Terence Mckenna: I Understand Philip K. Dick

In case it isn't clear to anyone: the beginning of this article is basically a description of Terence's experiences in the Colombian Amazonas, described with more detail in a book of his called "True Hallucinations." The content of this article is significantly more coherent and poignant if one takes the time to look into that book.

To summarize briefly: in his early 20s, Terence and some colleagues went to Colombia with the intentions of finding and studying a certain entheogen. After (I think days or weeks) of consuming psilocybin (mushrooms), their investigations became more focused on the mushroom, and their collective ideas about the matter become increasingly "out there." Terence and his brother become convinced by their experiences that extra-dimensional entities are instructing them to conceive of an "experiment" (that involves them taking both psilocybin and ayahuasca) which will trigger some sort of eschatological event. The "experiment" then causes Terence and his brother to have mutually re-enforcing psychosis and hallucinations that last for something like two weeks.

The book is very interesting. Terence was a hell of a writer, and the general concepts touched upon are highly interesting.

From the article: "Does the delusion of one visionary ecstatic validate the delusion of another? How many deluded, or illuminated ecstatics does it take to make a reality?"