Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

"It seems to me that right under the surface of human neurological organization is a mode shift of some sort that would make language beholdable."

"This is in fact what shamanism is all about, what the end of history is all about, what psychedelic drugs are all about, we are edge-walking on an ontological transformation of what it means to be human."

"It’s a relationship [ingesting mushrooms] like to a crusty Zen master, or something like that. And it is really like another entity because you cannot predict the answers."

"I said [to the mushroom], ‘What are you doing on this planet?’, and it said, ‘You’re a mushroom, you live cheap.’ "

"To my mind this is what shamanic training must really be, is mnemonic training. If you want to bring the stuff back you have to train yourself to bring it back."

"One thing that these Buddhists have certainly gotten right is that attention to attention is the key to taking control of your mental life."

"Memory training is great psychedelic training."

"There’s something in the Western mind that gets very nervous when you try to talk about the bedrock of ontology."

" ‘Drugs’ and psychedelics are not two members of a family, they are antithetically opposed to each other. The pro-psychedelic position is an anti-drug position."

"Alcoholism isn’t a disease. It’s a failure of self-image."

"I can’t think of a society on Earth where people don’t take drugs

that any of us would want anything to do with."

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