Terence McKenna talks about philosophy, ideas, and the proper use of entheogens. “Science has not been helpful in the matter of elusive human contacts with other intelligences. It prefers to direct its attention elsewhere, with the comment that subjective experiences, however peculiar, are not its province. What a pity, since subjective experience is all that any of us ever has. Anyhow, the largely subjective nature of the so-called objective universe has now been secured by that most objective of the sciences, physics. The new physics has the subjective observer inextricably tangled with the phenomena observed. Ironically, this is a return to the shamanic point of view. The real intellectual legacy of quantum physics may be the new respectability and primacy that it gives to subjectivity. Recentering ourselves in our subjectivity means a tremendous new reempowering of language, for language is the stuff of which the subjective world is made.” -Terence McKenna
quantum physics
Terence McKenna Discussing the Power of Entheogens
Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness
Great transcript of a speach given by Terence McKenna in 1983 that also apparantly appears in his book “The Archaic Revival”.
Very interesting stuff , here is the opening paragraph :
There is a very circumscribed place in organic nature that has, I think, important implications for students of human nature. I refer to the tryptophan-derived hallucinogens dimethyltryptamine (DMT), psilocybin, and a hybrid drug that is in aboriginal use in the rain forests of South America, ayahuasca. This latter is a combination of dimethyltryptamine and a monoamine oxidase inhibitor that is taken orally. It seems appropriate to talk about these drugs when we discuss the nature of consciousness; it is also appropriate when we discuss quantum physics.
I especially enjoy his thoughts on DMT fear :
One of the interesting characteristics of DMT is that it sometimes inspires fear – this marks the experience as existentially authentic. One of the interesting approaches to evaluating such a compound is to see how eager people are to do it a second time. A touch of terror gives the stamp of validity to the experience because it means, “This is real.” We are in the balance. We read the literature, we know the maximum doses, the LD-50, and so on. But nevertheless, so great is one’s faith in the mind that when one is out in it one comes to feel that the rules of pharmacology do not really apply and that control of existence on that plane is really a matter of focus of will and good luck.
