TrueLife - Terence McKenna Explored — Part 2: Psychedelics and the Evolution of Thought

Starting point is 00:00:01 Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Heirous through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:49 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ha ha ha ha! If it isn't the most intelligent people in the world, there you are. What are you trying to hide over there? What are you doing? What are you doing?

Starting point is 00:01:31 Let me tell you something. You are amazing. You are attractive and you are funny and you are just one of those people that everybody wants to be around. You make everyone feel better. I love you for it. I hope that right now you are about to embark on the greatest day of the greatest journey of your life. It's happening right now, right in front of you. All you have to do is just boom, be present.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Bow! Here you are. You're right here. Quit thinking about all that other stuff. Just live right now. Listen to this. You and I got this thing going. You and me, baby.

Starting point is 00:02:14 You and me. We're standing in the foothills on the mountain of dreams, telling ourselves it's not as hard as it seems. Are you ready to start this day off? Are you ready to start off this evening? Maybe you're ready to end this day. Well, whatever it is, I'm happy to be with you. I'm happy you're here.

Starting point is 00:02:37 Thank you for taking just a few moments to hang out with me. I missed you guys. I missed you. I'm sure you missed me too, right? Come on, it's all right. Well, we are going to continue today with our spotlight on philosophers. This week is one of my favorites. Terrence McKenna.

Starting point is 00:03:03 You know him, I know them, we love them. Let us start off with a little bit of, some of Terrence's thoughts here. We'll go through a couple quotes, then we'll jump into an article, and I'm sure I'll stop from time to time, just to tell you my thoughts on it. You ready?

Starting point is 00:03:24 Let's do it. In James Joyce's Ulysses, Stefan Dedalus tells us History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awaken Do you guys feel that way? Do you feel like history is the nightmare from which you are trying to awaken?

Starting point is 00:03:50 Some pretty scandalous things happen in history, haven't they? Science has nothing to say about how one can decide to close one's hand into a fist and yet it happens. This is utterly outside the realm of scientific explanation because what we see in that phenomenon is mind as a first cause. It is an example of telekinesis.

Starting point is 00:04:18 Matter is caused by mind to move. Technology is the real skin of our species. Humanity, correctly seen in the context of the last 500 years, is an extruder of technological material. We take in matter that has a low degree of organization. We put it through mental filters and we extrude jewelry, gospels, space shuttles. This is what we do. We are like coral animals embedded in a technological reef of extruded psychic objects.

Starting point is 00:04:57 All our tool making implies our belief in an ultimate tool. That tool could it be the flying saucer or the soul, exteriorized in three-dimensional space, the body can become an internalized holographic object embedded in a solid state, hyperdimensional matrix that is eternal, so that we each wander through a true elisium. The English poet mystic William Blake said

Starting point is 00:05:32 that as one starts into the spiral, there is the possibility of falling from the golden track into eternal death. Light is composed of photons, which have no antiparticle. This means that there is no dualism in the world of light. The only experience of time that one can have is of subjective time that is created by one's own mental processes. But in relationship to the Newtonian universe, there is no time.

Starting point is 00:06:11 whatsoever. The one mind contains all experiences of the other. We should try to assimilate and integrate the psychedelic experience since it is a plane of experience that is directly accessible to each of us. The role that we play in relationship to it determines how we will present ourselves in that final intimated transformation. In other words, In this notion, there is a kind of theological basis. There is a belief that there is a hyper-object called the overmind or God that casts a shadow into time. I am here using the word logos in the sense in which philo-Judais uses it. That of the divine reason that embraces the archetypal complex of platonic ideas that serve as the models of creation.

Starting point is 00:07:18 Whoa. Language is an ecstatic activity of signification, intoxicated by the mushrooms, the fluency, the ease, the aptness of expression. One becomes capable of, are such that one is astounded by the words that issue forth from the contact of the intention of articulation with the matter of experience. the spontaneity, the mushrooms liberate, is not only perceptual but linguistic for the shaman. It is as if existence were uttering itself through him. Isn't it amazing? The potential for beauty we have in the world of linguistics.

Starting point is 00:08:14 Have you ever spoken to someone? and were able to, be it through inspiration or desperation, you were able to string together a set of syntactical poetry, a string of syntactical excellence that caused the other person to blush. Have you been able to truly connect with someone using your word, to bring about goosebumps on their flesh. I would argue that that is communication. I would argue that only when the spoken word is felt

Starting point is 00:09:00 are you truly communicating with the other person. And we have gotten away from that. We have been stuck in this world of linear print and linear thinking. I think it was Marshall McLuhan who spoke about. the printing press giving us the idea of interchangeable parts, which led to the idea of human capital and people being interchangeable in factories. The degradation of our language has caused the degradation of our lifestyle. One thing I have found reading Terrence McKenna is this idea he has about the archaic revival.

Starting point is 00:09:51 and it's a beautiful idea. It's a return to the classics, a return to communicating effectively and efficiently, a beautiful expression of beautiful ideas. One such beautiful idea that I was able to think about after reading some McKenna and listening to some music and, of course, using some psychedelics,

Starting point is 00:10:26 is the redefining of our language. You know what I mean by that? If you just take a few moments to think about the words we use on everyday talking points, if you just take some time to think about the words you use in a daily conversation, I bet some of those words you use are some of the words you've always used. used? Some of the words your parents used or your grandparents used. Might it be possible to take a good look and think about how those words have been redefined? Are the words you're using today that were used by your grandparents and your parents? Do those words mean the same things?

Starting point is 00:11:21 Or have the definitions of those words changed? Have the definitions of those words been changed? Have the definitions of those words been challenged or cheapened, I would say yes. I would say yes. If you look at the handwriting of anyone from the 1800s, if you listen to the vocabulary that's in those letters, I think you will be able to see actually close your eyes and envision a better education. It seems to me that The process of specialization has caused not only a more focused and narrow view on the world, but a more focused and narrow view in our ability to see the future and move forward. Yeah, well, you know, I know a lot of people invest in their time. As with any great crisis,

Starting point is 00:12:31 comes great opportunity. There are a lot of people who are unsure of where we're moving from here. And for you listening to this, my friend, that is a phenomenal opportunity for you to create the future. The best way to predict the future is to create it. Now, let me try to tie all this together. The idea of time, what if we redefine the word time? Time is, in fact, a man's invention, is it not?

Starting point is 00:13:06 Everyone has heard the term the end of times. It's in all the biblical references. It's in a lot of spiritual nomenclature. However, what is the end times? What is the end of time? Is the end of time a comet that comes to smash into the earth? Is the end of time a cataclysm? Is it a super volcano that explodes sending ash into the air causing a nuclear winter?

Starting point is 00:13:40 Is it a pandemic? Are we in fact in the end of time? I would like to propose something different. Let us say that the end of time is not the end of the world. However, the end of time is the end of us defining time as we know. know it. Perhaps the end of time is the end of us quantifying our lives. Perhaps the end of time is the end of us looking at clocks to tell us what to do. Perhaps the end of the time is us no longer allowing the calendar to tell us what to do. Perhaps the end of time is instead of seeing two hands on a

Starting point is 00:14:39 the end of time could be a new way to measure time. It could be looking at the constellations to tell us what time it is. There's a lot of evidence to say that our understanding of time is not only faulty, but corrosive. Our limited understanding, our limited ability to understand time is a problem. Let me give you an example. if you look at climate change, there is no shortage of records saying that the summer is getting hotter.

Starting point is 00:15:22 In fact, the summer is being prolonged if you listen to a lot of the literature. A lot of the experts will tell you, wow, summertime. It used to be June, July, August, a little bit of September. However, now we're seeing warm temperatures not only into September, but October and November. The hottest octobers, the hottest November's, even the warmest December's on record in the northern hemisphere.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Is that not alarming? Indeed it is. Unless, of course, we factor in the migration of the magnetic north pole. Unless, of course, we factor in the potential for pole shifts. What if

Starting point is 00:16:17 as the magnetic North Pole migrates? What if we have not measured time accurately? What if our methodology is off? And every year we lose three or four, five or six or ten days. Would that not cause the July of last year to be ten days later than the July of this year? Would that not cause the July of 10 years ago to be 100 days prior to the July of this year. Would that not account for moving the summer months forward in time? Might that explain the potential for record heat in later months? What if the same is true in the South Pole?

Starting point is 00:17:14 Might a better measurement of time be to look at the sky? Might a better measurement of time be to look at the constellations? in order to see where we are not only on a calendar, not only in print, but to see where we are in the universe. On the factor of time, it's important to understand as our planet spins around, so do we make revolutions around the sun,

Starting point is 00:17:52 but so does our sun make revolutions around the black hole in the center of our galaxy. And our galaxy spins around the universe. If summer and winter are caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis, is it not fair to say that our galaxy could be tilted? What about our solar system? Is our solar system not tilted as we go through the galactic year? Would that not cause seasons in the galactic year?

Starting point is 00:18:34 Why does no one talk about that? It seems to me that the crisis that we are going through constantly are exploited. Numbers don't lie, but you can make them say whatever it is you want them to say. You see what you can get by listening to Terrence McGenna? That's what I got from the guy. Those are my insights just from reading and listening and having a few moments to do your own critical thinking. Thank you, Terence, and thank you guys for listening. Let's jump into one of his articles here.

Starting point is 00:19:19 This particular article is labeled Remarks to Arupa, 1984. And this talk was given at Eselon Institute in Big Sur, California, in the fall of 1984, at a gathering of the association for the responsible use of psychedelics, an informal group of psychologists, chemists, and therapists who regularly met at Esselon from 1983 to 1986 under the sponsorship of the late and much beloved Richard Price. I was struck by something that Arthur Young said. Someone brought him a machine and asked him to improve the machine. Arthur asked what the machine was supposed to do. The person who brought the machine said he didn't know what it was supposed to do.

Starting point is 00:20:14 Arthur asked how then he could be expected to improve it. I feel that we are in that situation with psychedelics. I would not leave my book line study to participate in a conference on a breakthrough in the orthomolecular treatment of neurosis. So I don't choose to view any of it. of this at its core as having to do with that. I am much more radical and millinarian and perhaps teched than that point of view. What I think is going on with psychedelics, especially the triptamine family, and I'll return to that, is some kind of intimation of an objective reality.

Starting point is 00:21:03 When I am asked, what is your fantasy or what is your. vision. I answer that I would like to bring back a chunk of the other dimension. Sometimes I see it not as a bringing back of a chunk, but as a punching of a hole so that it pours through. Marilyn Ferguson and I were talking earlier and she said, psychedelics are windows. I said, my hope is that they are doors and we could open them and walk through and move from room to room in some kind of hyperdimensional world where the reality of these things is confirmed. Plato said, if God did not exist, man would invent him. If this psychedelic hyperdimensional world didn't exist, we would invent it through computers and human machine interface.

Starting point is 00:22:08 Fortunately, it does exist. In the worldwide tradition of the use of psychedelic substances, I appreciate the efforts of people like Copra to give an account of consciousness in terms of quantum physics. But my own conviction is that the first premise should be that we actually know absolutely nothing about the nature of reality. this is why we are unable to give an adequate definition of mind or being or self i'm going to pause for a moment what do you think about that do you think that is true do you think the first premise should be that we actually know absolutely nothing about the nature of reality i think it's true enough i think it's true enough If you look back at history, not that long ago, we had different ideas of how the celestial mechanics worked.

Starting point is 00:23:17 People agreed that the earth was created by a divine being 2,000 years ago on October 24th at 9 in the morning. And if you didn't believe that, then you were crazy. people were persecuted for thinking that the earth was not the center of the universe people were persecuted for not believing in their being crystal spheres around planets if history is any sort of map if history has taught us anything it's that we always get things wrong and if we always get things wrong, is it not fair to say that we're probably wrong about a lot of things today?

Starting point is 00:24:12 I would think so. Back to the article. We are probably as far from any godlike notion of objective truth as any society in the past. I find the notion that we are descended from ant people who came out of the urine of the sky god

Starting point is 00:24:31 when he got out of his canoe at the seventh waterfall to relieve himself more palpable than that we are derivatives of the Big Bang, a moment when the whole universe sprang from nothing and for no reason at all. It is a matter of relativism of mythologies. We are actually at square one in trying to figure out the nature of being in the world. That is why I wish there were more excitement or conviction or some way that we could break down the barriers between ourselves so that we could cease to be the blind men with the elephant and have some kind of consensus about what this dimension is and what it portends.

Starting point is 00:25:17 Yesterday, Stan Groff brought up the notion of the psychoid. This word occurs in Young's thought when he hedges slightly on the nature of the dynamics of the unconscious. He suggests that it is both in the world and within, and that there is some congruence. This is the dimension that the psychedelics are adapted to explore. These intermediate states between mind and matter, migration of coincidence, synchronistic meshing of the exterior and interior flow of events are phenomena that can be repeatedly triggered with these compounds. This is very important. We need to admit that there is something

Starting point is 00:26:07 toxic about the historical process, that we cannot really fine-tune it and save ourselves. The notion was very strong in Copper's talk that science needs a new suit of clothes, and then it will be adequate for conveying the unfolding nature of reality. I wonder if that's true. One of the things that psychedelics bring to the fore that would run any physicist wild is the curious literary quality that is visible on the surface of existence. We discover ourselves to be characters in a novel, being both propelled by and victimized by various kinds of coincidental forces that shape our lives. This is what recognition of the synchronistic factor is. it is as though you're trapped it is as though you trapped the mind

Starting point is 00:27:04 in the act of making reality let me read that again first off because I messed up and second off because it's fascinating it is as though you trap the mind in the act of making reality maybe that's what the act of deja vu is have you ever felt that you're like whoa what was that I feel like I've done this

Starting point is 00:27:27 before. Did you just say that? Woo, deja vu. Maybe that is what deja vu is. It is as though you trap the mind in the act of making reality. Frank Barr and I were talking about Finnegan's wake and relating it to a fractal by saying a fractal is a curve that by virtue of its complexity attains a partial dimension more of self-expression in the universe. Finnegan's Wake is a book that, in some sense, tries to clumpel

Starting point is 00:27:58 into the world and be instead an autonomous event system. I think psychedelics show that the interfacing between an ordinary world of three-dimensional experience and these higher dimensional spaces can be attained. The psychedelic allows by raising us a fraction of a dimension some kind of contemplative access to hyperspace. What my brother Dennis McKenna was saying in his talk was that that humanness was formed out of the interface between the plants and primates.

Starting point is 00:28:34 I can see that as an ongoing process only interrupted on the face of the planet in Europe about 1,500 years ago. These various substances act as a meditating force in human history. You have only to think of the impact of sugar, tobacco, coffee, alcohol, opium, or psychedelics. I was surprised at the discussion suggesting that psychedelics can make you a good citizen. My assumption about psychedelics has always been that the reason they are not legal is not because it troubles anyone that you have visions, but that there is something about them that casts doubts on the validity of reality. They are inevitably deconditioning agents simply by demonstrating the existence of a nearby reality running on a different, dynamic. I think they are inherently catalysts of intellectual dissent. This makes it very hard for societies, even a democratic society, to come to terms with them. The thing I am brought about

Starting point is 00:29:43 here to say is that these botanical tryptomines are different. There was a problem with the history of psychedelics. LSD emerged at a certain point and became a social problem. A huge amount of research was poured into that. The other hallucinogens, psilocybin, DMT, etc. were considered to be similar compounds that only required more physical material to elicit their effects. They were lumped together in the standard text. Actually, the tritomines have a quality very different from LSD, almost to the point

Starting point is 00:30:18 where the word psychedelic needs to be split in two to accommodate the ontological difference between tryptomines and these other substances. From here we move on to an interview between Dr. Albert Hoffman and Terence McKenna. Albert Hoffman, do you count psilocybin with the tryptomines? Terence McKinna. Absolutely. Albert Hoffman.

Starting point is 00:30:45 Then you see big differences between LSD and psilocybin. Terence McKinna. Surely, it seems LSD is only reluctantly a visionary hallucinogen. In terms of activity in the visual cortex, psilocybin is a fantastically prolific generator of visual hallucinations. Visual hallucinations are, I think, much more accessible to most people on psilocybin. However, the truly distinguishing quality between them, and you discussed this briefly in Santa Barbara, is that the tryptomines have a quality of animation. there seems to be a Logos like other, an alien presence, not easily referenced to the components of the psyche, and it is animate, strange, and imbued with an alienness and a personality that is not present in LSD.

Starting point is 00:31:46 Do you think that is true? Albert Hoffman. Yes, but I believe there is a difference between psilocybin and the shryptomines. psilocybin works orally the other triptomines must be smoked terence mcina iawaska is an orally active triptamine on a good strong hit of iawaska at about the hour and 20 minute mark you will very slowly come into a place indistinguishable from having smoked dm t the same thing happens on psilocybin at the 30 milligram level at about the hour and 20 minute point It is shown that psilocybin does not degrade into DMT, but DMT is present in ayahuasca as a pure compound.

Starting point is 00:32:33 It is strange. Triptomines are the most common hallucinogens in organic nature, but they are the least explored by science. I believe this is a reluctance to face this alien and peculiar dimension. Sasha Shulgin describes DMT as dark. That is his gloss on it. demonic is a word frequently used. I am not entirely certain what that means. Young always talks about demons,

Starting point is 00:33:01 and he associates demons with the earth. I recall he speaks of the Mexican demons of the earth. It is true that people are very reticent with the mushroom, approaching very carefully. The tryptomines are the compounds least subject to abuse because even enthusiasts move very gingerly. This is because the experience is so weird. It involves ingression into the extrahuman dimension that is autonomous from the ego.

Starting point is 00:33:31 A dimension whose measure cannot be taken. It is not about working out our personal introspective processes. All psychedelics appear to be the same psychedelic at low doses, doses just over threshold. But as larger doses that are still pharmacologically safe are taken, differences do appear. Exotic synesthesias occur, including the generation of three-dimensional languages. A situation where, using voice, one can create three-dimensional color modalities that have linguistic content. This visible language can be displayed to a partner who is in the same state. It is as though language has a potential that is only rarely expressed. Robert Graves

Starting point is 00:34:20 has written about an er-sprach, a primal language of poetry that had its power in the beholding of it. And Hans Jonas has talked about the notion of a more perfect logos, a logos, not of the ears, but of the eyes. I believe that psychedelic research is not a peripheral historical backwater. Psychedelics are not a breakthrough primarily directed at the neurotic or the mentally ill. They are literally the new world. land has been sighted in hyperspace we now have four five hundred years of exploration ahead of us in the psychedelic human machine interface there can be castles in the imagination we can't decide that this was what human history was

Starting point is 00:35:07 for this marriage of imagination and ability so that a civilization can be created that is truly civilized through being rooted in the psychedelic experience there is concern, perhaps even anxiety, that we as a group, we as a people who share this knowledge, need to create a political climate where more research can be done and where these matters can be more freely talked about. In principle, I agree with all of that, but I am not interested in putting much energy into it. In the past, there has been a lot of clinical experimentation with LSD. one speaker referred to data from 8,000 LSD administrations. Surely what could be learned in that mode was learned,

Starting point is 00:35:55 or at least the surface was scratched. Instead of the horizontal broadening of the faith, I would be much more interested in a vertical strengthening of the faith by having the people who have taken these compounds, take more of them, take different ones, and take larger doses. The real crucible of this research is the self. We should be keeping journals and requirements. recording experiences into a data bank so that common themes can be tracked through large groups

Starting point is 00:36:21 or filed reports. In other words, strengthen the community rather than broaden it. I'm going to pause there for a moment as well. Anyone who finds themselves on a psychedelic journey or has heard Terence McKenna before or is interested in the logos or utilizing the spiritual aspects, of psychedelics, it's imperative that you have a journal. I have found that prior to using any sort of substance like this, you must first write down in your journal what it is you expect to find. You must write down in your journal what it is you are thinking at the time.

Starting point is 00:37:05 I got an idea. Think of yourself as a traveled or to a new world and taking notes prior to your trip. writing down goals, writing down what it is you were told, writing down what it is you hope to find. So that when you go to that new place, you will have some focus. You will have some ability not to be bewildered by astonishment that is thrust upon you. It will happen. It's best to find yourself in a somewhat. isolated dark area

Starting point is 00:37:48 if you have too much sensory objectiveness around your I'm not sure that's the right word if you are in an environment that is busy you will be overwhelmed

Starting point is 00:38:03 you will be astonished you will be in a world of amazement of sensory overload I think that the real work in psychedelics is mind space, the ability to think differently, the ability to use different parts of the brain to process information that would not ordinarily be processed in that particular center of the brain.

Starting point is 00:38:30 That's where the new ideas come from. That's where the new insights come from. And that's why a journal is so important. Let's get back to the interview. I believe that the psychedelic experience was the light at the beginning of history. That this is actually the thing. that we have now reached a sufficient level of analytical sophistication to discern the force that pushed the animal mind onto the human stage. It is a process that once it is set into motion will not end. It is as though these botanical hallucinogens were exohormones, message-bearing chemicals shed by Gaia to control the development of the historical process

Starting point is 00:39:12 in the catalytic trigger species that is introduced. change on the planet. It isn't merely a matter of noetic archaeology that we have now learned something about the past. This is also true of Albert Hoffman's discovery about elusis. This may ultimately have a greater impact than the discovery of LSD itself. It is a discovery of a skeleton in the closet. There are skeletons in the closet of human origins and the origin of religion. I would wager that these skeletons are all plant psychedelics. If we can come to terms with them, we can begin to understand the shape of the human future. The psychedelic experience is not easy to measure. It appears to be a world nearly as large as the previous domain of nature.

Starting point is 00:40:05 It is not simply the Youngian collective unconscious. The repository of all human species experience. Still, less is it the Freudian notion of the repository of memories of individual experience. It seems that what Freud and Young thought of as a place in the organization of the psyche is cognized in the shamanic model as a place, a nearby, adjacent dimension into which the mind can project itself, and self-scaling itself to these inter-or-dimension experience. experience them as realities. The goal of William Blake to release the human spirit into the imagination.

Starting point is 00:40:51 Isn't that so beautiful? Let me read that again. The goal of William Blake, and this should be all of our goals, to release the human spirit into the imagination, is a reasonable cultural goal, probably within reach through the judicious application of cybernetics and psychedelic substances. I see it. coming fast. And since this group is at the cutting edge by some definition, I am surprised we are

Starting point is 00:41:21 as low-key as we are. How we line up on these various issues, how we understand and interpret these experience. We'll set the tone for how the issue flowers out all over the world. One question is how can we make bridges into the future? There are about five or six very hot hallucinogen-related botanical questions hanging fire in various places in the world. Drugs or shamanic preparations, which the literature is very suggestive, and the plant families involved have hallucinogens already identified in them. Five years of work by physicians, anthropologists, ethnobotanists, and adventurers could probably double the amount of information known about botanical hallucinogen.

Starting point is 00:42:10 In the past, the stress. has been on the laboratory elaboration of structural relatives of known compounds. But even compounds like 2CB, which is related to DoM, would never have been discovered if someone had not noticed that their natural product, Maristris and had some form of psychoactivity. The whole MDMA family can be seen as an elaboration of the Maristrian molecule. We need to know if there are hallucinogens, if unknown chemical families that hold the secret to the elaboration of new compounds in the laboratory. The original approach of pharmaceutical botany was to send people to the forest and jungle to make collections, then extractions, then characterizations. And then, as the art of synthesis advanced, there was less and less of this and more and more synthesis.

Starting point is 00:43:10 from theory based on structure activity relationships. Now, a lot of that work has been done, and no new hallucinogenic family of importance has been discovered. There is important botanical survey work to be done in the world to nail down hallucinogens whose usage may be fading, restricted, or very endemic. All of these things are ways of expanding our hold on what hallucinogens are. What is their place in nature? That could be done.

Starting point is 00:43:42 It is not in the mental health care delivery context. The Italian Renaissance ran on spices. They had to get spices from somewhere, so they brought them. Spices is a very ambiguous term. If we could get psychedelics reclassified as spices, they would come under the control, not of psychotherapists and mental health care people, but of chefs and matriades.

Starting point is 00:44:08 Then we would have an entirely different approach to the administration of psychedelic substances, set setting goals. It seems we are in the Stone Age in every phase of these explorations. There is so much to be done. It is amazing. And it is an amazing privilege for all of us to be in on the ground floor. It is hard to believe that 25 years ago, after Leary waged the LSD Wars, we could still be, in on the ground floor. But that is what it seems. By default, no one else wants this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ralph Medster, may I make a couple of comments about that? Your ideas, as well as Albert Hoffman's idea, about the role of ergot-like plants at Elusis tie into the notion of the reawakening of the old gods. These are sacred plants that were

Starting point is 00:45:04 treated as sacred beings, divine beings, basically deities. If we are in fact able to identify what Soma was, we will be able to identify and recreate the original source energy behind the Indo-European civilization. Similarly, if we rediscover and are able to incorporate whatever was used at Elusis, we will have the original impetus behind Greek-European civilization that carried it for 2,000 years as the primary vehicle of religious experience. Terence McKenna. Soma is the light at the beginning and end of history. This is the notion.

Starting point is 00:45:45 It infuses history. History is a process that it created for its own purposes. We are involved in a symbiotic relationship with a biological creature that is like a god because it is so advanced. Different and in possession of such a peculiar body of information compared with ourselves. Let me pause again there for a moment.

Starting point is 00:46:08 We are involved in a symbiotic relationship with a biological creature that is like a God because it is so advanced. Is that not what planet Earth is? The Earth is so much more advanced than each individual human. The Earth has an intelligence that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

Starting point is 00:46:31 in fact i would argue that we are part of the earth the earth grows people like an apple tree grows apples you didn't come into this world you came out of it you're part of it if you want to communicate with the earth i think that when you take a psychedelic substance an organic psychedelic substance be it iawasco or psilocybin or some sort of compound that comes out of the earth i think that is a to communicate with the earth. I think you're getting a rare insight. I think you are being able to better understand cognitively where we're at and what the world wants from you.

Starting point is 00:47:20 It's not for everybody. Don't get me wrong. I don't think everybody should be taking psychedelics. It's incredibly powerful and it's scary and you can lose your damn mind for a little while. some people probably could lose their mind forever. But if you spend a lot of time in the library, if you read a lot of different books, if you have a journal,

Starting point is 00:47:48 if you know what you're doing, then that particular exploration, I think is more important than any exploration that's gone before us. Back to the interview. Ralph Metzner asking Terence McKenna a question. Another brief point about psychedelics, of the past, whatever they were, why did they disappear? There are not any Stropharyacupensis or

Starting point is 00:48:19 Amanita or any of these other hallucinogens in India now. If it is there, it is fairly remote and not widespread like alcohol or wine, which became a widespread religious social drug in all of Western culture. My theory about what happened then is the same as what happens now, that like the use of Somo or any other genuine religious intoxicant in the sense, that it produced a religious experience and direct knowledge of the divine was stamped out systematically by the priesthoods who were primarily intent upon maintaining their own power structure. If people could have a direct experience of God by taking mushrooms or any other plant,

Starting point is 00:49:07 they would not be interested in priestly power structures. They couldn't care less. Why should they talk to a priest if they could talk directly to God? Terrence McKinnett. This is the deconditioning factor. There you have it, my friends. There you have it. Another interesting interview by one of the greatest speakers I've ever listened to.

Starting point is 00:49:37 very deep, very profound, very interesting. I'd like to leave you with a thought on language. It always seems to me that when I listen to McKenna, or when I read some of his interviews, the foundation of his argumentation is that we can change the world by changing our language. That language is, in fact, an organism, the fractal nature of organisms.

Starting point is 00:50:07 An organism within organisms, within organisms. So work on your speech, work on your language, work on becoming the best you can be, paint pictures in the minds of other people, produce beauty and love, and use your words to create an environment that is worth living in. I love you guys.

Starting point is 00:50:36 We're back tomorrow. Aloha.

TrueLife - Terence McKenna Explored — Part 2: Psychedelics and the Evolution of Thought

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