Terence McKenna

“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”

“Chaos is what we've lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego.”

“Culture is not your friend. Culture is an operating system designed to keep you bought into a system of values that may or may not be beneficial to you.”

“The message of psychedelics is that culture can be re-engineered as a set of emotional and spiritual values rather than products.”

“Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.”

“The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation.”

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing.”

“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.”

“The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.”

“Stop consuming images and start creating them.”

“We have to create culture, don't watch it, don't buy it. Create it, draw it, sculpt it, paint it, act it, dance it, sing it.”

“The bigger you build the bonfire, the more darkness is revealed.”

“The world is not ending. It's transforming. And you are part of that transformation.”

“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.”

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles.”

“You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms.”

“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.”

“The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere.”

“The imagination is the goal of history. I see culture as an effort to literally realize our collective dreams.”

“My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.”