Celebrating the Legacy of Terence McKenna and the Revival of Psychedelic Shamanism

Anyone who has had the opportunity to listen to the late ethnobotanist Terence McKenna rant for a few hours knows what it means to be truly spellbound. 

During popular public lectures, Terence spoke eloquently about such far-reaching and broad-ranging topics as the role of psychedelic mushrooms in human evolution, the possibility that magic mushrooms contain an alien intelligence, UFOs, and the “end of time.”

Had almost anyone else tried talking about the subjects that interested Terence, surely they would have sounded completely mad, yet somehow Terence could pull it off, and make it all sound plausible.

Terence had almost supernatural charm and wit; he was the most mesmerizing, silver-tongued, storyteller that I ever encountered. 

Terence was the first person that I ever interviewed in my career as a writer, and I was really sad when he died in 1999.

When I asked Terence what he thought the ultimate goal of human evolution was, he replied, “Oh, a good party.”

Videos of Terence’s many wonderful talks can easily be found online.

Recently, Terence’s younger brother Dennis completed his long-awaited autobiography, which largely focuses on his relationship with Terence, entitled The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss.

I simply could not put this incredible book down! Everyone who has ever felt connected to Terence’s work in particular, or to psychedelic exploration in general, will cherish this magnificent story.

The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss fills in many of the missing gaps from the now, near-legendary stories that Terence frequently told years ago, about the McKenna brother’s famous “experiment at La Correera” (which was the basis for Terence’s book True Hallucinations).

Additionally, Dennis provides a valuable, more grounded and more scientific perspective (and retrospective) on their many psychedelic voyages, and the “funny ideas” that resulted.

Dennis shares the fascinating story of his own life--as a neuroscientist, botanist, and researcher--and he captures the magical gestalt of how the two brothers’ lives intertwined with one another, from the childhoods that they shared, to the day when Terence parted from this world.

Dennis fearlessly explores numerous unconventional ideas about novelty and time, ayahuasca use in the Amazon, non-human intelligence, and the titanic mysteries embodied within DMT and psilocybin experiences, sometimes challenging the scientific validity of his brother’s theories.

Although less in the spotlight than his brother, Dennis is unquestionably as brilliant as Terence was, and many of Terence’s well-known ideas grew out of conversations that the two brothers had together.

It’s simply a delight to read Dennis’ alternative perspective on many of the strange events that Terence made famous, to learn details that Terence left out, and to hear Dennis’ take on the events that occurred.

Dennis’s honesty, and his writing style felt extremely personal to me, like he was sitting right next to me telling the story. As I read his words, I could hear the sound of his voice.

Dennis and Terence complimented one another intellectually, with Terence being more the poet, and Dennis being more the scientist--although both have gifted poetic and scientific abilities, and both are brave explorers of the unknown. 

The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss will be treasured by everyone who appreciates the magnificent ideas and visions that the McKenna brothers have shared with our world. 

An in-depth interview that I recently did with Dennis, will appear in my next book, Renascence of the Mind. 

Here are few snippets from our conversation.

I asked Dennis, what initially drew him and Terence to the Amazon in the early 1970s.

Dennis said, “It goes back to DMT. Our experiences with DMT in California were with the synthetic freebase form of DMT, which we thought was totally amazing, but...is...very quick.”

”The effects pass away extremely rapidly, and there’s very little opportunity to integrate or to understand what is going on...”

“So we thought that if you could somehow prolong your state in the DMT dimension, if you want to call it that, for longer than the usual ten minutes...”

“...then we could navigate around better, and get a better understanding of what was going on, instead of this overwhelming impression of beauty and bizarre weirdness. 

I asked Dennis if he saw psychedelics playing a role in helping increase ecological awareness.

He replied, “I do... I think that this is what is probably going on, and it’s not just with ayahuasca--it’s all of these psychedelic plants that are used in shamanic traditions.” 

When I asked Dennis about his thoughts on what happens to consciousness after death, he said:

“It could be that the brain is more...like a radio tuner for something that’s kind of everywhere in the continuum. And I think, if that’s what consciousness is, then the idea that it persists after death is certainly much more plausible...”

“I think that, if there’s a pharmacological analog for the death experience, I think psychedelics are it, and especially DMT.”

“We know that DMT exists in the human brain, and that it may have important functions at certain stages of development.”

”One of them being at the moment of death, when the stressors that are expressed on the organism, and on the brain at the moment may cause a massive release of DMT, and other neural chemicals in the brain that, in some sense, simulates the near-death experiences, or actually is the near-death experience.”

An excerpt from my interview with Dennis can be found here:

http://mavericksofthemind.com/dennis-mckenna-ph-d

Dennis recently appeared as a guest on comedian Joe Rogan’s popular podcast show, which can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/55907901 

To learn more about  Dennis’ new book see: http://brotherhoodofthescreamingabyss.com/

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