Hey, what's up.

In order for this newsletter to justify its own existence for me, it needs to be something more than just sporadic updates and links. So, from now on, I'll just write random stuff I've been thinking about. Who knows, once I release new music, maybe these brain dumps will serve as interesting companion pieces. Or not. I actually don't care. You signed up for this!

I've been seeing a lot of people online lately who are discovering Terence McKenna. For those of you who are unaware of him, he was an American philosopher and activist who is probably best known for advocating the use of psychedelic drugs as a path to liberation and enlightenment. McKenna had a lot of dubious takes, and there is a lot of stuff about his beliefs that I personally find quite problematic. But he was a well-read and articulate person who, at least in my opinion, got some things very right as well.

The thing I find most interesting, and that I've seen circulating online lately, is his concept called novelty theory. He explains this in great detail in his last filmed interview before his death. There are also some pretty good summaries of it online. Again, as with most stuff regarding this man, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But the core principles are a very useful model for looking at what is happening in the world today. It goes a little something like this:

1. Time (as we know it) is speeding up exponentially. This does not mean that measured time is speeding up, but subjective time and history are in fact speeding up. This causes a lot of confusion and unrest.

2. Interconnectedness and complexity in both nature and society (this is what McKenna calls "novelty") are also speeding up exponentially. The world is moving towards ever more complex states in which every new stage is built upon the previous one. Simply put: The world is becoming weirder and more difficult to wrap your head around at a very fast pace.

3. This leads to a lot of reactionary movements that oppose this in hopes of bringing back a more "ordered" and "logical" past. The new era of fascism, the rise of far-right politics, a return to traditionalism in terms of gender roles, sexuality, and identity politics, and even fashion, music, and culture at large.

4. Eventually, things are going to get so weird that we, as a society, need to address it seriously and ask ourselves: What the fuck is going on?

5. This process is natural, as every leap in complexity in biological evolution and history has led to this point.

6. The "business as usual" approach to this process will lead to the collapse of the world as we know it. We need to realize that a fundamental change in our outlook on reality is necessary for us to see past the various illusions and echo chambers we have built for ourselves.

7. If we fail to do that, and act accordingly, we are doomed.

We are fast approaching "peak novelty" or what McKenna calls the omega point. This is the end of history, not necessarily the end of all life in the universe, but the end of human history (and most other sentient beings on our planet).

McKenna had some ideas around his novelty theory that he claimed were rooted in actual mathematical equations, but this is generally regarded as pseudoscience. Regardless, as a loose theory and hypothetical conceptual framework, I think novelty theory is quite useful.

It is pretty clear that the COVID pandemic served as a sort of wake-up call for the Western world that the "business as usual" approach is not working anymore. And ever since, most people (in the Global North, that is) have had a feeling that "something is off" or that "time behaves differently now" - This, of course, is because the Western world is finally realizing that we are not immortal and that our actions have consequences. Something the rest of the world has been painfully aware of for most of recorded history while we've been wreaking havoc across the world.

So... what can be done about all of this? In another talk, McKenna identifies a series of illusions that we, as a species, need to overcome in order to find our way through a world of increasing novelty.

1. Social illusions, such as sexism, racism, and classism - pervasive delusions that have ruled society throughout most of history, still going strong today.

2. Linguistic illusions, which can be used for obfuscation and manipulation, as seen in legal and political discourse.

3. The illusion of materialism. As modern physics reveals matter to be less solid and more observer-dependent than previously thought.

McKenna proposes that we need to explore and realize collectively what is real and what is fundamentally not real, as most things listed above. His answer to this was, of course, to take a shitload of drugs and liberate your perception that way.

Personally, I think that it's pretty unrealistic that a global revolution that involves everyone smoking DMT in order to see the fault of our ways will happen anytime soon.

Another great thinker (that in my opinion was far wiser than McKenna) Alan Watts once compared the use of drugs in order to reach enlightenment to a mountain climber taking a helicopter to the top instead of actually climbing it. Each plateau on the difficult trail to the top of the mountain will ground the accumulation of wisdom in actual lived experience. People who take a helicopter to the top become full of themselves and think they know everything. This experience of illumination will not last, since it is not built upon by walking the spiritual path, learning step by step through faith, doubt, and determination.

I cannot provide any easy answers on how to best navigate a world of increasing novelty. But I do know that it takes the collective effort of ordinary people. Institutions of power operate by the "business as usual" approach. We need to demand something else. And we need to feel it in our hearts, through the actual lived experience of coming face to face with the dissolution of our egotistical illusions.

Ok, talk to you later.

CM