Home / Quotes / Quote by Terence McKenna

Quote by 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'.”

Quote by Terence McKenna

Author

Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna was a renowned philosopher known for his profound insights into consciousness, botany, and human potential. His ideas were deeply influenced by his family's genetic research and studies on the evolution of human consciousness. more

You May Also Like

“The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history that unites the doctor, the scientist and the artist into a single notion of care-giving and creativity.”

Giving Humans Care Artist Creativity Figures Doctors Scientist Notion Human History

Author:Terence McKenna

“Science is the special province of the ego. And magic and art are the special province of something else. I could name it, but I won't. It prefers to be unnamed”

Art Names Magic Special Ego Provinces

Author:Terence McKenna

“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.”

People Years Firsts Kind Form Millions Planets Concern Years Ago Sacred Access Obscure Shamanism Anthropologists

Author:Terence McKenna

“The sine qua non for obtaining a psychedelic experience is humbling yourself to the point where you admit that you must submit to the experience of the plant or the drug. This act of surrender is the major technical function you will be called upon to perform during the psychedelic trip.”

Drug Majors Function Plant Surrender Submit Psychedelic Humbling Obtaining Psychedelic Experience

Author:Terence McKenna

“Cultural conditioning is like bad software. Over and over it's diddled with and re-written so that it can just run on the next attempt. But there is cultural hardware, and it's that cultural hardware, otherwise known as authentic being, that we are propelled toward by the example of the shaman and the techniques of the shaman. ... Shamanism therefore is a call to authenticity.”

Running Next Known Written Example Technique Authenticity Over It Software Conditioning Hardware Shamanism

Author:Terence McKenna

“I don't believe that shamanism without hallucinogens is authentic shamanism or comfortable shamanism.”

Believe Comfortable Don't Believe Shamanism Hallucinogens

Author:Terence McKenna

“Don't diddle the dose. Once you have done your homework, go for it.”

Done Homework Dose

Author:Terence McKenna

“I think that a lot of people are making a lot of money spreading anxiety. Anxiety sells.”

People Thinking Anxiety Sells Lots Of Money

Author:Terence McKenna

“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.”

Mind Ideas Language Messages Conscious Plant Profound Communicate Mysterious Revelations Unconscious Chemicals Implications Conscious Mind Hallucinogens

Author:Terence McKenna

“Capitalism is going to deal itself out of existence, but before it does that, you're gonna pay $50 for a latte, because inflation is going impoverish all of us before people get pissed off enough to realize that all of the last hundred years of economic progress was actually a shell game to create billionaires, while the great masses of people saw their standard of living eroded and destroyed.”