Life Quotes by Terence McKenna

Life must be a preparation for the transition to another dimension.

— Terence McKenna

Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity.

— Terence McKenna

The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.

— Terence McKenna

How do we fight back? By creating art.

— Terence McKenna

The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature.

— Terence McKenna

It’s pretty simple, the ethical life. It’s just demanding.

— Terence McKenna

The surface of things is not where attention should rest.

— Terence McKenna

It is the imagination that argues for the Divine Spark within human beings. It is literally a decent of the World's Soul…

— Terence McKenna

Human beings are co-partners with deity in the project of being. This is the basis of all magic.

— Terence McKenna

I don't believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is…

— Terence McKenna

Closure is a neurotic and infantile demand to make upon reality, other people, or language.

— Terence McKenna

The problem is we have to transcend cultural languages and fall into a phase with the communication systems that nature has placed…

— Terence McKenna

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

— Terence McKenna

Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.

— Terence McKenna

As a society we cannot seem to make peace with nature. As individuals, it's hard for us to be at peace with…

— Terence McKenna

The reason for the emphasis on shamanism and on other techniques is, you will need techniques if you go into the deep…

— Terence McKenna

I see the psychedelic experience as both the centerpiece of prehistoric life and destined to be the centerpiece of any future that…

— Terence McKenna

I discovered early in life a stunning truth that's made my life very complicated in its wake, but that I still think…

— Terence McKenna

Chaos is what we've lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant…

— Terence McKenna

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's…

— Terence McKenna

If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the…

— Terence McKenna

There will be difficult moments in a five-gram trip, but on the other hand certain questions will be solved forever for you,…

— Terence McKenna

We have to claim anarchy and realize that systems have a life of their own that is anti-humanist. There is definitely an…

— Terence McKenna

Marcel Eliade took the position that hallucinogenic shamanism was decadent, and Gordon Wasson, very rightly I believe, contravened this view and held…

— Terence McKenna

When we look within ourselves with psilocybin, we discover that we do not have to look outward toward the futile promise of…

— Terence McKenna

All the accoutrements that distinguish us from animal existence were put in place when we had a different kind of mind than…

— Terence McKenna

The shaman is a person who is able to transcend the dimensional confines of cultural existence. They know more than the people…

— Terence McKenna

The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community,…

— Terence McKenna

In shamanism and certain yogas, Taoist yoga, claim very clearly that the purpose is to familiarize yourself with this after-death body, in…

— Terence McKenna

In our own time, through integrative sciences like ecology and animal behavior and psychology we have re-understood what was forgotten during the…

— Terence McKenna

DMT is a reliable method for crossing in to a dimension that human beings have debated the existence of for 50.000 years.…

— Terence McKenna

“We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus…

— Terence McKenna

A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls…

— Terence McKenna

Eros is an ego-overwhelming, boundary dissolving, breakthrough creating force scripted into human life that is pretty intrinsically psychedelic.

— Terence McKenna

One thing that these Buddhists have certainly gotten right is that attention to attention is the key to taking control of your…

— Terence McKenna

Language, thought, analysis, art, dance, poetry, mythmaking: these are the things that point the way toward the realm of the eschaton.

— Terence McKenna

The purpose of life is to familiarize oneself with this after-death body so that the act of dying will not create confusion…

— Terence McKenna

Every click of the cosmic clock brings us closer to the process for which the planet called us into existence.

— Terence McKenna

If you're truly psychedelic the difference between living and dying is quite immaterial. No pun intended.

— Terence McKenna

Nature has an economy, an elegance, a style, that if we could but emulate it we could rise out of the rubble…

— Terence McKenna