“You have the Gaia hypothesis, and everybody congratulates themselves on what a leap forward that is—and it is, but it’s quite…
“You have the Gaia hypothesis, and everybody congratulates themselves on what a leap forward that is—and it is, but it’s quite another step to realize that it is not that the Earth is alive, it’s that the Earth is intelligent. The Earth is some kind of mind. And before we throw up our hands and say, “Well, how could that be? How could a planet have a mind?” Is it any less peculiar that a monkey could have a mind? You know? How do monkeys have minds? That’s the miracle. A planet is a very large system, probably able to pull many tricks out of the bag. It’s our portion of mind that is so puzzling.”— Terence McKenna, Earth Mind and Monkey Mind