March 19, 1998: Consciousness - Terence McKenna

Art Bell welcomes Terence McKenna, calling from a remote solar-powered home on Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano via a cutting-edge one-megabyte wireless internet link. McKenna surveys recent scientific milestones including anti-gravitational forces, water on the moon, and quantum teleportation. He and Art consider whether artificial intelligence could emerge from the internet and quietly observe humanity before deciding what to do with its creators.

The conversation turns to DMT, a powerful psychedelic compound McKenna calls the most intense experience possible outside of death. He describes encounters with self-transforming geometric entities that attempt to teach a visible language, noting these experiences recur consistently. McKenna argues that psychedelics dissolve cultural programming, which is precisely why governments suppress them, and he connects shamanic traditions with quantum non-locality as parallel routes to non-human intelligence.

Art and McKenna also weigh in on the Clinton scandal, Y2K preparedness, cannabis legalization, and the Dutch drug policy experiment. McKenna frames the political moment as a culture war reaching critical mass. Callers raise questions about sacred geometry in dreams, the nature of time, and expanded consciousness.