25/01/2026
“We empower our existence by insisting on our authenticity.” Terence McKenna
Terence was ahead of his time…at points, almost prophetic.
He spoke often about the dangers of dominator culture: authoritarianism, concentrated power, and the slow erosion of individual agency.
In this clip (from a 1990 talk), he pointed to something people could already feel back then:
That unless there is a revival — not led from the top down by “leaders,” but sparked by the awakening of the individual — we’re in serious trouble.
He said:
“Through press releases, soundbites, and the enforced idiocy of television, the drama of a dying world has been turned into a soap opera for most people.
And they don’t understand that it’s their story that they’re watching…
and they will eat it, in the final act, if somewhere between here and the final act they don’t stand up on their hind legs and howl.”
Before I even knew who Terence was, a young version of me sat in a lecture by his brother, Dennis. No idea how I ended up there. One of those God-nod moments. The ending of that talk has never left me.
Two images.
One: a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. The other: a psilocybin mushroom…a symbol of awakening.
One ends in destruction.
The other births a new world.
I’m not saying the answer is simply “everyone take mushrooms” (though I’m not against it).
I’m saying:
if we don’t go through some kind of radical initiation into a new way of being, we’re cooked.
And if you think anyone - any party, any institution, any side of this industrial dominator machine - is coming to save you?
You’re still waiting inside the system that’s eating you.
