Yo Team, worthy comments...and you'll get a chance to re-visit, because will be re-played on March 1st, as I will be out of the country. I don't think Terrence would mind ( I knew him, somewhat, 3 weeks of entheogenic cavorting in Mexican Rain Forest. He kinda liked an informed critique discussion etc.) And John Michael Greer, yes, curmudgeony, hardly "out to make name for self," more hermit to be coaxed out of cave. Not hungry for recognition...Not hungry ghost striving for credit...Informed scholar ally. Truly we are all befoibled and noone is right." Which is excellent

! second Chaz's comments. Like Chaz, I didn't blindly agree with everything Terence proposed. Thus, concerning his Timeline, it seemed to map accurately the past, so that, for instance, "novelty" periods did match the Renaissance. As for the future, maybe not. I always had trouble with Terence's take on 2012, sometimes he indicated it was a symbolic apocalypse but most other times it was literal. And Chaz is right, Terence always welcomed criticism--"here, take your best shot." However, like Chaz, I suspect something more is going on with Mr. Greer's need to debunk Terence. And, like Chaz suggests, arch-druid Greer has set himself up for his own debunking. So let's say that Terence has 2012 wrong. Okay, Mr. Greer you got him on that score.

Yes, Terence's ideas haven't all stood the test of time, but the thing is he didn't have to add "Arch-Druid" to his name to give them more authority than they deserved.

Enjoyed the debunking of things I would call "new age." Much needed! But this is a long time in coming from inside the "spiritual" camp (i.e., Mr Greer's Druidism). I actually was deconstructing "New Age" mystifications/superstitions on radio back in the 1990s--and doing a pretty thorough job of it, considering the amount of pissed off new-agers I encountered.

The down side of the program was going after Terence McKenna in the way Mr. Greer did. Of course McKenna, like any other prophetic voice of our time is fair game--Terence certainly welcomed criticism for his ideas. My problem was that Mr. Greer's criticism was ill-informed or superficially informed on the Timeline (as presented--haven't read his book). But more than anything, it was the conceited, dismissive way the criticism was broached, as if to say ..."well, after all, if you take enough of these drugs (and mix them up), then throw in the I Ching ... you're just going to get a druggie's fantasy!" Terence spent entire seminar's trying to lay out the mathematical intricacies of the time-wave, so this short-shrift put down is suspect. However, more than the immediate target of the time-wave, I suspect for the tone of voice that what Mr. Greer really finds objectionable with Terence is the psychedelic (or entheogen) basis. Terence had a running battle with those he called the "get there on the natch crowd," who considered--and still consider (in spite of archaic evidence to the contrary)--that mind-altering shamanism is "decadent." And, curiously enough for this interview, it was the Indian gurus and other "new-age" masters who were on his case about this.

So if arch-druid Mr. Greer wants to make a name for himself as (a johnny come lately) debunker of all the new age pet oxes, then perhaps he may want to include his own "druidism." It is a plain fact that all the books that proclaim they represent the ancient druids are bunk--no one really knows about the druids--its the fantasy of eccentric 19th/20th-century new age antiquarians. I recommend Robert Anton Wilson, who despite offering up Neo-Druidism, never took it seriously. So Mr. Greer, why are you exempt from your own criticism?