Terence McKenna
I2Q June 2015 editorial
www.ink2quill.com

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16th, 1946 to April 3^rd, 2000) was an American esoteric philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, lecturer and writer. He spoke on wide variety of topics that included psychedelic drugs, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, technology and culture. This really is a tribute to a great man and his career of discovery and truth. I highly recommend watching his videos online and reading what he has written. He is a truly interesting person.

He is the contributor /author of several books and articles including:

• Entheogens and the Future of Region (1997)
• The Politics of Consciousness, foreword (1995)
• True Hallucinations (1994)
• Food of the Gods (1992)
• Trialogues at the Edge of the World (1992)
• Archaic Revival (1991)
• Psilocybin: Magic Nushroom Grower´s Guide (1976)
• The Invisible Landscape (1975)

Here is a person whose career was outside the censured, stuffy confines of academia. He spoke of topics that were not taken seriously by the media, even vilified. The idea of using hallucinogenic drugs to explore consciousness and reality is heresy in this day and age, as is the toxic effects of culture on the individual. His lectures are so interesting because his perspective is outside the media and academic bubble that so many of us are stuck in.
Some of his classic quotes are:

• “Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed.”

• “The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns.  If artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.”

• “The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.”

• Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation.”

• “Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”

• “If you keep yourself as the final arbiter you will be less susceptible to infection by cultural illusion”

• “The problem is not to find the answer, it’s to face the answer”

• “The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.  It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down – sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray.   At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.  But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.”

• “Culture is not your friend, it’s an impediment to understanding what’s going on. That’s why the words cult and culture have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation, and automatic, unquestioned and unthinking behaviour.”

These are just a few quotes from many interesting talks given by Terence McKenna. You really need to listen to his talks in their entirety to get them in the right context though.

I highly recommend watching Terence McKenna´s talks online. They are so interesting and entertaining. I have to say also that the internet revolution has re-awakened our appreciation of the oral tradition of story-telling and communication like in the native American, pre-colonial traditions. I highly recommend watching some of his videos.

(Commentary by www.ink2quill.com )
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