Scan barcode
leilani420's review
4.0
completely batshit. love how terry is so frank in posting his Ls, and writing in detail about the hubris of white men going into the amazon to do drugs and thinking they’re the first dickheads to discover some profound spiritual truth but actually they’re just experiencing hallucinogen induced psychosis. hilarious, honestly. mckenna you are a wordsmith, i wish you were still here, i would love to hear your critiques of the world today. rest in peace white king (lmao)
joshnew10987's review
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
yates9's review
1.0
Just nonsense.. people describing epiphemomema of substances that are damaging or at least hacking conscious experience.. but why should one care? And their methodology is all over the place, nothjng controlled for…
oskhen's review
3.0
Originally, True Hallucinations was interesting as an insight into DMT and psychadelics in general through famous Terence McKenna. In reality, the book was part adventure in the Amazon jungle and part psychedelic-inspired rants on the essence of reality. Both were highly interesting in their own right. No matter your personal beliefs, McKenna’s ramblings and thoughts about the world are at the very least interesting to think about.
As is always the case with psychedelics, there’s a lot of things to digest and a lot of beliefs to be suspended. Personally, I think that most specifics derived from encounters with psychedelics are at best muddy metaphors of experiences so awe-inspiring that they simply cannot be contained within the boundaries of memories. Memories, existing in an internal language, just cannot capture the language-transcending experience. Maybe there’s a way to learn the semantics, and if so, no doubt McKenna if anybody would have achieved precisely that. As for the theories themselves, the fractal-spiral patterns of time and the theory of novelty, I would take with a grain of salt. While maybe not suited for scientific rigor (at least not at our current scientific understanding), the model helps one to see the world in a new light and break free from habitual thinking. As such, I would regard it as a success.
As for my understanding in DMT, I cannot claim that any was gained through the reading of this book. Interestingly, as opposed to other psychedelics, DMT seems a lot more mentally approachable having not had the experience. From reading descriptions the experience seems a lot more linear, as in everybody seems to experience the same thing only differing in how far they make it through the same ’journey’. As compared to the fleeting nature of things like LSD and shrooms, where no experience is the other alike, this makes it a lot more intelligently digestable. This I regard as nothing more than an interesting naiveté, and I bet the experience would blow all expectations and intellectual understandings out of the water.
I could go on forever, so let me just end with saying: A highly interesting book, enjoyable to read and its contents will be pondered for a long time to come. Does however require suspension of disbelief, so if that is not your thing you will probably not enjoy this book.
As is always the case with psychedelics, there’s a lot of things to digest and a lot of beliefs to be suspended. Personally, I think that most specifics derived from encounters with psychedelics are at best muddy metaphors of experiences so awe-inspiring that they simply cannot be contained within the boundaries of memories. Memories, existing in an internal language, just cannot capture the language-transcending experience. Maybe there’s a way to learn the semantics, and if so, no doubt McKenna if anybody would have achieved precisely that. As for the theories themselves, the fractal-spiral patterns of time and the theory of novelty, I would take with a grain of salt. While maybe not suited for scientific rigor (at least not at our current scientific understanding), the model helps one to see the world in a new light and break free from habitual thinking. As such, I would regard it as a success.
As for my understanding in DMT, I cannot claim that any was gained through the reading of this book. Interestingly, as opposed to other psychedelics, DMT seems a lot more mentally approachable having not had the experience. From reading descriptions the experience seems a lot more linear, as in everybody seems to experience the same thing only differing in how far they make it through the same ’journey’. As compared to the fleeting nature of things like LSD and shrooms, where no experience is the other alike, this makes it a lot more intelligently digestable. This I regard as nothing more than an interesting naiveté, and I bet the experience would blow all expectations and intellectual understandings out of the water.
I could go on forever, so let me just end with saying: A highly interesting book, enjoyable to read and its contents will be pondered for a long time to come. Does however require suspension of disbelief, so if that is not your thing you will probably not enjoy this book.
lcrisostomo's review
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
An extremely enticing book, I read it during 2020 and think about the ending often. It feels close to a fictional fantasy book because the reality of this mad scientist is exhilarating. I cannot fathom what it took within the 70-80s era to do something like Terrance McKenna did. How fascinating this book was.