Podcast 124 – Trialogue: “Cannabis”

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: Terence McKenna: "In the absence of cannabis the dream life seems to become much richer. This causes me to sort of form a theory, just for my own edification, that cannabis must in some sense thin the boundary between the conscious and unconscious mind. … And if you smoke cannabis, the energy which would normally be channeled into dreams is instead manifest in the reveries of the cannabis intoxication." Terence McKenna: "And what I really value about cannabis is the way in which it allows one to be taken by surprise by unexpected ideas." Terence McKenna: "Alcohol, on the other hand, is demonstrably one of the most destructive of all social habits. What a bright world it would be if every alcoholic were a pothead." Terence McKenna: "For the 19th century, and for all of European civilization, cannabis was something that was eaten in the form of various sugared confections that were prepared. And this method of ingestion changes cannabis into an extremely powerful psychedelic experience. … For the serious eater of hashish, it is the portal into a true artificial paradise whose length and breadth is equal to that of any of the artificial paradises that we’ve discovered in modern psychedelic pharmacology." Terence McKenna: "To my mind, the whole of Indian and Middle Eastern civilization is steeped in the ambiance of hashish." Terence McKenna: "Hashish, cannabis, has an ambiance of its own. It has a morphogenetic field, and if you enter into that morphogenic field you enter into an androgynous, softened, abstract, colorful, and extraordinarily beautiful world." Terence McKenna: "There’s a deeper issue which is the zeitgeist, if you will, of cannabis, which carries a certain implied danger to establishment values which put such a premium on clear-eyed hard work and Presbyterian rectitude." Ralph Abraham: "It [cannabis] is medicine for cultural evolution." Terence McKenna: "If I judiciously control my intake of cannabis, it like gives me a second wind and a third wind to go forward with creative activity." Terence McKenna: "It can turn you into a stupor, sort of lazy, loutish person. On the other hand, it can allow you to do very hard work for very long periods of time. So you sort of have to manage it, and I think a lot of people don’t learn to manage it." Terence McKenna: "We [the U.S.A.] represent values which are incomprehensible to educated Europeans." Terence McKenna: "Governments have always been, and continue to this day to be, the major purveyor of drugs, worldwide." Terence McKenna: "The day the Russians left [Afghanistan], the hashish market in Northern California collapsed catastrophically and has never been able to build itself back to previous levels." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option