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 theyโre willing to get their noses rubbed in their own stuff.
Terence McKennaThe apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and itโs only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse.
Terence McKennaOne 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 McKennaThese 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!'
Terence McKenna[This legendary Amazonian substance is] a cybernetic transdimentional medium of some sort that is generated out of the mysteries of the physiology of the human body.
Terence McKennaMeaning lies in the confrontation of contradiction - the coincidencia apositorum. Thatโs what we really feel, not these rational schemes that are constantly beating us over the head with the โthou shaltsโ and โthou shouldโ, but rather a recovery of the real ambiguity of being and an ability to see ourselves as at once powerful and weak, noble and ignoble, future-oriented, past-facing.
Terence McKenna