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.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the human desire for freedom from various constraints and influences.
Terence McKenna's quote reflects a deep-seated yearning for liberation from both natural and societal constraints. It emphasizes that true freedom encompasses not just liberation from physical and environmental limitations, such as the cycles of the sun and weather, but also from oppressive authority and ideological beliefs. This pursuit of freedom is portrayed as a guiding principle in humanity's quest for a meaningful existence, signaling a broader aspiration for autonomy and self-determination in the face of myriad challenges.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about personal freedom and autonomy.
More from Terence Mckenna
All quotes βA 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.
The engineers of the future will be poets.
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Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land.
Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something (All The King's Men)
It's very easy for trusted companies to mislead naive customers, and life insurance companies are trusted.
There are many examples of this mistaken idea of freedom, such as the elimination of human life by legalized or generally accepted abortion.