Podcast 197 – “McNature”

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Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“It seems to me that it [Nature] is psyche in a way that has become occluded by the perverse development of language.”

“Standing outside the cultural hysteria the trend is fairly clear. It is a trend toward temporal compression and the emergence of ambiguity.”

“Nature is actually the goal at the end of history.”

“Hallucinogenic plants act as enzymes which stimulate imagination.”

“And what we’re looking toward is a moment when the artificial language structures which bind us within the notion of ourselves are dissolved in the presence of the realization that we are a part of nature. And when that happens, the childhood of our species will pass away, and we will stand tremulously on the brink of really the first moment of coherent human civilization.”

“We are an intelligent species caught in an historical process. No generation which proceeded us knew what was going on, and there is no reason to assume that we know what’s going on or that the generation which follows us will know what’s going on. And what kind of trip is it anyway to insist on knowing what’s going on?”

“It’s no big deal about how you get language to evolve. You cause language to evolve by saying new and intelligent things to each other.”

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”

“Only responsible human beings can exist in an anarchistic society.”

“Living psychedelically is trying to live in an atmosphere of continuous unfolding of understanding. So that every day you know more, and see into things with greater depth, than you did before.”

“Culture is another dimention.”

“The lack of a sense of history makes us really prey to manipulation.”

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