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Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

psychedelics.community

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Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#21

Post by stringfood »

Loughla wrote: post #14
cj17382 wrote: post #4

It's important to have a spiritual practice to go alongside psychedelics to weather the ontological shock.

Spiritual doesn't mean religious, is my opinion. It means being grounded in something firm, whether that's inner strength or a reliance on an external deity. Religion is not required for psychedelics, but a strong grounding in something is, in my opinion. People have bad trips because there's something inside them that they haven't identified or dealt with properly. Anxiety and/or depression will ALWAYS flare up duri…

I feel that looking for God is spiritual but saying you've already found Him, know Him, know His kids, etc - that is religious

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#22

Post by jazzyjackson »

stringfood wrote: post #21
Loughla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spiritual doesn't mean religious, is my opinion. It means being grounded in something firm, whether that's inner strength or a reliance on an external deity. Religion is not required for psychedelics, but a strong grounding in something is, in my opinion. People have bad trips because there's something inside them that they haven't identified or dealt with properly. Anxiety and/or depression will ALWAYS flare up duri…

I feel that looking for God is spiritual but saying you've already found Him, know Him, know His kids, etc - that is religious

There are finders and seekers. I’m always impressed with people who ardently believe they know the truth, they can act without doubt, an interesting skill.

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#23

Post by imhoguy »

Loughla wrote: post #15
tekla wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No you don't. This kind of talk is how you get tech Bros paying 10 grand for some rando to be a "shaman" during a "retreat"

We used to call them trip sitters and it was a friend who helped keep you grounded. Rich people will always find a way to buy their way into a subculture.

For some a tent in a forest is enough, others need luxury hotels next to the forest.

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#24

Post by carljungslabtek »

xvxvx wrote: post #16

I remember discovering McKenna in the late 90’s when I first got internet access at home. The comparison with Alex Jones is a good one: he was initially very interesting, sparking the imagination that whole worlds existed out there that I didn’t know about. But quickly it fell apart and I understood it was just horseshit, a form of fantasy. I’ve never tripped but it sounds similar to fever dreams I had a few times wh…

Tripping is pretty different from even the wildest dreams, mostly because it changes how you think. Usually when I have a bizarre dream the non-euclidean reality is frustrating, because my mind in the dream is still the same as my mind when I’m awake.

But psychedelic drugs can trigger an openness to new ideas that is incredibly difficult to achieve while sober.

They’re also dangerous though, like the article notes. It’s like working (or playing) with fire. Even people who have decades of experience with it can suddenly get viciously burned. So I don’t really recommend it at all — intensive meditation can still be dangerous for people who are unprepared for what can come up but it’s a much more sustainable practice than drugs and can achieve similar (but better, if done correctly) states.

The article did make me pretty sad for the same reasons you called out. I used to look up to him a LOT in college. I moved past it when I discovered meditation but reading this piece really shut down the goodwill I still had for him. It also makes it hard not to view him as a weak person who never did any real personal development and just got lucky with his first few decades of tripping. I had nightmarish nihilistic mushroom trips that made me want to off myself even as a college student lol.

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#25

Post by colordrops »

bobbiebarker2 wrote: post #8
cj17382 wrote: post #4

It's important to have a spiritual practice to go alongside psychedelics to weather the ontological shock.

Good crutch for the weak. I've tripped plenty of times; I'm an atheist; it was great. Next time you trip, you should reflect on your need for "spirituality" and what it says about whatever is going on or not going on between your ears. One of the most amazing things about humans is their imagination and ability to convince themselves of almost anything. In my opinion, one of the points of doing psychedelics is to rec…

What does "spirituality" mean exactly and why is it so offensive to you?

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#26

Post by IncreasePosts »

cj17382 wrote: post #4

It's important to have a spiritual practice to go alongside psychedelics to weather the ontological shock.

No, it isn't. What's important is "set", and "setting".

Set is your mental mindset. Setting is where you're tripping. If you're mentally in a good place, and you're comfortable in your surroundings, you will probably have a good trip.

If you're dealing with some shit mentally and you're not comfortable where you're tripping you'll probably have a really bad trip.

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#27

Post by comrade1234 »

I tried lsd with friends in undergrad. It was to me a very interesting experience. Not spiritual in any way - it was like I could tell that my neurons were firing off all over and incorrectly. It was fun and I enjoyed it very much and I've never had the desire to do it again.

My friends from that night did still continue doing lsd after that. For one of them he stopped when he had what sounds like a horrible trip where a pool table opened up to a portal to hell and dragged him in. Lol.

Re: Terence McKenna's Mega Bad Trip (2025)

#28

Post by zuzululu »

carljungslabtek wrote: post #19
zuzululu wrote: post #6

i think his theory on novelty diminishing is bunk we are seeing more and more of it

he didn’t say it would diminish, he said it would increase until we reached a singularity, which he pegged to 2012. not that i’m a mckenna devotee but i always thought it was interesting that he speculated the final push would be a “device that a small group of people use to generate infinite novelty” and then the smartphone really took off exactly around 2012. the “small group” is just you and your buddies making en…

Terence McKenna predicted that the universe's accelerating accumulation of complexity and novelty would hit its absolute maximum, or "zero point," on December 21, 2012

On the contrary we've seen a surge of novelty since.

Smartphone took off before 2012, a few years after iphone's release around 2010 when social media converged on it

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