Terence McKenna, should I describe him? I asked a number of people and they looked puzzled and loped off.
Finally, I managed to get a consensus which is this, that Terence is an expert in Amazonian shamanism, a philosopher and an explorer of altered states, the sort of thing we all do when we get home of an evening.
So, but I think he does it rather better than most. Terence McKenna, please welcome Terence.
Well, I'm aware of how late in the day it is and I know some of you must be double parked, so I'll make this as succinct as possible.
This morning's discussion caused me to wonder how much we would understand about electricity if our method of studying it was to stand on the tops of high hills and wait to be struck by lightning.
It seems to me that's sort of the position that we're in vis-a-vis the UFOs.
We have no real theory. We have conjectures. We have fiercely defended hypotheses, but we have very little that is concrete to go on.
It's almost as though the issue of the UFO were an onion.
As we peel the layers of the onion we discover, when we get to the center, that there is nothing there what whatsoever left.
It reminds me that if you cross an onion with a UFO what you get is a flying saucer that brings tears to your eyes.
and so what I would like to do is just based on the notes I took today
to review what the options available to us are
in terms of trying to get some kind of intellectual handle on this phenomenon
and I'll move through them rather quickly
one possibility that I suppose is now out of fashion
because it wasn't mentioned here today
other than what Jacques said about ball lightning and plasmas
is that the UFOs are somehow natural phenomena
perhaps piezoelectric forces that have an ability to interact
with the delicate electrochemical machinery of the human nervous system
to create an impression of hallucination or visitation or abduction
that's one possibility
the more serious contenders as explanations I think fall into three categories
is it us, are we being visited
or is there another tenant in the building that we are unaware of
and
, my own feeling about this tends to vacillate
I have had contact experiences
I have seen a UFO very close
I have met with entities from other dimensions
and it has not impelled me to take a strong position
I've paid very close attention
when these experiences were happening to me
and there always seem to be loose ends
that argue against whatever hypothesis seems currently most attractive
and though Jacques didn't mention it today
I recall in his book, The Invisible College
he stressed the absurdity that seems to attend the contact experience
that it's not just a matter of being visited or not being visited
and that if the contactee will truly tell the unvarnished truth
then there will be elements in the story which will make the contactee look like a moron
in other words the invalidation of the experience is an inimical part of its structure
almost as though the entities were saying well you may tell this story if you wish
but if you tell it, it's not true
but truthfully you'll be taken for a fool
well there's nothing wrong with being taken for a fool
except that it does seal the phenomenon rather nicely
away from the very sober ladies and gentlemen
who are making their careers in some branch of science
they are not interested in investigating the kinky, the anecdotal, the possibly pathological
in preparation for this conference I re-read Carl Jung's book published in 1954
called Flying Saucers, A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
and to my mind no one has really gone beyond Jung
he understood very clearly that saying that something is a denizen of the psychic realm
no way precludes its also having
an efficacious force in the physical realm
through the phenomenon which he called synchronicity
some of the points which Jacques made today about the nature of the medical examinations that are reported
they are absurd
they are unnecessary to be performed at our level of technology
let alone any future more advanced level that we might be asked to believe in
so if the UFO phenomenon is something that is coming from us
then what is it and what is it for
and I've given a good deal of thought to this question over the years
because I tend to lean toward the notion that the UFO problem
like many subtle problems is haunted by our own naivete
concerning language
if I were to randomly choose, and don't worry I shan't
five of you to come up here
and each one of you would have forty seconds to explain to the rest of us what an atom is
it would be preposterous
none of us know, I doubt there's a person in this room who can give an account of the atom
that tallies with the quote unquote orthodox
description of the atom
so there is a curious fuzziness about the most mundane parts of reality
when we really attempt to magnify and understand them in the clear light of consciousness
how much more ambiguity there is then naturally
attendant upon the examination of any kind of phenomenon
phenomena which are rare or tend to be fringy
so it isn't a matter of achieving consensus over the UFO
we can't even achieve consensus about what constitutes a decent souffle
so this passionate desire to drag us all under the umbrella of a single explanation
is I think missing the point
to my mind, if the UFO phenomena is something arising out of the superego
of the human psychic organization
then we should ask why
what is it doing
and I don't want to sound like a public relations agent for Jacques Vallée
but to my mind, with the exception of Jung
Jacques is the only commentator
on the phenomenon
who has really pushed the frontier back
to my mind in the invisible college
when Vallée says
in looking at the effect
not asking the question what is it
but what does it do
you very quickly see
what the flying saucers are doing
what they are doing
is eroding faith in science
they are an antidote
to the scientific paradigm
that has evolved over the past 400 years
and which has led us to the brink of global catastrophe
so the notion being developed here is
that within the structure of the human psyche
there is something like a governor
something like a monitoring circuit
which when a society begins to evolve
in a pathological or lethal direction
phenomena can be induced
not by the egos of men and women
not by their institutions
but by the overmind
the collectivity of the human species
phenomena can be induced
which are so corrosive
to the ideologies currently in place
that their underpinnings are cut away
their validity is called into question
and their programs for social development and control
are invalidated and destroyed
now a perfect example of this
is the rise of infant Christianity
if you'll cast your mind back to the situation
in the early years of the Christian era
and imagine the mentality
of a Roman aristocrat
a person of power in Roman society
their physics is drawn from
democracy and atomism
in other words they are thoroughgoing materialists
their social theory is drawn from
Epictetus and Plato
they are in fact extremely modern people
by our own standards
however among the gardeners
and kitchen help and stable boys
there is news of a modern
momentous event in the Middle East
a Jewish rabbi has triumphed over death
and risen after three days in the tomb
should the master of a Roman household
have caught wind of this kind of
superstitious talk among the help
he would have just dismissed it with a sneer
what a preposterous idea
and it is a preposterous idea
nevertheless
the fact that an idea is preposterous
has never held it back
from making zealous converts
and within 120 years
after the enunciation of the birth of Christianity
its missionaries were beating on the gates of Rome
attempting to convert the emperor
now I see a similar situation
in the modern context
that rationalism
scientific technology
which began
and came out of
the scholasticism of the Middle Ages
and the quite legitimate wish
to glorify God
through an appreciation of his natural world
turned into
a kind of demonic pact
a kind of descent
into the underworld
a necceia if you will
leading to the present
the present cultural and political impasse
that involves massive stockpiles of atomic weapons
huge propagandized populations
cut off from any knowledge of their real histories
male dominated organizations
plying their message of
lethal destruction and inevitable historical advance
and into this situation
comes suddenly an anomaly
something which cannot be explained
I believe that that is the purpose
of the UFO
to inject uncertainty
into the male dominated paternalistic
rational solar myth
under which we are suffering
so I suppose if you had to categorize this point of view
you would say I'm taking a depth psychological
psychoanalytic point of view
what I'm saying is that
the UFO is nothing more
than an assertion of herself
by the goddess
into history
saying to science
and paternalistically
governed and driven organizations
you have gone far enough
we are going to turn the world upside down
your science is going to be shown up
for what it is
nothing more than a pleasant metaphor
usefully extrapolated
into the production of toys
for healthy children
that's what science is good for
it is not some meta theory
at whose feet
every point of view
from astrology to acupressure
to channeling
need be laid
to have the hand of science
announce thumbs up
or thumbs down
now there is another possibility
which can be dovetailed into the first
it is that
it is not so much the over soul
or the super ego of the human species
which is responsible for
stopping scientific masculine paternalism
in its tracks
but rather that unbeknownst
to self-absorbed and myopic human beings
we have always shared
or at least for a very long period of time
have shared this planet
with an other
another intelligent species
another entity
which may have been perfectly content
to allow us to abide in our ignorance
of its presence
until the point where
it came to its awareness
that our style
was toxifying
ruining
raping
and perverting the planet
and at that point
this thing springs into action
with similar end results
as the previous scenario
the invocation of the super ego
it's astonishing to me
that in the 45 years
that the UFO
are we being visited question
has been kicked around
I have never seen
in any UFO
book or publication
the suggestion made
that if we believe
we are being visited
by organic intelligent life forms
from some other dimension
or place in the galaxy
then we should
very very thoroughly
examine the ecology
of this planet
for traces of its presence
what assurance do we have
that the several million life forms
that we know to exist
on this planet
all evolved here
do we have any assurance
there are ways to gain
that assurance
by doing comparative DNA sequencing
and this sort of thing
some of you may know
my own position
or one of my positions
which is that
plants and fungi
containing psychoactive compounds
are extremely important
and extremely viable candidates
for extraterrestrial intruders
into the environment
of this planet
and this is not to put down
Whitley's story
which is a very interesting story
but had he prefaced his story
with the comment that
before it all happened
he took 5 grams of mushrooms
I doubt he could have sold it
to his mother
because in the world
where mushrooms
and other psychedelic plants
are imbibed
such stories are commonplace
it's no big deal
so I'm always amused
by UFO investigators
and compilers of data
who will tell you
well the first thing we did
is we got rid of all the stories
told by anybody
who was intoxicated on anything
it seems to me
that move has probably
absolutely precluded
any possibility of understanding
what is going on
you see culture
is something that we wear
like clothes
and we're very much at ease
with culture
our mind is very much at ease
with culture
and we gather the language
of a given culture around us
culture is the mind
unperturbed
when a shaman
or an ecstatic visionary
goes into the wilderness
and through ordeal
or yogic practice
or breath control
or the taking of a psychoactive substance
perturbs the mind
then we see what the mind is
out naked
undressed from the clothing
of language and convention
that's why I've made this point
over and over again
there cannot
there will not
be a serious discussion
of the origin of UFOs
or for that matter
of the nature of consciousness itself
until we leave
the utterly culture bound
provincial
and hick like attitude
that science has foisted on us
about perturbing the mind
without the use of psychedelic substances
I think solving the UFO dilemma
is going to be
as thankless a task
as attempting to understand
the nature of the universe
without availing yourself
of the use of a telescope
it is simply tying our hands
behind our backs
now there is a third possibility
which is
the one that is the more commonly
entertained notion
which is simply
that we are being observed
by
intelligent life forms
that evolve somewhere else
in the galaxy
they have quarantined our planet
to keep us from being agitated
by their presence
and they will eventually
reveal themselves
I find this an extremely
odious notion
especially the part about
how much chaos there will be
if the truth is ever revealed
this is nothing more than
the reassertion of masculine paternalism
its right to keep secrets
from the rest of us
its belief that there is
a privileged all-male class of people
who can be let in
on what's really going on
and the rest of us
poor dears
have to be shielded
from these tremendously shocking facts
I discussed this once
with an entity
and it said to me
well
you know
we've disguised ourselves
as an extraterrestrial invasion
so as to not alarm people
with what's really going on
we're getting close to the end folks
there is a fourth possibility
which I mention only in the interests
of thoroughness
which is
that these entities
and their vehicles
are not spacecraft at all
but are in some sense
time craft
and that we may be
the tremendous sense of empathy
with these quite physically unusual beings
may arise out of the fact
that we're looking into the faces
of our great great great grandchildren
who may be emanating back through time
carrying the message
a message
about some sort of future event
or situation
that lies many centuries downstream from us
but that is of such import
that from that point
agents are moving backward
and possibly forward through time
spreading the news
of some kind of mode shift
this doesn't seem to me
to be impossible
however
based on my own experience
which is what I think this thing
really comes down to
because what we have
in the UFO issue
is an official position
supported by scientists
whether they be Neanderthal right wingers
or doctrinaire Marxists
or whatever
a conspiracy of consensus
against the
personal experiences
of individual human beings
who are told
well what you're saying happened to you
can't have happened
you are insane
you are mentally ill
you are mistaken
so what we really have here
is a political issue
which do you believe
your perceptions
memories and expectations
aided by your intellect
or some kind of utterly abstract
official doctrinaire sexist philosophy
laid on from above
so I think really
what the saucers do
if you accept their presence
is they empower us
they empower us
to see science
for the shell game
that it is
to see the past
400 years
of western culture
for the pathetic
narrowing
of the spectrum
of allowable phenomena
that it is
to the point where people think
that if you can't bang on something
with a hammer
it isn't real
which to me
is just wild talk
I can't even imagine
where that kind of thing
is coming from
so I think
and I'll just leave you
with this final thought
that in lieu
of the repression
and it is a repression
throughout this century
of legitimately available ways
of exploring
the modalities of consciousness
and by that I mean
psychoactive compounds
the repression of those compounds
and their use by science
has created a neurotic
energy dynamic
in the mass psyche
and the mass psyche
has begun to hallucinate
because
because the destiny
of human beings
is to live
in the imagination
in the hands of the goddess
and wherever that
thrust
is impeded
psychopathy will result
there will be neurosis
there will be psychic epidemic
there will be confusion
so I believe
that until we
form
a resolution
to conduct
an unfettered
and mature
exploration
of the human psychology
using all the tools
available to us
that the skies of earth
will continue
to be haunted
by flying saucers
they will be
they will continue
to be haunted
by flying saucers
and their denizens
because they
are symbols
of our
infantile
infantilism
of our
sense of loss
of our
incompleteness
and we can heal
that breach
by simply
recognizing
that the true mystery
lies within us
the true mystery
is in the mind
and its historical promise
is the transformation
of our society
through the abandonment
of reason
as it has been
narrowly defined
by this extremely
solar
masculine
paternalistic
materialistic
legacy
that we are
the victims of
well I could talk
for a long time
but I think that's it
in a nutshell
thank you
points I didn't cover
before I get into that though
I would like to
thank and call attention
to the magnificent
accomplishment
of Elisa Gar
and the Omega Foundation
her people have done
a tremendous job
and this is definitely
the most glittering
new age event
that I have
ever had the privilege
of attending
I said to someone
does the fact
that the backdrops
are beginning to look
like the Russian Revolution
mean we're making progress
can you all
hear me
the area that I wanted
to spend a few minutes
on tonight
that I didn't touch on
this afternoon
is what then
is to be done
Tolstoy's question
once we reach
this level of
admitting the phenomenon
experiencing the phenomenon
trying to talk
with each other
about it
what is to be done
how are we
to translate
the message
coming from the other side
into a concrete reality
that works for all of us
or is that
a good thing
and my take on this
which is nothing more
than my take on it
is that what we are involved
in and with
in the UFO phenomenon
is an extremely poignant
and intense effort
to end our alienation
from the unconscious
that we can no longer
have the luxury
of an unconscious portion
of the human psyche
that that is an artifact
of the childhood
of our species
and that in fact
the ending of childhood
anticipated brilliantly
in Arthur C. Clarke's
novel Childhood's End
the ending of childhood
is what we are experiencing
in relationship
to the alien archetype
as a species
we are coming into
a kind of
pubescent awareness
of the presence
of the other
our childish
historical concerns
that were self-directed
and self-indulgent
no longer satisfy
and a deep
kind of yearning
has come upon the species
a yearning for
the confirmation
of the presence
of an other
in the same way
that an adolescent child
becomes aware of
and develops
an extremely intense
highly charged
and ambivalent attitude
toward the opposite sex
I think we are discovering
in our own psychic structure
the potential
the possibility
of a relationship
with an intelligent species
outside ourselves
and this raises for us
all the tensions
all the issues
that accompany
an adolescent love affair
how are we
to eliminate
the human unconscious
and come into our birthright
as fully conscious
enlightened beings
what is to be done
again my opinion
is that what we need to do
is to concentrate
on the phenomenon
of communication
and the evolution
of language
we have been far too naive
about the role
that language has played
in the construction
of reality
at its center
let alone
off on the fringes
with the elves
and the fairies
and the UFOs
we need to test
the envelope
of language
we need to perfect
the fine idea
of being able
to communicate
with each other
at the moment
and I think we proved it
at this conference
it's nothing more
than a fine idea
I felt before I came
to this meeting
that we would all sit down
in a room
and make great progress
in about an hour
toward understanding
the phenomenon
and then I discovered
that we were all
including myself
heavily freighted
with linguistic momentum
the power of our own metaphors
to carry us past
the opportunity
to listen
to what other people
were saying
and so I think that
what we are dreaming of
is a common language
and what the saucers
are attempting to teach
is the modality
of a linguistic transformation
in the direction
of a kind of communication
that is not dependent
on culturally sanctioned
dictionaries
but that is in the bones
in the neurons
in the synapses
so that the ambiguity
of the language
which attends
all our discussions
about reality
will be purged
from our world view
this is the essence
of falling in love
one definition
of falling in love
is nothing more
than lifting the veils
of misconception
between two entities
and still being able
to go forward
toward some kind of union
so I really believe
that we have moved
so far
from an awareness
of the feminine portion
of our psyche
that now
the thing dearest to us
and closest to us
must present itself
in consciousness
under the guise
of an extraterrestrial
or interdimensional invader
it's a comment
on the alienation
of our era
and the way
this schism
can be breached
the way this psychic wound
can be breached
can be healed
and a kind of species
wide individuality
merge
is through taking control
conscious control
of the evolution
of language
this means paying
a great deal more attention
to what we say
to each other
to linguistic intent
I think that
the main legacy
of the 1960s
into the 80s
was a legacy
of language transformed
in the direction
of feeling
to me the most shocking
part of the male dominance
of our world view
is the paucity
in our language
of terms
that convey emotion
we have 500 words
for the components
of a steering mechanism
we have five words
for emotions
each one of us
is a swim
in a concavity
in a concatenation
of emotionally subtle
wave phenomena
that come and go
just below the surface
of our awareness
but if any one of us
turns to another
and says
how are you doing
the answer is
fine, fine
yourself
this is presenting
a tremendous barrier
to us
to the expression
of our wholeness
and I'm completely
willing to line up
behind Carl Jung
on the notion
that the UFO
is an expression
of our longing
for wholeness
in principio
ad verbum
ad verbo
caro factum est
in the beginning
was the word
and the word
was made flesh
in other words
if you were
an actual
extraterrestrial
standing off
in a spaceship
looking down
on this planet
you would not see
the strides
that we have made
in the writings
of individual species
you would not even see
the great classes
of organized
organic life
what you would see
instead
is a gene swarm
a language frenzy
the coding
of meaning
in genes
in words
in architectonic
productions
in poetry
what is happening
on this planet
is the
self reflecting
energy
that is
being produced
on this planet
is the
self reflecting
energy
that is
being produced
on this planet
is the
genesis
of communication
for itself
it is language
somehow
that is loose
in our species
on our planet
within and
without
the flying saucer
so
communication
which we take
astonishingly
for granted
considering
the very
basic
kinds of
needs
that we communicate
to each other
is actually
the great
frontier
of our
spiritual
becoming
it seems to have
passed right
by us
that we already
possess
a form
of telepathy
the
miracle
of communication
involves the
fact that
I make small
mouth noises
and you
instantaneously
consult
the
culturally
sanctioned
dictionary
and out
of your
dictionary
you construct
a map
of my
linguistic
and then
through a series
of grunts
and nods
we assure
each other
that we know
what we mean
so
in a sense
the
I said
this afternoon
that the UFO
was here
to confound
us
to confound
science
on another
level
like
the psychedelics
it is here
to catalyze
a finer
evolution
of communication
to
connect
us
to
a
little
tighter
epistemic
and ontological
definition
of the
business
of communicating
with each
other
if
we could
refine
our channels
of communication
we would
coalesce
into the
kind of
omnipotent
extra
worldly
organism
that we
anticipate
in our
lives
to become
the guiding
image
of our own
cultural
evolution
we are going
to live
in the
imagination
this planet
is involved
in a
birth
process
there is
nothing
unnatural
about what
is going
on
on this
planet
and there
is nothing
unnatural
or inappropriate
about us
we are now
ready to
leave the
womb
and the
womb is
in danger
of toxemia
if we in fact
do not leave
it
we have passed
into a new
kind of
time
where the
separation
of our
species
from the
planet that
gave us
birth
is a necessity
for the
survival
of both
parties
and like
any birth
and perhaps
the saucers
stand off
to perform
a necessary
cesarean
if things
really turn
into chaos
many contactees
report
an apocalyptic
scenario
involving
the saucers
taking everybody
away
in the wake
or in the
eminence
of a
thermonuclear
exchange
however
the mature
way
the
self
reflective
way
out of
this cultural
impasse
out of this
global
stand off
is for us
to take
seriously
on a personal
level
the possibility
of evolving
our communications
with each
other
so that we
actually
become
the loving
family of
the goddess
the planetary
organism
that we all
feel
ahead of us
in the future
casting
an enormous
shadow
back over
the historical
landscape
eventually
and when
is up
to us
it will
no longer
be
a higher
dimensional
object
throwing
a shadow
into the
flat
dimensions
of history
it will
be instead
a transcendental
object
made manifest
we are
in fact
on the
brink
of great
evolution
for hundreds
of thousands
of years
possibly
but nevertheless
it is
somehow
spun in
to the fate
of our species
and the
overwhelming
image
of self
transcendent
flight
of return
to a
mandalic
unity
that transcends
space
and time
is the guiding
archetype
of our
paragrammation
through history
so I believe
that we
are
in the
same
way
that the
individuated
personality
waits
at the
end
of the
ontological
development
of the
individual
and if
we act
in good
conscience
and with
great faith
in each
other
we can
in fact
realize
the hope
of the
Irish prayer