Terrence McKenna blazed a trail so far and wide that twenty years later thinkers can’t see to the end of it. He remarked in his last interview that the Omega Point is to science what the Eshcaton is to Theology and maybe it’s the same thing. If he he could only see the world now, in the year that the Mayan Calendar had as 2012, using Gregorian Calendar is actually 2020 using the Julian Calendar since 1582 (corrected difference is 8 years).
Terrence McKenna opened the mind of the world and still expands the thinking of anyone who learns what he was investigating. To categorize him with the Merry Pranksters that were dropping acid and dropping out, is to ignore the fact; Terrence McKenna changed how we thought about time and space, plus made us recognize and appreciate the I Ching.
McKenna was opposed to Christianity and most forms of organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening, favouring shamanism, which he believed was the broadest spiritual paradigm available, stating that:
What I think happened is that in the world of prehistory all religion was experiential, and it was based on the pursuit of ecstasy through plants. And at some time, very early, a group interposed itself between people and direct experience of the ‘Other.’ This created hierarchies, priesthoods, theological systems, castes, ritual, taboos. Shamanism, on the other hand, is an experiential science that deals with an area where we know nothing. It is important to remember that our epistemological tools have developed very unevenly in the West. We know a tremendous amount about what is going on in the heart of the atom, but we know absolutely nothing about the nature of the mind.
Terrence McKenna
Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, Plato, Gnostic Christianity and Alchemy, while regarding the Greek philosopher Heraclitus as his favorite philosopher.
The I Ching or Yi Jing, usually translated as Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text and among the oldest of the Chinese classics.
The Philosophical debate of the Omega Point remains until this day to be at the crux of critical thinking and it was Terrence McKenna who brought new understanding and more discussion to the topic of the “Omega Point”, he brought it back into vogue.
The Omega Point is the subject of a belief that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of unification. The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955).
Eschaton or End End Time description from Wikipedia
The end time (also called end times, end of time, end of days, last days, final days, doomsday, or eschaton) is a future described variously in the eschatologies of several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that world events will reach a climax.
The Abrahamic religions maintain a linear cosmology, with end-time scenarios containing themes of transformation and redemption. In Judaism, the term “end of days” makes reference to the Messianic Age and includes an in-gathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the righteous, and the world to come. Some sects of Christianity depict the end time as a period of tribulation that precedes the second coming of Christ, who will face the Antichrist along with his power structure and usher in the Kingdom of God.
In Islam, the Day of Judgement is preceded by the appearance of the al-Masih al-Dajjal, and followed by the descending of Isa (Jesus). Isa will triumph over the false messiah, or the Antichrist, which will lead to a sequence of events that will end with the sun rising from the west and the beginning of the Qiyamah (Judgment day).
Non-Abrahamic religions tend to have more cyclical world-views, with end-time eschatologies characterized by decay, redemption, and rebirth. In Hinduism, the end time occurs when Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, descends atop a white horse and brings an end to the current Kali Yuga. In Buddhism, the Buddha predicted his teachings would be forgotten after 5,000 years, followed by turmoil. A bodhisattva named Maitreya will appear and rediscover the teaching of dharma. The ultimate destruction of the world will then come through seven suns.
Since the development of the concept of deep time in the 18th century and the calculation of the estimated age of the Earth, scientific discourse about end times has considered the ultimate fate of the universe. Theories have included the Big Rip, Big Crunch, Big Bounce, and Big Freeze (heat death).
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