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I think that a lot of people are making a lot of money spreading anxiety. Anxiety sells.

Terence McKenna

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Terence McKenna
Age: 53 †
Born: 1946
Born: November 16
Died: 2000
Died: April 3
Anthropologist
Ethnobotanist
Philosopher
Writer
Paonia
Colorado
Terence Kemp McKenna
Spreading
Sells
Anxiety
Making
Money
Think
Thinking
People

More quotes by Terence McKenna

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Shamanism is not some obscure concern of cultural anthropologists. Shamanism is how religion was practiced for its first million years. Up until about 12,000 years ago there was no other form of religion on this planet. That was how people attained some kind of access to the sacred.
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And I don't mean this metaphorically. I want to be taken seriously as proposing that the ennui of modernity is the consequence of a disruptive symbiotic relationship between ourselves and vegetable nature.
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And so, these are the things, the exploration of which, the singing about of which, makes us human beings. The exploration of the universe of the unseen is the business of human beings.
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History is like self-reflection through the medium of language propelling itself into self-recognition.
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No one is in charge of this process, this is what makes history so interesting, it's a runaway freight train on a dark and stormy night.
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You're immortal as long as you live.
Terence McKenna
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Plants seem like an excellent model for the kind of future that we should be building.
Terence McKenna
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Nature has an economy, an elegance, a style, that if we could but emulate it we could rise out of the rubble we are making out of the planet
Terence McKenna
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The obligation on us is to communicate the truth so that it is understood. The belief will take care of itself.
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Don't diddle the dose. Once you have done your homework, go for it.
Terence McKenna
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LSD is different. LSD is like psychoanalytical Drano. It's not a personality.
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I think institutions will inevitably substitute a rite or a ritual for the authentic, for the real McCoy, because then priests can control the pipeline to god, and the parishioner can approach with offerings. But if everybody can have a pipeline to deity, why then the whole priest scam is put out of business.
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You see, a secret is not something untold. It’s something which can’t be told.
Terence McKenna
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All the accoutrements that distinguish us from animal existence were put in place when we had a different kind of mind than we have now. We didn't have a mind that favored role specialization, and male dominance, and anxiety over female sexual activity related to feelings of male ownership. That all came later.
Terence McKenna
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This is the key. If you get into deep water with these substances, this is true of psilocybin as well, you don't want to clench, you don't want to assume the fetal position and stop breathing. You want to sit up straight and breathe, and sing, and sing it back, and it will step back. You can take control of your situation ... most of the time.
Terence McKenna
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The real nature of our predicament is completely opaque to us.
Terence McKenna
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I don’t know what life is like without cannabis, I hear there is such a thing.
Terence McKenna
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No culture on earth is as heavily narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive behavior. We pursue a business-as-usual attitude in a surreal atmosphere of mounting crises and irreconcilable contradictions.
Terence McKenna
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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.
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We are consciousness. We may not always be monkeys.
Terence McKenna