Extract from a Terence McKenna interview with Neville Drury
ND: You feel, don't you, that you are accessing quite different spiritual
realms from those described by mystics and gurus from the Eastern traditions?
TM: Yes. Their stress on energy centers in the body, levels of
consciousness, the moral perfection of spiritual dimensions - none of this I
found to be reliable. What the psilocybin experience seems to argue is that
there is a kind of parallel universe that is not at all like our universe, and
yet it is inhabited by beings with an intentionality. It is not recognisably
the universe of astral travel or of the Robert Monroe out-of-the-body
experiments. What has always put me off about occultists is the humdrum nature
of the other world. They talk about radiant people in flowing gowns –
ascended masters and so on. My overwhelming impression of the other realm is
it’s utter strangeness - its "Otherness." It is not even a
universe of three-dimensional space and time. The other thing about it, which
the esoteric traditions never confront directly is the reality of it. I am not
an occultist. I am spiritual only to the degree that I have been forced to be
by experience. I came into it a reductionist, a rationalist, a materialist, an
empiricist - and I say no reductionist, no empiricist could experience what I
have experienced without having to seriously retool their philosophy. This is
not a reality for the menopausal mystic, the self-hypnotised or the
soft-headed. This is real, And the feeling that radiates out of the
psychedelic experience is that it has a historical implication, that what has
really happened in the twentieth century is that the cataloguing of nature
that began in the sixteenth century with Linnaeus has at last reached its
culmination. And the cataloguing of nature has revealed things that were
totally unexpected - for example, the existence of a dimension that our entire
language set, emotional set, and religious ontology deny.
What has happened in the twentieth century is that we have found out what
the witch doctors are really doing, what the shaman really intends. This
information cannot simply be placed in our museums and forgotten: it contains
within it a nugget of incontrovertible experience that appears to argue that
our vision of reality is sorely lacking. Somehow we have gone down a road of
development that has hidden from us vast regions of reality-areas that we have
originally dismissed as superstition and now don't mention at all.
ND: Do you feel that the shamanic reality is now the broadest paradigm
available to us? Is it broader, say, than the Eastern mystical model?
TM: Oh, yes, I think so. What I think happened is that in the world of
prehistory all religion was experiential, and it was based on the pursuit of
ecstasy through plants. And at some time, very early, a group interposed
itself between people and direct experience of the "Other." This
created hierarchies, priesthoods, theological systems, castes, ritual, taboos.
Shamanism, on the other hand, is an experiential science that deals with an
area where we know nothing. It is important to remember that our
epistemological tools have developed very unevenly in the West. We know a
tremendous amount about what is going on in the heart of the atom, but we know
absolutely nothing about the nature of the mind. We haven't a clue. If
mathematical formulation is to be the bedrock of ideological certitude, then
we have no certitude whatsoever in the realm of what is the mind. We assume
all kinds of things unconsciously, but, when pressed, we can't defend our
position.
I think what has happened-because of psychedelics on one level and quantum
physics on another - is that the program of rationally understanding nature
has at last been pushed so far that we have reached the irrational core of
nature herself. Now we can see: My God, the tools that brought us here are
utterly inadequate.
ND: Is the human potential movement
currently re-evaluating the role of psychedelics in understanding the nature
of consciousness? Or do you find yourself somewhat out on a limb among your
contemporaries?
TM: Well, it's a little of both. The human potential movement at times
seems like a flight from the psychedelic experience. It will do
anything provided there can be certain confidence that it won't work.
Therapies have their place, but they are not addressing the question, What is
the ground of Being?
…
ND: What then is your answer to people who continue to dismiss psychedelic
experience as artificial? Surely your view is the exact reverse of that?
TM: Well, there's nothing artificial about it. These things were part of
the human food chain from the very beginning. Where the mis-understanding
comes is with the label - these are "drugs," and "drug" is
a red-flag word. We are hysterical over the subject of drugs. Our whole
society seems to be dissolving under the onslaught of criminally syndicated
drug distribution systems. What we are going to have to do if we are to come
to terms with this is to become a little more sophisticated in our
definitions. I believe that what we really object to about "drugs is
that we are alarmed by unexamined, obsessive, self-destructive behavior. When
we see someone acting in this way we draw back. That is what addiction to a
drug such as cocaine or morphine results in. However, psychedelics actually
break habits and patterns of thought. They actually cause individuals to
inspect the structures of their lives and make judgements about them. Now,
what psychedelics share with "drugs" is that they are physical
compounds, and you do put them into your body. But I believe that a reasonable
definition of drugs would have us legalize psilocybin and outlaw television!
Imagine if the Japanese had won World War II and had introduced into
American life a drug so insidious that thirty years later the average American
was spending five hours a day "loaded" on this drug. People would
just view it as an outrageous atrocity. And yet, we in America do this to
ourselves. And the horrifying thing about the "trip" that television
gives you is that it's not your trip. It is a trip that comes down through the
values systems of a society whose greatest god is the almighty dollar. So
television is the opiate of the people. I think the tremendous governmental
resistance to the psychedelic issue is not because psychedelics are
multimillion-dollar criminal enterprises – they are trivial on that level.
However, they inspire examination of values, and that is the most corrosive
thing that can happen.
…
ND: So why is there such a tremendous prejudice, both in the East and West,
against psychedelics?
TM: I think People are in love with the journey. People love
seeking
answers>. But if you were to suggest to them that the time of
seeking is over and that the chore is now to face the answer, now that's more
of a challenge!
Anyone can sweep up around the ashram for a dozen years while
congratulating themselves that they are following a path to enlightenment. It
takes courage to take psychedelics - real courage. Your stomach clenches, your
palms grow damp, because you realise that this is real - this is going to
work. Not in 12 years, not in 20 years, but in an hour!
What I see in the whole spiritual enterprise is a great number of people
supporting themselves in one way or another on the basis of their lack of
success. Were they ever to succeed these enterprises would be all but put out
of business. But no one is in a hurry for that.
ND: In your scheme of things, is there any place for institutionalized
religion, for orthodox religious beliefs?
TM: Yes. What I have found is that all of these systems that are offered as
spiritual paths work splendidly in the presence of psychedelics. If you think
mantras are effective, try a mantra on twenty milligrams of psilocybin and see
what happens. All sincere religious motivation is illuminated by psychedelics.
To put it perhaps in a trivial way, the religious quest is an automobile but
psychedelics are the petrol that runs it. You go nowhere without the fuel no
matter how finely crafted the upholsteryhow flawlessly machined
the engine.
ND: Where do you personally think the human potential movement is heading
now, and where do you position yourself in the spectrum?
TM: I believe that the best idea will win. We are all under an obligation
to ourselves and to the world to do our best - to place the best ideas on the
table. Then all we have to do is stand back and watch. I have this Darwinian
belief that the correct idea will emerge triumphant. To my way of thinking,
psychedelics provide the only category that is authentic enough to be
legislated outof existence. They're not going to make quartz crystals
or wheat grass juice illegal - these things pose no problem. But I think that
we are going to have to come to terms with the psychedelic possibility. We
would have a long time ago in America except for the fact that, on this issue,
the Government acts as the enforcing arm of Christian fundamentalism. Life,
liberty, and pursuit of happiness are enshrined in the Constitution of the
United States as inalienable rights. If the pursuit of happiness does
not cover the psychedelic quest for enlightenment, then I don't know what it
can mean. I think we are headed for a darker period before the light, because
the self-deceiving cant of the Government on this issue is going to have to be
exposed for what it is. I see the whole "hard drug" phenomenon as an
enormous con game. Governments have always been the major purveyor of
addictive drugs-right back to the sugar trade in England, the opium wars in
China, the CIA's involvement in the heroin trade in Southeast Asia during the
1960s, and the current cocaine distribution coming out of South America. We’re
going to have to abondon this Christian wish to legislate other people’s
behavior "for their own good".
…
ND: You have said that an important part of the mystical
quest is to face up to death and recognize it as a rhythm of life. Would you
like to enlarge on your view on the implications of the dying process?
TM: I take seriously the notion that these psychedelic
states are an anticipation of the dying process-or, as the Tibetans refer to
it, the Bardo level beyond physical death. It seems likely that our
physical lives are a type of launching pad for the soul. As the esoteric
traditions say, life is an opportunity to prepare for death, and we should
learn to recognize the signposts along the way, so that when death comes, we
can make the transition smoothly. I think the psychedelics show you the
transcendental nature of reality. It would be hard to die gracefully as an
atheist or existentialist. Why should you? Why not rage against the dying of
the light? But if in fact this is not the dying of the light but the ‘Dawning
of the Great Light’, then one should certainly not rage against that.
There's a tendency in the New Age to deny death. We have people pursuing
physical immortality and freezing their heads until the fifth millennium, when
they can be thawed out. All of this indicates a lack of balance or
equilibrium. The Tao flows through the realms of life and non-life with equal
ease.
ND: Do you personally regard the death process as a journey
into one's own belief system?
TM: Like the psychedelic experience, death must be poured
into the vessel of language. But dying is essentially physiological. It may be
that there are certain compounds in the brain that are only released when it
is impossible to reverse the dying process. And yet the near-death experience
has a curious affinity to the shamanic voyage and the psychedelic experience.
I believe that the best map we have of consciousness is the shamanic map.
According to this viewpoint, the world has a "center," and when you
go to the center - which is inside yourself -there is a vertical axis that
allows you to travel up or down. There are celestial worlds, there are
infernal worlds, there are paradisiacal worlds. These are the worlds that open
up to us on our shamanic journeys, and I feel we have an obligation to explore
these domains and pass on that information to others interested in mapping the
psyche. At this time in our history, it's perhaps the most awe-inspiring
journey anyone could hope to make.
- Extract from a Terence McKenna interview with Neville Drury
- for ‘Nature and Health’ magazine (published in Australia, 1990)