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92-419: Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946–April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants . He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs , plant-based entheogens , shamanism , metaphysics , alchemy , language , philosophy , culture , technology , ethnomycology , environmentalism , and

184-538: A gene bank of rare plants near his home. Previously, he had split his time between Hawaii and Occidental, CA . McKenna was a longtime sufferer of migraines , but on 22 May 1999 he began to have unusually extreme and painful headaches . He then collapsed due to a seizure . McKenna 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. According to Wired magazine, McKenna

276-515: A 120-year-old bean collection and found 0.6% bufotenin with no DMT or 5-MeO-DMT present at all. They also examined a batch of beans that contained all three compounds when fresh, but found only bufotenin in the beans after only two years of storage . When taken orally by some tribes in South America, small amounts are often combined with alcoholic chichas ( maize beer ). Moderate doses are unpleasant, producing nausea and vomiting. The beans were

368-466: A Nabokov lecturer if he had never encountered psychedelics. McKenna's hypothesis concerning the influence of psilocybin mushrooms on human evolution is known as "the 'stoned ape' theory." In his 1992 book Food of the Gods , McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly involved the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in

460-569: A bug walking across the ground moved me to tears. McKenna died on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53. McKenna's library of over 3,000 rare books and personal notes was destroyed in a fire in Monterey , California on February 7, 2007. An index of McKenna's library was preserved by his brother Dennis. McKenna studied Lepidoptera and entomology in the 1960s, and his studies included hunting for butterflies, primarily in Colombia and Indonesia , creating

552-534: A collective whole (in the Jungian sense) was creating "strategies for overcoming the condition of disease" and trying to cure itself, by what he termed as "a reversion to archaic values". McKenna pointed to phenomena including surrealism , abstract expressionism , body piercing and tattooing , psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz , experimental dance, rave culture , rock and roll and catastrophe theory , amongst others, as his evidence that this process

644-433: A cure for scurvy (a tea made from the needles of a coniferous tree, likely spruce ) from a local Iroquois tribe. During the medieval period, ethnobotanical studies were often conducted in connection with monasticism . However, most botanical knowledge was kept in gardens, such as physic gardens attached to hospitals and religious buildings. It was thought of in practical use terms for culinary and medical purposes and

736-409: A degree in ecology, shamanism , and conservation of natural resources . In the autumn of 1975, after parting with his girlfriend Ev earlier in the year, McKenna began a relationship with his future wife and the mother of his two children, Kathleen Harrison. Soon after graduating, McKenna and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and

828-609: A fixture of popular counterculture with Timothy Leary once introducing him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet" and with comedian Bill Hicks ' referencing him in his stand-up act and building an entire routine around his ideas. McKenna also 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. In 1994 he appeared as

920-455: A high percentage of tannins , 587 mg CE/g extract. Archaeological evidence shows Anadenanthera beans have been used as hallucinogens for thousands of years. The oldest clear evidence of use comes from pipes made of puma bone ( Puma concolor ) found with Anadenanthera beans presumably of the sister species A. colubrina , at Inca Cueva, a site in the Humahuaca gorge at the edge of

1012-612: A hobby of fossil-hunting in his youth and from this he acquired a deep scientific appreciation of nature. He also became interested in psychology at a young age, reading Carl Jung 's book Psychology and Alchemy at the age of 14. This was the same age McKenna first became aware of magic mushrooms, when reading an essay titled "Seeking the Magic Mushroom" which appeared in the May 13, 1957 edition of LIFE magazine . At age 16 McKenna moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for

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1104-422: A hundred years if people do biology they will think it quite silly that people once thought that spores could not be blown from one star system to another by cosmic radiation pressure ," and also believed that "few people are in a position to judge its extraterrestrial potential, because few people in the orthodox sciences have ever experienced the full spectrum of psychedelic effects that are unleashed". McKenna

1196-405: 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, à la William Blake , shining through every leaf. I mean,

1288-520: A large collection of insect specimens. After McKenna's death, his daughter, the artist and photographer Klea McKenna , preserved his insect collection, turning it into a gallery installation, then publishing The Butterfly Hunter , a book of 122 insect photos from a set of over 2,000 specimens McKenna collected between 1969 and 1972, alongside maps of his collecting routes through rainforests in Southeast Asia and South America. McKenna's insect collection

1380-750: A long-term commitment and genuine relationship. In Wind in the Blood: Mayan Healing & Chinese Medicine by Garcia et al. the visiting acupuncturists were able to access levels of Mayan medicine that anthropologists could not because they had something to share in exchange. Cherokee medicine priest David Winston describes how his uncle would invent nonsense to satisfy visiting anthropologists. Another scholar, James W. Herrick, who studied under ethnologist William N. Fenton , in his work Iroquois Medical Ethnobotany (1995) with Dean R. Snow (editor), professor of Anthropology at Penn State, explains that understanding herbal medicines in traditional Iroquois cultures

1472-406: A main ingredient in bilca tauri, an oral purge medicine used to induce ritual vomiting once a month. Large amounts are not usually consumed orally as many tribes believe oral use is dangerous. Some South American tribes have been documented to use various bean preparations along with Banisteriopsis caapi , an herb containing monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Typically Banisteriopsis caapi

1564-546: A more radical version of biophysicist Francis Crick 's hypothesis of directed panspermia , McKenna speculated on the idea that psilocybin mushrooms may be a species of high intelligence, which may have arrived on this planet as spores migrating through space and which are attempting to establish a symbiotic relationship with human beings. He postulated that "intelligence, not life, but intelligence may have come here [to Earth ] in this spore-bearing life form". He said, "I think that theory will probably be vindicated. I think in

1656-406: A more well known science. However, the practice of ethnobotany is thought to have much earlier origins in the first century AD when a Greek physician by the name of Pedanius Dioscorides wrote an extensive botanical text detailing the medical and culinary properties of "over 600 mediterranean plants" named De Materia Medica . Historians note that Dioscorides wrote about traveling often throughout

1748-583: A place where psychedelic culture could flourish. Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan , Alfred North Whitehead , Pierre Teilhard de Chardin , Carl Jung , Plato , Gnostic Christianity , and Alchemy , while regarding the Greek philosopher Heraclitus as his favorite philosopher. McKenna also expressed admiration for the works of writers Aldous Huxley , James Joyce , whose book Finnegans Wake he called "the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of

1840-520: A profound visionary experience, believing it is only when "slain" by the power of the mushroom that the message becomes clear. Although McKenna 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". He proposed that DMT sent one to a "parallel dimension" and that psychedelics literally enabled an individual to encounter "higher dimensional entities ", or what could be ancestors , or spirits of

1932-506: A quantity, as tolerance would likely develop before the 12-gram nasal intake could be completed. Individual sensitivity to 5-MeO-DMT varies. It has been documented that the threshold dose in some individuals is as much as 10 mg insufflated requiring over 24 grams of beans for an effective dose of 5-MeO-DMT. At up to 0.16% (1.6 mg per gram) DMT, an effective 40 mg dose of insufflated DMT would require 25 grams or more. Because of its volume, it's likely to be impossible to insufflate

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2024-524: A rye grain substrate ; San Antonio 1971) to the production of Psilocybe [Stropharia] cubensis . The new technique involved the use of ordinary kitchen implements, and for the first time the layperson was able to produce a potent entheogen in his [or her] own home, without access to sophisticated technology, equipment, or chemical supplies." When the 1986 revised edition was published, the Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide had sold over 100,000 copies. In

2116-541: A separate study on psilocybin-induced transformation of visual space , wherein Fischer et al. stated that psilocybin "may not be conducive to the survival of the organism ". There is a lack of scientific evidence that psilocybin increases sexual arousal, and even if it does, it would not necessarily entail an evolutionary advantage. Others have pointed to civilizations such as the Aztecs , who used psychedelic mushrooms (at least among

2208-517: A similar chemical makeup as Anadenanthera peregrina , with their primary constituent being bufotenin . The wood from A. peregrina produces very hard timber that is used for making furniture . It has a Janka rating of 3700 lb. and a density of around 0.86 g/cm . Tannins have also been derived from this plant. The beans (sometimes called seeds) and falling leaves are hallucinogenic and are toxic to cattle . [1] Chemical compounds contained in A. peregrina include: The bark contains

2300-415: A sophisticated perspective on the plant world that contrast strikingly with that of modern medical science. Researcher Cassandra Quave at Emory University has used ethnobotany to address the problems that arise from antibiotic resistance. Quave notes that the advantage of medical ethnobotany over Western medicine rests in the difference in mechanism. For example, elmleaf blackberry extract focuses instead on

2392-534: A speaker at the Starwood Festival , documented in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes. McKenna published several books in the early-to-mid-1990s including: The Archaic Revival ; Food of the Gods ; and True Hallucinations . Hundreds of hours of McKenna's public lectures were recorded either professionally or bootlegged and have been produced on cassette tape , CD and MP3. Segments of his talks have gone on to be sampled by many musicians and DJ's . McKenna

2484-595: A year. He finished high school in Lancaster, California . In 1963, he was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of The Village Voice which published articles on psychedelics. McKenna said that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing", and in interviews he claimed to have smoked cannabis daily since his teens. In 1965, McKenna enrolled in

2576-617: Is a more recent method of use. Archaeological evidence of insufflation use within the period 500-1000 AD, in northern Chile, has been reported. Some indigenous peoples of the Orinoco basin in Colombia , Venezuela and possibly in the southern part of the Brazilian Amazon make use of yopo snuff for spiritual healing. Yopo snuff was also widely used in ceremonial contexts in the Caribbean area, including Puerto Rico and La Española , up to

2668-405: Is a negative force. But the stress on ritual , on organized activity, on race/ancestor-consciousness – these are themes that have been worked out throughout the entire 20th century, and the archaic revival is an expression of that." Novelty theory is a pseudoscientific idea that purports to predict the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe as an inherent quality of time, proposing that time

2760-520: Is a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve on the Big Island of Hawaii , established to collect, protect, propagate , and understand plants of ethno-medical significance and their lore , and appreciate, study, and educate others about plants and mushrooms felt to be significant to cultural integrity and spiritual well-being. The 19-acre (7.7 ha) botanical garden is a repository containing thousands of plants that have been used by indigenous people of

2852-411: Is a perennial tree of the genus Anadenanthera native to the Caribbean and South America . It grows up to 20 m (66 ft) tall, and has a thorny bark. Its flowers grow in small, pale yellow to white spherical clusters resembling Acacia (e.g. wattle) inflorescences. It is an entheogen which has been used in healing ceremonies and rituals for thousands of years in northern South America and

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2944-587: Is also the beginning of academic ethnobotany. The so-called "father" of this discipline is Richard Evans Schultes , even though he did not actually coin the term "ethnobotany". Today the field of ethnobotany requires a variety of skills: botanical training for the identification and preservation of plant specimens; anthropological training to understand the cultural concepts around the perception of plants; linguistic training, at least enough to transcribe local terms and understand native morphology, syntax, and semantics. Mark Plotkin , who studied at Harvard University ,

3036-467: Is another psychedelic compound they used synergistically with the mushrooms), through the use of a set specific vocal techniques. They hypothesised this would give them access to the collective memory of the human species , and would manifest the alchemists ' Philosopher's Stone which they viewed as a "hyperdimensional union of spirit and matter". McKenna claimed the experiment put him in contact with " Logos ": an informative, divine voice he believed

3128-909: Is between 200 and 300 mg/kg (in rodents) with death occurring by respiratory arrest. Human intravenous tests using bufotenin suggest the LD 50 may be much lower in humans with subjects showing signs of peripheral toxicity (purple face, tachycardia , difficulty breathing, etc.) at doses as little as 8 mg in some subjects. Free base bufotenin when insufflated, taken sublingually, orally, or intrarectally, elicits strong hallucinogenic effects with far less side effects. The beans have been found to contain up to only 0.04% 5-MeO-DMT and 0.16% DMT. The leaves and bark also contain small amounts of DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and related compounds. At up to 0.04% (0.4 mg per gram) 5-MeO-DMT, an effective light 5 mg dose of insufflated 5-MeO-DMT would require over 12 grams of beans. It would be extremely difficult to insufflate such

3220-413: Is essentially humanistic psychology '80s-style, with the addition of neo-shamanism, channeling, crystal and herbal healing. The archaic revival is a much larger, more global phenomenon that assumes that we are recovering the social forms of the late neolithic , and reaches far back in the 20th century to Freud , to surrealism, to abstract expressionism, even to a phenomenon like National Socialism which

3312-449: Is not a constant but has various qualities tending toward either "habit" or "novelty". Habit, in this context, can be thought of as entropic, repetitious, or conservative; and novelty as creative , disjunctive, or progressive phenomena . McKenna's idea was that the universe is an engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty and that as novelty increases, so does complexity . With each level of complexity achieved becoming

3404-437: Is rooted in a strong and ancient cosmological belief system. Their work provides perceptions and conceptions of illness and imbalances which can manifest in physical forms from benign maladies to serious diseases. It also includes a large compilation of Herrick's field work from numerous Iroquois authorities of over 450 names, uses, and preparations of plants for various ailments. Traditional Iroquois practitioners had (and have)

3496-496: The Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé , a plant preparation containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Instead of oo-koo-hé they found fields full of gigantic Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, which became the new focus of the expedition. In La Chorrera , at the urging of his brother, McKenna was the subject of a psychedelic experiment in which the brothers attempted to "bond harmine DNA with their own neural DNA" (harmine

3588-579: The Puna of Jujuy Province , Argentina. The pipes were found to contain the hallucinogen DMT , one of the compounds found in Anadenanthera beans. Radiocarbon testing of the material gave a date of 2130 BC, suggesting that Anadenanthera use as a hallucinogen is over 4,000 years old. Snuff trays and tubes similar to those commonly used for yopo were found in the central Peruvian coast dating back to 1200 BC, suggesting that insufflation of Anadenanthera beans

3680-556: The Spanish Conquest . Yopo snuff is usually blown into the user's nostrils by another person through bamboo tubes or sometimes snuffed by the user using bird bone tubes. Blowing is more effective as this method allows more powder to enter the nose and is said to be less irritating. In some areas the unprocessed ground beans are snuffed or smoked producing a much weaker effect with stronger physical symptoms. Some tribes use yopo along with Banisteriopsis caapi to increase and prolong

3772-675: The University of California, Berkeley and was accepted into the Tussman Experimental College . While in college in 1967 he began studying shamanism through the study of Tibetan folk religion. That same year, which he called his "opium and kabbala phase", he traveled to Jerusalem where he met Kathleen Harrison, an ethnobotanist who later became his wife. In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism . He sought out shamans of

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3864-566: The Yale School of Forestry and Tufts University , has contributed a number of books on ethnobotany. He completed a handbook for the Tirio people of Suriname detailing their medicinal plants; Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (1994); The Shaman's Apprentice, a children's book with Lynne Cherry (1998); and Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets (2000). Plotkin was interviewed in 1998 by South American Explorer magazine, just after

3956-624: The emic perspective of the plant world was a German physician working in Sarajevo at the end of the 19th century: Leopold Glück. His published work on traditional medical uses of plants done by rural people in Bosnia (1896) has to be considered the first modern ethnobotanical work. Other scholars analyzed uses of plants under an indigenous/local perspective in the 20th century: Matilda Coxe Stevenson , Zuni plants (1915); Frank Cushing , Zuni foods (1920); Keewaydinoquay Peschel , Anishinaabe fungi (1998), and

4048-425: The organism , and potential erection in the males , rendering it even more evolutionarily beneficial, as it would result in more offspring . At even higher doses, McKenna proposed that the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries", promoting community bonding and group sexual activities. Consequently, there would be a mixing of genes , greater genetic diversity , and a communal sense of responsibility for

4140-426: The tropical regions , and includes a database of information related to their purported healing properties. McKenna was involved until 1992, when he retired from the project, following his and Kathleen's divorce earlier in the year. Kathleen still manages Botanical Dimensions as its president and projects director. After their divorce, McKenna moved to Hawaii permanently, where he built a modernist house and created

4232-462: The 'Other.' This created hierarchies, priesthoods, theological systems, castes, ritual, taboos. Shamanism, on the other hand, is an experiential science that deals with an area where we know nothing. It is important to remember that our epistemological tools have developed very unevenly in the West. We know a tremendous amount about what is going on in the heart of the atom, but we know absolutely nothing about

4324-416: The 20th century," science fiction writer Philip K. Dick , who he described as an "incredible genius", fabulist Jorge Luis Borges , with whom McKenna shared the belief that "scattered through the ordinary world there are books and artifacts and perhaps people who are like doorways into impossible realms, of impossible and contradictory truth" and Vladimir Nabokov . McKenna once said that he would have become

4416-433: The 25 grams of beans required to reach the active dose of DMT present in the beans. An extract of 25 grams of beans could contain up to 1,850 mg of bufotenin, a potentially dangerous dose. With insufflated freebase bufotenin, the maximum published safe dose used has been 100 mg. Unlike bufotenin, both DMT and 5-MeO-DMT are relatively unstable and begin to degrade rather quickly. Schultes and colleges (1977) examined

4508-526: The Caribbean. Although the seeds of the yopo tree were originally gathered from the wild, increased competition between tribes over access to the seeds led to it being intentionally cultivated and transported elsewhere, expanding the plant's distribution through introduction to areas beyond its native range. This plant is almost identical to that of a related tree, Anadenanthera colubrina , commonly known as cebíl or vilca . The beans of A. colubrina have

4600-676: The Earth, saying that if you can trust your own perceptions it appears that you are entering an "ecology of souls ". McKenna also put forward the idea that psychedelics were "doorways into the Gaian mind", suggesting that "the planet has a kind of intelligence, it can actually open a channel of communication with an individual human being" and that the psychedelic plants were the facilitators of this communication. McKenna spoke of hallucinations while on DMT in which he claims to have met intelligent entities he described as "self-transforming machine elves". In

4692-515: The I Ching . The brothers' experiences in the Amazon were the main focus of McKenna's book True Hallucinations , published in 1993. McKenna also began lecturing locally around Berkeley and started appearing on some underground radio stations. McKenna, along with his brother Dennis, developed a technique for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms using spores they brought to America from the Amazon . In 1976,

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4784-488: The New World. The description of its effects reads in part: "This kohobba powder," described as "an intoxicating herb, is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action begins to wane, the arms and legs become loose and the head droops." It is administered with a cane about one foot long of which they introduce one end "in the nose and the other in the powder and ...draw it into themselves through

4876-568: The Priestly class), that did not reflect McKenna's model of how psychedelic-using cultures would behave, for example, by carrying out human sacrifice . There are also examples of Amazonian tribes such as the Jivaro and the Yanomami who use ayahuasca ceremoniously and who are known to engage in violent behaviour. This, it has been argued, indicates the use of psychedelic plants does not necessarily suppress

4968-618: The Roman empire, including regions such as " Greece , Crete , Egypt , and Petra ", and in doing so obtained substantial knowledge about the local plants and their useful properties. European botanical knowledge drastically expanded once the New World was discovered due to ethnobotany. This expansion in knowledge can primarily be attributed to the substantial influx of new plants from the Americas, including crops such as potatoes, peanuts, avocados, and tomatoes. The French explorer Jacques Cartier learned

5060-568: The South Pacific. At this time major botanical gardens were started, for instance the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1759. The directors of the gardens sent out gardener-botanist explorers to care for and collect plants to add to their collections. As the 18th century became the 19th, ethnobotany saw expeditions undertaken with more colonial aims rather than trade economics such as that of Lewis and Clarke which recorded both plants and

5152-617: The Tibetan Bon tradition, trying to learn more about the shamanic use of visionary plants. During his time there, he also studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs." He then wandered through southeast Asia viewing ruins, and spent time as a professional butterfly collector in Indonesia . After his mother's death from cancer in 1970, McKenna, his brother Dennis , and three friends traveled to

5244-507: The Web ; and virtual reality . 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. McKenna soon became

5336-536: The arts, religion, philosophy, science, and all of human culture sprang. McKenna's "stoned ape" theory has not received attention from the scientific community and has been criticized for a relative lack of citation to any of the paleoanthropological evidence informing our understanding of human origins. His ideas regarding psilocybin and visual acuity have been criticized as misrepresentations of Fischer et al.'s findings, who published studies of visual perception parameters other than acuity. Criticism has also noted

5428-431: The brothers published what they had learned in the book Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide , under the pseudonyms "O.T. Oss" and "O.N. Oeric". McKenna and his brother were the first to come up with a reliable method for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms at home. As ethnobiologist Jonathan Ott explains, "[the] authors adapted San Antonio's technique (for producing edible mushrooms by casing mycelial cultures on

5520-485: The diet, an event that according to his theory took place about 100,000 BCE (when he believed humans diverged from the genus Homo ). McKenna based his theory on the effects, or alleged effects, produced by the mushroom while citing studies by Roland Fischer et al. from the late 1960s to early 1970s. McKenna stated that, due to the desertification of the African continent at that time, human forerunners were forced from

5612-502: The doctor versus the witch doctor. It should be the best aspects of all medical systems ( ayurvedic , herbalism , homeopathic , and so on) combined in a way which makes health care more effective and more affordable for all. A great deal of information about the traditional uses of plants is still intact with tribal peoples. But the native healers are often reluctant to accurately share their knowledge to outsiders. Schultes actually apprenticed himself to an Amazonian shaman, which involves

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5704-445: The early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, becoming one of the pioneers of the psychedelic movement. His main focus was on the plant-based psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms (which were the catalyst for his career), ayahuasca , cannabis , and the plant derivative DMT . He conducted lecture tours and workshops promoting natural psychedelics as a way to explore universal mysteries, stimulate

5796-435: The ego and create harmonious societies. One of the main themes running through McKenna's work, and the title of his second book, was the idea that Western civilization was undergoing what he called an "archaic revival". His hypothesis was that Western society has become "sick" and is undergoing a "healing process": In the same way that the human body begins to produce antibodies when it feels itself to be sick, humanity as

5888-516: The end of time, and a transition of consciousness in the year 2012. His promotion of novelty theory and its connection to the Maya calendar is credited as one of the factors leading to the widespread beliefs about the 2012 phenomenon . Novelty theory is considered pseudoscience . Terence McKenna was born and raised in Paonia, Colorado , with Irish ancestry on his father's side of the family. McKenna developed

5980-572: The ethnographic element was not studied as a modern anthropologist might approach ethnobotany today. In 1732, Carl Linnaeus carried out a research expedition in Scandinavia asking the Sami people about their ethnological usage of plants. The Age of Enlightenment saw a rise in economic botanical exploration. Alexander von Humboldt collected data from the New World, and James Cook 's voyages brought back collections and information on plants from

6072-487: 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 , ayahuasca , and DMT , which he believed was the apotheosis of the psychedelic experience. He was less enthralled with synthetic drugs, stating, "I think drugs should come from the natural world and be use-tested by shamanically orientated cultures ... one cannot predict

6164-435: The forefront of the tribe 's consciousness , simply because of the power and strangeness of the experience itself." According to McKenna, access to and ingestion of mushrooms was an evolutionary advantage to humans' omnivorous hunter-gatherer ancestors , also providing humanity's first religious impulse. He believed that psilocybin mushrooms were the "evolutionary catalyst" from which language, projective imagination,

6256-417: The group offspring. At these higher doses, McKenna also argued that psilocybin would be triggering activity in the "language-forming region of the brain", manifesting as music and visions , thus catalyzing the emergence of language in early hominids by expanding "their arboreally evolved repertoire of troop signals". He also pointed out that psilocybin would dissolve the ego and "religious concerns would be at

6348-564: The history of the race and the philosophical and religious accomplishments of the species. All the compounds are potentially dangerous, and all compounds, at sufficient doses or repeated over time, involve risks. The library is the first place to go when looking into taking a new compound." He also recommended, and often spoke of taking, what he called "heroic doses", which he defined as five grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, taken alone, on an empty stomach, in silent darkness, and with eyes closed. He believed that when taken this way one could expect

6440-666: The imagination, and re-establish a harmonious relationship with nature. Though associated with the New Age and Human Potential Movements , McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of the "felt presence of direct experience", as opposed to dogma . In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on a wide array of subjects, including shamanism ; metaphysics ; alchemy ; language ; culture; self-empowerment ; environmentalism , techno-paganism ; artificial intelligence ; evolution ; extraterrestrials ; science and scientism ;

6532-413: The long-term effects of a drug produced in a laboratory." McKenna always stressed the responsible use of psychedelic plants, saying: "Experimenters should be very careful. One must build up to the experience. These are bizarre dimensions of extraordinary power and beauty. There is no set rule to avoid being overwhelmed, but move carefully, reflect a great deal, and always try to map experiences back onto

6624-522: The nature of the mind. During the final years of his life and career, McKenna became very engaged in the theoretical realm of technology. He was an early proponent of the technological singularity and in his last recorded public talk, Psychedelics in the age of intelligent machines , he outlined ties between psychedelics, computation technology, and humans. He also became enamored with the Internet, calling it "the birth of [the] global mind", believing it to be

6716-634: The nose". It worked quickly: "almost immediately they believe they see the room turn upside-down and men walking with their heads downwards". The administering witch-doctor took the drug along with his patients, intoxicating "them so that they do not know what they do and ... speak of many things incoherently", believing that they are in communication with spirits. The beans have been found to contain up to 7.4% bufotenin . At up to 7.4% (74 mg per gram) bufotenin, an effective 40 mg dose of insufflated bufotenin requires little more than 0.5 grams of beans. The intraperitoneal LD 50 of bufotenin

6808-958: The ones who work it. Inaccurate data can come from interviewing only the owners. Other issues include ethical concerns regarding interactions with indigenous populations , and the International Society of Ethnobiology has created a code of ethics to guide researchers. [REDACTED] Media related to Ethnobotany at Wikimedia Commons Oo-koo-h%C3%A9 Acacia angustiloba DC. Acacia microphylla Willd. Acacia peregrina ( L. ) Willd. Inga niopo Willd. Mimosa acacioides Benth. Mimosa niopo (Willd.) Poir. Mimosa parvifolia Poiret Mimosa peregrina L. Niopa peregrina (L.)  Britton  &  Rose Piptadenia niopo (Willd.) Spruce Piptadenia peregrina (L.) Benth. Anadenanthera peregrina , also known as yopo , jopo , cohoba , parica or calcium tree ,

6900-453: The other hand, anthropologists were interested in the cultural role of plants and treated other scientific aspects superficially. In the early 20th century, botanists and anthropologists better collaborated and the collection of reliable, detailed cross-disciplinary data began. Beginning in the 20th century, the field of ethnobotany experienced a shift from the raw compilation of data to a greater methodological and conceptual reorientation. This

6992-513: The peoples encountered use of them. Edward Palmer collected material culture artifacts and botanical specimens from people in the North American West ( Great Basin ) and Mexico from the 1860s to the 1890s. Through all of this research, the field of "aboriginal botany" was established—the study of all forms of the vegetable world which aboriginal peoples use for food, medicine, textiles , ornaments and more. The first individual to study

7084-773: The platform for a further ascent into complexity. The basis of the theory was conceived in the mid-1970s after McKenna's experiences with psilocybin mushrooms at La Chorrera in the Amazon led him to closely study the King Wen sequence of the I Ching . Ethnobotany Ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world. Since Schultes' time, ethnobotany has evolved from primarily documenting traditional plant knowledge to applying this information in modern contexts, particularly in pharmaceutical development . The field now addresses complex issues such as intellectual property rights and equitable benefit-sharing arrangements arising from

7176-411: The presence of psilocybin in the diet of early pack hunting primates caused the individuals who were consuming psilocybin mushrooms to be better hunters than those who were not, resulting in an increased food supply and in turn a higher rate of reproductive success. Then at slightly higher doses, he contended, the mushroom acts to sexually arouse, leading to a higher level of attention, more energy in

7268-523: The prevention of bacterial collaboration as opposed to directly exterminating them. Many instances of gender bias have occurred in ethnobotany, creating the risk of drawing erroneous conclusions. Anthropologists would often consult with primarily men. In Las Pavas, a small farming community in Panama, anthropologists drew conclusions about the entire community's use of plant from their conversations and lessons with mostly men. They consulted with 40 families, but

7360-480: The release of Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice and the IMAX movie Amazonia. In the book, he stated that he saw wisdom in both traditional and Western forms of medicine: No medical system has all the answers—no shaman that I've worked with has the equivalent of a polio vaccine and no dermatologist that I've been to could cure a fungal infection as effectively (and inexpensively) as some of my Amazonian mentors. It shouldn't be

7452-476: The shrinking tropical canopy into search of new food sources. He believed they would have been following large herds of wild cattle whose dung harbored the insects that, he proposed, were undoubtedly part of their new diet, and would have spotted and started eating Psilocybe cubensis , a dung-loving mushroom often found growing out of cowpats . McKenna's hypothesis was that low doses of psilocybin improve visual acuity , particularly edge detection, meaning that

7544-468: The team approach of Wilfred Robbins, John Peabody Harrington , and Barbara Freire-Marreco , Tewa pueblo plants (1916). In the beginning, ethonobotanical specimens and studies were not very reliable and sometimes not helpful. This is because the botanists and the anthropologists did not always collaborate in their work. The botanists focused on identifying species and how the plants were used instead of concentrating upon how plants fit into people's lives. On

7636-422: The theoretical origins of human consciousness . He was called the " Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture ". McKenna formulated a concept about the nature of time based on fractal patterns he claimed to have discovered in the I Ching , which he called novelty theory, proposing that this predicted

7728-399: The use of traditional knowledge. The idea of ethnobotany was first proposed by the early 20th century botanist John William Harshberger . While Harshberger did perform ethnobotanical research extensively, including in areas such as North Africa , Mexico , Scandinavia , and Pennsylvania , it was not until Richard Evans Schultes began his trips into the Amazon that ethnobotany became

7820-509: The visionary effects, creating an experience similar to that of ayahuasca . The first report of the effects of hallucinogenic snuff prepared from the beans of Anadenanthera peregrina dates back to 1496 when it was observed by Friar Ramon Pane, who was commissioned by Christopher Columbus, among the Taino Indians of Hispaniola. Pane's report was first published in 1511 in Martyr's descriptions of

7912-468: The women only participated rarely in interviews and never joined them in the field. Due to the division of labor, the knowledge of wild plants for food, medicine, and fibers, among others, was left out of the picture, resulting in a distorted view of which plants were actually important to them. Ethnobotanists have also assumed that ownership of a resource means familiarity with that resource. In some societies women are excluded from owning land, while being

8004-538: Was a colleague and close friend of chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham , and author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake . He conducted several public and many private debates with them from 1982 until his death. These debates were known as trialogues and some of the discussions were later published in the books: Trialogues at the Edge of the West and The Evolutionary Mind . In 1985, McKenna founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife, Kathleen Harrison. Botanical Dimensions

8096-467: Was consistent with his interest in Victorian-era explorers and naturalists, and his worldview based on close observation of nature. In the 1970s, when he was still collecting, he became quite squeamish and guilt-ridden about the necessity of killing butterflies in order to collect and classify them, according to McKenna's daughter, this led him to cease his entomological studies. Terence McKenna advocated

8188-459: Was opposed to Christianity and most forms of organized religion or guru -based forms of spiritual awakening, favouring shamanism , which he believed was the broadest spiritual paradigm available, stating that: What I think happened is that in the world of prehistory all religion was experiential, and it was based on the pursuit of ecstasy through plants. And at some time, very early, a group interposed itself between people and direct experience of

8280-427: Was underway. This idea is linked to McKenna's "stoned ape" theory of human evolution, with him viewing the "archaic revival" as an impulse to return to the symbiotic and blissful relationship he believed humanity once had with the psilocybin mushroom. In differentiating his idea from the " New Age ", a term that he felt trivialized the significance of the next phase in human evolution, McKenna stated that: "The New Age

8372-560: Was universal to visionary religious experience. McKenna also often referred to the voice as "the mushroom", and "the teaching voice" amongst other names. The voice's reputed revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar psychedelic experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching , which led to his "Novelty Theory". During their stay in the Amazon, McKenna also became romantically involved with his interpreter, Ev. In 1972, McKenna returned to U.C. Berkeley to finish his studies and in 1975, he graduated with

8464-523: Was worried that his tumor may have been caused by his psychedelic drug use, or his 35 years of daily cannabis smoking; however, his doctors assured him there was no causal relation. In late 1999, McKenna described his thoughts concerning his impending death to interviewer Erik Davis : 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

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