Transmissions
from
Terence McKenna-Land
Item:
Time and Mind
- partial
transcript from May 26th & 27th, 1990 -
New Mexico
The
Tykes...
Well,
I suppose (this is) an invitation to
describe a DMT trip, which is never to
be passed up. Because ... I think what
we're talking about here is a continuum,
I'm talking about a very narrow band of
experience. A continuum of experience
that comes through tryptamine
hallucinogens: DMT, Psilocybin, and the
DMT-Harmine combination... and that's
it... Mescaline doesn't, isn't what I'm
talking about. Ketamine certainly isn't
what I'm talking about. Datura certainly
isn't what I'm talking about. And some
of these are plants, and some of them
are synthetic drugs, but it's a very
narrow spectrum of these highly
visionary ones, and then the most
visionary, the quintessence is DMT. I
mean, I think that DMT is as intense as
any drug should ever get; I don't ever
want to be more loaded than that. I
don't think you can be more loaded than
that and come back. You know? What
happens on DMT for me, and this is based
on, you know, composite image of many
experiences, and I've confirmed it to
some degree with other people, but I was
talking to somebody the other day,
somebody who had just done it, and I
said, "what did you think?" and they
said: "It's the most idiosyncratic thing
there is." and I thought, what a
wonderful description, that's exactly
what it is - it's pure idiosyncraticness.
It's so idiosyncratic that's all there's
there - it's like idiosyncracy without
an object, is what DMT is.
When you smoke this, the
onset is very rapid. 30-45 seconds, you
know? There's this feeling which comes
over your body - half arousal, half
anaesthesia. The air appears to suddenly
have been sucked out of the room because
all the colors brighten visibly, as
though some intervening medium has been
removed. And then there's a sound, like
a piece of bread wrapper or cellophane
being scrunched up and thrown away. A
friend of mine says this is
radio-entelechy leaving the anterior
fontanelle at the top of your head.
[laughter] I'm not sure I want to line
up with that... but a membrane is being
ripped; something is being torn. And
then there is a total (what Mircea
Eliade called in a wonderful phrase) "a
complete rupture of the mundane plane".
[laughter] You know? That's like a hit
and run accident except the car came
from hyperspace, you know? A complete
rupture of the mundane plane. And you
fall back into this hallucinogenic
space, and what you see is a slowly
rotating red and orange kind of thing,
which, over the years we've nicknamed,
uh, "The Chrysanthemum." And it's.. this
represents some kind of disequilibrium
state that has its roots in the
synapses. What's happening as you're
watching this Chrysanthemum is that
millions and then hundreds of millions
of DMT molecules are rushing into these
serotonin bond sites in the synaptic
cleft and disrupting the serotonin and
switching the electron spin resonance
signature of these neural junctions in
this "other" direction. And this is
taking, you know, 30 or 40 seconds, and
there's this rising hum, this...
(reverberating humming sound)...
...that rising tone; the flying saucer
tone of Hollywood B movies... you
actually hear this thing.
And then, if you've taken enough DMT
(and it has to do entirely with physical
capacity: Did you take, did you cross
the threshold?) something happens
[clap]... for which there are no words.
A membrane is rent, and you are
propelled into this "place." And
language cannot describe it -
accurately. Therefore I will
inaccurately describe it.
The rest is now lies. When you break
into this space, you have several
impressions simultaneously that are a
kind of gestalt: First of all (and why,
I don't know) you have the impression
that you are underground - far
underground - you can't say why, but
there's just this feeling of immense
weight above you but you're in a large
space, a vaulted dome. People even call
it "The DMT dome" I have said, had
people say to me, "Have you been under
the dome?" and I knew exactly what they
meant.
So you burst into this space. It's lit,
socketed lighting, some kind of indirect
lighting you can't quite locate. But
what is astonishing and immediately
riveting is that in this place there are
entities - there are these things, which
I call "self transforming machine
elves," I also call them self-dribbling
basketballs. They are, but they are none
of these things. I mean you have to
understand: these are metaphors in the
truest sense, meaning they're lies! Uh,
it's a jeweled self-transforming
basketball, a machine elf. I name them
'Tykes' because tyke is a word that
means to me a small child, and I was
fascinated by the 54th fragment of
Heraclitis, where he says: "The Aeon is
a child at play with colored balls" ...
and when you burst into the DMT space
this is the Aeon - it's a child, and
it's at play with colored balls, and I
am in eternity, apparently, in the
presence of this thing.
There are many of these things, but the
main thing that's happening is that they
are engaged in a linguistic activity of
some sort, which we do not have words
for, but it's visible language. They are
doing the visible language trip. When
you break into the space, they actually
cheer! The first thing you hear when you
pass across is this 'hhhyeaaaaaayyy' -
you know the Pink Floyd song? "The
Gnomes have Learned a New Way to Say Hoo-Ray?"
This has gotta be what these guys were
talking about; how else could it be? It
doesn't make any sense otherwise.
You break into this space... the gnomes
say hoo-ray! And they come rushing
forward and they, and, and the thing
then that happens is... and people say
"is there risk, to DMT? it sounds so
intense. Is it dangerous?".
The answer is: yes, it's tremendously
dangerous; the danger is the possibility
of death by astonishment. And you must
prepare yourself for this eventuality,
because you are so amazed. Amazement
seems to be the emotion that has torn
loose and swamped everything else - I
mean astounded? When was the last time
you were genuinely 'ASTOUNDED'? I mean,
I think you can go your whole damned
life without being 'ASTOUNDED'... and
this is astonishment, you know, raised
to the N-th degree to the point that
your jaw hangs...
I mean you're like...
And
it raises issues: like you say, "Jesus,
ah, huhh ... I must be dead!" And you,
and the weird thing about DMT is it does
not effect what we ordinarily call the
mind. The part that you call "you" -
nothing happens to it. You're just like
you were before, but the World has been
radically replaced - 100% - it's all
gone, and you're sitting there, and
you're saying, "Jesus, a minute ago I
was in a room with some people, and they
were pushing some weird drug on me, and,
and now, what's happened? Is this the
Drug? Did we do it? Is this it?" And
meanwhile, these things are saying: "Do
not give way to amazement; Control your
wonder." in other words, they try to
bring you down. They say, "Don't just
goof out on this; pay attention. PAY
ATTENTION... to what we're doing." "OK,
what're you doing?..."
Say this is what we're
doing, and then they proceed to sing
objects into existence. Amazing objects.
Objects that are Faberge Eggs, things
made of pearl, and metal, and glass, and
gel, and you, when you're shown one of
these things, a single one of them, you
look at it an you know, without a shadow
of a doubt, in the moment of looking at
this thing, that if it were right here,
right now, this world would go mad. It's
like something from another dimension.
It's like an artifact from a flying
saucer. It's like something falling out
of the mind of God - such objects DO not
exist in this universe, and yet, you're
looking at it. And they're clamoring for
your attention. " 'k at this! 'ook at
This! Look at THIS!" and they pull these
things... and each one, you look into it
and it begins to open into this wonder
that you must fight. You say "No, don't
look at it, look AWAY from it!" because
it's so wonderful that it's swamping my
objectivity and destroying my ability to
function in this space.
Well, then they say "do"...
And the objects that they make have the
peculiar ability to themselves generate
this linguistic "stuff" which condenses
as other objects. So beings are making
objects, showing you objects, the
objects are turning into beings and
making other objects, these beings and
objects, they jump into your chest - and
then they jump back out. They jump into
your body and disappear into your body,
and then they jump back out, waving
these things, just throwing this stuff
in all directions. They are - the word
that comes to mind is: they are Zany.
It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, uh, gone
mad. And all of this energy - they are
elves. This is what elves are. It's this
weird thing, where they love you - or
they like you a lot, but you can tell
that their sense of humor is Weird. And
that you must be very careful of the
deals you cut with these things, [...]
in fact I've spent so much time trying
to understand what this is. It has
different kinds of feelings about it.
One is (and this really threw me for a
loop when I figured this out) after many
many of these trips, and analyzing this
place I kept going to, I finally
realized: "this place is... somebody
very weird... it's their idea of a
reassuring environment for a human
being! It's like a playpen. It's this
warm. well lit, secure, womblike
environment, and when I break into it
they these things, the elves and the
toys, are toys! These are things to
amuse me. The way you would hang, uh,
cubes and blocks above a cradle... a
playpen, you know? Because children are
supposed to coordinate shapes and bright
colors. That's what these things are:
they are toys to try and get me to
coordinate my perception in this place.
It's a holding area of some sort -
someone's created this and is watching
me.
OK - that's one metaphor for what it is.
Another metaphor is... I took this stuff
to Tibetans, to the Amazon. I gave it to
Tibetans, they said "this is the lesser
lights, the lesser lights of the Bardo.
You cannot go further into the Bardo and
return. This takes you as far as you can
go." When I gave it to shamans in the
Amazon, they said "It's strong - but
this is, these are the ancestors. These
are the spirits that we work with. These
are ancestor souls. We know this place."
Well then, the third and final metaphor,
because when you're in that place you
have such complex emotions - very
complex emotions - something weird is
going on with time, because you perceive
your body image as infantile. You seem
to have a very large head, and a very
small body, and very short limbs. And,
you know, I dunno what that's about...
so alien Then the last facet of it that
I want to mention is: there is this "you
must be on your toes" thing - don't let
these guys get behind you. They are
tricky. And their elfin humor may not be
your idea of a good time.
And I said to myself, where have I had,
before, this feeling that I'm having
now. It's a feeling of being with people
that I can't trust, but who want to help
me, and who seem to be trying to, uh,
cut a deal. That was the word that gave
me the clue: "deal." And then I
remembered, "I know where I felt like
this" - I felt like this in the Crawford
Market in Bombay when I had a kilo of
Gold in my pocket and I was trying to
trade it for hashish, and I was
surrounded by all these Arab hash
traders, and they were saying "we're
your friend, just wait, don't worry..."
And say "yes, I KNOW you're my friend
and I'm NOT worrying, but, you know,
brbrbrrr... perform!" And so then I
said: "Aha the creatures in the DMT
flash are Traders..." They're Traders.
And that's what this weird feeling is -
it's a business environment in there.
We're having a business meeting. They're
saying... and then the objects! Then I
remembered- the objects... they're trade
goods! They're saying: "How about
thissss! How about This!".
What do they want? What do I have that
they want?... They're meme traders, is
what it is. And I think that what they
wanted, and got, and took - without
bothering to even say a word about it -
was everything I knew about the "I Ching."
And they're like art collectors. They
say "well, the idea is primitive, and
primitive in its execution, but with a
certain kind of internal integrity that
one really must respect..." So they're
primitive art collectors, and what they
left me with, then, was, uh, my own, you
know, their model of time. Which is the
closest thing to one of these
hyperdimensional objects. The objects
themselves cannot exist in this world.
But the blueprints of them can. And this
afternoon, if the computers are up and
running, I will run through this "time
idea" with you.
And I think I will be able to convince
you that it has a weirdly crafted patina
to it, that, the feeling is it didn't
spring from human minds, it, it is a
creature of another kind of mental
universe. And I think, you know, aside
from the crisis on this planet and our
own personal difficulties this is the
real challenge of the psychedelic thing;
is to meet the inhabitants and trade
with them. And set up a relationship.
The notion traders. They can trade
hyperspacial notions from across the
cosmos. And this may be all the
extraterrestrial contact that we're
going to be vouch-safed, you know?
