These Checkmate Lincolnite episodes are getting weirder with every one.

after having watched this, i believe terrence shouldve written a dope ass novel rather than trying to make serious hypotheses

Everyone knows you for Checkmate and Witchfinder, that much is undeniable. But my favorites from you have been the weird ones out of left field. The Hotel, Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, and this. I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to jump high out of the potential rut often and give us some real gems.

TLDR: "Atun-Shei had to take shrooms to understand Terence McKenna"

A feature length documentary not a single person asked for, yet we are all delighted to see? Never stop doing what you do, Andy :)

I think as a mythological sceptic, you’d love the novel “Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco (the Ur-Fascism guy). It goes deep into the esoteric and the realm of ceremony, building up an all-encompassing theory of the sacred and profane throughout history, before unceremoniously tearing it down to reveal the post-modern lie hidden within. I loved it 10/10.

"I've met and spoken to entities that were not human." Yeah, a lot of people have done that here. Most pubs do welcome dogs, and the dogs often snuggle up to other customers, who then talk to them. It's cool.

Plants and fungi everywhere: "You bite me, I'll mess you up! I'll change your heartbeat! I'll burn your tongue! I'll make your teeth tingle! I'll make you blush and sweat! I'll make your skin incredibly sensitive! I'll stop you feeling anything above the neck! I'll make you taste rectangles and hear magenta! I'll mess with your whole nervous system until you don't know what's even REAL!" This one species of ape, every wretched time: "Cool! Can I grow you at home?"

I had an ex boyfriend who EXCLUSIVELY smoked weed in his old hand-me-down D.A.R.E hoodie. Said it was his way of sticking it to the man. I miss him

I feel it necessary as a sort of PSA to remind everyone: DO NOT USE PSYCHEDELICS IF CURRENTLY TAKING LITHIUM. This can cause SEIZURES and other harmful effects! It is strongly advised that one avoid use of psychedelic substances while experiencing severe depression, anxiety, or other negative emotional states, or if one has a genetic predisposition towards schizophrenia. It is highly recommended that one test any substance to ensure its quality and safety before ingesting it. It is also recommended that there be at least one trusted and reasonably sober person present to watch over one if they do decide to take such a substance.

There's an older man that lives in my apartment. He has a lot of chronic terminal health issues and in all honesty is actively dying. He said he did a 6 mg mushroom trip over the weekend and was able to find a profound sense of peace through it

54:50 Charles Darwin wasnt a social darwinist. He offered a descriptive model where those who fit the environment survive. Not necessarily at all those who survive a battle royale. His famous galapagos finches dont survive by killing each other nor by stealing from each other, but by having beaks useful for cracking nuts. There isnt a need to further conflate the two separate ideas more than social darwinists already have.

Video: "They took mushrooms and saw visions, and these visions felt so real they kept believing in them once the effects of the mushrooms ended." My Neuroscientist Friend: "This feels like they are giving themselves psychosis" Dennis McKenna: "In hindsight, that was psychosis" My Neuroscientist Friend: "Well it's good they realized, eventually"

Wow. Every night for the past year or so I search KZfaq for "terence mckenna" and fall asleep to one of his lectures. Last night I made my usual search and this video came up. This is the first video of yours I've ever seen. I'm in my late 30s now and have all but given up psychedelics but there's just something about his voice and thought process that keeps me coming back. Over the years I've given a lot of thought to his theories and musings and have come to pretty much the same conclusions that you did. Especially the one at the end about the transcendental object at the end of time, the eschaton, being death itself. Death sure is transcendental after all. What a wonderfully thought out video man, great job. I feel like you're the only person in the 21st century that has talked about Terence as a historical figure and summed up his life in this way. Extremely well done sir, thank you.

“It is 2024 and history, much less the world hasn’t ended” Well someone clearly hasn’t been reading enough of Francis Fukuyama

Excited to see my favorite living weirdo talk about my favorite dead weirdo!

Really looking forward to watching this!

Here I am; wallowing in selfpity, after my girlfriend of 6 years broke up with me - and Atun-Shei Films drops a feature length distraction. Thank you good sir; I sure need it!

"NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE."-Death, the Hogfather

by the way the neanderthal was much more intelligent than must people give them credit

I like your usage of the term bio-prospecting, I had never heard it before. People are very aware of prospecting in the conventional sense (mining) and the effects it can have (environmental, social, economic, etc...) on local populations, the positives and the much more daunting negatives. But it's good to show that open lithium mines of Spanish gold sickness aren't the only kinds out there. Prospecting for psycchodelic fungi and plants can destroy local communities, as you very much show in this video, but also historically has fueled a great deal of colonialism (and plenty of other fuckery).

A very great video uploaded in the middle of psilocybe subaeruginosa season. Excellent work and excellent timing

my biggest problem with drugs is that drug culture is extremely cringe

The thing that people get wrong about 'survival of the fittest' is that fittest does not mean strongest.

Amazing video. I knew basically none of this but found it very fascinating. Essentially it feels like Terrence was right along the same lines as countless others, not that different than say even Graham Hancock. Starting with a conclusion and then finding anything to meet that conclusion. With that said I certainly appreciate Terrence's sensibilities and motivations far more than many others. As a an atheist former Christian (like so many of us out there) I certainly can appreciate trying to find an alternative objective "truth" out there to rival that of the western patriarchal Christian world that many of us dislike so much in so many ways (now at least). Though I think essentially it's applying the same mindset and tactics as that same world just in the inverse. I always go back to Francis Bacon: "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." Likewise despite my innate skepticism to psychedelics (and everything) I tried to watch this with an open mind and was glad to see you apply your same sort of rational application you do in other forms to this. I certainly could understand how having such dramatic experiences might convince someone. Though in the end it's really not all that different than the religious experiences people have. Even myself as a Christian I believed 100% I experienced the supernatural at bare minimum twice during my life before leaving the faith. Of course now I realize and understand the massive body of data pointing to how horrendous human perception is at a measure of nearly anything. My wife, before we met, went through a period of great stress and had hallucinations, very real and vivid (of blood being all over hands when she worked as someone who cleaned hospital rooms, but in this case there was none). She was on no drugs. Then when she got prescribed waaay too many drugs like anti-psychotics (good ole 90s and early 2000s and kicking out drugs like candy) she got even worse. Likewise she also experienced things she thought was supernatural. Now like me we both think different. Our world views dictated what we expected combined with fragile human perception and mental states. Now I can imagine throwing psychedelics on that fire would probably crank all these 100 fold. Though there may be some metaphysical or supernatural connection or reality out there the reality is we have no reliable data or evidence of such and in this day and age we would expect to see quite a bit of it. In this case I think Terrence might have been right partially like you expand on. With the advent of technology and the internet it has indeed expanded our perceptions in ways. I think in an age where so many people have literal cameras in their pocket and are trained to record anything interesting. The fact we have no reliable recordings of miracles or God (or deities in general) stands as the absolute strongest evidence that none exist. We would expect tons of reliable data at this point. These same capabilities have helped us reveal a world of Karens, of police brutality, of countless injustices and human behaviors. Yet not a single piece of reliable data for the supernatural tied or not tied to any religion at all. That's pretty massive when you think of it and I think will lead further and further to the shifting away of the Christianized Western world view and sort of to some of Terrance's aspirational predictions that go with that. Until now and what the internet and related technologies provided this was just not possible. Also yeah there's a pessimistic side of me that looks to stormfront and the internet allowing those nuts to circle the wagons and unite and fight stronger for themselves. Though in a lot of ways these feel like a real last gasp, that surge before the death cry, much like that of the Lost Cause. I spent years on a Civil War forum where nearly every week or two someone new one come out spouting Lost Cause mythos. Myself and others would challenge it with data, quotes, and references. Now we have years of your videos and countless others repeating the real historical material over and over. In the end progress is inevitable and two steps forward is often followed by one step back, but to put it as my 2nd great granduncle Miles Ledford Langley put it in the 1868 Arkansas Constitutional Convention "Progress is an unchangeable law of nature. This is an age of improvement. Reform is the order of the day. We are passing through a crisis unparalleled in the history of the world. We have just struggled through a gigantic war, and are inaugurating a new era in the history of our' national policy. We must reconstruct the government of our country on radical principles-universal freedom, impartial suffrage, and equal rights. We must be governed by natural justice and scientific principles. Scientific truth must be our guide in ethics, in religion, in politics, in social life, and in legal matters." He was imprisoned, shot, and beat in Arkansas during the Civil War for being a southern abolitionist preacher and then in this convention he was laughed at (by both parties) for arguing for women's suffrage and rights here. In that time someone so ahead of their time and era in progressive thought had to seem to be arguing impossibilities. Sure it took about 50 years but it did in fact become a reality. You can't fully stop progress IMHO.

Hugely enjoying this. However at 55 min you use a common misunderstanding of the term ‘survival of the fittest.’ It does not mean the largest or most fearsome. In this context the fittest individual is the one best adapted to the surrounding environment and their place in it. E.g better camouflaged, better at collecting pollen or better at working as part of a cooperative group. Remember, natural selection can only select for or against a trait if it has an effect on passing on the organism’s genes.

The Philip Glass in the background was such a nice touch! *chef’s kiss *

If you where a teenager in the 90's Terence was everywhere.

I see our favorite homosexual liberal has climbed forth, eager to present us with content.

I was gonna reenact Gettysburg But I got high

My coworker has been hounding me about Terrence Mckenna for the past 2 weeks. It's all he talks about recently. Then you go and drop this. I CAN'T ESCPAE THE MUSHROOM MAN Edit: accidentally typed Howard instead of Mckenna

that's one big mushroom or mushroom kingdom here we come

That Hamilton Morris quote at the start really sums up my experience with McKenna. I accidentally picked Food of the Gods off a library shelf when I was 14, and I've recommended it a thousand times since not because of its rigorous science but its ethical mindset. It gets at personal and cultural evolution we can undertake.

I had such a fascination with psychedelics after my first serious experiences. I'm lucky enough to be the kind of person who can hold on tight to their sanity during even the craziest trips (even during ego death, to some extent), and I found it endlessly enjoyable picking apart the changes in my psychology and senses. It was like looking into my brain's code, which I'm sure is what scares most people. Buuut, there's definitely a limit to their usefulness. They helped me realize that cigarettes and booze were disgusting and unhealthy when I was in the middle of addiction. They highlighted areas in my life that I absolutely needed to improve upon. And yet, they didn't DO these for me. They just indicated their importance. At some point, I realized that psychedelics were amazing at highlighting and recontextualizing problems and ideas, but you still need to act upon those changes in your everyday life. There are plenty of people who are already great at doing that, but I was never the type of person who did great with "doing," even if I've always been a planner and a thinker. And as a side note, I also used to believe that anyone could benefit from psychedelics, but after a friend had such a bad breakdown that they called the cops under the psychotic notion that my friend and I were going to rape and kill him, I've reevaluated my stance a bit. We were playing Smash Bros and talking about college, so this wasn't a scenario of bad settings and trip sitters. He just couldn't take the reins and ended up getting lost in his neurotic thoughts.

"Stoned Ape Theory" is a misnomer. It's more like "Stoned Ape Vague Hypothesis" as it is completely unfalsifiable.

I love the use of Philip Glass’s Opera, Akhnaten, as the background music. It's like flying through the night sky towards the Milky Way and it fits the theme psychedelic transcendence well.

I just have to shout out the use of Akhenaten by Phillip glass, I play that shit every time a supervisor gets fired. The guys call it the sacrifice music. OPEN ARE THE DOUBLE DOORS OF THE HORIZON UNLOCKED ARE ITS BOLTS

Atun shei doing shrooms in the Pennsylvania woods while dressed as a pilgrim is the most "yeah that tracks" I've ever said about a youtber

I've noticed that psychedelic themes have appeared in your content in the past and am thrilled that you've now delved fully into this topic!

Assigning psychedelic experiences to entities outside of ourselves lessens the experience for me. In the same way that a supernatural creator is a less impressive, and I would say less spiritual, than scientific cosmological hypotheses. Acknowledging that the "I" is merely a drop in an ocean of mind, where seemingly discrete entities can not only be communed with, but present themselves in ways that confound expectation... that is where the magic lies for me.

You know the video is gonna be a banger when you have absolutely no idea what the title is talking about...

"why dont you back that up with a source" Terence McKenna: "it came to me in a dream"

Came for the Checkmate, Lincolnites - stayed for the magic mushrooms

What a fascinating coincidence: I just watched a video debunking Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory yesterday, and I wasn't even searching for it yesterday or today. This one will surely be more informative (since it's much longer) and more entertaining!

Drugs being an influence on Andy's style makes In the Wildwood make so much more sense

I never understood why people do drugs, like from my point of view losing control of your own actions, is the most terrifying thing I can imagine

One of the many things that I love about your videos is that you always take such care and thought about the music in them, it's never just generic royalty free lofi or the like. Another fascinating video Andy, keep up the good work.

This one is real close to home man, I immensely appreciate your content and find myself recommending it to people frequently.

Glad to see you still making bangers after retiring your most popular show. I'm interested in seeing where you go from here and if you keep putting out stuff like this you'll be just fine!

"Doesn't it reek of cope" No, it reeks of accurate understanding

Honestly i like these types of videos you do. This, metamorphosis of prime intellect, getting drunk and talking about vikings are some of my favorite of yours.

“The Mushroom won’t talk to you if you’re sweating whisky ginger “ is sage advice.

Minor correction: at 21:00 you say ayahuasca is made of B. caapi, containing high amounts of DMT. Ayahuasca contains DMT from other plants, but B caapi contains harmala alkaloids, not high amounts of DMT. Not sure if its a mix up or just ambiguously worded. Love the work!

Well, this is my evening sorted.

I have basically only watched the intro but this is just so cool: it is like my worlds colliding. I am one of those guys who has heard EVERYTHING he ever recorded (literally, I have been searching for something new for many years) many times, but I'm also a history nerd who loves your channel. I did not expect these beams to cross.

Absolutely great work. Especially the engaging cinematography as always in your videos.

I don’t like the way that suit is looking at me …

Akhenaten is a great sound track choice for a psychedelic video

Thank you for a thoroughly engaging & well made essay. The quality of your content is impressive.

i opened it up to watch later, just to check it out. was immediately sucked in by the extremely well written script, fantastic delivery, and just your approach to the whole thing. so refreshing to hear an open-minded, but sober (and also not toooo sober) perspective. fantastic stuff as always.

Ah yes Terence McKenna, Big Bird made flesh.

Videos like this are why I’m so glad to be following you. Well done

This was one of your best videos. A true masterpiece.

From the epic end of the Johnny Reb saga... to Terence McKenna. How can you make me love this bloody channel even more? THIS is how. 😍

The One Step Beyond intro is amazing!

Imagine being a mushroom, trying your very best to make animals understand you are NOT supposed to be eaten, by making them allucinate, just for ending up consumed for only that reason. Sad story.

Me and my roomate, as well SWIM and SWIH who have extensive histories with moderate to large doses of psilocybin were quite amazed by how well this video's structure resembles a trip.

dude just cant stop dropping bangers

Ooooh that piece from Akhnaten there in the beginning gave me chills

I really appreciate that at the “2012 and beyond” part, the shots look as if the “trip” is beginning. Great work as always.

Dreams can be surreal and extraordinary, but we rarely think of them as actually happening. Psychedelia is likely more akin to wake dreaming.

It's a shame, I am incapable of experiencing all these crazy things, took a bunch (my friend called nearly a "heroic dose") of these mushroom chocolates and only ended up with a stomach and headache. No change to perception.

This video ought to get him on the Joe Rogan show for sure...😅

I love the breadth of topics on this channel. Really refreshing.

What an absolutely wonderful video I have experienced. Very well done, Sir. I will reference back to this as I contemplate what steps are next in my art series.

Honestly, I won't be brash and say its your Magnum Opus, but this is a really engaging video. Delving into our expierence of reality itself. Great work! - and I'm only at the damn beginning. Well done.

oh damn, I just looked up my favourite terance meme " take it easy dude, buy take it" thanks atun shei!

Merited a second viewing the morning after the first. Outstanding!! Thank you!

Amazing work! Keep it up

What Bill Hicks would call "an Atun-Shei upload".

My favorite historian is now covering a different topic that i... um... have had some experience in. I feel seen.

I'm a philosopher. I've studied the weird and the wonderful, and I appreciate the openness to "new angles", but my conviction concerning any esotericism I've ever encountered (and some of it is inside the philosophical "canon") is this: If you need to read a text again and again, and it says nothing at all at first, and some 'meaning' arises only after reading and reading - then it is nothing more than a foil for your projections. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is not "true", or indeed, truth-capable. The irrationality inherent in a thinking practice like that sooner or later leads to bad things. Much the same goes for what is usually called mystical experiences: They're great. They can be real and substantive advancements for you as a person. But they lose their value if they pretend they are "true" in the way that falsifiable, logic-accessible statements are.

This is now my new favorite Atun-Shei film

His theories about early humans are based way too much on the idea of "man the hunter woman the gatherer" popular in anthropology in the 60s. This was based on ethnography of h-g groups in the 20th century. We now understand how influenced those cultures are by western cultures. The more we understand about the past, the less water that holds.

thank fucking GAWD I now have a reference video about Terrence McKenna, to pass to the curious, that doesn't come from a certain toe-headed podcaster...

There was a period in my life where I was doing psychedelics way too often. Mostly LSD, I was doing that once every two weeks, but also psilocybin and mescaline and various RCs, and DMT too. It does start messing with the way you think after a while. I never quite went off the deep end like some people in that situation do, but I can see how crackpot ideas like McKenna's start to look attractive. I know someone whose mind was totally warped abuse of hallucinogens and now won't shut up about crystal healing and extradimensional entities, even after he gave up hallucinogens following an episode of psychosis.

ok finished. this was great! Love seeing new stuff from you! I stopped half way through and tried lsd for the first time. I went to space.

I ran into McKenna’s work looking for sources on a research paper about potential use of hallucinogenic plants in early modern and late medieval folk magic. The paper quickly became about how wacky Terence himself was

McKenna’s Mushroom Monolith reminds me of something Bart Ehrman said in an interview: When asked if he thought the Bible was inherently wrong, he said no, because, in the end, the Bible is poetry and doesn’t have an inherent moral message, it just has one ascribed to it a lot. You can justify both the death and existence of queer people, and you can say the Earth was made in a week or over many a millennium. The same goes for mushrooms: In the end, no one knows what the hell goes on when you’re neither here nor there, and no one can say definitively what a person can expect from them. McKenna thought he found the pattern of the universe from them, and with enough trying (or tripping, in this case), one could prove him either wrong or right. In the end, we don’t know, and the only thing wrong regarding subjective or unknown areas of science is to take your opinions on them and to try and make them facts.

Aguirre clip spotted, let's go. Best channel on youtube. Aaannnd straight into 2001. We are operating on the same wavelength.

This was fascinating! I plan to return and rewatch when my A.P.E show up:) bless you

Fantastic video, taking a serious look at the first guy notable for taking a serious look at psychedelics and the kind of epistemology they bring out. I'm going to have to sit on the comparison between his apocalypse of the feminized and cooperative society to the internet, I don't think I fully grasp it, but the idea that the internet is a collective, memetic hallucination that breaks down social and personal boundaries is very compelling. I used to be a full materialist until I started having supernatural and psychedelic experiences, so Terence McKenna's way of thinking makes a lot of sense, he's like a brilliant hunter who blindfolds himself and uses the wind and smells to shoot at his pray. Of course, many of your arrows are going to miss and you get these Graham Hancock ideas about society

How the hell did you get Philip Glass cleared by KZfaq? Lmao.

Brilliant work, as per usual. Lots to think about.

Please do an analysis of Mary Shelley Frankenstein's monster and Dr Jekyll and Hyde like you did dracula.

PHILIP GLASS AKHNATEN MUSIC USED BASEDBASEDBASED

The gnomes have found a new way to say 'hooray' and it's an Atun-Shei doc

This video was really good, one of your best imo

I'm okay with the idea of psychedelics as recreational drugs, but I'm ambivalentlysupportive of their use as psychotherapy. It's okay for people to get high now and then; it doesn't have to be good for them too. There may be too strong of a push to treat these substances as therapeutic simply to decriminalize and normalize recreational use.

I think you're making one error here. "I tell you I saw something" is a different claim than "I know what I saw". I don't think anyone would claim that psychedelics don't allow you to alter your perception. The question is how well those things you see reflect any reality.