Terence Mckenna, mad man or genius?

Affected by hallucinogenic substances, maybe. Aided by – I don’t agree with that.

@Seelix I take it you are familiar with McKenna’s thesis?
As you rejected I must presume you have thought of it and have reasons for rejection? The effect of such substances on the world view and personal ideational structures would be immense and , perhaps , cause developments of some sort,eh? Evolutionary or merely delusional? As Wm. Shakespeare would have it, though in another context: “That is the question.”

Where is this being debated? Do you have a link?

McKenna spoke a lot about self-discovery and empowerment. If you can get past his strangeness, he is really quite insightful:

“We can will the perfect future into being by becoming microcosms of the perfect future, and no longer casting blame outward on institutions or hierarchies of responsibility and control, but by realizing the opportunities here, the responsibilities here, and the two may never be congruent again, and the salvation of your immortal soul may depend on what you do with the opportunity.”

“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 how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed.”
– Terence McKenna

@throssog – I’m not familiar with McKenna or with his theses; I’m referring only to what was written in your question. I can accept the idea that evolution has been affected by hallucinogens, because their use has been documented as far back as documentation goes (and presumably in the time before documented history). It’s only reasonable to assume that their use would have had effects on society, be those effects “good” or “bad”.

However, I disagree with the idea that evolution was aided by hallucinogens, because, to me, that implies that any person who has not been under the influence of hallucinogenics at some time is not living to their full potential. Maybe I’m reading too much into it to come to that conclusion, but one’s personal stance on the use of hallucinogens is bound to come into play in this type of debate.

@Seelix Listen to this.

My thoughts are that you do not need any drug, but they can act as a catalyst for self-discovery. It’s not for everybody.

@rOs Rather reminds one of the Mahatma: “Become the change you would see in the world.”
@Seelix Well, without having any knowledge of McKenna’s thesis you have an opinion on the subject as expressed in the question – ? Alright , if hallucinogens are considered to have a mind altering affect and the mind/world view/cosmology of the individual is thereby affected is it not within reason that such ingestion, during the evolution of the species’ formulated and formal views (as above), might have been affected and become, thereby more effective? No one currently alive would have to ingest such substances to “benefit” from the prior ingestion.
@rOs Well said, from the stand point of a person open to such acts by whomsoever might wish to engage upon a “voyage of self discovery” aided by such substances – illegal though they may be and ill-advised as it would be to do so, unless a member of the Native American Church. (Tag,tax and title extra :))

@rOs – Thanks for the link. I’ve not heard McKenna speak before, but I have read and heard similar ideas.

@throssog – I do agree that it’s within reason to consider that possibility, but not to state it as fact. Based upon my limited knowledge, I’ve formed an opinion – I agree that hallucinogens likely had an effect on evolution, but I can’t say (nor can anyone else, in my opinion) that that effect was beneficial. Hypothetically, the human race might have been better off had they not ingested hallucinogens. There’s no way to know, and my opinion is based on only that: my opinion.

Here is a page with some of his other lectures. I particularly like this one.

@Seelix I laud you as an honest person! I may now extinguish my lantern and cease to wander the streets of Athens…so to speak. You are, imho, quite right in all particulars. Who may know and aside from opinion what more, barring controlled experimentation, may one submit in the nature of proofs?
That Shaman have used, and do use such is undeniable…whether it is to anyone’s’ benefit…??? Who may say?

Now, as to what sorts of changes McKenna saw as being caused by the ingestion of such substances? The actual/believed changes and changes of mental/metaphysical belief(s) that these caused, aided?

If a great athlete takes drugs and ruins his body, people say “What a shame” or “What an idiot”

If a student at UC Berkeley takes drugs, ruins his mind and begins to babble, people say “Maybe he’s a genius”.

I always figured he was just a burn-out.

He could have just as easily been one of those poor folks who hang around on the side walk at the bottom of Mission Street in SF, claiming that the government has put implants in their brains and why doesn’t somebody do something about it.

@josie Always good to hear from another point of view. :) Be sure that your opinion is noted and considered for its worth. Humor is, after all, worth…something, hmmm?

Psychedelics help to facilitate an ego death. Dig it!

I don’t think hallucinogenics are necessary. I suspect that people who need hallucinogenics have not really tried physical means of changing consciousness. I further suspect that they mistrust physical means, and don’t believe it can do anything. All also don’t think it’s mental evolution that advances. It’s spiritual evolution. I think the proposition that drugs can enhance creativity are unsupportable.

@wundayatta I never said they were necessary. However, some minds are more indoctrinated and/or confused than others, and change is unlikely without “bringing in the big guns”.

@rOs Hmmmm But then so do certain types of meditation. However, a blanket statement such as this ignores the ego growth and disease(s) that certain people have experienced under the use of these substances. While they can/may help to facilitate this , ego death, under guidance ( Road Man in Native American system), it is not an assured outcome by any means.
@wundayatta Well, you are most certainly entitled to your beliefs and so long as you maintain them, as you have, as opinions they are unchallengable, eh? No need to debate or explore or even speak of them. They are deeply held beliefs and unshakable opinions, yes?
Enhance creativity? While under the influence or as a result of the experience? Makes a difference. If under the influence: You are quite correct. If post experience: It has been known to happen.

@rOs I am reminded of the experiences of the Swiss Doctors with terminal patients and LSD-25 controlled and guided experiences. The patients wound up consoling their relatives and telling them,“Don’t worry, I’m only dieing and everyone does.” Further they needed fewer and lower dose meds for pain etc. Most enlightening…but the uses were outlawed as the USA insisted. :)

@throssog The page I referred to simply lists psychedelics as one of many ways to achieve an ego-death. It also credits prayer, sleep deprivation, meditation, and fasting. Some people are better equipped for this type of of exploration than others.

@wundayatta I agree that the drugs themselves do not inspire creativity, but they can force a closed-minded person to see themselves’ from a different perspective. I should know, I was living in la-la land until my mind was cracked open like pandora’s box.
If anything, I came out on the other side and realized what you already know, wundayatta: I never needed to take drugs in the first place. What I was looking for was right in front of me the whole time. “It’s” in front of all of us, and all we have to do is reach out and grab it. Now defining “it” is another question all together.

Both, I think. Both. More genius than madman, but enough of the latter to aim his genius inward and focus upon experiences that cannot be independently verified. I admire him nonetheless. I happened to be in Santa Cruz the day he died; I had heard him speak there with Sheldrake and Abrahams—their last “Trialogue.” I felt a great wave of sadness at the news.

McKenna at Erowid.

Well put @Jeruba, thanks for the link!

@rOs of course, it is so.
@Jeruba I am afraid I agree with you about the condition of his mind and the direction of focus. A shame, in my opinion, that he could not have had a bit more of duration.

@rOs It’s an interesting ethical question, to me. I don’t know what to think. On the one hand, I want people to try other mechanisms that will open them up. But I know (also having been one of them) that many people are suspicious and skeptical of “woo-woo” experiences, and their definition of woo-woo is very broad. I also know that people are constantly telling themselves that they can’t—can’t dance, can’t meditate, can’t do yoga. They judge and convict themselves before they ever try anything.

If you can break through to these people using hallucinogenics, does the end justify the means? I don’t know. I worry that people will be disempowered and think they can only achieve this kind of awareness using drugs. My goal is to empower people and show them how to get where they want to go using tools built into them. Well, get where you want to go is a bit too linear, but it’s the general idea.

@throssog I take your point about creativity after the fact, although once again I have an issue about ends justifying the means. I believe I can teach you or anyone how to tap a creativity you may not know you have. It’s really pretty simple. You have to be willing to play. Play with no expectation and no judgment.

I think that’s a pretty tough thing for most people to do. So, sure, LSD or shrooms or whatever might break down the barriers and let someone see how they have been stopping themselves.

Personally, it breaks my heart when people say they aren’t creative and they can’t play. What have we done to ourselves? How did we get to this place? Oh, I could answer those questions, but they are rhetorical, of course.

And I don’t know if the ends justify the means in this case. My instinct is to say not because, as you note, of deeply held beliefs based on years of experience. I would not say they are unshakable, but I would say they are hard to shake. But you could be right.

I have a prejudice towards natural methods rather than artificial, and yet, sometimes I throw that away. I have no problem with using drugs to help with bipolar disorder, and that’s messing with the brain as much as using hallucinogens.

Part of it is my fear of hallucinogens. My brain is already whacked out. If I took drugs to make it further whacked out, who know how many years it might be before I come back. It took a cousin of mine a decade. Maybe more.

Yet, you can argue that mood stabilizers don’t work for some and they can cause harm, as well. So can anti-depressants. It’s a matter of luck finding the right combination of drugs to help any one individual. And there are plenty of other mechanisms that people can use to cope without drugs. It’s a lot harder that way, though. But some insist on not using a “crutch,” like lamictal or something.

So is it hypocritical to say don’t use drugs for mind-expansion but do use them for mind correction? You tell me. All I know is that it worries me. Maybe it’s that bipolar can kill you and it is crucial to help people as fast as possible. Mind expansion is voluntary and, while it can be dangerous, it is not as dangerous.

Both issues (mental illness and mind expansion) lead to questions of identity. Both give you food for thought. What you learn is up to you. As always.

I don’t know. Maybe some people do need “door-openers.” Maybe it takes too much effort and too much time to try to open the doors without using LSD. Sometimes it’s scary to walk around with a kind of double vision of the world. It’s confusing and one is constantly seeking to separate stuff one is making up from stuff that is part of the consensus reality.

It’s not hard now, but it’s growing in frequency (seeing things the other way). Well, it comes and goes. Sometimes I just ignore it and sometimes I focus on it. I don’t know what I want, really. It’s really cool to be able to see in different ways. But I also am afraid of losing touch and coming to seem crazy to others. I am crazy, but I don’t seem crazy—at least, as far as I can tell. No one calls me that to my face except in jest.

I dunno. I could be blowing smoke. Making things seem like more than they are. Maybe it’s just artifacts of my eyes and my brain. Then again, I’m not claiming there’s any reality. I’m just saying it’s a different way of seeing. And anyone who reads my stuff here will probably agree that I have a different way of seeing.

Whatever. Thanks for giving me a chance to reflect on this.

@wundayatta Please, do forgive me if I have said anything to make you believe I endorse the use of these substances – I do not. I do endorse everyone’s right to decide , for themselves, whether or not they wish to . That said: There is a long tradition of their use for opening up the psyche’. Whether you ,I or anyone else likes it , endorses it or other wise. I do consider them, all, to be powerful and to be treated with the respect they command. But then so do those who have made them a part of their cultures.

Personally, it breaks my heart when people say they aren’t creative and they can’t play. What have we done to ourselves? How did we get to this place?

@wundayatta Part of the reason I’ve grown to like you (or at least your online persona), is because of your natural understanding of the world I’ve worked so hard to comprehend.

Yes, playing! I’ll never forget the moment that it hit me- it was like remembering how vibrant and wonderful I saw the world as a child. I haven’t been the same since.

It breaks my heart too, wundayatta. When I see all of the bitter people who see life as a burden, it makes me sick inside. How can this be right?

What has happened to us? I would say that we, as a people, have forgotten how to be human. We need to unite, and slowly sanity may return.

It is not clear to me which. It is certainly interesting that people from scientifically informed western societies to shamen around the world have, under the influence of DMT, often met similar apparently intelligent beings they sometimes dub the machine elves.Do they really exist, or are they a function generated by the human brain on that specific hallucinogen? It seems more likely to me that something beyond our ordinary perception really does exist. I say that because the experiences of such a incredibly diverse population of humans, people with entirely different ethnic heritages and belief systems, all seem to experience a similar phenomenon. But whether it is real or imagined is difficult to say. Even if I try DMT and see them myself I am not sure I will know whether they are real, or a construct of my hallucinating mind.

@ETpro, mightn’t the commonality be more readily explained by the degree of consistency in human brain chemistry across races and ethnicities?

@Jeruba That’s entirely possible. The truth told, none of us can even prove anything outside our own thoughts are real, or that what we think is any more real than thoughts.

@ETpro And there you have the problem of such… revelations as are , often, cited by those who utilize these substances.

@rOs I’m struck by your characterization of my understanding of the world as natural. Why do you characterize it that way? Does it seem unschooled? I can assure you that I, too, have worked hard to attain whatever understanding I have.

You might appreciate this. I have, thumbtacked to the bulletin board in my office, a semantic diagram of all the predictors I could think of that are correlated with different aspect of human behavior. It’s been there for several years—probably to remind me of my hubris. I probably drew it when I was at the height of my mania. Still, it’s kind of cool.

@wundayatta By “natural”, I meant that you have worked hard to attain knowledge. You reinforce my point by mentioning the semantic diagram (I mean, wow- that is impressive. Not many people could even begin to map out their mind). I have no doubt about your intelligence, or how you came to it!

In contrast, I have learned much of what I know aided by various psychedelic-induced visions. These experiences offered more lessons than recreation to me; and through them I’ve learned how to be truly sober (I no longer feel the need to pollute, dilute, or enhance my mind. It’s exactly how it should be.). In a perfect world, I would have gained my insight on the human spirit in a classroom, instead of learning through thrill seeking.

@rOs There’s something I want to talk about, but I’m not sure where to start, so this may a bit chaotic.

A thought: some things are most easily learned through experience.
A thought: people like short cuts.
A thought: in the pedagogical system I grew up in, I wanted to learn everything theoretically, because I believed I could understand it merely by thinking about it.

Example: meditation. For the longest time, I wanted someone to tell me what meditation was like. What insight did you gain from it? I never really wanted to do it (and I still don’t—a least formal sitting or walking practice that many people use). I just wanted someone to tell me what it was. I guess, at that point in time, I believed that everything could be explained.

Over the years, I have had experiences that I believe have taught me what meditation teaches a lot of people. Music and dance have been my practices. Sometimes I also want to argue that thinking can be a meditative practice—simply because I can get lost in it.

I have been dancing for over twenty years and making improvisational and more formal music for over forty years. That’s a lot of practice.

Over the years, I learned that I was having experiences I could not explain. Worse, I couldn’t even describe them. But me being me, I tried to learn to describe and then I tried to explain, and I have written a great deal about my thinking here, over the three years I have been here, in answer to many different kinds of questions.

The main thing is my theory that one way to distinguish between different modes of thinking is that we have a linguistic mind and a non-linguistic mind. I hypothesize that the experiences we can not describe or explain occur in the non-linguistic mind.

These kinds of experiences happen all over the place, and because we can’t explain them, they cause all kinds of trouble. They happen in meditation and prayer and revelations and in creativity of all kinds (we don’t know where an idea comes from—it feels like it comes from outside us) and many other apparently unexplainable experiences that are often interpreted as magic.

Sometimes these experiences spring from nowhere, but mostly they occur after years of practice of one kind or another. My assumption is that they do not come from outside, but they are “real” experiences. I believe they come from the non-linguistic part of our minds (which is probably spread out all over our brains).

The problem is if you don’t use symbols to think, how can you think? Normally, we think of thinking as manipulation of symbols. So if we aren’t doing that, it isn’t thinking.

Clearly, the non-linguistic brain can communicate with the linguistic brain. Often times, we experience this as eureka moments, where an idea pops, fully formed, into our linguistic brains. I don’t have a theory about the mechanism by which the non-linguistic brain communicates with the linguistic brain.

I know how to get into that state where my linguistic brain is very quiet—quiet enough to allow my non-linguistic brain to be the primary generator/recorder of experience. I have noticed that at the end of such experiences, I can’t remember what happened. So I have practiced remembering. What that means, I’ve found, is that I have to keep my linguistic mind running with enough consciousness to remember, but not enough to overwhelm my non-linguistic brain.

I go in and out of these states. Sometimes I think too much and I can’t get to the other way of thinking. Sometimes my other way of thinking is so strong it doesn’t matter how hard I think; I can’t intrude on the non-linguistic mind’s space. That’s really cool! That’s when I do things I can’t do. Like physically leaping higher than I have ever leaped before. That’s when I can do anything I want with my horn. Other people call this “being in the zone.” It is so blissful because you can do anything you want to, and you have no doubt or fears or any of the stuff our linguistic brains generally obsess about.

It’s cool stuff, and I can see why people would want to take a short cut. I never wanted to because I always had a fear that if I did, I wouldn’t come back. I always had a feeling I was closer to… that other way of being—than other people. Weird stuff happened in my brain. I had a transcendent experience when I was 18 or so, and I believe ever since then that I can go there any time I want. Just by deciding to.

I don’t know if this is true because I have never tried to get there simply by deciding to. I sometimes have a feeling that there is this other world separated from this one by a flimsy veil, and I could pop over there whenever I want, but I’m afraid I couldn’t get back.

When I got sick with bipolar disorder, I realized that my instinct was probably a good one. I could probably let myself fall into insanity whenever I want. But there’s a lot to keep me here, but I feel it bubbling inside me and it’s scary. I would probably die, or at least be very, very unhappy. I would stop caring about my physical self…

I guess you could wonder why I wouldn’t be happy instead of depressed, and no doubt I would be happy at first. But sooner or later I would question it too much and then I would crash and unless someone rescued me, I would fall into the worst life I could imagine. Or maybe I’m being too dramatic. Not sure. I might be able to be depressed and stay alive. But if I were alone, I’m not sure.

I like understanding things. It’s the mode of thinking I grew up with. I mistrust things where people say, “you have to try it to understand.” Yet I know that is true. There are things you have to do for years before you get it, and I don’t blame a single person for thinking that’s a crock.

So, over time, I learned that short cuts didn’t really work for me. Maybe they work for others, but I mistrust the knowledge gained through these shortcuts. I think it’s too much to cross that veil suddenly. I don’t know if people come completely back. Of course, I can’t know. I haven’t tried. I also don’t know it they can get as much from the experience without training. I also don’t trust that they would get what I get.

The sad thing is that I have been trained in what I call a “spiritual technology” that works easily, and is pretty easy for anyone who is willing to try it. Unfortunately I can’t describe the technology, nor say what it is named without risking the loss of my anonymity. I wish I could. We need more people.

In any case, it makes the whole process easy, because it is fun. Yes, you need to practice, but it’s not like sitting meditation in terms of pain. It’s more like yoga, except more joyful.

So that’s where I’m coming from. For what it’s worth.

It’s worth a lot, indeed @wundayatta. Thank you for sharing such amazing thoughts with me.

Wow, there really are no coincidences in my life…This book I just got today explores some of the concepts you were explaining.