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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)

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In my opinion he nailed the timeline. It just needed to take off, and it is.

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

#72
post #48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spirituality doesn’t have to mean you believe in spirits in the sense of ghosts etc. I believe that if that’s where the definition of exploring one’s own inner world ends, then that person has missed the point.

If you don't mean to suggest you believe in some strange metaphysics without any grounding in reality, why do you call it spirituality? What "inner world" are you "exploring"? Can that be done in plain language without any mysticism? Why or why not?

we are monkeys following logic that was determined by other monkeys. our experience of reality is equivalent to that of a brain in a jar. blind belief is blind belief whether placed in science or religion. breaching the gap of blindness necessarily involves a leap to test ideas with personal faith. such a notion is not necessarily compatible with an atheistic perspective insisting reality is solely that which may be verbally quantified by monkeys. a dog knows to sit on command but has no idea about the concept of sitting, does that make the concept of sitting unreal?

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks afro88. I was inspired by the storm in Terence's story, and my time on my sailboat when it felt like the sea was getting to be too much. Glad to share.

It brought me down to tears, thanks. Do you have ko-fi link?

Happy to hear.

I added a ko-fi link to my about page, thanks!

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

#76

I wouldn't know what to tell someone about what entering a (the?) void is like, but the closest i can imagine is a situation where you're 1000 nautical miles out to sea in a small sailboat on a pitch dark cloudy moonless night, far away from anyone. A storm is brewing and the seas are getting large, though you can't see them, it's too dark for your eyes, though you feel the force as it throws your small boat around.…

Sounds very much like my breakdown 20 years ago. When I finally emerged 10 years later I was both the same and utterly changed. I liken it to having had my personality deconstructed and then reconstructed from the ground up. I wouldn't wish it on anyone though I'm now in a much better place.

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

#77
post #61
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mean to suggest you believe in some strange metaphysics without any grounding in reality, why do you call it spirituality? What "inner world" are you "exploring"? Can that be done in plain language without any mysticism? Why or why not?

Militant atheists like you are almost as insufferable as militant theists

You think asking for explanations and evidence makes someone a "militant atheist"?

What do you call yourself? A militant woo-merchant?

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

#78
post #4

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

It's quite the opposite. When a drug trip conflicts with one's "spiritual practice" is exactly when you have a problem. That seems to be McKenna's problem in this case: he tried to assigning meaning to an experience he had while compromising his brain function with chemicals.

All you really need is to understand that there's no magic involved here. If you deliberately compromise your brain function, you're going to have strange experiences. It doesn't "mean" anything except that you compromised your brain function.

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

#79
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…

> which he pegged to 2012

He picked the date because of the Mayan calendar. Bullshit all the way down.

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

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I was curious about what the experience is like. Now, can you share what an OBE feels like?

I can. An OBE feels utterly real, minus the "oh shit... this is happening!" aspect of it all. It is not like a dream, even a lucid dream. And like a cliched cinematic experience you lift out of your body intact, as if there were two of you, one there and one here. It is legit and strange and the 'reality' of it is a lot to handle, after the fact.

Can you see your other body? Or is it just that you feel yourself in 2 bodies?
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