-----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton As the modern guru said:
"We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us." -----Terrence McKenna Which I find alarming. OK, this is provocative if not mildly humorous, worthy of further investigation ... but first let me guess the identity of "something". With all due respect, it is likely that McKenna would say, if he could say, going back to the "stoned ape" hypothesis, that the "something" is indeed us - i.e. a subset of "ourselves." Which is to say that the "stoned human" will presage the next evolutionary step. And in a semantic but unanticipated way, he may be correct. By that I mean that TK claimed that enhancement of visual, mental, predictive, and sexual functions was an effect of psychoactive substances consumed by inquisitive proto-humans at natural doses, especially certain mushrooms, and supposedly this would have conferred an rapid adaptive advantage to those groups (the leaders of which but not the masses) ritualized the process (the "medicine men"). That is actually NOT as absurd as it may sound at first. There is plenty of archaeological evidence that all the advanced ancient cultures ritualized psychoactives amongst the priestly and ruling caste. Hey, what was Moses doing at the burning bush when he got hold of the tablets ... that kind of thing. We probably will never know how the Pharaohs got hold of South American drugs, but they have been found in mummies by modern forensics. Go figure. Continuing from there, however, TK probably would want to rationalize his own enlightenment process into a future position where it does not belong - via present day humans of immoderate self-control, so to speak. That is a guess but it tells you that he was probably becoming sadly degenerate from over-indulgences, at the end of life. However, the interesting - "semantic" truth: and the way that he could have been right for the wrong reason, as a lifelong stoner in the best Gonzo tradition, is via silicon. Stone -> silicon -> AI -> next evolutionary jump. IOW the evolutionary jump is coming, but it always a surprise when it gets here. And if we have visitors from Gliese 581, they will all no doubt have advanced silicon brains (maybe GaAs, who knows) as it seems foolish to consider sending fragile carbohydrate grey matter into space... and that will be true, even when ET possesses the ability to alter the mind of the observer to "appear" otherwise. Why they tend to choose the g'd-awful green reptilian motif is not clear <g>. Jones
