Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types today don't understand that it's not important to maintain control if you are not in control in the first place.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that a fear of losing control in psychedelic experiences reflects a deeper misunderstanding of true control in life.
Terence McKenna's quote highlights the egocentric nature of contemporary culture, which often prioritizes control and dominance. He argues that the fear associated with psychedelic experiences stems from a misunderstanding of control itself; true freedom and understanding come from letting go of the need to dominate oneβs experiences and accepting the unpredictability of life. In essence, McKenna invites us to reconsider our relationship with control and encourages a more open, exploratory approach to consciousness.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth and exploring consciousness.
We want freedom. We want freedom from the constraints of the cycles of the sun and the moon. We want freedom from drought and weather, freedom from the movement of game, the growth of plants, freedom from control from mendacious popes and kings, freedom from ideology, freedom from want. This idea of freeing ourselves has become the compass of the human journey.
LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.
Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced.
If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.
It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age.
I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.
A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]
Things looked at patiently from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.
Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.
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