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A psychedelic trip up the ladder of evolution

A psychedelic trip up the ladder of evolutionThis article culled from The Independent On Sunday, a 'quality paper'.

Read, be entertained and enlightened, or whatever. 11th July 1993

Alix Sharkey

think we should deal only with the facts when we talk of Terence McKenna, don't you? I mean the

Californian scholar with the theory about psilocybin mushrooms and the development of human

onsciousness - that the psychedelic experience triggered sentience in foraging, omnivorous apes and l

hem, in the evolutionary wink of an eye, to put rockets on the moon.

Mr. McKenna contends that hallucinogenic fungi inspired our primate forbears to develop language, b

trapping us up the evolutionary ladder to the brink of self-realization, and that this humble mushroom

ow ready and waiting for us to complete our ontological correspondence course, if we would only tea

urselves away from smack, crack, coke, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, cocoa, uppers, downers and

he other bad substances we are addicted to. 

He believes that hallucinogenic-plant gnosis is the lost key to our intellectual, moral and spiritual

evelopment as a race; that all subsequent drug abuse is merely an attempt to satisfy our primeval urge

sychedelic union with nature ('an itch we cannot scratch'); and that cataclysmic change or certain

xtinction awaits us. His theory states : 'No perception without hallucination.' 

We are in a small house in west London. There are 40 people sitting on cushions around the room, whi

s large and airy, full of plants, and dominated by a huge skylight. We all face McKenna, who sits crosegged on a black leather armchair, wearing a pair of baggy no-brand jeans and a T-shirt that says 'DM

This stands for dimethyltriptamine, the strongest and fastest-acting organic hallucinogen known to man

Mr. McKenna will defend only DMT, psilocybin and marijuana - nothing man-made). His Birkenstoc

andals are placed neatly nearby, and he wears black woollen socks. 

A bearded academic type, Mr. McKenna does not need fashion to prop up his arguments. His learning

owers of language slowly unwind and coil around us, until eventually we are mesmerised, our token

esistance crushed by the irresistible force of his rationale. History and nature; the psychedelic experien

rohibition of same by religion and capitalism; human proclivity for 'altered states'; Oriental and Westhilosophies; it is everything you have ever read and more. 

Botany, biology, mathematics, quantum and Newtonian physics, chemistry - if you had trouble with it

chool, he is sure to be au fait - all trip lightly off his tongue, along with classical quotations. This is th

McKenna 'rap', the reason why people have paid $30 a head to be here. 'Hallucinogens are data about

eality,' he says. 'They are as dependable and as 'true' as any other source.'  

We have to recognise that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers

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A psychedelic trip up the ladder of evolution

walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception.

He talks like a man reading out his own thoughts in essay form; at one point he actually says 'paragraph

reak'. Only he has no notes, no prompts. 

Things move gradually at first but accelerating all the time as his imagery resonates more powerfully.

When he answers questions his words are vivid and his thinking clear and unhurried. He describes the

Logos, where language is visible, a higher form of communication, a type of linguistic and spiritual

volution and I'm damned if you are not getting a glimpse behind the dusty old drapes of 'meaning' andreality' even as he speaks. 

And it looks very appealing, this alternative world he imagines for us, this higher form of consciousnes

o which we are all party but which we so rarely explore, largely because of our cultural taboos and

arcical drug laws. 

As we break for food and drink, I realise how fast his argument has proceeded and how far we have

limbed, until we are right at the peak of this man's thinking, way up there, floating off and gliding ove

uch dense concepts. And he has taken us all this way without so much as a cigarette paper in sight. Fo

eople, soaring on one man's imagination, logic and humour. Two hours have passed like magic. 'But toint is not to listen to Terence McKenna,' he says. 'The point is to go home and get loaded.' You don't

eed telepathy to know that forty people are thinking : that's my kinda guru.  

After the break Mr. McKenna resumes with his theories about our evolutionary path, involving a length

escription of communication between octopuses. It is dark, and on the wall behind him our host Dann

who runs an audio- visual company called Project Love, is screnning sub-aquatic imagery. 'Stronger

oses, more often,' is Mr McKenna's chilling, or, if you prefer, exhilarating advice. 

You probably know what I found most disturbing about Mr. McKenna's lecture - apart from his voice,asal yet piercing, a laid-back call to reckoning. What bothers me is that, as a tax-paying professional,

with Significant Other and five year-old daughter, great friends, a good home and neighbours, I certain

o not think of myself as a radical. So I was worried because nearly everything he said seemed to make

ense. 

omehow I knew he would dare me to act on my beliefs, and he did. Commitment, that is what he

wanted. 'When are we going to come out of the closet?,' he asked. And that is where I finally saw reaso

ould get in a lot of trouble if people thought I took hallucinogenic drugs. Ha, the psychedelic experien

But he almost talked me into it. Phew, that was close. 

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