Quote collection

Thinking Quotes — page 803 of 4756

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think what we have to do is convince people that matter is tacky.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think institutions will inevitably substitute a rite or a ritual for the authentic, for the real McCoy, because then priests can control the pipeline to god, and the parishioner can approach with offerings. But if everybody can have a pipeline to deity, why then the whole priest scam is put out of business.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“What I think is going on is that probably language was entertainment long before it was meaning. It's a kind of tuneless singing.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Creative

“One way to think about what psychedelics are is as catalysts for language development. They literally force the evolution of language. You cannot evolve faster than your language because the language defines the culture of meaning. So if there's a way to accelerate the evolution of language then this is real consciousness expansion and it's a permanent thing. The great legacies of the 60's are in attitudes and language. It boils down to doing your own thing, feeling the vibe, ego-trip, blowing your mind.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think that the whole thing, the crux of the whole psychedelic issue, is that it accentuates personal responsibility by making people take their own experiences seriously.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“One has attained a very fortunate incarnation, I think, to be in a culture, in a place, in a time when psychedelic knowledge is available.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“Ecstasy is a complex emotion containing elements of joy, fear, terror, triumph, surrender, and empathy. What has replaced our prehistoric understanding of this complex of ecstasy now is the word comfort, a tremendously bloodless notion. Drugs are not comfortable, and anyone who thinks they are comfortable or even escapist should not toy with drugs unless they’re willing to get their noses rubbed in their own stuff.”

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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think that understanding man's place in nature is going to require integration of the psychedelic experience.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think what's really happening is that a dialogue opens up between the ego and these larger, more integrated parts of the psyche that are normally hidden from view.”

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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think the cybernetic matrix is a tremendous tool for feminizing, and radicalizing, and psychedelicizing the social matrix. I see computers as entirely feminine.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“The thing that excites me about these informational technologies is I think we are going to be able to use virtual reality to show each other the insides of our own heads.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think there's a shamanic temperament, which is a person who craves knowledge, knowledge in the Greek sense of gnosis. In other words, knowledge not of the sort where you subscribe to Scientific American, and it validates what you believe, but cosmologies constructed out of immediate experiences that are found to be always applicable.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think there is a global commonality of understanding coming into being. And it is not necessarily fostered by institutions.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“And the whole schtick of the psychedelic experience, I think, is reclaim immediate experience, realize that you out vote all parliaments, police forces, and major newspapers on the planet because, who knows, they may be illusions.”

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Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“So the idea is to triangulate a sufficiently large number of data points in your set of experience that you can make a model of the world that is not imprisoning. That's why, second to psychedelics, I think travel is the most boundary-dissolving, educational enterprise that you can get mixed up in.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“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.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Love

“I discovered early in life a stunning truth that's made my life very complicated in its wake, but that I still think is true, and it's that people are very easy to love.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“At the interface of the say-able and the unsay-able is the novel, the new, the never before seen, said or done. And that's what I think it's important to try and bring out, ideas. Because I think we are the animals that bring back ideas.”

Terence McKenna Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
Philosophical

“I think with the work we do with these drugs we are the earliest pioneers in what over the next 100 years will lead to an understanding of consciousness almost as a thing apart from the monkey body and brain.”

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