Philosopher Spotlight: Terrence McKenna

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Transcript:
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/51190118

Speaker 0 (0s): <inaudible> 

Speaker 1 (14s): Well, well, well look who made it back. It's the most handsome, the most lovely men and women in the world. And you spend a little time with someone who's equally appealing, you know, like attracts like water seeks its own level, nothing but as good looking folks over here, devastatingly handsome, incredibly intelligent. Come on. We're the best of the best. Do you want us to do? Do you guys have a good weekend? 

Do you have a good day yesterday? Whenever you're listening to this, I don't know. Do you have a good Tuesday? A good Wednesday. I had a pretty good weekend. I had a pretty good day yesterday. I wanted to introduce everybody today to what I, I am going to call my philosopher's spotlight. We're gonna work on a little Terence, McKenna, have you guys ever heard of him? I'm sorry. Have you ladies and gentlemen ever heard of him, but those of you who have not had the great fortune of getting to listen to this phenomenal speaker, perhaps the best way to introduce you and the format I am going to use is to read a little bit from some interviews he's done, I will read you his response to a few questions, and then we'll dive into one of his articles so that you can begin to understand why I think he is a great teacher, a great speaker and someone that more people should be listening to. 

So without any further ado, 

Speaker 0 (1m 48s): <inaudible> 

Speaker 1 (1m 51s): In your scheme of things, Terence, McKenna, is there any place for institutionalized religion for Orthodox religious beliefs? Terence McKenna? Yes. What I have found is that all of these systems that are offered as spiritual paths work splendidly in the presence of psychedelics. If you think mantras are effective, try mantra on 20 milligrams of siliciden and see what happens. 

Speaker 0 (2m 18s): <inaudible> 

Speaker 1 (2m 22s): All sincere religious motivation is illuminated by psychedelic to put it perhaps in a trivial way. The religious quest is an automobile, but psychedelics are the petrol that runs it. You go nowhere without the fuel, no matter how finely crafted the upholstery, how flawlessly machine, the engine narrator, where do you personally think the human potential movement is heading now? And where do you position yourself in the spectrum? 

Terence McKenna, I believe that the best idea will win. We are all under an obligation to 

Speaker 2 (3m 0s): Ourselves and to the world to do our best, to place the best ideas on the table. Then all we have to do is stand back and watch. I have this Darwinian belief that the correct idea will emerge triumphant to my way of thinking. Psychedelics provide the only category that is authentic enough to be legislated out of existence. They are not going to make quartz crystals or wheat, grass juice, illegal. 

These things pose no problem. But I think that we are going to have to come to terms with the psychedelic possibility. We would have a long time ago in America, except for the fact that on this particular issue, the government acts as the enforcing arm of Christian fundamentalism life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are enshrined in the constitution of the United States and inalienable, right? If the pursuit of happiness does not cover the psychedelic quest for enlightenment, then I do not know what it can mean. 

I think we are headed for a darker period before the light. I see the whole hard drug phenomenon as an enormous con game. Governments have always been the major purveyor of addictive drugs, right back to the sugar trade in England, the opium Wars in China, the CIA's involvement in the heroin trade in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and the current cocaine distribution coming out of South America, we're going to have to abandon this Christian wish to legislate other people's behavior for their own good. 

Let's take two drugs for a moment and contrast them. Cocaine is an ultra chic cost. A hundred bucks per gram is utterly worthless as far as I can see, and doesn't get you as wired as a double espresso, then there's airplane glue. It costs a dollar 20 a tube, and you can totally waste yourself with it and probably kill yourself no faster than you can with cocaine. So why aren't people in Christian Dior gowns driving rolls Royce is honking up airplane glue because it's tatty grotesque. 

Declasse a, and this is what we have to put across about these hard drugs. The only way you can do that is to reduce the price of cocaine to a dollar 25 per gram. Then it will be seen as a horrible banal destructive thing. Only when governments intervene by restricting access to do things suddenly do they gain this astronomical worth. So it is a game that the government is playing narrator. 

Your idea is of the psychedelic pioneer as a type of Alchemist who can make the sole tangible as it were. Could you tell us more about this Terence all alchemy was the belief that spirit somehow resided at the heart of matter. The alchemists were the errors to the great Hellenistic religious systems and are generally tagged as Gnostic. The central idea of Gnosticism is that the material of which soul and true being is composed is trapped through a series of cosmic misfortunes in a low level universe that is alien to it. 

And the Alchemist literalize these ideas to suggest that the spirit could somehow be distilled or coax from the dense matrix of matter. Well, this is, so this is also what the psychedelics reinforce, and it is interesting to see how alchemists at different times have contributed to the advancement of pharmacology. For instance, distilled alcohol was discovered by alchemists seeking the elixir of life and Paracelsus popularized opium. 

This is not to fault the alchemical quest, but to show that alchemy, the belief that there is spirit and matter was a survival of an older shamonic Stratta of belief that involved gaining the Alliance of a plant. I think the notion that one can make spiritual progress by oneself is preposterous. It is virtually impossible to have the spiritual experiences that confirm a certain moral order and value system, unless you resort to psychedelics or alternatively fasting or getting lost in the wilderness. 

I do not think people realize quite how efficacious the psychedelics are. These things work. I wish people could be more Catholic in their tastes. Yeah, if you are an advocate of the virtues of yoga or natural diet or mantras, you really owe it to yourself to explore those concerns using psychedelics. At the same time, I explored the possibilities. I have just mentioned before settling on the golden road to the soul narrator. 

So why is that such tremendous prejudice? Both in the East and the West against psychedelics Terence McKenna. I think people are in love with the journey. People love seeking answers. If you will. I suggest to people that the time of seeking is over and that the chore is now to face the answer. That's more of the challenge. Anyone can sweep up around the off Schrom for a dozen years while congratulating themselves, that they are following Baba into enlightenment. 

It takes courag...