Psychedelia, page 36
As his star was rising, McKenna would be exposed to a number of in-vogue ideas that were more or less connected to his work. Sometimes the fit would be excellent, as in the merger of feminist anthropology (via Riane Eisler's The Chalice And The Blade) with his 'stoned ape' theory, to form the more comprehensive theory presented in Food Of The Gods. On the other hand, McKenna's embracement of virtual reality technology seems trendy and ill-advised in retrospect, although he was certainly not the only big brain to be enthused by the early promises of VR around 1990. McKenna's ambivalent relationship to DMT falls between these two poles of influence; while he seems to draw vital inspiration from his encounters with the 'jewelled self-dribbling basketballs', his multimedia performances from '90s rave events where DMT is praised do not offer much beyond Learyesque 'turn on, tune in, drop out' cheerleading. His personal, highly specific experie nces with the drug would be recounted in detail, even though (as a survey of DMT trip reports shows) the focus on linguistic creativity that he describes was hardly typical. In smaller forums, he would sometimes suggest that DMT was 'simply too much', at other times it was described as the center of the hallucinogenic mandala. DMT is a rare case where McKenna couldn't find a clearly stated position, which in itself may say something about this extreme psychedelic.
Looking at influences, a few more names need to be discussed. James Joyce was a much-loved companion to Terence McKenna, Finnegans Wake in particular. Joyce first pops up, like so much else, at La Chorrera back in 1971, where brother Dennis proclaimed that a couple of hens strolling around the small village were in fact James and Nora Joyce! Beside the dynamic and unorthodox ideas about language, there is an Irish, bardic connection between the two that Terence would refer to with some delight. Related to Joyce we also find Marshall McLuhan, who McKenna would laud in the '80s, even though McLuhan had disappeared into foggy memory. When McLuhan was rediscovered in the 1990s, McKenna had already been championing him for a decade. He learned a lot from the Canadian media theorist, both in terms of ideas and terminology. This infatuation with McLuhan is very much McKenna; it's unconcerned with mainstream trends (i e: 'McLuhan is passé'), it's productive, and it's ultimately prescient.
Ethnobotany is a frequently used tool in the Terence McKenna workshop, and one which he applied with effortless delight. His brother Dennis would become a respected authority in the field (still active today) and must have been a vital sparring partner over the years. Terence's ability to rattle off complex taxonomies and molecular structures in spontaneous Q & A situations illuminates one of the unique properties of his public persona, the seemingly limitless and near-photographic memory. Fine points separating several types of shamanic plants, exact dates for some obscure event in the Italian renaissance, long verbatim passages from Shakespeare, could all be summoned and presented on the spur of the moment. But beyond his eloquence, the exceptional memory, and a profound learning in matters both esoteric and exoteric, the most important attribute of Terence McKenna may have been his fearlessness. Lack of prejudice and an openness to new ideas is invigorating, but beneath these qualities was a more profound drive that insisted upon novelty, and demanded change. McKenna was easily bored, and his somewhat controversial dismissal of classic Eastern spiritual paths (as opposed to his own tryptamine shamanism) seems to have come about from impatience as much as a lifelong interest in hallucinogens. Fortunately, boredom wouldn't allow him to cheat on his rational skepticism – he described himself as the most skeptic member in the La Chorrera expedition – and even while his fertile creativity was soaring, he kept a steady watch on himself, which is why there is such a consistency and internal logic among his ideas.
This lack of fear also makes him a typical representative of his generation. It's easy today to forget that Terence McKenna (born 1946) took part in the '60s counterculture as much as any elder hallucinogen spokesman out there. When emerging out of obscurity in the mid-1980s, he brought the self-confidence and iconoclasm of the Baby-boom hippies with him, but their pomposity and naivet' he discarded. During his 'silent' years, McKenna had had plenty of time to observe the public campaigns of his contemporaries, and the mistakes that they made. His championing of Psilocybin, DMT and ayahuasca over LSD may have been a deliberate, strategic PR choice, as much as an expression of personal taste. These powerful psychedelic drugs lacked the negative aura that acid had acquired during the counterculture era, and were ideal catalysts for a new psychedelic movement. Not only did the tryptamines seem fresh and thrilling, but the black LSD clouds lingering since Manson and Altamont had nothing to do with them. This shrewd move to promote culturally untainted hallucinogens (along with the rise of the quasi-psychedelic Ecstasy) helped wipe the psychedelic slate clean in the mid-1980s, relegating the old hippie trips and their baggage into the past. Looking constantly towards what lay ahead, McKenna rarely spoke of the '60s, or hippies, and he treated the softened 1970s spiritualism with light sarcasm.
Due to all this, and the fact that his own name was equally untainted by old 'hippie' mythology, Terence McKenna's tryptamine gospel seamlessly bridged the gap to the jaded, irony-fed individualists of Generations X and Y. Although Psilocybin and DMT had been known since the 1950s, their public appreciation was radically updated and upgraded in the wake of McKenna's eloquent advocacy, due to his insistence upon large doses and the exposition of completely unique mythologies for each drug (and to some extent, ayahuasca). As of this writing, all signs point to his influence continuing to bridge gaps and open doors as the third millennium rolls on. In one of the later lectures McKenna summed up his work: "Reason, but a willingness to explore the edges, has been the method". His insistence on observation and direct experience embodies the psychedelic phenomenology promoted in this book, and the form of play that he chose to engage in – the bardic shaman trickster at the edge of science – did not only conform to the traditions of Watts and Kesey, but effected a massive re-vitalization of psychedelic culture.
7
Knowledge of the sacred mushrooms of Mexico was not completely lacking prior to Gordon Wasson's explorations. Already in the 1930s there was sufficient evidence for a leading ethno- botanist such as Richard Evans Schultes to observe the existence and possible ritual usage of 'narcotic mushrooms'. The most commonly digested hongo today, Psilocybe cubensis, had been botanically classified as Stropharia cubensis as early as 1903 (in recent years, its genus has been reassigned from Stropharia to Psilocybe), and at least one intoxicating member of the Psilocybe genus (P.caerulescens, the 'landslide mushroom') was known pre-Wasson. The Psilocybe genus itself was identified in 1873, and the majority of its almost 200 species are in fact non-hallucinogenic. In collaboration with the prominent mycologist Roger Heim, Wasson surveyed the Mexican flora to discover a few more species and variants. In all, seven different kinds of hallucinogenic mushroom are presented in the 1957 Life article, accompanied by Heim's elegant color paintings. The species particularly favored by the Mazatec, Psilocybe mexicana, was a Wasson-Heim 'discovery'. A few related species would pop up shortly after, along with an academic brawl which found two competing mycologists claiming first discovery – and thereby naming rights – of some of Heim's species. One of the mycologists involved, Rolf Singer, would make significant contributions to the science parallel to Wasson and Heim. By and large, however, the mushroom landscape remained taxonomically unchanged throughout the 1960s.
In the early 1970s however, a small but significant underground scene emerged around the psychedelic mushrooms. The epicenter for this development was the Pacific Northwest, where college students discovered curious mushrooms growing around the lush campus area. Gordon Wasson's encyclopedic works were no further away than the university library, and in short time small entheogenic cults would develop among 'they that knew'. Neither time nor place were coincidental; the Northwest and its unique climate remains the most favorable environment in North America for the Psilocybes, and the young students who discovered nature's abundant gifts were probably happy to leave LSD and its increasingly negative associations behind. Several prominent experts on hallucinogenic mushrooms – Paul Stamets, John W Allen, Jeremy Bigwood, Michael Beug – originally came out of this regional cluster of pioneering shroom-heads.
An early impression of the Northwestern rush can be found in Jonathan Ott's Hallucinogenic Plants Of North America (1976). This book was the debut work of Wasson protégé Ott, who in the 1990s would emerge as one of the leading researchers within ethnobotany. Essentially a field guide with some tangential essays, the book offers insights into the unique mushroom underground around Oregon and Washington, where Ott mentions witnessing huge shroom parties with hund- reds of turned-on participants. A number of previously undocumented species were brought to light as part of this mid-'70s underground culture. Compared to Wasson's original seven species of psilocybian mushrooms, Ott's 1976 research presented 13 different mushrooms, of which three belong to the Panaeolus genus, and ten are Psilocybe. Only some of the Panaeolus specimens have been found to contain Psilocybin, among which P. subbalteatus became a regional favorite (along with the equally abundant Psilocybe stuntzii) among the Northwestern college students. A potent and popular species today that was not known to either Wasson or Ott is Psilocybe cyanescens, which occurs both around Europe and on the American west coast.
While its standing within mainstream pop culture remained confined to a mysterious prop in 'stoned' settings, the underground scene that took roots in the early 1970s ensured that the sacred mushroom continued to flourish as a subject of serious scholarly research. Several bemushroomed young men embarked on life-long careers that may have begun with the innocent spiking of a campus party punch. An early indication of this flocking around fungal academia was an important 1977 mushroom conference held (most appropriately) in Washington that saw the coming together of many distinguished researchers, both young and old.11 The mycophilic psychedelicists have continued to congregate via conferences and specialist journals, and their expertise has proven to have applied use when new techniques for homegrowing shrooms have evolved. Over the past 20 years, a massive number of previously undocumented psychedelic fungi have been discovered and analyzed, the scholar responsible for each find honored by having his name added to the Linnean latin species name. 12
While the South American ayahuasca, epená and niopo type DMT drugs can be taxonomically narrowed down to a distinct set of maybe a dozen source plants, the number of hallucinogenic mushrooms appears almost limitless. New species, sometimes entire new genera, of fungi with psycho-active properties have been uncovered in areas as remote as Thailand and Central Africa. A 1998 survey of the field listed not less than 216 species of mushroom with known or believed psycho-active properties. Of these, a little more than half belong to the Psilocybe genus, while the Gymnopilus and the closely related Panaeolus and Copelandia genera contribute about a dozen species each. In terms of morphology, the perception of what constitutes a psychedelic mushroom is now significantly expanded to include exotic forms such as the Claviceps mold and the 'Philosopher's Stone', a truffle-like sclerotia of the subterranean mycelium that can be home-grown as an entheogen in its own right. In geographic terms, the mushrooms are found on all inhabited continents, with a strong concentration to Central America, wherein Mexico alone harbors almost 50 different Psilocybes.13 Needless to say, this vast hallucinogenic garden – which size can be doubled again if adding the mescaline and DMT-containing plants – demonstrates how feeble and ridiculous any government attempts at 'outlawing' nature are. In our world today, there are at least 300 different naturally growing plants which can produce a psychoactive high of the same order as a strong dose of LSD.
Among the major hallucinogens, the psilocybian mushroom is arguably the best suited candidate for systematic, large-scale use within psychedelic culture. Unlike the rapidly dwindling world supply of peyote, the mushroom is globally distributed and abundant in natural settings, and it can also be home-grown with remarkable ease. It lacks the troubled past and draconian legal perception that haunts LSD, and is inaccurately perceived as a relatively mild drug by many governments. While Holland, which for many years served as an international marketplace for psycho-active plants, finally outlawed the use of magic mushrooms, the law was lax enough to allow continued distribution of home-growing kits, so-called 'teks', and ultimately this law may have the entirely beneficial outcome of turning former drug buyers into self-sufficient shroom growers. Parallel to this, the traditional 'mushroom hunt' of late Summer will continue to excite psychedelicists who enjoy the challenge of finding their trip specimens growing wild rather than out of a substrate box. Less cumbersome to prepare than ayahuasca, and much easier to obtain than DMT, the psilocybian mushrooms offer a logistically superior alternative to its tryptamine siblings, along with a psycho-active potential which, at sufficiently high doses, is comparable in power.
Making the psilocybian mushroom the ceremonial key in psychedelic culture was, of course, an explicit objective for Terence McKenna, and recent developments verify the soundness of this ambition. All the other major and minor psychedelics, from street acid down to the most esoteric laboratory analogue, exist as possible catalysts for the exploration of Innerspace, but the rich benefits of a shared and collectively approved shibboleth experience transcends all personal needs. McKenna suggested that Psilocybe cubensis was particularly well-suited for this role, as it lacked the hardwired shamanic tradition that the Mexi-Indian peoples had developed around Psilocybe mexicana. The Cubensis, McKenna suggested, was unclaimed by any indigenous tradition and stood open to appropriate as the iconic tool for modern Western Psychedelia. Whether it is due to Terence's influence or not, P. cubensis has emerged as a dominant species in the mushroom habits of the 2000s. Among its advantages, in addition to the basic qualities as a psychedelic mind-opener, is a combination of size and potency that limits the effective dose needed to just a handful of specimens, in addition to the fact that it's a robust species well suited for homegrowing. The main drawback of this and all psycho-active mushrooms is the difficulty in estimating dosage, but a way to address this is described in the Notes section.
Finally, while Psilocybe cubensis can be held forth as a strong candidate for the master key role within a psychedelic society, it is not an ideal agent for one's very first psychedelic experience. As mentioned before, the mushroom space can be perceived as a little intimidating and even threatening to the inexperienced tripper, due to the abstract sense of an alien presence, along with the Mushroom Voice, should it appear. The greenhouse strains of P.cubensis that have been developed and sold commercially over the past decade are so potent that even what is described as a 'moderate' dose (perhaps 1.5 dry grams) will offer an overwhelming experience. Instead, many field veterans suggest that gradually increased doses of LSD is the best way to enter the psychedelic path. With its bewildering pandemonium of sensory phenomena, absurd ideation, and conflicting emotions, an initiation trip of 75 mcg LSD will make enough demands on the cerebral resources of the psychedelic virgin. If mushrooms are the only available option, a cautious dosage approach is recommended for new-comers. Once inside its mycelium world, Gordon Wasson suggests that at least a dozen trips are necessary to understand the resources and potential of the mushroom.
Notes
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1 Gordon Wasson, interviewed in High Times magazine 1976.
2 As reported by Ralph Metzner, Maria Sabina found her full shamanic calling via a mushroom revelation where she was shown a of book of wisdom and language. Her formal title was actually sabia rather than curandera; sabia being the highest authority in this shamanic system. Visions of books, libraries and archives are not uncommon in life-altering experiences, and a similar non-drug account can be found in the biography of Descartes (Chapter IV).
3 Sabina's approval of Hofmann's Psilocybin pills is mentioned in Aldous Huxley's moksha anthology; the original source of the citation is a letter from Roger Heim to Huxley's brother Julian. Wasson first claimed (in High Times 1976) that both he and Heim found the actual mushrooms more effective than the Psilocybin pills, while also admitting it may be a biased call. Later on he said he found the effect of the pills to be identical (interview in ReVision magazine, 1988).
