black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.

Terence McKenna

We do not birth our children into the world of nature. We birth our children into the world of culture.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Birth Children Culture Nature World
I don’t know what life is like without cannabis, I hear there is such a thing.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Cannabis Hear Life Like Thing
Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Dream Grindm Under Impossible Philospher Teacher Really Touch Trick Understood
The message of psychedelics is that culture can be re-engineered as a set of emotional values rather than products. This is terrifying news.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Engineer Product Psychedelics Terrifying The Message
It is true that when you smoke DMT, for example, at a sufficiently high and prepared dose, you get elves, everybody does. All you need do, is inhale deeply three times, and you know… You want contact? You want elves? You want alien contact? You’ll have that!
TERENCE MCKENNA

Dose Elves Everybody Example Prepare Smoke Sufficient True Want
There is an angel within the monkey struggling to get free, and this is what the historical crisis is all about.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Angel Crisis Free Historical Money Struggle
The terror of drugs is a terror of giving up control. This is what people are most alarmed about by psychedelics, is the giving up control.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Alarmed Control Drug Giving Most Npsychedelics People Terror Up
The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Anything Artist Burn Country Journey Mankind Self
You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Assumption Clothes Naked Off Prejudice Religion Religious Take
Every click of the cosmic clock brings us closer to the process for which the planet called us into existence.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Call Click Clock Closer Cosmic Existence Planet Process
When we free ourselves we are not freed into a void. When we free ourselves we are freed into a dimension in which Art is an obligation.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Art Dimension Freed Ourselves Void
Worrying is betting against yourself.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Against Betting Worry Yourself
If you actually look at the etymology of the word ‘hallucination’, what it’s come to mean in English is a delusion. But what it really means in the original language is to wander in the mind. That’s the meaning of ‘hallucination’, to wander in the mind.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Actual Delusion English Look Mean Mind
Think about our dilemma on this planet. If the expansion of consciousness does not loom large in the human future, what kind of future is it going to be?
TERENCE MCKENNA

Dilemma Doe Expansion Planet Thinking
We’ve painted ourselves into a corner where the only choice is real nightmare – triage, epidemic disease, famine, fascism, the collapse of human rights – or a leap to an entirely different level. We’ve taken business-as-usual off the menu. Now only the extreme possibilities loom.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Choice Corner Disease Epidemics Famine Fascinate Hippie Nightmare Ourselves Paint Real Taken Triage
Nobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? What good is their understanding doing you?
TERENCE MCKENNA

Doing Good Nobody Smart Smarter Understanding
The Imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Everywhere Golden Imagination Pathways
Don’t worry. You don’t know enough to worry. . . . Who do you think you are that you should worry, for cryin’ out loud. It’s a total waste of time. It presupposes such a knowledge of the situation that it is, in fact, a form of hubris.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Cryin Enough Loud Out Think Waste Worry
You’re immortal as long as you live.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Immortal Live Long
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, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Archetype Chaos Dominant Fera Lost Name Our Our World
Capitalism is going to deal itself out of existence, but before it does that, you’re gonna pay $50 for a latte, because inflation is going impoverish all of us before people get pissed off enough,
TERENCE MCKENNA

Capitalism Existence Game People Years
Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Concern Government Information Processing Jump Loving Oilligal Psychedelics
Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Ability End Mirror Image Mirrors Psychedelic
People without plants are in a state of perpetual neurosis, a state of existential wanting.
TERENCE MCKENNA

People Perpetual Plant State Want
The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Blowing Made Magic Mind Real Secret Word World
To me it begins and ends with these psychedelic substances. The synergy of the psilocybin in the hominid diet brought us out of the animal mind and into the world of articulated speech and imagination.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Animal Begin Imagination Mind Psychedelic Substance
The absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident, but in our case we make an exception.
TERENCE MCKENNA

Absurdity Assertion Evident Exception Self

The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Terence McKenna Quotes