Terence McKenna

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For the Canadian documentary filmmaker, see Terence McKenna (film producer).
Terence McKenna
Born(1946-11-16)November 16, 1946
Paonia, Colorado, United States
DiedApril 3, 2000(2000-04-03) (aged 53)
San Rafael, California, United States
OccupationAuthor, Lecturer
NationalityAmerican
EducationB.S. in ecology, resource conservation and shamanism
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Period20th
SubjectShamanism, ethnobotany, metaphysics, psychedelic drugs, alchemy
Notable worksThe Archaic Revival, Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution, True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise, The Invisible Landscape
SpouseKathleen Harrison
RelativesDennis McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, lecturer, writer and author of several books. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, culture, technology and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was also the creator of a mathematical theory of time based on patterns found in the I Ching which he termed novelty theory.[1]

Biography

Early life

Terence McKenna was born and raised in Paonia, Colorado.[2] McKenna's father was of Irish ancestry and his mother was of Welsh descent.[3] He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home.[4] From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature.

At age 16, McKenna moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA.[2] In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of The Village Voice that talked about psychedelics.[2][5]

McKenna claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing."[2] In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday.

Studying and traveling

In 1965, McKenna enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley[6] to study art history.[2] In 1967, while in college, he discovered and began studying shamanism through the study of Tibetan folk religion.[7] That year, which he called his "opium and kabbala phase"[8] he also traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife.[8]

In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his "interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism."[8] During his time there, he studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs" and was forced to move to avoid capture by Interpol.[8] He wandered through Southeast Asia viewing ruins, collected butterflies in Indonesia, and worked as an English teacher in Tokyo. He then went back to Berkeley to continue studying biology, which he called "his first love".[8]

After the partial completion of his studies, and his mother's death from cancer in 1971,[9] McKenna, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca, or yagé, and gigantic Psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition.[8] In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic experiment which he claimed put him in contact with "Logos": an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience.[8] The voice's reputed revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his "Novelty Theory".[8] During their stay in the Amazon, McKenna also became romantically involved with his interpreter, Ev.[8]

In 1972, McKenna returned to Berkeley to finish his studies.[6] There he decided to switch majors to a Bachelor of Science in ecology and conservation, in a then new experimental section of the same university called the Tussman Experimental College.[2] During his studies, he would also develop techniques for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis.[8]

In 1975, he parted with his girlfriend, Ev, when she left him for one of his friends from Berkeley. Their parting left him "tormented with migraines and living alone".[8] He graduated in 1975.[10] That same year, he began a relationship with his future wife Kathleen Harrison, whom he had met in Jerusalem.

Soon after graduating, McKenna and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching. He also began lecturing.[6] The brothers' experiences in the Amazon would later play a major role in McKenna's book True Hallucinations, published in 1993.[8] In 1976, the brothers published what they had learned about the cultivation of mushrooms in a book entitled Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide under the pseudonyms "OT Oss" and "ON Oeric".[11]

Mid to later life

Public Speaking

In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, focusing primarily on the plant based psychedelics like; psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, cannabis and the plant derivative DMT. He lectured extensively and conducted many weekend workshops. Though associated with the New Age and human potential movements, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of felt experience, as opposed to dogma.[12]

In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on a wide array of subjects including; shamanism; metaphysics; alchemy; language; culture; self-empowerment; techno-paganism; artificial intelligence; evolution; extraterrestrials; science and scientism; the web; virtual reality (which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics); and aesthetic theory, specifically about art/visual experience as information representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics.

McKenna soon became a fixture of popular counterculture with Timothy Leary once introducing him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet"[13]

It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. These are the two things that the psychedelics attack. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy.

— Terence McKenna, "This World...and Its Double", [14]

His growing popularity culminated in the early-to-mid-1990s with the publication of several books: The Archaic Revival; Food of the Gods; and True Hallucinations (relating the tale of his 1971 La Chorrera experience).

He also became a popular personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word performances at raves and contributions to psychedelic and goa trance albums by The Shamen, Spacetime Continuum, Alien Project, Capsula, Entheogenic, Zuvuya, Shpongle, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the Starwood Festival, documented in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes. His lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD.[15]

McKenna was a colleague of and close friends with chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, and biologist Rupert Sheldrake. He conducted several public debates known as trialogues with them from the late 1980s until his death. Books containing transcriptions of some of these events were published and all the public and many older private recordings of the trialogues have now been digitised and are freely available on the Internet.[16] He was also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them and was a personal friend of Tom Robbins.

McKenna influenced the thought of many scientists, writers, artists, and entertainers.[citation needed] Comedian Bill Hicks' routines about psychedelics drew heavily from McKenna's 'Stoned Ape' theory of human evolution,[17] the theory which artist Alex Grey's painting The Visionary Origin of Language was also inspired by.[18] And he may have been the inspiration for the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby.[19]

Botanical Dimensions

In 1985,[10] McKenna co-founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Kathleen Harrison. Botanical Dimensions is a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in Hawaii, which was setup to collect, protect, propagate and understand plants of ethno-medical significance and their lore and appreciate, study, and educate others about plants and mushrooms that are felt to be significant to cultural integrity and spiritual well-being.[20] Kathleen and Terence had property there and he was actively involved until 1992 when he retired from the project,[21] following Kathleen and his divorce earlier in the year.[6] After the divorce, McKenna moved to Hawaii permanently and built a modernist house, topped with a huge antenna dish for the Internet communications with which he became enamored. Previously, he had split his time between Hawaii and Occidental, located in the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County, California. Botanical Dimensions is still managed by Kathleen and she is the President & Projects Director.

Death

Terence McKenna during a panel discussion at the 1999 AllChemical Arts Conference, held at Kona, Hawaii.

A longtime sufferer of migraines, in mid-1999 McKenna returned to his home on the big island of Hawaii after a long lecturing tour. He began to suffer from increasingly painful headaches. This culminated in three brain seizures in one night, which he claimed were the most powerful psychedelic experiences he had ever known. Upon his emergency trip to the hospital on Oahu, Terence was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to Wired magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumour was caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis, although his doctors assured him there was no causal relation.[22]

In late 1999, Erik Davis conducted what would be the last interview of McKenna.[22] During the interview McKenna also talked about the announcement of his death:

I always thought death would come on the freeway in a few horrifying moments, so you'd have no time to sort it out. Having months and months to look at it and think about it and talk to people and hear what they have to say, it's a kind of blessing. It's certainly an opportunity to grow up and get a grip and sort it all out. Just being told by an unsmiling guy in a white coat that you're going to be dead in four months definitely turns on the lights. ... It makes life rich and poignant. When it first happened, and I got these diagnoses, I could see the light of eternity, a la William Blake, shining through every leaf. I mean, a bug walking across the ground moved me to tears.[23]

McKenna died on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53, with his loved ones at his bedside. He is survived by his brother Dennis, his son Finn, and his daughter Klea.

Library fire

On February 7, 2007, McKenna's library of rare books and personal notes was destroyed in a fire that burned offices belonging to Big Sur's Esalen Institute, which was storing the collection. An index maintained by his brother Dennis survives, though little else.[24]

Thought

Terence McKenna advocated the exploration of altered states of mind via the ingestion of naturally occurring psychedelic substances. For example, and in particular, as facilitated by the ingestion of high doses of psychedelic mushrooms, and DMT, which he believed was the apotheosis of the psychedelic experience. He spoke of meeting entities he described as "jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs" or "self-transforming machine elves" which one can encounter in those states. However he was less enthralled with the synthetic drugs stating that "yes, LSD is a psychedelic drug. But it's a psychedelic drug in the same way a fruit fly can fly."[25] Mckenna also always stressed the responsible use of psychedelic plants saying, "The first place you go, when you're going to take a new drug, is the library."[26]

Although he avoided giving his allegiance to any one interpretation (part of his rejection of monotheism), he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual to encounter what could be ancestors, or spirits of earth.[12] Also, drawing on James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis McKenna put forward the idea that psychedelics were "doorways into the Gaian mind" suggesting that "the planet has a kind of intelligence, it can actually open a channel of communication with an individual human being" and that the psychedelic plants were the facilitators of this communication.[27] In a more radical version of biophysicist Francis Crick's hypothesis of directed panspermia; another idea Mckenna speculated on, was that, psilocybin mushrooms are a species of high intelligence, which may have arrived on this planet as spores migrating through space and are attempting to establish a symbiotic relationship with human beings. He suggested that "intelligence, not life, but intelligence may have come here [to Earth] in this spore-bearing life form" pointing out that "I think that theory will probably be vindicated. I think in a hundred years if people do biology they will think it quite silly that people once thought that spores could not be blown from one star system to another by cosmic radiation pressure" and believed that "Few people are in a position to judge its extraterrestrial potential, because few people in the orthodox sciences have ever experienced the full spectrum of psychedelic effects that are unleashed."[28] The idea that mushrooms (more specifically the Mycelium networks, of which mushrooms are the fruiting bodies) may be a kind of intelligence has also been echoed by mycologist Paul Stamets who stated in his book Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World “I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind.”[29]

Throughout his life McKenna remained opposed to most forms of organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening, favouring shamanism, which he believed was the broadest spiritual paradigm available, stating that:

"What I think happened is that in the world of prehistory all religion was experiential, and it was based on the pursuit of ecstasy through plants. And at some time, very early, a group interposed itself between people and direct experience of the 'Other.' This created hierarchies, priesthoods, theological systems, castes, ritual, taboos. Shamanism, on the other hand, is an experiential science that deals with an area where we know nothing. It is important to remember that our epistemological tools have developed very unevenly in the West. We know a tremendous amount about what is going on in the heart of the atom, but we know absolutely nothing about the nature of the mind."[30]

Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for: Marshall McLuhan, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, Plato, Gnostic Christianity and Alchemy, while regarding the Greek philosopher Heraclitus as his favorite philosopher.[13]

He also expressed admiration for the works of Aldous Huxley, James Joyce (calling Finnegans Wake "the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century."),[31] the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick who he described as an "incredible genius"[32] and Vladimir Nabokov: McKenna once said that he would have become a Nabokov lecturer if he had never encountered psychedelics.

During the final years of his life and career, McKenna became very engaged in the theoretical realm of technology. He has advocated the idea of a technological singularity.[33] In his last recorded public talk, Psychedelics in The Age of Intelligent Machines, he outlined strong ties between psychedelics, computation technology, and humans.[34]

The Archaic Revival

One of the main themes running through McKennas work, and the title of his second book, was the idea that western civilisation was undergoing what he called an ‘archaic revival.’

His notion was that western society has become “sick” and is undergoing a “healing process,” in the same way that the human body begins to produce antibodies when it feels itself to be sick, humanity as a collective whole (in the Jungian, sense) was creating “strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease” and trying to cure itself, by what he termed as "a reversion to archaic values.” McKenna pointed to phenomena including: surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture and tattooing amongst others as his evidence that this process was underway. [35]

He believed that, in his own words:

"History is ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley, and as the inevitable chaostrophie approaches, people look for metaphors and answers. Every time a culture gets into trouble it casts itself back into the past looking for the last sane moment it ever knew. And the last sane moment we ever knew was on the plains of Africa 15,000 years ago rocked in the cradle of the Great Horned Mushroom Goddess before history, before standing armies, before slavery and property, before warfare and phonetic alphabets and monotheism, before, before, before. And this is where the future is taking us because the secret faith of the twentieth century is not modernism, the secret faith of the twentieth century is nostalgia for the archaic, nostalgia for the paleolithic, and that gives us body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock-n-roll and catastrophe theory. The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom dotted plains of Africa where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are. And why does this matter? It matters because it shows that the way out is back and that the future is a forward escape into the past."[36]

In differentiating his idea from the "New Age," a term which he felt trivialise the significance of the next phase in human evolution, McKenna stated that:

"The New Age is essentially humanistic psychology '80s-style, with the addition of neo-shamanism, channeling, crystal and herbal healing. The archaic revival is a much larger, more global phenomenon that assumes that we are recovering the social forms of the late neolithic, and reaches far back in the 20th century to Freud, to surrealism, to abstract expressionism -- even to a phenomenon like National Socialism -- which is a negative force. But the stress on ritual, on organized activity, on race/ancestor-consciousness -- these are themes that have been worked out throughout the entire 20th century, and the archaic revival is an expression of that.[37]

"Stoned Ape" theory of human evolution

In his book Food of the Gods,[38] McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet - an event which according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BC (this is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus). He based his theory on the main effects, or alleged effects, produced by the mushroom. One of the effects that comes about from the ingestion of low doses, which agrees with one of scientist Roland Fischer's findings from the late 1960s-early 1970s,[39] is it significantly improves the visual acuity of humans - so, theoretically, of other human-like mammals too. According to McKenna, this effect would have definitely proven to be of evolutionary advantage to humans' omnivorous hunter-gatherer ancestors that would have stumbled upon it "accidentally"; as it would make it easier for them to hunt.

In higher doses, McKenna claims, the mushroom acts as a sexual stimulator, which would make it even more beneficial evolutionarily, as it would result in more offspring. At even higher doses, the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries", which would have promoted community-bonding and group sexual activities that would result in a mixing of genes and therefore greater genetic diversity. Generally McKenna believed that the periodic ingestion of the mushroom would have acted to dissolve the ego in humans before it ever got the chance to grow to destructive proportions. In this context, he likened the ego to a cancerous tumor that can grow uncontrollable and become destructive to its host.[40]

The mushroom, according to McKenna, also gave humans their first truly religious experiences and, as he believed, were the basis for the foundation of all subsequent religions to date. For example, he proposed that the biblical Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was actually an entheogenic mushroom. Another factor that McKenna talked about was the mushroom's potency to promote linguistic thinking. This would have promoted vocalisation, which in turn would have acted in cleansing the brain (based on a scientific theory that vibrations from speaking cause the precipitation of impurities from the brain to the cerebrospinal fluid), which would further mutate the brain. All these factors according to McKenna were the most important factors that promoted evolution towards the Homo sapiens species. After this transformation took place, the species would have begun moving out of Africa to populate the rest of the planet.[38] Later on, this theory by McKenna was given the name "The 'Stoned Ape' Theory of Human Evolution".[41][42]

Novelty theory

According to McKenna the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness. He predicted that a singularity of infinite complexity would be reached in 2012 at which point anything and everything imaginable would occur simultaneously. He referred to this as the Eschaton. He conceived this idea over several years in the early to mid-1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT.[43]

McKenna viewed the universe as a swarm of matter waves, spiralling down the gradient of their synergetic (energetically favourable) constructive interference. He saw the universe as being "pulled from the future toward a goal that is as inevitable as a marble reaching the bottom of a bowl when you release it up near the rim...it comes to rest at the lowest energy state, which is the bottom of the bowl. That’s precisely my model of human history."[44]

In novelty theory, when two matter waves become connected by mutual constructive interference (quantum entanglement, rapport), they imagine or grok each other. McKenna believed that imagination was capable of interconnecting matter waves instantaneously, stating that "the imagination is a dimension of nonlocal information,"[45] and "novelty is density of connection." [46]

Screenshot of the latest version of the Timewave Zero software (written by Peter Meyer) showing the timewave for the 25 years preceding a zero date of December 21, 2012. Descents of the timewave correspond to an increase in novelty and ascents to a decrease in novelty (or an increase in habit or routine).

"What is happening to our world is ingression of novelty toward what Whitehead called "concrescence", a tightening gyre. Everything is flowing together. The "autopoietic lapis", the alchemical stone at the end of time, coalesces when everything flows together. When the laws of physics are obviated, the universe disappears, and what is left is the tightly bound plenum, the monad, able to express itself for itself, rather than only able to cast a shadow into physis as its reflection. I come very close here to classical millenarian and apocalyptic thought in my view of the rate at which change is accelerating. From the way the gyre is tightening, I predict that the concrescence will occur soon—around 2012 AD. It will be the entry of our species into hyperspace, but it will appear to be the end of physical laws accompanied by the release of the mind into the imagination."[47]

McKenna often illustrated his theory by reference to a computer program written by his collaborator Peter Meyer, which produces a waveform known as "timewave zero" or the "timewave". "Timewave zero" is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty", defined as increase over time in the universe's interconnectedness, or organized complexity.[43] Based on McKenna's interpretation of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching, the graph appears to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity's biological and sociocultural evolution. He believed that the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times, and chose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the basis for calculating his end date of 16 November 2012. When he later discovered that the end of the 13th baktun in the Maya Calendar had been correlated by Western Maya scholars with December 21, not far from his own hypothesized end date, he decided that the Maya were more likely to be right on this subject and he adopted their end date.[48] The 1975 first edition of Mc Kenna's The Invisible Landscape refers to 2012 (but no specific day during the year) only twice. In the 1993 second edition, McKenna employed the 21st of December 2012 throughout, the date arrived at by the Mayanist researcher Robert J. Sharer[Note d].[49]

Critical reception

One expert on drug treatment attacked McKenna for popularizing 'dangerous substances.' "Surely the fact that Terence McKenna says that the psilocybin mushroom 'is the megaphone used by an alien, intergalactic Other to communicate with mankind' is enough for us to wonder if taking LSD has done something to his mental faculties," Judy Corman, vice president of Phoenix House of New York, a drug treatment center, said in a letter to The New York Times in 1993.[50]

Others had trouble with his self-consciously cosmic literary style. "I suffered hallucinatory agonies of my own while reading his shrilly ecstatic prose," Peter Conrad wrote in The New York Times in a 1993 review of Mr. McKenna's book True Hallucinations.[51]

But many marveled at his stream of novel thoughts. "To write him off as a crazy hippie is a rather lazy approach to a man not only full of fascinating ideas but also blessed with a sense of humor and self-parody," Tom Hodgkinson wrote in The New Statesman and Society in 1994.[52]

Wired called him a "charismatic talking head" and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead also said that he was "the only person who has made a serious effort to objectify the psychedelic experience."[53]

Bibliography

  • 1975 - The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (with Dennis McKenna) (Seabury; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-8164-9249-2.
  • 1976 - The Invisible Landscape (with Dennis McKenna, and Quinn Taylor) (Scribner) ISBN 0-8264-0122-8
  • 1976 - Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide (with Dennis McKenna: credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (2nd edition 1986) (And/Or Press) ISBN 0-915904-13-6
  • 1992 - Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide (with Dennis McKenna: (credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (Quick American Publishing Company; Revised edition) ISBN 0-932551-06-8
  • 1992 - The Archaic Revival (HarperSanFrancisco; 1st edition) ISBN 0-06-250613-7
  • 1992 - Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-37130-4
  • 1992 - Synesthesia (with Timothy C. Ely) (Granary Books 1st Ed) ISBN 1-887123-04-0
  • 1992 - Trialogues at the Edge of the West: Chaos, Creativity, and the Resacralization of the World (with Ralph H. Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake and Jean Houston) (Bear & Company Publishing 1st Ed) ISBN 0-939680-97-1
  • 1993 - True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise (HarperSanFrancisco 1st Ed) ISBN 0-06-250545-9
  • 1994 - The Invisible Landscape (HarperSanFrancisco; Reprint edition) ISBN 0-06-250635-8
  • 1998 - True Hallucinations & the Archaic Revival: Tales and Speculations About the Mysteries of the Psychedelic Experience (Fine Communications/MJF Books) (Hardbound) ISBN 1-56731-289-6
  • 1998 - The Evolutionary Mind : Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Trialogue Press; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-942344-13-8
  • 1999 - Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Rider & Co; New edition) ISBN 0-7126-7038-6
  • 1999 - Robert Venosa: Illuminatus (with Robert Venosa, Ernst Fuchs, H. R. Giger, and Mati Klarwein) (Craftsman House) ISBN 90-5703-272-4
  • 2001 - Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Park Street Press; revised ed) ISBN 0-89281-977-4 (Revised edition of Trialogues at the Edge of the West)
  • 2005 - The Evolutionary Mind: Trialogues on Science, Spirit & Psychedelics (Monkfish Book Publishing; Revised Ed) ISBN 0-9749359-7-2

Spoken word

  • History Ends In Green: Gaia, Psychedelics and the Archaic Revival, 6 audiocassette set, Mystic Fire audio, 1993, ISBN 1-56176-907-X (recorded at the Esalen Institute, 1989)
  • TechnoPagans at the End of History (transcription of rap with Mark Pesce from 1998)
  • Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1999) 90 minutes video[dead link]
  • Alien Dreamtime with Spacetime Continuum & Stephen Kent (Magic Carpet Media) (CD)
  • Conversations on the Edge of Magic (1994) (CD & Cassette) ACE
  • Rap-Dancing Into the Third Millennium (1994) (Cassette) (Re-issued on CD as The Quintessential Hallucinogen) ACE
  • Packing For the Long Strange Trip (1994) (Cassette) ACE
  • Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell, broadcast on May 22, 1997, Five hour interview covering various topics
  • Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics (1994) (Cassette) Sound Horizons Audio-Video, Inc.
  • The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (1992) (Cassette) Sounds True

Discography

Notes

  • d Coe's initial date was "24 December 2011." He revised it to "11 January AD 2013" in the 1980 2nd edition of his book,[54] not settling on 23 December 2012 until the 1984 3rd edition.[55] The correlation of b'ak'tun 13 as 21 December 2012 first appeared in Table B.2 of Robert J. Sharer's 1983 revision of the 4th edition of Sylvanus Morley's book The Ancient Maya.[56]

References

  1. ^ Watkins, Matthew. "Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination?".
  2. ^ a b c d e f Terence McKenna Interview, Part 1. Tripzine.com. Accessed on June 29, 2011.
  3. ^ Gehr, Richard (April 5, 1992). "Omega Man: A Profile of Terence McKenna". The Village Voice.
  4. ^ McKenna, Terence (Unknown (1985)). Under The Teaching Tree (Speech). Ojai Foundation, Upper Ojai, California. {{cite speech}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  5. ^ Erowid Terence McKenna Vault: The High Times Interview. Accessed on June 29, 2011.
  6. ^ a b c d Martin, Douglas (10 September 2013). "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelic Drugs". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  7. ^ Erowid Terence McKenna Vault: The High Times Interview.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise. Terence McKenna, 1993. Cite error: The named reference "true" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ Moler, Daniel (July 30, 2010). "Machine Elves 101, or Why Terence McKenna Matters". Reality Sandwich.
  10. ^ a b "Terence McKenna Vault". Erowid. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  11. ^ Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide, OT Oss and ON Oeric, 1976.
  12. ^ a b "The Invisible Landscape (lecture)". Terence Mckenna.
  13. ^ a b Introduction by Timothy Leary to "Unfolding the Stone" lecture by Terence McKenna, c. 1992
  14. ^ Terence McKenna (1993-09-11). This World...and Its Double. Mill Valley, California: Sound Photosynthesis.
  15. ^ Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures by Charles Hayes. Accessed on April 26, 2007.
  16. ^ "The Sheldrake - McKenna - Abraham Trialogues". sheldrake.org.
  17. ^ "Mushrooms With Bill Hicks". High Times.
  18. ^ "Transfigurations Full Review". Jon Hanna.
  19. ^ "Twin Peaks (1990) - Trivia". IMDB.
  20. ^ "Botanical Dimensions Plants and People". Botanical Dimensions.
  21. ^ "Botanical Dimensions People". Botanical Dimensions.
  22. ^ a b Davis, Erik (2000). "Terence McKenna's Last Trip". Wired (8.05). Condé Nast: 156, 158, 160, 162, 164, 166, 168. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 10 September 2013. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  23. ^ "Terence McKenna Vs. the Black Hole: by Erik Davis". Techgnosis.com. 2005-01-13. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  24. ^ Frauenfelder, Mark (February 22, 2007). "Terence McKenna's library destroyed in fire". Boing Boing. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  25. ^ "Omega Man". the Village Voice.
  26. ^ "Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness". Terence McKenna.
  27. ^ "The Gaian mind". Terence McKenna.
  28. ^ "The High Times Interview Terence McKenna". High Times.
  29. ^ "our son) Are Fungi The Earths Natural Internet". GreenMedInfo.
  30. ^ "Prejudice Against Psychedelics". Terence McKenna.
  31. ^ "Surfing Finnegans Wake". Terence Mckenna.
  32. ^ "I Understand Philip K. Dick". Terence Mckenna.
  33. ^ "Technocalyps".
  34. ^ "Psychedelics in The Age of Intelligent Machines". Terence McKenna.
  35. ^ "Eros and the Eschaton: What Science Forgot". Terence McKenna.
  36. ^ "The Archaic Revival". Terence McKenna.
  37. ^ "The High Times Interview Terence McKenna". High Times.
  38. ^ a b McKenna, Terence (1992) [1993]. Food of the Gods: the Search for the original Tree of Knowledge. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-37130-4.
  39. ^ Fischer, Roland; Hill, Richard (1970). "Psilocybin-Induced Contraction of Nearby Visual Space". Agents and Actions. 1 (4): 190–197. PMID 5520365.
  40. ^ Food of the Gods
  41. ^ "http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showwiki.php?title=Stoned_Ape_Theory"
  42. ^ "http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/
  43. ^ a b Art Bell (22 May 1997). "Terence McKenna with Art Bell". archive.org. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  44. ^ Approaching Timewave Zero Magical Blend, No. 44, November 1994
  45. ^ McKenna, Terence A Few Conclusions about Life 1996
  46. ^ Terence McKenna at St. John the Divine's Cathedral April 25, 1996
  47. ^ McKenna, Terence ♦ New Maps of Hyperspace 1989
  48. ^ Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna (June 1983). "Dynamics of Hyperspace". Santa Cruz, California: Ralph Abraham. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  49. ^ Sacha Defesche (2007). "'The 2012 Phenomenon': A historical and typological approach to a modern apocalyptic mythology". skepsis. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  50. ^ "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelic Drugs". The New York Times.
  51. ^ "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelic Drugs". The New York Times.
  52. ^ "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelic Drugs". The New York Times.
  53. ^ "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelic Drugs". The New York Times.
  54. ^ Coe, Michael D. (1980). The Maya. Ancient peoples and places series, no. 10 (2nd ed.). London: Thames and Hudson, p. 151.
  55. ^ Coe, Michael D. (1984). The Maya. Ancient peoples and places series (3rd ed.). London: Thames and Hudson.
  56. ^ Morley, Sylvanus (1983). The Ancient Maya (4th ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, p. 603, Table B2.

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