Quotessence
Home / Authors / Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllPsychedelicHumansIfsThinkingPeopleWorldMindCulturePsychedelic ExperienceKindMind BlowingKnowsDrugLanguageWayImaginationMeanPlanetsIdeasMatter

Famous Terence McKenna Quotes

“Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types today don't understand that it's not important to maintain control if you are not in control in the first place.”

IfsFirstsImportantTodayCultureViewsTypeLosingPsychedelicEgocentricPsychedelic ExperienceLosing Control
Book:Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness
Create image

“If psychedelics are exopheromones that dissolve the dominant ego, then they are also enzymes that synergize the human imagination and empower language. They cause us to connect and reconnect the contents of the collective mind in ever more implausible, beautiful, and self-fulfilling ways.”

IfsWayMindHumansSelfBeautifulLanguageCausesImaginationEgoEmpoweringCollectivesDominantFulfillingPsychedelicHuman ImaginationEnzymes
Book:Food Of The Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
Create image

“The psychedelic issue is a civil rights and civil liberties issue. It is an issue concerned with the most basic of human freedoms: religious practice and the privacy of the individual mind.”

MindHumansIndividualReligiousLibertyPracticeIssuesRightsConcernedCivil RightsPrivacyPsychedelicCivil LibertiesHuman FreedomReligious Practices
Book:Food Of The Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
Create image

“When we look within ourselves with psilocybin, we discover that we do not have to look outward toward the futile promise of life that circles distant stars in order to still our cosmic loneliness. We should look within; the paths of the heart lead to nearby universes full of life and affection for humanity.”

ShouldLooksHeartStillsHumanityOrderUniverseStarsPathLonelinessPromiseAffectionCirclesCosmicPsychedelicPsilocybin
Book:True Hallucinations: And, the Archaic Revival
Create image

“It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age.”

HumansKindUseAgeTogetherOrderCultureSpaceVisionPlanetsHappeningsStonesTransformationAcquireExplorationCapabilityTechnologicalCoincidenceRebirthHumaneEmergingPsychedelicSpace ExplorationMushroomsEmergenceSpunStone Age
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“There is a belief that there is a hyperobject called Overmind, or God, that casts a shadow into time. History is our group experience if this shadow. As one draws closer and closer to the source of the shadow, the paradoxes intensify, the rate of change intensifies. What is happening is that the hyperobject is beginning to ingress into three-dimensional space.”

IfsThreeBeliefSpaceGroupsSourceDrawsHappeningsShadowRateCastsParadoxPsychedelicRate Of Change
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image

“The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an antidrugs position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined, and obsessive behavior; these are precisely the tendencies in our psychological makup that the psychedelics mitigate. The plant hallucinogens dissolve habits and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more grounded point of view within the individual.”

MotivationIndividualResultsViewsPositionHabitDrugBehaviorPlantPoint Of ViewTendenciesPsychologicalGroundedPsychedelicObsessiveHabitualDependencyEgocentricInspectionHallucinogens
Book:True Hallucinations: And, the Archaic Revival
Create image

“The psychedelic experience is simply a compressed instance of what we call understanding, so that living psychedelically is trying to live in an atmosphere of continuous unfolding of understanding, so that every day you know more and see into things with greater depth than you did before. This is a process of education.”

KnowsTryingProcessUnderstandingGreaterDepthInstanceAtmospherePsychedelicUnfoldingLecturerLive And LearnPsychedelic Experience
Author:Terence McKenna
Create image