Idols of the Mind - Why Terence McKenna Matters

Idols of The Mind Bacon also listed what he called the Idols of The Mind. He described these as things which obstructed the path of correct scientific reasoning.

1.

Idols of the Tribe (Idola Tribus): This is humans' tendency to perceive more order and regularity in

systems than truly exists, and is due to people following their preconceived ideas about things.

2.

Idols of the Cave ( Idola Specus): This is due to individuals' personal weaknesses in reasoning due to

particular personalities, likes and dislikes.

3.

Idols of the Marketplace (Idola Fori ): ): This is due to confusions in the use of language and taking

some words in science to have a different meaning than their common usage. 4.

Idols Idols of of the the Theat Theatre: re: This This is the follow following ing of acade academic mic dogma dogma and and not not aski asking ng quest question ions s about about the

world.

Machine Elves 101, or Why Terence McKenna Matters Daniel Moler

If anyone ever wanted to get to know me (i.e., what makes Daniel tick) the first thing I would have to tell them is, "Read Terence McKenna." In online forums and real life scenarios alike, I quote McKenna like Jules Winnfield quotes Ezekiel in Pulp in Pulp Fiction . Passionate. With conviction. My armor and weapon when I'm ready to blast the meandering monotony of day-to-day living. However, most people ask, who is this guy? What exactly is the Terence McKenna circus? And, what makes him so important? A few weeks ago my friend Michelle suggested I write a "Terence for Dummies" piece. So, since "For Dummies" is under copyright, here's my bent on the McKenna legacy.

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 -- April 3, 2000) was born under the auspices of a conventional upbringing. His brother, Dennis, shared a penchant for the eccentricities of the fringe. Not unlike most psychopomp aficionados, McKenna's introduction to the realm of psychedelic phenomena came through Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception. The seed planted by this classic experiential account never left the McKenna boys in their ever-growing studies in philosophy and the sciences. After attaining his B.S. in Ecology and Conservation at U.C. Berkeley, Terence moved to Japan, eventually travelling throughout Southeast Asia until his mother died of cancer in 1971. A year later, Terence, Dennis, and friends made a long-awaited trek into the lower Putumayo of the Amazon Basin in search of a shamanic plant preparation called oo-koo-hé . The death of their mother, and the trials that came with Western society, was evident in their escape into the wilds of the rainforest. "We are at last freed of our umbilical connection to civilization," wrote Terence in his journal the first day on the river. (1) Dennis makes this sentiment clear as well, in a letter to his brother a year before their expedition: ". . . I have considered that [this journey] may well give us, as living men, willful access to the doorway that the dead pass daily." (2) Though their trip was specific to the exploration of a particular ceremonial medicine, it was indeed part of a larger quest in the spirit of imagination and exploration, to investigate the capacities of psychedelic consciousness. Settling on the outskirts of the Mission at La Chorrera, it was the events that transpired during this crusade that became the catalyst of McKenna's ideas. The Experiment It was here that Terence and his party became acquainted withStropharia cubensis fungi (now known as Psilocybe cubensis ). The psilocybin alkaloid in this particular mushroom is part of the tryptamine class, which bears a structural relationship to serotonin in the human brain. Particularly, the correlation of biochemical functions between tryptamines and serotonin is what inspired them. In their experiments, Terence and Dennis pursued through firsthand experience the "phenomenology of the tryptamine dimension." (3) The study involved Terence and Dennis as guinea pigs, testing out this hypothesis: "Hallucinogens, by effecting the neural matrix, can produce changes in consciousness in the temporal dimension." (4) The temporal phenomena experienced here is not just described as pertaining to the dimension of time, but that of the physical or material world as well. In essence, you can change reality while tripping on ‘shrooms. The bread crumbs leading the McKenna brothers to this perspective was in fact the shamanic method. The Amazonian medicine ayahuasca-brewed from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine mixed with shrub leaves containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT)-is used by indigenous ayahuascerosor curanderos (curers) as a sacrament and medicine to heal the sick. Called "The Vine of the Dead," ayahuasca is renowned for giving healers supernatural abilities such as the ability to speak with the dead, with animals, and with plants; telepathic communication; curing physical, emotional, and spiritual ailments of all kinds, including addiction; and finally divination. Terence wrote: "By entering the domain of plant intelligence, the shaman becomes, in a way, privileged to a higher dimensional perspective on experience." (5) These fantastical attributes inspired Terence and his brother to apply the Baconian practice of scientific investigation with shamanic faculty. Undergoing a lengthy binge in psilocybin mushrooms, they put this hypothesis to the test.

The Result Time stopped, became tangible. Encounters with a UFO. No sleep for eleven days without any physical strain. These are just some of the phenomenal developments manifested during the experiment at La Chorrera. To summarize their conclusions, Terence and Dennis postulated that "all phenomena are at root constellated by a waveform that is the hierarchical summation of its constituent parts, morphogenetic patterns related to those in DNA." (6) Basically, that time is an objective apparatus acting as a wave (instead of the linear line framework we get from historiography) and that all events and thought forms are the development of that wave's motion. The back and forth motion, or crest and trough, of this wave is represented by critical moments in history they call novelty: the discovery of fire, the birth of agriculture, the creation of the Mona Lisa, the invention of the steam engine, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and so on. "Time is a topological manifold over which events must flow subject to the constraints of the manifold [...] by examining time from this point of view we can see when in history great outbreaks of novelty occurred." (7) Within this waveform the brothers found a pattern of novelty, a cycle in which the time spans become shorter and shorter. When this pattern ends it becomes a singularity, a zero point. Using a computer program they wrote, the McKenna brothers traced this zero point to an approximate location on our calendar and found it correlating with the end of the Mayan Calendar on December 22, 2012. Now, keep in mind this theory was presented in 1975, long before the 2012 hype. Before the 21st Century, the 2012 phenomenon was almost exclusively in the McKenna camp. Most all of the apocalyptic doomsayers saw 2000, Y2K, or maybe even Ronald Reagan's Presidential reign as the cusp of Armageddon. But, did the McKennas really see this as the end of the world? The Revival "So historical patterns are largely cyclical, but not entirely-there is ultimately a highest level of the pattern, which does not repeat, and that's the part that is responsible for the advance into true novelty." (8) Terence McKenna spent a large part of his career after this experiment attending lectures and seminars. He had become an emerging figure of the counter-culture, psychedelic movement, filling a void that had long been empty since the quiet death of the hippie movement in the early 1970s. Through his story-telling prowess, he regularly testified his arduous transition from Platonic philosopher to psychonautic proselytizer. The common pattern found in the majority of his presentations is a deconstruction of the modern, consumerist tendencies that pervade Western society. These tendencies are represented as the "dominator" model: "hierarchical, paternalistic, materialistic, and male dominated." (9) What Terence saw as the zero point at the end of history would actually manifest as the dissemination of the dominator value system. This period would be characterized as the "passing out of one set of laws that are conditioning existence and into another radically different set of laws." (10) This end point is a chaotic and trying time. Terence recognized this shift in the world around us and did not lack a compass for which he could direct this oncoming transformation. "The last best hope for dissolving the steep walls of cultural inflexibility that appear to be channeling us toward true ruin is a renewed shamanism," he wrote. (11) "In the view of our present cultural impasse, I conclude that the next evolutionary step must involve not only a repudiation of dominator culture but an Archaic Revival." (12) The Archaic Revival is McKenna's notion of our saving grace. It is a social recovery of the value systems that have been lost since the late Neolithic Age and can be surmised by these three aspects:

· The tribalization of society, reminiscent of the Goddess-worshipping days before agriculture. · A sense of planetary connectedness as a primary component of all cultural habits and policy. · Instead of values being imposed from external agencies, they should be discovered in the inner realms through various forms of consciousness expansion. What this Revival looks like in the McKenna framework is a symphony of imagery described as "energy unbounded by space or time," a "quantum jump," or a "revelation of the interspecies' mind" as an experiential "confrontation with the Jungian 'collective unconscious'." (13). Whatever the result, the role of the tryptamine is vital to this paradigm shift into the Archaic Revival. Simply put, psychedelics of the entheogenic (plant spirit medicine) class are ego-suppressors. This is the cardinal remedy for the dominator problem afflicting us, because "they dissolve boundarieswhatever the boundaries are. And as a consequence of this they dissolve cultural programming." (14) The Elves "There are forces friendly to our struggle to birth ourselves as an intelligent species." (15) The elf component is the spice in the Terence McKenna flavor. It is the supernatural entities encountered during his tryptamine experiences that compose the language of McKenna's Archaic pulpit. "In the phenomenon of Stropharia cubensis, we are confronted with an intelligent and seemingly alien life-form." (16) McKenna recounts time and time again the analogous experiences with these entities, what he calls "self-transforming machine elves" which one can make contact with in the psychedelic universe. "Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien." (17) What this suggests is that the psilocybin experience opens the pathways to a sort of parallel dimension, where one can speak and interact with otherworldly beings. The intrigue of this lies in its repeatability of these alien forms and the nature of their interactions: "This spectacle of more than Oriental splendor is the characteristic, even unvarying, manner in which this experience presents itself." (18) In fact, these elfin beings are a construct of a greater picture. Terence makes it clear the "speaking entity" of the tryptamine realm is an interior manifestation of the Logos, the ultimate source of all knowledge. The machine elves act as a sort of ambassadorship for the Logos, the collective unconscious, Oversoul, or Gaian Mind. It is from this place that Terence received the knowledge of his time wave theory: "Shamans and mystics and psychedelic travelers may be getting a very noisy, low-grade signal about a future event that is somehow built into the structure of space and time." (19) Again, the shamanic model makes itself evident. In indigenous societies, the shaman receives all of his/her knowledge from the same type of beings through entheogenic plants; it is integral to the success of their curing methods. "The shaman is able to act as an intermediary between the society and the supernatural, or to put it in Jungian terms, he is an intermediary to the collective unconscious." (20) The Gist "A reinstitution of the shamanic role in modern society might prevent its total estrangement from the collective unconscious, which remains the fountainhead of all human cultures, archaic and modern." (21)

Terence McKenna evolved to a sort of psychedelic prophet. The Village Voice called him the "Copernicus of consciousness." The reason I feel he has something to offer society is because he recognizes that the current system is broken. It doesn't serve the community; rather the community serves the system. McKenna's approach was to turn the value system of modernism upside down. And although at first glance it may seem Terence was obsessed only with the naked embrace of the natural world, he was not without practicality. Indeed he felt technology was a problem-solving mechanism that would help get us out of this mess. "I think the electronic shaman-the person who pursues the exploration of these spaces-exists to return to tell the rest of us about it." (22) Are his ideas totally out there? Absolutely they are! But, that is precisely the point. The McKenna recipe is about finding a new language in which to understand our world. Because our current model of operating is so damaging to our way of life that it might actually end our life, it will take an absolute and agonizing reappraisal of our situation. However, Terence will be the first to admit that he doesn't have the complete answer to this enigma: "You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding." (23) In conclusion, Terence McKenna was a scientist turned gypsy spokesperson for the shamanic realms. His claim is that by ingesting certain plants we come into contact with an objective reality that has a message for us. That message is about returning to a way of living that is more conscious of the Earth as personality, rather than a resource to tap. It is Terence's contention that the plant spirits are trying to tell us this and that it is imperative to tune in to their frequency. "Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Shamanism has always known this, and shamanism has always, in its most authentic expressions, taught that the path required allies. These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until it is now nearly too late." (24) But taking ourselves too seriously is not part of the McKenna formula. The great attractor to Terence McKenna as counter-culture icon was his insistence on having a good time. When asked in an interview by David Brown what the ultimate goal of human evolution was, Terence's judicious response was plainly: "Oh, a good party." (25)

Footnotes 1. True Hallucinations, p.23 2. True Hallucinations, p.5 3. The Invisible Landscape, p.98 4. The Invisible Landscape, p.74 5. Food of the Gods, p.8 6. The Invisible Landscape, p.111 7. Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness, p.11 8. The Archaic Revival, p.215 9. The Archaic Revival, p.149 10. True Hallucinations, p.199

11. Food of the Gods, p.98 12. Food of the Gods, p.92 13. The Invisible Landscape, p.176 14. The Archaic Revival, p.243 15. Food of the Gods, p.13 16. True Hallucinations, p.209 17. The Archaic Revival, p.38 18. The Invisible Landscape, p.114 19. Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness, p.156 20. The Invisible Landscape, p.12 21. The Invisible Landscape, p.27 22. The Archaic Revival, p.165 23. The Archaic Revival, p.88 24. Food of the Gods, p.274 25. The Archaic Revival, p.210 Bibliography Abraham, Ralph, Terence McKenna, and Rupert Sheldrake. Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness. Park Street Press, 2001. McKenna, Dennis and Terence McKenna. The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching . San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993. McKenna, Terence. The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991. McKenna, Terence. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge . Bantam, 1993. McKenna, Terence. True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993.

Image by Felipe Venâncio, courtesy of Creative Commons license. •

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A refreshing counterpoint to Submitted by mczilla on Sat, 07/31/2010 - 14:47.

A refreshing counterpoint to Martin Ball's rather dismissive piece. I always thought Terence was on to something. His rants were certainly entertaining. •


Martin B Submitted by jackfrostjack on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 16:32.

You would think someone who can't mention enough times how experienced they are with 5meoDmt would realise that Mckenna was entertaining and fun. I can tell you Maritn B's ego transended personality wouldn't hold the attention of a bunch of ravers at 2 in the morning. •


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ebb and flow of Novelty Submitted by Five on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 11:43.

More on Timewave- Mc Kenna was great.. http://www.halexandria.org/dward421.htm Of particular importance to the end-of-the-world types is the fact that the end of the wave -- scheduled for December 21, 2012 -- shows an extraordinary “ingression of novelty into spacetime” or in other words, represents change itself accelerating to incredible levels. This is equivalent to an acceleration of current or velocity -- the essence of the radical change of pace incorporated in The Fifth Element and Connective Physics. In one summary, it was noted that this last cycle extending over 384 days contained more transformations than in all previous cycles. [Essentially all of the year 2012 and then some.] Furthermore, there was also associated with the longer cycle, a 6-day cycle when things began accelerating even faster. [Presumably, December 15-21, 2012 A.D.] In the last 135 minutes, 18 barriers comparable to the appearance of life or the invention of language, would be crossed, 13 of which would occur in the last second.... Reference: M. Kaku, “What Happened BEFORE the Big Bang?”, Astronomy, May 1996. George Johnson, “The Purr of the Qubit”, Time Magazine, February 24, 2003. Login

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great article Submitted by PaulRoberts on Sat, 07/31/2010 - 21:15.

Very nice article........informative and well-written. Thanks for writing and posting it. •


ebb and flow of novelty Submitted by ginobuckthorn on Sun, 08/01/2010 - 05:28.

This seems connected to Douglas Adams' idea of the Infinite Improbability Drive that drives The Heart of Gold in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. A nice link is that the hero, Arthur Dent, is given a lift at one point by a minor character called Rob McKenna who happens to be a rain god, but doesn't know it! •


Yes... Submitted by Leon Night on Sun, 08/01/2010 - 08:35.

I can see how the acceleration could be calculated as being mathematically exponential. However, I doubt that chaos theory would support such a precise calculus. If we're sensitive enough, and are paying attention, we can actually experience the Doppler effect, as we watch the event horizon rushing toward us. Very interesting! Also, nice review of Terrence's singularity postulate. •


Chaos Theory Submitted by Daniel Moler on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 16:25.

Thank you Leon (and others) for your thoughts. Leon, you should check out "Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness" a trialogue between Terence McKenna, biologist and chemist Rupert Sheldrake Ph.D., and mathematician Ralph Abraham Ph.D. In the discussion over McKenna's TimeWave and novelty theory, Ralph does suggest a place for McKenna's novelty in the patterns of "random" behavior in chaos models. Random in the mathematical sense, being a situation of chaos where patterns of order are actually taking place. I wouldn't be able to dig much more into his details because, honestly, it goes right over my head. However, I figured you would be interested to check out that particular text. •


Thanks Daniel Submitted by Leon Night on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 06:21.

I'll order it from Amazon. Perhaps it will alter my thinking on the subject, but it still seems unlikely to me that we will experience an acceleration of such precision and magnitude as described. •


This book... Submitted by Leon Night on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 15:34.

...is also sold under the title "Trialogues at the edge of the west" which I already own and have read. I still stand by my above comment at the present time. •


3 synchronous McKenna appearances in three days Submitted by KY Traveler on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 00:36.

This weekend I have had three separate instances of McKenna being mentioned, twice by strangers and once by a friend who I didn't know was aware of his work. I had a brilliant conversation with a bouncer at a bar last night who discovered McKenna after a chance DMT trip drove him to attempt to understand the experience. I discovered McKenna when I was 18 years old (in '98) after my initial psychedelic experiences had absolutely rebooted my brain and left me craving an understanding of the newly unveiled inner-space, and immediately understood that this man

resonated so powerfully throughout all these years. I wish he were here to see his vision unfold perfectly in these next few magical, exhilirating and beautiful years. Salud, Andy •


sweet event horizon... Submitted by Five on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 10:04.

You have entered an Alchemical Garden at the Edge of Time. There is haze upon the distant hills, Spreading Acacias bend low over reflecting pools. The air is filled with an all pervasive hum; These are the reveries of the Proustian bees. Your guide will be gardener/curatorTerence Mc Kenna http://www.levity.com/eschaton/hyperborea.html If the mathematics are correct...we are in for an incredible adventure as the wave accelerates!! Thanks, Daniel ,for a great and very comprehensive article on Mc Kenna.... •


Best Terrance McKenna Submitted by szs88 on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 16:31.

Best Terrance McKenna summary I have ever read. Now I'm much more inspired to study this! •


T was a great man, and a kind person. He lives on within us. Submitted by teknozen on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 17:40.

"Reality is not only stranger than we suppose.. it's stranger than we can suppose." --Terence McKenna

"The starships of the future that will explore the high frontier of the unknown will be syntactical. The engineers of the future will be poets." - Terence McKenna

"Hello, all right. Have you ever noticed how, um, there's this quality to reality, which comes and goes and kind of, ebbs and flows. And nobody ever mentions it, or has a name for it. Except that some people call it a bad hair day or they say, "Things are really weird recently." And I think we never notice it and we never talk about it because we're embedded in a culture that expects us to believe that all times are the same, and that your bank account doesn't fluctuate, except according to the vicissitudes of your own existence. In other words, every moment is expected to be the same, and yet this isn't what we experience. And so what I noticed was that, running through reality is the ebb and flow of novelty. And some days, and some years, and some centuries are very novel indeed. And some ain't. And they come and go on all scales, differently, interweaving, resonantly. And this is what time seems to be."-- Terence McKenna (1946-2000), "Alien Dreamtime"

"Consciousness is what we're in need of to avoid running off the cliff into armageddon. If the claim that these drugs expand consciousness, promote empathy, and allow deeper insights into our problems has any validity at all, it should be explored very carefully and very thoroughly."--Terence McKenna. •


Informative and Beautiful Submitted by mcspargeslarg on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 20:27.

It has only been the last few months that I have stumbled upon the wonders of DMT and the Pineal gland. Terrance McKenna is a great person for bringing the knowledge of that to society. And I thank you for bringing the love of McKenna to us. You have inspired me to look further into the subject. •


Great article. I had read Submitted by nautis on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 22:16.

Great article. I had read McKenna's books since I was an undergrad and finally had a chance to meet him at a conference in California in 1997. Later that night he hosted a rave in downtime Santa Cruz. If you've never heard McKenna speak, listen to one his lectures on the web. His books are great but hearing him talk is where he's at him best. His mastery of the English language and his ability to put complex concepts into words was truly amazing. •


Religion for the Hell of it. Submitted by Dust_23 on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 23:39.

I'm also a fan of McKenna. I don't take his ideas without a grain of salt as I did when I first discovered him, but I don't think he fully believed all his theories either, he just wanted to push people to think outside their mundane because there is a lot of reality outside of the mundane reality that people are afraid to look at. I'd be interested to hear your response though, to some people (Richard Metzger who m et Leary, Raw, and McKenna as a journalist and who blogs on dangerous minds, for one) who say that his constant discussion of the eschaton and 2012 was ingrained Christianity, since he was raised episcopalian which I guess is a more end-times, revelations centered form of Christianity. Metzger actually says he asked Leary what he thought of McKenna and Leary said "he's a high episcopalian". To me I don't think his idea of the eschaton was an apocalyptic one but a liberation, and I don't like the idea of equating any discussion of the supernatural with Dogma in general, but I'd like to hear anyone's ideas on these points. •


Re: Ingrained Christianity Submitted by Daniel Moler on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 09:34.

Thanks for your comments, Dust_23. I wouldn't completely deny the possibility of McKenna's Episcopalian upbringing having an influence on his ideas. The Jungian model of the psyche would suggest the 2012 phenomena maybe not being a literal event, but at least a projection of the collective unconscious. A good synopsis of this can be found in Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality . It's no doubt Terence's Episcopalian roots most likely gave the eschaton his own flavor, with some Mayan/DMT spices mixed in. And I mean that more in the tone of McKenna's words, not the content. As nautis commented, hearing McKenna speak is much more different than reading him. It's not that he is apocalyptic, or preachy, but he does have a charisma and allure that one can get from an impassioned pulpiteer. But, people respond to that. It's entertaining. I think Terence knew this, realized he had a knack for it, and utilized it to spread his own unique gospel. Not in any dogmatic way of course, but he is sending a clear message in my opinion. •


Great Introduction Submitted by nagash on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 09:47.

I found this article so interesting as an introduction to Terence's ideas that I added a link to it in his Wikipedia entry. Just missed a mention to the "stoned ape theory" found in the book Food of the Gods, it's one of his most important concepts in my opinion •


Thank you! Yeah...I wanted Submitted by Daniel Moler on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 13:28.

Thank you! Yeah...I wanted to include it in the article, but had to make an editorial decision. I didn't want to make the piece too long and couldn't find a way to introduce it without going on a tangent. Maybe that will have to be included in the next installment..... :) •


I don't know what to think... Submitted by E. Sam on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 15:02.

... of Terence McKenna. On the one hand, he had some very sensible ideas about culture and technology; on the other hand, he said some very silly things about science (especially scientific institutions and scientists), and seemed to delight in redefining words like `real' and `reality', as if changing the map would change the territory. Afraid that I had just misheard (and misjudged) some of what he said on this second point, I listened again and again, looked up on the internet several other things he had said about science, and even some transcripts of his monologues, and came to the conclusion I hadn't misheard.

As to Ralph Abraham, Chaos Theory, and Novelty: I haven't actually listened or read what Ralph said, so what I'm about the write may not be appropriate... but looking at his old blog, I would be skeptical of Ralph. I noticed, for example, he linked to Lord Monckton's thoughts about Global Warming (or at least that is my memory -- I haven't looked at his blog in a while); and he has written some articles on ``New Age Science'' that struck me as a little odd -- see for example his article ``Consciousness and the New Math''. But he is a serious mathematician... or was (I looked up some of his publications on mathscinet -- he has coauthored papers with Smale and Marsden, two heavyweight mathematicians); so I am not quite sure what to make of him. •


creatures of the current.. Submitted by Five on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 10:28.

tek"The starships of the future that will explore the high frontier of the unknown will be syntactical. The engineers of the future will be poets." - Terence McKenna What brilliant concepts!...."the engineers of the future will be poets!" •


machine elves 101,why terence mckenna matters Submitted by Ed McIlvane on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 11:52.

Thanks for writing such an intelligent synopsis of Terence McKenna's work and why we love it. I've been thinking about Martin Ball's criticism of McKenna's theory of the entities as a sort of misplaced concreteness. In a way, it's the old reductionist criticism, that is, the entities and the visions are all in your mind, it's just a projection of your subconscious mind. Just Hallucinations. But......that's not the way it feels when you experience the space yourself. It seems like some sort of Eternity, some sort of Bardo world outside, beyond this world. I don't know where that space is, I've been thinking about it for years, but I don't think it's just a projection of my subconscious mind, it sure doesn't feel like it, and it sure doesn't look like it. It feels ALIEN, it feels EXTRATERRESTIAL! That's weird to say, but that's my take on it. Thanks for your thoughtful analysis, I'm glad someone else thought Martin Ball's criticism of McKenna was off the mark. •

thanks Submitted by gushtunkinflupped on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 12:43.


nice little summation of mckenna, thanks daniel http://www.lancerules.com/terence/ ^^ For those who are unfamiliar with the territory •


Check out Psychedelic Salon Podcast! Submitted by nihonbryan on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 01:06.

Hey everyone, If you are interested in getting a reasonably steady dose of McKenna lectures, I HIGHLY recommend checking a podcast called The Psychedelic Salon, hosted by a kind, mellow dude named Lorenzo. It's one of my favorite podcasts---not only does he often feature McKenna (probably the most), but he also has talks from Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Nick Sand, Matthew Pallamary, Aldous Huxley, etc., etc.. A MUST listen for the psychedelically inclined. Here is a link: http://www.matrixmasters.net/salon/ Oh, and Lorenzo's novel, The Genesis Generation, is also quite good (though only available as an audio book, but he reads it and it's like being around a campfire with a good storyteller). I am sure you can find it through the POdca Anyway, I agree with those who said listening to him is different from reading him. Mostly, I think his sense of humor really comes through his speeches. Like someone else said in these comments, he seemed to get off on exploring new ideas, though I am not sure he himself always believed them. Definitely a great person to listen to for independent, creative thinking (sometimes I think a talk of his is the next best thing to entheogens!). -Bryan •


Thank-you Daniel! A good Submitted by micko on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 12:41.

Thank-you Daniel! A good write. Terrence was real, an inspiration, a trully gifted speaker. And above all, his incredible sense of humor brought light into a darkness . For anyone interested in McKenna http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htmA good site for video....many video lectures. Peace •


Thank-you Daniel! A good Submitted by micko on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 12:43.

Thank-you Daniel! A good write. Terrence was real, an inspiration, a trully gifted speaker. And above all, his incredible sense of humor brought light into a darkness . For anyone interested in McKenna http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htmA good site for video....many video lectures. Peace •


psycedelic drugs Submitted by pixipete on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 12:45.

Hi im new to this site so bear with me, i very much enjoyed Daniel pinchbecks books and i think there is a lot to them, but i just cant get past the fact that when i was much younger i took a lot of psycedelic drugs, mostly pscicibin mushrooms and LSD, and most of the time they just disorientated and scared me the few insights i did gain did not really help me. So why did i persist? well a mixture of peer pressure and determination, i guess, i just cant see how a huge leap of conciousness can come from what for some people seemed to be just a bit of fun or an insight into insanity in my case, my last big trip did indeed involve me seeing my soul but left me feeling mentally ill for about a month and finally stopped me, so i wonder if the use of psycedelic drugs is really an answer or just an amusment park or even a gateway to insanity.

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Hi Pete, I wouldn't say Submitted by Daniel Moler on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 15:41.

Hi Pete, I wouldn't say psychedelic drugs are the answer at all. The only "answer" lies within you, within the Self as a complete open vessel for Spirit (whatever that means for you). Psychedelics, entheogens in particular, are used by certain shamanic curers as a means to end, not an end to itself. They are tools to gain access to the Unseen Realms, or deep within the Self, just as drumming is a tool, yogic meditation, rattling, etc. I think the hype comes from the instant access the psychedelic consciousness offers, and the rapid results for certain psychological disorders such as PSTD. See the The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) at www.maps.org. I would, though, recommend never to use them recreationally or even, at first, by yourself. I would always suggest finding a legit shaman/curandero to guide you and to only enter that space if you are called to do so, and only in a healing manner. The realm of plant medicine is not to be tread lightly and it will bite you in the ass if you misuse it (i.e. - doing it just for the fun of it, peer pressure, etc.). Medicine needs to be treated with a sacred respect and never rushed. That's my two cents, anyway. •


regards pixipete Submitted by micko on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 16:50.

I am in agreement with Daniel On this one Pete. To ingest ethnogens in a party situation,you were young, with alchohol, other drugs or fucked up people, in fuck up situations. Is not the easy way to go. I remember those days...always someone wanting to play with your head. In a situation with a shaman or trusted loving friends(and I mean trusted) in warm comfortable surroundings. This is the best. In re-reading you comment, it seems you disliked being stripped bare(correct me if I am wrong). Ethnogens push the ego out of the way, this can be terrifying to those were the ego believes it is the self. It would seem like a form of madness/insanity to strip those controls away. Your ego in the words of Terrence McKenna is "cultures software" This ingestion of ethnogens is a spirit quest. Your ego might not like what it sees. Mushrooms place a strait jacket on the ego and a gag in it's mouth. The shadow can be frightening, even terrifying. Especially if experienced only on ethnogens. Especially if experience for the first time. We are a duality. Expansion is a walk into the abyss, a walk into madness at first.But slowly the real takes hold One must have a dark nite of the soul, my friend. Regardless. Peace captha-rethink schemings •


Thanks for your replys Submitted by pixipete on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 12:00.

I thank you both for your intelligent and thoughtfull replys, i did most of my e arly experimentation, back in the early 80s in Suffolk England so there werent really many wise shamen or guides to show the way i agree that the use of psycedelic drugs should not be used for fun, and that with the right guide and circumstance great insights can be gained, we were just kids that couldnt afford cannabis, but found an amazing mushroom field, the effects on a 15 year old brain were like a pebble being dropped in a pond...leading to dropping out of school and many wasted years, these days kids have a much larger variety of drugs to choose from with ketamine being very popular at the moment, the growth of drug taking in the past 20 years is staggering i remember being so glad when extacy came along as it it seemed to be what a recreational drug should be= FUN not a doorway to another world, i still have my doubts about a huge leap forward in conciousness i find the youth of today though seemingly more mature even more hedonistic than my generation and certainly more materialistic i just dont think as a species we are ready to learn the lessons that nature can teach us, i hope i am proved wrong

Great Article! Submitted by Justeye on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 00:53.

Thanks for being such a good writer Daniel ;) I had to quote you a few times on my facebook page and you inspired me to send you another lengthy message. I'll try not to do it too often, but for now... Let's Party! •


"Copernicus of bullshit" Submitted by blipmode on Sat, 08/21/2010 - 09:30.

sorry, but this guy is overrated in the extreme, Deleuze and Guattari's work from 1972 to 1980 makes Mc Kenna's inane ramblings come off like extended adolescent dope fuelled mutterings. How many intellectual lightweights appeared in America at the close of the 60s, and were then lauded by an utterly disillusioned community of truth seekers? But now look at the level of scientific illiteracy in the US, 30 years of dumbing down, no surprise then where the largest market for New Age goods and services happens to be. No, science isn't everything, but we need some form of critical discourse, we need dissent, McKenna is not unblemished, his ideas are speculative at best, they are not universal, they belong to one man, go find your own truth rather than structuring your understanding of reality around the Terrence McKenna mythos. •


Entheogens are not party drugs. Submitted by Enderdog on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 14:43.

They are sacraments. However, one can delve as deeply as they wish without ever touching one, if they so desire. Learn to dream lucidly. Being driven to Disneyland, isn't the same as being able to go there whenever you wish. Personally, the best resource I've found...although I had already learned it over twenty or so years...is saltcube.com. If I'd had that resource, I think it would have been waaaayyyyyy easier. But, then, maybe I'm just a lazy man's mystic. " A republic, if you can keep it"

--Benjamin Franklin •


McKenna--Plants--and Christ... -response for Dust_23 Submitted by StillWiLL on Fri, 08/27/2010 - 04:36.

There is much symbolism of the plant kingdom throughout the bible, and particularly in reference to the coming of Christ. -I don't know if that had any influence on McKenna, but I do know there is much people have overlooked. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"24 He looked up and said, " I see people; they look like trees walking around ." 25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. -(from Mark 8) ~In the human body the sympathetic nervous system looks like a tree when standing upright~

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