"What I’ve observed, and I think it’s fair to give credit to the psychedelic experience for this, what I’ve observed is that nature builds on previously established levels of complexity."
"This is a general law of the universe, overlooked by science, that out of complexity emerges greater complexity. We could almost say that the universe, nature, is a novelty-conserving, or complexity-conserving engine."
"If in fact the conservation and complexification of novelty is what the universe is striving for, then suddenly our own human enterprise, previously marginalized, takes on an immense new importance."
"Each stage of advancement into complexity occurs more quickly than the stage which preceded it. . . . Time is, in fact, speeding up."
"No one is in charge of this process, this is what makes history so interesting, it’s a runaway freight train on a dark and stormy night."
"Science is the exploration of the experience of nature without psychedelics. And I propose, therefore, to expand that enterprise and say that we need a science beyond science. We need a science which plays with a full deck."
"What is revealed through the psychedelic experience, I think, is a higher dimensional perspective on reality. And I use ‘higher dimensional’ in the mathematical sense."
Definition of ‘eschaton’: "Eschaton comes from the Greek word ‘echatos’, which just means the end."
"The ‘hard swallow’ built into science is this business about the Big Bang. … This is the notion that the universe, for no reason, sprang from nothing in a single instant. … Notice that this is the limit test for credulity. . . . It’s the limit case for likelihood."
"We’re not mere spectators, or a cosmic accident, or some sideshow, or the Greek chorus to the main event. The human experience IS the main event."
"Our culture takes us out of the body and sells our loyalty into political systems, into religions, into inanimate objects and machines, collections, so forth and so on. The felt experience of the body is what the psychedelics are handing back to us."
"[The psychedelic experience] is not a journey into the human unconscious, or into the ghost bards of our human civilization. It’s a journey into the presence of the Gaian mind."
"The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery."
"For as long as I can remember I have been influenced by a role model who has guided me through my navigation of this amazing life. I am a great follower of Socrates."
"Corrupting the minds of the young is a difficult job, god knows it’s ill-paid, somebody has to do it."
"I do feel this is a wonderful time for change-agents to be alive."
"I ended up growing up thinking that everybody was like me, and that is, obviously, a mistake."
"As soon as you belong to a system where you’re not known individually, and where you don’t know, individually, the other people, you are by definition depersonalizing yourself, a robot cog of the Big Machine."
"This [1946] was the peak of the industrial age, and the aim of psychology was to help people be ‘adjusted’. Remember? If you were well-adjusted that was it. And the worst thing you could say was someone was maladjusted, which means they were thinking for themselves.
"I see Ram Das two or three times a year. He comes by my house and we split a bottle of wine or a six-pack and have a joint or two."
"Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows."
"We are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably will always exist, to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions."
"Given the fact that there are these 20% of highly suggestible people, it becomes quite clear that this is a matter of enormous political importance, for example, any demagogue who is able to get hold of a large number of these 20% of suggestible people and to organize them is really in a position to overthrow any government in any country."
"If there are 20% of the people who really can be suggested into believing almost anything, then we have to take extremely careful steps into prevent the rise of demagogues who will drive them on into extreme positions then organize them into very, very dangerous armies, private armies which may overthrow the government."
"The really interesting thing about the new chemical substances, the new mind-changing drugs is this, if you looking back into history it’s clear that man has always had a hankering after mind changing chemicals, he has always desired to take holidays from himself, but this is the most extraordinary effect of all that every natural occurring narcotic stimulant, sedative, or hallucinogen, was discovered before the dawn of history, I don’t think there is one single one of these naturally occurring ones which modern science has discovered."
"Man was apparently a dope-bag addict before he was a farmer, which is a very curious comment on human nature."
"You can have an enormous revolution, for example, with LSD-25 or with the newly synthesized drug psilocybin, which is the active principal of the Mexican sacred mushroom. You can have this enormous mental revolution with no more physiological revolution than you would get from drinking two cocktails. And this is a really most extraordinary effect."
"And then again, in the case of these very strange substances like psilocybin and lysergic acid, I think there is a great deal to be said for doing what William James talked about, which was getting people to realize that their ordinary, sort of common sense view of the world is not the only view. The universe they inhabit is not the only possible universe."
NOTE FROM LORENZO: A few minutes after I posted this podcast on the Net, I checked my email and discovered that fellow saloner John H. sent me a link to the following video. After you listen to the talk by Aldous Huxley you may find it rewarding to view the following video and then do a little thinking about what is really going on in the U.S. today while you re-read "Brave New World".
[Quoting a friend] " ‘The apocalypse is already happening.’ The slow apocalypse is unraveling all over the world."–Terence McKenna
"If it’s all on automatic, if the world is either undergoing some kind of mass extinction and soul migration into the Elysium realm, then very little has to be done. If, on the other hand, it isn’t on automatic then what is the nature of the political and social world that we should construct for ourselves and our children?" –Terence McKenna
"What we have is a future-phobic society that places a great deal of stress on the preservation of a pseudo-tradition called "Family Values" by some people, but it has many names. It’s not an archaic social model, or anything rooted in long-term human organization. It’s basically the 19th century industrial model of the couple with some children fitted into an industrial economy."–Terence McKenna
"It seems to me that a whole re-thinking of the notion of freedom has to come, and that it isn’t strictly a matter of more freedom."–Terence McKenna
"I think we’re going to have to go back to Plato. Plato did not trust the poets, and the heirs of the poets in our hell bard are Madison Avenue."–Terence McKenna
"The interesting ideas have to do with touching the taboos."–Terence McKenna
"I’m basically an optimist, but not because I have faith in human institutions. But because I think there is a transcendental attractor that will eventually pull our chestnuts out of the fire."–Terence McKenna
"I do believe that history is the proof of the presence of a hyperdimensional something or other, which is acting on ordinary biology."–Terence McKenna
"The government follows. It doesn’t lead. We need leadership now, and leadership comes from people, that’s us."–Ralph Abraham
"We’re not being led by evil people. We’re being led by jackasses at this point."–Terence McKenna
"Pretending that this catastrophe [a coming global ice age] is not probable will almost certainly guarantee that it takes place real soon."-Ralph Abraham
"Let’s avoid the disease of denial, because if we don’t admit a problem then there is no solution."–Ralph Abraham
"What free trade means is the right to sell crap everywhere. The right to deal Coca Cola in Afghanistan, that’s what free trade is, the right to sell Volvos in Turkmenistan. It’s a bad idea, free trade. We don’t want to make trade easier. We want to make the manufacture of objects and excruciatingly expensive process and the moving of them from one market to another damn near impossible, because what we want is the de-materialization of culture."–Terence McKenna
"The Great Leveling, which the Left always called for has in fact taken place in part, and that’s why you have less money. When the leveling took place did you think it was going to kick back into your pocketbook? You haven’t visited Bangladesh recently."–Terence McKenna
"The Nation State has become a Fascist tool, all Nation States. What these companies stand for is unbridled gangsterism."–Terence McKenna
"What we need to do is dematerialize our interphasing with nature. If we’re going to keep the body then we have to jettison material culture. We cannot have both the body and material culture."–Terence McKenna
"Yes, I think that we’re going to a grand destiny, and that the planet will survive this, but consciousness is the flashlight to throw on the path." –Terence McKenna
"History is an agitation in biology that proceeds the Eschaton, and it only takes it 25,000 years to rise out of the sea of chaos."–Terence McKenna
"Love is what lies at the end of the historical descent into novelty. It has to be."–Terence McKenna
Erowid Center Benefit Gala (click for information) An evening of celebration to honor Erowid’s newly achieved non-profit status
The idea of a substance opening up portals to Universal wisdom has fascinated me for a long time. The power of imagination has as well. Where do ideas come from? If the Universe is indeed infinite than ANYTHING we imagine MUST exist somewhere out there. OR does the process of imagining CREATE new Universes? We are powerful indeed. I imagined that a cube of orange geletin is the wisest substance known! As well as being the writer/director of Triptosane, I am also the author of MILKY WAY MARMALADE. It is an hysterical story of how Rock&Roll, the wisest substance in the Universe and LOVE..saves the Cosmos from an anti music fascist! This award winning and highly critiqued novel is yours for FREE in PDF form to the first 20 folk who email me:(casting@triptosane.com)
What is consciousness? I recently read Edgar Mitchell’s new book WAY OF THE EXPLORER and he poses some interesting theories. He dismisses psycedelics too easily as “too dangerous”- I think he should rethink. But if all is just energy- if all is just consciousness- then our ideas, feelings and worldview sends ripples through reality and perhaps creates new realities….
"For as long as I can remember I have been influenced by a role model who has guided me through my navigation of this amazing life. I am a great follower of Socrates."
"Given the fact that there are these 20% of highly suggestible people, it becomes quite clear that this is a matter of enormous political importance, for example, any demagogue who is able to get hold of a large number of these 20% of suggestible people and to organize them is really in a position to overthrow any government in any country."
"I’m basically an optimist, but not because I have faith in human institutions. But because I think there is a transcendental attractor that will eventually pull our chestnuts out of the fire." –Terence McKenna
