Mckenna Quotes & Sayings

His sharp eyes scanned everything, but they didn't dart. Nothing about him promised sudden movement ... — Cara McKenna

There is no question that a society that sets out to control its citizens' use of drugs sets out on the slippery path to totalitarianism. — Terence McKenna

And psychedelics now, as we de-condition ourselves from the post-medieval world, they are present to hand as tools. — Terence McKenna

It is of the first order of importance to remember this, that the shaman is more than merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself, who is cured, and who must shamanize in order to remain cured. — Terence McKenna

As a society we cannot seem to make peace with nature. As individuals, it's hard for us to be at peace with ourselves. — Terence McKenna

Nothing can fix a broken heart except love. Love always repairs those fractures we get in our heart. — Lindsay McKenna

Branding is overrated. — Regis McKenna

The way I think of the psychedelics is, they are catalysts to the imagination. — Terence McKenna

I wanted it for how it made me feel, regardless of how little it cared for me. Do whatever you want -- just give me the bliss. — C.M. McKenna

Television, while chemically non-invasive, nevertheless is every bit as addicting and physiologically damaging as any other drug. — Terence McKenna

All I care about is your naked skin against mine and your hands on my body. — Cara McKenna

Inwardness is the characteristic feature of the vegetable rather than the animal approach to existence. The animals move, migrate and swarm, while plants hold fast. Plants live in a dimension characterised by solid state, the fixed and the enduring. If there is movement in the consciousness of plants then it must be the movement of spirit and attention in the domain of vegetal imagination. ( ... ) This is the truth that the shamans have always known and practiced. Awareness of the green side of mind was called Veriditas by the twelfth century visionary Hildegard Von Bingen. — Terence McKenna

Technique to me is a kind of a ... I'm reluctant to talk about it because it seems so obvious to me what good technique is. I mean, you sit down, you shut up, and you pay attention is basically the good technique. And then the footnotes add; on an empty stomach, in a dark room, feeling comfortable. — Terence McKenna

Anything which must be understood by millions of people is so hopelessly divorced from how it is that it becomes a form of fiction. — Terence McKenna

Science works its miracles by turning its enterprise into a kind of parlor game confined to the category matter and energy. — Terence McKenna

Time will perfect matter. — Terence McKenna

Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable. — Terence McKenna

Would That All Yahweh's People Were Prophets!(Numbers 11:29) — Megan McKenna

When the range and depth of the suffering of others and what we do to one another are no longer bothers us, nor moves us to remedy the situation and stop the pain, then we have lost a part of our own humanity, our own soul. — Megan McKenna

Sean was stung. "I do not fuck everything that has a pulse," he said haughtily. "I have my standards. I limit myself to endoskeletal organisms. I always go for vertebrates. And I dont't do reptiles. Ever. — Shannon McKenna

I really need to get better at participating in my own fantasies. — Cara McKenna

Let's get one thing clear between us, Shiloh. I would never laugh at you. I might tease the dickens out of you, but I would never, ever make fun of you. That's not who I am. I don't believe in humiliating another person. It's not in my DNA. — Lindsay McKenna

It's a product of the fractal laws that govern the world at an informational level. There is no deeper truth. — Terence McKenna

I'm so stupid," I tell her, tears streaming down my face now, blocking my vision.
"You're not stupid. You're just an emotional vampire. — Lily Paradis

To me it begins and ends with these psychedelic substances. The synergy of the psilocybin in the hominid diet brought us out of the animal mind and into the world of articulated speech and imagination. — Terence McKenna

Your memories are eroding away. The futures you anticipate, will mostly not come to pass, and the real richness is in the moment. And it's not necessarily some kind of 'Be Here Now' feel-good thing because it doesn't always feel good. But it always feels. It is a domain of feeling. It's primary. — Terence McKenna

Fine tuning the institutions built by powdered wig guys two hundred years ago is a long shot at holding the whole thing together. — Terence McKenna

The problem is we have to transcend cultural languages and fall into a phase with the communication systems that nature has placed all around us. — Terence McKenna

We have to claim anarchy and realize that systems have a life of their own that is anti-humanist. There is definitely an anti-humanist tendency in all systems. — Terence McKenna

That's what a god is. Somebody who knows more than you do about whatever you're dealing with. — Terence McKenna

She felt his fingers caress her scalp, the sensations swift, heated shocks rocking through her body. His breath was punctuated against her cheek and nose. The tension mounted in him until Shiloh felt as if he would snap and break, unleashing that throbbing sexual power she sensed so intensely around him. — Lindsay McKenna

The real justification for psychedelics is that they feed new data into your model. — Terence McKenna

Experientially there is only one religion, and it is shamanism and shamanic ecstasy. — Terence McKenna

Oh, shut the fuck up," Sean snapped. "I love you, man, OK? I missed you. Is that so hard to take? Does that scare you so damn bad?"
Kev looked away. "No," he said quietly. "It doesn't scare me. I missed you, too. All of you. It was a really long eighteen year."
Bruno looked at all four men in turn. Seconds passed. Nothing.
His disbelief grew. That was it? That was all? Oh, for the love of Christ. These guys were emotional retards, every last one of them. — Shannon McKenna

Peter's denial was not just a personal weakness. He was in a leadership position, honored as the one who spoke for the group, and was second in command (when Jesus wasn't around). But his choice to publicly deny his place in the community at the side of Jesus had massive repercussions for the other disciples. They ran and hid, and from this point on in the Way of the Cross there is no mention of the disciples again in the Passion narrative. The sheep are scattered, routed, and demoralized. Peter's sin tore open the seems that held them together. — Megan McKenna

Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin ...
She didn't want to give up hope, so she was just going to have to live with the fear. — Shannon McKenna

To me, the most amazing the most amazing transformation in my lifetime is not the revolution of the Sixties but the counter revolution of the Seventies, where they managed to put the cuckoo clock back together again — Terence McKenna

All of you who have been through high dose psychedelic experiences know that it's very hard to carry stupid baggage through that keyhole. In fact you're lucky if you just get your soul and yourselves through and intact. — Terence McKenna

In fact, we are most in agreement when we are silent with each other, because then our assumptions about how we are in agreement are able to fully unfurl themselves, but all it takes is someone breaking that silence and stating the contents of their mind, for the assumption of our shared reality to completely collapse upon us. Because it turns out, you know, I think it's one way, you think it's another, I believe we're doing X, you think we're doing Y, I think we're serving so and so, and you think we're serving somebody else. And this is why I think great relationships are built in silence, because then nobody ever finds out what's really going on. — Terence McKenna

An interesting thing about drugs is often, when a new drug is discovered, it takes a long time to figure out how do you do it. — Terence McKenna

The human brain is the god of technological innovation. — Terence McKenna

For me, the glory of the human animal is cognitive activity. — Terence McKenna

And I want to thank all the women that support me. I have wonderful support systems from women of all types who seem dedicated to the notion that Terence McKenna can always be improved. I'm extremely grateful for that. The frontiers are enormous in that dimension. — Terence McKenna

Whenever we use our religion, as individuals, or as groups within the church, to act in tandem with political and economic groups that arrest the voice of truth or destroy others, then we are Judas. — Megan McKenna

Ultimate novelty must be a situation where all boundaries are dissolved. — Terence McKenna

Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves, — Terence McKenna

I get frustrated with people who say that a drug experience can have no spiritual validity. I'm here to tell you that all experience is a drug experience. We're all on drugs all the time, largely because we are MADE of drugs — Dennis McKenna

Psychedelics are not flashlights into the chaos of the Freudian unconscious, they are tools for mathematically unpacking your mind into a higher dimensional space. In the Newtonian and print created space that we are walking around in you, are like a self extracting archive, that hasn't self extracted itself yet. — Terence McKenna

I'm meeting my obligations, somehow, always have, without ever truly working, without ever putting my shoulder to the wheel for the man. Of course I had to deal dope to do this! — Terence McKenna

By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other. — Terence McKenna

I've noticed a funny thing about people who are over-weight. They spend all their time thinking about food -except when they're actually eating it — Paul McKenna

It's very you, that bike. Fast and dirty and loud."
"Watch it, missy. My girl hums like a lullaby."
"Oh yeah. Completely."
"You're just not listening right, that's all."
"I suppose my hearing's too sensitive."
"Just the opposite. You listen properly, behind the growl, it's all purrs. Pure pussycat. — Cara McKenna

The sine qua non for obtaining a psychedelic experience is humbling yourself to the point where you admit that you must submit to the experience of the plant or the drug. This act of surrender is the major technical function you will be called upon to perform during the psychedelic trip. — Terence McKenna

What is needed, is an awakening. — Terence McKenna

Niagaras of beauty are flowing by untapped by ordinary consciousness ... Would that we could send robots who could film these psychedelic realities ... The presence of so much beauty is an argument to me that truth cannot be far away. — Terence McKenna

Shamanism is just show business and philosophy is just a branch of that vaudevillian impulse. — Terence McKenna

There is a belief that there is a hyperobject called Overmind, or God, that casts a shadow into time. History is our group experience if this shadow. As one draws closer and closer to the source of the shadow, the paradoxes intensify, the rate of change intensifies. What is happening is that the hyperobject is beginning to ingress into three-dimensional space. — Terence McKenna

My technique is don't believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite. — Terence McKenna

As I see it, Being, the Cosmos, whatever you want to call it, is a struggle between two implacable forces: Novelty on the one side and habit on the other side. — Terence McKenna

He must have screwed hundreds of girls in his effort to get that chick out of his system. Hadn't worked so far, but hey. He was nothing if not persistent. — Shannon McKenna

The Women in Black are Israeli Jews who meet wall in Jerusalem. They meet every Friday, the Sabbath evening, and pray. They begin by singing Kaddish for all the Israelis killed in the fighting in Israel that week. When they are finished, they pause and read all the names. Then, they turn again to face the wall and sing Kaddish again, this time for all of Palestinians killed in the fighting that week, and they turn when they are finished and once again recite the litany of the names of those killed. — Megan McKenna

Everything will come true in cyberspace. That's the whole idea. What cyberspace is, on one level, it's simply the human imagination vivified, hardwired. — Terence McKenna

But since a person's deepest fantasies were formed by their more or less screwed up childhoods, it made sense that anything based on them would end up in betrayal. — Shannon McKenna

And so, these are the things, the exploration of which, the singing about of which, makes us human beings. The exploration of the universe of the unseen is the business of human beings. — Terence McKenna

It's pretty simple, the ethical life. It's just demanding. — Terence McKenna

Within the context of the alchemical vocabulary, the psychedelic experience, as brought to us through plants long in the possession of Aboriginal people, appears to be the identical phenomena. — Terence McKenna

History is the in-rushing toward what the Buddhists call the realm of the densely packed, a transformational realm where the opposites are unified. — Terence McKenna

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross. — Megan McKenna

The intensity echoed through her, the same excitement he felt. He knew what she wanted
he'd sensed it. He could please her.
She wants your voice, as well as your body. And he didn't even need to think to find the right words to say. He simply let them fall from his lips to her ears. "I can't believe you're here," he murmured. "That you're real. — Cara McKenna

It seems to me that information is the thing which uses matter, uses light, uses spirit, uses whatever it can put its hands on to organize itself into higher and higher levels of self-reflection. — Terence McKenna

Monotheism strenuously denies the need to return to a cultural style that periodically places the ego and its values in perspective through contact with a boundary-dissolving immersion in the Archaic mystery of plant-induced, hence mother-associated, psychedelic ecstasy and wholeness, what Joyce called the mama matrix most mysterious. — Terence McKenna

Psychedelic experiences and dreams are chemical cousins; they are only different in degree. — Terence McKenna

Hell hath no fury like a woman deprived of her toiletries. — Shannon McKenna

Is there something I can do?"
"About what?" she snapped.
"About your problem," he persisted. "Does anybody's ass need kicking? I can take care of that for you. I kick good ass."
Her laughter rang out, sweet and bright and gorgeous. "Wow," she said. "You'd do that for me? After, what has it been now, a fifteen-minute acquaintance? Twenty, maybe, tops?"
He considered that, and opened his mouth, and the raw, uncut, uncensored truth just plopped right out. "Yeah," he said. "I would. — Shannon McKenna

History is rooted in the future — Terence McKenna

We are like caterpillars contemplating pupation. — Terence McKenna

At still higher doses psilocybin triggers this activity in the language-forming capacity of the brain that manifests as song and vision. Psilocybin may have synergized the emergence of higher forms of psychic organization out of primitive protohuman animals. It can be seen as a kind of evolutionary enzyme, or evolutionary catalyst. — Terence McKenna

Nothing is as boundary dissolving, except for psychedelic compounds, as travel. Travel is up there. — Terence McKenna

The entire drug phenomenon of the 1960s happened without the concept of shamanism to help it along. — Terence McKenna

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Richard McKenna

The sensory ratios that are being reinforced by the new electronic technology are like the sensory ratios that were in place fifteen thousand years ago ... Print imposes a condition on human mind which is now lifting. — Terence McKenna

It is slowly becoming understood that the modality of being is the modality of mind. — Terence McKenna

But what I really am interested in is not the end of the world but everything which precedes it. — Terence McKenna

He probably ate girls like her for breakfast. They all did. They all had. She had no intention of being eaten for breakfast, ever again.
Her naughty brain took that thought, twirled it around and had a party with it. — Shannon McKenna

Drugs are about dulling perception, about addiction and about behavioral repetition ... What *psychedelics* are about is pattern- dissolving experiences of an extraordinarily high or different awareness. They are the exact opposite of drugs. They promote questioning , they promote consciousness, they promote value examinations, they promote the reconstruction of behavioral patterns. — Terence McKenna

The ultimate singularity is the Big Bang, which physicists believe was responsible for the birth of the universe. We are asked by science to believe that the entire universe sprang from nothingness, at a single point and for no discernible reason. This notion is the limit case for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything. It is a notion that is, in fact, utterly absurd, yet terribly important. Those so-called rational assumptions flow from this initial impossible situation. Western religion has its own singularity in the form of the apocalypse, an event placed not at the beginning of the universe but at its end. This seems a more logical position than that of science. If singularities exist at all it seems easier to suppose that they might arise out of an ancient and highly complexified cosmos, such as our own, than out of a featureless and dimensionless mega-void. — Terence McKenna

In a sense, what's happening is that the unconscious mind is a luxury the human species cannot afford at this point in our dilemma, and so the unconscious mind is simply rising into consciousness by being hardwired into this global infrastructure. — Terence McKenna

Is there a necessary succession in style, or are these things pure chance? — Terence McKenna

I think the experience over the past thousand years is that ideology is poisonous ... The world seen through the lens of ideology is a very limited world. — Terence McKenna

I'm gonna fall in love with you, Kelly said. His words hung in the darkness, bright as candle flames. — Cara McKenna

One cannot find out whether or not there's an extraterrestrial intelligence inside the mushroom unless one is willing to take the mushroom. — Terrance McKenna

I really think there is a very large distinction between synthetic and naturally occurring drugs ... I think that these plants 'take people' as much as people take the plants ... When you take one of these ancient, ancient hallucinogens you are locking in to the morphogenetic fields of all the people who ever took it. — Terence McKenna

Nobody should be allowed more than fifty years to get their act together. — Terence McKenna

We are alienated, so alienated that the self must disguise itself as an extraterrestrial in order not to alarm us with the truly bizarre dimensions that it encompasses. — Terence McKenna

The main thing to understand is that we are imprisoned in some kind of work of art. — Terence McKenna

The war on drugs was never meant to be won. Instead, it will be prolonged as long as possible in order to allow various intelligence operations to wring the last few hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits from the global drug scam; then defeat will have to be declared. "Defeat" will mean, as it did in the case of the Vietnam War, that the media will correctly portray the true dimensions of the situation and the real players, and that public revulsion at the culpability, stupidity and venality of the Establishment's role will force a policy review. — Terence McKenna

Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness. — Terence McKenna

As the sphere of understanding grows ever larger, necessarily the surface area of ignorance gets ever bigger — Dennis McKenna

LSD is different. LSD is like psychoanalytical Drano. It's not a personality. — Terence McKenna

What WE represent is the nexus of concrescent novelty that has been moving itself together, complexifying itself, folding itself in upon itself for billions and billions of years. There is, so far as we know, nothing more advanced than what is sitting behind your eyes. The human neocortex is the most densely ramified complexified structure in the known universe. — Terence McKenna