"... The question is from a stage magician, and the question is "What is the nature of magic," or "What is magic," or the wonder that it invokes. There are two theories, I mean magic is not a trivial issue at all, there are two theories about how the world works, and each one depends on a fundamental assumption about what the world is. There's the scientific theory which says the world is tiny packets of matter squealing along through empty space at close to the speed of light and subject to a certain set of interlocking laws, that's what science tells us the world is. Another theory is, and to my mind a much more appealing and even intuitively correct theory, is The World Is Language, the world is made of language. We can say that the world is composed of little demons doing calisthenics, each one the size of a pissants eyebrow, or we can say the world is made out of wave mechanical packets of matter flying along at the speed of light, but notice that what we get each time is words. Our model of what the world is is made of words, and the world is composed of description. Now in the era before science scientists liked to say people were more epistemologically naive... what they mean by that is they didn't have a clear understanding of the division between the inside and the outside, between what we imagine and what actually is, but if u live long enough I think you discover what we imagine and what actually is, are very close to the same thing.

Now whenever you say The World Is Made Of Language, the positivists object by saying "Well than why isn't it the way we say it is?" I didn't say its the way we say it is, I said its made of language, and part of the inspiration for my career is the realization that you could get up in front of audiences and say how the world is, and to a small degree, for a limited time, in a limited space, it shimmers and recasts itself and becomes the thing that we say that it is. The mind is somehow a co-creator in the process of reality, through acts of language, and language is very very mysterious, I mean it is true magic. People run all over the place looking for paranormal abilities, but notice that when I speak, if your internal dictionary matches my internal dictionary, that my thoughts cross through the air as an acoustical pressure wave and are reconstructed inside your cerebral-cortex as your thought, your understanding of my words. Telepathy exists... its just that the carrier wave is small mouth noises. All so called primitive people know that the world is made of language, that you sing it into existence, that what you say it is, is what it is, that it is maintained in existence by an act of rational apprehension, and its only science which has taken this very weird approach, and said no no the world is somehow independent from the act of description...

... and this is not a situation where we have two separate points of view both open hearted and trying their best to work hard for you. Science carried out its analysis of nature to the point where it shot itself in the foot. Science carried out an analysis of nature that went to such depth that it discovered that nature doesn't exist except as an object of description; that there are no little objects winging their way through empty space. There's only a situation describable by multi-level fishy formula, and when you drop a mind into that situation the fishy formula condense out into a little particle which can be measured. Mind is necessary for the world to undergo the formality of existing. This is what quantum physics teaches... Unfortunately this news has not reached the other sciences... meanwhile physics, pursuing the exploration of matter, broke through to a domain where matter ceased to be definable, ceased to even exist in any ordinary way, seemed to behave in incredibly strange ways; time flows backwards, energy crosses barriers without ever going through them... modern biology is still afflicted with physics envy... meanwhile physics has gone on to a realm of such exotic and surreal uncertainty that its at this point to the left of psychology in the precision of its metaphors. So science has undercut itself and now exists in a state of unrecognized crisis that hopefully the psychedelic experience will exacerbate to the point where this will arrive on the plate of every experimentalist and observer of nature."

--Terrence Mckenna

From a talk called "Eros and the Eschaton", transcribed by thyrsus on the Deoxy.org message board.

My Bookmarks:

A Book of Five Rings : http://www.samurai.com/5rings/
American Buddha : http://www.american-buddha.com/
Tim Boucher - Occult Investigator : http://www.timboucher.com/
Aro gTer - Dzogchen Lineage - Nyingma Family Tradition : http://www.aroter.org/
The PopSubCulture Biography Project : http://www.popsubculture.com/
William Blake Digital Text Project : http://www.english.uga.edu/wblake/home1.html
Xenograg's Book Excerpts : http://xenograg.isauras.com/excerpts.php
Don Juan's Teachings : http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/
Chaos Matrix : http://www.chaosmatrix.org/
Roger Ebert's Movie Reviews : http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Jarek's Chinese Martial Arts Pages : http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/index.html
Deoxyribonucleic Autonomous Zone : http://www.deoxy.org/
Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi - Artist of Life : http://hatsumi.free.fr/index.htm
Ego Death and Self-Control Cybernetics : http://www.egodeath.com/
El Collie memorial site : http://www.elcollie.com/
Encyclopedia Mythica : http://www.pantheon.org/
Flaming Jewel Dharma Center : http://flamingjewel.org/
fUSION Anomaly : http://fusionanomaly.net/
GameFAQs : http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Gordon J. Hogenson : http://experienceart.org/cleath/docs/being/gordon/topics.htm
Grant Morrison : http://www.grant-morrison.com/
Sarlo's Guru Ratings Service : http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm
Highlights of "Hinduism and Interfaith Dialogues" : http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/3425/
Internet Archive: Wayback Machine : http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Internet Sacred Texts Archive : http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm
Japanese to English Dictionary : http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict
Konghua Xingyiquan : http://www.emptyflower.com/xingyiquan/index.html
Marshall Mcluhan Online : http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/overload/mcluhan/
Martial Arts of Japan : http://koryu.com/index.html
Merging with Shiva : http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/mws/mws_table_of_contents.html
Metaphilm : http://metaphilm.com/
Mythos & Logos : http://www.mythosandlogos.com/
Nag Hammadi Library : http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html
EarthBow - Native American Myth, History, and Culture : http://www.earthbow.com/index.htm
NonDuality : http://nonduality.com
Phil Hine: magic, sorcery, ritual, tantra : http://www.philhine.org.uk/index.html
Philip K. Dick - Exegesis : http://www.philipkdick.com/new_exegesis.html
Pnohteftu : http://www.orunla.org/pnohteftu/contents.html
Psychic Self Defense : http://www.exorcist.org.uk/
Reiki & All Energies - Therapies Web : http://www.geocities.com/fascin8or/
The Rotten Library : http://www.rotten.com/library/
Japan SAQ (seldom asked questions) : http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/saq.html
Screenplays for You : http://sfy.ru/
Seanbaby : http://seanbaby.com/
Secret of the Golden Flower : http://www.alchemylab.com/golden_flower.htm
Shaman's Cave - Contemporary Shamanism : http://www.shamanscave.com/
Something Awful : http://www.somethingawful.com/
The Memory Hole : http://www.thememoryhole.org/
Guerilla News Network : http://www.guerrillanews.com/
Disinformation : http://www.disinfo.com/site/
Stickgrappler's Martial Arts Archives : http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/
Suikosource : http://www.suikosource.com/
Sun Tzu on The Art of War : http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/suntext.htm#START
Godai Martial Arts Tactics : http://members.fortunecity.com/combat_kungfu_academy/id28.htm
Tao Te Ching as Translated by Dr. Lin Yutang : http://oaks.nvg.org/ys1ra3.html
Taoism Information Page : http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/
Aeclectic Tarot : http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/
Terence McKenna Link Page : http://users.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/mckenna/
The Empty Mind : http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/
The Ghost Danse : http://www.censorthis.com/ouran/ghosthome.html
The Headless Way : http://www.headless.org/English/main.html
Internet Movie Database : http://www.imdb.com/
Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive : http://ohhla.com/
The Vaults of Erowid : http://www.erowid.org/
Totse : http://www.totse.com/
Beyond the Illusion : http://beyond-the-illusion.com/
Shin Buddhism : http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/whatisshin.html
Key 23 : http://key23.net/
Isometric - Webcomic : http://isometric.yurusan.com/
Meta-Religion : http://www.meta-religion.com/
The Great Thompson Hunt! - Hunter S. Thompson : http://www.gonzo.org/
Zhuan Falun - Turning the Law Wheel : http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zfl_new.html
Meister Eckhart page : http://www.ellopos.net/theology/eckhart.htm
Pantheon: Archetypal Godforms in Daily Life : http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/pantheon.html
Project Gutenberg : http://www.gutenberg.org/
The Hermetic Library : http://www.hermetic.com/
The Monkey King : http://www.china-on-site.com/literatu/classic/west/
Sacred Magick : http://www.sacred-magick.com/800x600/
Religious Tolerance : http://religioustolerance.org/
The Secret Beyond Matter : http://www.secretbeyondmatter.com/index.html
Voidspace : http://www.voidspace.org.uk/index2.shtml
Aldous Huxley : http://somaweb.org/
Mythic Realm : http://www.folkstory.com/contents.html
C.G. Jung Page : http://www.cgjungpage.org/
Project Unicorn : http://www.publicappeal.org/library/unicorn/index.htm
Zen Stories : http://www.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/zenstory.html
Meme Central : http://www.memecentral.com/
Quantum Shaman : http://www.quantumshaman.com/
Guide to Spritual Teachers : http://spiritualteachers.org/
U.G. Krishnamurti : http://www.well.com/user/jct/
Swami Krishnananda : http://swami-krishnananda.org/
Divine Soma Experiment : http://peyote.com/jonstef/
Jnani - the deep structure of spiritual life : http://www.jnani.org/jnani.html
Occult Forums : http://www.occultforums.com/archive/index.php/
Shinsengumi info : http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagoda/5770/shinhis.htm
Excommunicate : http://excommunicate.net/
Integral Psychology : http://www.sv.uit.no/student/dinteo/
Spectrum Nexus : http://thespectrum.net/
The Marshall Mcluhan Institute : http://www.mcluhaninstitute.org/toc.html
Twilit Grotto : http://www.esotericarchives.com/
Takeru Mikami articles : http://www.kitombo.com/e/mikami/back.html
Hermetic Philosophy and the Mystery of Being : http://www.plotinus.com/
Contemporary Shamanism - The Flight of the Condor : http://www.kondor.de/indexe.html
E X C O M M U N I C A T E : http://excommunicate.net/
Gateway to Realization : http://yiri.maniac.com/sitemap.html
Journal of Martial Science : http://crane.50megs.com/index.html
Little Essays Towards Truth : http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/littleessays/
Osho Tantra : http://www.otantra.net/oTantra.html
RAWilson Fans : http://www.rawilsonfans.com/index.html
Punctuation Made Simple : http://www.stpt.usf.edu/pms/
Robert Anton Wilson Online Library : http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/index.htm
The Haiga Pages : http://thegreenleaf.co.uk/HP/haigapages.htm
The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment : http://www.lcars.eu.org/sarah.peter.nelson/lazyman/lazyman.html
Colin's Hermetic Kabbalah : http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/
Dennis Houchin's InterGalactic Library : http://dhouchin.com/igl/LibraryFrame.htm
Another Jung site : http://www.wynja.com/cgi-bin/bookstore.cgi?jung.html
LVX23 : http://www.lvx23.com/weblog/
Mysticism... some other crap : http://www.ardue.org.uk/
The Interactive Tree of Life : http://www.borndigital.com/tree/index.html
Paratheatrical Research : http://www.paratheatrical.com/sitemap.html
PKD Exegesis Excerpts : http://www.geocities.com/pkdlw/exegesis.html
Ran Prieur's site: http://ranprieur.com/
Story Systems : http://web.archive.org/web/20050308051356/http://www.timboucher.com/story-systems/
PKD's Last Theophany : http://www.cures-not-wars.org/mimesis.html
The Monomyth : http://www.wiu.edu/users/mudjs1/monomyth.htm
Insert Credit : http://www.insertcredit.com/
Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia : http://www.dhushara.com/book/genaro/genaro.htm
Alchemically Braindamaged : http://uroboros.wordpress.com/
Alchemy Stuff : http://istanbul-yes-istanbul.co.uk/alchemy/
ANUS : http://www.anus.com/
Argotique : http://web.archive.org/web/20030208001209/www.argotique.com/index.htm
Chaosophy : http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Chaosophy/intro.html
Barbelith : http://www.barbelith.com
Blackmask Online : http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/page.cgi?g=&d=1
Bubblefish's OS012 : http://www.highintelligence.com/bubblefish.htm
Chance & Choice : http://www.chanceandchoice.com/ChanceandChoice/
Chaos Current : http://www.chaoscurrent.com/
University Center for Astrological Research : http://cura.free.fr/cura-en.html
Delirium's Realm : http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/index.asp
Generation Sit : http://www.generationsit.org/
Miqel : http://www.miqel.com/#insanity-top
I-Ching Applet : http://www.solidsoftware.com.au/I_Ching/I_Ching.html
Genius Religion & Philosophy : http://stardict.sourceforge.net/geniusreligion/
Illuminates of Thanateros, America Section : http://iota.goetia.net/iotindex.htm
Jung stuff : http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/carljung.html
Fox Spirits : http://academia.issendai.com/fox-index.shtml
Learn Tarot : http://learntarot.com/
On Marshall Mcluhan : http://maidm.com/wiki/index.php/OnMarshallMcLuhan
Sourcery Forge wiki : http://sourceryforge.org/w/Main_Page
Moment by Moment : http://sunrisedancer.com/
Monstrous : http://www.monstrous.com/
Totem Animal Medicines : http://morningstar.netfirms.com/totem.html
Mythic Imagination Institute : http://www.mythicjourneys.org/index.html
Myths-Dreams-Symbols : http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/functionsofmyth.html
Void Network : http://www.voidnetworksociety.org/library_of_libretarian_thought.htm
Creating Form from Thought : http://www.llewellyn.com/bookstore/article.php?id=348
Norse Mythology & Asatru : http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ewodensharrow/sitemenu.html
Numinous Non-Sense : http://www.mystictraining.com/blog/
MysticTraining.com : http://web.archive.org/web/20050130193211/http://mystictraining.com/
Opti and I : http://home.earthlink.net/~herm/id21.html
Phoenix Rising : http://www.geocities.com/phoenix_mystic159/home.html
Primitivism : http://www.primitivism.com/index.html
Promenade the Puzzle : http://www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/ChapterOne.html
Ralph Waldo Emerson : http://www.transcendentalists.com/1emerson.html
Trancendentalists : http://www.transcendentalists.com/index.htm
Ralph Waldo Emerson texts : http://www.emersoncentral.com/
Resonate View : http://www.resonateview.org/places/writings/index.htm
S Y N T H E S I S : http://www.rosenoire.org/index.php
Sauceror : http://members.aol.com/saucerer/
Severe Dementia Library : http://heru-ra-ha.tripod.com/library.html
Spiral Nature : http://www.spiralnature.com/
Spring Journal and Books : http://www.springjournalandbooks.com/cgi-bin/ecommerce/ac/agora.cgi
The Chaos of Jung's Psyche : http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/table_of_contents.htm
Occult e-books : http://fnordfiles.rtfm.com.au/texts/eBooks/Occult/occult.htm
The American Meaning of Charley Manson : http://mason.gmu.edu/~drwillia/manson.html
The Church of Yahweh : http://www.yhwh.com/
The H.P. Lovecraft Library : http://web.archive.org/web/20021016075954/www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/index.htm
The Hill of Dreams : http://www.litrix.com/hdreams/hdrea001.htm
Dragon Court : http://www.dragoncourt.org/
Landlotter's Mystical Journey : http://johnnylandotter.journalspace.com/
Occultopedia : http://www.occultopedia.com/occult.htm
The Revolution of Everyday Life : http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5
Tim Maroney Web Collection : http://tim.maroney.org/
WHALE : http://www.whale.to/
Douglas Rushkoff : http://www.rushkoff.com/
Feast of Hate and Fear : http://www.feastofhateandfear.com/main_index.html
Alex Grey : http://www.alexgrey.com/
Anime Myth : http://www.anime-myth.com/
Asklepia : http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Chaosophy/intro.html
Breaking Open the Head : http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/default.htm
Capoeira Figher 3 : http://www.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=capfighter3&preplay=1
Haiku : http://www.ahapoetry.com/haiku.htm
Anthropology Resources : http://www.n-e-x-u-s.com/anthropology/index.html
Haiti Voodoo : http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/voodoo/voodoo.htm
Hideo Kojima's blog : http://www.blog.konami.jp/gs/hideoblog_e/
Structural Study of Myth : http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/levi-strauss.html
Shamo : http://www.lovehina-party.org/shamo.php
Manga Sketchbook : http://www.manga-sketchbook.org/
More Voodoo : http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/sieterayos/nkisi.html
Mundus Imaginalis : http://www.hermetic.com/bey/mundus_imaginalis.htm
Nath blog : http://www.nathsociety.org/lalitas-blog/
Novelty Net : http://www.noveltynet.org/
Oculus Divinorum : http://www.odivinorum.com/
Penchak Silat : http://www.umich.edu/~silat/
Emerson texts : http://www.emersoncentral.com/
Skullfood : http://www.timboucher.com/linklog/
Stanislav Szukalski : http://szukalski.com/index.html
The Big Myth : http://mythicjourneys.org/bigmyth/2_eng_myths.htm
Chuck Palahniuk : http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/
Rozier's Online Journal : http://crozier.tangerinecs.com/blog/
The Philosopher's Stone : http://the-philosophers-stone.com/index.htm
Seven African Powers : http://www.luckymojo.com/sevenafricanpowers.html
American Hindu Nath Society : http://american.nathsociety.org/site/
Yoism - Open Source Religion : http://yoism.org/
Lancelot's Department : http://web.archive.org/web/20040110040051/www.glink.net.hk/~lancelot/lancelot.htm
Blackout Manga : http://blackout-mangas.cjb.net/
Somafera : http://winterscapes.com/somafera/
Uppsala : http://www.winterscapes.com/uppsala/main.htm
The Purple Monkey Mafia : http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/
The Arcane Archive : http://arcane-archive.org/index.php
Chogyam Trungpa Resource : http://sealevel.ns.ca/ctr/index.html
Escape From Watchtower : http://www.escapefromwatchtower.com/
Matrix Masters : http://www.matrixmasters.com/index.shtml
Dynamite Glove! : http://www.dynamiteglove.com/
Jolt! : http://ippo.confusticated.com/
Glowing Fish's site : http://glowingfish.dyndns.info/~mnharris/index.html
Padre Engo : http://www.padreengo.com/html/intro.html
Munanso Siete Rayos : http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/sieterayos/index.html
Simulacra and Simulation : http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html
The Symptom : http://www.lacan.com/desertsymf.htm
Colin Wilson : http://www.wilderdom.com/wilson/
Sorceror's Journal : http://community.livejournal.com/sorcerers/
The Nonverbal Dictionary : http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/diction1.htm
Pop Occulture Magazine : http://www.popocculture.com/
The Obakemono Project : http://www.obakemono.com/
Hermetics Library : http://www.hermetics.org/ebooks.html
Somatic Way : http://qaexl.livejournal.com/
Hermetica : http://www.hermetica.info/
HyperDiscordia : http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/hyperdiscordia_map.html