• Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Shamanism has always known this, and shamanism has always, in its most authentic expressions, taught that the path required allies. These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until it is now nearly too late.

    Terence McKenna: Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature
 is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Shamanism has always known this,
 and shamanism has always, in its most authentic expressions, taught that the
 path required allies. These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the
 mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that
 nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until
 it is now nearly too late.