The Terence McKenna Revival

Terence McKenna in 1999. Photo by Jon Hanna.

The world is experiencing a psychedelic renaissance. While medicine such as psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is paving the way for this renaissance, many are searching for a psychedelic path less trodden. Entheonauts are looking to the past for answers, as did Terence McKenna. The difference is that now, Terence has become a figure of the past himself and more voyagers than ever are looking to him for answers.

"The archaic revival is a very large cultural wave… it’s a discovery, a moving toward a realization that the values that can serve us are archaic values… we have to go completely outside of history”

Terence McKenna

Despite the passing of this mystical entheobotanist, Terence’s body of work has continued to grow. From psychedelic audio samples to biographies, Terence continues to inspire esoteric and scientific works and everything in between. The film ‘Beyond the Brain’ was just recently released, portraying an entirety of one of Terence McKenna’s raps from 1997 as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the travelling and happenings sounding the psychedelic party.

As well as the release of the Beyond the Brain film, Paul Chambers published a detailed written article ‘Beyond the Brain: Happening at East Edge’. The article seeks to provide some context for Terence’s appearance and reception in the Byron Bay Area in the 1990s. The article shows that the potential of the Sixties psychedelic-inspired movements, continued to be explored and played out in peoples’ life, work, relationships and beliefs, as exemplified by an event like Beyond the Brain

“These were visionary events happening at the right time in the perfect place—a superb and loose venue, right next to a beautiful beach, at a glorious collective moment where the creative chemistry of so many people came together. There is an openness and egalitarian acceptance that psychedelic use engenders that can, at least temporarily, dissolve the hierarchies, jealousies, grudges and judgements characteristic of human personalities. At Beyond the Brain, people came together as a team to create and enjoy something bigger than themselves. In doing so, those involved were able to transcend patterns of passivity, negativity and fear. The super-efforts expended to produce the parties seemed to activate latent human possibilities on both a personal and collective level, allowing access to a higher order of reality where miracles can happen.”

Paul Chambers

'Beyond the Brain: Happening at East Edge' appears in a special issue of Dancecult, entitled 'Psychedelica and Electronica' co-edited by Trace Reddell and  Graham St John, who also has an article in the issue: 'The Voice of the Apocalypse: Terence McKenna as Raving Medium.' We recently heard from Graham on an EGA webcast about his journey writing Terence’s biography. The webcast offers a fascinating portrait of Terence as an ethnobotanist, cultural theorist, visionary and storyteller.

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