We are going through the eye of the needle; make sure you leave what you don't need behind Terence McKenna More Quotes by Terence McKenna More Quotes From Terence McKenna It's my belief that one of the unconscious reasons which underlies the odd attitude of the establishment toward hallucinogens is the fact that they bring the mystery to the surface as an individual experience. In other words, you do not understand the psychedelic experience by getting a report from Time magazine or even the Economist. You only understand the psychedelic experience by having it. Terence McKenna hallucinogens attitude facts The traditional manner of taking psilocybin is to take a very healthy dose, in the vicinity of 15 mg. on an empty stomach in total darkness. Terence McKenna psilocybin healthy darkness Psychedelic experiences are beyond the reach of cultural manipulation, and discovering this and exploring it is somehow the frontier of maturity. Culture is a form of enforced infantilism. It's the last nursery, and most people never leave it. Terence McKenna maturity lasts people I mean everybody knows there's something wrong with the world and if you read left wing politicians or deconstructionists or thoughtful historians they will offer thoughtful critiques of our situation. But the question is, you know, the Tolstoyian question; 'What is to be done?' Terence McKenna thoughtful wings mean Once you have the psychedelic tool in hand then some real choices have to be made. Terence McKenna choices real hands If we were to place our power at the service of our imaginations rather than our primate politics we would create a civilization worthy of the name. Terence McKenna imagination names civilization I don't think that mass drug taking is a good idea. But I think that we must have a deputized minority, a shamanic professional class if you will, whose job is to bring ideas out of the deep black water and show them off to the rest of us and perform for our culture some of the cultural functions that shaman perform in pre-literate cultures. Terence McKenna class jobs thinking At the interface of the say-able and the unsay-able is the novel, the new, the never before seen, said or done. And that's what I think it's important to try and bring out, ideas. Because I think we are the animals that bring back ideas. Terence McKenna animal ideas thinking Shamanism is not some obscure concern of cultural anthropologists. Shamanism is how religion was practiced for its first million years. Up until about 12,000 years ago there was no other form of religion on this planet. That was how people attained some kind of access to the sacred. Terence McKenna people years firsts Human populations that do not have contact with the psychedelic tremendum are neurotic because they are male ego dominated. Terence McKenna population males ego The plants are the pipeline into the Gaian intention. It's just not a coincidence that these plants carry this immense spiritual message. They are the pipeline of Gaian intentionality. Terence McKenna pipeline spiritual messages The psychedelic experience is the beginning of the spiritual path. That's why it's not important that yogas' claim that they can deliver you the psychedelic experience, because it begins with the psychedelic experience, and then you go from there. Terence McKenna yoga important spiritual It's the only hallucinogen I know, where if it's made right, the next day, or the day after the experience, you actually feel better than if you hadn't done it. Terence McKenna hallucinogens next-day feel-better The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he is always peripheral to it. He lives at the edge of the village. He is only called upon in matters of great social crisis. He is feared and respected. And this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances. Terence McKenna community substance peculiar This is a general comment that you should take a committed dose of whatever it is you're taking so that there is no ambiguity, because there's nothing worse than a sub-threshold psychedelic experience. Terence McKenna threshold psychedelic should This is where I think the psychedelics come in because they are anticipations of the future. They seem to channel information that is not strictly governed by the laws of normal causality. So that there really is a prophetic dimension, a glimpse of the potential of the far centuries of the future through these compounds. Terence McKenna dimensions law thinking We are the damaged heirs of a damaged cultural style which has been practiced now for about seven thousand years. Terence McKenna heirs style years Spaceflight is nothing less than the exterior metaphor for the shamanic voyage. In other words, in our terms, the hallucinogenic experience. This is the way engineers get high. They go to the moon! Terence McKenna getting-high voyages moon What I think is going on is that probably language was entertainment long before it was meaning. It's a kind of tuneless singing. Terence McKenna singing long thinking If you go to Paris you know more about reality than people who don't. If you smoke DMT you know more about reality than people who don't. Terence McKenna dmt paris reality
