Old interview with Terrence McKenna

[bignickel]

From an old issue of Mondo 2000 I have, issue #10, back in 93. Yeah, that Terrence McKenna, with the DMT elves, and fractal time, etc, but he had some really neat things to say about skepticism none the less.

From Mondo 2000 interview, #10, pg 52
Real mysteries, you don't have to believe. You don't have to have been initiated. You don't have to have your aura cleared, or your mantras in order. Real mysteries operate and you get to touch.

My favorite story in the Gospel is the story of Thomas the Doubter because, remember, he wasn't present when Christ came to the upper room the first time, after the Crucifixion. And so Thomas came a couple days later and the apostles said to him, "the master was here, he was here," and he said, 'you guys have been smoking too many of these little brown cigarettes from Lebanon, we saw him crucified!" Well, so then Christ (c)ame a second time and Thomas was present and he said, "unless I put my hand into the wound, I will not believe it." So Christ said to Thomas, "come forward, put your hand into my wound," and he did.

Now my interpretation for that Gospel story is that ALONE, of all the apostles, it was Thomas the Doubter who touched the resurrection body because he was the only one who had his sh!t together enough to DOUBT! And so if you doubt, they will actually let you put your hand in the wound; if you don't doubt, they will give you any kind of cr@p and send you happily on your way.

Doubting doesn't get rid of the real stuff, becuase the real stuff is REAL. You need a crap detector to get you past all the phony baloney because you know people have been working miracles in the marketplace for millennia - that's just part of what does on in the marketplace - shell games, levitation, rope tricks, regurgitation of objects, it's just ho-hum.

 

[bignickel]

From the same issue, same page:

From Mondo 2000, issue 10, pg 52
I talked to John Mack, you know the guy at Harvard who's so interested in the New Thing - fetal removal under abduction circumstances - and I interviewed him in Prague and he said, "You know, I have fifteen hundred documented cases of women who believe they had the fetus removed in an abduction situation," and I said, "Fascinating, John, what kind of physical trauma do these women display?" And he said "there's no physical trace whatsoever," and I said "what does that imply to you John?" And he said "Advanced surgical techniques for which we have no knowledge." And then I realized I was dealing with a SCREWBALL. I mean, WHAT? What it imples to me is fifteen hundred severely confused women. I just can't make the leap to any other possiblilty.

 

[joyrex]

I think his first name is with one r - Terence. Just in case someone would be searching for information on him at a later time.

He wanted to convince skeptics with his true hallucinations, but I suppose he didn't succeed at that. Trips are strictly for the eye of the beholder.