Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American psychonaut, lecturer, and writer. He was noted for his knowledge, and the ability to articulate his knowledge, of the use of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, language, historical and civilizational timelines, the theoretical origins of human consciousness, and his concept of novelty theory.


 * "Progress of human civilization in the area of defining human freedom is not made from the top down. No king, no parliment, no government ever extended to the people more rights than the people insisted upon. And I think we've come to a place with this psycedelic issue. And we have the gay community as a model, and all the other communities, the ethnic communities. We simply have to say, Look: LSD has been around for fifty years now, we just celebrated the birthday. It ain't going away. WE are not going away. We are not slack-jawed, dazed, glazed, unemployable psychotic creeps. We are pillars of society. You can't run your computers, your fashion houses, your publishing houses, your damn magazines, you can't do anything in culture without psychedelic people in key positions. And this is the great unspoken of American Creativity. So I think it's basically time to just come out of the closet and go, "You know what, I'm stoned, and I'm proud." -- from the book True Hallucinations


 * "LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us." -- http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/top-ten/display_review.php?id=00095