The Angel In The Monkey

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.

This is Lorenzo, and I'm your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

And to begin with, I'd like to thank Guy, Benjamin, Steve, Timothy, and Reblin

for buying a copy of The Genesis Generation, my pay-what-you-can novel in audiobook format.

Your donations are very much appreciated.

And speaking of appreciation, I think that we should all spend a moment or two

sending our love and good vibes out to the legendary alchemist who we simply knew as Owsley.

As you already know, Owsley died in an automobile crash in Queensland, Australia a little over a week ago.

And if you aren't familiar with Owsley's work, it might be worth your time to Google him.

His full name was Augustus Owsley Stanley III, and I think it's safe to say that what we call the 60s

wouldn't have been nearly as interesting without him as it was, thanks to the millions of doses of LSD

that he and his assistants produced in order to help us crack the cosmic egg of the status quo thinking

that prevailed when that era began.

So, happy trails, Owsley, and I hope you come back soon.

Now, speaking of coming back, today at long last we are going to hear yet another talk by the one and only Terrence McKenna.

What I'm going to play for you right now is an interview of his that I found in the big box of tapes

that Diana Slattery sent to me.

And, hey, thank you ever so much, Diana. I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the ink on the label somehow became wet and got smeared on this tape,

and so I don't have any information to give you as to the date or place of this interview,

but I think that you'll find that, once again, even though he may touch on themes we've heard from him before,

that the material somehow seems very fresh.

There's talk of extraterrestrials and ways that they may be trying to communicate with us,

talk of shamanism and philosophy,

and all of which I think can be summed up in his statement when he says,

there is an angel within the monkey struggling to get free,

and this is what the historical crisis is all about.

So, in order to help us get today's historical crisis in a little better perspective,

let's now join the good bard, Terrence McKenna.

Well, do you think we're in a state of transition?

Are we moving from one culture to another?

Oh, I think we're definitely in a state of transition.

This is the chaos at the end of history.

However, it's probably nothing to be alarmed about.

I imagine it's simply the normal situation that prevails

when a species is preparing to depart for the stars.

Do you think we're preparing to depart for the stars?

Well, on the scale of a hundred or a thousand years,

I think it's an unavoidable conclusion,

and that span of time in geological terms is hardly the wink of an eye.

In fact, all of human history from that perspective

appears as a preparation for human transcendence of the planetary existence.

Do we want to get away from the planet?

Well, I think you have to take the view that certainly the planet is the cradle of mankind,

but inevitably one cannot remain in the cradle forever.

However, the human imagination in conjunction with technology

has become a force so potent

that it really can no longer be unleashed on the surface of the planet

with safety.

The human imagination has gained such an immense power

that the only environment that is friendly to it

is actually the vacuum of deep space.

It is there that we can erect the architectonic dreams

that drive us to produce a Los Angeles or a Tokyo

and do it on a scale and in such a way

that it will be fulfilling rather than degrading.

So, yes, I think we cannot move forward in understanding

without accepting as a consequence of that

that we have to leave the planet,

that we are no longer the bipedal monkeys we once were.

We have become almost a new force in nature,

a thing of language and cybernetics

and an amalgam of computers

and human brains

and societal structures

that has such an enormous forward momentum

that the only place where it can express itself

without destroying itself

is, as James Joyce says,

up in the end.

So long, long ago in the faraway galaxy,

Star Wars style may be in our future?

Well...

As opposed to our past?

It's in our present, I think.

Our future is probably almost unimaginable

because I think the transformation

that leaving the planet will bring

will also involve a transformation of our consciousness.

We are not going as 1950s-style human beings.

We are going to have to transform our minds

before we are going to be able to leave the planet

with any amount of grace.

This is where I think the psychedelics come in

because they are anticipations of the future.

They seem to channel information

that is not strictly governed

by the laws of normal causality

so that there really is a prophetic dimension,

a glimpse of the potential of the far centuries of the future

through these compounds.

And no cultural shift of this magnitude

can be unambiguous.

I mean, the very idea that as a species

we would leave the earth behind us

must be as rending an idea

as that a child would leave its childhood home.

Obviously, it's a turning away from something

that once left behind can never be recaptured.

However, this is the nature of going forward into being

a series of self-transforming, a sense of level

and we now simply happen to be

at that moment of ascent to a new level

that is linked to leaving the planetary surface physically

and to reconnecting with the contents

of the unconscious collectivity of our minds.

These two things will be done simultaneously.

This is what the last half of the 20th century,

it seems to me, is all about.

Well, by and large, psychedelics have really not been accepted

into the mainstream.

Do you see a change in that?

Well, not particularly.

They hold a certain fascination for a persistent majority

and in that way they do their catalytic work upon society,

which is to introduce new ideas

and to release a certain kind of creative energy

into society.

I certainly would not like to see a return

to the psychedelic hysterias of the 1960s.

I think it's fine that these things are now

the subject of interest of a much smaller group of people,

but perhaps a group of people with a greater commitment

and a better idea of exactly what these things are.

And it's really the same people.

It's just a smaller group of them

and they have accumulated experience over the past 20 years.

However, I certainly don't think all psychedelic frontiers are conquered.

One of the things that I write about and speak about

are the phenomena that many people confirm

with the psilocybin family of hallucinogens

that no one has included in the standard model of psychedelic drugs.

And by that I refer to the logos-like phenomenon

of an interiorized voice

that seems to be almost a superhuman agency,

a kind of genus loci.

And I've been writing recently about alien intelligence,

which is what I call this,

where you have contact with an entity

so beyond the normal structure of the ego

that if it is not an extraterrestrial,

it might as well be

because its bizarreness

and its ordinary expectations about what can go on

is so great that if flying saucers arrived here tomorrow

from the Pleiades,

it would make this mystery no less compelling.

It amuses me that the scientific community

has taken over the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

and defined it as they care to define it

and have erected radio telescopes

to search the galaxy for these signals.

And the world's largest radio telescope

is at Arecibo in Puerto Rico.

And within the shadow of that installation,

mushrooms grow in the fields

and the cows munch quietly in the sunshine.

And it's this marvelous inner penetration

of the near and the far away

because I believe that the place to search for extraterrestrials

is in the psychic dimension.

And there the problem is not the absence of contact

but the volume of contact

that must be sifted through

because the fact of the matter is

shaman and mystics and seers

have been hearing voices

and talking to gods and demons

since the Paleolithic

and probably before.

That doesn't mean that we can rule out

this approach to communication.

It seems to me far more likely

that an advanced civilization

would communicate interdimensionally

and telepathically.

The amounts of time available

for an intelligent species

to evolve these kinds of communication

are vast.

So I think that it's very interesting then

that the tryptamines,

psilocybin and DMT,

at the 15 milligram level

very reliably trigger

what could only be described

as contact-like phenomena.

And not only the interiorized voice

in the head

but also the classical

flying saucer motifs

of the whirling disc,

the lens-shaped object,

the alien approach.

This seems to be something

hardwired into the human psyche

and I would like to find out why.

I think it's a very odd

human psychology

and I don't buy

any of the current theories

ranging from

that nothing at all is happening

to that this is in fact

another species

with a world around another star

that is getting in touch with us.

I think it's something so bizarre

that it actually masquerades

as an extraterrestrial

so as not to alarm us

by the true implications

of what it is.

Well, your statement implies

that it's something external

to ourselves

and I wonder about that.

Well, this dualism

of the interior

and the exterior

may have to be overcome.

It is obviously

transcends the individual

but I suspect

it is something like

an overmind

of the species

that actually

the highest form

of human organization

is not realized

in the democratic individual.

It is realized

in a dimension

none of us

have ever penetrated

which is the mind

of the species

which is actually

the hand

at the tiller

of history.

It is no government

no religious group

but actually

what we call

the human unconscious

but it is not

unconscious

and it is not

simply a cybernetic repository

of myth and memory.

It is an organized

intellect of some sort

and human history

is its signature

on the primates

and it is so different

from the primates.

It is like a creature

of pure information.

It is made of language.

It releases ideas

into the flowing stream

of history

to boost the primates

toward higher and higher

levels of self-reflection

of it

and we have now

reached the point

where the masks

are beginning to fall away

and we are discovering

that

you know

there is an angel

within the monkey

struggling to get free

and this is

what the historical crisis

is all about

and I'm

for no reasons

in particular

very optimistic.

I mean

I see it

as

a necessary

chaos

that will lead

to a new

and

more attractive

order.

Terence you were talking

about

extraordinary

realities

and

it occurs to me

that there is

an enormous amount

of prejudice

against

the

psychedelics

and the

use of

hallucinogenic

substances

and

it's almost

as if there is

an inordinate

fear

to open up

the

door

to the closet

that these

substances

reveal.

What about

that prejudice?

What do you think

is

how is that

going to be

resolved?

What is the

resolution of that?

Well I think

it's

more complicated

than a prejudice

it's a prejudice

born of respect

because

most people

sense

that these

compounds

probably

actually do

what their

adherents

claim they do.

It's possible

to see the whole

human growth

movement of the

1970s

as a wish

to continue

the inward quest

without having

to put yourself

on the line

the way you had

to when you

took 250

gamma

of LSD.

And I think

all these

other methods

are efficacious

but I think

it's the sheer

power

of the

hallucinogens

that puts

people off.

You either

love them

or you hate

them

and that's

because they

dissolve

world views

and if you

like the

experience

of having

your entire

ontological

structure

disappear

out from

under you

if you think

that's a thrill

you'll probably

love psychedelics.

on the other

hand

for some

people

that's the

most horrible

thing

they can

possibly

imagine

they navigate

reality

through

various forms

of faith

and I think

that the

psychedelics

the doors

of perception

are cleansed

and you see

very very deeply

I spent

time in India

and I would

always go

to the

local

sadhus

of great

reputation

and I met

many people

who possessed

what I call

wise old

man wisdom

but wise old

man wisdom

is a kind

of Tao

of how

to live

it has

nothing to

say about

these dimensions

that the

psychedelics

reveal

and for

that you

have to

go to

places

where

hallucinogenic

shamanism

is practiced

specifically

the Amazon

basin

and there

you discover

that beyond

simply

the wisdom

of how

to live

in ordinary

reality

there is a

gnosis

of how

to navigate

in

extraordinary

reality

and this

reality

is so

extraordinary

that we

cannot

approach

what these

people are

doing

with any

degree

of

smugness

because

the frank

fact of

the matter

is we

have no

viable

theory

of what

mind

is

either

the

beliefs

of a

Witoto

shaman

and the

beliefs

of a

Princeton

phenomenologist

have an

equal chance

of being

correct

and there

are no

arbiters

of who

is right

so

it's the

power

of these

things

the fact

that here

is something

we have

not

assimilated

we have

been to

the moon

we have

charted

the depths

of the

ocean

the heart

of the

atom

but we

have a

fear

of looking

inward

to ourselves

because we

sense that

here is where

all the

contradictions

flow

together

and

the same

prejudice

against

psychoanalysis

that characterized

the 20s

and 30s

when it

was thought

to be

superfluous

or

some kind

of fad

attends

the psychedelics

now

it's because

it touches

a very

sensitive nerve

it touches

the issue

of the

nature

of man

and

people are

uncomfortable

with this

or some

people are

uncomfortable

with this

what is the

value of

exploring

extraordinary

realities

well i guess

it's the same

value that

attends the

exploration

of ordinary

realities

there's an

alchemical

saying

that one

should read

the oldest

books

climb the

highest

mountains

and visit

the broadest

deserts

i think

that

being

imposes

some kind

of obligation

to find

out what's

going on

and

since

all

primary

information

about what

is going

on

comes through

the senses

any drug

or any

compound

which alters

that sensory

input

has to be

looked at

very carefully

i've often

made the

point

that

chemically

speaking

you can

have a

molecule

which is

completely

inactive

as a

psychedelic

and you

move a

single atom

on one

of its

rings

and suddenly

it's a

powerful

psychedelic

well now

it seems

to me

this is

a perfect

proof

of the

inner

penetration

of matter

and mind

the movement

of a single

atom

from one

known

position

to

another

known

position

changes

an

experience

from

nothing

to

overwhelming

this means

that

mind

and

matter

at

the

quantum

mechanical

level

are

all

spun

together

this

means

that

in a

sense

the term

extraordinary

reality

is not

correct

if it

implies

a

division

of

category

from

ordinary

reality

it is

simply

there

is

and some

of it

is

inside

our

heads

and some

of it

is deployed

out through

three-dimensional

newtonian

space

most of us

I think

just simply

accept

the everyday

reality

as the

only one

and

you're

talking

about

journeys

into

the

nether

regions

of

which

far

beyond

most

people's

conception

or even

wanting

to

conceive

of

such

a

reality

well

I think

there's

a

shamanic

temperament

which

is

a

person

who

craves

knowledge

in the

Greek

sense

of

gnosis

in

other

words

knowledge

not

of the

sort

where

you

subscribe

to

Scientific

American

and it

validates

what you

believe

but

immediately

cosmology

is

constructed

out of

immediate

experience

that are

found

always

to be

applicable

you

see

I

don't

believe

that

the

world

is

made

out

of

quarks

or

electromagnetic

waves

or

stars

or

planets

or

any

of

these

things

I

believe

the

world

is

made

out

fact

that

has

been

overlooked

the

construction

of a

flying saucer

is not

so much

a

dilemma

of

hardware

as

it

is

a

poetic

challenge

and

people

find it

very hard

to imagine

exactly

what I'm

talking

about

what I'm

saying

is

that

the

leading

edge

of

reality

is

mind

and

mind

is

the

primary

substratum

of

being

we

in the

west

have

had it

the

wrong

way

around

for

over

a

millennia

but

once

this

is

clearly

understood

with

what

we

that

will

be

a

fusion

of

the

east

and

the

west

the

world

being

made

of

language

and

I

think

of

these

extraordinary

realities

which

are

totally

beyond

any

language

that

we

use

in

any

ordinary

sense

yes

well

they

are

beyond

ordinary

language

I

always

think

of

philo

judaeus

writing

on

the

logos

he

posed

to

himself

the

question

what

would

be

a

more

perfect

logos

and

then

he

answered

saying

it

would

be

a

logos

which

is

not

heard

but

beheld

and

he

imagined

a

form

of

communication

where

the

ears

would

not

be

the

primary

receptors

but

the

eyes

would

be

a

language

where

meaning

was

not

constructed

through

a

dictionary

of

but

actually

three

dimensional

objects

were

generated

with

a

kind

of

hyper

language

so

that

there

was

perfect

understanding

between

people

and

this

may

sound

bizarre

in

ordinary

reality

but

these

forms

of

synesthesia

and

synesthesia

glossolalia

are

commonplace

in

psychedelic

states

Terence

could

you

identify

philo

for us

and tell

us

who

he

was

he

was

an

Alexandrian

Jew

of

the

second

century

who

made

it

his

business

to

travel

around

the

hellenic

world

and

discussed

all the

major

cults

and

religious

and

cosmogonic

theories

of

his

day

so

he's

a

major

source

of

hellenistic

data

for us

how would

you relate

to

Socrates

view of

the

world

well

I

think

of

myself

as

sort

of

a

white

head

ian

Platonist

certainly

the

central

platonic

idea

which

is

the

idea

of

the

ideas

these

archetypal

forms

which

stand

outside

of

time

is

one

which

is

confirmed

by

the

psychedelic

experience

and

Plato's

formulation

of

time

as

the

moving

image

of

eternity

is

another

one

of

these

aphorisms

that

the

psychedelic

state

confirms

and

certainly

neoplatonism

Plotinus

and

Porphyry

and

that

school

are

psychedelic

philosophers

their

idea

of

an

ascending

hierarchy

of

more

and

more

rarefied

states

is

a

sophisticated

presentation

of the

shamanic

cosmology

which

is

the

cosmology

that

one

experientially

discovers

when

they

involve

themselves

with

psychedelics

what

I

think

most

of

us

don't

understand

or

don't

really

know

is

the

fact

that

Greek

culture

and

the

Ellisonian

mysteries

incorporated

the use

of

something

that

very

akin

to

psychedelics

and

essentially

Western

Civilization

is

based

on

the

culture

that

had

at

its

core

root

an

experience

and a

ritual

that

used

to say

something

akin to

psychedelics

yes

well

for over

2,000 years

everyone

who was

anyone

in the

ancient

world

made the

pilgrimage

to

Eleusis

and had

this

experience

which

Gordon

Wasson

and

Carl

Ruck

have

argued

very

convincingly

was

a

hallucinogenic

intoxication

on

ergot

but

of course

as soon

as

the

church

solidified

its

power

it

closed

these

platonic

academies

and

moved

against

pagan

so-called

pagan

knowledge

and

heretical

knowledge

and

not

only

all of

these

viewpoints

were

repressed

I like

to think

that

the end

of that

repression

came in

a very

odd

way

when

in

I guess

it was

Gordon

Wasson

and his

wife

Valentina

in the

village

of

Huatla

de Jimenez

in the

Sierra

Mazateca

of Oaxaca

discovered

the

psilocybin

mushroom

cult

it was

as if

Eros

who had

been

martyred

in the

old

world

was

then

found

sleeping

in the

mountains

of

Mexico

and

resurrected

and

the

experience

of the

mushroom

is

very

much

the

experience

of

a

genus

loci

a

god

on

the

grecian

model

not

the

god

who

hung

the

stars

in

heaven

but

a

local

god

a

pre-christian

bacchanalian

nature

power

is

very

alien

and yet

resonates

with our

expectations

of what that

experience would be like

interesting if the mushroom also is a symbol in our culture of

death and destruction being the symbol of the nuclear

explosion

yes well

mushroom cloud

my brother has made the point asking you know what mushroom is it that grows at the end

of history is it the mushroom of fermet and oppenheimer and teller or is it the mushroom

of wasson and hoffman and humphrey osmond

somehow i think the latter is safer

well it may not only be safer it may open the way to escape from the former

it's like a pun in physics that the force of liberation and the force of destruction could take the same

form it's a what alchemists call a coincidencia positorum

it is an amazing synchronicity it seems

that

also i was interested in talking with andy weill

some

time ago about

the fact that there are new genus of mushrooms appearing that

have psilocybin in them

they've never been seen before

never been

tracked before

and it's almost as if they're appearing now

well it's amazing how many have been discovered since people have bent their attention to it

there have been still simon mushrooms reported from england france

localities where so far as we know there is no cultural history of usage at all

or however it's interesting that cultural usage seems to disappear very early in human history

hallucinogens are hardly even welcome in agricultural societies

i think it was weston labar made the point that once you learn how to grow plants

your god shifts from the ecstatic god of the hallucinogens to the corn god or the food god

and it no longer is about divining the hunt and weather through the ecstatic use of hallucinogens

it's about being able to get up every morning and go to work and hoe the crop

so

you mentioned earlier the prejudice against hallucinogens i think

it reaches back to the beginning of agriculture, this competition among plant gods which

exemplified lifestyles that must have seemed very, very alien to each other.

Is psilocybin illegal?

Oh, yes. It's a Schedule I drug. Without any public debate,

it was placed on the list at the same time that LSD was, and yet the issue was always couched in

terms of LSD being made illegal, but actually at that point in time, a whole bunch of things were made illegal,

and there was never any public debate. All psychedelics were viewed as the same drug, and LSD was used as the model.

Actually, these drugs, there's a spectrum of psychedelic effects, and certain drugs trigger

some of them and certain ones others, but yes, psilocybin is illegal.

Are the mushrooms illegal?

The mushrooms also are illegal, as they contain psilocybin.

I recall Andy Weil saying that he walked along a downtown Seattle residential street,

picking up psilocybin mushrooms from the front yards of residential homes.

Oh, yes.

And English law took the view that it was preposterous to try and outlaw a naturally occurring plant,

and they took the position that only the chemical was illegal, which I think is a very,

very wise position. But I noticed that Canada recently chose the American interpretation over

the British one.

Interesting. It turns out, going back to the Andy Weil story, that the reason that these mushrooms

were in such plenitude in various locales in the Northwest was that their spores were contained in a

male odor company's mushroom growing product that they sent out, male odor, and so...

Yes, so this is an interesting phenomenon. You see, the spores of the mushroom are not illegal,

because they do not contain psilocybin. They only contain the message in the DNA of the mushroom for the

production of psilocybin. So it's a kind of bizarre catch-22. The mushroom spores can move anywhere

legally, can be bought and sold, but they are the sine qua non for the production of mushrooms, of course.

Parents, the kind of knowledge and kind of information you're putting forward is not generally available.

It's not the kind of information or knowledge that one would find in the typical academic anthropology curriculum.

And yet it seems to be a knowledge that is ever expanding, but somehow it's outside of the cultural,

institutional entities in some way. One, why do you think that's the case? Of course, there's a logical

answer to that one, but what do you see as the future of this kind of information, this kind of knowledge?

Well, I think in a sense it signals the rebirth of the institution of shamanism in the context of modern society.

And anthropologists have always made the point about shaman that they were very important social catalysts in their group,

but they were always peripheral to it, peripheral to the political power and actually usually physically

peripheral living at some distance from the village. And I think the electronic shaman, the people who pursue

these, the exploration of these spaces, uh, exist to return to tell the rest of us about it, that we are now coming into a period of racial maturity as a species,

where we can no longer have, uh, forbidden areas of the human mind or cultural, uh, uh, machinery.

We have taken upon ourselves the acquisition of so much power that we now must understand what we

are. Uh, we cannot, uh, travel much further with the definitions of man that we inherit from the judeo-christian tradition.

We need to truly explore the problem of consciousness because as man gains power,

he is becoming the defining fact on the planet in the near space area.

So, uh, the question that looms is, is man good? And then if he is, what is it he's good for?

And, uh, the shaman will point the way because what they are, are, uh, visionaries, poets, cultural architects,

forecasters, all these roles, which we understand in more conventional terms, rolled into one and raised to the nth

power. They are cultural models for the rest of us. This has always been true. The shaman has access to a

superhuman dimension and a superhuman condition. And by being able to do that, he affirms the trans,

the potential for transcendence in all people. He is an exemplar, if you will. And I see the attention

that's being given to these things signaling a sense on the part of the society that we need to return

to these models. This is why, for instance, in the Star Wars phenomenon, Skywalker, Luke Skywalker,

Skywalker is a direct translation of the word shaman out of the Tungusik, which is where Siberian

shamanism comes from. So these heroes that are being instilled in the heart of the culture are shamanic

heroes. They control a force which is bigger than everybody and holds the galaxy together. And this

is true, as a matter of fact. And as we explore how true it is, the limitations of our previous world

view will be exposed for all to see. I think it was JBS Haldane who said, uh, the world may not only be

stranger than we suppose. It may be stranger than we can suppose. I think of, uh, the character, excuse me,

the character Yoda, uh, certainly is a shamanic type character. Very much so. Yeah. The, um, as we talk about

shamans and shamanism, again, that brings up, uh, cross-cultural currents. And, um, do you see the,

the shaman taking on a new, uh, certainly you don't see Indian shamans walking, uh, into the metropolitan,

uh, areas? Do you see the shaman taking on a new form? Well, I, I believe, uh, along with Gordon

Wasson and others, but in distinction to Marsiliad, who is a major writer on shamanism, that, uh,

uh, it is hallucinogenic shamanism that is primary and that where shamanic techniques are used to the exclusion

of, uh, hallucinogenic drug ingestion, the shamanism tends to be vitiated. It is more like, uh, a ritual

enactment of what real shamanism is, so that, uh, uh, uh, the shamanism that is coming to be,

is coming to be within people in our culture, uh, the people who feel comfortable with psychedelic

drugs and who, by going into those spaces and then returning with works of art or poetic accounts or

scientific ideas are actually changing the face of the culture. I connect the psychedelic dimension

to the dimension of inspiration and dream. I think history has always, uh, progressed

by the bubbling up of ideas from these nether dimensions into the minds of receptive men and women.

It is simply that now, with the hallucinogens, we actually have a tool to push the button. We are no

longer dependent upon, uh, whatever factors it is that previously controlled the, uh, ingression of novelty

into human history. We have taken that function to ourselves and this will accelerate and, uh, and, uh,

intensify the cultural crisis, but I think in the end it will lead that much sooner to its resolution.

So, continue to, uh, move towards the further exploration of these spaces. Um, we, uh, can expect that, um,

social change as a result, personal change? Tremendous social change. I see, in fact, uh, what is

happening is a tendency to, uh, what I call turn the body inside out. We are, through our media and our

cybernetics, we are actually approaching the point where consciousness can be experienced, uh, dis, uh,

in a state of disconnection from the body. We have changed. We are no longer, as I said, bipedal monkeys.

We are instead a kind of cybernetic coral reef of organic components and inorganic technological

components. We have become a force which takes unorganized raw material and excretes, uh, technical

objects. We have, uh, transcended the normal definitions of man. We are like an enormous collective organism,

with our data banks and our forecasting, uh, agencies and our computer networks and the many

levels at which we are connected into the universe. Our self-image is changing. The monkey is, uh, all but

being left behind and shortly will be left behind. The flying saucer, again, I take to be an image of the

future state of humanity. It is a kind of millenarian transformation of man where the soul is exteriorized

as the apotheosis of technology. And it is that, uh, eschatological event which is casting enormous

shadows backward through time over the historical landscape. That is the siren at the end of time,

calling all mankind across the last ten millennia toward it, calling us out of the trees and into

history and through this series of multi-level cultural, uh, transitions to the point where, uh, the thing

within the monkeys, the creature of pure language and pure imagination whose aspirations are entirely, uh, uh,

titanic in terms of self-transformation, that thing is emerging. And it will emerge as man leaves the planet. And it's not

something quantized and clearly defined. It is, in fact, what the next 50 or so years will be about. But at the end of it, the species will be off-planet and transformed and fully wired from the depths to the heights.

Are we just talking about another version of the Christian death, resurrection, ascension into heaven?

Except that it is coming into history. What is happening is that, uh, the, uh, the paradise promised the soul

is actually going to enter into history because technological man took the apocalyptic aspirations of

Christianity so seriously that we are going to make it happen. It has become the guiding image of what we

want to be. And I'm reminded of the poem by Yeats. It's sailing to Byzantium where he speaks of how after

death he would like to be an enameled golden object, uh, singing to the lords and ladies of Byzantium. And it's

the image of man transformed into eternal circuitry and released into a hyperspace of information where, uh,

you are a thing of circuitry, but you appear to be walking along an unspoiled beach in paradise.

It is that we are going to, uh, find the power to realize our deepest cultural aspirations. This is why we must

find out what our deepest cultural aspirations are. Again, another way of phrasing the question,

is man good? What about the idea that these spaces that we've been talking about, that you've been

illuminating, are spaces that can be achieved without the use of psychedelics?

Well, again, I scoured India, and my humble personal opinion is, uh, that, uh, it is highly unlikely.

Uh, I have always approached to people of spiritual accomplishment with the question, what can you

show me? Because, as I said earlier, this wise old man wisdom is one thing, but only the, the

hallucinogen using shaman of the Amazon seem to be able to go beyond that. Uh, there may be techniques for

doing this, but, uh, the efficacy and the dependability of the hallucinogens seems to me to make them the obvious

choice. It would only be a series of cultural conventions that would cause one to want to

engineer around that. It is the obvious, uh, path to transcendence. People must face the fact that at one

level we are chemical machines. That doesn't mean we are that at every level, but it does mean that that

is a level where we can intervene to change the pictures that are coming in and going out at higher

levels. You're not suggesting that people should do this by themselves?

They take hallucinogens? Well, I don't know about take it by themselves. Probably not, although, uh,

I always do, and, uh, I seem to prefer it. What I am suggesting is they take it in a situation of minimum

sensory input. Lying down in darkness with eyes closed cannot be surpassed, and people want music,

they want to walk around in nature, they want all these things, but nature and music are beautiful

in their own right. They are the adumbrations of the psychedelic experience that we deal with in

ordinary reality. In confrontation with the psychedelic experience, these things are hardly more than

impediments. The very interesting things are happening in the utter blackness behind your eyelids,

lying still in darkness, and, uh, that is where the mystery, uh, comes from and goes to.

My question had to do with with or without a guide. Oh, I don't think people should do it without a guide

unless they feel very confident from experience that they don't need a guide. I like to have these ideas

get out. I think it's important that we discuss all this in a way that is only now becoming possible

because of how it was in the 1960s. Now we need to shed all that and look back and look forward and try

to make a mature judgment for our culture based on the facts of the matter. You're listening to the

psychedelic salon where people are changing their lives one thought at a time. As Terrence said just

now in closing, it's up to you and me to make a mature judgment based upon the facts of the matter.

And as we all know, the so-called facts that the governments around the world are putting out about

cannabis and our psychedelic medicines, well, they're almost all completely wrong. And, uh, anyone who has

ever had a few tokes of grass knows full well that this is not a dangerous drug without any medicinal

value. Yet that's what the screwheads in Washington and other world capitals are saying. However, as Aldous

Huxley once said, facts don't cease to exist just because they are ignored. Also, I'd like to be sure to

point out that early on in this talk when Terrence said the human imagination in conjunction with

technology has become a force so potent that it really can no longer be unleashed on the surface of

the planet with safety. Now, I suspect he was talking about things such as nuclear power. And at the

present moment, of course, we can see how dangerous this technology can be when it's combined with a

profit motive where cost-cutting measures are more important to corporations than is the safety of

our people. But my guess is that by the time of Terrence's death in 2000, he probably would have

revised that statement to reflect his then newly growing fascination with virtual reality and

cyberspace thanks to what he was learning from Bruce Dahmer and other cybernetic pioneers.

And so in my next podcast, I'll be playing part of an interview that Matt Anderson did with Bruce

Dahmer for his fall-winter documentary series. In it, Bruce expands on his thoughts about what he

sees as the coming of a great crescendo. So in the weeks ahead, we'll be spending some time with Bruce

and then I'll probably dip into the Timothy Leary archive for a bit more from the good doctor and then

we'll get back to some of these other Terrence tapes that Diane so kindly sent for me to play for

you here in the salon. And so that'll do it for now and I'll again close by reminding you that this

and most of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon are freely available for you to use in your own

audio projects under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 3.0 license. And if you have

any questions about that, just click the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon

webpage, which you can find via psychedelicsalon.us. And if you're interested in the philosophy behind

the salon, well, you can hear a little bit about it in my novel, The Genesis Generation, which is

available as a pay-what-you-can audiobook that you can download at genesisgeneration.us. And for now,

this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space. Be well, my friends.