I’ve been listening to Terence McKenna talks lately. If you haven’t heard of him, he was one of the 20th century pioneers in the field of psychedelics.

McKenna was not only an advocate of losing one’s mind with mind-altering substances. He was also an advocate of studying the past. The importance of gaining a broader understanding of history beyond the last 100 years could not be overstated.

What psychedelic plants have taught me is not only how little of mysticism I truly understand, but how resistant I am to letting go of control. Duality is more than just an awareness of two co-existent realities. It is the dark dance with the shadow that comes eerily into focus.

McKenna articulates some zingers in his recorded workshop on Hermeticism. On the subject of cognitive dissonance and seeing visions:

“The hardest thing to figure out is a mirror. Because what a mirror shows you is yourself. In this psychic domain, you are not simply perceiving that space, you are creating it with your expectations. Out of the unconscious comes the projection: the flying saucer, the elf invasion, the Virgin Mary….it’s that the mind goes to meet the unknown, but not without a hell of a lot of baggage of its own, which it immediately tries to unpack and put into the drawers of the Other. The mind is not intelligence – it’s not the soul. It’s sort of the theater in which all of these other things take place.”

Duality is one of the hardest things to wrap your head around when you can’t even imagine entertaining an opposing perspective. In America, we are taught incredibly reductionist histories as early as elementary school. I look back at my education and wonder how much of it was even valuable.

The most important education I’ve had has been outside of the classroom- and I don’t think I’m alone in this. This is because in formal education, you’re subjected to a standardized agenda. What you should learn, as opposed to what you want to learn. This format discourages genuine engagement with the world.

When we allow our minds to be blown in some way, we create new neural pathways not just for ourselves, but for others. Psychedelics aren’t the only way to get there, but they can be very helpful. They played a pretty integral role in many ancient civilizations.

The best way out of oppression is within. From within, a creative journey begins where you decide what’s important and what can be discarded. Some of my most instructive shadows were projections I had about others that had less to do with them and more to do with me.

Shadow work is very illuminating. It can take some effort with more challenging relationships. We must stand up for ourselves of course. Toxic people definitely exist. But they are trapped in their own limited paradigm, which probably makes them more miserable than anybody else.

Astrophysicist Dragan Hajdukovic presented the theory that dark matter may not actually exist, but is an illusion created by gravitational polarization. How’s that for duality?

It’s liberating to discover things assumed to be true maybe aren’t true after all.

Another thing McKenna said that hit home was about getting clear about your life. Also about getting angry. Sometimes, anger is key to shattering a worldview that makes you feel victimized:

“If you don’t have a plan, you become part of somebody else’s plan. Because there are only planners and plannees. So what do you want to do? You want to be part of somebody else’s plan or get your own agenda?”