Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna
Full name Terence Kemp McKenna
Born November 16, 1946(1946-11-16)
Paonia, Colorado, United States
Died April 3, 2000(2000-04-03) (aged 53)
Hawaii, United States
Era 20th century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Metaphysics, phenomenology
Main interests shamanism, ethnobotany, metaphysics, psychedelic drugs and plants, futurism, primitivism, environmentalism, consciousness, phenomenology, historical revisionism, evolution, ontology, Mind at Large, virtual reality, dominator culture, criticizing science, the Logos
Notable ideas novelty theory, "stoned ape" hypothesis, Machine elf, psychedelic exopheromones, the "felt presence of direct experience"

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American author, public speaker, metaphysician, psychonaut, philosopher, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, Platonist and skeptic.[1] During his lifetime he was noted for his knowledge of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, mysticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, biology, geology, physics, phenomenology, and his concept of novelty theory.[2]

Contents

Biography

Early life

Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado.[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, and attended high school in, Los Altos, California.[3] He lived 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[3] and the Village Voice.[5]

One of his early experiences with them came through morning glory seeds (containing LSA), which he claimed showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing."[3]

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[6] and tried LSD soon after.

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.

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.[7]

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-hé, a plant preparation containing DMT. Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca (also known as "yagé") and gigantic psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition.[7] 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.[7] 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".[7] 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.[8] Timothy Leary once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet".[9]

“ 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", [10]

He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture, and his popularity continued to grow, culminating in the early to mid 1990's 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).[11]

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.[12]

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 a town called 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.

Last interview

Erik Davis, author of the book TechGnosis, conducted what would be the last interview with McKenna in October and early November 1999. This interview was held in preparation for a profile featured in Wired Magazine in 2000, entitled "Terence McKenna's Last Trip."[13] Erik Davis later published larger excerpts from this interview at his site, techgnosis.com, and the recorded interview has also been released on CD. Commenting on the reality of his own death, McKenna said during the interview:

“

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.[14]

 ”

Death

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. He 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.

The 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 Institute storing the collection. An index maintained by his brother Dennis survives, though little else.

Ideas

“ There are these things, which I call "self transforming machine elves," I also call them self-dribbling basketballs. They are, but they are none of these things. I mean you have to understand: these are metaphors in the truest sense, meaning that they're lies! [...] I name them 'Tykes' because tyke is a word that means to me a small child, ... and when you burst into the DMT space this is the Aeon - it's a child, and it's at play with colored balls, and I am in eternity, apparently, in the presence of this thing. ”

—Terence McKenna, "Time and Mind", [15]

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 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 monotheism), he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual to encounter what could be aliens, ancestors, or spirits of earth.[8] He remained opposed to most forms of organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening.

Philosophically and religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gnostic Christianity, Alfred North Whitehead, Alchemy, and James Joyce (calling Finnegans Wake "the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century").[16]

The "Stoned Ape" hypothesis of human evolution

McKenna hypothesized that as the North African jungles receded and gave way to savannas and grasslands near the end of the most recent ice age, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the forest canopy and began to live in the open areas outside of the forest. There they experimented with new varieties of foods as they adapted, physically and mentally, to their new environment.

Among the new food items found in this new environment were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing near the dung of ungulate herds that occupied the savannas and grasslands at that time. McKenna, referencing the research of Roland L. Fisher,[17][18][19][20] claimed that enhancement of visual acuity was an effect of psilocybin at low doses, and supposed that this would have conferred an adaptive advantage. He also argued that the effects of slightly larger doses, including sexual arousal, and in still larger doses, ecstatic hallucinations and glossolalia — gave selective evolutionary advantages to members of those tribes who partook of it. There were many changes caused by the introduction of this psychoactive mushroom to the primate diet. McKenna hypothesizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed psilocybin-containing mushrooms from the human diet. McKenna argued that this event resulted in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to the previous brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.

Novelty theory and Time Wave Zero Point

See 2012 phenomena

One of McKenna's ideas is known as novelty theory. It predicts the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe as an inherent quality of time. McKenna developed the theory in the mid-1970s after his experiences in the Amazon at La Chorrera led him to closely study the King Wen sequence of the I-Ching. Novelty theory involves ontology, extropy, and eschatology.

The theory proposes that the universe is an engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty. Novelty, in this context, can be thought of as newness, or extropy (a term coined by Max More meaning the opposite of entropy). According to McKenna, when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal waveform known as "timewave zero" or simply the "timewave" results. The graph shows at what time periods, but never at what locations, novelty increases or decreases and is supposed to represent a model of history's most important events.

Software for viewing Time Wave Zero was written by R.J. Pease, but was replaced by a Fortran version which appears in The Invisible Landscape.

The algorithm has also been extrapolated to be a model for future events. McKenna admitted to the expectation of a "singularity of novelty", and that he and his colleagues projected into the future to find when this singularity (runaway "newness" or extropy) could occur. Millenarians give more credence to Novelty theory as a way to predict the future (especially regarding 2012) than McKenna himself. The graph of extropy had many enormous fluctuations over the last 25,000 years, but it hits an asymptote in the middle of November, 2012. After his discovery of other doomsday theories that would take place on exactly December 21, 2012, he simply bumped up the date of "doomsday".[21] This statement is contested, however, by McKenna's own mouth when during a lecture he said,

“ An astonishing thing about the date I arrived at, by this method is that it's the same date that the Mayan civilization appointed for the end of its calendar. In all eternity ... You know, you may choose not to believe that I didn't know this when I made this prediction. But I didn't, know it! I didn't. Yet I chose not the month, not the same year - the same day, month and year.[22] ”

In other words, entropy (or habituation) no longer exists after that date. It is impossible to define that state. This is also the date on which the Mayan long calendar ends one cycle through the zodiac signs, then it begins a new 26,000 year cycle through the next era, or the Age of Peace. The technological singularity concept parallels this, only at a date roughly three decades later.

Author Steve Wilson has stated that his reluctance to accept this technological endpoint was shattered when reading of the Adam robot experiment's success. Since endpoint theory needs the creation of machines that can design and program other machines for the final stages to be possible, this experiment is a major step towards practical artificial intelligence.

Bibliography

Spoken word

Discography

See also

References

  1. ↑ McKenna, Terrence (1992). The Archaic Revival. Harper Collins Publishers. p. 12. ISBN 9780062506149. 
  2. ↑ Watkins, Matthew. "Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination?". http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/autopsy.html. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Terence McKenna Interview, Part 1. Tripzine.com. Accessed on April 26, 2007.
  4. ↑ McKenna, Terence. "Under The Teaching Tree" Ojai Foundation, Upper Ojai, California (Unknown (1985)).
  5. ↑ Erowid Terence McKenna Vault: The High Times Interview. Accessed on April 26, 2007.
  6. ↑ "Terence McKenna, 53, Dies; Patron of Psychedelics". Cannabis News. 2000-04-09. http://cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5337.shtml. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise. Terence McKenna, 1993.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "The Invisible Landscape (lecture)". Terence Mckenna. http://www.futurehi.net/media/McKenna_The_Invisible_Landscape_1-A.mp3. 
  9. ↑ Introduction by Timothy Leary to "Unfolding the Stone" lecture by Terence McKenna
  10. ↑ Terence McKenna. (1993-09-11). This World...and Its Double. Mill Valley, California: Sound Photosynthesis. 
  11. ↑ Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures by Charles Hayes. Accessed on April 26, 2007.
  12. ↑ "Twin Peaks (1990) - Trivia". IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/trivia. 
  13. ↑ Wired 8.05: Terence McKenna's Last Trip
  14. ↑ Terence McKenna Vs. the Black Hole: by Erik Davis
  15. ↑ McKenna, Terence (May 1990). "Time and Mind". - Partial transcription of a taped workshop held in New Mexico. The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension (deoxy.org). http://deoxy.org/timemind.htm. 
  16. ↑ "Surfing Finnegans Wake". Terence Mckenna. http://www.lancerules.com/terence/finneganswake.mp3. 
  17. ↑ Fischer, Roland & Richard M. Hill - "Interpretation of visual space under drug-induced ergotropic and trophotropic arousal" - Journal: Inflammation Research Issue Volume 2, Number 3 / November, 1971 (Publisher Birkhäuser Basel) ISSN 1023-3830 (Print) 1420-908X (Online),
  18. ↑ Fischer, Roland & R. Hill, K. Thatcher & J. Scheib - "Psilocybin-induced contraction of nearby visual space" - Journal Inflammation Research Issue, Volume 1, Number 4 / August, 1970 (Publisher Birkhäuser Basel) ISSN 1023-3830 (Print) 1420-908X (Online)
  19. ↑ Fischer, Roland L. (Ph.D.) "The Realities of Hallucinogenic Drugs: A Compendium" - Criminology, Volume 4 Issue 3 Page 2-15, November 1966 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd)
  20. ↑ Fischer, Roland L. (Ph.D.) - "A Cartography of the Ecstatic and Meditative States" - Science, November 26th, 1971
  21. ↑ Lawrence E. Joseph "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End" Morgan Road Books/Random House, New York, 2007. p. 204
  22. ↑ Terrence McKenna (flv). Terence McKenna Timewave Zero 2012 Prophecy Uncovered. [Lecture]. Youtube. Event occurs at 2m 20s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_sXerYU1E8. Retrieved 9-3-2009. 

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