“...situations evolve as matter responds to the conditioning of time and space...If you know what is contained in time from its beginning to its end you are somehow no longer in time. Even though you still have a body and still eat and do what you do, you have discovered something that liberated you into a satisfying all-at-oneness.” IfsKnowsStillsEndsMatterBodySpaceSituationUnityOnenessEvolveSatisfyingTime And SpaceConditioningLiberated Author:Terence McKenna
“The reason for the emphasis on shamanism and on other techniques is, you will need techniques if you go into the deep water. And they can make your life very simple and save you from unnecessary suffering. Not all suffering is necessary. Maybe no suffering is necessary.” IfsNeedsReasonSufferingWaterSimpleTechniqueUnnecessaryEmphasisShamanismDeep WaterUnnecessary Suffering Author:Terence McKenna
“The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me. I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart. And so I assumed that I am a very ordinary person, therefore, if it happened to me it could happen to anyone.” IfsPersonsImportantHappensReadingHappenedOrdinaryPsychedelicPsychedelic ExperienceOrdinary Person Author:Terence McKenna
“Ninety percent of the difficulty in your intellectual life would never have happened if you just had better taste.” IfsHappenedTasteIntellectualPercentDifficultyNinetyIntellectual Life Author:Terence McKenna
“If psychedelics are, on any level, to be taken seriously as catalyzers or expanders of consciousness, then we need them, because it's an absence of consciousness that is making this historical transition so excruciating.” IfsNeedsLevelsConsciousnessTakenHistoricalAbsenceTransition Author:Terence McKenna
“There is no dualism in the world of light. The conventions of relativity say that time slows down as one approaches the speed of light, but if one tries to imagine the point of view of a thing made of light, one must realize that what is never mentioned is that if one moves at the speed of light there is no time whatsoever... One exists in eternity, one has become eternal... One is then apart from the moving image; one exists in the completion of eternity.” IfsWorldTryingMadeLightMovingRealizingViewsImagineEternalApproachEternitySpeedPoint Of ViewConventionsSlow DownRelativityCompletionDualismSpeed Of Light Author:Terence McKenna
“To contact the cosmic giggle, to have the flow of casuistry begin to give off synchronistic ripples, whitecaps in the billows of the coincidental ether, if you will. To achieve that, a precondition is a kind of unconsciousness, a kind of drifting, a certain taking-your-eye-off-the-ball, a certain assumptions that things are simpler than they are, almost always precedes what Mircea Eliade called ‘the rupture of plane’ that indicates that there is an archetypal world, an archetypal power behind profane appearances.” IfsWorldGivingKindEyeCertainBehindsAchieveFlowBallsAppearanceContactPlanesAssumptionCosmicDriftingRippleProfaneUnconsciousnessGiggleRupture Author:Terence McKenna
“Inwardness is the characteristic feature of the vegetable rather than the animal approach to existence. The animals move, migrate and swarm, while plants hold fast. Plants live in a dimension characterised by solid state, the fixed and the enduring. If there is movement in the consciousness of plants then it must be the movement of spirit and attention in the domain of vegetal imagination. (...) This is the truth that the shamans have always known and practiced. Awareness of the green side of mind was called Veriditas by the twelfth century visionary Hildegard Von Bingen.” IfsMindStatesMovingSpiritSidesImaginationAnimalExistenceAttentionConsciousnessKnownCenturyAwarenessMovementApproachGreenPlantEndureFeaturesFixedCharacteristicsDimensionsVegetablesDomainVisionariesHold FastSwarmsMigrate Author:Terence McKenna
“If the world is made of language, then you can hack it in the sense that you can hack code.” IfsWorldMadeLanguageCodeHacks Author:Terence McKenna
“If reality is code, then it can be hacked in some way that we had not suspected before.” IfsWayRealityCodeHacked Author:Terence McKenna
“If you're truly psychedelic the difference between living and dying is quite immaterial. No pun intended.” IfsDifferencesDyingPsychedelicPun Author:Terence McKenna
“Everything appears to me to be authored, in some strange way. And I wonder if this is not the spreading assumption of the psychedelic illusion/delusion/revelation that life is in fact art.” IfsWayArtFactsLife IsWonderStrangeIllusionAssumptionRevelationsDelusionPsychedelic Author:Terence McKenna
“The reason I am so passionately committed to the psychedelic thing is because I see it as radical, and if this is not the moment for radical solutions, what is?” IfsReasonMomentsSolutionsCommittedRadicalPsychedelic Author:Terence McKenna
“This is a very central part of the psychedelic attitude toward the world, to entertain all possibilities but to never commit to belief. Belief always being seen as a kind of trap, because if you belief something you are forever precluded from believing its opposite.” IfsWorldBelieveKindBeliefAttitudeForeverPossibilityOppositesCommitTrapsPsychedelic Author:Terence McKenna
“Without an understanding and a familiarity of the psychedelic experience you should be sued for fraud if you're practicing psychotherapy.” IfsShouldUnderstandingFraudFamiliarityPsychedelicPsychotherapyPsychedelic Experience Author:Terence McKenna
“The Internet is light at the end of the tunnel. I don't care if it's being used to peddle pornography, I don't care if it's being trivialized in a thousand ways. Anything can be trivialized. The important point is that it is leveling the playing field of global society. It is creating de-facto an entirely new set of political realities. None of the constipated, oligarchic structures that are resisting this were ever asked. Their greed betrayed them into investing in this in the first place without ever fully grasping what the implications of it were for their larger agenda.” IfsWayFirstsImportantEndsRealityLightCarePoliticalUsedFieldsInternetThousandCreatingStructureGreedInvestingDon't CareI Don't CareAgendasBetrayedPornographyImplicationsTunnelsResistingGraspingPlaying FieldsLight At The End Of The TunnelEnd Of The Tunnel Author:Terence McKenna
“If you sit down with a person, or a watermelon for that matter, when you're stoned and sing into it, the quality of the hallucination is such that there is a way of thinking about it where you could say, 'This is an acoustical hologram of the interior of their body.'" I don't say that.I just say, "My goodness isn't it strange that I seem to be able to see inside of the watermelon when I'm doing this.'” IfsThinkingWayPersonsMatterBodySeemsAbleQualityStrangeGoodnessInteriorsWay Of ThinkingHallucinationsHolograms Author:Terence McKenna
“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?'” IfsKnowsWorldMeanDoneLeftSituationPoliticianOffersWingsThoughtfulHistorianCritiqueLeft Wing Author:Terence McKenna
“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.” IfsNamesImaginationCivilizationWorthyPrimates Author:Terence McKenna
“There is this persistent theme in all of these notions that death is made more easy, whatever that means, if you've learned the territory before you get there. And you know, in the Mahayana Buddhist situation it even becomes as extreme as saying; 'life is essentially a preparation for death, a studying of the maps of a learning of the skills a packing of your picnic basket so that when you get out there and demons are sniffing you up one side and down the other you don't bungle your mantras'.” IfsKnowsMeanMadeLife IsEasySidesSituationStudySkillsNotionExtremesBuddhistPreparationThemeDemonMapsTerritoryPersistentBasketsMantrasPicnicsPackingSniffingPreparation For DeathSaying LifePicnic Baskets Author:Terence McKenna
“One way to think about what psychedelics are is as catalysts for language development. They literally force the evolution of language. You cannot evolve faster than your language because the language defines the culture of meaning. So if there's a way to accelerate the evolution of language then this is real consciousness expansion and it's a permanent thing. The great legacies of the 60's are in attitudes and language. It boils down to doing your own thing, feeling the vibe, ego-trip, blowing your mind.” IfsThinkingWayMindRealFeelingsCultureLanguageForceConsciousnessAttitudeDevelopmentEvolutionEgoOne WayFasterLegacyEvolvePermanentExpansionCatalystAccelerateEgo TripDoing Your Own ThingPermanent ThingsLanguage DevelopmentEvolution Of Language Author:Terence McKenna
“The shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and a superhuman condition, and by being able to do that he affirms the potential for transcendence in all people. He is an exemplar, if you will.” PeopleIfsAbleConditionsAccessDimensionsHuman ConditionTranscendenceSuperhuman Author:Terence McKenna
“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.” PeopleIfsKnowsRealitySmokeParisDmt Author:Terence McKenna
“Our task is to create memes... Launch your meme boldly and see if it will replicate.” IfsTasksMemesReplicate Author:Terence McKenna
“If you take psychedelics and the Internet and music and put all of that together you have the basis for a new community that is wider and deeper than you know. The people who are building the new machines, who are designing the new circuitry, who are writing the new code are ALL freaks. They work for capitalist dogs, of course, because we all do, but the creative thrust of these technologies is being driven by people just like you and me.” PeopleIfsKnowsWritingTogetherCoursesCommunityTechnologyCreativeDogDesignBuildingLike YouInternetMachinesBasesDeeperDrivenCodeFreakCapitalistThrust Author:Terence McKenna
“All of you who have been through high dose psychedelic experiences know that it's very hard to carry stupid baggage through that keyhole. In fact you're lucky if you just get your soul and yourselves through and intact.” IfsKnowsHas BeensSoulHardFactsStupidLuckyYour SoulPsychedelicDoseBaggagePsychedelic ExperienceKeyholes Author:Terence McKenna
“There is a sort of fair play, and if you can get in touch with that in your life, if you can have that perception, the world will begin to work for you, it will begin to move toward you... Nature loves courage, and it shows you that loves courage because it will remove obstacles.” IfsWorldPlayShowsMovingPerceptionFairsObstaclesRemoveNature LoveFair PlayCourage To Love Author:Terence McKenna
“The question is being asked, 'Are we alone?' And though we now focus on that question we need to think beyond that to what if we're not alone? Then what becomes the next imperative question?” IfsThinkingNeedsNextFocusWhat IfImperativesNot Alone Author:Terence McKenna
“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.” IfsThinkingIdeasShowsJobsCultureBlackWaterClassDrugMassFunctionMinoritiesGood IdeasDrug Taking Author:Terence McKenna
“I think it's the sheer power of the hallucinogens that puts people off. You either love them or you hate them, and that's because they dissolve world views. And if you like the experience of having your entire ontological structure disappear out from under you, if you think that's a thrill, you'll probably love psychedelics.” PeopleIfsThinkingWorldHateViewsStructureDisappearSheerThrillWorld ViewHallucinogens Author:Terence McKenna
“A history-stopping archetype is being released into the skies of this planet, and if we are not careful it will halt all intellectual inquiry in the same way that the Christos archetype halted intellectual inquiry in the Hellenistic Age.” IfsWayAgeSkyPlanetsIntellectualCarefulStoppingInquiryHaltArchetype Author:Terence McKenna
“The good news about psychedelics is that they are incredibly democratic. Even the clueless can be swept along if the dose is sufficient.” IfsNewsDemocraticSufficientGood NewsDoseClueless Author:Terence McKenna
“I do not think that the government, under the guise of some phony, alarmist, pseudo-scientific rhetoric, should attempt to control the evolution of consciousness. After all, if these things truly are consciousness-expanding, it doesn't take too much intelligence to realize that it is the absence of consciousness that is causing our flirtation with extinction and planetary disaster.” IfsThinkingShouldGovernmentRealizingConsciousnessToo MuchEvolutionAbsenceDisasterRhetoricExpandingExtinctionPhonyGuisePseudoFlirtationAlarmistsConsciousness Expanding Author:Terence McKenna
“If I can paraphrase Teilhard de Chardin for a moment, he said, or I will paraphrase in this way, 'When the human race understands the potential of the hallucinogenic drug experience, it will have discovered fire for the second time.'” IfsWayHumansSaidI CanMomentsRaceFireDrugHuman RaceParaphraseHallucinogenic Drugs Author:Terence McKenna
“If in fact the conservation and complexification of novelty is what the universe is striving for, then suddenly our own human enterprise, previously marginalized, takes on an immense new importance.” IfsHumansFactsUniverseImportanceStriveEnterpriseImmenseConservationNoveltyMarginalized Author:Terence McKenna
“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.” IfsKnowsFeelsMadeDoneNextFeel BetterNext DayHallucinogens Author:Terence McKenna
“This is the key. If you get into deep water with these substances, this is true of psilocybin as well, you don't want to clench, you don't want to assume the fetal position and stop breathing. You want to sit up straight and breathe, and sing, and sing it back, and it will step back. You can take control of your situation ... most of the time.” IfsWantWellsWaterSituationStepsPositionKeysAssumingBreatheBreathingSubstanceTake ControlDeep WaterPsilocybin Author:Terence McKenna
“Think about our dilemma on this planet. If the expansion of consciousness does not loom large in the human future, what kind of future is it going to be?” IfsThinkingHumansKindDoeConsciousnessPlanetsExpansionDilemma Author:Terence McKenna
“If you play the cultural game, it's like playing only with clubs or something, or playing only with the red marked cards. You have to play with a full deck, and that includes this pre-linguistic surround in which we are embedded.” IfsPlayGamesRedClubsCardsSurroundEmbeddedDeck Author:Terence McKenna
“It's as important to be well informed in this area, if you're going to do it, as it is to be well informed about procedures in skin diving and that sort of thing if you're going to do that.” IfsWellsImportantAreasSkinsProceduresDiving Author:Terence McKenna
“If you actually look at the etymology of the word 'hallucination', what it's come to mean in English is a delusion. But what it really means in the original language is to wander in the mind. That's the meaning of 'hallucination', to wander in the mind.” IfsMindLooksMeanLanguageOriginalsWanderDelusionReally MeanHallucinationsEtymology Author:Terence McKenna
“I think institutions will inevitably substitute a rite or a ritual for the authentic, for the real McCoy, because then priests can control the pipeline to god, and the parishioner can approach with offerings. But if everybody can have a pipeline to deity, why then the whole priest scam is put out of business.” IfsThinkingRealWholeApproachInstitutionsPriestsSubstitutesRitualOfferingDeitiesRitePipelineScams Author:Terence McKenna
“Obviously, it's some kind of freely commanded modality in the psyche with which we can have a relationship if we will but evolve a control language and a dialogue. And it remains mysterious.” IfsKindLanguageRemainsDialogueMysteriousEvolve Author:Terence McKenna
“DMT is the most powerful hallucinogen there is. If it gets stronger than that I don't want to know about it.” IfsKnowsWantPowerfulStrongerMost PowerfulDmtHallucinogens Author:Terence McKenna
“To my mind this is what shamanic training must really be, is mnemonic training. If you want to bring the stuff back you have to train yourself to bring it back.” IfsWantMindStuffTrainingTrain Author:Terence McKenna
“The overriding problems are brought on by the existence of the ego, a maladaptive behavioral complex in the psyche that gets going like a tumor. If it's not treated - if there's not pharmacological intervention - it becomes the dominant constellation of the personality.” IfsProblemExistencePersonalityEgoComplexesTreatedDominantInterventionConstellationsTumors Author:Terence McKenna
“The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.” IfsKnowsWorldMadeRealRealityWishSecretMagicPsychedelicMind BlowingPsychedelic ExperienceBlowing It Author:Terence McKenna
“If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.” IfsConsciousnessLibertyWrittenIndependencePursuitExperimentsPotWeedMarijuanaDeclarationPursuit Of HappinessPsychedelicDeclaration Of IndependenceCannabisMind BlowingHempDmtMedical MarijuanaFunny MarijuanaLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessFunny WeedStonersBlowing ItGanjaBongsGreat WeedCool Marijuana Author:Terence McKenna
“My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.” IfsBelieveOppositesDon't BelieveTechniqueIf You BelieveMind Blowing Author:Terence McKenna
“I’ll try to be around and about. But if I’m not, then you know that I’m behind your eyelids, and I’ll meet you there” IfsKnowsTryingBehindsEyelids Author:Terence McKenna
