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Interview: Terence McKenna |
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Written by Scott
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Wednesday, 24 December 1997 |
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Page 3 of 4
(TM:)
Salvia divinorum in fascinating. So many surprises in one plant, its exotic chemistry, it's late discovery and its ease of production and the bizarre states of mind into which it conveys one. It will be a great challenge for our community. If we move discreetly with it the dinosaur mind of the establishment may leave it alone. Right now it's legal status means that for the first time since the middle Sixties a powerful hallucinogen is present in society and is legal.
(ED:)
It is an amazing plant...and I hope it stays legal. One of the apparent goals of the establishment over the last 30 years has been to promote distrust and paranoia among the counterculture. Well, for the most part is has worked...we've become scared of our own shadows, and the same people who were helping each other out back in the day are now worried that the other is going to turn them in. I feel that the Internet is pulling people back together, helping to form a trusting community once again. Web sites such as the Lycaeum, Island Organization, Entheogen Dot and your own site are reclaiming this territory, and showing people that they don't have to be afraid all the time. That we can still share ideas, concepts, and hell--even plants. What's your take on the situation?
(TM:)The internet is tremendously empowering of all forces previously at the margins of the cultural dialogue. This cuts two ways, Fascists, Gay Culture and our own psychedelic community have all gained coherence from the use of the net. Ultimately, because I believe the net dissolves boundaries in much the same way that psychedelics do, I believe that the most important effect will be an emerging of stronger communities with healthier attitudes toward drugs, the earth, woman and children.
(ED:)
I just got back from a trip to Jamaica (it was great). I found that the locals there sell mushrooms to the tourists, as there are many cow pastures around in Jamaica, but that they do not take them themselves. Even most of the people I know who regularly smoke marijuana rarely use hallucinogens. Why has “modern” society has forsaken the hallucinogens that most “primitive” societies use?
(TM:)
Really only the wild man or the wild human can fully respond to psychedelics, everyone else has a lot on the line, a lot to lose. In the Third World people are trying to make it into the middle class. They value focus and responsibility. Extravagant imaginings and philosophical flights of fancy belong to the true primitive and the true sophisticate. Nobody else gets it.
(ED:)
I've forwarded you the letter I got from Peter concerning Leonard Enos (the snitch who put the finger on the Canadian psychedelic ring). What's your take on all of this. I previously spoke to Dennis about it, as referenced in Peter's letter, and would like to hear your own opinions about the horrible matter.
(TM:)
There have always been snitches. Every conspiratorial enterprise is haunted by this danger. In hindsight I think many people involved see that there was deficient of attention to details and vibes. The Canadian group did heroic things and I salute them, their aspirations were titanic and any student of Greek tragedy can tell you where that leads.
(ED:)
What do you think of Owsley? Have you ever had any conversations with the alchemist?
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