Terence Kemp McKenna was an
Irish-AmericanIrish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
philosopher,
psychonautPsychonautics refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by mind altering substances, and to a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses him/herself into an altered...
, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human
consciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe,
alchemyAlchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, and
extraterrestrial beingsExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
.
Early life
Terence McKenna grew up in
Paonia, ColoradoThe Town of Paonia is a Statutory Town in Delta County, Colorado, United States. The population was 1,497 at the 2000 census.-History:The area was first explored in 1853 by Captain John W. Gunnison of the United States Army...
. He was introduced to
geologyGeology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the
arroyosAn arroyo , a Spanish word translated as brook, and also called a wash is usually a dry creek or stream bed—gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Wadi is a similar term in Africa. In Spain, a rambla has a similar meaning to arroyo.-Types and processes:Arroyos...
near his home. From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature.
At age 16, McKenna moved to
Los Altos, CaliforniaLos Altos is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 28,976 according to the 2010 census....
to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA. In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through
The Doors of PerceptionThe Doors of Perception is a 1954 book by Aldous Huxley detailing his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley’s recollection of a mescaline trip which took place over the course of an afternoon, and takes its title from William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell...
and
Heaven and HellHeaven and Hell is a philosophical essay written by Aldous Huxley, and published in 1956. Huxley derived the title from William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The essay discusses the relationship between bright, colorful objects, geometric designs, psychoactives, art, and profound...
by
Aldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
and certain issues of
The Village VoiceThe Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
that talked about psychedelics.
McKenna claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with
morning gloryMorning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics is in flux...
seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing."
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, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
to study art history. In 1967, while in college, he discovered and begun studying
shamanismShamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
through the study of Tibetan folk religion. That year, which he called his "
opiumOpium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
and
kabbalaKabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
phase" he also traveled to
Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife.
In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his "interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism." 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." He was forced to move to avoid capture by Interpol. 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".
After he completed part of his studies and his mother's death from cancer in 1971, McKenna, his brother
DennisDennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, author and brother to well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna.-Profile:...
, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of
oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing
DimethyltryptamineN,N-Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound of the tryptamine family. DMT is found in several plants, and also in trace amounts in humans and other mammals, where it is originally derived from the essential amino acid tryptophan, and ultimately produced by the enzyme INMT...
(DMT). Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of
ayahuascaAyahuasca is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus...
, or
yagé, and gigantic
psilocybe cubensisPsilocybe cubensis is a species of psychedelic mushroom whose principal active compounds are psilocybin and psilocin. Commonly called Boomers, Cubes or Gold Caps, it belongs to the Strophariaceae family of fungi and was previously known as Stropharia cubensis.-Taxonomy and naming:The species was...
which became the new focus of the expedition. 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' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
": an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience. The voice's reputed revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an
early formThe King Wen sequence is an arrangement of the sixty-four divination figures in 易經 Yì Jīng, the I Ching or Book of Changes. They are called hexagrams in English because each figure is composed of six 爻 yáo—broken or unbroken lines, that represent 陰 yin or 陽 yang respectively.The King Wen sequence...
of the
I ChingThe I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
, which led to his "Novelty Theory".
During their stay in the Amazon, McKenna also became romantically involved with his translator, Ev.
In 1972, McKenna returned to Berkeley to finish his studies. 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. During his studies, he would also develop techniques for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis.
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". He graduated in 1975. That same year, he began a relationship with 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. The brothers' experiences in the Amazon would later play a major role in McKenna's book
True Hallucinations, published in 1993. 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".
Later life
In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting weekend workshops. Though associated with the
New AgeThe New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
and
human potential movementThe Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
s, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of felt experience, as opposed to dogma.
Timothy LearyTimothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet." He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture. His growing popularity culminated in the early to mid-1990s with the publication of several books:
True Hallucinations, relating the tale of his 1971 La Chorrera experience;
Food of the Gods; and
The Archaic Revival. He became a popular personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word performances at
raveRave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
s and contributions to psychedelic and
goa tranceGoa trance is a form of electronic music that originated during the late 1980s in Goa, India.-History:The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although musical developments were incorporating elements of industrial music and EBM...
albums by
The ShamenThe Shamen were an experimental electronic music band, from 1985–1999, initially formed in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a psychedelic-influenced indie rock act. The founding members are Colin Angus , Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie...
,
Spacetime ContinuumJonah Sharp alias Spacetime Continuum is a producer of electronic music. After starting his musical career as a jazz drummer in London, UK, he moved to San Francisco, USA. During the 1990s Sharp released a series of albums on the Astralwerks record label...
,
Alien ProjectAlien Project is the psychedelic trance artist Ari Linker from Tel Aviv, Israel. He has been DJing and producing music since 1994, and his sound has evolved into a recognizably upbeat psytrance sound....
,
CapsulaCapsula are an indie rock/garage rock band from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their name is the Spanish word for capsule and derives from the David Bowie song "Space Oddity"....
,
EntheogenicEntheogenic is a musical project consisting of Piers Oak-Rhind and Helmut Glavar that crosses musical style boundaries. According to the two members, the music mixes "coloristic electrophonics" with "impressionistic orchestra-like sound"....
, Zuvuya,
ShpongleShpongle is an English psychedelic downtempo/psybient music project formed in 1996. The group includes Simon Posford and Raja Ram . Their musical style combines eastern ethnic instruments and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music...
, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the
Starwood FestivalThe Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...
, documented in the book
Tripping by Charles Hayes. His lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD.
McKenna was a colleague of
chaos mathematicianChaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
Ralph AbrahamRalph H. Abraham is an American mathematician. He has been a member of the mathematics department at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1968.- Life and work :...
, and
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
Rupert SheldrakeRupert Sheldrake is an English scientist. He is known for having proposed an unorthodox account of morphogenesis and for his research into parapsychology. His books and papers stem from his theory of morphic resonance, and cover topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, memory,...
, creator of the theory of "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with the
mainstream usage of the same termIn developmental biology, a morphogenetic field is a group of cells able to respond to discrete, localized biochemical signals leading to the development of specific morphological structures or organs. The spatial and temporal extent of the embryonic fields are dynamic, and within the field is a...
. 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. He was also a friend and associate of
Ralph MetznerRalph Metzner Ph.D. , is an American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert . Dr...
, Nicole Maxwell, and
Riane EislerRiane Tennenhaus Eisler is an Austrian-born American scholar, writer, and social activist. Born in Vienna ca. 1937, her familyfled from the Nazis to Cuba when she was a child; she later emigrated to the United States. She has degrees in...
, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them. He was a personal friend of
Tom RobbinsThomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins (born July 22, 1936 is an American author. His best-selling novels are serio-comic, often wildly poetic stories with a strong social and philosophical undercurrent, an irreverent bent, and scenes extrapolated from...
, and influenced the thought of many
scientistA scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s,
writerA writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
s,
artistAn artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s, and entertainers. His influences include comedian
Bill HicksWilliam Melvin "Bill" Hicks was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy...
, whose routines about psychedelic drugs drew heavily from McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for the
Twin PeaksTwin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
character Dr. Jacoby.
In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on the subjects of
virtual realityVirtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
, which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics; techno-paganism;
artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
;
evolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
; extraterrestrials; and aesthetic theory, specifically about art/visual experience as
information representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics.
In 1985, McKenna co-founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Kathleen, a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in
HawaiiThe Island of Hawaii, also called the Big Island or Hawaii Island , is a volcanic island in the North Pacific Ocean...
, where he lived for many years before he died. In 1997 he and Kathleen divorced. Before moving to Hawaii permanently, McKenna split his time between Hawaii and
OccidentalOccidental is a census-designated place in Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 1,115 at the 2010 census, down from 1,272 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Occidental is located at...
, located in the redwood-studded hills of
Sonoma County, CaliforniaSonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
.
Death
A longtime sufferer of
migraineMigraine is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by moderate to severe headaches, and nausea...
s, 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 multiformeGlioblastoma multiforme is the most common and most aggressive malignant primary brain tumor in humans, involving glial cells and accounting for 52% of all functional tissue brain tumor cases and 20% of all intracranial tumors. Despite being the most prevalent form of primary brain tumor, GBMs...
, a highly aggressive form of
brain cancerA brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to
WiredWired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumour was caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis; though his doctors assured him there was no causal relation.
In late 1999,
Erik DavisErik Davis is a North American writer, social historian, cultural critic and lecturer.He is noted for his study of the history of technology and society and his essays about the fate of the individual in the dawning posthuman era...
conducted what would be the last interview of McKenna. During the interview McKenna also talked about the announcement of his death:
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 which burned offices belonging to Big Sur's
Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
which was storing the collection. An
indexIn museums and archives, the collection of objects or material is normally catalogued in a collection catalog . Traditionally this was done using a card index, but nowadays it is normally implemented using a computerized database and may even be made available online.- External links :* from the...
maintained by his brother Dennis survives, though little else.
Ideas
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
DMTN,N-Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound of the tryptamine family. DMT is found in several plants, and also in trace amounts in humans and other mammals, where it is originally derived from the essential amino acid tryptophan, and ultimately produced by the enzyme INMT...
, which he believed was the
apotheosisApotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
of the psychedelic experience. He spoke of the "jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs" or "self-transforming machine elves" that one encounters in that state.
Although he avoided giving his allegiance to any one interpretation (part of his rejection of
monotheismMonotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
), he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual to encounter what could be
ancestorAn ancestor is a parent or the parent of an ancestor ....
s, or
spiritThe English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
s of earth. He remained opposed to most forms of organized religion or
guruA guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
-based forms of spiritual awakening.
Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for
Marshall McLuhanHerbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
,
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinPierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...
, Gnostic Christianity,
Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
and
AlchemyAlchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
. McKenna always regarded the Greek philosopher
HeraclitusHeraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
as his favorite philosopher.
He also expressed admiration for the works of
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
(calling
Finnegans WakeFinnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
"the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century") and
Vladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
: McKenna once said that he would have become a Nabokov lecturer if he had never encountered psychedelics.
"Stoned Ape" theory of human evolution
In his book
Food of the Gods, McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors
Homo erectusHomo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
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
HomoHomo may refer to:*the Greek prefix ὅμο-, meaning "the same"*the Latin for man, human being*Homo, the taxonomical genus including modern humans...
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 60s-early 70s, 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 prove to be of evolutionary advantage to humans' omnivorous
hunter-gathererA hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
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
egoIn spirituality, and especially nondual, mystical and eastern meditative traditions, individual existence is often described as a kind of illusion. This "sense of doership" or sense of individual existence is that part which believes it is the human being, and believes it must fight for itself in...
in humans before it ever got the chance to grow in destructive proportions. In this context he likened the ego to a cancerous
tumorA tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...
that can grow uncontrollable and become destructive to its host. In his own words:
The mushroom, according to McKenna, had also given humans their first truly religious experiences (which, as he believed, were the basis for the foundation of all subsequent religions to date). 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 AfricaIn paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...
to populate the rest of the planet Later on, this theory by McKenna was given the name "The 'Stoned Ape' Theory of Human Evolution".
Spoken word
- History Ends In Green: Gaia, Psychedelics and the Archaic Revival, 6 audiocassette set, Mystic Fire
Mystic Fire is a 2002 album by Mountain. It features the song "Immortal", which was cowritten with and originally performed by Clutch.The song "Immortal" was originally released with different lyrics, and a different arrangement, as the song "Baby I'm Down" on Mountain, Leslie West's first solo album...
audio, 1993, ISBN 1-56176-907-x (recorded at the Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
, 1989)
- TechnoPagans at the End of History (transcription of rap with Mark Pesce
- Biography :September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology , for a Bachelor of Science degree, but left in June 1982 to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-technology industry. He worked as an Engineer for the next few years, developing prototype firmware and...
from 1998)
- Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1999) 90 minutes video
- Alien Dreamtime with Spacetime Continuum
Jonah Sharp alias Spacetime Continuum is a producer of electronic music. After starting his musical career as a jazz drummer in London, UK, he moved to San Francisco, USA. During the 1990s Sharp released a series of albums on the Astralwerks record label...
& Stephen KentStephen Kent is a professional didgeridoo performer, percussionist, composer and recording artist.- Musical career :Kent's musical career has taken him across five continents, living at various times in the UK, Spain, East Africa, Australia and the USA...
(Magic Carpet Media) (CD) video
- Conversations on the Edge of Magic (1994) (CD & Cassette) ACE
The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...
- Rap-Dancing Into the Third Millennium (1994) (Cassette) (Re-issued on CD as The Quintessential Hallucinogen) ACE
The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...
- Packing For the Long Strange Trip (1994) (Cassette) ACE
The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...
- Coast to Coast AM
Coast to Coast AM is a North American late-night syndicated radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics, but most frequently ones that relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was created by Art Bell and is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. The program currently...
with Art BellArthur W. "Art" Bell, III is an American broadcaster and author, known primarily as one of the founders and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM. He also created and formerly hosted its companion show, Dreamland...
, 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
Sounds True is a multimedia publishing company based near Boulder, Colorado. It was created in 1985 by Tami Simon. The company has published approximately 1,000 titles, including spoken-word audio recordings, books, music, filmed events, multimedia packages and online educational programs from...
Discography
- Re : Evolution with The Shamen
The Shamen were an experimental electronic music band, from 1985–1999, initially formed in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a psychedelic-influenced indie rock act. The founding members are Colin Angus , Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie...
(1992)
- Alien Dreamtime with Spacetime Continuum
Jonah Sharp alias Spacetime Continuum is a producer of electronic music. After starting his musical career as a jazz drummer in London, UK, he moved to San Francisco, USA. During the 1990s Sharp released a series of albums on the Astralwerks record label...
& Stephen KentStephen Kent is a professional didgeridoo performer, percussionist, composer and recording artist.- Musical career :Kent's musical career has taken him across five continents, living at various times in the UK, Spain, East Africa, Australia and the USA...
(Magic Carpet Media) (DVD)
- 2009 - Cognition Factor (2009)
See also
- Ethnomycology
Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi , and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology...
- Exopheromone
Exopheromone is a term coined by Terence McKenna, proposed in his book Food of the Gods for the controversial idea of chemical signals between members of different species, as opposed to among conspecifics...
- List of notable brain tumor patients
- Machine Elf
Machine elves is a term coined by the late ethnobotanist, writer and philosopher Terence McKenna to describe the apparent entities that are often reported by individuals using tryptamine-based psychedelic drugs, especially DMT...
External links
Audio and video resources
Transcripts
- MindofMcKenna - McKenna audio excerpts, transcriptions and quotes