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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests a connection between the revival of psychedelics and advancements in space exploration, signaling a transformative shift in human consciousness.
Terence McKenna's quote highlights the intertwining of psychedelic experiences and the advancements in technology related to space exploration. He posits that as humanity develops new capabilities to transcend our earthly confines, there is a corresponding spiritual and psychological evolution occurring, leading to the emergence of a new, more enlightened human culture. This transformation, he argues, will contrast sharply with previous eras of human development, suggesting a significant leap in collective consciousness and global understanding.
In practice
During a lecture on the future of human evolution, one might quote McKenna to emphasize the link between technology and 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.
The engineers of the future will be poets.
If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize that we were alone?
I find it [science] analytical, pretentious and superficial-largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox-in other words,-all the things I love the most.
There are many levels of Christianity. There are many notions about God. To believe that God is a person is just one of the notions of God that you can find in Christianity. So, we should not say that there is one Christianity. There are many Christianities.
The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive… compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.
Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.
There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect, and once in a while man's evil prying calls them just within our range.
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