Terrence McKenna: Given the climactic state of global affairs, who are we humans, and how are we doing in the cosmic scheme of things?

Well, that depends on whether we’re descending or ascending . . .

“The most radical and least likely future of all, it seems to me, is a future in which we continue just to stumble forward as we have been since the industrial revolution. That’s no longer an option and so then the question becomes sort of a gnostic conundrum. Is this the final act of some kind of great cosmic tragedy in which intelligence rises out of the slime, is shown to be inadequate, and sinks back into the slime? Or is this a tale of difficulty overcome and heroism won and are we going to be able to shed the monkey nature and shed the ego and actually move up to some kind of shining ideal? If you think of us as the descendants of the angels, this is a pretty tatty circumstance we’ve come to rest in. On the other hand if you think of us as the descendants of shit hurling apes, screeching through the treetops, then it’s pretty amazing what has been accomplished here.” ~ Terence McKenna, Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics 1994