Originally published March 2, 2014, on Tumblr.
Terrence McKenna on DMT:
And it raises issues: like you say, “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? 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?…”
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 weird 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, […] in fact I’ve spent so much time trying to understand what this is. 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, womb-like 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 cradle… 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 small body, and very short limbs. And, you know, I dunno what that’s about…
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.
Happy Sunday.
Astroblast by Musicians With Guns
It’s been over 23 years since I took any mind/mood-altering chemical, including alcohol, but I find McKenna’s report of his DMT fascinating. It was the video, Astroblast, that made me think of the meme-trading, self-transforming machine elves.
I’ve read Rudolph Steiner’s (an early twentieth-century Christian mystic and clairvoyant) works on the biblical secrets of Genesis, as well, and he describes the creation of the world, all the work done in other dimensions, where we passed from Saturn to Sun to Moon and finally to Earth as part of human evolution, wherein Eons were living beings, not a measure of time, and so on and on … every bit as weird and mysterious, mysterious, and, dare I say it, as possibly real as McKenna’s psychedelic journeys in so far as other planes of existence beyond this earthly veil of tears and joy.
Recent Comments