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Partial Transcription of a taped workshop with Ethnobotanist,
Shamanologist, and Psychedelico, Terence McKenna...
"Time and Mind"
May 26/27, 1990 - New Mexico
The Tykes...
Well, I suppose it's an invitation do describe a DMT trip, which is never to
be passed up. Because I think, I think what we're talking about here is a
continuum, I'm talking about a very narrow band of experience. A continuum of
experience that comes through tryptamine hallucinogens: DMT, Psilocybin, and
the DMT-Harmine combination... and that's it... Mescaline doesn't, isn't what
I'm talking about. Ketamine certainly isn't what I'm talking about. Datura
certainly isn't what I'm talking about. And some of these are plants, and some
of them are synthetic drugs, but it's a very narrow spectrum of these highly
visionary ones, and then the most visionary, the quintessence is DMT. I mean,
I think that DMT is as intense as any drug should ever get; I don't ever want
to be more loaded than that. I don't think you can be more loaded than that
and come back. You know? What happens on DMT for me, and this is based on,
you know, composite image of many experiences, and I've confirmed it to some
degree with other people, but I was talking to somebody the other day,
somebody who had just done it, and I said, "what did you think?" and they
said: "It's the most idiosyncratic thing there is." and I thought, what a
wonderful description, that's exactly what it is - it's pure
idiosyncraticness. It's so idiosyncratic that's all there's there - it's like
idiosyncracy without an object, is what DMT is.
When you smoke this, the onset is very rapid. 30-45 seconds, you know? There's
this feeling which comes over your body - half arousal, half anaesthesia. The
air appears to suddenly have been sucked out of the room because all the
colors brighten visibly, as though some intervening medium has been removed.
And then there's a sound, like a piece of bread wrapper or cellophane being
scrunched up and thrown away. A friend of mine says this is radio-entelechy
leaving the anterior fontanelle at the top of your head. [laughter] I'm not
sure I want to line up with that... but a membrane is being ripped; something
is being torn. And then there is a total (what Mircea Eliade called in a
wonderful phrase) "a complete rupture of the mundane plane". [laughter] You
know? That's like a hit and run accident except the car came from hyperspace,
you know? A complete rupture of the mundane plane. And you fall back into this
hallucinogenic space, and what you see is a slowly rotating red and orange
kind of thing, which, over the years we've nicknamed, uh, 'The Chrysanthemum'.
And it's.. this represents some kind of disequilibrium state that has its
roots in the synapses. What's happening as you're watching this Chrysanthemum
is that millions and then hundreds of millions of DMT molecules are rushing
into these serotonin bond sites in the synaptic cleft and disrupting the
serotonin and switching the electron spin resonance signature of these neural
junctions in this 'other' direction. And this is taking, you know, 30 or 40
seconds, and there's this rising hum, this ____nnnmmmmMMMMMMMM^^^^ that rising
tone; the flying saucer tone of Hollywood B movies... you actually hear this
thing.
And then, if you've taken enough DMT (and it has to do entirely with physical
capacity: Did you take, did you cross the threshold?) something happens [clap]
which... for which there are no words.
A membrane is rent, and you are propelled into this 'place'. And language
cannot describe it - accurately. Therefore I will inaccurately describe it.
The rest is now lies. [laughter] When you break into this space, you have
several impressions simultaneously that are a kind of gestalt: First of all
(and why, I don't know) you have the impression that you are underground - far
underground - you can't say why, but there's just this feeling of immense
weight above you but you're in a large space, a vaulted dome. People even call
it 'The DMT dome' I have said, had people say to me, "Have you been under the
dome?" and I knew exactly what they meant.
So you burst into this space. It's lit, sofeted lighting, some kind of
indirect lighting you can't quite locate it. But what is astonishing and
immediately riveting is that in this place there are entities - there are
these things, which I call 'self transforming machine elves', I also call them
self-dribbling basketballs. [laughter] They are, but they are none of these
things. I mean you have to understand: these are metaphors in the truest
sense, meaning they're lies! Uh, it's a jeweled self-transforming basketball,
a machine elf. I name them 'Tykes' because tyke is a word that means to me a
small child, and I was fascinated by the 54th fragment of Heraclitis, where he
says: "The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls" ... and when you burst
into the DMT space this is the Aeon - it's a child, and it's at play with
colored balls, and I am in eternity, apparently, in the presence of this
thing.
There are many of these things, but the main thing that's happening is that
they are engaged in a linguistic activity of some sort, which we do not have
words for, but it's visible language. They are doing the visible language
trip. When you break into the space, they actually cheer! The first thing you
hear when you pass across is this 'hhhyeaaaaaayyy' - you know the Pink Floyd
song? "The Gnomes have Learned a New Way to Say Hoo-Ray"? This has gotta be
what these guys were talking about; how else could it be? It doesn't make any
sense otherwise.
[laughter]
You break into this space... the gnomes say hoo-ray! And they come rushing
forward and they, and, and the thing then that happens is... and people say
"is there risk, to DMT? it sounds so intense. Is it dangerous?".
The answer is: yes, it's tremendously dangerous; the danger is the possibility
of death by astonishment. [laughter] And you must prepare yourself for this
eventuality, because you are so amazed. Amazement seems to be the emotion that
has torn loose and swamped everything else - I mean astounded? When was the
last time you were genuinely 'ASTOUNDED'? I mean, I think you can go your
whole damned life without being 'ASTOUNDED'... and this is astonishment, you
know, raised to the N-th degree to the point that your jaw hangs...
I mean you're like this:
And it raises issues: like you say, "Jesus, ah, huhh ... I must be dead!" And
you, and the weird thing about DMT is it does not effect what we ordinarily
call the mind. The part that you call "you" - nothing happens to it. You're
just like you were before, but the World has been radically replaced - 100% -
it's all gone, and you're sitting there, and you're saying, "Jesus, a minute
ago I was in a room with some people, and they were pushing some weird drug on
me, and, and now, what's happened? s s is this the Drug? Did we do it? Is this
it?" And meanwhile, these things are saying: "Do not give way to amazement;
Control your wonder." in other words, they try to bring you down. They say,
"Don't just goof out on this; pay attention. PAY ATTENTION... to what we're
doing." "OK, what're you doing?..."
[laughter]
Say this is what we're doing, and then they proceed to sing
objects into existence. Amazing objects. Objects that are Faberge Eggs, things
made of pearl, and metal, and glass, and gel, and you, when you're shown one
of these things, a single one of them, you look at it an you know, without a
shadow of a doubt, in the moment of looking at this thing, that if it were
right here, right now, this world would go mad. It's like something from
another dimension. It's like an artifact from a flying saucer. It's like
something falling out of the mind of God - such objects DO not exist in this
universe, and yet, you're looking at it. And they're clamoring for your
attention. " 'k at this! 'ook at This! Look at THIS!" and they pull these
things... and each one, you look into it and it begins to open into this
wonder that you must fight. You say "No, don't look at it, look AWAY from it!"
because it's so wonderful that it's swamping my objectivity and destroying my
ability to function in this space.
Well, then they say "do"...
And the objects that they make have the peculiar ability to themselves
generate this linguistic 'stuff' which condenses as other objects. So beings
are making objects, showing you objects, the objects are turning into beings
and making other objects, these beings and objects, they jump into your chest
- and then they jump back out. They jump into your body and disappear into
your body, and then they jump back out, waving these things, just throwing
this stuff in all directions. They are - the word that comes to mind is: they
are Zany. It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, uh, gone mad. And all of this energy
- they are elves. This is what elves are. It's this wierd thing, where they
love you - or they like you a lot, but you can tell that their sense of humor
is Weird. And that you must be very careful of the deals you cut with these
things. and and in fact I've spent so much time trying to understand what is
this. It has different kinds of feelings about it. One is (and this really
threw me for a loop when I figured this out) after many many of these trips,
and analyzing this place I kept going to, I finally realized: "this place
is... somebody very weird... it's their idea of a reassuring environment for a
human being! It's like a playpen. It's this warm. well lit, secure, womblike
environment, and when I break into it they these things, the elves and the
toys, are toys! These are things to amuse me. The way you would hang, uh,
cubes and blocks above a crad... a playpen, you know? Because children are
supposed to coordinate shapes and bright colors. That's what these things are:
they are toys to try and get me to coordinate my perception in this place.
It's a holding area of some sort - someone's created this and is watching me.
OK - that's one metaphor for what it is. Another metaphor is... I took this
stuff to Tibetans, to the Amazon. I gave it to Tibetans, they said "this is
the lesser lights, the lesser lights of the Bardo. You cannot go further into
the Bardo and return. This takes you as far as you can go." When I gave it to
shamans in the Amazon, they said "It's strong - but this is, these are the
ancestors. These are the spirits that we work with. These are ancestor souls.
We know this place." Well then, the third and final metaphor, because when
you're in that place you have such complex emotions - very complex emotions -
something weird is going on with time, because you perceive your body image as
infantile. You seem to have a very large head, and a very body, and very short
limbs. And, you know, I dunno what that's about.
But they're, uh, this...
Then the last facet of it that I want to mention is: there is this 'you must
be on your toes' thing - don't let these guys get behind you. They are tricky.
And their elfin humor may not be your idea of a good time. [laughter]
And I said to myself, where have I had, before, this feeling that I'm having
now. It's a feeling of being with people that I can't trust, but who want to
help me, and who seem to be trying to, uh, cut a deal. That was the word that
gave me the clue: "deal". And then I remembered, "I know where I felt like
this - I felt like this in the Crawford Market in Bombay when I had a kilo
of Gold in my pocket and I was trying to trade it for hashish, and I was
surrounded by all these Arab hash traders, and they were saying "we're your
friend, just wait, don't worry..." And say "yes, I KNOW you're my friend and
I'm NOT worrying, but, you know, brbrbrrr... perform!" And so then I said:
"Aha the creatures in the DMT flash are Traders..." They're Traders. And
that's what this weird feeling is - it's a business environment in there.
[laughter] We're having a business meeting. THey're saying... and then the
objects! Then I remembered- the objects... they're trade goods! They're
saying: "How about thissss! How about This!".
What do they want? What do I have that they want?... They're meme traders, is
what it is. And I think that what they wanted, and got, and took - without
bothering to even say a word about it - was everything I knew about the
"I Ching". And they're like art collectors. They say "well, the idea is
primitive, and primitive in its execution, but with a certain kind of internal
integrity that one really must respect..." So they're primitive art
collectors, and what they left me with, then, was, uh, my own, you know, their
model of time. Which is the closest thing to one of these hyperdimensional
objects. The objects themselves cannot exist in this world. But the blueprints
of them can. And this afternoon, if the computers are up and running, I will
run through this 'time idea' with you.
And I think I will be able to convince you that it has a weirdly crafted
patina to it, that, the feeling is it didn't spring from human minds, it, it
is a creature of another kind of mental universe. And I think, you know, aside
from the crisis on this planet and our own personal difficulties this is the
real challenge of the psychedelic thing; is to meet the inhabitants and trade
with them. And set up a relationship. The notion traders. They can trade
hyperspacial notions from across the cosmos. And this may be all the
extraterrestrial contact that we're, uh, going to be vouch-safed, you know?
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Bob
--
Bob Cain rcain@netcom.com 408-358-2007
There has been an alarming increase lately In the number of things
about which I know absolutely nothing.