Food of the Gods

I recently started reading Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna. I have read The Invisible Landscape and True Hallucinations and do also plan on reading The Archaic Revival. While I rarely use psychedelics, my interest in them makes me wonder. His views are intriguing. At times I feel like he is trying to sell psychedelics as a cure all for the world's problems. If only it were that easy. I think though that he understood psychedelics to be more of a catalyst, stating that the mushroom "teaches the right way to live". In Food of the Gods, he continues with a similar message, boundary dissolution, destruction of the ego, so on, so forth. Listening to Terence speak and reading his books, I see him as a true intellectual. Obviously not the alpha-male type. I envy his lifestyle though. He truly did not give a shit. He wandered the world, broke, for the most part, in search of direct experience with the divine. I envy him simply for the places he had traveled physically, not to mention via psychedelic intervention. It's difficult to justify such a lifestyle in the face of the expectations of society. This IS the right way to live. Who's this guy proposing something totally opposite of what we know now? What source lies within the realm achieved largely via psychedelic drug use, hidden from every day life, yet influential enough to convey deeper meaning when approaching the major questions each of us subconsciously juggle with what little time remains after our daily duties have been satisfactorily completed? In regards to the past, I feel he is dead on. The importance of diet among our distant ancestors may have been overlooked. His belief that psylocybin as an agent, in low doses, used for improved visual acuity does make sense. The shamanic rituals created upon the admittance of greater doses makes sense as well. Equality of the sexes and suppression of the ego and alpha male seems plausible, I really do feel Terance was on to something, It's just too bad nobody has listened.

As the Gulf Coast fills with oil, Israeli ships threaten to sink another humanitarian ship, and the stock market continues to crumble, I am reminded of Terence's concern for the future, His insistence that we have less than 30 years (Food of the Gods-1993) to wrestle control of the world free from these global capitalists, hell-bent on spreading their disease across the globe. People need to wake up. As I wrote this blog, five of the top ten "trending now" topics were celebrities. "Dishwashers" was #7- who knows? Jupiter apparently was hit by an asteroid... a year ago. Oh, and Joran Van der Sloot apparently murdered another young, innocent girl, lets see if his royal lineage allows him to get away with this one. Point is, nobody is concerned with the oil spill until in causes a disruption in their own lives, and once the disruption passes, it's on to the next more important thing. Wishful thinking has gotten us this far. I'm just afraid our wishes have nearly run out. Here's to a sober reminder.