Cultural conditioning is like bad software. Over and over it's diddled with and re-written so that it can just run on the next attempt. But there is cultural hardware, and it's that cultural hardware, otherwise known as authentic being, that we are propelled toward by the example of the shaman and the techniques of the shaman. ... Shamanism therefore is a call to authenticity.

Perhaps, you know, new laws, new domains of potential openness are occurring as the universe ages, and complexity previously disallowed is now possible, and we are that complexity. We are nature moving out of its genetic phase - a phase under the control of chemical genes, which are physical structures, in to an epigenetic phase, a phase of culture ruled by codes, transformable culturally confined codes - mathematics, religion, philosophy, art, dance, humor.

Being imposes some kind of obligation to find out what's going on.

The world is not made of anti-mu mesons, quarks, and photons, and electromagnetic fields. Reality is made of words.

The culture cannot evolve faster than the language. The language is the flashlight that shows the path.

Notice that the whole story of Eden is the story of the struggle over a woman's relationship to a psychoactive plant.

The word 'self' is as great a mystery as the word 'other'. It's just a polarity between two mysteries.