Terence McKenna (1946-2000)
* * *
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.
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.
Resources
Books
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History
The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching
Video Archive
(1987) Terence McKenna – Shamanic Approaches to the UFO.avi
(1987) The Psychedelic Society.avi
(1988) Terence McKenna & Rupert Sheldrake – Forms and Mysteries.avi
(1988) Thinking Allowed – Hallucinogens and Culture.avi
(1988) Thinking Allowed – Time and the I Ching.avi
(1990) Experiment At Petaluma.mpg
(1990) Lecture in Maryland – Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Terence McKenna
(1990) Terence Mckenna – Opening the Doors of Creativity
(1990) Terence McKenna – Thinking Allowed – Aliens and Archetypes
(1991) Terence McKenna – Seeking the Stone.avi
(1993) Terence McKenna – Taxonomy of Illusion.avi
(1993) Terence McKenna greets Tim Leary – Digital in SF.flv
(1993) Terence McKenna with Spacetime Continuum – Alien Dreamtime.avi
(1993) Prague Gnosis – Terence McKenna Dialogues
(1993) Terence McKenna's Final Earthbound Interview – Reality Sandwich
(1994) The World and Its Double
(1994) Terence McKenna – Sightings TV Show – Timewave Zero.flv
(1995) Metamorphosis.avi
(1995) Terence McKenna – Evolving Times
(1995) TimeWave Zero – Sound Photosynthesis.avi
(1996) Terence at Rustlers, South Africa.avi
(1996) Terence McKenna – Rustlers Walk.avi
(1997) Terence McKenna – Sydney, Australia.avi
(1998) Terence McKenna with Lost at Last
(1998) The Evolutionary Mind – McKenna, Abraham, Sheldrake
(1999) Shamans of the Amazon & The Last Word
(1999) Terence McKenna – Shamans Among the Machines
(1999) Terence McKenna – Psychedelics In The Age Of Intelligent Machines.avi
(2001) Millennium Tour – Alien Dimensions.flv
(2001) Millennium Tour – Terence McKenna The Psychedellic Shaman.flv
(2003) Strange Attractor
(2006) TechnoCalyps – Part II – Preparing for the Singularity.avi
(2007) 2012 The Odyssey.avi
(2008) The Alchemical Dream.avi
(2008) Timewave 2013.avi
(2009) Cognition Factor with Terence & Dennis McKenna
(2009) Manifesting the Mind.avi
2011 Terence McKenna Video Archive:
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6481538/The_Terence_McKenna_Video_Archive_(2011)
2011 Terence McKenna Audio Archive:
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6493590/The_Terence_McKenna_Audio_Archive_(2011)
Many of Terence McKenna's audio and video files are also available on YouTube.
Websites
http://2012wiki.com/index.php?title=Novelty_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna
http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/mckenna_terence/mckenna_terence.shtml
http://www.levity.com/eschaton/tm.html
http://www.well.com/user/dpd/botdim.html
The purpose of presenting this information is to provide an index of resources, should one choose to seek entheogens and/or shamanism. I highly recommend studying the works of Terence McKenna for anyone interested in these two fields. Shamanism and entheogens are intricately connected, and McKenna shows how.
* * *
JUST AWESOME
Well done and so complete ~ much food for thought here!
THANKS!
DEFENDING SHAMANISM
Thank you LOGOS!
I hope that by copying and pasting the following, I will address some concerns regarding the connections between entheogens and shamanism. Remember that an entheogen is a psychoactive substance used in the context of religious/spiritual rituals/mindsets/orientations.
People fear what they do not understand, so I am trying to explain this as clearly as I can (the clearest way is to experience for yourself).
Please do not attack me and my system of spirituality, especially if you do not understand it.
In The Work,
~Green Moon~
* * *
FROM PART VI – SHAMANIC TECHNIQUES[A]
–
Arguments Against the Validity of Drug-Induced Religious Experiences
Five major arguments have been advanced against the idea that drug experiences can be truly religious or mystical. [1][2]
1) Some drug experiences are clearly anything but mystical and beneficial.
2) The experiences induced by drugs may actually be different from those of genuine mystics.
3) A theological position argues that mystical rapture is a gift from God that can never be brought under mere human control.
4) Drug-induced experiences are too quick and easy and could therefore hardly be identical to those hard-won by years of contemplative discipline.
5) Aftereffects of drug-induced experiences may be different, less beneficial, and less long-lasting than those of contemplatives.
There are possible answers to each of these concerns. Let’s consider them in sequences.
1) There is no doubt whatsoever that some, in fact most, drug experiences are anything but mystical. According to Huston Smith[1]:
There are, of course, innumerable drug experiences that have no religious features; they can be sensual as readily as spiritual, trivial as readily as transforming, capricious as readily as sacramental. If there is one point about which every student agrees, it is that there is no such thing as the drug experience per se … This of course proves that not all drug experiences are religious; it does not that no drug experiences are religious.[Emphasis Added]
2) Are drug and natural mystical states experientially the same? Smith concludes that “descriptively drug experiences cannot be distinguished from their natural religious counterparts”[1]. In philosophical terms, drug and natural mystical experiences can be phenomenologically (experientially) indistinguishable.
The most dramatic experiment affirming this was the “Harvard Good Friday study”, also known as “the miracle of Marsh Chapel”. In this study, divinity students and professors were placed in a highly supportive setting – Harvard University’s Marsh Chapel during a Good Friday service – and given either the psychedelic psilocybin or a placebo. Several psilocybin subjects reported “mystical experiences” that researchers could not distinguish from those of mystics throughout the centuries[3].
Perhaps the people best equipped to decide whether drug and contemplatively induced mystical experiences might be the same are those who have had both. Such people are obviously few and far between. However, several spiritual teachers and scholars concluded from their personal experience that they can be identical[4][5][Emphasis Added].
3) The third argument – that mystical rapture if a gift from God that could never be brought under human control – will only seem plausible to people who hold very specific theological beliefs. It would hardly be regarded as valid by religions such as Buddhism, for example, that do not believe in an all-powerful god. Nor, presumably, would it appeal to those theists who believe more in the power of good works than of grace.
4) The complain that drug experiences are too easy to be genuine is readily understandable. After all, it hardly seems fair that a contemplative should labor for decades for a sip of what the drug user may effortlessly swim in for hours. However, unfair or not, if the states are experientially identical, then the fact that they are due to different causes may be irrelevant. Technically, this is called “the principal of causal indifference”[6]. Simply stated, this means that subjectively identical experiences can be produced by multiple causes.
5) The final argument against the equivalence of drug and natural mystical states in that they can have different long-term effects. Specifically, drug experiences may result in beneficial transformations of personality and behavior that are less enduring. Once again Huston Smith put the case eloquently: “Drugs appear to induce religious experiences: it is less evident that they can produce religious lives”[1].
* * *
[A] Walsh, Roger, MD, PhD, THE WORLD OF SHAMANISM: NEW VIEWS OF AN ANCIENT TRADITION, Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, MN, 2011.
[1] Smith, Huston, Do drugs have religious import?, JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, LXI, 1964, p. 517-530.
[2] Smith, Huston., CLEANSING THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION: THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF ENTHEOGENIC PLANTS AND CHEMICALS, Tarcher/Penguin Putnam, New York, 2000.
[3] Doblin, R., Pahnke’s “Good Friday Experiment”: A long-term follow up and methodological critique, JOURNAL OF TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY, 23, 1991, p. 1-28.
[4] Walsh, Roger, Psychedelics and psychological well-being, JOUNRAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY, 22, 1982, p. 22-32.
[5] Grob, Charles and Walsh, Roger (Eds.), HIGHER WISDOM: EMINENT ELDERS EXPLORE THE CONTINUING IMPACT OF PSYCHEDELICS, State University of New York Press, New York, 2005.
[6] Stace, W., MYSTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY, Jeremy P. Tarcher Publishing, Los Angeles, 1987.
The Copyright Act of 1976 affirms the legality of reproducing this material under the Fair Use clause. It is being presented in this medium for the purposes of scholarship and religious research.
” Drugs are but another mask
" Drugs are but another mask hiding the true, underlying way to God…" – Paul Twitchell
Hi Green Moon.
Hi Green Moon.
Though I personally don't agree with Mekenna's methods, I found this to be an infomative and interesting read nonetheless. Thanks for doing all the research to present it.
Hey Grave Digger!
Hey Grave Digger!
Thank you for your comment. I never ask anyone to completely "agree" with what I post – I learn a lot from opposing perspectives. This is being presented because this perspective is actively being silenced because it does not fit into a specific "world view". There is always another side to the coin as the saying goes.
~Green Moon~
Hi Green Moon.
Hi Green Moon.
I understand completely why you would post something that goes against mainstream thought. I, too, find it somewhat enjoyable to play the role of 'Devil's Advocate' sometimes. 🙂
Peace.
the studies are irrelevent,
the studies are irrelevent, drugs do not create spiritual experiences at all, and there is NO comparison between the two in any way. i know, ive had thousands of each.
Hey Shabda!
Hey Shabda!
Thank you for your comment. On the opposite end of the philosophy I have posted, is the view that these experiences are invalid and not genuine. I appreciate your willingness to share your views and respect them, even if I disagree with them.
That being said, I, myself, have had many religious experiences that were assisted with religious sacraments, and many religious experiences that were not. And in other times, I have found sacraments have assisted the religious experience which initiated on its own, organically, without chemicals. The road goes both ways.
I understand why you are stating that these spiritual practices are invalid and am mature enough not to take offense at that position. I hope we can continue to have constructive conversations.
🙂
~Green Moon~
In light of strong interest
In light of strong interest in this subject, I have decided to publish the two related groups I have been working on a little early. It is bare bones right now but will be filled in with time. If you are interested in more specifics, I suggest you check out the following.
Thank you again, everyone, for your comments! 🙂
Group – Entheogens
http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/content/entheogens-green-moon
Group – Shamanism
http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/content/shamanism-green-moon