Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews , March 1, 1993
Readers of Food of the Gods (1992) will recall McKenna’s diverting
claim that the ingestion in ancient times of hallucinogenic mushrooms
spurred human consciousness into wakefulness and sophistication.
Here, this consummate storyteller tells of his first life-changing
encounter with magic mushrooms, in 1971 in the Colombian Amazon.
Veteran of the Berkeley riots of the 1960’s and of a self- imposed
exile in India and Indonesia—during which he smoked pot, studied
alternative religions, collected butterflies, and steered clear
of the FBI—McKenna was inspired in 1971 to journey to La Chorrera,
Colombia, in search of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca and any
plants containing the hallucinogenic drug DMT. Joined by his devoted
18-year-old brother, Dennis, and by several other Americans, McKenna
reached the Putumayo River only to be sidetracked by a chance
ingestion of some magic mushrooms growing in a field. One mushroom
led to another, and soon the wildly philosophizing Dennis had
devised an experiment to determine whether the production of a
cicada-like noise could bind the wisdom of the mushroom with his
own DNA. The local Indians may have laughed as the Americans stumbled
through the rain forest chasing flying saucers and talking to
themselves, but McKenna’s newfound conviction that the mushroom
showed the way to higher consciousness determined the very uneven
course of his future life and career. Now, 20 years later—on the
brink of divorce from a woman the mushroom told him was his destiny,
and pressed to earn money for their two kids—McKenna relates his
journey of psychedelic self- discovery and study with refreshing
candor, humor, and occasional rue. All of which makes this, if
hardly a convincing scientific treatise (``My dear young friend,
these ideas are not even fallacious,’’ said Gunther Stent, a molecular
geneticist at Berkeley), certainly a captivating, all-too-human
tale. Here’s one man who proudly—even passionately—inhaled.—Copyright
©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.—This text refers
to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Synopsis
Like a lovely psychedelic sophist, Thomas McKenna recounts his
adventures with pyschoactive plants in the Amazon Basin. Either
a profoundly psychotic episode or a galvanizing glimpse into the
true nature of time and mind, McKenna is a spellbinding storyteller,
providing plenty of down-to-earth reasons for preserving the planet.
From the Publisher
A mesmerizing account of ethnobotanist Terence McKenna’s extraordinary
encounters with hallucinogens and shamanism in the Amazon Basin. |
