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Terence Mckenna and his ideas today

Well said swilow.

I think that's the beauty of entheogens - you have your own personal relationship with the entheogen. No-one has to tell you "this is what you should feel, this is how you should worship".
 
fair enough. but if you look at something basic like health, both mental and physical, guys like terence mckenna and timothy leary deteriorated horribly, while their "traditional" counterparts "worshipping" and ritualizing in the forest are most likely much more healthy, and not ridiculed.
 
I think health depends more on diet, activity and genes rather than your psychedelic intake tho.

Interestingly lots of native people in the jungle smoke enormous quantities of tobacco but rarely get cancer.
 
yeh, I guess there is nothing proven by it, but i have thought that maybe this "plant mind" mckenna loved so much ended up basically making his head explode because he pissed it off with his psychobabble. i know this sounds crazy but i tend to believe this on or off for his case. i mean its ... meh, an interesting notion in any case
 
ControlDenied said:
fair enough. but if you look at something basic like health, both mental and physical, guys like terence mckenna and timothy leary deteriorated horribly, while their "traditional" counterparts "worshipping" and ritualizing in the forest are most likely much more healthy, and not ridiculed.
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Terence McKenna died of a brain tumour that was unreltated to drug use, though it feels easy enough to reduce it back to that (or yeah, the gaian plant mind- wouldn't it be odd if they discovered that the tumour had been actually a nice young psilocybe cubensis? :D); Timothy Leary died when he was 76, which is not really all that young. Sure, Leary was cuckoo by the end (well before perhaps?), but all old people over the age of thirty are so.....

Albert Hoffman, a ripe 102. Shulgin a ripe I dunno, but he's getting the old wizard look about him and he's still sharp so....But sure, people can get pushed to the firnges of OUR society if their beliefs take them far enough out there- and the edge of society in the western world is just above the shitheap. Society doesn't seek to assimilate those who think differently; however, some people, like McKenna, managed to live a interesting and fullfilling life regardless. Rules of society aren't even rules, their just stupid ideas. Praise be to anyone that sees through them and can smash them too..
 
"wouldn't it be odd if they discovered that the tumour had been actually a nice young psilocybe cubensis?"

yeh, that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking lol
 
I know its unconventional and unpopular, but I value novelty over both health and longevity, and terrence, by any standard, had both. So he gets at least one thumb up from me. :)
 
swilow said:
however, some people, like McKenna, managed to live a interesting and fullfilling life regardless. Rules of society aren't even rules, their just stupid ideas. Praise be to anyone that sees through them and can smash them too..
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Well said, swilow. I agree. And not only did McKenna challenge the traditional ideals of society, he did it through society's established institutions such as the publishing industry. Which is a pretty good accomplishment; regardless of what you think of the man's ideas.

swilow said:
Ayahuasca, as a medicine/drug, is available to all humanity- if a church wants to dispute that, fuck them. Ayahuasca isn't as fussy, not being human with human predjudice and bias and all :\ B. caapi will inhibit MAO- DMT will cause hallucinations, regardless of the context.

Incidentally, I find the idea of an organised ayahusca religion like the UDV or Santo Daime` very very distasteful.
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Exactly. The last thing we need are more "religious authorities" telling us when/how/where/what to do with our minds. We're educated people, and therefore free to use ayahuasca as we like.
 
I know its outdated but:...


I didn't say drop everything and trip out for the rest of our lives, did I? I'm relaying one of McKenna's ideas that society is basically a virtual reality, and that is one thing mushrooms teach us. After tripping hard most people don't value material goods as much. Now with that view most see capitalism as a dead end (or even a catastrophic one). If enough minds are opened hopefully we can change so we don't bomb ourselves out of existence.

and...

^^I know I was just being a dick. Sorry about that. But in my opinion true capitalism (not overindulgence in material goods) is the only system under which a human being can perform to his desired state.

What a great classic debate among human. I mean, this society is no different this any society was during the roman empire. The people are granted few liberties or options but to give up their rights as citizens of this race in exchange for nuclear bombs to "protect" us and piss poor television. I know it sounds spaced out but think about how much our existence really is just programmed virtual reality and not really living at all. "Drugs are becoming more like computers and computers are becoming more like drugs"; perfectly illustrates how the drugs the government is trying to persuade us to take for our mental "problems" are utilize much to make machines out of us, and computers are swiftly (if not already) becoming the popular means of exploring alternative ideas that would normally be held by psychedelic drugs.
 
"I'm relaying one of McKenna's ideas that society is basically a virtual reality"

that idea def. came way before mckenna
 
I saw the Terence McKenna thread that popped up, and figured I'd bump this one.

Typed this out for another forum, but figured you guys would probably get more out of it anyway. It's obviously taken from Food of the Gods, and I think more than anything it's just the closing paragraph that I love so much.

Hallucinogens as the Real Missing Link
Terence Mckenna​

The notion we are exploring in this book is that a particular family of active chemical compounds, the indole hallucinogens, played a decisive role in the emergence of our essential humanness, of the human characteristic of self reflection. It is important, therefore, to know just what these compounds are and the roles that they perform in nature. The defining characteristic of these hallucinogens is structural: all have a five sided pyrrole group in association with the better known benzene ring. These molecular rings make the indoles highly reactive chemically and hence ideal molecules for metabolic activity in the high-energy world of organic life.
Hallucinogens may be psychoactive and/or physiologically active and may target many systems within the body. Some indoles are endogenous to the human body, serotonin being a good example. Many more are exogenous, found in nature and the plants we can eat. Some behave like hormones and regulate growth or rate of sexual maturation. Others influence mood and state of alertness.
The indole families of compounds that are strong visionary hallucinogens and also occur in plants are four in number:

1. The LSD type compounds. Found in several related genera of morning glories and ergot, the LSD hallucinogens are rare n nature. That they are the best known of hallucinogens is undoubtedly due to the fact that millions of doses of LSD were manufactured and sold during the 1960’s. LSD is a psychedelic, but rather large doses are necessary to elicit the hallucinogenic paradis artificiel, of vivid and utterly transmundane hallucinations, that is produced by DMT and psilocybin at quite traditional doses. Nevertheless, many researchers have stressed the importance of the nonhallucinogenic effects of LSD and other psychedelics. These other effects include a sense of mind expansion and increased speed of thought; the ability to understand and to relate to complex issues of behavior, life patterning, and complex, decision-making networks of connective linkage.
LSD continues to be manufactured and sold in larger amounts than any other hallucinogen. It has been shown to aid in psychotherapy and the treatment of chronic alcoholism: “Wherever it has been tried, all over the world, it has proved to be an interesting treatment for a very old disease. No other drug so far has been able to match its record in salvaging tormented lives from the alcoholic scrap heap, directly, as a treatment or indirectly, as a means of yielding valuable information.” Yet, as a consequence of media hysteria its potential may never be known.

2. The tryptamine hallucinogens, especially DMT, psilocin and psilocybin. Tryptamine hallucinogens are found throughout the higher plant families, for example, in legumes, and psilocin and psilocybin occur in mushrooms. DMT also occurs endogenously in the human brain. For this reason, perhaps DMT should not be thought of as a drug at all, but DMT intoxication is the most profound and visually spectacular of the visionary hallucinogens, remarkable for its brevity, intensity, and nontoxicity.

3. The Beta-carbolines. Beta-carbolines, such as harmine and harmaine, can be hallucinogenic at close to toxic levels. They are important for visionary shamanism because they can inhibit enzyme systems in the body that would otherwise depotentiate hallucinogens of the DMT type. Hence beta-carbolines can be used in conjunction with DMT to prolong and intensify visual hallucinations. This combination is the basis of the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca or yage, in use in Amazonian South America. Beta-carbolines are legal and until very recently were virtually unknown to the general public.

4. The Ibogaine family of substances. These substances occur in two related African and South American tre genera, Tabernanthe and Tabernamontana. Tabernanthe iboga is a small, yellow flowered bush which has a history of usage as a hallucinogen in tropical West Africa. Its active compounds bear a structural relationship to beta-carbolines. Ibogaine is known more as a powerful aphrodisiac than as a hallucinogen. Nevertheless, in sufficient doses it is capable of inducing a powerful visionary and emotional experience.


These few numbered paragraphs above may contain the most important and exciting information that human beings have gathered concerning the natural world since the long-forgotten birth of science. More precious than the news of the anti-neutrino, more full of hope for humanity than the detection of new quasars, is the knowledge that certain plants, certain compounds, unlock forgotten doorways onto worlds of immediate experience that confound our science, and indeed, confound us. Properly understood and applied this information can become a compass leading us back to the lost garden world of our origins.
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I think it's silly to claim that McKenna had it all spot on, but I think it's even more silly to claim that hallucinogens had no part in the evolution of the human, whether you see the "human" as his biological makeup, or the culture and history associated with him.

The evidence to suggest that entheogens played a key role in the development of religion is virtually indisputable, the only argument I've heard against it that holds any weight is that humans follow other ritualistic patterns without consuming hallucinogens.

If we are however to believe McKenna, then perhaps this ritualism comes from Psilocybin itself?

I don't know, and I think it's pretty foolish to have people arguing it either way. Those that have never tried hallucinogens and aren't open to the idea of it will no doubt resent the idea, and because they'd never try, would never see how it's a plausible argument. Similarly, to those of us who are the psychedelic advocates, I guess no other explanation will suffice.
 
His main proposals for direct experience as opposed to 'spectator ism' as he called it is where it's at. And he wasn't to preachy. He just talked about psychedelics being a great route for finding 'a reasonably applicable model of the universe'. He never said there aren't other routes. Just that DMT and psilocybin were the preferable routes for him. He spoke sense.
 
I love terence mckenna... I've had very similar thoughts but he expresses them soo perfectly. I wish I could talk to him...
 
wether he's right or he's wrong, its the fact he got the idea out there.

the princibles of the things he's trying to explain are so far in they are out to the person
without the proper set of eyes.

The idea, the seeds for focus onto the things he's spoken of are there, and the proof is going to be simply one of those of personal growth and evolution, either it happens, or it doesn't
 
Psychonautical said:
wether he's right or he's wrong, its the fact he got the idea out there.
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What idea?

If you can't express it eloquently, then its not an idea-- it's a story.

Saying "the princibles [sic] of the things he's trying to explain are so far in they are out to the person without the proper set of eyes" is an absolute cop-out. If the idea is legitimate, you should be able to express it to a larger cross-section of humanity than just the wide-eyed spunions.

McKenna was a great storyteller. I will always give him props for that.

However, he didn't elucidate truth about any matter; he just communicated his own experiences using language, (and probably embellishing them to the maximum extent possible in the process).
 
Roger&Me said:
McKenna was a great storyteller. I will always give him props for that.

However, he didn't elucidate truth about any matter; he just communicated his own experiences using language, (and probably embellishing them to the maximum extent possible in the process).
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When telling a truly inspired story, where does one draw the line between creativity and truth? When your understanding of those truths of the world around you becomes so far removed from everyday experience, it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a story told to awaken the listener (a parable), and a story told to entertain the listener (a work of fiction). To the talented storyteller, I would imagine there is none.

McKenna had a lot of crazy ideas, and a lot of clever ideas. His best where were those two overlapped.
 
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