The Evolutionary Mind (1998)
A Crisis in Consciousness
Terence argues that a solution to our collective planetary crisis has emerged, and it lies in a commitment to shamanistic, feminized, cybernetic, and caring forms of being—to take what each of us is in our very best moments and extend it to fill whole lifetimes.
Countdown Into Complexity
At his weekend workshop Terence led attendees on an intellectual odyssey traversing psychedelics, virtual reality, technology, culture, spirituality, and the evolution of novelty over time. Blending philosophy, futurology, and mysticism, he explored humanity's relationship with nature and machines, challenging participants to think critically, create freely, and keep an open mind. The goal was to expand consciousness and uncover deeper truths about existence.
Culture and Ideology are not Your Friends
Terence McKenna argues that culture and ideology limit human potential, while psychedelic experiences offer a path to expanded consciousness and connection with nature. He sees the universe as evolving towards increasing novelty and complexity, with human society at a critical juncture. McKenna criticizes modern values and institutions, advocating for a return to shamanic practices and plant-based wisdom. He believes psychedelics can rapidly induce the radical shift in perspective needed to address global challenges and unlock humanity's true potential in an accelerating world of technological change.
Having Archaic and Eating it Too
Feeding back to the psychedelic community of Los Angeles, Terence McKenna delivers colorful and astounding visual transformations. He weaves a galactic tapestry of art-tickled articulations of the history and future of psychedelic alchemy, the government/ culture clash, and the surging general ordering of chaos from UFOs to archaic shamanism. This recording will amuse anyone interested in subjects ranging from eco-tourism to techno-junkies.
Imagination in the Light of Nature
Terence claims that “the boundless creativity of the human mind will be tapped into and come to our aid.” His bold statement is followed by an inspirational pep-talk about how miraculous the appearance of consciuosness in this universe is, and what a valuable potential humans represent in future cosmic evolution.
In the Valley of Novelty
Journeying through multiple dimensions of psychedelic consciousness, Terence McKenna's visionary weekend workshop invites us on an entheogenic voyage to the frontiers of the mind and its imminent conquering of matter. Blending scientific insights with shamanic wisdom, McKenna argues that natural plant medicines like psilocybin and DMT provide portals into mystical realms and alien dimensions, catalyzing revelations about nature, reality, and the human psyche. He urges us to courageously explore these consciousness-expanding substances, seeking the gratuitous beauty and truths they unveil. For McKenna, the psychedelic experience holds secrets to our world and ourselves—if only we dare lift the veil.
Intentionality of Meaning
McKenna takes us on a mind-bending ride about language, questioning if words unveil reality or cloak it. He suggests peering behind the linguistic curtain with nature and psychedelics, helping reveal life's magical depths where fairies and elves await to make deals that unleash self-transforming possibilities. But he cautions, the storytelling mushrooms can dupe you with their wit. Tread lightly.
Interview with Erik Davis
The final recorded interview of Terence McKenna, conducted by Erik Davis for Wired magazine.
Limits of Art and Edges of Science
Terence McKenna proposes a radical view of history as a self-limiting process, driven by an attractor pulling us toward a transcendent, alien encounter that will transform human experience. He advocates the transformative power of psychedelics to unlock our collective potential, urging a forced evolution of language and consciousness to navigate the looming collapse of civilization and embrace the cosmic destiny of our species.
Lógos Meets Eros
Speaking at the Wetlands Preserve club, Terence McKenna glimpses both peril and promise as civilization hurtles toward an uncertain future. Technology untethers tradition, psychedelics unleash inspiration from narrow cultural confines, boundaries dissolve, categories collide, contradictions mount. What strange attractor lures us through this unfolding existential adventure? In McKenna’s view, dystopia or utopia will emerge based on one driving factor—our collective capacity for creativity, courage, and compassion as we navigate the quantum unknown. With open minds and loving hearts, a brighter tomorrow awaits.
Neurosphere
According to Donald Dulchinos, the real action on the Internet isn’t in the realm of commerce. It is, plain and simple, in the realm of religion. But not exactly that old-time religion. This book is about the spiritual impact of our increasing ability to communicate quickly and with enhanced evolution. It's about our search for meaning, our hunger for a glimpse at humanity's future development in which, frighteningly or excitingly, the trend is clearly toward increasing integration of telecommunications and information technology with the body itself. Electronic prosthetics, direct neural implants, and the brain's control of electronic and mechanical limbs move the boundary that used to exist between human and machine to some undefined frontier inside our bodies, our brains, and, perhaps, our minds.
Our Cyberspiritual Future
Terence holds court on our civilization's journey toward the eschaton at this weekend Esalen gathering. He riffs on topics from psychedelic states and alien intelligences to time travel and VR. McKenna argues we're evolving toward an unimaginable state of accelerating novelty, propelled by advancing technology. A mind-expanding ride for the open-minded psychonaut or armchair traveler, guided by one of the twentieth century's most eclectic thinkers.
Prague Gnosis
Shot on location in Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the International Transpersonal Conference in June 1992, this two-part series features Terence McKenna in dialogue with some of the foremost thinkers of the Global Consciousness movement of the time: Ram Dass, Angeles Arrien, Kenneth Ring, Rupert Sheldrake, Jill Purce, David Whyte and Alexander Shulgin.
Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines
Humanity is metamorphosing through the synergy of psychedelics and machines, transcending biological constraints to become a galactic, immortal intelligencia. Print defined our ego boundaries, but electronic media and plant allies are dissolving those illusions. Merging with superintelligent AIs, we’ll birth an alchemical singularity—a spiritual, universe-taming mind born from techno-shamanic ecstasy. History crumbles as novelty’s virus engulfs the old operating systems, unleashing our wildest potentials. The felt presence of boundless experience awaits!
Shamanism, Alchemy, and the Millennium
A whimsical reflection on humanity's journey toward ever-greater connectedness, from the cosmic singularity to the noosphere's fanciful manifestations. Could the shamanic alchemist's mythic intuition, the goddess's wisdom, and capitalism's impatient urge together guide us to the stars and back to Eden? An optimistic revelry.
Shedding the Monkey
Presented at the Shared Visions bookstore.
Speaking Metaphorically
Terence McKenna explores how psychedelics can alter language and consciousness, unlocking a transformative phenomenon at the heart of human evolution. He envisions a shift towards a visible, gestalt-like language of meaning that will profoundly reshape culture, enabling our species to transcend earthly confines and venture into the cosmos. Proposing psychedelics as a pheromonal regulator for collective consciousness, McKenna suggests this archaic linguistic revolution holds the keys to our future, bridging the gap between nature and technology in ways that could determine the very destiny of humanity.
Spirituality and Technology
Terence McKenna discusses psychedelic philosophy and the interconnectedness of all things, referencing Moby Dick as an allegory for the quest for transcendental truth.
State of the Stone
In this talk, McKenna gives one of his more hopeful presentations about love and the state of humanity at the end of the millenium.
Taxonomy of Illusion
This lecture explores the role of psychedelics in human evolution, consciousness expansion, and addressing global crises. Terence argues that psychedelics dissolved boundaries among our ancestors, fostering human traits like language and altruism. He advocates for their responsible use to transcend cultural illusions, enhance creativity, and catalyze the radical changes needed to confront environmental catastrophe and birth a new human order.
The Global Brain as an Emergent Structure from the Worldwide Computing Network
We propose that the existence of a globally and tightly connected network of computer workstations such as the Internet can lead to the emergence of a globally self-organized structure which we refer to as the Global Brain.
The Plot Thickens, the Stakes Rise
McKenna discussed his theory that humanity is accelerating towards a transcendental object at the end of time, propelled by ever-increasing novelty. He argued that the internet and new technologies like virtual reality are expanding consciousness in this trajectory. McKenna was especially excited about the legal psychedelic salvia divinorum, urging people to explore it and other plants as allies toward reaching higher states of awareness before the culmination of cosmic evolution.
The Self-Organizing Universe
The evolution of the universe—ranging from cosmic and biological to sociocultural evolution—is viewed in terms of the unifying paradigm of self-organization. The contours of this paradigm emerge from the synthesis of a number of important concepts, and provide a scientific foundation to a new world-view which emphasizes process over structure, nonequilibrium over equilibrium, evolution over permanency, and individual creativity over collective stabilization. The book, with its emphasis on the interaction of microstructures with the entire biosphere, ecosystems etc., and on how micro- and macrocosmos mutually create the conditions for their further evolution, provides a comprehensive framework for a deeper understanding of human creativity in a time of transition.
Toward the End of History
“We are transcending ourselves faster than we realize:” Terence McKenna explores his theory of novelty, psychedelics as catalysts for cognitive evolution, and the internet’s potential to disrupt power structures and empower marginalized communities. He paints a tantalizing picture of humanity’s inevitable leap into a transcendent future.
Understanding and Imagination in the Light of Nature
The Great Mystery whispers through psychedelics as it unfurls revelations beyond language’s grasp. Here, ego-bound shells crack open as cosmic minds reborn beyond confines of space and time. We thus commune with the endless Imagination—holographic spirit-stuff whereof worlds are wrought. Invariants of the eternal suffuse temporal shadow-play, the mundane ever aflame in subtler dimensions. All form awakens, ascends, drawn unto consummate transcendence as history’s fever dream blossoms into timeless infinitude.
Understanding the Chaos at History's End
Delivered at the end of McKenna’s first month as scholar-in-residence at Esalen, when he began a new phase in his public speaking career. This weekend workshop provides an early glimpse at Terence’s description of the looming “transcendental object at the end of time,” and the psychedelic insights which led him to become an oracle.