∂an Posted July 5, 2012 ORLY? That's a big big claim if you've actually studied philosophy. I've listened to a couple of McKenna's talks (from deoxy.org and other places) and really, there wasn't anything noteworthy that a lot of philosophers haven't already expounded upon over the last few centuries in much greater depth and detail. You can't really refute one supposedly careless claim with another. I can understand that his material is not for everyone, but you can't dismiss the guys whole corpus based on a couple of listens. His ability to convey the impression of the psychedelic experience is quite unique. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goneski Posted July 6, 2012 You can't really refute one supposedly careless claim with another. I can understand that his material is not for everyone, but you can't dismiss the guys whole corpus based on a couple of listens. His ability to convey the impression of the psychedelic experience is quite unique. No. It's careless to say McKenna's works trump ALL PREVIOUS human philosophy. I just pointed out how careless this claim is. Seriously -- that's a MASSIVE claim to make. His works trumps *ALL* previous human philosophy? Really? Wow. I'd love to know which philosophers, systems of philosophy, etc the person who made this claim has studied. Surely they haven't studied ALL philosophy? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
folias Posted July 6, 2012 No. It's careless to say McKenna's works trump ALL PREVIOUS human philosophy. I didn't say that. I said "Someone needs to collate his talks into a compendium of his thinking and ideas. That book would make all previous human philosophy look like the big steaming pile almost all of it is!" There are few very thinkers in history with more sense and clarity than TM! Julian. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
coin Posted July 6, 2012 Podcast 316 – “A Deep Dive Into the Mind of McKenna” http://www.matrixmasters.net/salon/?p=595 July 1, 2012 and what we always surely knew - that he didn't believe, himself, most of what came out of his mouth Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Seldom Posted July 7, 2012 (edited) wow .. was kind of heart breaking to hear that recording of the trialogue he had at Esalen around the 35 minute mark where 2 people who followed and collaborated with Terrence start to denounce his ideas, basically ridiculing him and saying 'we've had enough of the nonsense', the people in the crowd just laughing at him. Edited July 7, 2012 by bulls on parade Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
∂an Posted July 7, 2012 http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27586&pid=375925&st=0entry375925 For those of you who won't listen to the podcast, the headline is that in around 1988 or 1989 McKenna had such a bad mushroom trip that he never took them again. In the decade that followed he had doubts about his role as a psychedelic spokesman and resented feeling the need to please his fans with the usual timewave zero and time travel etc theories. This is going to be part of Dennis McKenna's book about there lives called the Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss. I'm glad this has become public knowledge as it was obvious that he was a tormented character and harboured more than his fair share of demons, and hopefully now people can see him as human with flaws like all of us. It must have been quite a trip for him, even without the mushrooms, through the 1990's towards his eventual death from a mushroom shaped brain tumor in 2000. It must have seemed for the world to him that this brain tumour was a direct consequence of his dichotomous and perhaps dishonest existence. And maybe it was, as Bruce Damer said, on his death bed he finally opened his heart to the idea that its not about fancy ideas but simply love. I found Terence was at his best when he was talking about history, alchemy, shamanism, literature, and his travel stories, and not timewave zero, mushroom assisted evolution, ufo's etc which he would often repeat verbatim and it just feels like he is going through the motions to earn his pay. An intriguing person, can't wait to read this book. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
coin Posted July 8, 2012 Damer's suggestion (of a possibility) that it was all "the mushroom's" doing (initiating a tumor, etc.) to finally get Terence heart-opened, is absolute non-sense. I can't stand hearing shit like that Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
folias Posted July 9, 2012 And maybe it was, as Bruce Damer said, on his death bed he finally opened his heart to the idea that its not about fancy ideas but simply love. Actually, he always said that, and said in one of his talks in LA in the eighties, that it was as hard to say that in heavy metal LA as it was in 60's Haight Ashbury. He also was quite straight up about himself. In one talk, he mentions Kathleen Harrison as his other half, and then said, some would say my only good half! A friend in Cape Town is releasing videos of TM talks on youtube, there are 6 more to come! Julian. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted July 14, 2012 the podcast discussed in several threads: Podcast 316 – “A Deep Dive Into the Mind of McKenna” This podcast has been temporarily removed at the request of Dennis McKenna. Unfortunately, some of the material from his upcoming book was from an early draft and will not be included in the published edition of the book. After consulting with Bruce Damer, I hope to be able to remove the portions of this podcast in which excerpts of Dennis’ book were read. If the program still “holds together” after those edits I will re-post this podcast. As for the comments, having once been in a situation where my posts were removed from a site without asking me, I deeply understand the frustration of those who took the time to make those valuable comments. All of that material has been preserved, and it is my intention to re-post the comments also. Thank you for understanding, Lorenzo ---------- did anybody save it? i was too slow to get a listen. -------------------- Julian, thanks for that video. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
∂an Posted July 14, 2012 Yeah I got it thunder. l upload it somewhere when I get home. This has been great publicity for his book dunno why Dennis would object. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gwalchgwyn Posted July 17, 2012 It will be interesting to see how views about Terrence McKenna will be changed once Dennis's Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss is published... I see in commentary much reliance on a worldview, certainly promoted by the ethics of sky-god authority nascent to just 7-9000 years ago in some agricultural and pastoral* groupminds, of casting characters, experience, and all of existence, into immovable unchanging parts - what I call the Static Lie: he is this; this is the word. If there are any dynamics, those dynamics are progressive - moving that is toward an agendized and final endpoint viewed as 'good,' and once there, unchanging. * although pastoralists, by definition, move, I speak here of ethical systems: 'right' ways in the cultural world-view. Who, perhaps not in their core, but certainly in important guiding principles, is the idealogical same as they were seven years ago? Some of Terrence's ally interests and commentaries on those allies were later deemed "regrettable" by both he and his brother. Yet what is one to do? The illusory tool of literacy seems to put a stamp on a person and an idea that does not account for any dynamism at all, what Eco calls two dimensional in literature. I prefer to ride Terrence's writing as a trippy visionary experience, and in this perspective he is not unlike the Caapi-drinkers who speak of travelling the Milky Way (eerily Vedantic in a way). The importance I appreciate is the patterns that are experienced. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acacia King Posted August 3, 2012 (edited) I think it's preposterous to believe there's some kind of 'reality' behind psychedelic / drug experiences given how little we know about the human brain. This is where the humility of science wins my respect. I think its preposterous to discount the validity of any experience given how little we know about reality. I think Dennis Mckenna put i perfectly when he said "I am here to tell you that all experience is a DRUG experience. We are made of drugs" Our perception of "reality" is entirely based on a drug experience. Breakthrough experiences on say DMT can be (and I love the term) hyper-real. How can anyone tell you that an experience you have that seems more real than consensus reality is invalid. Reality is what we experience, its subjective. Physics these days is making it fairly clear that there is no such thing as objective reality. So that makes experiences (psychadelic or otherwise) king. As far as Terrence goes. At least he stuck his neck out and did what he could for the psychedelic movement. maybe his views were a little to far one way but i think that has just brought a bit more balance to a fairly on sided consensus opinion . Maybe he didn't get everything right but when its all said and done he did devote the better part of his lift to something that a lot of us here a pretty fond of. Anyone planning to go and seen Dennis in October? Edited August 3, 2012 by Acacia King 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mutant Posted August 3, 2012 nice this was resurrected... I am very interested in the lost podcast too, kalika ... TI, indeed, they way he captured the psychedelic vision with words is very unique and Mckennish ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rizla Posted August 17, 2012 (edited) Hi Mutant, it's around on youtube if you look for it (need a link? I'll PM if you want). Thanks for catalysing the topic and thanks to everyone for all the great posts. This thread exemplifies why I love this place. Tolerance amid disagreement? They can co-exist. Thank you all. Edited August 17, 2012 by Rizla 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
webby Posted September 14, 2012 (edited) I love the Bard McKenna, not because he was a great philosopher or radical brilliant scientist, but because he was a poet, a rascal who liked to take mushrooms and smoke heaps of pot and found a way to do that on his own piece of paradise in Hawaii, all by writing a few entertaining crazy books and giving a bunch of highly out there talks and enthralling his followers with the magic of a good story well told.. He never took himself seriously and constantly advised other to do the same, to take his ideas with a pinch of salt, all he hoped to do was inspire people to go out and have their own experiences, to drop the conditioning of culturally sanctioned beliefs and make you own experience and conclusions your primary ground of being, and in my opinion that is great advice. He was one of the people who helped me to grow up, to open my mind and my heart to an infinitely bigger picture of reality than I had ever imagined was possible and for that I thank him and offer a toast to his memory. But as far as using any of his ideas to base my own metaphysics or spiritual philosophy on, well that's just crazy and not what he was trying to sell, the people who make McKenna or anyone else into their own personal guru do so by their own reasoning, it's their choice,, People give the guru spiritual authority by insisting to themselves that the guru has it, McKenna was nuts, and that's what made him so great, he gave us all permission to be a bit nuts, without feeling guilty about it. If I had to recommend a philosopher that would provide someone with a good grounding of ideas and a foothold on gasping their own mind I would point them towards Alan Watts, One recent and interesting fact that has come out about Terence and a fact that in some ways rocked many of his followers is the revelation through Dennis McKenna and Kat Harrison that Terrence actually stopped taking all psychedelics in 1988 after a really bad mushroom trip that just ripped him to shreds, but the bills needed to be paid, the lecture tours were sold out so Terence continued to deliver the schpeel but his heart was no longer in it the same way, and this in fact was a thing that privately tormented him in the final decade of his life, he was still the showman, but he had lost faith in the show. lorenzo at the psychedelic salon released a talk from elsalen that was held recently where this was discussed in some depth. the podcast is here.... Edited September 14, 2012 by webby Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
