The Introverted Thinker Newsletter #010
Dissecting some bizarre theories by a psychedelic philosopher, a book that introduced me to some new Eastern thought, and a podcast episode about the universe.
Hello to all of you once again👋! And welcome if you are new, as we’ve had a lot of new people join us in the last week, so I thank you for that.❤️
This week has been awful in London weather-wise, we went from 28 degrees (celsius) to torrential rainfall.🌧
I hope everyone’s having a good summer nonetheless, I’m off to the British seaside for the next week for a change of scenery (I live in London).
Anyway, enjoy this little extract from a piece I wrote on a very interesting thinker (the full article will be out next week!), and of course the weekly recommendations.✌🏻
A Fascinating Philosophical Thinker Who Was Influenced By Psychedelics
Psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, LSD, DMT, Mescaline, Ibogaine, have all been increasing in popularity over the years, particularly ‘Magic Mushrooms’ (psilocybin), with their legalization across various US states.
Having experiences with these myself, they produce all sorts of distorting visuals that break down the barriers of reality and transcendental mysticism.
It’s hard to look back at such an experience from an external perspective and think anything valuable can be achieved in this altered state. But some of the greatest thinkers, inventors, designers, artists, tech-entrepreneurs, and many more have credited a portion of their success to these mind-altering compounds. Here’s what Steve Jobs said on the matter:
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
Let's now look at how some of the greatest and most interesting philosophers of the past were influenced by these mind-altering compounds.
*Everything in this article has been researched and included for educational purposes only. We are not advocating for use of illegal compounds.*
Terence Mckenna: Psychedelic Celebrity and Radical Thinker
Terence was a philosopher, ethnobotanist, writer, psychonaut, fossil hunter, professional butterfly collector, and much more. He was born in 1946 in a small farm town in Colorado.
He had many interesting ideas that seemed to quite literally shatter our preconceptions and understandings of the world. Whilst a lot of them were quite eccentric and only capable of emerging from someone who was in a psychedelic realm, they were interesting nonetheless and gained global fame.
Mckenna wrote upwards of 52 books on ethnobotany, psychedelics, his experiences hunting for plants in the Amazon, and other evolutionary theories, like the infamous Stoned Ape Theory we will discuss later.
His introduction to psychedelics (magic mushrooms in particular) came around the time of the 1967 San Franciscan Summer of Love when he was a university student. He read Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perceptions, the British writers recount of his first mescalin trip. This inspired him.
In 1966, he traveled across Asia but ended up in Nepal, aiming to study the Tibetan language. He became fascinated with the style of pre-Buddhist paintings, which was artwork typically produced by shamans.
He came to the conclusion that such paintings had to be created under psychedelic influence.
In 1971 whilst hunting for ayahuasca and magic mushrooms in the Amazon Rainforest, Terence and his brother had their most important psychedelic trip that was later written about in his book The Invisible Landscape.
Mckenna found what he was looking for in this trip as he says it was “temporary insanity in the devil's paradise.”
Terence’s books went on to have huge success and he became a massive celebrity in the psychedelic world, hosting workshops and lectures on universal mysteries and hallucinogens.
Main idea #1: The Stoned Ape Theory
The Stoned Ape theory is a theory that attempts to explain the rapid and sudden cognitive evolution where the human brain doubled in brainpower suddenly 200,000 years ago.
Mckenna says that magic mushrooms had a central role in the evolution of the human species. He claims that in times of hunger, primitive humans would forage in cow dung, where psilocybin mushrooms grow, and would eat them.
These low doses apparently led to an increase in visual acuity and better performance in hunting. Also, it can be argued that psychedelics led us to experienced heightened sexual arousal and an increase in reproduction, the breakdown of barriers between groups, and high doses promoting the activity of language-forming regions in the brain.
He believed that these mushrooms gave us an evolutionary advantage.
Short Summary:
It is clear that Terence Mckenna’s worldview was very far-fetched and out of the ordinary. This doesn't mean we can't be entertained and enjoy his intellectual exploration of the universe. Because let's be honest, his ideas are pretty interesting.
He gives us a worldview that breaks past the ordinary and boring one we are taught to believe. And for the reason that Mckenna tickles my brain in ways I didn't know possible, I am a big fan of his. Although I take what he says with a grain of salt.
His ultimate conclusion was that the world is a weird place, and ultimately, we won't truly understand it or our place within the universe.
“The world is a weird, weird place. and then, so what do you do about it? do you become a scientologist? Do you return to you irish catholic roots? What is the response to the discovery that the world is totally weird?”
Mckenna once summarised a beautiful explanation of exploration of the mind. And I believe the explanation perfectly describes him.
“Scattered through the ordinary world there are books and artificats and perhaps people who are like doorways into impossible realms of impossible and contradictory truth.”
A Great Podcast Episode I Listened To:
The Joe Rogan Experience #1658 - Neil deGrasse Tyson
Usually, I’m skeptical to recommend a Joe Rogan podcast episode here on the newsletter, because I understand he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, however, I am a great fan of his. So from time to time, I do come across some of his episodes which I’d be happy to recommend to everyone, and this was one of them.
The guest is a famous astrophysicist named Neil deGrasse Tyson. I’m a big fan of Neil because of how charismatic, entertaining, and gripping he is when he explains astrophysics and other things.
Look, I hated physics at school, but there is something about Neil deGrasse Tyson that makes him teaching us stuff so god damn interesting.
Joe and Neil go over all sorts of things from Aliens and recent UFO sightings to mindblowing truths about the universe and space. If you are interested in space, aliens, or just want to learn some cool stuff, I recommend this episode.
A Cool Little Book I Read:
The Tao of Pooh: The principles of Taoism demonstrated by Winnie-the-Pooh
This was a delightful read. It’s less than 200 pages and was so digestable!
This book is about an old Eastern philosophy called Taoism. Taoism was first proposed by witers like Lao Tzu in his book Tao Te Ching 2,500 years ago.
If I could describe the philosophy of Taoism to someone who had never heard of it, I’d say: It’s a philosophy that shows you the effortless way to live, to just let things be, go with the flow, and let whatever happens happen, because things happen naturally, according to nature. We can’t force outcomes, we just have to be.
Before this book, I’d heard of Taosim, but didn’t know what it was apart from the fact that it had something to do with ‘flow’.
This book was a perfect introduction to some Eastern philosophy, it’s good for any beginner. It explains it via Winnie the Pooh, and is structured as a conversation between the author and Winnie the Pooh.
It was such a wholesome concept and it definitely delivered in terms of expectations. It introduced me to Taoism and helped me understand it, now I can apply this effortless philosophy to my life.
I’m going to write a Medium article on it next week so stay tuned. I rated this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads, I really enjoyed it.
The Thinker of the Week
Every week, I include a key historical thinker who has impacted the world through their thoughts and actions. They can vary from philosophers, artists, designers, psychologists, sociologists, writers, eastern meditators, and political theorists.
Henry David Thoreau: 1817-1862🇺🇸🇫🇷
Henry David Thoreau is one of my favourite thinkers out there because of his relation to Transcendentalism, one of the philosophies that has impacted me the most.
Thoreau was a writer who lived alone in the woods and refused to pay his taxes, so it’s ironic that some of the best advice about living life would come from this guy. However, his core ideas help us to understand simplicity, authenticity, and disobedience.
Thoreaus’s most notable achievements started to take place when he met and became friends with the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (also one of my favourite philosophers).
This is where we get back to Transcendenalism, the philosophy that Emerson pioneered. It’s an outlook that sees the world through two realities: the material and the spiritual. They believe the spiritual is more important and can be sought out through nature.
Emerson inspired Thoreau to be a writer and even gave him a plot of land to build a cabin on, this is where Thoreau lived in isolation for two years and produced his most famous work, Walden.
Thoreau spent two years there and he said he was there to “live deep and suck out the marrow of life”.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. - Henry Thoreau
Like Emerson, self-reliance was at the epitome of everything that Thoreau believed in. Thoreau didn’t like society, infact he steered well away from it.
“The civilised man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.” - Emerson
Above all, Thoreau believed that we should immerse ourselves in nature, which is the core of human spirituality. He was “always on the alert to find God in nature.” Thoreau was also recorded saying he would be happy “if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state because nature is worth more even by our modes of valuation than our improvements are.”
Nature is a part of us, and we are a part of nature, this was what Thoreau was trying to emphasise.
“ [man is] nature looking into nature.” - Thoreau
Thoreau dided three years after his solitary nature experience in Walden pond, at 44 in 1862. He showed us how to live according to our inner nature.
Thanks for reading everyone!🙏
If you’ve made it this far, drop a comment so we can discuss some things you found interesting, or share it on Twitter!❤️
Thanks again and I’ll see you all next week after my little sea-side holiday!👋