7/27/2019 Details April 1993 - Terence McKenna - True Hallucations Interview

1/2

books

Psychedelic SolutionBy Erik Davis In True HalLucinations, c o s m i ce x p l o r e r T e r e n c e M c K e n n a c o n t i n u e s h i st r ip to the e nd of the w or ldAl i tt l e over tw en ty years ago, TerenceMcKenna w as a pe nni less, globe- t rot t ingf r eak. He co l lec ted b ut te r f lies in Indone s ia,smoked opium in Jerusalem, studied Tibetan inNe pal, and smuggled h ash unt i l he got indictedStateside. Then he trekked to the South Am ericanjungle, where he gobbled so many mushroom sthat he became convinced that he and h is partyhad co ntacted an intergalactic intell igence thatforetold the im minent col lapse of history.These days, McKenna delivers wild and wool-ly raps in lecture halls and retreat centers, leadsbotanical forays into the Me xican rain forest ,and occasional ly pe r form s at raves with theBri tish group the S hamen. Po pular tapes of histalks have led to a string of bo oks, and mo viedeals are looming on the ho rizon. McKenna hasbecom e the greatest spokesman for the psy-chede lic expe rience since Timothy Le ary.

"I am a rationalist with real access to the irra-t ional," McKe nna says matter-of-factly, sitt ingcross le gged on a Pe rsian rug in his Bay A reahom e. He wears a purp le sweater and loose-f i t t ing pants, and h is face re semb les that of ajovial leprechaun. The walls are hung w ith Tibetande i t ies and a p oster o f the S i lver Sur fe r , thef l oo r i s s tacked w i th CDs, and the she lvesare stuf fed w i th books l ike T h e H a s h is h E a t e r,G n o s i s , and a crinkly 1651 edit ion of CorneliusAgrippa's Occu l t Ph i lo so p h y , which McKennaonce swapped for a pound of m ushrooms.But McKenna 's p re fe r red env i ronm ent re -m ains psychede lic space, a realm inhabited b ycosmic giggles, UFOs, and what he calls the"se l f- t rans fo rming m ach ine e lves o f h yper -space." In a world that seems to be shrink inginto a grid of phone l ines, McDonald's, and freet rade zo nes, where f ishermen in rem otest Poly-nesia wear Madonna T-shirts, McKenna seem sto have stumb led on a m agic formula for pre-serving an almost boyish sense o f wond er andadventure. With f ive grams of mushrooms insilent darkness, he claim s every m an can be aMagel lan in h is own mind, though M cKennah imse l f i dent i f ies m ore w i th the grea t n ine -teenth-century natural ists. "They we nt into aworld of ut ter exot ica, not to rape and plunder,but to catalogue wh at Darwin cal led ' the p ro-ductions of nature' insects, birds, shells. I tryto cata logue the product ions o f psychede l icnature. Rathe r than just sailing through a state, Istop, overturn the ro cks, and look around."It 's this inquisit ive spirit that kee ps M cKennafrom slipping into California's mo rass of burnt-

out h ipp ies or b l issed-out New Age rs. Mo stfo lks who babb le on about the i r psychede l icreve lat ions are host i l e o r ho pe le ss ly se l f -centered , but McKenna is an affable gent le-

man, as much amused by his own w eird not ionsas he is fascinated by the m. Coupled with h isdry wit, mischievo us singsong voice, and whathe calls "the innate Irish abil i ty to rave," h is lu-cid madne ss makes him a blast in lecture halls.Though h is recent books Fo o d o f t h e Go dsan d T h e A r c h a i c R e v i va l were compe l l ing, it 'shis latest ef for t , T r u e H a l l u c i n a t i o n s , that cap-tures the personal charm that makes even h ismo st outlandish the ories entertaining. The nar-rat ive relates how he, his brothe r Dennis, andsome comrades w ent searching in the Colom -bian jungle for the exot ic drug oo-koo-he, o nlyto be s ide t racked in to a m assive m ushroomm unch ing . A l ong t he w ay McKenna i n te r -sperses h is jungle boo k w i th s to r i es abou tf reaky Mansonesque h ippies w ith names l ikeSo lo Dark and tales of "tantric hanky-panky" inKathm andu. But the h eart of the h allucinationsis one of the strangest trips of all t ime: "the ex-perim ent at La Chorrera," a wee ks-long b last

dur ing which Dennis seem ed to t ransform intoan alien com puter, Terence became convincedthey had sparked the end of the w or ld, and ev-erybod y else thought the two h ad lost i t. "I t waspretty insane," McKe nna says. "Life

and death were l ike knobs on a TV."Even as a boy grow ing up in asmal l conservat ive town in w esternColorado "where the three seasonswe re foo tball, basketball, and base-bal l, " McKenna seeme d in ten t onwarping the wo r ld wi th h is imagina-t ion and te l l ing others abo ut i t . " Ith ink my f i rst encounter w i th psy-chedel ics was looking at Coloradoand trying to understand that it wasonce the sho res o f an ocean w i thhundred- foot - long sauropods t rom p-ing through mangrove swamps."His ear l iest exp lorat ions of thefringes of reason didn't involve drugs,but the spells and incantations of ritu-al magic. "Cerem onial magic is basi-cally an aping of the Catholic Mass,and I was an altar boy. One t im e thepriest insisted I help h im clean out thesacristy and the re w as a bucket withan aspergillum in it. At High Masses,the pr iest wi l l sometim es throw holy water on the

congregation with th is thing, wh ich looks l ike ababy rattle with hole s in it. I said, 'You're throw ingout the aspergil lum? I 'd re ally l ike to have it . ' Heasked w hy. 'Well the g r a n d g r i m o i re of the K e y o fS o l o m o n specifically calls for it.' The shit hit thefan. It was like I was fucking buffalo or some thing.My parents were appal led: 'So this is why you'vebeen steal ing your mother 's rosem ary from thespice shelf and incine rating it.'"As one might expect, McKenna was drawnl ike a m oth to the hazy glow of S an Francisco,and in 1965 Country Jo e & the Fish guitar is tBarry Mel ton turned h im on to pot S oon he hadhis f i rst dose of LS D, and for the next de cade,McKenna kep t t r ipping and t ry ing- to t rap whathe t r ipped over. When h e and Dennis returnedto A me rica af ter the La Chorrera incident , theydid some th ing few h eavy heads at tempt w i th-out turning into d rool ing nuts: They tr ied to cap-ture the ir wriggling visions into the language of

rat i#44.146L, Apri l 1993 Detai lsaidiall

7/27/2019 Details April 1993 - Terence McKenna - True Hallucations Interview

2/2

Read Mecience. (They also published the seminal Ps i lo -c y b i n : T h e M a g i c M u s h r o o m G r o w e r 's G u i d e in1975, which launched the friendly fungus intothe underground.) Dennis worked on complextheories about sound, DMT m olecules, and re s-onating DNA wh ile Terence set out to chart hispow erfu l intu it ions about t ime. "A st rong psy-chede lic t r ip is a r ising up into a dime nsion out-side of history. Literally. And you can see theend." in McKenna's view , history doe s not pro-gress from cause to effect, but is sucked towardi ts last days l ike a spaceship in a tractor be am.McKenna has not only hacked his theo ry ontosof tware, but he's also nai led d ow n the end o ft ime December 22 , 2012. Whether o r no t t herest of us phase into hyperspace on that day,you can bet McKenna wil l be h aving a wild t ime.McKe nna's secular apocalypse has a pe r-verse appeal . "Peop le sense that there is ahuge aura of t ransformat ion or catastrophethat sur rounds our e xper ience. I th ink evenstraight peop le must look at the po pulation curve,the AIDS curve, the rise of general bestial behav-ior, and see that the world as we kno w it is ending.Before m y rap the only place you go with this intu-i t ion is Fundam entalist Christ ianity." No r is M c-Kenna even slightly hum bled by the fact that folkshave been proclaiming the e nd of the w or ld forcenturies. "It 's l ike the great California earth-quake. The fact that it hasn't happene d yet is nogrounds for thinking it never w ill." Besides, even ifGabriel 's t rumpet doe sn't blow, McKenna is cer-ta in the w orld 's sociopol i t ical real i ty wi l l sooncrumble. 'Then there wi l l be a mo ment of greatdanger be cause the irrat ional wil l be wait ing torush into the pow er vacuum created by the col-lapse of W estern reason. Then the Moonies, theMaharishi, Terence McKe nna, all of these irratio-nal options will be w aiting. And as we get closer to2012, w i l l I look crazier or more r ight on?"

It 's not the least of McKenna's paradoxe s thathe's ful ly aware of ho w m ad this al l sounds. "Tosom eone not interested in this stuff I don't pre -sent a prob lem . f t 's like a case of m arginalizedschizophrenia. But I live in a world of r esonances,where every object and every spoken word hasconnect ions which no reasonable pe rson couldperceive. There are m i l lions of people w ho l ivel ike thism ost of them potheads."But unlike othe r scruffy visionaries, McKe n-na has an almost me ssianic drive to bro adcasthis ide as. He hop es his cult status in the ravescene indicates the pro je ct is on track If a l lgoes we l l , he can then be gin what he cal ls the" brown-skinned-gir l -who-understands-f ish-t raps" part o f h is p lan. " I w i l l f ind that bro wn-skinned gir l and ret i re wi th h er to a reef w hereher skill with fish traps will serve us well, and thewo rld can sort i t out howe ver it may wish."Erik Davis is a Brooklyn-based hvelaneewriter.

Bottom FeedersJohnHubner

( D oub l e da y ) Fade in: It 's the se amier, thoughintellectual, side of San Francisco followingthe ' 60s. H ipp ies were e xper im en t ing w i thevery th ing, espe c ial l y theidea of f ree love. Radical chicwas at its chicest, and in thisgr i t ty nonf ict ion account ofthat era, you'll f ind cameos ofthe l ikes of Hunter S. Thom p-son and Huey Ne wton. Cut toJ im and A rt ie Mi tchel l , broth-ers who turned f ree love in tolarge prof it by establishing the antiestablish-m en t O 'Fa rr e l l Thea te r . A t t h e O 'Fa r r e ll ,everyone w as able to think what they wanted,do the drugs they wanted, but mo st ly watchthe porno graphy the brothers concocted fornext to no mo ney. As their business grew , sodid the i r reputat ions .. . and the i r rap shee ts.The M itchells were true sexual out laws, push-ing the l imi ts of obscenity and get t ing awaywith ne arly everything, save m anslaughter. Ifyou wan t t o know m o re abou t B e h i n d t h eG r e e n D o o r and M ar i lyn Cham bers , th isshould be your f irst stop. Howe ver, be warned:Hubner's rambling telling of Jim Mitchell's riseto fratricide obscures what should have been ariveting tale. Douglas A. MendiniCheshire MoonRobert Ferrigno( M o r r o w ) Writ ing of a deglamo rized Los A nge-les, Ferrigno sets this murder-suspense storyi n the fas t -food landscape o f f reew ay o f f -ramps and airport runw ays. His deadpan dickis an invest igat ive journal ist nam ed Quinnwh ose p rofessional and e mo t ional lives stal lwhe n he witnesses a ki l l ing c lose up. Luredback to report ing, he teams wi th a p hotogra-pher name d Jen Takamura to solve the m ys-tery of a f r iend 's unl ike ly suic ide. The br iskplot ro unds up all the usual suspects, includ-ing a voracious Italian magazine p ublisher, asavvy Mexican-Am erican detective, assortedseedy Hol lywoo d types, and Sissy Mizel l , atalk-show maven who se midday TV smash,S t r a ig h t Ta lk W i t h S i ssy , is one of the novel 'schief pleasures. Less hard-boiled than reluc-tantly wise, Ferrigno treats even his mo st de-praved characters wi th tend er re gard. Theirmurd erous imp ulses are of fered as a fai r re-sponse to a culture that worship s daily at Or-ange County's South Coast Plaza Mall, a placewh ich he cal ls "a church of im maculate con-sumpt ion." John Weir

Man Bites Town: Notes of aMan Who Doesn't Take NotesHarry Shearer(St . Mart in 's) In th is "best of " se lect ion f romhis weekly L o s A nge l e s T i me s Magaz i ne col-umn, the w i t who gave us S pinal Tap's id io tbassist provides a running comic comm en-tary on his hom etow n's and the nat ion 's cul-tural and polit ical li fe. Sh earer's m usings areeasy to get into and hard to put do wn. Virtuallyevery paragraph can be counted on fo r ame morable turn of ph rase; m any columns of -fer funny, genuinely e loquent insight . Laud-ably, the form er S at u rd ay N i gh t L i ve wri ter isnot obsessed w i th The Indust ry and focusesinstead on local L.A. h istory andpol i t ics. S he arer 's at h is bestwh en target ing publ ic figures:h is " f ir s t d raft " o f ex top copDaryl Gates's farewe l l speechbegins, "Mr. M ayor, honorablecouncil members, my fel low cit i-ze ns, blacks, and Hispanics."The bo ok is f il led ou t w i th min i -essays ontopics l ike b asketbal l , mescal ine t r ips, andwo me n with s i l icone imp lants ("To quest ionthese wo me n 's cho ice in Southern Cal i fo r -nia is on par w i th walk ing around the inter-sect ion of Wal l and Broad S treets, in lowe rManhattan wonde ring aloud, What's so goodabout making mo ney?' ") . Steve BedewRun With the Hunted: ACharles Bukowski Reader

Edited by John Martin(HarperCol l ins ) "How m uch sh i t does a manhave to take just to stay alive?" asks a charac-ter in Char les Bukowski 's 1990 book S ep t u a -genarian Stew. It's thequintessent ial Bukowskianques t i on. Over m ore than

three decades and for ty-f ivebooks, th is renegade Am er -i can gen ius and t e rm inalloner has pounded this singletheme relentlessly. Bu-kowsk i makes ben t poe t r yout of base ne cessity. He bo i ls his largelyautobiographical wo rk, which br im s wi th not -

so-beautiful losers, down to th e gritt iest essen-t ials: sleep, sex, defecation, booze, avoidingauthority. If you haven't read Bukowski, this idio-syncratic collection, in which the excerpts forma kind of h urdy-gurdy autobiography, is a f ineplace to start . Then you' l l want to search outH a m o n R y e and Love I s a Dog From He l l . Af terthat you're on your own. Dwight Garner

A p r i 1 1 9 9 3 Details67-