Terence McKenna quotes, and the talks they came from

Search for Terence McKenna quotes and you will find thousands of them, stacked on image backgrounds, with no indication of where any of them came from. Some are paraphrases. Some are from his books. A few are not his at all - "find the others" is Timothy Leary's line, which McKenna is careful to credit whenever he uses it.

This page works differently. Every quote below was matched word-for-word against the transcript of an actual recording. Click any one to hear him say it.

Culture and conditioning

Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you.

Shamans Among the Machines (aka "Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines")

We have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture. Don't watch TV, Don't read magazines.

Eros and the Eschaton

You simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead.

Eros and the Eschaton

Personal empowerment means deconditioning yourself from the values and the programs of the society.

Hermeticism & Alchemy

The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation.

The World And Its Double (aka "Folk Technology")

Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity.

Appreciating Imagination – Part 4

Culture is not our friend, culture is not your friend, it's not my friend.

A Few Conclusions About Life

Thinking for yourself

Haven't you figured out by now that nobody is smarter than you are and if they are you can't understand what they're saying anyway so why bother?

Axiom Production (aka "The Plot Thickens, the Stakes Rise")

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility.

Alien Luv

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

McKenna: Hermeticism and Alchemy Part 4

You are a divine being you matter, you count.

Unfolding The Stone - Making and Unmaking History and Language

We are led by the least among us, the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary.

Shamans Among the Machines (aka "Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines")

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality I think. After all if it's there it doesn't require your belief and if it's not there why should you believe in it?

Taxonomy of Illusion

Language and imagination

Language is stuff of the world, not quarks or wave packets or neutrinos but language. Everything is made of language.

Experiment at Petaluma

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

Trialogue - Chaos, Creativity and Imagination [ft. Ralph Abraham & Rupert Sheldrake]

The felt presence of immediate experience.

Nature Loves Complexity

I call it the felt presence of direct experience.

Eros and the Eschaton

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.

Alien Dreamtime [Live Multimedia Performance]

Psychedelics

Part of what psychedelics do is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato.

In The Valley Of Novelty

The psychedelic experience is the birthright of every human being on the planet.

Albert Hofmann Tribute [ft. Terence McKenna]

When the psychedelics dissolve boundaries, we merge again with the living intellecting of nature.

The New Psychedelics (Ego-Soft)

I think all hallucinogens are catalysts for cognitive activity.

Magical Material

Five dried grams in silent darkness.

Having Archaic and Eating it Too Workshop

We should look within. The paths of the heart lead to nearby universes full of life and affection for humanity.

True Hallucinations Audio Book [Narrated by Terence]

Nature

The world is communication. Nature is the great teacher. All human gurus are simply distillations of the wave of nature that is coming at you.

The Light In Nature

Matter is not lacking in magic matter is magic.

Dreaming Awake at the End of Time

The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history.

Opening the Doors of Creativity

Nature loves courage.

Places I Have Been

Time, history and what comes next

History is the shockwave of eschatology.

Catalysts of Consciousness

We are within 20 30 40 50 years of confronting the transcendental object at the end of time that drew us out of the animal body.

Taxonomy of Illusion

Technology is the real skin of our species.

New and Old Maps of Hyperspace

The drugs of the future will be computers. The computers of the future will be drugs.

Eros, Chaos & Meaning's Edge / Hot Concepts And Melting Edges (Esalen Workshop) [aka "This Counts, Somehow it Matters"]