed was the apotheosis of the psychedelic experience. He spoke of the "jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs" or "self-transforming machine elves" that one encounters in that state. Although he avoided giving his allegiance to any one interpretation (part of his rejection of monotheism), he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual to encounter what could be ancestors, or spirits of earth. He remained opposed to most forms of organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening. Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gnostic Christianity, Alfred North Whitehead and Alchemy. McKenna always regarded the Greek philosopher Heraclitus as his favorite philosopher. He also expressed admiration for the works of James Joyce (calling Finnegans Wake "the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century") and Vladimir Nabokov: McKenna once said that he would have become a Nabokov lecturer if he had never encountered psychedelics. The "Stoned Ape" Theory of Human Evolution In his book Food of the Gods, McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet - an event which according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BC (this is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus). He based his theory on the main effects, or alleged effects, produced by the mushroom. One of the effects that comes about from the ingestion of low doses, which agrees with one of scientist Roland Fischer's findings from the late 60s-early 70s, is it significantly improves the visual acuity of humans - so theoretically, of other human-like mammals too. According to McKenna, this effect would have definitely prove to be of evolutionary advantage to humans' omnivorous hunter-gatherer ancestors that would have stumbled upon it "accidentally"; as it would make it easier for them to hunt. In higher doses, McKenna claims, the mushroom acts as a sexual stimulator, which would make it even more beneficial evolutionarily, as it would result in more offspring. At even higher doses, the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries", which would have promoted community-bonding and group sexual activities-that would result in a mixing of genes and therefore greater genetic diversity. Generally McKenna believed that the periodic ingestion of the mushroom would have acted to dissolve the ego in humans before it ever got the chance to grow in destructive proportions. In this context he likened the ego to a cancerous tumor that can grow uncontrollable and become destructive to its host. In his own words: Wherever and whenever the ego function began to form, it was akin to a cancerous tumor or a blockage in the energy of the psyche. The use of psychedelic plants in a context of shamanic initiation dissolved-as it dissolves today-the knotted structure of the ego into undifferentiated feeling, what Eastern philosophy calls the Tao. Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods The mushroom, according to McKenna, had also given humans their first truly religious experiences (which, as he believed, were the basis for the foundation of all subsequent religions to date). Another factor that McKenna talked about was the mushroom's potency to promote linguistic thinking. This would have promoted vocalisation, which in turn would have acted in cleansing the brain (based on a scientific theory that vibrations from speaking cause the precipitation of impurities from the brain to the cerebrospinal fluid), which would further mutate the brain. All these factors according to McKenna were the most important factors that promoted evolution towards the Homo sapiens species. After this transformation took place, the species would have begun moving out of Africa to populate the rest of the planet Later on, this theory by McKenna was given the name "The 'Stoned Ape' Theory of Human Evolution". Bibliography • 1975 - The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (with Dennis McKenna) (Seabury; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-8164-9249-2. • 1976 - The Invisible Landscape (with Dennis McKenna, and Quinn Taylor) (Scribner) ISBN 0-8264-0122-8 • 1976 - Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide (with Dennis McKenna: credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (2nd edition 1986) (And/Or Press) ISBN 0-915904-13-6 • 1992 - Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide (with Dennis McKenna: (credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (Quick American Publishing Company; Revised edition) ISBN 0-932551-06-8 • 1992 - The Archaic Revival (HarperSanFrancisco; 1st edition) ISBN 0-06-250613-7 • 1992 - Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-37130-4 • 1992 - Synesthesia (with Timothy C. Ely) (Granary Books 1st Ed) ISBN 1-887123-04-0 • 1992 - Trialogues at the Edge of the West: Chaos, Creativity, and the Resacralization of the World (with Ralph H. Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake and Jean Houston) (Bear & Company Publishing 1st Ed) ISBN 0-939680-97-1 • 1993 - True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise (HarperSanFrancisco 1st Ed) ISBN 0-06-250545-9 • 1994 - The Invisible Landscape (HarperSanFrancisco; Reprint edition) ISBN 0-06-250635-8 • 1998 - True Hallucinations & the Archaic Revival: Tales and Speculations About the Mysteries of the Psychedelic Experience (Fine Communications/MJF Books) (Hardbound) ISBN 1-56731-289-6 • 1998 - The Evolutionary Mind : Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Trialogue Press; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-942344-13-8 • 1999 - Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Rider & Co; New edition) ISBN 0-7126-7038-6 • 1999 - Robert Venosa: Illuminatus (with Robert Venosa, Ernst Fuchs, H. R. Giger, and Mati Klarwein) (Craftsman House) ISBN 90-5703-272-4 • 2001 - Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Park Street Press; revised ed) ISBN 0-89281-977-4 (Revised edition of Trialogues at the Edge of the West) • 2005 - The Evolutionary Mind: Trialogues on Science, Spirit & Psychedelics (Monkfish Book Publishing; Revised Ed) ISBN 0-9749359-7-2 Spoken word • History Ends In Green: Gaia, Psychedelics and the Archaic Revival, 6 audiocassette set, Mystic Fire audio, 1993, ISBN 1-56176-907-x (recorded at the Esalen Institute, 1989) • TechnoPagans at the End of History (transcription of rap with Mark Pesce from 1998) • Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1999) 90 minutes video • Alien Dreamtime with Spacetime Continuum & Stephen Kent (Magic Carpet Media) (CD) video • Conversations on the Edge of Magic (1994) (CD & Cassette) ACE • Rap-Dancing Into the Third Millennium (1994) (Cassette) (Re-issued on CD as The Quintessential Hallucinogen) ACE • Packing For the Long Strange Trip (1994) (Cassette) ACE • Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell, broadcast on May 22, 1997, Five hour interview covering various topics • Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics (1994) (Cassette) Sound Horizons Audio-Video, Inc. • The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (1992) (Cassette) Sounds True Discography • Re : Evolution with The Shamen (1992) • Alien Dreamtime with Spacetime Continuum & Stephen Kent (Magic Carpet Media) (DVD) • 2009 - Cognition Factor (2009) From: The UK Telegraph By Jonathan Wynne-Jones 1:05PM BST 20 Oct 2008 Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists Scientists have discovered evidence suggesting Stone Age man used herbal mixtures to get high. It has long been suspected that humans have an ancient history of drug use, but there has been a lack of proof to support the theory. Now, however, researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes. Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands. While the use of such paraphernalia for inhaling drugs is well-known, the age of the bowls has thrown new light on how long humans have been taking drugs. Scientists believe that the drug being used was cohoba, a hallucinogen made from the beans of a mimosa species. Drugs such as cannabis were not found in the Caribbean then. Opiates can be obtained from species such as poppies, while fungi, which was widespread, may also have been used. Archeologists have suggested that humans were extracting mind-expanding drugs from mescal beans and peyote cacti as far back as 5,000 years ago, but have not found direct evidence that this is true. They consider that drugs were being used to induce spiritual or trance-like states by people who had religious beliefs. Summary of Terence McKenna's "Stoned Ape" Theory of Human Evolution McKenna theorizes that as the North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open -- following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way. Among the new items in their diet were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this drug to the primate diet were many -- McKenna theorizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds. About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed the mushroom from the human diet, resulting in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to pre-mushroomed and frankly brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin. McKenna's "Stoned Ape" Theory, in his own words -- excerpts from interviews, transcripts, etc. Terrence McKenna’s Novelty Theory – 1998 We are always in awe of McKenna’s genius and eloquence. We produce this video via reality sandwich. He speaks of singularity, the I Ching, the oncoming cyborgs as well as a singularity of events leading to December 2012. Although this video is available on a couple of other sites, we will provide something that we have not seen – a transcription of his interview. We will also provide our own annotations in parentheses. Enjoy! October 1998 – The Last Interview: Novelty Theory Well novelty theory is something I’ve been working on since the early seventies as inspired by psychedelic plant experiences in the Amazon, to attempt to look at time and really deconstruct it to understand what it is. And this has been a wild intellectual ride leading to some easily stated conclusions. One is, that novelty, which is my term for complexity or advanced organization, novelty increases as we approach the present moment. Why should the universe have a preference for order over disorder, especially when we have something called the Second Law Of Thermodynamics which tells us exactly the opposite? The universe you and I are living in is a far more novel and complicated place than the early universe was. Well, some people say that’s just a consequence of the unfolding of developmental processes. But this asks the question, what are developmental processes? Why should the universe have a preference for order over disorder, especially when we have something called the Second Law of Thermodynamics which tells us exactly the opposite? Physicists believe the universe is running down ultimately into a state of disorder. But what I see, is everywhere the emergence of more and more complex forms, languages, organisms, technologies always building on the previously achieved levels of complexity. So that was one one of my insights. Coming out of that insight was the further understanding that this process of complexification through time is not proceeding at a steady rate. It actually follows a kind of asymptotic curve. In other words it’s happening faster and faster. And this was a revelation to me because it allowed me, philosophically, to contextualize the human world. And to understand that human technologies, languages, migrations, art movements, ideologies are not something different from nature, they’re the same downloads of processes that we see in the movement of continents, evolution of new species of animals except that, these human novel, emergent situations are happening much more quickly. So I see the cosmos, if you will, as a kind of novelty producing engine, a kind of machine which produces complexity in all realms, physical, chemical, social, whatever and then uses that achieved level of complexity as the platform for further complexity. Well, this explains our present circumstances, explains the rush towards all forms of new technologies in social organization in the new millennium. (We include a short video on the ideas of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his view of the noosphere. If you cannot see the embedded video, here is the link: http://youtu.be/eKALaL_zcmY). Wilber, Teilhard; exploring two different, yet similar philosophies. http://youtu.be/eKALaL_zcmY But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if the universe is complexifying faster, an epoch, a time will come when this rate of complexification is occurring so rapidly that it will become itself the overwhelming phenomena in the world of three dimensional space and time. I call this the omega point or the transcendental object at the end of history. I believe it is not that far off. With the emergence of global internet, a human population of several billions, an electronic noosphere that we are now within the shadow of this transcendental object at the end of time. Our religions sense it, that’s what gives them their apocalyptic intuitions and I think the ordinary man and woman in the street sense a kind of built-in acceleration to time itself. We are about to become unrecognizable to ourselves as a species. Our technologies, our religions, our science has pushed us towards this for thousands of years without us awakening to what the denouement would be. Well rather than dismissing that or reading it as psychological perception or something unique to our society, I took it as a basic perception about physics and have built elaborate, mathematically defined theories around this idea and then have found to my astonishment, incredible congruences with other work, I’m thinking of the Mayan calendar and it curious countdown type quality towards an extremely unique event, that the Maya felt would occur in the same timeframe that my own equations predicted, even though at the time, I wasn’t aware of the Maya. So what we have here is a new model of time, based on a very real intuition that I think most people share, which is, that time is speeding up, that human beings are part of that process, and that the culmination of that process, is now within the vein of historical time. In other words, I believe it will happen in 2012, in December, co incident with the same events that the Maya placed at the end of their calendar. Even if I am wrong, even if it’s a hundred years or five hundred years later, these are spans of time that, when compared to the life of the planet, are fractions of a percentage. So whether you believe as I do that we can know the precise moment of this transformation of the world of time or, whether you believe it is simply coming soon and fast, really does not make that much difference. We are all gathered here at the end game of developmental processes of this planet. We are about to become unrecognizable to ourselves as a species. Our technologies, our religions, our science has pushed us towards this for thousands of years without us awakening to what the denouement would be. Now we stand close enough to it, that all but the most lumpen among us, must feel the tug of the transcendental and the transformative. Terrence McKenna Novelty Theory, 1998 Terence McKenna quotes by Reclaim your mind on Saturday, 15 January 2011 at 10:43 "Nothing is now unconscious if your data-search commands are powerful enough." Terence McKenna Dark as the hour may appear, we exist in a dimension of greater opportunity, greater freedom, greater possibility than has ever been. Terence McKenna 'Human history is the boiling of the pond surface of ordinary biology." - Terence McKenna Nobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? What good is their understanding doing you? Terence McKenna Culture is the effort to hold back the mystery, and replace it with a mythology. Terence McKenna I think our entire culture is headed for being enveloped in a cognitive hallucination where our real wishes will be fulfilled. Terence McKenna We have outlived this embryo and now it's time for the great business of becoming citizens of the galaxy and at home with our own heart. Terence McKenna The 'Net is a net for catching the alien mind. It's already within us, but we must call it forth into a dimension of potential dialogue. Terence McKenna "The task of discerning shit from Shinola looms very large at the end of history." -Terence McKenna Having seen the limitations of science, we have discovered we are in a small row boat in a dark ocean, being swept we know not where. Terence McKenna "There is much of language in nature ... all of nature is a linguistic enterprise .. DNA is essentially a symbolic system.." Terence McKenna "Culture is the mind unperturbed." Terence McKenna "No one knows enough to worry." Terence Mckenna "Culture is a cult." Terence McKenna "When you know the words the world is made of, you can make of it what you will." Terence Mckenna. “I think the psychedelic experience is the only authentic source of the reliable contact with the numinous” - Terence McKenna Plants are the missing link in the search to understand the human mind and its place in nature. Terence McKenna Eventually the right to determine our own food and drug preferences will be seen as a natural consequence of human dignity. Terence McKenna "The further you go, the weirder it gets." ~ Terence McKenna Television induces a trance state in the viewer that is the necessary precondition for brainwashing. Terence Mckenna If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed - Terence McKenna "The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation" — Terence McKenna If you're not the hero of your own novel, then what kind of novel is it? You need to do some heavy editing. Terence McKenna What is this making the word into flesh? And does it not imply that eventually the flesh will become word? Terence McKenna "Well, I say then if science gets one free miracle (the big bang) then everybody gets one free miracle." Terence McKenna Science says, give us one free miracle (the big bang) and we'll roll from that point forward, from the birth of time to the crack of doom. Terence McKenna Whatever lies behind the UFO mystery, it is a force which can literally do anything. It is not to be caught in the rational net. Terence McKenna The problem is we have to transcend cultural languages & fall into phase w/ the communication systems that nature has placed all around us. Terence McKenna "Find the others." Terence McKenna Light is composed of photons, which have no antiparticle. This means that there is no dualism in the world of light. - Terence McKenna This is how magic is done: by hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed. Terence McKenna The idea that the human mind should interpose itself between society and chaos is just an illusion of control freaks. Terence McKenna "The product the computer industry is dealing is the self. Aren't you interested in buying into the self? It's the ultimate product." (1987) Terence McKenna Every object that is created is an effort to approximate the felt presence of the transcendental object at the end at time. Terence McKenna "You don't want to become so open-minded that the wind can whistle between your ears." ~ Terence McKenna "If you don't at least occasionally contradict yourself, your position isn't (nearly) complex enough..." ~Terence McKenna Unexamined cultural values & limitations of language have made us unwitting prisoners of our own assumptions. Terence Mckenna "The purpose of the Internet will be to catch the alien mind. It will be coded by human fingers, but it will be truly alien." Terence McKenna People have noticed the time-is-speeding-up phenomena, but give credit to science or media. I'm saying it's built into the laws of physics. Terence McKenna "Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity" Terence McKenna "The way you understand and investigate time is by moving inward, into metabolism. The human body is a knot in time." Terence McKenna My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite. Terence McKenna The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature. Terence McKenna Nature has an economy, an elegance, a style, that if we could but emulate it we could rise out of the rubble we are making out of the planet Terence McKenna In probing the Other we shall always come back with images of ourselves. In probing ourselves we shall return with images of the Other. Terence McKenna "Everybody finds a certain level of failure and calls it success." Terence McKenna "Civilization is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in." Terence McKenna "Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored." - Terence McKenna "The fact that an idea is preposterous has never held it back from making zealous converts." -Terence McKenna Science is not some meta-theory at whose feet every point of view need be laid to have the hand of science announce thumbs up or thumbs down Terence McKenna Understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding that will be useful to you is your own. Terence McKenna The world is not something we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; it's something we make through the act of perception. Terence McKenna The fact that we rely on an intellectual method 2000 years old almost precludes our understanding of anything interesting. Terence McKenna "People are so alienated from their own soul that when they meet their soul they think it comes from another star system.” Terence McKenna "If the #UFO phenomenon is something that is coming from us, then what is it, and what is it for?” Terence McKenna "Matter is not lacking in magic, matter is #magic." Terence McKenna Nothing lasts but nothing is lost. Terence McKenna "What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance." - Terence McKenna I’ve seen things that violated the laws of physics. I believe the laws of physics can be violated. Terence McKenna “Probe the edges." Terence McKenna We are living inside a 90 percent 19th-century world-view. Terence McKenna The real tension is not between matter and spirit, or time and space, the real tension is between information and nonsense. Terence McKenna The mind is not a form of intelligence. The mind is the theater in which intelligence is manifested. Don’t confuse the garage with the car. Terence McKenna The way you stretch the envelope of culture is by creating language. Terence McKenna Culture cannot evolve any faster than its language, because what cannot be said cannot be done. What cannot be said cannot be put in place. Terence McKenna "The crazy contradictory patchwork of profane technoconsumerist postmagluanist electronic preapocalyptic existence" ~ Terence Mckenna "The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer" -Terence Mckenna "If you keep yourself as the final arbiter you will be less susceptible to infection by cultural illusion" -Terence Mckenna The monkey body has carried us to this moment of release, but we are coming more and more to exist in a world made by the human imagination. Terence McKenna Nature, both in whole and in many parts, is magically self-reflecting and aware. Terence McKenna The pro-psychedelic plant position is an anti-drug position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined and obsessive behavior Terence McKenna "...I mean, a bug walking across the ground moved me to tears." ~ Terence McKenna.. Half the time you think your thinking you’re actually listening -Terence Mckenna "We are like coral animals embedded in a technological reef of extruded psychic objects." -Terence Mckenna "Culture is just a mass hallucination." - Terence Mckenna "Salvation is an act of cognitive apprehension." -Terence McKenna NOTE: Terence McKenna expired on April 3rd, 2000. May he rest in peace. According to occult scientist Terence McKenna, the end of the world as we know it will occur at 11:10 PM, December 22, 2012 and he's worked out a computer model based on an intuitive decoding of the I Ching to prove it mathematically. Before you scoff at McKenna's claims, bear in mind that the ancient Mayan calendar, a calendar accurate to within MINUTES for THOUSANDS of years ends at precisely the same time... But McKenna is no mere doomsday prophet and once you've been exposed to the psychedelic mindscape of the man referred to as 'the Timothy Leary of the Nineties' (by Leary himself!), your worldview may never be the same ever again.... Terence McKenna - Seeking the Stone part 1 Excerpt http://youtu.be/Cd9ngbG-pm0 Terence McKenna - Seeking the Stone Part 2 11-5 years ago An eloquent perspective by Terence McKenna on the idea of a spiritual path for all and an impending transformation of the human world. In his singularly lucid, prosaic style, McKenna presents profoundly compelling ideas that challenge our beliefs and encourage our participation in the creation of a new social reality. He champions the individual’s freedom of choice in deciding one’s own sexual and spiritual development and techniques. He highlights the role of hallucinogenic plants in shamanic societies and their impact on the evolution of human cultures. See why this cyber-techno-shaman is drawing freethinking crowds wherever he speaks and find out what role you may play in the unfolding of our “post-historical future” as we approach a major “concresence” in human history. Terence Mckenna: 2012 Timewave Zero TV Show Sightings http://youtu.be/w-prt5d6m6s Reclaim your mind (terence mckenna) http://youtu.be/33fu1maiDOk Terence McKenna - The Mushroom Speaks http://youtu.be/nlMRiVGfONU Terence McKenna - You Are A Divine Being http://youtu.be/kxL6Hd-xA5c Terence Mckenna - How to understand reality http://youtu.be/lZdBZQYCBhQ The Singularity - Terence McKenna http://youtu.be/b8v8mgwuubU Terence McKenna ~ This Is The Portal http://youtu.be/7ua5HOOQ8_8 Terence McKenna: the Present & Future http://youtu.be/k6ZyPfMTRBA Terence McKenna - The Big Bang http://youtu.be/JGp4GNH9Hnk Terence McKenna - Birth of the Human Imagination http://youtu.be/rX5XIOq-xUs Terence McKenna ✧ A Funny Idea http://youtu.be/tL-33CuV5jo Terence McKenna on DMT http://youtu.be/rKOO-VB_yts Terence Mckenna - Absurdity Theory http://youtu.be/26cKe5pGQ7k

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