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| lectures_on_alchemy [2007-10-26 09:10] – 192.168.1.44 | lectures_on_alchemy [2013-03-12 19:01] (current) – nik |
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| ====Lectures on Alchemy==== | ====Lectures on Alchemy==== |
| by [[Terence McKenna]] as transcribed by David Ulansey | by [[Terence McKenna]] as transcribed by David Ulansey |
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| What the Hermetic Corpus is is the most poetic and cleanly expressed outpouring of ancient knowledge that we possess. But it was reworked in the hands of these late Hellenistic peoples and it is essentially a religion of the redemption of the earth through magic. It has great debt to a tradition called Sevillian which means to mean Mandeanism and Mandeanism was a kind of proto-Hellenistic gnosis that laid great stress on the power of life, Zoa, Bios, and in that sense it has a tremendously contemporary ring to it. | What the [[Corpus Hermeticum|Hermetic Corpus]] is is the most poetic and cleanly expressed outpouring of ancient knowledge that we possess. But it was reworked in the hands of these late Hellenistic peoples and it is essentially a religion of the redemption of the earth through magic. It has great debt to a tradition called Sevillian which means to mean Mandeanism and Mandeanism was a kind of proto-Hellenistic gnosis that laid great stress on the power of life, Zoa, Bios, and in that sense it has a tremendously contemporary ring to it. |
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| Sometimes when I'm in the trance of psilocybin I will say to the entity, "begin to show me yourself as you are for yourself, don't give me the scaled down, humanized version, show me your true nature" and after a few moments of this then I have to raise my hand and say enough, I can't handle more than that. This goes back to the statement made yesterday or the day before about that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose. Therefore, we are given tremendous latitude in what we can think and what we conceive but if you begin to believe in something then you are pulled down because everything that you believe has consequences. A perfect example, as some of you may know, when Mohammed ascended into heaven from the site of what was to become the Mosque of Omar, from the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, he happened to be on horseback. Now if you believe that Mohammed ascended to heaven, imagine the theological and hermenutic problems posed by the horse he was riding. Because it went with him. This is a perfect example of how intellectual baggage drags us down because belief always contains absurdity. The ontological status of this horse has troubled Islamic theologians for centuries... | Sometimes when I'm in the trance of psilocybin I will say to the entity, "begin to show me yourself as you are for yourself, don't give me the scaled down, humanized version, show me your true nature" and after a few moments of this then I have to raise my hand and say enough, I can't handle more than that. This goes back to the statement made yesterday or the day before about that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose. Therefore, we are given tremendous latitude in what we can think and what we conceive but if you begin to believe in something then you are pulled down because everything that you believe has consequences. A perfect example, as some of you may know, when Mohammed ascended into heaven from the site of what was to become the Mosque of Omar, from the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, he happened to be on horseback. Now if you believe that Mohammed ascended to heaven, imagine the theological and hermenutic problems posed by the horse he was riding. Because it went with him. This is a perfect example of how intellectual baggage drags us down because belief always contains absurdity. The ontological status of this horse has troubled Islamic theologians for centuries... |
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| ====part 8==== | ====part 8==== |
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| If they would just let go of the whole idea complex they would be liberated from this kind of minutia. Belief kills the spirit, spirit transcends belief. I wanted to say that. | If they would just let go of the whole idea complex they would be liberated from this kind of minutia. Belief kills the spirit, spirit transcends belief. I wanted to say that. |
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| Then somebody mentioned Bruno and Dee. Since I suggested that you read Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition it's ironic that so little time was spent on Bruno, on the other hand, I recommended that you read the book so you should be well informed about Bruno. For me, Bruno, we just didn't get into that particular historical episode because I wanted to tell you about the Rosicrucian enlightenment, but the thing to remember about Bruno was his discovery about the infinitude of the cosmos and that by an act of unencumbered observation, I mean how many people had looked at the night sky before Bruno and they had not seen what he saw, which was infinite space and suns hung like lamps unto the uttermost extremes of infinity. By an act of pure cognition, he was able to destroy an entire cosmological vision that had limited and confined the human soul for millennia. That's half of his story. The other half is that he was burned at the stake for refusing to back down from this. It's a model for us all: trust your perceptions trust your intuition and then accept the consequences because this is what existential validity must be. | Then somebody mentioned Bruno and Dee. Since I suggested that you read Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition it's ironic that so little time was spent on Bruno, on the other hand, I recommended that you read the book so you should be well informed about Bruno. For me, Bruno, we just didn't get into that particular historical episode because I wanted to tell you about the Rosicrucian enlightenment, but the thing to remember about Bruno was his discovery about the infinitude of the cosmos and that by an act of unencumbered observation, I mean how many people had looked at the night sky before Bruno and they had not seen what he saw, which was infinite space and suns hung like lamps unto the uttermost extremes of infinity. By an act of pure cognition, he was able to destroy an entire cosmological vision that had limited and confined the human soul for millennia. That's half of his story. The other half is that he was burned at the stake for refusing to back down from this. It's a model for us all: trust your perceptions trust your intuition and then accept the consequences because this is what existential validity must be. |
| I remember once in a psilocybin trance I expressed concern about the state of the world and the nous spoke, the logos spoke, and it said "no big deal, this is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars." This is the, we are in the birth canal of a planetary birthing. And as you know, if you come upon a birth in progress, you would never dream that this is the culmination of a natural process. It looks like a catastrophe of some sort. There is moaning and groaning and screaming and thrashing and blood is being shed and there is a feeling that the walls are closing in and yet it is inscripted into each of us as a microcosmic reflection of the completion of human history. And not only human history, because we are simply the hands and eyes of all life, all process on this planet. | I remember once in a psilocybin trance I expressed concern about the state of the world and the nous spoke, the logos spoke, and it said "no big deal, this is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars." This is the, we are in the birth canal of a planetary birthing. And as you know, if you come upon a birth in progress, you would never dream that this is the culmination of a natural process. It looks like a catastrophe of some sort. There is moaning and groaning and screaming and thrashing and blood is being shed and there is a feeling that the walls are closing in and yet it is inscripted into each of us as a microcosmic reflection of the completion of human history. And not only human history, because we are simply the hands and eyes of all life, all process on this planet. |
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| The Gnostics believe that the Earth is like an egg and that a moment will come in which the egg must be split asunder. I love to quote the Grateful Dead, "you can't go back and you can't stand still. If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will." That is what we are being funnelled toward, that is the message of alchemy. That is the quintessence of the human enterprise, the biological enterprise. I like to recall the Irish toast "may you be alive at the end of the world." And we have a real crack at it. It's not a pessimistic vision. It's the most optimistic vision that one can suppose and I think that's where I'd like to leave it this morning. | The Gnostics believe that the Earth is like an egg and that a moment will come in which the egg must be split asunder. I love to quote the Grateful Dead, "you can't go back and you can't stand still. If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will." That is what we are being funnelled toward, that is the message of alchemy. That is the quintessence of the human enterprise, the biological enterprise. I like to recall the Irish toast "may you be alive at the end of the world." And we have a real crack at it. It's not a pessimistic vision. It's the most optimistic vision that one can suppose and I think that's where I'd like to leave it this morning. |
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| | [[lecture_notes]] |
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