I believe we have to go through more trauma to shake people awake. They seem to need a rude awakening.

Terence McKenna: "And the ego is in the business of creating, maintaining, and defending boundaries. So, I really see the psychedelics as directly intervening in the core process which is running us over the edge, which is: our inability to emotionally connect with the consequences of what we’re doing. If, for a single moment, we could feel what we’re doing, we would stop.

Ram Dass: "I understand. It’s interesting, because we take images that one of us know—of the girl running down the street naked in Cambodia, you know, or something like that—and we say, “That wasn’t strong enough!” You know? It won the Life of the Year award, but it wasn’t strong enough, it didn’t stop everybody and say, “Holy shit! What are we doing here?” So, what would be strong enough to do that? And you say, well, psychedelics—but that’s in a one-on-one thing. I mean, we’re talking major game players at this moment. Take—I mean, put China into your computer, you know?

Terence McKenna: "How do you deal with that?"

Ram Dass: "You know? I mean, either you’re spraying it, or it’s water, or it’s some other level of consciousness that does it. There is a certain level of trauma that’s possible that can soften the ground. Not Three Mile Island, and not Chernobyl, but, I mean—I don’t want to create this with my mind—but I can imagine a certain trauma, like in Marin when they ran out of water: it was interesting! Suddenly, all the ego barriers and everything, and neighbors were talking who never even met each other. And the whole—

Terence McKenna: "People were taking showers together."

Ram Dass: "—exactly! The whole process was happening. Marriages, babies were conceived, everything as a result of that trauma, of that denial. So a massive, significant trauma—"

From PRAGUE GNOSIS (PART 2) June 1992