Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna

Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer

Terence McKenna was an ethnobotanist and philosopher known for his exploration of consciousness and the use of psychedelics in understanding reality.

Thinking People Psychedelic Mind Drug Mean
Born
November 16, 1946
Quotes
705
Rank
#563

About Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna — Life and Legacy

Terence McKenna was a prominent ethnobotanist, philosopher, and advocate for the exploration of consciousness through psychedelics. His significant contributions include the concept of the 'archaic revival,' which emphasizes the need to reconnect with ancient wisdom and practices to navigate contemporary challenges. McKenna's worldview was deeply rooted in the belief that human perception is shaped by cultural narratives, as reflected in his assertion that 'the imagination is the goal of history.' This perspective invites individuals to question societal norms and embrace creativity as a driving force in human evolution. His ideas often challenged the status quo, encouraging a reevaluation of the relationship between nature and consciousness. McKenna's quotes continue to resonate today, inspiring a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all life and the potential for personal transformation through altered states of awareness.

Quote collection

Terence McKenna quotes (page 1 of 36)

705 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
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"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 the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed."

Dream Teacher Commitment
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"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."

Government Information Processing Dmt
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"What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination."

Reality Hallucinations Facts
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"You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms."

Inspirational Life Light
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"This is the message of your life and my life - it’s that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts. Not your enemies, not your fortune, not who you sleep with at night, not the books, not the house in Saint-Tropez, not even the children - nothing lasts. To the degree that you avert your gaze from this truth, you build the potential for pain into your life. Everything is this act of embracing the present moment, the felt presence of experience, and then moving on to the next felt moment of experience. It’s literally psychological nomadism is what it is."

Children Pain Moving
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"You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness."

Our World Ideas Dmt
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"The bigger you build the bonfire, the more darkness is revealed."

Darkness Bigger Bonfire
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"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."

Weed Pursuit Of Happiness Marijuana
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"DMT is a reliable method for crossing in to a dimension that human beings have debated the existence of for 50.000 years. Is there an invisible nearby world inhabited by active intelligences with which human beings can communicate? You bet. And if you don't think so, then tell me you don't think so after you've smoked 75mg DMT. Otherwise we just don't have anything to talk about."

Thinking Years Dmt
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"We are told No, you're unimportant, you're peripheral - get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world."

Jobs Player Games
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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
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"As the bonfires of knowledge grow brighter, the more the darkness is revealed to our startled eyes."

Eye Darkness Bonfire
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"You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions. When you shed the cultural operating system, then essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche."

Religious Clothes Prejudice
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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
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"The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation"

Dmt Mind Blowing Cost
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"Culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines."

Silly People Mind Blowing
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"We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together."

Ocean Heart Moon
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"The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer"

Mind Blowing Answers Faces
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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
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"I don't believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small."

Inspirational Life Believe
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"Nature is not mute, it is a man who is deaf."

Men Environment Deaf
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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
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"Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience upon which primordial shamanism is based is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego."

Ego Psychedelic Absence
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