Page 11 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2012

The Man Behind the Dec 21 2012 Scare The Man Behind the Amazon, McKenna also became romantically in joint workshops and symposia with them. He December 21 2012 Scare involved with his translator, Ev. was a personal friend of Tom Robbins, and In 1972, McKenna returned to Berkeley influenced the thought of many scientists, to finish his studies. There he decided to switch writers, artists, and entertainers. His influences majors to a Bachelor of Science in ecology and include comedian Bill Hicks, whose routines conservation, in a then new experimental about psychedelic drugs drew heavily from section of the same university called the McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for Tussman Experimental College. During his the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby. studies, he would also develop techniques for In addition to psychedelic drugs, cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis. McKenna spoke on the subjects of virtual In 1975, he parted with his girlfriend, reality, which he saw as a way to artistically Ev, when she left him for one of his friends from communicate the experience of psychedelics; Berkeley. Their parting left him "tormented techno-paganism; artificial intelligence; with migraines and living alone". He graduated evolution; extraterrestrials; and aesthetic theory, in 1975. That same year, he began a relationship specifically about art/visual experience as with Kathleen Harrison, whom he had met in information representing the significance of Jerusalem. hallucinatory visions experienced under the TERENCE Soon after graduating, McKenna and influence of psychedelics. co-founded McKenna In 1985, McKENNA Dennis published a book inspired by their Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching. He also Kathleen, a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in TERENCE KEMP McKENNA (November began lecturing. The brothers' experiences in Hawaii, where he lived for many years before 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American the Amazon would later play a major role in he died. In 1997 he and Kathleen divorced. philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, McKenna's book True Hallucinations, Before moving to Hawaii permanently, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as published in 1993. In 1976, the brothers McKenna split his time between Hawaii and human consciousness, language, psychedelic published what they had learned about the Occidental, located in the redwood-studded drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin cultivation of mushrooms in a book entitled hills of Sonoma County, California. and end of the universe, alchemy, and Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide extraterrestrial beings. under the pseudonyms "OT Oss" and "ON The Death of Terence McKenna Oeric". The Early Life of Terence McKenna A longtime sufferer of migraines, in Studying and traveling The Later Years of Terence McKenna mid-1999 McKenna returned to his home on the big island of Hawaii after a long lecturing tour. In 1965, McKenna enrolled in the In the early 1980s, McKenna began to He began to suffer from increasingly painful University of California, Berkeley to study art speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic headaches. This culminated in three brain history. In 1967, while in college, he discovered drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting seizures in one night, which he claimed were the and begun studying shamanism through the weekend workshops. Though associated with most powerful psychedelic experiences he had study of Tibetan folk religion. That year, which the New Age and human potential movements, ever known. Upon his emergency trip to the he called his "opium and kabbala phase" he also McKenna himself had little patience for New hospital on Oahu, Terence was diagnosed with traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive importance and primacy of felt experience, as form of brain cancer. For the next several Harrison, who would later become his wife. opposed to dogma. Timothy Leary once months he underwent various treatments, In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led introduced him as "one of the five or six most including experimental gamma knife radiation by his "interest in Tibetan painting and important people on the planet." treatment. According to Wired magazine, hallucinogenic shamanism." During his time He soon became a fixture of popular McKenna was worried that his tumour was there, he studied the Tibetan language and counterculture. His growing popularity caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis; worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his culminated in the early-to-mid-1990s with the though his doctors assured him there was no Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands publication of several books: True causal relation. of U. S. Customs." He was forced to move to Hallucinations, relating the tale of his 1971 La In late 1999, Erik Davis conducted what avoid capture by Interpol. He wandered through Chorrera experience; Food of the Gods; and The would be the last interview of McKenna.During Southeast Asia viewing ruins, collected Archaic Revival. He became a popular the interview McKenna also talked about the butterflies in Indonesia, and worked as an personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene announcement of his death: English teacher in Tokyo. He then went back to of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word “I always thought death would come on Berkeley to continue studying biology, which performances at raves and contributions to the freeway in a few horrifying moments, so he called "his first love". psychedelic and goa trance albums by The you'd have no time to sort it out. Having months After the partial completion of his Shamen, Spacetime Continuum, Alien Project, and months to look at it and think about it and studies, and his mother's death from cancer in Capsula, Entheogenic, Zuvuya, Shpongle, and talk to people and hear what they have to say, 1971,[7] McKenna, his brother Dennis, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, it's a kind of blessing. It's certainly an three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a opportunity to grow up and get a grip and sort in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation speaker at the Starwood Festival, documented it all out. Just being told by an unsmiling guy in containing Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Instead in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes. His a white coat that you're going to be dead in four of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of lectures were produced on both cassette tape months definitely turns on the lights. ... It makes ayahuasca, or yagé, and gigantic psilocybe and CD. life rich and poignant. When it first happened, cubensis which became the new focus of the McKenna was a colleague of chaos and I got these diagnoses, I could see the light expedition.In La Chorrera, at the urging of his mathematician Ralph Abraham, and biologist of eternity, a la William Blake, shining through brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic Rupert Sheldrake, creator of the theory of every leaf. I mean, a bug walking across the experiment which he claimed put him in contact "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with ground moved me to tears.” with "Logos": an informative, divine voice he the mainstream usage of the same term. He McKenna died on April 3, 2000, at the believed was universal to visionary religious conducted several public debates known as age of 53, with his loved ones at his bedside. He experience. The voice's reputed revelations and trialogues with them from the late 1980s until is survived by his brother Dennis, his son Finn, his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience his death. Books containing transcriptions of and his daughter Klea. prompted him to explore the structure of an some of these events were published. He was early form of the I Ching, which led to his also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, "Novelty Theory". During their stay in the Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating (Continued on Page 12)