Terence McKenna - Space-Time Reality is Complexifying at an Exponential Rate of Speed

[quintessentone]

There are many eloquent talks that Terence McKenna gave that detail the entirety of his "stoned ape theory".  I can't remember them all, but I listened to them multiples of times back in the day!  He wrote a whole book that lays out the theory, called 'Food of the Gods'.  It's probably on The Pirate Bay or some such torrent site.  He has an entire elaborate theory where he lays out how he feels the mushrooms impacted the early human brain.  It's very interesting.  

ETA: Evolving Times was actually one of the early lectures I remember where he details the stoned ape theory.  For a rainy day, here you go:

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PucjQXO2k0]

I skipped along that video. He's more of a philosopher-poet and was pushing his book at the end. Has anyone bought his book?

Iinteresting him mentioning the hindbrain and how one should take magic mushrooms on an empty stomach to avoid the 'butterfly' stomach effect which he says is caused by anxiety, which if you don't discipline the hindbrain against anxiety, then these issues may be experienced.

This is the main part of the brain that is affected:

"Anterior cingulate cortex

The anterior cingulate cortex is a part of the brain that is particularly affected by psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. This region is associated with emotional processing and internal awareness, and psilocybin alters neural activity in this area, leading to significant changes in brain waves and neuronal firing patterns. Additionally, psilocybin interacts with serotonin receptors, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor, which plays a role in mood regulation and cognition. This interaction contributes to the unique psychedelic effects experienced during psilocybin use."

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"Short-term effects of psychedelic mushrooms include a distorted sense of reality, synesthesia (mixed-up senses, such as seeing colours when hearing sounds), and an altered sense of time². One study that analyzed both short- and long-term effects of the drug identified decreased negative mood, amplified positive mood, and decreased amygdala response to negative stimuli as the primary acute effects. The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for fear and negative emotion, and it has been implicated in mental disorders including depression and alcohol use disorder⁶. This suggests that psilocybin may be a useful therapeutic in treating these disorders."

Your Brain on Magic Mushrooms: A Potential New Therapy for Mental Disorders – Science Communication Club

He also stated that magic mushrooms grown from animal dung is less favourable than growing these mushrooms at home. Our apeish ancestors would have consumed the dung-grown variety, so if we can believe their awareness bloomed language and creative tendencies, then wouldn't the dung-grown variety be the best way to go? lol

[greymagick]

I skipped along that video. He's more of a philosopher-poet and was pushing his book at the end. Has anyone bought his book?


He also stated that magic mushrooms grown from animal dung is less favourable than growing these mushrooms at home. Our apeish ancestors would have consumed the dung-grown variety, so if we can believe their awareness bloomed language and creative tendencies, then wouldn't the dung-grown variety be the best way to go? lol

The theory is really better taken all together in one piece, otherwise you miss certain nuances and details that are important to a fuller understanding.  I owned the book at one time, but I gave it away to a friend for his birthday.  I read the whole thing.  This is all stuff that I was fully immersed in over 20 years ago.

The mushrooms should have the same overall effect no matter how they were grown.  I think nowadays, it's just easier and more logistical to grow them in jars etc.  It was actually Terence and Dennis McKenna who first figured out how to grow them in large quantities, who then brought them into the Western counter-culture.  They wrote a book about how to do this, which then became the bible on the black market on how to grow mass amounts of them to sell abroad around the world.  They used pseudonyms to write and publish the book.  A lot of people don't know the McKenna's are really the mushroom kings, in that regard!  As well as disseminating all of the theories. 

Of course, stoned ape theory is just a theory, but it probably has some merit.  I think it's feasible that there was a psychedelic catalyst in early human history...

[quintessentone]

The theory is really better taken all together in one piece, otherwise you miss certain nuances and details that are important to a fuller understanding.  I owned the book at one time, but I gave it away to a friend for his birthday.  I read the whole thing.  This is all stuff that I was fully immersed in over 20 years ago.

The mushrooms should have the same overall effect no matter how they were grown.  I think nowadays, it's just easier and more logistical to grow them in jars etc.  It was actually Terence and Dennis McKenna who first figured out how to grow them in large quantities, who then brought them into the Western counter-culture.  They wrote a book about how to do this, which then became the bible on the black market on how to grow mass amounts of them to sell abroad around the world.  They used pseudonyms to write and publish the book.  A lot of people don't know the McKenna's are really the mushroom kings, in that regard!  As well as disseminating all of the theories. 

Of course, stoned ape theory is just a theory, but it probably has some merit.  I think it's feasible that there was a psychedelic catalyst in early human history...

I was told of this theory by my daughter, who believes it to be fact and to me it seems feasible. However, I don't think the magic mushrooms were used as a steady diet because survival was the priority and we all know the 'chillin' effect they give. Well, I don't know...yet.

[greymagick]

I was told of this theory by my daughter, who believes it to be fact and to me it seems feasible. However, I don't think the magic mushrooms were used as a steady diet because survival was the priority and we all know the 'chillin' effect they give. Well, I don't know...yet.

I always figured that the best time to really get involved in having these types of experiences is right around the 20 year old range.  Late teens and 20s.  Even 30s.  But I am now 44 and kind of missed a few of those boats.  Of course, the substances themselves were always hard to find, for obvious reasons.  But in places like Vancouver, there were some stores called 'The Urban Shaman', and other secret dispensaries where one could find this stuff.  They usually always got shut down by the police at some point.  Even still, this goes on.

Now the issue for me is more of finding the right time and place, set and setting, and having the courage to do a full "heroic dose" (4-5 dried grams).  Most people would probably suggest to start off with just 2-3 at first.  The way it is done in therapeutic settings is to do 3-5 grams and have eye covers on, lying in a bed, with headphones on, listening to a carefully curated music playlist for 4-5 hours long.  The unfolding hallucinations behind closed eyelids is supposed to take you on an inner journey, like dreaming at night, and is said to be very therapeutic, much more than standard talk therapy, because you usually re-live early childhood memories and experiences, and come to all kinds of profound insights into your life, and the nature of reality itself. 

I still think it's an experience worth striving for, even if drinking a six pack of beer and smoking a joint is much easier in many ways!

[quintessentone]

I always figured that the best time to really get involved in having these types of experiences is right around the 20 year old range.  Late teens and 20s.  Even 30s.  But I am now 44 and kind of missed a few of those boats.  Of course, the substances themselves were always hard to find, for obvious reasons.  But in places like Vancouver, there were some stores called 'The Urban Shaman', and other secret dispensaries where one could find this stuff.  They usually always got shut down by the police at some point.  Even still, this goes on.

Now the issue for me is more of finding the right time and place, set and setting, and having the courage to do a full "heroic dose" (4-5 dried grams).  Most people would probably suggest to start off with just 2-3 at first.  The way it is done in therapeutic settings is to do 3-5 grams and have eye covers on, lying in a bed, with headphones on, listening to a carefully curated music playlist for 4-5 hours long.  The unfolding hallucinations behind closed eyelids is supposed to take you on an inner journey, like dreaming at night, and is said to be very therapeutic, much more than standard talk therapy, because you usually re-live early childhood memories and experiences, and come to all kinds of profound insights into your life, and the nature of reality itself. 

I still think it's an experience worth striving for, even if drinking a six pack of beer and smoking a joint is much easier in many ways!

That's my issue as well...how to make my space for the experience as unfreaking out as possible. Right now I am reading about the usual effects one experiences so as to prepare myself for what may come. What may come can be everything and anything because I've lived a long life so far and experienced much, so who knows which part of my psyche may decide to come forward and tell me something I may not want to know, or should know but that I think I don't want to know.

[greymagick]

That's my issue as well...how to make my space for the experience as unfreaking out as possible. Right now I am reading about the usual effects one experiences so as to prepare myself for what may come. What may come can be everything and anything because I've lived a long life so far and experienced much, so who knows which part of my psyche may decide to come forward and tell me something I may not want to know, or should know but that I think I don't want to know.

If you use BitTorrent and can download movies and documentaries and music that way, I highly recommend a documentary called 'Music For Mushrooms', that is all about a musician under the moniker 'East Forest', who makes music specifically for tripping on mushrooms.  But overall with the intention of it being a healing type of experience.  Not a party, per se.  He has a 5 hour album out for mushrooms trips, called 'Music For Mushrooms A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner'  (2019).  It is available out there somewhere.  I use a P2P program called Soulseek, which is amazing for finding good music, which is not necessarily mainstream, but independent.  It has pretty much everything you can think of for music, and also sometimes good for ebooks etc.

[quintessentone]

If you use BitTorrent and can download movies and documentaries and music that way, I highly recommend a documentary called 'Music For Mushrooms', that is all about a musician under the moniker 'East Forest', who makes music specifically for tripping on mushrooms.  But overall with the intention of it being a healing type of experience.  Not a party, per se.  He has a 5 hour album out for mushrooms trips, called 'Music For Mushrooms A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner'  (2019).  It is available out there somewhere.  I use a P2P program called Soulseek, which is amazing for finding good music, which is not necessarily mainstream, but independent.  It has pretty much everything you can think of for music, and also sometimes good for ebooks etc.

Thank you for the tip but I won't be doing it alone for a healing experience, but rather an exploration experience perhaps, but who knows. All I have to do now is muster up the courage.

[greymagick]

Thank you for the tip but I won't be doing it alone for a healing experience, but rather an exploration experience perhaps, but who knows. All I have to do now is muster up the courage.

I have at least 30 years of therapy to do, personally - and no sitter, unless I use one of the mushroom therapists, at great expense probably.  Alone is probably the best way, though, as I consider it.  Ideally, there should be shamanic institutions, like psychedelic psych wards, for mentally ill people to do this.  The exploration is probably easier, and can be done alone.  The experience is probably gentle to most people, as it is the imagination of the magic mushrooms, more than the individual who is tripping.  In which case, as Terence McKenna said, it's the mind of Mother Earth, or the Gaian Mind...

Courage, on a Saturday night - which for me, means working the next night anyways!  I have set and setting done, time and place, but going against the grain of normal consciousness is fairly challenging!  For all of us, probably.

[quintessentone]

I have at least 30 years of therapy to do, personally - and no sitter, unless I use one of the mushroom therapists, at great expense probably.  Alone is probably the best way, though, as I consider it.  Ideally, there should be shamanic institutions, like psychedelic psych wards, for mentally ill people to do this.  The exploration is probably easier, and can be done alone.  The experience is probably gentle to most people, as it is the imagination of the magic mushrooms, more than the individual who is tripping.  In which case, as Terence McKenna said, it's the mind of Mother Earth, or the Gaian Mind...

Courage, on a Saturday night - which for me, means working the next night anyways!  I have set and setting done, time and place, but going against the grain of normal consciousness is fairly challenging!  For all of us, probably.

I wonder how a magic mushroom trip/experience could help schizophrenia or paranoid people? I would think there would have to be a lot of therapy beforehand. I can't, right now, reconcile the two in my mind, especially if the patients are on brain altering SSRIs and/or SNRIs, or other types of prescription drugs that may affect brain/body function (drug interactions).

I have a very fertile imagination (Stephen King style) so I'd have to subdue that part of my psyche, somehow, during the experience. We were going to build a camp fire and stare into the fire and stargaze, but from a recent dream I had of a rapture/fire being killing everyone, that is now out of the question. lol

[greymagick]

The pamphlet that came with my ordering of 8 dried grams in the mail stated explicitly that pharma drug interactions can be dangerous.  That has always been a bit of a problem, and one time I had specifically tried to ween off an SSRI medication, as psilocybin also effects serotonin receptor sites, as I understand it, and I wanted to be clear off meds that might cause adverse reactions.  Problem with that is, often times these meds are extremely addictive and can cause significant withdrawal symptons.

But with all of that kind of stuff out of the way, I think it is open seas.  The first time is hardest, only because you just don't know what to expect.  But after that, I think it becomes more like meditation or something.  I am sure combining the two would be powerfully beneficial...