Guest speaker: Terence McKenna
PROGRAM NOTES:
[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]
“It’s impossible to stop the forward march of information.”
“This is the chaos at the end of history.”
“Because our culture crisis is so much deeper [than during the Renaissance], we are casting back to 20,000 or 30,000 years back into the past.”
“I think the task of finding the extraterrestrial is a task of recognizing it when you find it.”
“When talking about evolution it is important to remember that the cardinal dictum of Darwinian mechanics is that there is no teleology. That means that evolution is not moving toward something. All notion of purpose has to be given up. It isn’t that things evolve or move toward higher forms. It’s just that things complexify, and this complexification gives rise to what we define as higher form.”
“Culture is sort of a shockwave which follows behind language. Culture is fossilized language.”
“One of the reasons I think these psychedelic compounds still are important is because they catalyze the evolution of language.”
“I see the whole world we’re living in as basically the legacy of LSD.”
“The dreams of the alchemists of the 16th Century have been entirely realized in the technical accomplishments of the 20th Century.”
“[Acid] heads are in charge of designing the cutting edge of culture.”
“But there are no professionals in the field of self-exploration. That’s everybody’s job. I mean, you all are Ph.D.s in consciousness exploration, or if you’re not you should be, because what else have you got going?”
Download
MP3
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Occupy Video Streams
Livestream.com
Links to David Graeber’s Work
Wikipedia entry about David Graeber
Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination by David Graeber
A conversation with anarchist David Graeber about anthropology on the Charlie Rose program
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
My favourite Quote:
“The issue of consciousness expansion is just like the issue of your sexual conduct. It’s nobody’s business. I’m sure that the mind must be the most private part of your body and it should be treated as such.”
Oh Terence, the world would need you so much today, but your thoughts live on. That’s your legacy and we are thankful for that.
“Culture is sort of a shockwave which follows behind language. Culture is fossilized language.” It is a matter of how we could deal through it and preserved everything we have on our inhabitants. I don’t know if people are still practice their culture for the society right now but simply adored the Muslim cultures are still there.
@Revlin J:
i enjoyed your site too and will add it to my blogroll.
hours later: i keep trashing my drafts to this reply by opening windows over it from other windows. it’s becoming sadly funny. (i must be tired.) i’ll look for contact info on your blog…
lots to say but at this point i’m hitting Submit Comment!
@Zuma, incredible home page you’ve created.
Thanks for the links and the mp3 archive. I know Lorenzo has opened up lorenzo@occupysalon.us for stories and sound bites from various occupy movements, but it would be nice to have a public forum that allows us to view each other’s found links and updates concerning the movement. I understand that the salon is probably not the place for that, but does anyone know of such a site?
This performance by Buffy Sainte-Marie seems to speak to all of what has been said so far, in greater tones and hues than I could ever hope to conjure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKKX-H3NMNI
Peace,
Revlin
Hi,
Love all the podcasts. It’s really opened my mind to a lot of stuff. I just thought you might lime to know that while listening to this and the previous podcast today I was out in the fields picking mushrooms! Got plenty as well. Take care and keep up the great work.
Revlin J speaks close to my heart here, thank you.
even more so after watching last night a documentary on the great Native American activist/poet/musician John Trudell.
i originally heard him on KMUD, Humboldt County radio. http://kmud.org/
recordings from the gaia festival. real, clean, pure, strong, nourishing, centering. so i looked him up and these are the urls i kept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trudell
http://thegaiafestival.com/john-trudell-a-bad-dog
http://www.johntrudell.com/
http://johntrudell.com/discography.html
http://johntrudellarchives.com/
http://mothersworldmarket.com/trudellpodcast/
i got the documentary DVD through netflix, btw…
i’m gathering all i can of his publicly released MP3’s and stashing them here:
http://zuma.vip.warped.com/trudell
…anybody know of more?
sample the bigger ones first is my recommendation.
this is where, for me, it all intersects.
an FBI notation on John Trudell read as follows and i paraphrase: ‘He is eloquent. That’s why he’s dangerous.’
and eloquent he is, moreso than may be first apparent by his no BS manner. clarity and cogency are things he pushes HARD as hell, and repeatedly -and practices.
i say he speaks the truth. i think he would say he simply doesn’t deny it it’s voice… it’s own mind. & it’s own ever-changing manifestation…
Lorenzo,
Is it hard finding new material each week for the Salon? Thank you for making the effort. Really. OWS material is excellent too. Glad you decided to go there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FKmk16ORkk
Here in Vancouver we have been occupying the patch of land that usually serves as the court yard of the Vancouver Art Gallery. However, this land does not belong to the gallery or even to the city of Vancouver. This land is well known in Vancouver as unceded Coast Salish territory, land on which the First Nations’ people retain all of their rights, including the right to conduct their traditional ceremonies. Last night Elders came here and they built a Sacred Fire. Only ceremonially blessed alder and tobacco were allowed to burn in this fire. As people gathered around, the Elders shared the meaning of Fire, the way to honor it, the reasons why alder was burned, and why tobacco was offered to the Fire.
In this video an Elder can be briefly be heard speaking to the people.
Later on this same night, the cops and fire department assaulted us and attacked the Fire with chemical agents. They grabbed and threw down women and men who had lock arms in a circle to guard the Sacred Fire. Then they left and our Elder woman brought us together. She said that these men who attacked the Fire had broken their own laws as well as dishonored and defiled our Sacred Fire, and that in doing this they had called a curse upon themselves, they had opened old wounds that were scars upon the land. She gave tobacco to the ashes that were still smouldering and told the spirits that we had no ill will against the police and firemen, that this curse would not be of our making. She asked them to be forgiven and to be healed.
We are still here, on ancient sacred ground, asking the world to listen to their Mother, to listen to our Earth, which loves all of us and wants to heal our ancient wounds.
not sure where to ask this, i know it’s been brought up before i just can’t remember where. but does there exist a list of terence’s books from his library? i have been doing a bit of rare book collecting and it would sure be interesting to get some new leads.
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: I haven’t seen the list posted anywhere, but I do know that Terence’s brother Dennis has a copy of it. In a recent email to Dennis from Bruce Damer I noticed that Bruce was asking Dennis about it, and maybe that will lead to it being published online before long.]
I agree with you Lorenzo that having a lot of money doesn’t necessarily place one in the 1%. My beef is with Michael Moore. He lives high on the hog for sure — private planes, huge house(s), no debt, etc. I’m sure he hasn’t had to confront what most of us have to live with in quite a long time. My question is this ~~ What has Michael Moore really done for the downtrodden in this society, except to make movies and point out how the rich are getting richer. It seems like it’s all just a ruse to get folks more pissed off and in the meantime make more money for himself. To me, he’s just another part of a badly broken system.
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: While I completely disagree with your take on Michael Moore, perhaps you have a lot of information about Moore that I’ve not seen. If I could see your evidence that he hasn’t had to confront what most of us do in a long time, that he lives high on the hog, that he has no debt, etc., well, if there was well-researched information about this that doesn’t come from FOX News I would certainly look at it. But if you look at his complete body of work, including personal appearances at charity events, etc. I have to say that he has done a lot more than I have to spread the word that the emperor has no clothes.]
Michael Moore in San Fransisco:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsTf2xpY-zI
Peace
Great stuff Lorenzo. Always love a new McKenna talk from the Slattery archive and your perspec on the occupy movement is essential. Really enjoying your coverage.
Although I must say I don’t like the “occupy” word in there. Occupation is a militaristic concept and I think this ends up corrupting somewhat the legitimate basis of the movement, setting it up to be co-opted and/or defeated.
Keith
twitter.com/k_cycloid
twitter.com/50kft_K
I agree, Lorenzo, and will add that there are many millionaires who sympathize as well as actively support OWS and the global #Occupy movement.
There are many millionaires who have done great things and made great contributions to the people of this country just as there are many low-income, wealthy-heart heroes giving every day to our communities and to this struggle.
We are not angry about the surplus of cash in some people hands. We are angry about the lack of caring and conscience in far too many people’s hearts.
P.S. Will you add links to the videos you sampled, especially the Michael Moore speech?
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: I wish I could add links, but not much of that audio came from normal video clips. I captured the audio live as it was streaming in most cases. However, I believe that the Michael Moore talk is being replayed from time to time on livestream.com/occupysf . And the Dylan Ratigan meltdown is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dylan+ratigan+meltdown&aq=1&oq=dylan+ra ]
Just a word to the wise Lorenzo ~~ Michael Moore is part of the 1%. He’s worth well over $50 Million so be wary of using him as a worthy brother of the tribe. He gets paid very well for keeping the rabble stirred up.
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: I’m afraid that you don’t yet understand the concept of the 1% and the 99%. It’s not about how much money you have, it concerns one’s attitude about the unfairness of our current worldwide economic system. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t automatically place them in the 1%. . . . but I only speak for myself. The other hundreds of millions of us may have different ideas. 🙂 ]
HOLY SHHMOLY, LORENZO!
Best podcast EVER or the best I’ve heard. Loved the Q&A, the #occupy words, testament, and speeches, and the MUSIC… I’ve heard and ridiculed TS many times before (have you watched their videos?) but this time…
Sooooooo AWESOME in the light of the present with that smooth mix in of TM’s irish revelation…Sweeeeeeeeeeet
“We’re jumping ship and searching for an entirely new vessel to carry us across the oceans of the future and in my opinion every good evolution needs some GOOD MUSIC!”
Truer words…
#truth