The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he is always peripheral to it. He lives at the edge of the village. He is only called upon in matters of great social crisis. He is feared and respected. And this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances.

If reality is code, then it can be hacked in some way that we had not suspected before.

We are living in a state of constant scientific revolution. There is not a single area that you can name that is now seen as it was seen a hundred years ago. Nothing is left of the world view of one hundred years ago.

There is this persistent theme in all of these notions that death is made more easy, whatever that means, if you've learned the territory before you get there. And you know, in the Mahayana Buddhist situation it even becomes as extreme as saying; 'life is essentially a preparation for death, a studying of the maps of a learning of the skills a packing of your picnic basket so that when you get out there and demons are sniffing you up one side and down the other you don't bungle your mantras'.

What people notice about [when they are on] LSD is either what's right or wrong with themselves or how freaky the world is.

The history of man that you don't know is what your unconscious is made out of.

These things which are made of light and grammar and sound that come chirping and squealing and tumbling toward you. 'Hooray! Welcome! You're here!', and in my case, 'You send so many and you come so rarely!'