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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: McKenna, Terence
Legal name: McKenna, Terence Kemp
Other names: Oss, O. T.
Oeric, O. N.
Birthdate: 1946-11-16
Date of death: 2000-04-03
Gender: male
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Paonia, Colorado, USA
Place of death: San Rafael, California, USA
Cause of death: glioblastoma multiforme
Places of residence: Paonia, Colorado, USA (birth)
Berkeley, California, USA
Japan
Hawaii, USA
Education: University of California, Berkeley (BS|Ecology and Conservation)
Occupations: butterfly collector
ethnobotanist
lecturer (independent)
author
ethnopharmacologist
Relationships: Robbins, Tom (friend)
McKenna, Dennis (brother)
Harrison, Kathleen (wife)
McKenna, Klea (daughter)
Organizations: Esalen Institute
Botanical Dimensions
Short biography: A researcher of the things he found most interesting.

Members

Reviews

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree… by Terence McKenna

Dated - good review - too much agenda

Flagged

farrhon | 11 other reviews | Sep 2, 2024 |

True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the… by Terence McKenna

Just nonsense.. people describing epiphemomema of substances that are damaging or at least hacking conscious experience.. but why should one care? And their methodology is all over the place, nothjng controlled for…

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yates9 | 2 other reviews | Feb 28, 2024 |

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree… by Terence McKenna

Picked up this book after a friend's advice. Since I've got no interest in drugs, and am skeptical of any claims that aren't supported by data, this book didn't keep me for long. Verdict: lost me. Sorry, friend interested in psychedelics.

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iothemoon | 11 other reviews | Sep 27, 2023 |

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree… by Terence McKenna

Good history of drug use and McKenna's theories of how it shaped human evolution in fundamental ways -- essentially that mushroom or psychedelic drugs were part of cooperative culture (found among hunter gatherers, initially in Africa), and that grain, fermentation, and alcohol (and sugar) were the tools of a competing "dominator culture" which out-competed and destroyed them, while also being self-destructive and possibly unsustainable. He is making a case for a return to the earlier way of being.

This would have been an easy 5-star audiobook if Terence McKenna had narrated it himself. Sadly he passed away a few years ago, so this isn't possible, but I have some mp3s of earlier books/speeches of his which wonderful (and often end up set to music).… (more)

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octal | 11 other reviews | Jan 1, 2021 |

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