millions of people billions of people need the
calming assurance that comes from experientially verifying the existence beyond the grave and i
think that at the end of history this is what will happen that very shortly the
the instability built into the system is going to transform material existence beyond all imagining
the culture the the global civilization is dying there are too many problems they're accumulating
you have to be blind to not realize that this is really in fact the end of the road and that it is
um you know the ozone hole the toxic pollution the toxification of the ocean we can't pretend
that these things are easily reversed by simply recycling or something like that no instead of
this clutching to keep it all like it is and say oh no no please no future please no future
we have to say okay deep breath it's like that first wave of psilocybin when you feel it sweep
over you or ayahuasca and you realize you know my god my god here it comes i've done it this time
well we've done it this time folks we have been planning human mass suicide for 15,000 years
not a moment was not dedicated to this goal and now it's upon us and it's a cause for great
rejoicing we will go off into hyperspace the planet will heave an enormous sigh
of relief and if it can come back from an asteroid impact that leaves nothing larger than a chicken
standing around then i dare say in 50 60,000 years you know the glaciers will run the jungles will
restabilize the ocean will cleanse itself and as the i ching says no blame no blame
the metaphor that we have to keep in front of ourselves you know you you all know the cliche
uh ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny right do we all understand what this means it's it means it's
something that embryologists in the 19th century created and i think it's fairly profound it's that
a fetus a human fetus recapitulates the entire history of evolution on this planet it begins
as a tiny one-celled organism it becomes a fish it becomes a reptile it becomes a mammal it becomes a
human being but the part of the recapitulation of phylogeny that we've ignored is extinction
for for a million years we have been uh afloat in the gently amniotic ocean of the planetary
environment imagine the fetal crisis of birth you exist as a fetus inside your mother
food is delivered through the umbilical cord oxygen delivered the same way endless space
weightlessness the dream paradise all needs are met and then something begins to go wrong
the walls close in the and you begin to be propelled into the birth canal strangulation
death the fetus must know at that moment incredible fear everything is going to be
destroyed the world is ending yet how could the fetus at that moment imagine
hieronymus bosch or nuclear physics or global politics or star flight or any of these things
we are now in the birth canal of a new ontological order of human existence and the walls are closing
in there's no going back the amniotic ocean the the unpolluted endless frontier of a game-rich
planet forget it we've been in the birth canal for ten fifteen 000 years and now we're approaching
transition the most violent part of the birthing process and all you can do is screen unless you
have some superordinate knowledge of what is going on the shamans shamans in the rainforest
shamans among us and as a goal for each of us must act as the midwives to a new order of existence
there's no going back we've burnt this scene to the ground and the womb is stretched the womb is
traumatized but it can recover and but the the child and the mother must be parted
again the metaphor of pregnancy if a pregnancy is somehow um doesn't if the birth is not smooth
if the child is not parted from the mother toxemia sets in and then both and then you
have a real crisis the life of the mother the life of the child everything is in danger this
is the re this is the real problem i don't think we've reached that place yet i think that we'll go
fairly smoothly into hyperspace but i think the emergence in the last 20 years of masses of human
beings taking psychedelics masses of human beings talking about getting in touch with the spirit
talking about a new shamanism an archaic revival this means we are very very close to seeing the
light at the end of the tunnel and it's a radiance the the the meaning and the depth of which cannot
be told because we are after all being born into a higher dimension but if we believe in the dynamics
of nature if we believe in the rightness of being then there should be no anxiety there should be no
alarm this is what psychotherapy and shamanism and all these things exist for is to spread the truth
about the situation so that we don't clutch and we don't hold on and spread panic and hysteria
and that's what i've learned from psychedelic don't you think that that
the collapse of everything familiar is going to open our hearts i mean the the most open-hearted
of us open first but before this is over every one of us will probably bury the dead
and walk through i mean hell and it will open the heart it can't fail to open the heart i mean
when a friend dies in your arms maybe the first time it doesn't work but the second the third
before i mean we are going to get it sooner or later and it's it's bigger than all of us
i mean it's just so big and it's always been there in miniature in the phenomenon of our own deaths
but we didn't we don't look at that but you know if you will contemplate your own death
your heart will open i mean the truth that i've learned from psychedelics to put it into bumper
sticker form if that's the way to think of it is uh this is the hardest truth there is this is
the distillation of 50 000 years of of of nomadic hunting and orgies around the campfire and rockets
to the moon and and the whole thing it can be summed up in a single phrase nothing lasts nothing
lasts everything is changing into something else heraclitus said this he said panta rhei all flows
we flow into this world we inhabit it and we move on nothing lasts
not your career not your fortune and finally not even your own sweet self everything is replaced
and if we can open ourselves to this by the heart by the by the mind i mean there's
all ways then we will find the dignity to and and this is not about being born in the generation at
the end of the world this is something that would have worked at every moment in history
after all heraclitus lived 2500 years ago this is the truth of true maturity nothing less
i mean every time i i take a trip or or eat a fine meal or make love or visit an art gallery i
feel the transience of it and that enriches it that's the heart dimension is the poignancy of
knowing that this too shall pass everything is in transition and the material body can
resists this truth because the material body understands that if it passes then
it will be replaced by something which it can't imagine and that that triggers an anxiousness
but i think this is what psychedelics teach that nothing nothing lasts and if we can
incorporate that and live it we will live every moment to its fullest people who are hiv positive
they get to walk around with the knowledge that nothing lasts and in a way they are privileged
because after all any one of us could be bitten by a snake today and die or have a tree fall on
us or be run over by a bus we would have missed living in that heartful dimension where you know
that you you you too will will move from the scene and make way for something else
this episode is sponsored by audible terence mckenna was a profound advocate for psychedelics
and freedom of consciousness much of the psychedelic renaissance we experience today
can be linked to the ideas he pioneered in the 1990s terence passed away in the year
2000 but his lectures and writings become more and more relevant as time progresses
you can access the profound insights of terence mckenna through his audiobooks on audible we
highly recommend food of the gods which is a deep exploration of humans symbiotic relationship with
mind-altering plants use our link at audible.com after school or text after school to 500 500 to
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