If the ego is not regularly and repeatedly dissolved in the unbounded hyperspace of the Transcendent Other, there will always be slow drift away from the sense of self as part of nature’s larger whole. The ultimate consequence of this drift is the fatal ennui that now permeates Western Civilization.

The question is being asked, 'Are we alone?' And though we now focus on that question we need to think beyond that to what if we're not alone? Then what becomes the next imperative question?

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

One of the things that's so striking about shamanism in the native context is the absence of mental illness.

I regard these people who are peddling angst and peddling pessimism and all that stuff as so 'two minutes ago'.

What history is, essentially, is a careening, out-of-control effort to find our way back to this state of primordial balance.

I think the real test of psychedelics is what you do with them when you're not on them, what kind of culture you build, what kind of art, what kind of technologies... What's lacking in the Western mind is the sense of connectivity and relatedness to the rest of life, the atmosphere, the ecosystem, the past, our children's future. If we were feeling those things we would not be practicing culture as we are.