Terence McKenna

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The World & It's Double

Recorded: 11 September 1993

This World ...and Its Double.

"It seems to me that culture, at least this culture, is a shabby lie."

In this lecture, Terence McKenna talks about the tragic situation we humans have placed ourselves in, and ways in which the boundry dissolution effects of psychedelic medicines can possibly save our species from what appears to be a certain extinction. . . . "What the psychedelic experience does, really, is it stretches the envelope of the imaginable."

"Culture denies experience."

"We live at the end of a thousand year binge on the philosophical position known as materialism, in its many guises. And the basic message of materialism is that world is what it appears to be, a thing composed of matter, and pretty much confined to its surface."

"We're literally at the end of our rope. Reason, and science, and the practice of unbridled capitalism have not delivered us into an angelic realm."

"We're in, essentially, a tragic situation. A tragic situation is a catastrophe when you know it."

"All the boundaries we put up to keep ourselves from feeling our circumstance are dissolved [when using psychedelics]. And boundary dissolution is the most threatening activity that can go on in a society. Government institutions become very nervous when people begin to talk to each other. The whole name of the Western game is to create boundaries and maintain them."

"The drugs that Western society has traditionally favored have either been drugs which maintain boundaries or drugs which promote mindless, repetitious physical activity on the assembly line, in the slave galley, on the slave-driven agricultural projects, in the corporate office, whatever it is."

"Madness, basically, up until the level of physical violence, means you are behaving in a way which makes me feel uncomfortable, therefore there is something wrong with you."

"I think of history as a kind of mass psychedelic experience, and the drug is technology."

"History is characterized by its brevity, for one thing. We have packed more change into the last 10,000 years than the billion years which preceded it. And yet, as entities, as animals, meat, we have not changed at all in 10,000 years."

"What psychedelics do, and I think this isn't too challengeable, is they catalyze imagination. They drive you to think what you would not think otherwise. Well, notice that the enterprise of human history is nothing more than the fallout created by strange ideas."

"The ultimate boundary dissolution is the dissolution of ego."

"The key, on one level, to maintaining the dominance hierarchy is monogamous pair bonding. That's where it begins."

"We have the tools that would allow us to sculpt paradise, but we have the reflexes and value systems of anthropoid apes of some sort. . . . You don't get serial killers in the chipmunk population."

For approximately 500 years [sciences] argument for its pre-eminence was the beautiful toys that it could create: aircraft, railroads, global economies, television, spacecraft. But that is a fool's argument for truth! I mean, that's after all how a medicine show operates, you know: the juggler is so good, the medicine must be even better! This is not an entirely rational way to proceed.

Images: Oculus, Jones/Ginzel (1998)
Location: Chambers Street/World Trade Center, Park Place

Oculus consists of 301 mosaic panels by artists Kristin Jones, Andrew Ginzel and Rinaldo Piras. The project presents the eyes of three hundred individual New Yorkers translated from a photographic study conducted by Jones/Ginzel into stone mosaic by the classically trained Piras. The centerpiece of the work is an elliptical glass and stone mosaic floor, with a magnificent micro mosaic eye at the center of an ultramarine vortex with the image of the City of New York woven into the picture.

The Lost Interview [FULL]

Earth Trust: [FULL]

Terence McKenna at the Earth Trust Foundation conference:

"Ideas compete with each other in the way animals compete in an environment, and the most fitting ideas for the human adventure will eliminate their competition. If you are right you don't need to feel any urgency, because that will quite naturally peculate out in the mix, William Blake said: "If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed".
...............

Over the years with judicious manipulations with substances eventually you see what it is: language is trying to be born out of matter, we are heading towards becoming the pure syntactical intentionality, just shedding the monkey. Matter is becoming a fairly uncomfortable dimension for us to be in, and I dare to say, matter will probably be highly relieved to have us just move on, so that the rain forests and chipmunks can go back to what they do best."

Appreciating Imagination [FULL]

A workshop that Terence McKenna conducted at Esalen Institute in 1994, the focus of which was the human imagination. While he has some interesting thoughts about imagination such as, "Art is like the footprint of where the imagination has been." It was his thought about computers that most people may take away from this first part of the workshop where he also says, "The only difference between computers and drugs is that one is too large to swallow ... and our best people are working on that very problem." "The imagination is actually a kind of window onto realities not present." "If the imagination runs riot in the dimension of the mundane it's paranoia." "Art is like the footprint of where the imagination has been." "Below the ordinary surface of space and time, ruled by relativistic physics, there is this strange domain of instantaneous connectivity of all matter, of all phenomenon. It raises the possibility then that the imagination is in fact a kind of organ of perception, not an organ of creative unfoldment, but actually an organ of perception. And that what is perceived in the imagination is that which is not local and never can be." "Who would have placed their bet on a monkey to be the top carnivore when there were saber toothed cats walking around that weighted 1100 pounds?" "Imitation is an act of the imagination." "What is a city but a complete denial of nature? ... Urbanization is the first of these impulses where society leaves nature and enters into its own private Idaho." "What this [virtual reality] should tell us, in the domain of light the intractability of matter is overcome. And so we are on the brink of a time, we have arrived, we are at the time where the human imagination now need meet no barriers to its intent. And so we are going to find out who we are. We are going to discover what it means to be human when there is no resistance to human will." "Shamanism didn't use matter to build its realities. It was more sophisticated than that. It directly addressed the capacity of the human mind, in the presence of unusual neurochemicals, to produce unusual phenomenon and unusual sensoria of experience." "A true civilization lives in its own imagination and lives through its imagination." "We now know from the study of the introduction of media that if a medium of sufficient power and bandwidth is introduced into a population it will abandon all previous forms of media in favor of this." "Clearly we [humans] view the language-forming enterprise as a task not yet brought to completion." http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=1410

Many thanks to FRITS JONKER for the superb artwork, You can find out more about his lettering / art & much more via this link...
http://showcase.thebluebus.nl/soundtrack-of-my-life/february­-2011/terence-mckenna

Hazelwood House: Trialogue

Trialogue: Hazelwood House, England 1993

In their first trialogue held outside of California, Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake begin this session by telling us what they think about one another. Then Rupert Sheldrake challenges Terence and Ralph to speculate on the as yet unknown physical principle underlying the ability of homing pigeons to return to their roosts.

McKenna covers a wide range of topics with thoughts like, "That's what life is. It's a chemical strategy for the conquest of dimensionality."

Public workshop, Trialogues, Hazelwood House, Devon, ENGLAND (June 25- 27)

Art: Francisco De Goya, 'Where there's a will there's a way' (Donde hay ganas hay mana), Plate 13 of Los Disparates

Etched about 1819 - 1823 (published 1864)

Linear Societies & Nonlinear Drugs

Terence McKenna at the Entheobotany Seminar
Palenque, Mexico on January 16, 1999

On Saturday night, January 16, 1999, Terence McKenna gave one of his last lectures at the legendary Entheobotany Series by the foot of the pool at the Chan Kha Hotel near the Mayan ruins of Palenque. There were about 100 people sitting in the moonlight, listening to the lowing of cattle in the distance and the occasional chatter of the howler monkeys in the trees nearby. This was Terence doing what he did best, which was to challenge all of us to stretch our minds to their far limits and then expand them once again.

This recording was made by our dear friend, Noah, who recorded most of the talks at this and many other conferences. Later he gave me this copy of the recording. Noah wouldn't take any money for the copy he gave me, in fact, he wouldn't even take anything to pay for his cost in duplicating the tape. He just said, "I want as many people as possible to hear what Terence has to say. Please pass it around." Sadly for us, Noah has moved on to another dimension. But wherever you are, Noah, you will be remembered every time someone listens to these wonderful recordings you made.

SOUND BITES: A snoot full of tequila and a messianic mission ... the psychedelic experience contextualized ... what I'm interested in is psychedelics as philosophical tools ... what can the psychedelic experience bring to philosophy ... where did the world come from, where is it bound, and who's along for the ride ... The psychedelic community has given itself the image of an underclass ... evidence of a major paradigm shift... we are a culture of science, yet this rhetoric is not the rhetoric of the larger community of psychedelic users who share a nostalgia for shamanism ... The news coming out of science is the most psychedelic news there is ... while we struggle to legalize psychedelics, psychedelic thinking is everywhere triumphant ... the entire universe is ruled by a very weird force that has been known to science for precisely five months! ... Forces shaping the cultural modality ... the 20th century had the most spectacular celebratory affair with the irrational since the 16th century ... if you aren't current in a field then your version of that field is only a myth ... we've had some fairly existential characters in our ranks over the years ... we are not relativists ... I believe the psychedelic experience is the only reliable contact with the numinous ... Optimism ... the best story will win ... Ur was a virtual reality ... artificial intelligences: while the naïve are scanning the stars our appliances have become telepathic ... I've come to a kind of cyber pantheistic Emersonianism ... the Earth's strategy for its own salvation is through machines ... human beings are the deputized bride in this alchemical rarefaction of glasses, ceramics, metals, and volatile materials ... the nervous system of Earth is appearing ... at who's behest are we doing this ... we are actors in a cosmic drama that involves Earth at one polarity and machines at the other polarity ... why I like this story ... Where does the psychedelic experience fit into all of this ... consciousness expansion in human beings is going to become an absolute necessity ... the Internet is a partner in the understanding of the world that is Genie-like ... the only people who can see the game move against the background of the forest pattern are the psychedelic heads ...A future where the expression of the individual is muted ... the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial is an obsession of the 20th century, hence canceled ... Things about the cosmological constant that are very counterintuitive ... the Novelty wave (Timewave) ... space itself is in the act of exploding

http://deoxy.org/media/McKenna/Linear_Societies_and_Non-Line­ar_Drugs

Illustration: Adam Scott Miller (Thermohorizon)

Exploring The Hermetic Tradition

Terence K. McKenna (1991) Exploring the Hermetic Tradition.

These 7 parts are the pre-talk anicdotes before the playlist Hermeticism & Alchemy which can be heard here...

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=221471273AE0A06C&ann­otation_id=annotation_892414&feature=iv

"History itself is a kind of alchemical process. ... History is the catalyst of nature."

"If we could raise to consciousness our alchemical heritage, and our heritage in the shamanism of the archaic, then we could actually see that the purpose of technology is to liberate, not to enslave, and somehow we've lost the thread."

Art: Remedios Varo 'Creation of the Birds' (1957)

Rap Dancing Into The 3rd Millenium

Rap Dancing Into the Third Millennium (1994) (Cassette) (Re-issued on CD as The Quintessential Hallucinogen)

Starwood Festival.


"The apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and it's only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse. If you go to Bosnia or Somalia or Peru or much of the third-world then it appears that the apocalypse has already arrived."

Art: Alex Grey

Albert Hofmann: Tribute 1988

An event that was held at The Scottish Rite Temple in Los Angeles on October 2, 1988 to honor Dr. Albert Hofmann on the 50th anniversary of his discovery of LSD. The MC that night was none other than Terence McKenna, and besides a few words from Terence, we also hear from Stanley Krippner and Andrew Weil, who not only have many kind words for Dr. Hofmann but also add some interesting insights about their own work with LSD, such as when Terence said: "We have the tools, the intellect, the will to create a caring global culture. It isn't going to come without a recognition of the power of the psychedelic experience. The psychedelic experience is the birth right of every human being on the planet. It is as much a basic part of each and every one of us as our sexuality, our national identity, our consciousness of self. And any society which attempts to hold back or impede this dimension of self-expression, when the history of that society is written, it will be called barbarous." ... And from Dr. Weil: "And here it seems to me is the fundamental absurdity of the way our science has developed: The most obvious fact of our existence is that we are conscious. That is the most obvious, most important aspect of our existence. How can you construct a world view, how can you construct a system that tries to explain the universe and leave that out? And yet that is what our science tries to do."

Dr. Lilly begins with a description of his first LSD experience in an isolation chamber (300mg IM) in the Virgin Islands in 1964, saying about it, "I was scared stiff, absolutely terrified." He is followed by Dr. Oscar Janiger who gives a few brief remarks before Terence McKenna introduces Dr. Albert Hofmann by famously saying, "Psychology without psychedelics is pissing into the wind." The Dr. Hofmann takes the stage for a talk that you will most likely listen to more than once. One of my favorite quotes of his is, "Of greatest significance to me has been the insight that I obtained as a fundamental understanding from all my LSD experiences that what one commonly takes as the reality by no means it defines anything fixed but represents a thing that's ambiguous, that there is not only one but there are many realities, each compromising a different consciousness also of the ego."

http://www.matrixmasters.com/podcasts/

The Ethnobotany Of Shamanism

Ethnobotany of Shamanism, a 3 day weekend workshop at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco featuring Terence McKenna. Includes the introductory lecture on Friday. Originally recorded November 4th -- 6th 1988.

"Most software, I think, is written by freaks."

"What it [investigating psychedelics] really requires is a love of the peculiar, of the weird, the bizarre, the étrange, the freaky and unimaginable."

"Nature and the imagination seem to be the precursors to involvement in the psychedelic experience."

"DMT seems to argue, convincingly I might add, that the world is made entirely of something, for want of a better word, we would have to call magic."

"By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other."

"What I'm talking about is actually is the Mystery of Being as existential fact. That there is something that haunts this world that can take apart and reduce every single one of us to a mixture of terror and ecstasy, fear and trembling. It is not an idea, that's the primary thing to bear in mind. It's an experience."

"Our theories are the weakest part of what we say. What we're working from is the fact of an experience which we need to make sense of."

"What we call three dimensional space, and what we call the imagination actually have a contiguous and continuous transformation from one into the other, ... and THIS is big news!"

"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."

"Ultimately, I think, what the psychedelic experience may be is a higher topological manifold of temporality."

"The mind is the cutting edge of the evolving event system."