http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2012/11/25

November 25th, 2012 - Dennis McKenna

Hallucinogens & T. McKenna

George Knapp welcomed ethno-pharmacologist Dennis McKenna, who has been studying plant hallucinogens for over forty years, and they discussed the groundbreaking work McKenna did with his brother Terence, the great raconteur of wide-reaching philosophical ideas. Over the course of the evening, he recounted their childhood in Paonia, Colorado, how their bond evolved into a "collegial relationship," and the brothers' famous journey to La Chorrera, Colombia where they experimented with DMT and psychedelic mushrooms. Additionally, McKenna expounded on the difficulties in answering the question of "what is real and what is not" when studying hallucinogenic experiences, since science continues to struggle with understanding the nature of consciousness.

In recalling the brothers' psychedelic experiences in La Chorrera, McKenna recalled that "we felt that we were in contact with an entity," which they were certain was not a part of their group. This intelligence, he said, was suggesting new ideas for them to "further the investigation" into hallucinogens. One such procedure, imparted to them by the "entity," encouraged them to take a high dose of mushrooms, listen to the sounds they heard and then "sing it to a mushroom." While McKenna laughed at the notion of this procedure, he marveled that the ritual actually yielded spectacular results, including the early concepts which would lead to Terence's legendary time wave theory.

"Built into our brains and our human nature is an innate desire to push the envelope," McKenna said about mankind's longstanding interest achieving altered states. Beyond psychedelics, he noted that extreme sports or spiritual practices like meditation are also ways in which people attempt to satisfy this feeling. "We're just curious about what the boundaries of experience can encompass," he mused. Ultimately, McKenna credited this yearning for novelty as the "passion that drives science." To that end, he suggested that experimentation with psychedelics by primitive man may have triggered a "cognitive evolution" leading to the development of early language.