Only psychos and shamans create their own reality
Interpretation
The quote suggests that only those with unconventional thinking, like shamans and psychos, have the ability to shape their own perceptions and experiences of reality.
In this quote, Terence McKenna points out the distinction between typical perception and the extraordinary capabilities of certain individuals. He implies that creating one's own reality is a trait of those who think outside societal normsβeither in a mystical sense, like shamans who connect to deeper spiritual truths, or in a disturbed manner, like psychos who may suffer from a break from conventional reality. This suggests a deeper commentary on the nature of reality itself and the flexibility of human experience.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality.
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.
The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.
It is a curious fact that no man likes to call himself a glutton, and yet each of us has in him a trace of gluttony, potential or actual. I cannot believe that there exists a single coherent human being who will not confess, at least to himself, that once or twice he has stuffed himself to bursting point on anything from quail financiere to flapjacks, for no other reason than the beastlike satisfaction of his belly.
If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened - as if somebody was trying to demote them.
Flaws and all, I believe the free press is our country's most important institution - one I am more than happy to defend. One I did, in fact, defend for 37 years.
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