Reality Is Made Of Language (Terence McKenna)

• Magical philosophy has always claimed that the world is made of language. The world is a thing of words, and if you know these words, you can take it apart and put it together any old way you wish.
• The human neocortex becomes the center of the human drama.
• Our entire Western religious tradition begins with the incredibly cryptic statement: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh.” What is this making the word into flesh? And does it not imply that eventually the flesh will become word?

Transposing ‘word’ with ‘code’.

This would give us: “In the beginning was the code, and the code was made flesh.”

Doesn’t this sound like a programming statement? Coding for virtual reality! (With ‘word’ being appreciated as the only concept that was available at biblical times, in that language. This ‘word’ was capable of conceptually pointing toward the idea of a code that creates an illusion within which we are all embedded. Of course it’s in fact just a pseudo reality which goes unquestioned due to tyranny of ideas and alternatives.)

Let’s see what McKenna comes up with here:

The mind as co-creator of our model of the world.

• Our model of what the world is is made of words, and the world is composed of description.
• If you live long enough you discover, what you imagine and what actually is, are very close to the same thing.
• The mind is somehow a co-creator in the process of reality through acts of language.
• Science carried out its analysis of nature that went to such depth that it discovered that nature doesn’t exist, except as an object of description.

And another quote by the master of words himself:

Everything is code.

• The universe is a puzzle, it’s a problem to be solved, it’s a conundrum, it’s not what it appears to be, there are doors, there are locks and keys, there are levels and if you get it right, somehow it will give way to something extremely unexpected.
• If the world is code, then it can be hacked. It permits magic, because it says: Behind the laws of physics is a deeper level, and if you can reach that deeper level, you can make changes there.

Might existence really be made of stories?
Another internationally renowned scholar, ethnographer and shaman, Bradford Keeney confirms the ‘reality-language’ concept:

The world is made of stories, not atoms.

(Bradford Keeney –  Sex, God and Ecstasy)

and British-born film producer Paul Brooks:

A human being is a storytelling machine. The Self is a story.

(Paul Brooks)

But beware, don’t just believe this – find out for yourself! Here’s the always needed counter-concept:

John C. Lilly (American physician, psychoanalyst, consciousness researcher, and inventor of the isolation tank) was asked this question, and his reply was this:
“The world is made of language? No, the world is not made of language.”

John Lilly was some kind of God, so this reply has some weight, but never stop thinking for yourself!

What is language?

If you ask a question, you have to question the question itself first – we use words, without really knowing what they mean.

What do you mean by the word ‘world’?
What do you mean by the word ‘language’?
And then what is a question?

Do babies have language? Do babies have a world?

Being on an LSD-trip, is there language, is there a world?

Are you capable of imagining a world without using language?
Are you capable of using language without imagining a world?

Is GOD capable of imagining the universe without using language?
Is GOD capable of using language without imagining a world?
Are you GOD?

Are you the world?

Are you language?

Sometimes, questions are more important, than replies.
What makes you ask questions?
Do you ask questions or do they happen to you?
Are your questions really your questions?

Who are you?
Asking yourself who you are, who is asking this?
Who is asking, who am I?

What does ‘I’ mean?
What does the word ‘meaning’ mean?
What does ‘do’ mean?

Is ‘doing’ physical action or is it also mental action?
Is there a ‘doing’ that is beyond action?

What does ‘what’ mean?
What does ‘?’ mean.

In the beginning there was ? and the ? utttered a word.
And the ? saw that it was good.

What does ‘word’ mean?

Pronounce a word very slowly, and you will realize, that you are only aware of one letter at a time,
not even that, only aware of one noise at the same time.

Is noise language?
Is music language?
Does music use words?
Does a noise have meaning?
What is the difference between a noise with meaning, and a noise without meaning?
Is a noise without meaning language?
Is meaning without noise language?

What can be language?
Is there something that cannot be language?
Can you imagine something that can never be language?
What does ‘never’ mean?

It is all in the now.

Spoken language is a linear sequence if information.
You are only in the now, therefore you cannot possibly understand language.
Language is spread over time.
Are you spread over time?

How can language possibly have meaning to you?

How do you know there is meaning, the moment you know meaning?

(By Mercury 555 @ Deoxy.org/forum)

So why not just drop language altogether, as Indian guru Osho suggested:

The whole language depends on time – past, future, present.
Language is a creation of the mind, time is also a creation of the mind.
When you drop language, time disappears.
When you drop thinking, there is no past, no present, no future.
You go beyond time, there is no time. When there is no time, there is eternity.
When there is no time, you have moved into the world of the eternal. The truth is eternal.
And all that you have got are temporal reflections of the truth.

(Osho)

What does non-language, also known as silence, has to do with it?
Let’s see what American critic, scholar and educator George Steiner has to say about the subject:

Within this silence words, languages and hence so called reality tunnel’s appear.

What kind of reality we experience is determined by our reality tunnels.
Our reality-tunnels are being constructed during the course of our lives by our experiences, thoughts and belief-systems.
As our thoughts base on language, thinking and all resulting belief-systems are hence built upon language. For more detailed explanations on these exciting matters, check one of Ultrafeel’s most popular essays ever:
How reality-tunnels create what we experience in life.