True Hallucinations

In March 1971, Terence McKenna, his brother Dennis and a small gypsy-like band of friends set off for the Colombian Amazonas. Along the surreal way, they encounter a cast of remarkable characters - including a mushroom, a flying saucer, pirates from outer space, and James Joyce in the guise of poultry. One result of their adventures was McKenna's theory that psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in the stropharia cubensis mushroom, is the missing link in the development of human consciousness and language...

"In March 1971, Terence McKenna, his brother, Dennis, and a small Gypsy-like band "bound by friendship, extravagant imagination, naivete, and a dedication to travel and exotic experience" set off on an expedition to the Amazon basin in search of the mythical shamanistic hallucinogen of the Witoto, oo-koo-he. What ensued was perhaps the most bizarre experience in ethnobiologist McKenna's already bizarre life and the germination of McKenna's theory that psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in the Stropharia cubensis mushroom, is the missing link in the development of human consciousness and language." "True Hallucinations is the mesmerizing, fast-paced, and surreal account of this intellectual odyssey and the planet-shattering secret it revealed, culminating in the Experiment at La Chorrera, a small settlement along the Rio Putumayo in Colombian Amazonas where "the loquacious mushrooms...spun a myth and issued a prophecy, in quite specific detail, of a planet-saving global shift of consciousness." It is here that Terence's brother, Dennis, becomes possessed by the idea that the mushroom is the doorway to the planet Earth's "bonded complex of superconductive harmine-psilocybin-DNA."" "After encountering a cast of remarkable characters - including a mushroom, a flying saucer, pirate Mantids from outerspace, an appearance by James and Nora Joyce, and translinguistic matter - McKenna's band discovers "that the universe is stranger than we can suppose" and reverently "genuflect[s] before the weirdness of it all.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A thoroughly revised edition of the much-sought-after early work by Terence and Dennis McKenna that looks at shamanism, altered states of consciousness, and the organic unity of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching.

Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication--even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.

Cited by the L.A. Weekly as "the culture's foremost spokesman for the psychedelic experience," Terrence McKenna is an underground legend as a brilliant raconteur, adventurer, and expert on the experiential use of mind-altering plants. In these essays, interviews, and narrative adventures, McKenna takes us on a mesmerizing journey deep into the Amazon as well as into the hidden recesses of the human psyche and the outer limits of our culture, giving us startling visions of the past and future.

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