Terence McKenna - Didn't use mushrooms from '88 until he died

[Ismene]

It's important to remember that Terence Mckenna was just a guy talking shit about mushrooms. Everyones psychedelic experience is individual and specific to themselves. Just because Terence says something about psychedelics doesn't mean you have to feel exactly the same.

I always remember the "drawing" he uses of the "mushroom man" to try and propagate his theories. A lot of people don't realise that the drawing was done by his wife. When you actually look at what she was drawing it looks nothing like mushrooms.

 

[webbykevin]

It's important to remember that Terence Mckenna was just a guy talking shit about mushrooms. Everyones psychedelic experience is individual and specific to themselves. Just because Terence says something about psychedelics doesn't mean you have to feel exactly the same.

Well said !

I always remember the "drawing" he uses of the "mushroom man" to try and propagate his theories. A lot of people don't realise that the drawing was done by his wife. When you actually look at what she was drawing it looks nothing like mushrooms.

I don't recall this pic, you don't have a link to it by any chance ?

 

[Ismene]

^^

It's in a recent UK book called "Shroom" about the history of mushrooms.

 

[TangerinO]

I will definitely be buying Dennis' book.

 

[Quantum Perception]

^Me too. But I don't buy that he never touched shrooms again. Dennis asked for that talk to be pulled from the Psychedelic Salon.... perhaps showing us something.

 

[laugh]

i wouldn't doubt it, he was pretty spun in the end, you just had to listen to how slow his drawl was getting. when you've got the message its time to hang up the phone, that motherfucker got the message. the chemicals can only show you the way the rest is up to you & me and the rest of the scum on this earth

if he really did blow himself out & he was still pushing psych experimentation on everyone else id imagine that would come with some nasty karma.

anyway its sad he's gone

shulgin & mckenna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJvVfTtCRxs

 

[webbykevin]

i wouldn't doubt it, he was pretty spun in the end, you just had to listen to how slow his drawl was getting. when you've got the message its time to hang up the phone, that motherfucker got the message. the chemicals can only show you the way the rest is up to you & me and the rest of the scum on this earth

if he really did blow himself out & he was still pushing psych experimentation on everyone else id imagine that would come with some nasty karma.

anyway its sad he's gone

shulgin & mckenna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJvVfTtCRxs

His drawl was getting slow because the poor fucker had brain cancer, for fuck sake.

 

[gonelight]

I can understand it - it's been a few years since I've experimented with mushrooms for similar reasons. Too many times having them turn on you, too many times asking yourself "why have I done this to myself?" When it became too chaotic to really get anything out of the experience on a semi-regular basis is when I stepped away. These days I'll stick to LSD - it's not always a walk in the park but I find that it's kinder and gentler and therefore it's easier to focus on what it's teaching you (and what you're teaching yourself)

 

[ParappaTheRapper]

Very interesting. Agreed that double the dose is wook advice.

 

[Ismene]

i wouldn't doubt it, he was pretty spun in the end, you just had to listen to how slow his drawl was getting

As webby points out, that was the brain tumour not the mushrooms.

when you've got the message its time to hang up the phone

How do you know you've got the right message? The guy who thought up that line was called Alan Watts - he died a pitiful alcoholic. Clearly whatever "message" he thought he'd got wasn't the right one.

I think a more accurate statement would be "If you think you've got the message then you're wrong".

 

[Ismene]

I can understand it - it's been a few years since I've experimented with mushrooms for similar reasons. Too many times having them turn on you, too many times asking yourself "why have I done this to myself?"

But you don't blame the mushrooms for that do you? Isn't it more likely you've had a bad trip and then every time you took them after that you were half-thinking "My god, I had a terrible time last time, I bet I do this time as well" and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy?

LSD kinder and gentler than mushrooms? Even the annoying, grating 12 hour comedown where you can't get to sleep? No thanks - I mushrooms are quite a bit gentler than LSD.

 

[webbykevin]

But you don't blame the mushrooms for that do you? Isn't it more likely you've had a bad trip and then every time you took them after that you were half-thinking "My god, I had a terrible time last time, I bet I do this time as well" and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I think I am guilty of that, but how do you get out of that loop ?

I was gung ho about mushrooms for ages until I had one of those truly terrifying experiences, since then I have chickened out of doing them at least a dozen times where I find some excuse or reason why it's not the right day to do them.

I agree with you about LSD being a long haul, if it only lasted 5 or 6 hours I would be a lot more willing to do it more frequently, but the 12 hour commitment the last 6 of which I just spend knowing the peaks are over and just wanting it to turn it off is the main thing that stops me, that and the fact that I feel unbalanced and sketchy for a coupe of days afterwards.

I sometimes wonder if I hadn't have heard Terrence going on about them being alien and all that jazz then perhaps I would never have made that kind of connection myself about them and would never have thought to explain the experience as an interaction with an "other".

I never thought that about acid or any other psychedelic until i heard Mckenna's talks, and now to find out that he scared himself silly and stopped taking them but and didn't share that with people in the interests of thoroughness and harm reduction but chose to just keep on peddling the same old story because it paid the bills makes me pretty dissapointed, not wanting to diss on him too much because he was a great wordsmith and engaging entertainer, but I somehow feel a bit foolish that I put so much faith in what he was saying when I was younger,Now re-listening to him I find him contradicting himself in many ways, I guess I was a little naive any fell too easily under his spell there for a while.

I'm not hung up about shrooms but it is a shame that I have still this mental block with them at the moment because as you pointed out they are in many ways far superior to acid.

 

[ParappaTheRapper]

woot woot mushrooms

 

[-=SS=-]

How do you know you've got the right message? The guy who thought up that line was called Alan Watts - he died a pitiful alcoholic. Clearly whatever "message" he thought he'd got wasn't the right one.

There's an important lesson to learn from all this; these guys are just selling words, a story, and not the Truth. Very simple benchmark that a wise man once said, "Know them by their fruits". Someone who's preaching philosophy and dies an alcoholic obviously hasn't got "it". McKenna, Watts, Leary, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, and many more.. they were all just selling you their particular story.

 

[amanitadine]

Nice to hear the objectivity in this thread! ismene, yr always good for such, but there is some good stuff in here (like the post above this one) that is refreshingly absent from the muddle headed messianistic BS. . .

For what it is worth, I find mushrooms more ominous than LSD. Still love em, but I can drop LSD without thinking twice, but the fungus requires a little more thought. The great thing about em (for me) however is that the heavy questions generally resolve themselves at the end of the trip, leaving me in a place where I feel I have done some laundry. Acid isnt quite as tidy, generally. . . .equally as much of a hoot however! I suppose the ominousness is due to mushrooms getting me to give a simpler look inside and answer some questions, whereas acid just let's the floodgates open and I can get distracted enough by the chaos to avoid doing the work. YMMV.

 

[Ismene]

I think I am guilty of that, but how do you get out of that loop ?

I've always found the key is to just trust the mushroom and go with it. If something starts happening that you arn't happy with, get up go and do something else, change your environment and say to yourself "This isn't what I'm interested in".

I saw Terence alien type experiences the first couple of times I tripped because I'd read a lot of Terence - but it faded away after that. I never took him all that seriously tho.

I've been taking acid a bit over the last year because the place I was getting spores were selling duff syringes - but I found a new place selling syringes that work so late 2012-2013 is going to be a mushroom year. Tired of the endless duration of acid.

 

[Ismene]

McKenna, Watts.

I'm with you on Mckenna and Watts SS, although it would be nice to hear Terence's side of the story before we condemn him totally.

Dunno about Hicks tho - he never said stop taking drugs or that he knew the way. He just gave you his personal experience as honestly as he could so you wouldn't feel so alone.

Acid isnt quite as tidy, generally. . . .equally as much of a hoot however! I suppose the ominousness is due to mushrooms getting me to give a simpler look inside and answer some questions, whereas acid just let's the floodgates open and I can get distracted enough by the chaos to avoid doing the work. YMMV.

Don't you find mushrooms a lot more fun physically tho? LSD doesn't feel that great physically.

I've always like Neal Cassidy's take on psilocybin:

Well, I'll give you one expert's opinion. This combines the good sides of every other drug with none of the bad. This is the ultimate luxury, the flawless wisdom-pleasure hit. More mellow and cozy than heroin, but you don't nod out. I feel more alive and wired and energetic than with speed, but not jangly. Its got the blast of cocaine, but it lasted ten times longer."

"It's spacey like the best hashish," continued Cassady, "but also light and bouncy."

"It's philosophical," added Cassady. "I could write a book about the cosmic thoughts I had. This is the Rolls Royce of dope. The ultimate high."

 

[Quantum Perception]

I don't know why people are giving Terrence such a hard time. he never claimed to be a profit or guru. He just wanted to teach self-empowerment and bring people together interested in similar topics. He never pushed psychedelic use on people directly, he just romanized it.

Plus he was a great value to speculative metaphysics- the timewave and the thought of time as something like space where the singularity is a black hole-like great attractor pulling history toward itself. This albeit meaningless in a empirical sense is still IMO great speculative metaphysics. Plus he has given us wonderful novel metaphors for the psychedelic experience/consciousness and keen observation and commentary on culture and history. All in all I think he deserves the title of great man. Not flawless but deserving of admiration nonetheless.

I also don't buy the fact he never touched shrooms again. Perhaps he never took huge heroic doses, but I find it hard to believe that he never tripped on them again.

 

[Quantum Perception]

There's an important lesson to learn from all this; these guys are just selling words, a story, and not the Truth. Very simple benchmark that a wise man once said, "Know them by their fruits". Someone who's preaching philosophy and dies an alcoholic obviously hasn't got "it". McKenna, Watts, Leary, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, and many more.. they were all just selling you their particular story.

And philosophy is the game of arguing "stories". No one story is the truth, but they all can work. Think of Robert Anton Wilson.
Let me ask you, who speaks the truth then?
For I feel everyone you mentioned pitched the truth as they saw it; which is the only way we can deliver it.

 

[The Little Prince]

Well, I'll give you one expert's opinion. This combines the good sides of every other drug with none of the bad. This is the ultimate luxury, the flawless wisdom-pleasure hit. More mellow and cozy than heroin, but you don't nod out. I feel more alive and wired and energetic than with speed, but not jangly. Its got the blast of cocaine, but it lasted ten times longer."

"It's spacey like the best hashish," continued Cassady, "but also light and bouncy."

"It's philosophical," added Cassady. "I could write a book about the cosmic thoughts I had. This is the Rolls Royce of dope. The ultimate high."[/B]

He must have tried them in the best possible set and setting. Mushrooms can go very wrong if used wrong! But I still love them, I'm looking forward to taking my highest dose yet hopefully tomorrow, and I agree with you on the body high –– it's lovely.