Quotessence
Home / Authors / Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllPsychedelicHumansIfsThinkingPeopleWorldMindCulturePsychedelic ExperienceKindMind BlowingKnowsDrugLanguageWayImaginationMeanPlanetsIdeasMatter

Famous Terence McKenna Quotes

“To my mind this makes psychedelics central to any political reconstruction, because these are the only force in nature that actually dissolve linguistics structures; lets the mechanics of syntax to be visible, allows the possibility for rapid introduction and spread of new concepts; gives permission for new ways of seeing; and this is what we have to do, we have to change our minds.”

WayGivingMindPoliticalForceSeeingPossibilityConceptsStructureSpreadVisibleNew WaysPermissionMechanicRapidsIntroductionLinguisticsReconstructionSyntax
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“...the mind is more powerful than any imaginable particle accelerator, more sensitive than any radio receiver or the largest optical telescope, more complete in its grasp of information than any computer: the human body- its organs, its voice, its powers of locomotion, and its imagination- is a more-than-sufficient means for the exploration of any place, time or energy level in the universe.”

MindHumansMeanBodyUniverseEnergyVoiceImaginationLevelsPowerfulWonderInformationComputerRadioSensitiveSufficientExplorationOrgansHuman BodyParticlesTelescopesReceiverEnergy Levels
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are. And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past. This is what the psychedelic experience means. Its a doorway out of history and into the wiring under the board in eternity.”

WayMindHumansMeanDoeMatterShowsBodyPastCultureImaginationAnimalCenturyCreaturesToolsEternityPlantBoardsParadiseExploring20th CenturyPsychedelicDoorwaysNostalgicMushroomsPsychedelic ExperienceWiringSymbiosis
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“The Truth doesn't need your cooperation to exist. All forms of cult, all forms of hype, all forms of delusion do require your participation in order to exist. I've looked into marginal areas of human experience -historical and otherwise- with a rational mind, and what I've found is that doorways into the miraculous are far fewer than the publicists of the New Age would have us believe. On the other hand, they are not as rare as the proponents of radical reductionism and materialism would have us believe. There are doorways out of the mundane.”

NeedsMindBelieveHumansHandsAgeFormOrderFoundAreasHistoricalRationalRadicalDelusionMaterialismCooperationFewerParticipationCultNew AgeHuman ExperienceMiraculousMundaneHypeDoorwaysPublicistsReductionism
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“Cultivate an ongoing stream of self-description, telling yourself what is happening. Get used to the idea that mind can penetrate the immediate surface of being and reveal the tactile density of it as a manifold whose measure cannot be immediately taken by the eyes, that it's deep, it's connected, it's complex. Everything holds within itself the anticipation and the memory of everything else.”

MindIdeasSelfEyeUsedMemoriesTakenHappeningsComplexesConnectedSurfaceStreamsDescriptionAnticipationOngoingPenetrateDensityManifoldTactile
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“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
Create image

“The fungi became, or is for some mysterious reason still to be discovered, a pipeline into a mind, an entelechy, which we can only image as feminine and can only associate somehow to the environment, to the ecosystem. This is the Gaian mind. This is what the goddess really is. The goddess is a network of connective intelligence that is operating on this planet.”

MindStillsReasonEnvironmentPlanetsMysteriousFeminineGoddessAssociatesEcosystemsPipelineFungi
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“No one yet understands the mysterious intelligence within plants or the implications of the idea that nature communicates in a basic chemical language that is unconscious but profound. We do not yet understand how hallucinogens transform the message in the unconscious into revelations beheld by the conscious mind.”

MindIdeasLanguageMessagesConsciousPlantProfoundCommunicateMysteriousRevelationsUnconsciousChemicalsImplicationsConscious MindHallucinogens
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“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
Create image

“Actually, the highest form of human organization is not realized in the democratic individual. It is realized in a dimension none of us have ever penetrated, which is the mind of the species, which is actually the hand at the tiller of history. . . . It is an organized entelechy of some sort, and human history is its signature on the primates.”

MindHumansHandsFormIndividualHighestOrganizationDemocraticSpeciesOrganizedDimensionsHuman HistorySignaturesPrimates
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“We can no longer have forbidden areas of the human mind, or cultural machinery. We have taken upon ourselves the acquisition of so much power that we now must understand what we are. We cannot travel much further with the definitions of man that we inherit from the Judeo-Christian tradition. We need to truly explore the problem of consciousness.”

MenNeedsMindHumansProblemChristianConsciousnessTakenAreasTraditionDefinitionsHuman MindForbiddenMachineryAcquisition
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“Modernity is a desert, and we are jungle monkeys. And so new evolutionary selective pressures are coming to bear upon the human situation, new ideas are coming to the fore. Psilocybin is a selective filter for this. The wish to go to space is a selective filter for this. Just the wish to know your own mind is a selective filter for this.”

KnowsMindHumansIdeasWishSpaceSituationBearsPressureDesertNew IdeasMonkeysJungleModernityFiltersSelectivePsilocybin
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“But a mature humanity could get into a place where we no longer required these metaphysical spankings from messiahs and flying saucers that come along every thousand years or so to mess up the mess that has been created and try and send people off on another tack. And the way to do this is to look at the abysses that confront man as species and individuals and try to unify them. And I think that psilocybin offers a way out because it allows a dialogue with the over-mind. You won't read about it in "Scientific American" or anywhere else. You will carry it out.”

PeopleThinkingMenWayTryingYearsMindLooksHas BeensHumanityIndividualOffersThousandSpeciesFlyingDialogueMessMatureThousand YearsMetaphysicalAbyssMessiahSpankingFlying SaucersPsilocybin
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“All the accoutrements that distinguish us from animal existence were put in place when we had a different kind of mind than we have now. We didn't have a mind that favored role specialization, and male dominance, and anxiety over female sexual activity related to feelings of male ownership. That all came later.”

MindKindDifferentFeelingsAnimalExistenceRolesActivityAnxietyFemaleMalesRelatedDifferent KindsOwnershipDominanceSpecializationMale Dominance
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“We are reaping the fruits of ten thousand, fifty thousand years of sowing of the fields of mind. And it is being dropped into our laps for us to create human-machine interfacing, control of genetic material, redefinition of social reality, re engineering of languages, revisioning of the planetary ecology, all these things fall upon us.”

YearsMindHumansRealityFallLanguageSocialFieldsMaterialsThousandTenMachinesFruitFiftyEngineeringThousand YearsEcologyLapSowing
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. 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.”

YearsMindTwoWarEndsEasyAbilityConsciousnessVisionPlanetsSkillsDiseaseBehaviorIntellectualCrisisHungryCuresTwo ThingsEngineeringTechnologicalOur PlanetConditioningMind BlowingBad BehaviorAbility To ChangeBlowing ItSave Our Planet
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel. The problem is that tunnel is in the back of your mind. And if you don’t go to the back side of your mind you will never see the light at the end of the tunnel. And once you see it, then the task becomes to empower it in yourself and other people. Spread it as a reality. God did not retire to the seventh heaven, God is some kind of lost continent IN the human mind.”

PeopleIfsMindHumansKindEndsProblemRealityLightLostHeavenSidesTasksSpreadEmpoweringHuman MindRetiringContinentsTunnelsLight At The End Of The TunnelEnd Of The TunnelBack SideSeventh Heaven
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image