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Terence McKenna Biography

Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and an advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the "Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture".

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Terence McKenna Quotes

Nature and the imagination seem to be the precursors to involvement in the psychedelic experience.

Experience, Imagination, Involvement, Psychedelic

It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age.

Space, Order, Mushrooms, Exploration, Capability, Acquire

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 behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

Dmt, Down, Government, Information Processing, Open, Wrong

We can move no faster than the evolution of our language, and this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about: they force the evolution of language.

Evolution, Force, Moving, Psychedelic, Psychedelics

The social consequence of the psychedelic experience is clear thinking -which trickles down as clear speech. Empowered speech.

Thinking, Speech, Psychedelic, Social, Consequence, Empowered

Safety is really a concern of mine, and what I've been telling people recently is that until there's animal and human data on a drug it should probably be looked at very carefully.

Animal, Data, Human, People, Probably, Recently

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

History, Lack, Manipulation, Prey

The immediate future of man lies in the imagination and in seeking the dimension where the imagination can be expressed.

Expressed, Imagination, Lying, Man, Men, Seeking

I think it's the sheer power of the hallucinogens that puts people off. You either love them or you hate them, and that's because they dissolve world views. And if you like the experience of having your entire ontological structure disappear out from under you, if you think that's a thrill, you'll probably love psychedelics.

Disappear, Dissolve, Hate, Structure, Thinking, Views

So part of what being psychedelic means, I think, is relentlessly living with unanswered questions.

Living, Mean, Psychedelic, Think, Thinking, Unanswered Questions

Culture as we're practicing it is causing a lot of pain.

Causing, Culture, Pain, Practicing

The party impulse is a very subversive impulse. I mean, you know, a lot of artists have too much integrity to sell their art as a brand; but who has so much integrity that they would turn down a party?

Art, Brand, Integrity, Mean, Turn

It was the fall into history that enslaved us to the labor cycle, to the agricultural cycle. And notice how fiendish it is.

Agricultural, Cycles, Fall, Labor

The message coming back at all of us is: live without closure.

Back, Closure, Coming, Coming Back, Live, Messages

What we call three dimensional space, and what we call the imagination actually have a contiguous and continuous transformation from one into the other,. . . and THIS is big news!

Imagination, News, Space, Three

Spaceflight is nothing less than the exterior metaphor for the shamanic voyage. In other words, in our terms, the hallucinogenic experience. This is the way engineers get high. They go to the moon!

Engineers, Getting High, Moon, Voyage, Voyages, Words

We cannot evolve faster than our language. The edge of being is the edge of meaning, and somehow we have to push the edge of meaning. We have to extend it.

Edge, Evolve, Faster, Language, Somehow

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.

Creative, Ideas, Imagination, Letting, Ocean, Suspended

Hallucinogenic plants act as enzymes which stimulate imagination.

Enzymes, Hallucinogenic, Imagination, Plant, Stimulate

One way of assessing the toxicity of a drug is how do you feel the next day?

Day, Drug, Next Day, Way

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