McKenna on Philo & The Logos

Heard this quote in a Terence McKenna lecture recently (the link for which I’ve now misplaced, but here is a repro of it on FB):

“Language has the potential to be seen rather than beheld. Well I saw this years ago in DMT flashes and lo and behold a thorough inspection of Philo Judaeus who lived contemporary with Jesus Christ and was an Alexandrian Jew who wrote volumes of commentary on the religions of his era. Philo Judaeus talks about what he calls the Logos. The Logos was an interiorized teaching voice, which Greek ecstatics sought to contact, and Philo sets up a little dialogue and the first speaker says, what would be a more perfect Logos? A more perfect Logos than the informing, teaching voice? Philo answers, the more perfect Logos would go from being heard to being beheld without ever crossing over a noticeable moment of transition. Astonishing! I always wondered, did they know what they were talking about? What did it mean to them? What did it mean to him to write that sentence?”

Going from being heard – or text – to being beheld – or images – sounds rather like ChatGPT w/ Dalle3. Though I’d call it still a long long way off from being like the Logos of classical tradition. Still an interesting parallel…