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Terence McKenna's Final Earthbound Interview

John Hazard

In this last video interview before his untimely death, Terence McKenna describes Novelty Theory to director John Hazard with an elaboration of its core principles involving hyper-complexification and the compression of Time. He holds forth on the correspondences between the structure of the DNA molecule and the Chinese I-Ching, then shows how his notion of an Archaic Revival leads from the theories of mind and the art movements of the early 20th century to the Shaman as the quintessential figure of the 21st century, with psychedelic substances being the bridge between these worldviews.

By way of explaining why he's finally releasing this footage, Director John Hazard has the following to say:

"On meeting Terence: I had just finished shooting a film which profiled George Wallace for American Experience, and I was looking for a subject for a film that I might make that would engage me in a compelling way. I stumbled upon Terence and Novelty Theory, and I liked the correspondences between his work and the Mayan calendar.

Terence agreed to work with me, and I went to his home on the Big Island of Hawaii to conduct what I assumed would be the first of several interviews. We were just beginning to work together when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I’ve always believed that my interview with Terence worked especially well as a long form conversation, because of his gifted way with language. When Jeremy Narby began his 'Awakening the Cosmic Serpent' Evolver Intensives sessions, I was struck by how engaging his long form interviews were, and I noticed how week after week his guests would tell a story about Terence. I’m inspired to release this interview on Reality Sandwich within the context of Jeremy’s Evolver Intensives.

With the psychedelic movement undergoing a renaissance, many in the new generation, the core participants who are finding their way to the Evolver/RS nexus, were children when Terence conducted his interview with me. I think this audience may consider his remarks to be prescient."

 

John Hazard's website:

http://www.hazarddp.com/

Comments

Thanks so much, John

Submitted by Michael Henderson on Thu, 04/21/2011 - 20:23.

What a treat! Being something of a McKenna scholar, I'm happy to report that this is a full hour of Terence at the top of his game. Wow.

Mind's delight

Submitted by Jaron on Fri, 04/22/2011 - 14:10.
What a treat indeed! Thanks very much for this, love McKenna :)

Excellent

Submitted by jeff on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 06:12.

Thanks for posting such a great interview.

It is an excellent summation of many of the threads of his work.

I was struck by how his thought draws a great deal from Christianity....Obviouly the work of the Jesuit Priest Teilhard de Chardin (who came up with the terms 'Noosphere' and 'Omega Point' and whose overall system forms the foundation for McKenna's own). A Jesuit priest? kind of interesting don't you think?

Also Terence's world view is suffused with the mystical theology of Eastern Christianity which is also Teleological, Eschatological and  Universalist.

I don't know whether McKenna ever used the Eastern Christian term 'Apokatastasis' ? This is the idea that everything which ever existed through all time is 'restored' in its fullness...every moment, every experience in all possible world/dimensions  is carried into eternity at the end of time. Not only what happened but what might have happened (or will happen), so it is essentially infinite. Nothing is lost and exactly as Terence envisages everything is transparent to and connected with everything else. 

Eternity is in love with the productions of time (William Blake)

What then of evil? Is that likewise restored? In this system which draws heavily from Neoplatonism, evil has no existence in itself....it is an absence of good (which is the foundation of Being itself ) and is a condition which can only take place in the world of time. (Interestingly in Eastern Christianity, the notion of the Fall is a fall into time and its limitations from a condition of timelessness. Sin then becomes in a sense Time itself. 

He speaks in this interview  of Eschatology. Some theologians speak of 'Realised Eschatology' which is essentially that the Eschaton, the 'last thing' has  already happened, because in eternity everything already is and will be. So we can, from our position in time already access the Eschaton, in certain states of awareness. Also we can choose to livea as though in such an awareness. This would potentially apply to Psilocybin experiences. it is extremely important to actually live it once experienced. Hopefully they are interconnected. 

This is expressed in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov by one of the chacters, a Russian OrthodoxMonk, rcounting th story of  a man who in the last stages of a terminal illness comes into a completely different relation to life. At one point he says

do not weep, life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we do not want to know it, and if we did want to know it, tomorrow there would be paradise the world over

 

I would be fascinated to hear from those who have studied Terence's thought in depth.

Anyhow, what a fitting final interview for a great man. 

Thank you John Hazard once again. 

Jeff :O) 

 

 

Love your comments.  Do you

Submitted by cjwin on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 23:01.

Love your comments.  Do you have a blog?

 

so ahead of the curve

Submitted by kahlil54 on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 09:19.
This is an amazing interview. So much of it resonates more and more everyday in this unfolding. I love Terences take on novelty.

Sand dunes

Submitted by jeff on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 09:34.
...And the metaphor of the sand dunes and the wind is just brilliant. When I heard it a light went on in my head and I understood something new :O)

That metaphor

Submitted by Jennifer Palmer on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 16:17.

Hi Jeff,

 

That metaphor had a similar effect on me.  I feel that this video acted as a kind of accelerant to my own conscious evolution.

 

Many thanks to John for sharing this with our community!

 

Peace,

 

jp

Illumination

Submitted by jeff on Sun, 04/24/2011 - 02:54.

Hi Jennifer

I think I need to watch it again with a pen and notebook in hand.

I have heard/read many of Terence's ideas before but I was particularly struck by the sense of this as a summing up, the clarity of it (without frills or rhetorical flourishes) and some of the illuminating individual metaphors and turns of phrase just shone for me.

I type at the speed of a sedated snail  but I think a written transcript of this would be immensely useful for many people if someone here had the skill to do it.

Jeff  

I had a very similar

Submitted by SebG on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 01:49.
I had a very similar experience! It was so bazaar, as if some deep understanding of my own, most likely induced from past psychedelic experiences, came flashing back. The metaphor is beautiful - it's honesty and truth just stunning. Time and its occurrences are impressions left by that 'wind - the pneuma, the Holy Spirit, the universal consciousness that is, will be, and was, us - the interconnectivity of all. Singularity, Infinity. God.

"The Fire in the MadHouse at

Submitted by ironcloudz on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 17:00.

"The Fire in the MadHouse at the End of Time"

 

that about sums it up.

The last guru

Submitted by Peaches on Sat, 04/23/2011 - 19:01.
John thanks so much for this vid.  I'm no McKenna scholar but I've seen several of his short vids over the years but this one just blew my mind.  I was captivated the entire time.   Bless that soul for his brilliance and patience with saying what he has to say to a lay person like me.   

Terence McKenna Book!!

Submitted by indy on Mon, 04/25/2011 - 05:09.

Just in case any of you Terence fans that will be looking at this and dont already know:

There is a kickstarter project for a book about Terence, written by none other than his brother Dennis

http://elektricforest.com/2011/04/14/kickstart-projects-alan-watts-and-terence-mckenna/ 

its reached 34k since it started a week and a half ago but seems to hit a bit of a slump now so i said i better spread the word.

There is four days left to make a donation to the Alan Watts film also, they are both good deals, donate a bit of money and get a copy of the book or film! im glad to see the alan watts project made it anyway

if your on twitter you could retweet and help spread the word http://twitter.com/#!/savagecabage/status/58280795953049601 

 

 

 

excellent...

Submitted by lizibe on Thu, 04/28/2011 - 18:34.
thank you SO much for sharing this, I am giddy with all of the ideas and perceptions this is spinning... such a beautiful soul with such a gift - and still sharing it.

Glad you are giddy!

Submitted by Jennifer Palmer on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 11:17.

Please keep giving this gift!  Share it on Facebook, Twitter and other places...

 

One Love,

 

jp

Let him speak

Submitted by ludicman on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 14:33.
Unique and perfect.

Agree with you! The

Submitted by kidzgamesnet on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 11:31.

Agree with you! The best!

Watch movies online

This is so great. I always

Submitted by Paolo Lery on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 16:37.

This is so great. I always imagined that the so called wake up call (to use the parlance of you cousins across the atlantic) to the TOATEOT that Terence mentioned in his everything will become too weird to ignore bit, would be an vast increase in those pesky ego shattering synchronicities that we all get, perhaps caused by the eventual lead up to consciousness (in whatever form available,) thinking at light speed. If this happened wouldn't the universe shrink to nothing? I mean like the big crunch that they talk about in cosmology, you know like if we can access all information ie. every particle in the universe at once the universe would have no size right? It would take no time to get anywhere, or think anything, conceptually at least. We would become one with the light or in other words transcend time and space. A light particle doesn't age after all. Are what are possibly ego created memories and experiences really that important to us anyway? In the universal scheme of things I mean. Aren't they the cause of the suffering that everyones always banging on about ending? Are we advocating our own destruction I think i'm trying to get at. Or alternatively to all what could be just a paranoid fantasy realm of my totally unfounded and idiosyncratic invention, is this just one of millions of ancestor simulations created for the enjoyment of some bored future juvenile entity playing with the equivalent his toy soldiers or someting? PL

the nature of the new(?) connectivity?

Submitted by danletras on Sat, 04/30/2011 - 21:20.

A wonderful interview, to be sure. However, the connectivity Terence alludes to (the accelerated velocity of which he attributes to the introduction of human consciousness, language, and later, advanced technology) does not appear to be a connectivity always familiar to or nurturing to homo sapiens and other life forms.  On the one hand: Yes, the shrinking of geographical space (metaphorically speaking) that accompanies the (metaphorical) acceleration of time has afforded me tremendous benefits not available to previous generations of my family (access to the spiritual technologies of the East and systems of music not limited to the areas of Ireland and Portugal my family hails from, for example). On the other hand, all of this connectivity is also occurring in the context of grave individual isolation, the destruction of the truly successful connectivity  found in ecosystems, and the decimation of indigenous cultures that ALREADY have achieved impressive heights of integration and connection between consciousness, the local ecosystem, and the spiritual realm.

Help me here. Is this convergence Terence and others speak of supposed to be a good event for humanity and other life forms or simply ANOTHER event, neutral in value? And is this new level of connectivity occurring now that Terrance refers to 1) related to the previous integration and connectivity found in indigenous societies and that I describe above and 2) superior in some way to previous forms of connectivity?

 I thank RS commenters for any clarification on these questions.

 D. Hanrahan

Spontaneous Evolution

Submitted by Daniel Pinchbeck on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 09:16.

 I recommend the book, Spontaneous Evolution, by Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman, as one good take on the process. I think we have to see it as an evolutionary process - that the separation and isolation on the individual level and the disintegration of natural systems on the biospheric level are necessary aspects of a jump to a higher level of synergy and complexity. Either the earth is somehow gestating a new, more intensified form of consciousness (expressed through human beings as its mobile organs) or it is a kind of stillbirth, and we are moving rapidly toward extinction. 

 Because this is a process of conscious evolution leading to conscious co-creation, the only way it can take place is if the individual units of consciousness - you and me - make a mutation of our own being. Therefore there is no need to ask whether it is going to happen or if it is going to happen We make it happen by becoming it - or not. 

 

 

"Will the transformation."-Rilke

 

Gracias

Submitted by danletras on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 13:57.

Cheers for the feedback. I may check out the Lipton/Baehrman book, though something about this new integration leaves me with a sense of dread. I don't think it would be wise to leave behind what distinguishes we humans and most fellow species: Love and the physical body, if that what is entailed. Our technologies are incapable of these essential gestures. Hence, my dread.

I'll try to post a translation of Gilberto Gil's song "Cerebro electronico," as it expresses well the other side of the futures being discussed, in a very personal way.

Shout Out

Submitted by SebG on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 02:01.

Daniel Pinchbeck! Big fan of yours - shout out from Chicago. That book sounds like a compelling addition to this incredible interview by Mckenna. Thanks for that! I'll see you soon enough on the other side, if not this one, fellow spirit. 

-Sebastian

:-)

Submitted by Due South on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 11:15.

"Will the transformation." - love that.

Thanks for this interview, a treat indeed.

transcription for all

Submitted by sativabliss on Mon, 06/06/2011 - 20:58.

Hope it is useful <3

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57250466/Terence-McKenna-John-Hazard-Interview

Some more psychedelic-esque articles available for download at:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bb85d4kpi67n2

which includes this transcript as well!

Are things getting nuts?

Submitted by Victor Hazel on Wed, 06/08/2011 - 05:46.

Great interview. I think Terence perfectly sums up all his major ideas lucidly and coherently. He says ' Ask me this question [what the Eschaton will be like] in 2010 and I will have a different answer.'

Well, we're now in 2011. What would he say now?

He also says: 'I think it’s just going to get weirder and weirder and weirder and finally t’s going to be so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is.  And at that point novelty theory can come out of the woods.  Eventually people are going to say - what the hell is going on? It’s just too nuts, it’s not enough to say its nuts, you have to explain why it’s so nuts. 

Well, again, Terence brilliantly factors in to his calculations economies, polities, societies, cultures, fashions, etc. Is the turmoil of the last couple of years an indication that things are really getting 'just too damn nuts'?

Are crop formations a material, empirical, indication of the presence of the Other?

 

Victor Hazel

victorhazel@gmail.com

Inspired, Insightful, Thought Provoking and a Blessing..

Submitted by SoulTraveller on Tue, 06/21/2011 - 14:40.

 all wrapped up in this brilliant interview as McKenna succintly and eloquently waxes poetic stream of conscious theorys and ideas so coherently that it will take several listens to absorb it all....after all these current times are extremely weird and getting weirder by the day...Thanks sooo very much for posting this!

 

visit:  Visionary Psychedelic Surrealism by Myztico     www.myztico.mosaicglobe.com 

It is

Submitted by Maksy Wolda on Fri, 09/02/2011 - 20:41.
such a peace of good poetry. Level of extrapolation and synthesis is beyond anything that any strict scientist could ever accept but metaphorical level hits with such beauty. I think half magic hides in hypnotic voice of Terrance. I wonder if he smoked sth because sometimes he burst into laugh like he makes really good joke out of us. Nonetheless his words beat any of TEDs talks.

Six.T.Four

Submitted by alienrobotmonkey on Mon, 09/12/2011 - 15:24.

64, 64, 64,

 

hexathis, hexathat, why not square root this cosmic cat?

 

square root=∞8∞

ISM

Submitted by Hans-Peter Trode on Mon, 11/07/2011 - 22:02.

Thank you...

Simple beauty from a brilliant mind... trenscendence of critical thinking by osmosis...

RIP  ~~~ you will be missed !!!

Augmented meditative techniques

Submitted by Cliff Skater on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 16:32.
The meditative technique I described in "Kundalini and the Human Laser" was certainly a blend of eastern consciousness/time study augmented by western "technology".  The Caduceus, a symbol of great antiquity, appears to represent the fundamentals of laser mechanics.  While I am not sure we are in the "end game of developmental processes"; I would like to believe my experience could have been attained without the aid of technology but that was not the case.  Many might fault my choice of augmentation, especially those with plant related bias', I would again point out that we live in a sea of nitrogen and the original inspiration (no pun intended) occurred naturally in the ocean depths.  Terence speaks of the electronic noosphere as if it were entirely machine based but I would assert that our future telepathy is mostly organic.

The Last True Visionary

Submitted by Mark Porter on Mon, 12/19/2011 - 16:32.
An absolutely brilliant interview. My concern is that as time accelerates, and as mankind is attempting to make the ascent to the next step of evolution; it will be cut short by the earth in retrubution for our lack of vision in our caring for her. It is fact that we are heading for an ecological and climatalogical disaster very soon on this planet, and our very existence may be on borrowed time. The idea of an evolutionary ascent may be a moot point. We may not have the the chance to prove our evolutionary worthiness to climb to this new level. Unfortunately, we as the human species pat ourselves on the back for our technological strides, but we are in a process of de-evolution sociologically. As we advance in technology, our economic, political, and social systems are in tatters and worsening. We have techno-tunnel vision, and continue to hope and pray that our techno ablities will help us to escape the bed of greed, extreme consumerism, and waste that we have tended for ourselves. We ourselves may become a nonessential evolutionary disposable biproduct in the footnote of earth's history.

Terence McKenna describes

Submitted by meredith89 on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 01:26.

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VCP-510 || 640-802

Great video, filled with

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Simple beauty from a

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