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Terrence McKenna
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Top 10 Terrence McKenna Quotes

2 min

Terrence McKenna was a philosopher and psychonaut of our time. His profound words of wisdom not only shape lives, but the very core of the psychedelic scene today.

Terrence McKenna was a paragon of the psychedelic world. This philosopher, author, lecturer and psychonaut dedicated the majority of his life to studying the foundations of Shamanism, spirituality, and ethnopharmacology. His work and philosophies have been an inspiration to the world of psychedelics, and his drive to push humanity forwards using them has played a large part into both the spiritual and scientific understanding applications of their use.

The 10 Best Quotes By Terrence McKenna

Although he is no longer with us, his work profound understanding still lives on. So we thought it only fitting to share 10 of our favourite quotes.

Quote #10

“Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.”

Quote #9

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

Quote #8

“Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien... What is driving religious feeling today is a wish for contact with this other universe.”

Quote #7

“If you don't have a plan, you become part of somebody else's plan.”

Quote #6

“The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.

It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down - sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray.

At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.

But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.”

Quote #5

“It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy.”

Quote #4

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

Quote #3

“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.”

Quote #2

“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. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”

Quote #1

“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.”

Steven Voser
Steven Voser
Steven Voser is an independent cannabis journalist with over 6 years of experience writing about all things weed; how to grow it, how best to enjoy it, and the booming industry and murky legal landscape surrounding it.
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