Ia) Books, Chapters, Dissertations, Comics & Graphic Novels About

Terence McKenna Bibliography

This compilation is © 2000–2010 Chris Mays & 2022-2023 Kevin Whitesides.
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Books, Chapters, Dissertations, Comics & Graphic Novels About

  • 2021 (3)

  • John C. Ryan, Patricia Vieira, and Monica Gagliano, editors (2021) The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence. Synergetic Press, Santa Fe. xxv, 502 pages; Terence McKenna is mentioned only once in this large book, in Chapter 2: Ayahuasca by Luis Eduardo Luna, where Luna mentions his early encounter with McKenna in Colombia in 1971 in the months following the La Chorrera “experiment,” an event which had a substantial impact on both of their future trajectories but which is not detailed at length here (but will be treated in detail in a focused chapter in Altered Statesman: A Terence McKenna Anthology, forthcoming). Worldcat.
  • Jacques Olivier (2021) Nature Loves Courage. Icaro Publishing, Orcas Island. 155 pages; “a hyperspace ride into the love, loss, life, death and rebirth of noted psychonaut Jacques Olivier…and his deep connection to Terence McKenna, culminating in his death on stage at the Imagine Festival on full moon Friday 13, 2019 on Orcas Island, Washington.” McKenna is featured frequently throughout, including a black and white photo of him from behind, hunched over, slowly ascending the steep Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal.
  • P. D. Newman (2021) Angels in Vermilion: The Philosopher’s Stone from Dee to DMT. Tria Prima Press, Phoenix. xii, lii, 152 pages; Newman dedicates the book “For Terence.” McKenna’s description of DMT as “orange mothballs” is cited, a passage from The Invisible Landscape on shamanic death & rebirth is quoted, and he is quoted again on the alchemical attempt to dissolve the boundary between waking and sleep.

 

  • 2020 (1)

  • Kevin Feeney, editor (2020) Fly Agaric: A Compendium of History, Pharmacology, Mythology, and Exploration. Fly Agaric Press, Ellensburg, Washington. xix, 486 pages; References to McKenna appear in two chapters. “Magical Potions: Entheogenic Themes in Scandinavian Mythology” by Steven Leto discusses McKenna’s views on Soma candidates (that Psilocybe mushrooms seemed more likely than Amanita muscaria) and launches from this into his own analysis. “The Experience” by Kevin Feeney cites Terence (from Food of the Gods, 1992) describing a friend’s fly agaric experience: “…it was not truly psychedelic. It was as if everything were exactly the same but totally unfamiliar…” Worldcat.

 

  • 2019 (2)

  • Chas S. Clifton (2019) Witches Still Fly: Or Do They? Traditional Witches, Wiccans, and Flying Ointment, in Magic and Witchery in the Modern West: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of ‘The Triumph of the Moon’, edited by Shai Feraro and Ethan Doyle White. Springer International Publishing, Cham. xiii, 259 pages; “Parallel to the study of Wicca and Pagan witchcraft by historians of religion lies another sub-discipline in which the psychotropic reality of flying ointment is a given.” Clifton notes that “Dennis McKenna and three friends tried to a re-created ointment…but after two hours, “we realized the unguent had failed to produce the desired effects.” Worldcat.
  • Erik Davis (2019) High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. Strange Attractor Press and The MIT Press, London & Cambridge, Massachussetts. 545 pages; Developed and expanded from his PhD dissertation, the book both documents the historical context of three “weird” sets of happenings (and the writings that came out of them) in the 1970s by way of Terence & Dennis McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick and delightfully develops the concept and significance of the “weird” as an ontology-defying phenomenological experience, identifying the McKenna’s as practitioners of a “weird naturalism.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2018 (2)

  • James Oroc (2018) The New Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age. Park Street Press, Rochester. 467 pages; McKenna takes up nearly a column of the index with Chapter 3 entirely devoted to “Terence McKenna: The Rise of the Plant Shaman.” “Now, nearly two decades after Terence’s death, and some years after the aftermath of the 2012 hope and hysteria that he helped create, there can be no denying McKenna’s influence on contemporary psychedelic culture.” Worldcat.
  • Tao Lin (2018) Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change. Vintage Books, New York. 308 pages; “While reeling from one of the most creative–but at times self-destructive–outpourings of his life, Tao Lin discovered the strange and exciting work of Terence McKenna. McKenna, the leading advocate of psychedelic drugs since Timothy Leary, became for Lin both an obsession and a revitalizing force…detailing his experiences with psilocybin, DMT, LSD, salvia, and cannabis, Lin takes readers on a trip through nature, his own past, psychedelic culture, and the unknown.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2017 (6)

  • Ben Sessa (2017) The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society, 2nd edition. Muswell Hill Press. xiv, 387 pages; ISBN: 9781908995254. An updated edition of Sessa (2012). Worldcat.

 

 

  • P. D. Newman (2017) Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry. The Laudable Pursuit Press. 191 pages; Newman quotes a lengthy paragraph from Food of the Gods on the nature of the DMT experience and a brief supposition from a 1994 in which McKenna speculates about secret societies holding the secret of DMT. McKenna’s influence on the narrative of DMT experience is also mentioned in a trip report: “The ‘machine elves’ I had always heard McKenna talk about were there, distracting me with their benignly menacing dancing.” Worldcat.
  • Ralph Metzner (2017) Overtones and Undercurrents: Spirituality, Reincarnation, and Ancestor Influence in Entheogenic Psychotherapy. Park Street Press, Rochester. 183 pages; Metzner provides “an account of my introduction to the ayahuasca serpents from an experience I had with my friend Terence McKenna when I was in my late fifties… In my experience, which took place in Northern California, there seemed to be one gigantic serpent mother, coiling and rippling through the entire length and breadth of the valley in which we were situated.” Worldcat.
  • Grant Maxwell (2017) The Dynamics of Transformation: Tracing an Emerging World View. Persistent Press, Nashville. 201 pages; Offers twelve concepts that trace the contours of an emerging world view after the postmodern. McKenna is mentioned in regards to “exponential compaction of temporality…mediated through the exponential growth of technology,” fractals, novelty, virtual reality, and “small mouth noises.” Worldcat.

 

  • Mark J. Estren, editor (2017) One Toke to God: The Entheogenic Spirituality of Cannabis. Cannabis Spiritual Center. 236 pages; A collection of 30 essays on cannabis spirituality. Stephen Gray, in his essay “The Revival of an Ancient Spiritual Ally,” interprets McKenna’s use of “whistling past the graveyard” as an analogy for ego-dissolution and quotes his comment that “nature is not mute, it is man who is deaf.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2016 (4)

  • Jeffery Pritchett and Andrew B. Colvin (2016) And We Hope You Like Shamans, Too: The Secret Life of Mother Nature. New Saucerian Press, Point Pleasant, West Virginia. 156 pages; Terence McKenna is mentioned or quoted in several chapters. Chapter 17 is a reprint of the 1992 High Times interview by David Jay Brown & Rebecca McClen Novick; however, strangely, their names have been stricken from the record.
  • Douglas Osto (2016) Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America. Columbia University Press, New York. xxvi, 300 pages; Osto discusses McKenna’s 1996 interview by Allan Badiner in Tricycle magazine, reveals McKenna’s own role as Badiner’s initiatory ayahuasca “shaman,” and identifies Michele McDonald-Smith as McKenna’s “polar opposite on a spectrum of opinions about Buddhism and psychedelics.” Worldcat.
  • Jesse Jarnow (2016) Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. Da Capo Press, Philadelphia. xi, 468 pages; McKenna is featured frequently throughout Jarnow’s engaging and well-researched romp through psychedelic (especially Grateful Dead) cultural history. “In Berkeley in that summer of 1971, a wild-haired, wild-bearded, wild eyed head scribbles wildly in notebooks. He is in possession of certain information that will replicate around the world. If he can only sort it out. His beard shoots outward, and so do his calculations…” Worldcat.
  • David Jay Brown (2016) Dreaming Wide Awake: Lucid Dreaming, Shamanic Healing, and Psychedelics. Park Street Press, Rochester. xi, 404 pages; Mentioned throughout, McKenna’s comments about smoking DMT while in a dream are discussed alongside his comments about the importance of language and culture on our modeling of the world, synesthesia resulting from ayahuasca songs, richer dreamlife in the absence of cannabis, and the efficacious potential of lucid dreaming for cultural transformation. Brown mentions having had lucid dream conversations with McKenna. Worldcat.

 

  • 2015 (4)

  • Graham St John (2015) Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT. Evolver Editions, Berkeley. xxiii, 492 pages; As might be expected, the references to McKenna in this well-researched tome cover nearly two columns of the book’s index. Of particular interest is St John’s personal contact with Rick Watson, McKenna’s close friend, who reveals, among other things, newly published details of Terence’s first DMT trip. Worldcat.
  • Tom Shroder (2015) Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal. Plume, New York. xvii, 442 pages; includes a couple of passages mentioning Terence in two separate sections on Rick Doblin, including a story about the origins for funding an MDMA study that developed as a result of a meeting at Esalen as a sort of opposition to Terence’s general cautioning against the promotion of that substance. More details. Worldcat.
  • Michael Sanders (2015) Ayahuasca: An Executive’s Enlightenment. Safe & Feather Press, Toronto. 148 pages; “Sitting near Ricardo, Ceta introduces herself to our group. She is a shaman who works in South and North America. She has been involved with Ayahuasca since the 1990s and has worked with the likes of Terence McKenna, amongst other seekers and psychonauts.”

 

  • James W. Jesso (2015) The True Light of Darkness. SoulsLantern Publishing, Calgary. xxvii, 127 pages; Jesso’s autobiographical account includes his encounter with the ideas of Terence McKenna. “With desperate wings flown on the hot air of the Irish maverick McKenna’s spoken word on jungle healing and fungal intelligence, I reach to the mushroom as though it were my spiritual teacher, a healer, a medicine…Finally, I was inspired again. It turned out, woven into the fantastic fabrics of intergalactic and seriously unrealistic propositions, that McKenna guy really had something valuable to offer.” More details. Worldcat.

 

  • 2014 (4)

  • Rak Razam (2014) The Ayahuasca Sessions: Conversations with Amazonian Curanderos and Western Shamans. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley. ix, 299 pages; ISBN: 9781583948019. Terence is mentioned several times during Razam’s interview with Dennis McKenna.

 

 

  • Chris Kilham (2013) The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook: The Essential Guide to Ayahuasca Journeying. Evolver Editions, Berkeley. xvi, 231 pages; ISBN: 9781583947913. Quotes Terence McKenna, “Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.” Kilham contacts Dennis McKenna to connect him with ayahuasquero Guillermo Arevalo. Worldcat.
  • Ross Heaven (2014) Salvia Divinorum: The Sage of Seers. Moon Books, Winchester. xiii, 102 pages; Worldcat.

 

 

 

 

  • Anthony M. Campos (2014) The Religious Odyssey of Tony Campos: The Story of a Ten-Year Religious Odyssey with the Sacred Mushroom (A God-Manifested Entity) as a Guide. Createspace (Self-published). 312 pages; Tony “has been actively involved in the human potential movement since the 1960s while interacting with Terence McKenna and several other thought leaders…” McKenna is a frequent feature of the book, most notably as a topic of transmissions from the mushroom to Tony.

 

  • 2013 (5)

  • Kevin Whitesides (2013) From Counterculture to Mainstream: 2012 Millennialism in Your Living Room. In Small Screen Revelations: Apocalypse in Contemporary Television, edited by James Aston & John Wallis. Sheffield Phoenix Press, Sheffield. xiv, 208 pages; discusses McKenna’s role in the development of the 2012 phenomenon and describes his appearance on the FOX television program Sightings in an episode titled ‘A Vision Through Time’ that profiles his Timewave alongside prophecies by Notradamus and others and the use of McKenna’s eschaton date, 12-22-12, in the series finale of The X-Files. Worldcat.
  • Douglas Rushkoff (2013) Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. Current, New York. 296 pages; ISBN: 9781591844761. “My first exposure to the logic of apocalypto came through an old friend of mine, a shamanic explorer with a penchant for Irish folklore named Terence McKenna….one of the most articulate stoned heroes of the psychedelics underground.” Spends roughly three pages on the McKennas and eschatology. Worldcat.
  • James W. Jesso (2013) Decomposing the Shadow: Lessons from the Psilocybin Mushroom. SoulsLantern Publishing, Calgary. 132 pages; In a chapter titled “Enter McKenna,” Jesso gives a brief bio, describes, “Stoned Ape” theory and outlines some of McKenna’s general topics of discussion. “McKenna opened an entirely new paradigm for the implications of psychedelics and the nature of experience itself.” Worldcat.
  • Warren Ellis and Adi Granov (2013) Iron Man: Extremis. Marvel, New York. ISBN: 9780785183785; Within the comic: “DMT interests me, because it gets to a place beyond your memory stores. You know something like sixty percent of people have the same hallucinations on DMT. Terence McKenna, rest his soul, called them ‘self-transforming machine elves’…” Worldcat.

 

  • Michael Barkun (2013) A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, 2nd edition. University of California Press: Berkeley. xiv, 306 pages; The second edition of Barkun’s classic treatment of conspiracy theory includes a chapter on the 2012 phenomenon; Barkun received feedback from me (Whitesides) as he wrote the chapter but only mentions McKenna in a single sentence (citing Whitesides & Hoopes 2011) indicating him as a conduit of the 2012 idea to Jose Arguelles, who he gives more attention to. Worldcat.

 

  • 2012 (5)

  • Ben Sessa (2012) The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society. Muswell Hill, London. x, 237 pages; Terence McKenna’s name appears on 10 pages in the index (Dennis’ on 4). Identified as “the brilliantly verbose psychedelic commentator,” Sessa indicates McKenna’s extraterrestrial theory of the origin of psilocybin mushrooms; psychedelics as a door to ‘hyperspace’; five dried grams as McKenna’s gold standard for P. cubensis consumption; Stoned Ape; McKenna’s musical collaboration with The Shamen; etc. Worldcat.
  • Andy Roberts (2012) Albion Dreaming: A Popular History of LSD in Britain, Revised edition. Marshall Cavendish, Singapore. xxiv, 324 pages; McKenna is mentioned in passing as among the presenters at Fraser Clark’s Megatripolis festival. “Its festival-like ambience together with a series of guest speakers such as Allen Ginsberg, Terence McKenna, Howard Marks and Baba Ram Dass made it a popular venue for users of LSD and other psychedelics. Rave and dance music mixed with tribal drumming and light shows reminiscent of the Sixties.” Worldcat.
  • Grant Morrison (2012) Supergods. Spiegel & Grau, New York. xvii, 454 pages; Morrison describes “[r]eading Terence McKenna’s True Hallucinations in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, tripping at thirty-three thousand feet, aged thirty-three, like Jesus in a post-Cold War international thaw, at large in a charmed era of dancing and hugging and doing what thou wilt in exotic latitudes…” Later, he notes “Unless Terence McKenna’s “Timewave Zero” theories are correct…2021 will bring the cycle back to ‘punk’.” Worldcat.
  • Dennis McKenna (2012) Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna. North Star Press of St. Cloud, St. Cloud, Minnesota. xx, 508 pages; Terence’s younger brother’s biographical history of his (and their) life together. A central source for McKenna history.

 

 

  • Graham St John & Chiara Baldini (2012) Dancing at the Crossroads of Consciousness: Techno-Mysticism, Visionary Arts and Portugal’s Boom Festival, in Handbook of New Religious Movements and Cultural Production, edited by Carole M. Cusack & Alex Norman. Brill, Leiden. xxix, 789 pages;  McKenna is discussed substantially in this chapter, where he is described as an “anarchist ethnonaturalist and psychedelic mystic,” as well as “chief bard to the neo-psychedelic counterculture,” and “easily the most sampled individual in Goa/psytrance music productions.” “McKenna’s appeal should be recognised within the context of new spiritual trajectories whereby the ‘immediacy of personal experience…is understood as epistemologically crucial’.” “This shamanic sensibility is indebted to the efforts of McKenna;” “The popularity of DMT is one of McKenna’s legacies.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2011 (6)

  • Simon G. Powell (2011) The Psilocybin Solution: The Role of Sacred Mushrooms in the Quest for Meaning. Park Street Press, Rochester. xiv, 272 pages; Powell refers to McKenna on LSD vs. psilocybin, UFOs, the elevated view provided by psychedelics, seekership, the most improbable Big Bang, extraterrestrial life, 2012 and the Omega Point, and the mysterious self-defense mechanisms of psilocybin that prohibit profanation. Worldcat.
  • Patrick Meaney (2011) Our Sentence is Up: Seeing Grant Morrison’s ‘The Invisibles, revised 1st edition. Sequart Research & Literacy Organization, Edwardsville, Illinois. 348 pages; Meaney minutely analyzes Morrison’s partly McKenna-inspired graphic novel series. “Time Speeding Up and 2012:” “One can read the series’s use of 2012 as Morrison riffing on a piece of pop mythology.” “…other-dimensional beings…are the same entities as Terence McKenna’s machine elves, or PKD’s Zebra laser, seen through the lens of ’90s pop culture.” “McKenna’s machine elves get reconceived as little green men.” Includes an interview with Morrison who mentions McKenna. Worldcat.
  • Douglas Lain (2011) Fall Into Time. Fantastic Planet Books, Portland. 108 pages; In Lain’s short story “Noam Chomsky and the Time Box,” “A tech blogger travels back in time and becomes obsessed with a twenty-two minute period in the Chicago O’Hara Airport on November 16th, 1971, when Noam Chomsky and Terence McKenna nearly met. But nothing goes according to plan in his repeated attempts to change the course of history, which entail kidnapping Chomsky and subjecting hostages from the Chicago O’Hara to footage of Ronald Reagan.” Worldcat.
  • Ken Johnson (2011) Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art. Prestel Verlag, Munich & New York. 232 pages; “For Terence McKenna, the avatar of psychedelic salvation and an inspiration to [artist, Steve] DiBenedetto, the octopus was a sacred creature. ‘I believe that the totemic image for the future is the octopus… [they] have perfect a form of communication that is both psychedelic and telepathic… In the not-too-distant future men and women may shed the monkey body to become virtual octopi swimming in a silicon sea.” Worldcat.
  • Richard M. Doyle (2011) Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere. University of Washington Press, Seattle. ix, 358 pages; McKenna is a central feature throughout. In the Acknowledgments, Doyle remarks “someday there will be a Nobel for Psychonautics, may it be named for the Shulgins and given to the McKennas.” Worldcat.
  • Peter Bebergal (2011) Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood. Soft Skull Press, Berkeley. xxiii, 232 pages; Bebergal interviewed Dennis McKenna over the phone on November 24, 2009. “Dennis McKenna is often name-checked as merely the brother of the late Terence McKenna… Dennis has made his own mark, however, as one of the most important contemporary researchers in the area of ethnopharmacology…”

 

  • 2010 (3)

  • Gary Danner & Elisa Rose (2010) Station Rose: 20 Digital Years Plus, 1988-2010. Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Nürnberg. 191 pages + 1 CD; The experimental digital performance group Station Rose recounts a 1993 event in Frankfurt with McKenna. Preparing for the performance, he wrote: “The further IN you go, the bigger it gets. Technology is the real SKIN of our species. We ARE the sex orgANS of our machines, we exist to improve next years model. We are closing distance… The world is not only stranger… The octopus wears language like clothing. We ARe the tool-MAKing species, we transform matter into culture…” Worldcat.
  • Stephan V. Beyer (2010) Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. xiii, 530 pages; Beyer says, “Terence McKenna speaks of hearing ‘a language of alien meaning that is conveying alien information'” and discusses his “self-transforming machine elves.” Worldcat.

 

  • Mark Christensen (2010) Acid Christ: Ken Kesey, LSD, and the Politics of Ecstasy. Schaffner Press, Tucson. vii, 449 pages; Mark Christensen offers one of the strangest McKenna quotes to date (an idea that just seems patently wrong on its face, on all accounts, no matter how I spin it): “As ‘psychedelic sociologist’ Terence McKenna once said, “Shamanism without psychedelics is like wife-beating without alcohol, it just doesn’t happen.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2009 (1)

  • James Oroc (2009) Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. Park Street Press, Rochester. xvi, 365 pages; “After reading [The Archaic Revival] I was intoxicated with the idea of gods, aliens, and other-dimensional beings, and I was certain that this was the correct way of attempting to communicate with them: surely they would respect my intent.” “This book… became for me both a lifeline and a rocket ship into intellectual hyperspace, as over the next few months, supplemented by regularly smoking 5-MeO-DMT, I gave full and open credence to the wildest rumblings of Terence’s imagination.” Worldcat.

  • 2008 (3)

  • Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frecska (2008) Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. Park Street Press, Rochester. viii, 344 pages; Rick Strassman briefly describes McKenna’s “Stoned Ape” theory; Luis Eduardo Luna tells the story of how he met McKenna in Colombia in 1971, of his visit to Berkeley the following year, and how Terence helped him locate a shaman for a documentary on yage. Science fiction illustrator Slawek Wojtowicz references McKenna on the idea that psilocybin mushrooms produce exopheromones to attract intelligent life and speed up intellectual development. Worldcat.
  • Eliezer Sobel (2008) The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments. Santa Monica Press, Santa Monica, California. 310 pages; references McKenna on a preference for psychedelics over gurus and meditation techniques, and in regards to his recommendation for a “heroic dose,” which the author paraphrases as “journeying in the solo warrior tradition of Terence McKenna.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2007 (1)

  • Matthew J. Pallamary (2007) Spirit Matters: A Memoir. Mystic Ink Publishing, Carlsbad. 251 pages; ISBN: 9781434318015.

 

 

 

 

  • 2006 (9)

  • Douglas Rushkoff (2006) Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture, 2nd edition. Ballantine Books, New York. xv, 344 pages;

 

 

 

 

  • Daniel Pinchbeck (2006) 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Jeremy P. Tarcher, New York City. 384 pages; ISBN: 1585424838. Pinchbeck mentions McKenna and his works in passing a score of times in his exploration of an impending transformation of human consciousness.  LibraryThing.

 

  • L. G. Nicholas and Kerry Ogamé (2006) Psilocybin Mushroom Handbook: Easy Indoor and Outdoor Mushroom Cultivation. Quick American Archives, Oakland CA. 224 pages; ISBN: 0932551718. Nicholas and Ogamé, in the prologue and first chapter, outline the historical significance of the mushroom cultivation method the McKenna brothers detail in their “classic” Psilocybin, magic mushroom grower’s guide: A handbook for psilocybin enthusiasts (1976). “With its philosophical asides, lovely, phantasmagorical illustrations, and Lovecraftian speculations about the off-world origins of the organisms and their import for humankind… it is, above all, a great read.”.  LibraryThing.

  • Andy Letcher (2006) Shroom: A cultural history of the magic mushroom. Faber and Faber, London. 360 pages; ISBN: 0571227708. Letcher devotes a chapter to McKenna: “The Elf-Clowns of Hyperspace,” Chapter 14, pp. 250-274 in the Faber and Faber edition. According to Letcher, “… the jury is still out on the question of whether McKenna was an unsung Newton, or was just plain nuts, …”.  LibraryThing.

  • Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit (2006) Astrotheology and shamanism: Unveiling the law of duality in Christianity and other religions. Illustrator: Nicholas Zervos. Book Tree, San Diego CA. 236 pages; ISBN: 1585091073, 978-1585091072. McKenna’s stoned ape theory—as well as the entire “The mushroom speaks” from Psilocybin, magic mushroom grower’s guide (1976)—among several other quotes, adorn this kaleidoscopic treatment of drugs, gods and the skies.  LibraryThing.

  • Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing (2006) Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul. Destiny Books, Rochester. xxii, 250 pages; uses McKenna’s term “true hallucination” to counter the notion of psychedelic visions delivering “nonsense images,” touches on “Stoned Ape” theory, and quotes him on the shamanic “search for techniques to access the magical dimensions.” Worldcat.

  • Cover Dan Carpenter (2006) A psychonaut’s guide to the invisible landscape : The topography of the psychedelic experience. Park Street Press, Rochester VT. 128 pages; ISBN: 1594770905. Carpenter invokes the title of McKenna’s first book, and heeds his call to document the psychedelic experience, in discussing his DXM (Dextromethorphan) trips. He speculates, building on Jeremy Narby’s The Cosmic Serpent, that McKenna’s self-transforming machine elves of hyperspace are an altered state perception of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid).  LibraryThing.

  • Chester Brown (2006) The Little Man: Short Strips, 1980 – 1995. Drawn & Quarterly, Montreal & New York. ix, 178 pages; In a comic strip titled “My Mom Was a Schizophrenic” from 1995, Chester Brown includes McKenna in several frames in conversation with Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, Seth Farber, and Stanislav Grof. McKenna says “Because of accidents of botany and history, European history has been away from the psychedelic dimensions for a while;” “We call them ‘schizophrenia’ and close the door;” “Not all shamans use intoxication with plants to obtain ecstasy, but all shamanic practice aims to give rise to ecstasy.” Worldcat.
  • Ian Baker (2006) The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise. Penguin Books, New York. xxvi, 511 pages; “Research by the mycologist Terence McKenna…suggests that the principle ingredient of soma–the ritual intoxicant of the Veda–was not Amanita but the more psychoactive and benign psilocybin-containing Stropharia cubensis. McKenna also makes a case for Peganum harmala, Syrian rue, which occurs widely along the ancient caravan and trade routes of Asia…McKenna speculates that the plant may have been used in synergistic combination with …mushrooms and possibly influence the iconography of Tibetan art.” Worldcat.

 

  • 2005 (4)

 

 

 

  • 2003 (8)

  • Cover Daniel Wojcik (2003) Apocalyptic and millennarian aspects of American UFOism. In UFO religions Editor: Christopher Partridge. Routledge, London. 274-300 (of 383) pages; ISBN: 0415263239. Wojcik summarizes McKenna’s view of UFOs as foreshadowing our encounter with the Eschaton, referring to chapters in The archaic revival.  LibraryThing.

 

  • Joan Parisi Wilcox (2003) Ayahuasca: The Visionary & Healing Powers of the Vine of the Soul. Park Street Press, Rochester. x, 229 pages; ISBN: 0892811315. Worldcat.

 

 

 

  • Brad Warner (2003) Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality. Wisdom Publications, Somerville, MA. xvi, 202 pages; ISBN: 9780861713806. Warner digs into Badiner’s Zig Zag Zen (1992): “Terence McKenna even comes out with the comically ridiculous question: ‘How can you be a serious Buddhist if yo’re not doing psychedelics?’ This kind of thing is a lot like eloquent discourse on tantric sex from guys who really only want to get their rocks off more often and better.” Worldcat.
  • Peter Stafford (2003) Psychedelics. Ronin Publishing, Berkeley. 144 pages; ISBN: 0914171186.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

 

  • Steven Shaviro (2003) Connected, or what it means to live in the Network Society. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 289 pages; ISBN: 0816643628.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

  • John Horgan (2003) The man in the purple sparkly suit. In Rational Mysticism Houghton Mifflin, New York City. 177-194 (of 292) pages; ISBN: 0618060278.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

  • Cover Nevill Drury (2003) Magic and Witchcraft: From Shamanism to the Technopagans. Thames & Hudson, New York City. 240 pages; ISBN: 0500511403.  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • Jim DeRogatis (2003) Turn on your mind: Four decades of great psychdelic rock. Hal Leonard Corporation, New York City. ISBN: 0634055488. Briefly discusses McKenna’s involvement with and influence on the rave scene.  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • Eugene Burger and Jeff McBride (2003) Mystery school: an adventure into the deeper meaning of magic. Miracle Factory, Seattle. 448 pages; ISBN: 0971040540. McKenna appears in a section entitled: “Terence Mckenna: Magic, Science, and Language”. More information: http://miraclefactory.net/mystery.htm.  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • Marcus Boon (2002) The imaginal realms: Psychedelics and literature. In The road of excess : A history of writers on drugs Harvard University Press, Cambridge. 218-275 (of 320) pages; ISBN: 0674009142. Boon mentions Food of the gods and True hallucinations on pages 268-70. “…McKenna’s view of the psychedelic imagination is more gnostic than Huxley’s,” since his other worlds “… exist separately from, but are accessible from, this one”.  LibraryThing.

  • Cover Stephen Beard (2002) Aftershocks: the End of Style Culture. Wallflower Press, London. 191 pages; ISBN: 1903364248. Beard publishes here a story that didn’t make it into the London style magazine i-D in 1994 (131, Aug) entitled Confidence Trickster; a review of McKenna’s appearance at Megatripolis that morphs into a positive review of True hallucinations. “Prowling the stage with the mike like a predatory stand-up comedian, he looked every inch the postmodern storyteller as he regaled his audience with tales from the far side of the druggie experience”.  LibraryThing.

  • 2001 (3)

  • Zoe7 (2001) Into the Void: Exploring Consciousness, Hyperspace and Beyond Using Brain Technology, Psychedelics, and Altered-Mind States. Zon Worldwide Media. The Archaic Revival (1993) and Food of the Gods (1992) are recommended. Worldcat.

 

 

  • Cover Stuart Walton (2001) Out of it: A cultural history of intoxication. 1st ed. Hamish Hamilton, London. 320 pages; ISBN: 0241140382. Walton, in his quest to establish intoxication as a biological imperative, and reclaim it as a fundamental human right, cites Food of the gods in several contexts.  LibraryThing.

 

  • Julie Holland (2001) Ecstasy: The Complete Guide. Park Street Press, Rochester. 454 pages; In her interview with Sasha Shulgin, Holland asks about MDMA as an evolutionary tool, bouncing off of McKenna’s ‘stoned ape’. In her interview with Rick Doblin, he tells of an early MDMA that got funded, in part, as pushback against Terence’s anti-MDMA stance at an Esalen meeting. Worldcat.

 

 

  • 2000 (3)

  • Pablo P. Pavillard (2000) McKenna y la broma cósmica [McKenna and the cosmic joke]. In Visionarios. Ebriedad, sustancias y plantas de poder: Reflexión y creatividad [Visionaries. Intoxication, essences and plants of power: Reflection and creativity] Editor: José Carlos Aguirre. (In Spanish) El Idiota, Madrid. 320 pages;  LibraryThing.

 

  • Cover Lawrence Hagerty (2000) The spirit of the Internet: Speculations on the evolution of global consciousness. Matrix Masters, San Diego. 240 pages; ISBN: 097036511X. Hagerty dedicates the book to McKenna, and quotes McKenna from several sources, including In praise of psychedelics (1988), Spacetime Tsunami (1992), Psychedelic society (1997).  LibraryThing.

  • Nevill Drury (2000) History of magic in the modern age: A quest for personal transformation. Carrol & Graf, New York City. 304 pages; ISBN: 0786707828. McKenna is discussed in Chapter Ten: Archetypes and Cyberspace.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

  • 1999 (6)

  • Ralph Metzner (1999) Green Psychology: Transforming Our Relationship to the Earth. Park Street Press, Rochester. x, 229 pages; “As Robert Graves, Terence McKenna, and others have suggested, it is likely that the “wine” consumed in the Dionysian and Bacchic rites included not only fermented grapes but also various hallucinogenic and aphrodisiac herbs–perhaps psilocybin mushrooms related to the famous “magic mushrooms” of the ancient Mexican shamanic tradition.” Worldcat.

 

  • Dennis William Hauck (1999) The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation. Penguin Books, New York City. 452 pages; ISBN: 0140195718. Hauck quotes briefly from The archaic revival (1991) and the Omni interview (Interview: Terence McKenna, 1993) in his recasting of Hermetic teachings for modern alchemical seekers.  LibraryThing.

 

  • Cover Michael Fairchild (1999) Rock Prophecy: Sex & Jimi Hendrix in World Religions; The Original Asteroid Prediction & Microsoft Connection; Defining the Faith of Creation’s Way: Religion of the Freeks. First Century Press, Rochester NY. 380 pages; ISBN: 1929342020. Fairchild quotes extensively from Food of the gods in his exegetical resuscitation of Jimi Hendrix’s “prophecy… concerning an asteroidal extinction event.” In Fairchild’s view, Hendrix is the “figurehead” of McKenna’s archaic revival (p. 189).  LibraryThing.

  • Fred Botting (1999) Virtual Romanticism. In Romanticism and postmodernism Editor: Edward Larrissy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. 98-112 (of 238) pages; ISBN: 0521642728.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

  • Art Bell and Brad Steiger (1999) The source: Journey through the unexplained. Paper Chase, New Orleans LA. 224-225,232 pages; The paranormal prophet of Pahrump quotes McKenna in two brief sections of his examination of “unexplained” phenomena: Time and Human Imagination & We Are Being Shaped by Something.  LibraryThing.

 

  • Stewart Lee Allen (1999) The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee. Ballantine Books, New York. 232 pages; ISBN: 9780345441492.

 

 

 

 

  • 1998 (3)

  • Simon Reynolds (1998) Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 454 pages; ISBN: 0316741116. McKenna’s stoned ape theory and the Eschaton, as well as his influence on rave culture, receive a scattered handful of mentions. There is also a 1999 paperback edtion by Routledge, New York, 0415923735.  LibraryThing.

 

  • George W. Hudler (1998) Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds. Princeton University Press, Princeton. xvi, 248 pages; ISBN: 0691028737. Hudler offers a brief overview of the ‘stoned ape’ theory. Worldcat.

 

 

  • Kevin Tyler Dann (1998) Bright colors falsely seen: Synaesthesia and the modern search for transcendental knowledge. Yale University Press, New Haven CT. 240 pages; ISBN: 0300066198.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

  • Antonio Bianchi and Piero Coppo (1998) La cultura psichedelica e il mito della revoluzione planetaria [Psychedelic culture and the myth of planetary revolution]. In Piante, sciamani e droghe: uso e abuso dell’estasi chimica [Plants, shamans and drugs: Use and abuse of chemical ecstasy] (In Italian) Edizione Colibrì, Milano. 53-75 (144 total) pages; ISBN: 8886345186. McKenna’s work is discussed in the section “McKenna e l’iperspazio: una mitologia mancata,” 69-72 [McKenna and hyperspace: a failed mythology].  LibraryThing.

  • 1997 (4)

  • Sukie Miller (1997) After Death : A Geography of the Journey Beyond Death. Simon & Schuster, New York City. 240 pages; ISBN: 0684822369. Brief discussion of McKenna’s description of DMT hyperspace (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) as an “afterdeath vision,” along with such visions of Swedenborg and Rudolph Steiner. (pp. 131-2 of the 1st edition).  LibraryThing.

 

  • Paul Devereux (1997) The long trip: a prehistory of psychedelia. Penguin Arkana, New York City. xxii,298 pages; ISBN: 0140195408.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

 

  • Cover Matthew Collin and John Godfrey (1997) Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. Serpent’s Tail, London. 288 pages; ISBN: 1852423773. Brief discussion of McKenna, and his relation to house music in the 1990s (pp. 205-6 of the first edition).  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • 1996 (3)

  • Andrew Weil (1996) Pharmacology of consciousness: a narrative of subjective experience. In Toward a Science of Consciousness: the first Tucson discussions and debates Editor: Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak and Alwyn C. Scott. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. 677-689 (of 790) pages; ISBN: 0262082497. Weil dismisses McKenna’s psilocybin/magic mushroom (psilocybin) origin of consciousness theory [p. 687], saying that accidental ingestion of psychedelics by primates could reduce, rather than increase, their chance of procreating.  LibraryThing.


  • William S. Moxley (1996) The Center of the Universe: A Theory of Psychedelic Experience. Several paragraph discussion of McKenna’s psilocybin/magic mushroom (psilocybin) origin of consciousness theory, among others, in Chapter Seven: Evolution. Moxley mentions Andrew Weil’s rejection of McKenna’s theory that appeared in Toward a Science of Consciousness. Visited: Dec 1, 2000. More information: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/univcont.htm.

  • Mark Dery (1996) Escape velocity: cyberculture at the end of the century. Grove Press, New York NY. viii, 376 pages; ISBN: 0802115802.  LibraryThing.

 

 

 

 

  • 1995 (6)

  • David Toop (1995) Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds. Serpent’s Tail, London. 306 pages; ISBN: 9781852423827. “In 1994, I was commissioned to write database material on shamanism and associated subjects for The Shamen’s CD-i/CD-ROM. I spoke with psychedelic plant guru Terence McKenna and The Shamen’s Colin Angus… After decades of boiling up infusions of psychotropic leaves and fungi, McKenna had become a born-again techno freak.”
  • Russ Kick (1995) Alien dreamtime. In Outposts: A catalog of rare and disturbing alternative information Carrol & Graf, New York. 62-63 (of 264) pages; ISBN: 0786702028.  LibraryThing.

  • Russ Kick (1995) The invisible landscape. In Outposts: A catalog of rare and disturbing alternative information Carrol & Graf, New York. 62 (of 264) pages; ISBN: 0786702028.  LibraryThing.

  • Russ Kick (1995) Food of the gods. In Outposts: A catalog of rare and disturbing alternative information Carrol & Graf, New York. 62 (of 264) pages; ISBN: 0786702028.  LibraryThing.
  • Kevin Tyler Dann (1995) Bright colors falsely seen: Synaesthesia and the modern search for transcendental knowledge. Ph.D. Dissertation in History. T. J. Jackson Lears, Advisor. Rutgers University, New Brunswick. 375 pages; More information: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=742794371&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=17866&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

  • Chester Brown (1995) Underwater: Chapter Four. Drawn & Quarterly, Montreal; 26 pages. In a comic strip titled “My Mom Was a Schizophrenic,”  Brown includes McKenna in several frames in conversation with Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, Seth Farber, and Stanislav Grof. McKenna says “Because of accidents of botany and history, European history has been away from the psychedelic dimensions for a while;” “We call them ‘schizophrenia’ and close the door;” “Not all shamans use intoxication with plants to obtain ecstasy, but all shamanic practice aims to give rise to ecstasy.”

  • 1994 (6)

  • Robert Anton Wilson (1994) Chaos and beyond: The best of Trajectories. The Permanent Press, San Jose CA. ISBN: 1886404003. Wilson collects essays from his Trajectories magazine, including his review of Food of the gods: Book Previews (1991).  LibraryThing.

  • Valdamar Valerian (1994) Matrix IV: The Equivideum: Paradigms and Dimensions of Human Evolution and Consciousness. Leading Edge International Research Group, Yelm WA. 1134 pages;  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • D. M. Turner (1994) The Essential Psychedelic Guide. Panther Press, San Francisco Ca. 112 pages; ISBN: 0964263610.  LibraryThing.

 

 

  • Michael Raymond Pryzdia (1994) The wake of imagination and the postmodern meaning of “meaning” (Derrida, Jacques, Campbell, Joseph, Thompson, William Irwin, Mckenna, Terence). Ph.D. Dissertation in Philosophy. Ellen Berry, Advisor. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green. 228 pages; More information: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=741286621&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=17866&RQT=309&VName=PQD.


  • Justus George Lawler (1994) Celestial Pantomime: Poetic Structures of Transcendence. New expanded edition. Continuum, New York. ISBN: 0826406793. pp. xx, 284 pages; Lawler, the editor for The Invisible Landscape (1975), includes the McKennas among those analyzing the structure of the I Ching: “For the genetic code and the I Ching, there is the somewhat fantastic and somewhat prophetic The Invisible Landscape of Terence and Dennis McKenna and the less daring The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra.” Worldcat.
  • John Major Jenkins (1994) Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies. Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, California. 329 pages; “What Alfred North Whitehead called concrescence and what visionary philosopher Terence McKenna calls ingression of novelty is the dawning of Planet Mind – the freeing of the human spirit from limitation and oppression.”

  • 1993 (1)

  • David T. Kyle (1993) Human Robots & Holy Mechanics: Reclaiming Our Souls in a Machine World. Swan/Raven, Portland. 298 pages; ISBN: 9780963231000.

 

 

 

 

  • 1992 (1)

  • Peter Stafford, Jeremy Bigwood, Andrew Weil and Dan Joy (1992) Psychedelics Encyclopedia. 3rd expanded ed. Ronin Publishing, Oakland CA. 420 pages; ISBN: 0914171518. Stafford mentions “The Inner Landscape” [sic] on p. 337; not mentioned in 1st ed. (1978), but 2nd Revised edition (1983) also has a would-be The invisible landscape reference on p. 337. The first edition mentions Psilocybin.  LibraryThing.

 

  • 1980 (1)

  • Marilyn Ferguson (1980) The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s. J. P. Tarcher, Los Angeles. 448 pages; ISBN: 0874771919. Dennis and Terence McKenna are mentioned in a note on page 179 among “those researchers who first suggested a tie between the phenomena of consciousness and the holographic principle.” Worldcat.

 

  • 1979 (1)

  • Walt Anderson (1979) Open Secrets: A Western Guide to Tibetan Buddhism. Viking Press, New York. xx, 230 pages; ISBN: 0670527122. In chapter 6, “The Expanding Universe and the Expanding Mind,” Anderson quotes The Invisible Landscape (1975) to develop a narrative about new physics paradigms: “The new domain into which physics was moving seemed to be less and less concerned with things; it was, like the cosmos of Buddhism, a domain of events: [block quote from pp. 22-23 of The Invisible Landscape].” Worldcat.

 

  • 1977 (1)

  • Robert Anton Wilson and John Thompson (1977) Cosmic Trigger: Final secret of the Illuminati. And/Or Press, Berkeley CA. 272 pages; ISBN: 0915904292. Wilson summarizes and discusses the “McKenna Theory” of the hologramatic universe and the accelerating pace of novelty (pp. 215-8) as described in The Invisible Landscape.  LibraryThing.

 


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