Terence McKenna
Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 - April 3, 2000) was an American researcher, philosopher, speaker, spiritual teacher and writer on many subjects. His works are wide-scoped, ranging from consciousness, the human experience, psychedelic substances and their role in societies, evolution of civilizations, origin of the universe to aliens.
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I. Biography
II. Book Publications (5)
III. Archives (126)
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I. Biography
Early Life
Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado. He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home. 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 because his parents in Colorado wished him to have the benefit of highly rated California public schools. He was introduced to psychedelics through The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley and the The Village Voice. McKenna claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing."
In 1964, circumstances required McKenna to move to Lancaster, California, to live with a different set of family friends. In 1965, he graduated from Antelope Valley High School.
McKenna then enrolled in U.C. Berkeley. He moved to San Francisco during the summer of 1965 before his classes began, was introduced that year to cannabis by Barry Melton and tried LSD soon after. In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday.
Adult Life
He spent the years after his graduation teaching English in Japan, traveling through India and South Asia collecting butterflies for biological supply companies.
Following the death of his mother in 1971, Terence, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hac, a plant preparation containing DMT. Instead of oo-koo-hac they found various forms of ayahuasca (also known as "yagac") and gigantic psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition. In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he allowed himself to be 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. The revelations of this voice, and his brother's peculiar experience during the experiment, prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his "Novelty Theory". These ideas were explored extensively by Terence and Dennis in their 1975 book The Invisible Landscape - Mind Hallucinogens and The I Ching.
In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting weekend workshops. Though somewhat associated with the New Age or human potential movement, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities, repeatedly stressing the importance and primacy of felt experience as opposed to dogmatic ideologies. Timothy Leary once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet"
As a freshman at U.C. Berkeley, McKenna participated in the Tussman Experimental College, a short-lived two-year program on the Berkeley campus. He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Conservation.
He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture, and his popularity continued to grow, culminating in the early to mid-1990s with the publication of several books such as True Hallucinations (which relates the tale of his 1971 experience at La Chorrera), 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 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 continue to be) sampled by many others. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the Starwood Festival, which was documented in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes (his lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD).
McKenna was a contemporary and colleague of chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham and biologist Rupert Sheldrake (creator of the theory of "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with the mainstream usage of the same term), and conducted several public debates known as trialogues with them, from the late 1980s up until his death. Books which contained transcriptions of some of these events were published. He was also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them. He was a personal friend of Tom Robbins, and influenced the thought of numerous scientists, writers, artists, and entertainers, including comedian Bill Hicks, whose routines concerning psychedelic drugs drew heavily from McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby.
In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on the subjects of virtual reality (which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics), techno-paganism, artificial intelligence, evolution, extraterrestrials, and aesthetic theory (art/visual experience as information-- representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics).
McKenna also co-founded Botanical Dimensions with Kathleen Harrison (his colleague and wife of 17 years), a non-profit ethnobotanical preserve on the island of Hawaii, where he lived for many years before he died. Before moving to Hawaii permanently, McKenna split his time between Hawaii and the town of Occidental, located in the redwood studded hills of Sonoma County, California; a town unique for its high concentration of artistic notables, including Tom Waits and Mickey Hart.
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II. Book Publications (5)
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(1992) The Archaic Revival
Speculations of Psychedelic Mushrooms, The Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFO's, Evolution, Shamanism, The Rebirth of The Goddess, And The End of History
Cited by L. A. Weekly as "the culture's foremost spokesman for the psychedelic experience," Terence McKenna is an underground legend as a brilliant raconteur, adventurer, and expert on the experiential use of mind-altering drugs. In these essays, interviews, and narrative adventures, McKenna takes us on a mesmerizing journey deep into the Amazon as well as into the hidden recesses of the human psyche and the outer limits of our culture, giving us startling visions of the past and the future.
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(1993) Food of the Gods
The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
Why, as a species, are humans so fascinated by altered states of consciousness? Can altered states reveal something to us about our origins and our place in nature? In Food of the Gods, ethnobotanist Terence McKenna's research on man's ancient relationship with chemicals opens a doorway to the divine, and perhaps a solution for saving our troubled world. McKenna provides a revisionist look at the historical role of drugs in the East and the West, from ancient spice, sugar, and rum trades to marijuana, cocaine, synthetics, and even television - illustrating the human desire for the "food of the gods" and the powerful potential to replace abuse of illegal drugs with a shamanic understanding, insistence on community, reverence for nature, and increased self-awareness.
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(1993) Psilocybin
Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide
w/Dennis McKenna
Psilocybin is a highly visionary natural compound with a long tradition of shamanic use and a close similarity to normal brain chemistry. This book is the revised and expanded edition of the unsurpassed classic manual on home cultivation of psilocybin mushrooms.
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(1993) The Invisible Landscape:
Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I-Ching
w/Dennis McKenna
Newly available and thoroughly revised, this early workd by Terence and Dennis McKenna reveals the roots of the daring but disciplined speculations that prompted The New York Times to call Terence "the Timothy Leary (and much more) of the discreetly psychedelic 90s," and Tom Robbins to proclaim him "the most important - and most entertaining - visionary scholar in America."
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(1994) True Hallucinations
Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise
This mesmerizing, surreal account of the bizarre adventures of Terence McKenna, his brother Dennis, and a small band of their friends, is a wild ride of exotic experience and scientific inquiry. Exploring the Amazon Basin in search of mythical shamanic hallucinogens, they encounter a host of unusual characters -- including a mushroom, a flying saucer, pirate Mantids from outer space, an appearance by James and Nora Joyce in the guise of poultry, and translinguistic matter -- and discover the missing link in the development of human consciousness and language.
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III. Archives (126)
All audio and video in this archive are between
30 minutes and 11 hours
(1982) Terence McKenna - Exploring The Abyss [Audio]
(1982) Terence McKenna - New and Old Maps of Hyperspace [Audio]
(1982) Terence McKenna - Psilocybin and The Sands of Time [Audio]
(1982) Terence McKenna - The Definitive UFO Tape [Audio]
(1982) Terence McKenna - Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness [Audio]
(1983) Terence McKenna - Alien Luv [Audio]
(1983) Terence McKenna - The Syntax of Psychedelic Time [Audio]
(1983) Terence McKenna - Towards The Unknown [Audio]
(1983) Terence McKenna - Voynich Manuscript [Audio]
(1985) Terence McKenna - Cauldron Chemistry [Audio]
(1986) Terence McKenna - The Rites of Spring [Audio]
(1987) Terence McKenna - Nature Is The Center Of The Mandala [Audio]
(1987) Terence McKenna - Shamanic Approaches to the UFO [Video]
(1987) Terence McKenna - The Psychedelic Society [Video]
(1987) Terence McKenna - What's So Great About Mushrooms? [Audio]
(1988) Riane Eisler and Terence McKenna - Man And Woman At The End Of History [Audio]
(1988) Terence McKenna and Ralph Metzner - Shamanism: Before and Beyond History [Audio]
(1988) Terence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake - Forms and Mysteries [Video]
(1988) Terence McKenna - A Tribute To Albert Hofmann [Audio]
(1988) Terence McKenna - The Ethnobotany of Shamanism [Audio]
(1988) Terence McKenna - Thinking Allowed - Hallucinogens and Culture [Video]
(1988) Terence McKenna - Thinking Allowed - Time and the I-Ching [Video]
(1988) Terence McKenna - Visions Plants [Audio]
(1989) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Cast of Characters [Audio]
(1989) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - The World Soul [Audio]
(1989) Terence McKenna and Nicole Maxwell - Amazonian Shamanism [Audio]
(1989) Terence McKenna - Gaia's Midlife Crisis [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Chaos and Imagination [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Creativity and Chaos [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Entities [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Light and Vision [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - The Apocalypse [Audio]
(1990) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - The Unconscious [Audio]
(1990) Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna - Lecture in Maryland [Video]
(1990) Terence McKenna - Experiment At Petaluma [Video]
(1990) Terence McKenna - History Ends In Green [Audio]
(1990) Terence McKenna - Opening the Doors of Creativity [Video]
(1990) Terence McKenna - The World Could Be Anything [Audio]
(1990) Terence McKenna - Thinking Allowed - Aliens and Archetypes [Video]
(1991) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Cannabis [Audio]
(1991) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Crop Circles [Audio]
(1991) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Gender Issues [Audio]
(1991) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Grassroots Science [Audio]
(1991) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Saving The World [Audio]
(1991) Terence McKenna - Address To The Jung Society [Audio]
(1991) Terence McKenna - Reviving The Archaic: A New View of Evolution [Audio]
(1991) Terence McKenna - Seeking the Stone [Video]
(1991) Terence McKenna - Unfolding The Stone [Audio]
(1992) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Crop Circles Report [Audio]
(1992) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - The Heavens [Audio]
(1992) Terence McKenna - Exploring The Hermetic Tradition [Audio]
(1992) Terence McKenna - Hermeticism And Alchemy [Audio]
(1992) Terence McKenna - Search For The Original Tree Of Knowledge [Audio]
(1993) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Hazelwood House [Audio]
(1993) Terence McKenna and Zuvuya - Dream Matrix Telemetry [Audio]
(1993) Terence McKenna w/Spacetime Continuum - Alien Dreamtime [Text]
(1993) Terence McKenna w/Spacetime Continuum - Alien Dreamtime [Video]
(1993) Terence McKenna - Finding Your Purpose, Turn Your Back On Culture and Ideology [Audio]
(1993) Terence McKenna - Prague Gnosis Dialogues [Video]
(1993) Terence McKenna - Taxonomy of Illusion [Video]
(1993) Terence McKenna - True Hallucinations (Audiobook) [Audio]
(1993) Terence McKenna - Weekend Workshop, Esalen [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna, Rob Montgomery, Jonathan Ott - Salvia Divinorum [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna and Zuvuya - Shamania [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Conversations At The Edge Of Magic [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Eros and The Eschaton [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Language About The Unspeakable [Video]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Megatripolis Club, London [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Speaking The Unspeakable [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Starwood (Packing For The Long Strange Trip) [Audio]
(1994) Terence McKenna - The World and Its Double [Video]
(1994) Terence McKenna - Workshop, Esalen [Audio]
(1995) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Metamorphosis [Video]
(1995) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - Trialogue - Santa Cruz [Audio]
(1995) Terence McKenna and Christian Ratsch - Unfolding The Leaf [Audio]
(1995) Terence McKenna - Evolving Times [Video]
(1995) Terence McKenna - Plants, Consciousness, and Transformation [Audio]
(1995) Terence McKenna - State Of The Stone [Audio]
(1995) Terence McKenna - Surfing Finnegan's Wake [Audio]
(1995) Terence McKenna - TimeWave Zero [Video]
(1996) Terence McKenna - Light of 3rd Millenium, Austin, TX [Audio]
(1996) Terence McKenna - Light of 3rd Millenium, Chicago [Audio]
(1996) Terence McKenna - The Winter King [Audio]
(1996) Terence McKenna - Toward The End Of History [Video]
(1997) Terence McKenna - Appreciating Imagination [Audio]
(1997) Terence McKenna - Terence McKenna Speaks: Mind States Conference [Text]
(1997) Terence McKenna - TimeWave Zero - Interview with Art Bell [Audio]
(1998) Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake - The Evolutionary Mind [Video]
(1998) Terence McKenna and Mark Pesce - Techno-Pagans at The End of History [Audio]
(1998) Terence McKenna - Dreaming Awake At The End Of Time [Video]
(1998) Terence McKenna - Final Earthbound Interview [Video]
(1998) Terence McKenna - In The Valley of Novelty [Audio]
(1998) Terence McKenna - Logos Meets Eros (Wetlands NYC) [Audio]
(1998) Terence McKenna - The Psychedelic Experience - Interview with Art Bell [Audio]
(1999) Terence McKenna - April Fool's Y2K - Interview with Art Bell [Audio]
(1999) Terence McKenna - Entheobotany Seminar [Audio]
(1999) Terence McKenna - Linear Societies and Nonlinear Drugs [Audio]
(1999) Terence McKenna - Terence Says Goodbye - Interview with Art Bell [Audio]
(1999) Terence McKenna - The Last Word [Video]
(2000) Druce Damer and Terence McKenna - Virtual Worlds [Audio]
(2008) Terence McKenna - The Alchemical Dream [Video]
(2012) The Terence McKenna Omnibus 2012 [Video]
Terence McKenna, Rudy Rucker, Robert Anton Wilson - Manual of Evasion LX94 [Video]
Terence McKenna - Ayahuasca And It's Recipes [Audio]
Terence McKenna - Gaia, Psychedelics, and The Archaic Revival [Audio]
Terence McKenna - Love and The End of Time [Audio]
Terence McKenna - The Angel In The Monkey [Audio]
Terence McKenna - Vertigo at History's Edge [Audio]
Current, Total Incidents of Censorship: 15
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