--- title: "4 Human experience Quotes By Terence McKenna" description: "4 Human experience quotes by Terence McKenna. Plus more from Terence McKenna and more Human experience sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e22/terence-mckenna-287_abstract-expressioni_history-is-ending-because-the-dominator_564884.png" --- > [“History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the inevitable chaostrophie approaches,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/history-is-ending-because-the-dominator-culture-has-led-the-human/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e22/terence-mckenna-287_abstract-expressioni_history-is-ending-because-the-dominator_564884.png) > [The Truth doesn't need your cooperation to exist. All forms of cult, all forms of hype, all forms of delusion do require…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/the-truth-doesn-t-need-your-cooperation-to-exist-all-forms-of-cult/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a13/terence-mckenna-287_age_the-truth-doesn-t-need-your-cooperation_1103591.jpg) > [What we really are is a community of mind, knitted together by codes and symbols, intuitions, aspirations, histories, hopes - the invisible…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/what-we-really-are-is-a-community-of-mind-knitted-together-by-codes/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/403/terence-mckenna-287_aspiration_what-we-really-are-is-a-community-of-min_1382322.png) > [We're not mere spectators, or a cosmic accident, or some sideshow, or the Greek chorus to the main event. The human experience…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/we-re-not-mere-spectators-or-a-cosmic-accident-or-some-sideshow-or/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/018/terence-mckenna-287_accidents_we-re-not-mere-spectators-or-a-cosmic-ac_2028335.png) ## Other authors on Human experience - [Neale Donald Walsch 7 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/neale-donald-walsch/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b006/author-caroline-myss-21321.jpg) Caroline Myss 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/caroline-myss/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b007/author-daniel-c-peterson-26398.jpg) Angelika Regossi 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/angelika-regossi/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b021/author-sebastian-junger-83883.jpg) Sebastian Junger 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/sebastian-junger/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b010/author-george-eliot-37652.jpg) George Eliot 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/george-eliot/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b005/author-bren-brown-19292.jpg) Brené Brown 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/bren-brown/) ## More by Terence McKenna > [History was an incredibly damaging experience, and now it's over . . . in a sense.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/history-was-an-incredibly-damaging-experience-and-now-it-s-over-in-a/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [We are somehow the children of the planet, we are somehow its finest hour; we bind time, we bind the past, we anticipate the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/we-are-somehow-the-children-of-the-planet-we-are-somehow-its-finest/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [The history of man that you don't know is what your unconscious is made out of. Just as the history of yourself that you…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/the-history-of-man-that-you-don-t-know-is-what-your-unconscious-is/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [We are consciousness. We may not always be monkeys.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/we-are-consciousness-we-may-not-always-be-monkeys/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [What is happening here is we are living past the age, by the millions, living past the age where cultural values make any sense…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/what-is-happening-here-is-we-are-living-past-the-age-by-the-millions/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [What history is, essentially, is a careening, out-of-control effort to find our way back to this state of primordial balance.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/what-history-is-essentially-is-a-careening-out-of-control-effort-to/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [And what is the primary datum? It's the felt presence of immediate experience. In other words, being here now is the primary datum.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/and-what-is-the-primary-datum-it-s-the-felt-presence-of-immediate/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/our-culture-difinitely-takes-an-egocentric-dominator-view-the-fear-of/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [Every step into freedom contains within it the potential for greater bondage.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/every-step-into-freedom-contains-within-it-the-potential-for-greater/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [This is the message of your life and my life - it’s that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/this-is-the-message-of-your-life-and-my-life-it-s-that-nothing-lasts/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [I often like to think that our map of the world is wrong, that where we have centered physics, we should actually place literature…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/i-often-like-to-think-that-our-map-of-the-world-is-wrong-that-where/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/knowledge-or-verbal-facility-is-no-proof-that-you-know-what-you-re/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [No culture on earth is as heavily narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive behavior. We…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/no-culture-on-earth-is-as-heavily-narcotized-as-the-industrial-west/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [Man was not put on this planet to toil in the mud. Or the god who put us on this planet to toil in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/man-was-not-put-on-this-planet-to-toil-in-the-mud-or-the-god-who-put/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) > [If you take psychedelics and the Internet and music and put all of that together you have the basis for a new community that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/if-you-take-psychedelics-and-the-internet-and-music-and-put-all-of/) [Terence McKenna](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terence-mckenna/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-experience/terence-mckenna/#itemlist", "name": "4 Human experience Quotes By Terence McKenna", "numberOfItems": 4, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the inevitable chaostrophie approaches, people look for metaphors and answers. Every time a culture gets into trouble it casts itself back into the past looking for the last sane moment it ever knew. And the last sane moment we ever knew was on the plains of Africa 15,000 years ago rocked in the cradle of the Great Horned Mushroom Goddess before history, before standing armies, before slavery and property, before warfare and phonetic alphabets and monotheism, before, before, before. And this is where the future is taking us because the secret faith of the twentieth century is not modernism, the secret faith of the twentieth century is nostalgia for the archaic, nostalgia for the paleolithic, and that gives us body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock-n-roll and catastrophe theory. The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are. And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past. This is what the psychedelic experience means. Its a doorway out of history and into the wiring under the board in eternity. And I tell you this because if the community understands what it is that holds it together the community will be better able to streamline itself for flight into hyperspace because what we need is a new myth, what we need is a new true story that tells us where we're going in the universe and that true story is that the ego is a product of pathology, and when psilocybin is regularly part of the human experience the ego is supressed and the supression of the ego means the defeat of the dominators, the materialists, the product peddlers. Psychedelics return us to the inner worth of the self, to the importance of the feeling of immediate experience - and nobody can sell that to you and nobody can buy it from you, so the dominator culture is not interested in the felt presence of immediate experience, but that's what holds the community together. And as we break out of the silly myths of science, and the infantile obsessions of the marketplace what we discover through the psychedelic experience is that in the body, IN THE BODY, there are Niagaras of beauty, alien beauty, alien dimensions that are part of the self, the richest part of life. I think of going to the grave without having a psychedelic experience like going to the grave without ever having sex. It means that you never figured out what it is all about. The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature. What the Archaic Revival means is shamanism, ecstacy, orgiastic sexuality, and the defeat of the three enemies of the people. And the three enemies of the people are hegemony, monogamy and monotony! And if you get them on the run you have the dominators sweating folks, because that means your getting it all reconnected, and getting it all reconnected means putting aside the idea of separateness and self-definition through thing-fetish. Getting it all connected means tapping into the Gaian mind, and the Gaian mind is what we're calling the psychedelic experience. Its an experience of the living fact of the entelechy of the planet. And without that experience we wander in a desert of bogus ideologies. But with that experience the compass of the self can be set, and that's the idea; figuring out how to reset the compass of the self through community, through ecstatic dance, through psychedelics, sexuality, intelligence, INTELLIGENCE. This is what we have to have to make the forward escape into hyperspace.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Terence McKenna" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terence-mckenna/history-is-ending-because-the-dominator-culture-has-led-the-human/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e22/terence-mckenna-287_abstract-expressioni_history-is-ending-because-the-dominator_564884.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e22/terence-mckenna-287_abstract-expressioni_history-is-ending-because-the-dominator_564884.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e22/terence-mckenna-287_abstract-expressioni_history-is-ending-because-the-dominator_564884.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the…” — Terence McKenna", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "The Truth doesn't need your cooperation to exist. All forms of cult, all forms of hype, all forms of delusion do require your participation in order to exist. I've looked into marginal areas of human experience -historical and otherwise- with a rational mind, and what I've found is that doorways into the miraculous are far fewer than the publicists of the New Age would have us believe. On the other hand, they are not as rare as the proponents of radical reductionism and materialism would have us believe. 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