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The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens & the I Ching
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.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Terence McKenna
78 books2,284 followersTerence Kemp McKenna was a writer, philosopher, psychonaut and ethnobotanist. He was noted for his knowledge of the use of psychedelic, plant-based entheogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the theoretical origins of human consciousness, and his concept of novelty theory.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
January 1, 2010
I really wanted to like this book. It’s the last one I am reviewing for 2009, and I am a huge fan of Terence McKenna. But this one fell short for me.
The Invisible Landscape is a collaborative effort between Terence and Dennis McKenna, known in the psychedelia circuit as the “McKenna brothers.” The events of this book took place during 1971, and the inspiration for a lot of the ideas contained within occurred during the La Chorrera experiment, which is explained in Terence’s book True Hallucinations. I reviewed that book earlier this year. In my opinion, it is much easier for the layman to trudge through than The Invisible Landscape, which was simply to above-my-head for me to enjoy.
The McKenna brothers cover a lot of ground in this one - shamans, schizophrenia, holographic thought, the experiment at La Chorrera, the I Ching, the Timewave hypothesis and the prediction of the eschaton - the end of the world-as-we-know-it that is expected to take place on December 21, 2012. Every topic is thoroughly explained. But it’s just all too much. The book is all over the place - it would help greatly to have a doctoral background on all of the topics I have listed above before attempting to read this one.
And yet, I still liked the book. The parts that I understood were pretty entertaining and thought-provoking. I enjoyed the graphs and figures of the Timewave hypothesis, something I have read a lot about but not seen very much of. As a fan of most of the topics in the previous paragraph, I found the book very interesting. Luckily I received a copy of this for my birthday this year, so I can hopefully come back to it with a better background later. If you’re a fan of the McKenna brothers or any of the above topics, maybe you should give this one the old college try.
The Invisible Landscape is a collaborative effort between Terence and Dennis McKenna, known in the psychedelia circuit as the “McKenna brothers.” The events of this book took place during 1971, and the inspiration for a lot of the ideas contained within occurred during the La Chorrera experiment, which is explained in Terence’s book True Hallucinations. I reviewed that book earlier this year. In my opinion, it is much easier for the layman to trudge through than The Invisible Landscape, which was simply to above-my-head for me to enjoy.
The McKenna brothers cover a lot of ground in this one - shamans, schizophrenia, holographic thought, the experiment at La Chorrera, the I Ching, the Timewave hypothesis and the prediction of the eschaton - the end of the world-as-we-know-it that is expected to take place on December 21, 2012. Every topic is thoroughly explained. But it’s just all too much. The book is all over the place - it would help greatly to have a doctoral background on all of the topics I have listed above before attempting to read this one.
And yet, I still liked the book. The parts that I understood were pretty entertaining and thought-provoking. I enjoyed the graphs and figures of the Timewave hypothesis, something I have read a lot about but not seen very much of. As a fan of most of the topics in the previous paragraph, I found the book very interesting. Luckily I received a copy of this for my birthday this year, so I can hopefully come back to it with a better background later. If you’re a fan of the McKenna brothers or any of the above topics, maybe you should give this one the old college try.
January 18, 2011
I bought this book at Shaman Drum on State in Ann Arbor during a period of my being on the outs with phonetic language. (RIP Shaman Drum, we miss you). The clerk knew of McKenna's terminal medical condition. (RIP McKenna, though I feel I've gotten to know him better as the internet has gained fidelity). In 1999, I got about 40 pages into the book and could get no further. I shelved the book for 11 years and now I've returned to pick through the dense language for some clue as to what it all means. My intuition is that the brothers were onto something, which was their feeling as well, and all we can say about a talking fungus that told them the I Ching contained a map of time. According to this map, practically the last moment of time sends us spiraling into the concrescence, so time will tell, and we have little way of knowing whether this is true until those last moments. Until then we only have intuitions. The authors are just so sure of themselves. Madness or genius, or a bit of both?
I wish their editor would have cleaned up the dense language. Part of the reason this book is so difficult is the way they phrase things. Part of it is just that they didn't even try to explain some of their scientific models, but expected the reader to do lots of background reading. This is a pretty amazing book, given that the brothers McKenna were just in their mid 20s when they wrote it.
For a much more entertaining and easy-to-grasp account of the events and experiment at La Chorrera that led to this book, check out True Hallucinations, preferably the original audio book version.
I wish their editor would have cleaned up the dense language. Part of the reason this book is so difficult is the way they phrase things. Part of it is just that they didn't even try to explain some of their scientific models, but expected the reader to do lots of background reading. This is a pretty amazing book, given that the brothers McKenna were just in their mid 20s when they wrote it.
For a much more entertaining and easy-to-grasp account of the events and experiment at La Chorrera that led to this book, check out True Hallucinations, preferably the original audio book version.
October 13, 2017
The Invisible landscape by Terence and Dennis McKenna is a very original and unusual book. From a daring shamanistic experiment with hallucinogenic compounds they arrived at insights about a holographic temporal wave (called "time wave zero") based on a fractal of cycles which they could derive from the I Ching.
The first part of the book is about the experiment the brothers McKenna undertook in La Chorrera in the Amazon in which they took a mixture of Ayahuasca and hallucinogenic mushrooms. This led to an enhanced perception of the so-called audible effect during such experiences. Interestingly the book attacks the induction based method of science to replace it with a holographic theory of mind and existence. This is a necessary step to come to their speculative theories about how the audible effect could have been generated by intercalation of neurotransmitter-like hallucinogenic tryptamine compounds in DNA or RNA in conjunction with ESR signals thereby generated, which might have been the cause of the sounds.
The second part of the book is about the insights gathered during this experiment in relation to how the I Ching pattern is related to a nested fractal of time waves.
Although the present day understanding how neurotransmitters and their hallucinogenic mimics has shown that these interactions occur via protein based receptors in the synaptic membrane, effects of intercalation in nucleic acids are not to be excluded. Unfortunately as of yet nobody has tested whether the proposed ESR effect does occur in vivo.
The idea of recurrent waves of novelty in a kind of nested time fractal is plausibly explained and demonstrated on the basis of key events in evolution and history. The calibration point of 21-12-2012 as end point of time wave zero apparently seems to have been too much of a wishful thinking association, as our current state of affairs shows that novelty waves are continuing as usual and have not yet culminated in a singularity.
Interestingly, the book shows how hallucinogenic compounds from plants and mushrooms can reveal archetypical information which relays the collective unconscious via the neurological level to the genetic level and vice versa. This strongly reminds me of Leary's "neurogenetic circuit" and the more modern insights disclosed in Tsang's "Fractal Brain Theory".
Finally, not the least important, this book not only speaks about the Eschaton as a universal and fractal morphogenetic field, which unfolds the predispositions of space and time, but also as the Eschatological scheme in which the advent of a final time, a time of concrescence of the density of novelty ingression results in the culmination of the human process resulting in the completion of the perfect artifact in which spirit and matter achieve a perfect union whereby the Transcendent object at the end of time stands revealed as the transcendent subject, which is also the Eschaton, thus implicitly arriving at the union of knower, knowing and known (in my interpretation). A challenging denial of simple materialistic reductionism, in which matter is merely a standing wave form of all-encompassing light of spirit, leading to a visionary apotheosis where matter and spirit/mind are no longer mutually exclusive grounds of existence but different sides of the same coin.
A fascinating journey through the realms of shamanism, showing that the insights of the shaman are not schizophrenic or psychotic rantings but a true mastery, a supra normal level of ability where the adept has conquered the demons of the multiplicity of forms and emerges as a messenger between the realms of spirit and matter.
Insights, which will make you travel through biology, chemistry, physics, general systems theory, psychology, evolution, history, semiotics and semantics.
From insectoid cybernetics to hypercomplex technology showing us a foretaste of the inner divinity we may one day reveal in ourselves.
A book I will not easily forget. A journey into the concrescence towards the perfect artifact.
The first part of the book is about the experiment the brothers McKenna undertook in La Chorrera in the Amazon in which they took a mixture of Ayahuasca and hallucinogenic mushrooms. This led to an enhanced perception of the so-called audible effect during such experiences. Interestingly the book attacks the induction based method of science to replace it with a holographic theory of mind and existence. This is a necessary step to come to their speculative theories about how the audible effect could have been generated by intercalation of neurotransmitter-like hallucinogenic tryptamine compounds in DNA or RNA in conjunction with ESR signals thereby generated, which might have been the cause of the sounds.
The second part of the book is about the insights gathered during this experiment in relation to how the I Ching pattern is related to a nested fractal of time waves.
Although the present day understanding how neurotransmitters and their hallucinogenic mimics has shown that these interactions occur via protein based receptors in the synaptic membrane, effects of intercalation in nucleic acids are not to be excluded. Unfortunately as of yet nobody has tested whether the proposed ESR effect does occur in vivo.
The idea of recurrent waves of novelty in a kind of nested time fractal is plausibly explained and demonstrated on the basis of key events in evolution and history. The calibration point of 21-12-2012 as end point of time wave zero apparently seems to have been too much of a wishful thinking association, as our current state of affairs shows that novelty waves are continuing as usual and have not yet culminated in a singularity.
Interestingly, the book shows how hallucinogenic compounds from plants and mushrooms can reveal archetypical information which relays the collective unconscious via the neurological level to the genetic level and vice versa. This strongly reminds me of Leary's "neurogenetic circuit" and the more modern insights disclosed in Tsang's "Fractal Brain Theory".
Finally, not the least important, this book not only speaks about the Eschaton as a universal and fractal morphogenetic field, which unfolds the predispositions of space and time, but also as the Eschatological scheme in which the advent of a final time, a time of concrescence of the density of novelty ingression results in the culmination of the human process resulting in the completion of the perfect artifact in which spirit and matter achieve a perfect union whereby the Transcendent object at the end of time stands revealed as the transcendent subject, which is also the Eschaton, thus implicitly arriving at the union of knower, knowing and known (in my interpretation). A challenging denial of simple materialistic reductionism, in which matter is merely a standing wave form of all-encompassing light of spirit, leading to a visionary apotheosis where matter and spirit/mind are no longer mutually exclusive grounds of existence but different sides of the same coin.
A fascinating journey through the realms of shamanism, showing that the insights of the shaman are not schizophrenic or psychotic rantings but a true mastery, a supra normal level of ability where the adept has conquered the demons of the multiplicity of forms and emerges as a messenger between the realms of spirit and matter.
Insights, which will make you travel through biology, chemistry, physics, general systems theory, psychology, evolution, history, semiotics and semantics.
From insectoid cybernetics to hypercomplex technology showing us a foretaste of the inner divinity we may one day reveal in ourselves.
A book I will not easily forget. A journey into the concrescence towards the perfect artifact.
March 27, 2012
Put two great minds together, an ethnobotanist & a neurobiologist who happen to be brothers, place them in the depths of the Amazon for a month or so with a plethora of hallucinogenic mushrooms at their disposal & you get this book. This is a great pseudo scientific adventure, a psychedelic faction threaded together with cutting edge theory & stropharia fueled speculation. What does it matter that the ideas put forth in this book don't stand up to scientific scrutiny? According to them, teleology must be included in proposition put forth, (anyway, current scientific methodology is too dissective, not wholistic), that reason must play a role in evolution, that it harms not the outcome if you make a few assumptions here & there (And there were many of those). Fortunately they are the first to raise the skeptics flag at the start of the book, but counter it with, “what if only a fraction of this were proven to be true?” And how the reader would like to believe the deep conversations on Electronic spin resonance causing the pineal gland to act as a receptor & holographic creator of what we perceive as reality. How exciting the speculations on external hallucinogenic compounds being precursors to our own mutating endogenous neurotransmitters, basically laying down the posit that the next evolutionary quantum shift (as evolution is quantum...) will have us all, well, tripping (which gives me reason to believe these guys have already 'evolved').
Then we go into the theory's of time wave based on the enigmatic sequence of the King Wen Hexagrams. In summary, a concrescence will take place, but not in the three dimensional plane. This concrescence will cause matter & antimatter to combine, which will (on the forth dimension) result in matter being left existing as pure light a la the apocalypse. You get the picture. This all happens in 2012, but not until the very last epoch which is itself a fraction of time on our scale. Reading all this, seems to give it credence, the mathematics are there to support it. The quantum mechanics also appear to give it support. It is in the assumptions that leave room, and a lot of room, for one to say “hmmmmmm”.
But it is fun. And what a ride! It's like eating junk food shaped into the form of fresh fruit. It appears to have true nourishment value but its really just junk. I loved it! I don't care if this were 120% speculation. The imaginative force behind this book backed up by the obvious & sincere search for a mathematical backing to their claims makes it commendable. Who knows, maybe when the current scientific paradigm is turned on its head once again, perhaps these guys will be seen as shunned pioneers. That is of coarse if we are around after December 21st 2012. But lets talk about it in 2013.
Then we go into the theory's of time wave based on the enigmatic sequence of the King Wen Hexagrams. In summary, a concrescence will take place, but not in the three dimensional plane. This concrescence will cause matter & antimatter to combine, which will (on the forth dimension) result in matter being left existing as pure light a la the apocalypse. You get the picture. This all happens in 2012, but not until the very last epoch which is itself a fraction of time on our scale. Reading all this, seems to give it credence, the mathematics are there to support it. The quantum mechanics also appear to give it support. It is in the assumptions that leave room, and a lot of room, for one to say “hmmmmmm”.
But it is fun. And what a ride! It's like eating junk food shaped into the form of fresh fruit. It appears to have true nourishment value but its really just junk. I loved it! I don't care if this were 120% speculation. The imaginative force behind this book backed up by the obvious & sincere search for a mathematical backing to their claims makes it commendable. Who knows, maybe when the current scientific paradigm is turned on its head once again, perhaps these guys will be seen as shunned pioneers. That is of coarse if we are around after December 21st 2012. But lets talk about it in 2013.
December 29, 2024
Should never have read this book. First 3 chapters were fine, last 10 were convoluted. What parts I understood I tended to disagree with. See my previous comments.
Currently reading
June 17, 2010This book is going to take a long time to read. Virtually every sentence has to be re-read in order to comprehend
July 14, 2024
I am a huge fan of Terence McKenna and his theories, from the Stoned Ape to TimeWave Zero. However, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed 'Food of the Gods' or 'The Archaic Revival'. I was already very familiar with his ideas concerning the I Ching and the mapping of novelty over historical events. In this book, he doesn't make this material as accessible as when he speaks. Far too often there are very long sentences with complicated words which fail to clearly explain some of the very far-fetched concepts he's trying to advance. He has some fascinating and original theories but he struggles to condense it down into readable, or interesting, language. Had I read this before 2012 at the height of my McKenna interest I probably would've awarded it an extra star at least. 2012 passed by and McKenna's hoped for informational eschaton hasn't visibly arrived the way he thought it may, although in many ways he's been proven correct. I'll always love listening to the many lengthy talks he gave at Esalen and other places throughout the '80s and '90s. I'll still track down a copy of True Hallucinations too.
November 11, 2018
The book is definitely not an ordinary one. On one hand it introduces the reader to a couple of things that are interesting in themselves (like shamanism, different types of psychedelics, the I Ching) but the recipe of the book seems to be: introduce the reader to a concept/idea + pile facts and anecdotes on top + add wild speculations. To make it harder to read take a semiformal/semi-scientific approach.
So, definitely an interesting read and it will stretch your BS detector to the max. If you are willing to suspend disbelief and let your imagination roam this book is very interesting. This book in a nutshell is: “remember that time when we got super high on a multiple types of drugs in the Amazon forest? Yeah dude, we figured out everything during that trip.”
So, definitely an interesting read and it will stretch your BS detector to the max. If you are willing to suspend disbelief and let your imagination roam this book is very interesting. This book in a nutshell is: “remember that time when we got super high on a multiple types of drugs in the Amazon forest? Yeah dude, we figured out everything during that trip.”
April 2, 2009
This work covers a lot of ground, from organic chemistry to neurophysiology to shamanic traditions, which is both its strength and weakness. There's plenty you can learn about here in a general sense, but McKenna is simply too spaced out to convince with his speculations. The point of the book is to make sense of the author's revelatory drug exeperiences; like most seekers, he caught a glimpse of something, but discursive thought acts as a lens through which the spiritual is seen: in this case, insectoid intergalactic aliens.
Recommended for fans of the bizarre.
edit: notable for being the origin of "2012" speculations
Recommended for fans of the bizarre.
edit: notable for being the origin of "2012" speculations
January 24, 2022
Well, shit. This was pretty good at first, but eventually, they lost me. Really liked the chapters on shamans, and I’d highly recommend the chapters “organismic thought” and especially “towards a holographic theory of mind,” but it was downhill from there for me. The La Chorrera chapters were somewhat interesting, but at a certain point early on in the I Ching section, I lost the plot and had to give it up since I’ll be fined if I don’t return this book by the end of today. Anyways, in sum, chapters 1-4 are worthwhile, past that, it’s all you.
September 12, 2018
People weren't kidding when they say this is a difficult book. I don't often feel like I have no idea what I just read but there were several sections to this book I have no idea what I read haha. There's also a lot of really interesting things in this book and I didn't feel bored even when reading the sections I didn't understand.
April 20, 2021
Much of the book is quite dense and technical - whether you enjoy that sort of text or not will determine how much you enjoy this book. However, there is some fascinating philosophical thought on the nature of time and life in the first and last few chapters which made the book worth it for me.
September 12, 2019
Absolutely delicious pseudo-science. Only because It was written by those psilocybin obsessed brothers Terence and Dennis McKenna.
February 24, 2018
The book is divided in two parts. Part one deals with shamanism, theory of mind, and brain-chemistry both under and not under influence of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine. Part two deals with a speculative theory of time based on a mathematical elaboration on the I Ching.
This whole book is drained with speculation, so if you're not into that kind of thing, don't read it cuz you probably won't make it through to the end.
Below I will try to give a short overview of the two main theories brought forward in the book. These will be rough and perhaps unclear, which would be my fault, as in the book these are articulated quite extensively and properly. If you notice any mistakes or misunderstandings on my part please don't hesitate to make me aware of them.
It was a good read overall, but in case of the first part I was not well enough prepared to fully grasp the theory that was expounded. Most of what led up to this theory I understood quite well, like the speculative exploration of the implications of a holographic theory of mind, a controversial theory which since hasn't been fully disproved but has received thorough criticism and might be less accurate than more recent non-holographic models. What follows is a hypothesis in which the authors suggest that one might be able to use one's voice while under influence of psychedelic drugs (specifically psilocybin and an MAOI) to impact the ongoing metabolizing of these psychedelic substances in the brain, and by using the physics of overtones vocally cancel out the ESR of the harmine molecule, rendering it superconductive for a short time (or a longer time when MAOI inhibition is "permanent") during which it bonds with RNA or more significantly DNA. Through this bond would then a more complete standing-wave-form of the coding embedded in RNA or DNA be projected, thus providing sort of a portal through which contents of the unconscious and collective unconscious become more easily accessible.
If you don't understand a word of what I just said (I don't understand most of it) you, most probably, need (like me) to update your knowledge of neurobiology and ethnobotany, before trying to understand this theory.
Part two was much more understandable to me, but considering the very speculative nature of the theory brought forward calls for meticulous skepticism. In it the authors explain a model of time derived from a mystical set of 64 hexagrams that supposedly contain in them sort of the "imprint" of how changes through time come about. To understand this better cf. The I Ching or Book of Changes (which is on my reading list), this is an ancient Chinese text which has laid the groundwork for Taoism and Confucianism. They propose that time is like a fractal cloud of probability, wherein things undergo "the formality of actually occurring" (in Whitehead's words, as Terence McKenna often enough cites) due to modular hierarchical conditioning, making some things more likely to happen at some places and times than others. In quantifying their mathematical analysis of these sets of hexagrams they eventually produce a plotted graphical representation of time in the universe. In this graph, moving away from the "zero-point" through time means that whatever occurs is increasingly caused by conditioning of the past (habit), while moving towards the zero-point means more and more original processes are being generated (novelty). When mapping the wave over recorded human history and what science has mapped out beyond that they do seem to overlap quite well, though it's hard to quantify the historical continuum in any scientific manner (check on YouTube if you want to see Terence McKenna showcasing the TimeWave Zero software, a program that graphs the timewave and allows it to be investigated, while explaining the reasoning behind it and how it seems to correlate to historical events). The plotted wave points to an eschaton at the end of history, not far in the future. In the book the old date of 21 december 2021 is given, but this was before a correction in the higher mathematics was made, which moved the end point to somewhere in 2018.
I don't believe they got it right, at least not in the conventional way, but they might have been on to something about the structure of time, of it being in some sense a field of interference patterns where past moments nonlocally influence the future and vice versa (as findings in quantum physics seem to reinforce).
I think the book was very well written, clearly and concisely, with use of plenty of side-material, and profound insights.
This whole book is drained with speculation, so if you're not into that kind of thing, don't read it cuz you probably won't make it through to the end.
Below I will try to give a short overview of the two main theories brought forward in the book. These will be rough and perhaps unclear, which would be my fault, as in the book these are articulated quite extensively and properly. If you notice any mistakes or misunderstandings on my part please don't hesitate to make me aware of them.
It was a good read overall, but in case of the first part I was not well enough prepared to fully grasp the theory that was expounded. Most of what led up to this theory I understood quite well, like the speculative exploration of the implications of a holographic theory of mind, a controversial theory which since hasn't been fully disproved but has received thorough criticism and might be less accurate than more recent non-holographic models. What follows is a hypothesis in which the authors suggest that one might be able to use one's voice while under influence of psychedelic drugs (specifically psilocybin and an MAOI) to impact the ongoing metabolizing of these psychedelic substances in the brain, and by using the physics of overtones vocally cancel out the ESR of the harmine molecule, rendering it superconductive for a short time (or a longer time when MAOI inhibition is "permanent") during which it bonds with RNA or more significantly DNA. Through this bond would then a more complete standing-wave-form of the coding embedded in RNA or DNA be projected, thus providing sort of a portal through which contents of the unconscious and collective unconscious become more easily accessible.
If you don't understand a word of what I just said (I don't understand most of it) you, most probably, need (like me) to update your knowledge of neurobiology and ethnobotany, before trying to understand this theory.
Part two was much more understandable to me, but considering the very speculative nature of the theory brought forward calls for meticulous skepticism. In it the authors explain a model of time derived from a mystical set of 64 hexagrams that supposedly contain in them sort of the "imprint" of how changes through time come about. To understand this better cf. The I Ching or Book of Changes (which is on my reading list), this is an ancient Chinese text which has laid the groundwork for Taoism and Confucianism. They propose that time is like a fractal cloud of probability, wherein things undergo "the formality of actually occurring" (in Whitehead's words, as Terence McKenna often enough cites) due to modular hierarchical conditioning, making some things more likely to happen at some places and times than others. In quantifying their mathematical analysis of these sets of hexagrams they eventually produce a plotted graphical representation of time in the universe. In this graph, moving away from the "zero-point" through time means that whatever occurs is increasingly caused by conditioning of the past (habit), while moving towards the zero-point means more and more original processes are being generated (novelty). When mapping the wave over recorded human history and what science has mapped out beyond that they do seem to overlap quite well, though it's hard to quantify the historical continuum in any scientific manner (check on YouTube if you want to see Terence McKenna showcasing the TimeWave Zero software, a program that graphs the timewave and allows it to be investigated, while explaining the reasoning behind it and how it seems to correlate to historical events). The plotted wave points to an eschaton at the end of history, not far in the future. In the book the old date of 21 december 2021 is given, but this was before a correction in the higher mathematics was made, which moved the end point to somewhere in 2018.
I don't believe they got it right, at least not in the conventional way, but they might have been on to something about the structure of time, of it being in some sense a field of interference patterns where past moments nonlocally influence the future and vice versa (as findings in quantum physics seem to reinforce).
I think the book was very well written, clearly and concisely, with use of plenty of side-material, and profound insights.
September 25, 2020
Interesting, strange, hard to understand, truly crazy at times. Only complaint, aside from the far-fetched fringe scientific arguments, which are the reason anyone would read the book to begin with, is the romanticisation of mental illness. Schizophrenia-fetishism is already the psychedelic movement's sin of choice, as observed from the book that probably took ot to the mainstream, Huxley's Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Still this book takes things further. He does say that it is the healed "madman" who can be a Shaman, and that there are no known cases of a Shaman's mental illness spiraling out of control. Still, the idea that a schizophrenic can independently heal himself before becoming a spiritual leader and acquiring supernatural abilities can prevent some people from seeking help.
January 16, 2020
A sincere exploration into the other-worldly events which occurred at La Chorerra. A theoretical basis for a scientific understanding of the mind is explored in conjunction with a wildly interesting model of time as a hierarchical holographic mathematical object representing novelty and habit in an embedded cyclical fashion.
Extremely intriguing and far before its time, Terence and Dennis layout the foundations of the 21st century paradigm; a picture of reality grounded in both eastern and western wisdom.
Extremely intriguing and far before its time, Terence and Dennis layout the foundations of the 21st century paradigm; a picture of reality grounded in both eastern and western wisdom.
August 29, 2018
Chronicling the McKenna's experiment at La Chorrera, this book expands on some of Terence's later work, including: holographic information and the timewave.
This book did a great job filling gaps I had after listening to Mckenna lectures. I was particularly interested in the experiment-- this book delivered an interesting summery.
This book did a great job filling gaps I had after listening to Mckenna lectures. I was particularly interested in the experiment-- this book delivered an interesting summery.
August 2, 2019
Tried to finish this book; but it was unreadable for me after about 1/3 of the way through. Very far out ideas and an interesting introduction on shamanism. die hard McKenna fans might enjoy this more. I recommend True Hallucinations, it has an intro to these ideas and is much more readable.
August 25, 2018
Veryyy mind boggling... But very interesting information into the mind and time
November 27, 2018
It's as crazy as McKenna says it is!.. :)
April 21, 2021
Like... demonstrably wrong, but very fun, interesting, and far out ideas nonetheless.
March 2, 2022
Always good to check in
June 4, 2018
This book is phenomenal. It changed my life. It's absolutely stunning the way McKenna is able to describe his journeys in to hyperspace.
March 8, 2017
first few pages on shamanism are quite interesting but when the mathematicals sequence, the i ching and his theory kicks in, i began to loose track
October 5, 2012
The so-called intellectual Trojan Horse of the brothers Mckenna is couched in almost inscrutable language, no doubt in an overture to the scientific world of the time. Some of the transitions are a bit lacking, some segues seem rushed, and some of the wording is confusing, but if you can overlook these (minor in my view, given the scope of the content) flaws you will find inspired reasoning that exemplifies the term 'lateral thinking'.
We have three months to determine if Mckenna's intuitions regarding the end date for his Timewave Zero were correct. I may revisit this review to expand upon the ideas so that someone who is not familiar with Mckenna's background can get the gist.
EDIT: This book was written by a couple of kids in their early 20's. Upgraded to 5 stars.
There's basically 3 movements to the text. The first involves identifying the psychological origins of shamanism. It is posited that shamanism is a historically potent institution in which collective unconscious content finds sublimation. The authors contend that individuals undergoing shamanic crises (which, it is pointed out, exhibit certain properties commensurate with current descriptions of schizophrenia) are regularly misdiagnosed to the detriment of the greater community (modern society), whose welfare, it is supposed, the resolution of such crises can ostensibly benefit (via integration of neglected 'shadow' material, to borrow a Jungian term). It's certainly an interesting proposition and not one to be flippantly spurned.
The 2nd movement deals with psychopharmacology, molecular structures in the brain and their corresponding brain states, some discussion of holograms, an introduction to the experiments conducted at La Chorrea, and finally, what is arguably the most intriguing concept in the text, the ESR hypothesis. I may explicate this in greater detail in a future edit.
The 3rd movement is a study of the nature of time. In it the I Ching is deduced to be of singular importance as a calendrical cipher. Evidently this was revealed in the wake of the La Chorrea experiments. Terence likens the King Wen sequence (oldest known extant ordering of the 64 hexagrams) to a fractal waveform, and suggests that this waveform, when applied to history, maps the fluctuation and eventual saturation of 'novelty' in spacetime. Ultimately, corroboration for this teleological schema cannot be empirically demonstrated (ahead the Mayan end date, at least) because the qualitative nature of time proposed resists the scientific notion of duplicability, and so it remains a matter of personal discretion. Terence's account of the pattern derived from a 384 day cycle (equal to thirteen lunations; 64 hexagrams with 6 lines apiece) extrapolated to the full circumvolution of the precession of the equinoxes (approx. 26,000 years) and beyond, to the proposed origins of the universe, is nothing short of compelling.
As you may have guessed, the testimony that this book encompasses may be of cosmic importance. In the words of Terence himself, "My God, man, what if its true? And even if it isn't, you've still got a great computer game."
We have three months to determine if Mckenna's intuitions regarding the end date for his Timewave Zero were correct. I may revisit this review to expand upon the ideas so that someone who is not familiar with Mckenna's background can get the gist.
EDIT: This book was written by a couple of kids in their early 20's. Upgraded to 5 stars.
There's basically 3 movements to the text. The first involves identifying the psychological origins of shamanism. It is posited that shamanism is a historically potent institution in which collective unconscious content finds sublimation. The authors contend that individuals undergoing shamanic crises (which, it is pointed out, exhibit certain properties commensurate with current descriptions of schizophrenia) are regularly misdiagnosed to the detriment of the greater community (modern society), whose welfare, it is supposed, the resolution of such crises can ostensibly benefit (via integration of neglected 'shadow' material, to borrow a Jungian term). It's certainly an interesting proposition and not one to be flippantly spurned.
The 2nd movement deals with psychopharmacology, molecular structures in the brain and their corresponding brain states, some discussion of holograms, an introduction to the experiments conducted at La Chorrea, and finally, what is arguably the most intriguing concept in the text, the ESR hypothesis. I may explicate this in greater detail in a future edit.
The 3rd movement is a study of the nature of time. In it the I Ching is deduced to be of singular importance as a calendrical cipher. Evidently this was revealed in the wake of the La Chorrea experiments. Terence likens the King Wen sequence (oldest known extant ordering of the 64 hexagrams) to a fractal waveform, and suggests that this waveform, when applied to history, maps the fluctuation and eventual saturation of 'novelty' in spacetime. Ultimately, corroboration for this teleological schema cannot be empirically demonstrated (ahead the Mayan end date, at least) because the qualitative nature of time proposed resists the scientific notion of duplicability, and so it remains a matter of personal discretion. Terence's account of the pattern derived from a 384 day cycle (equal to thirteen lunations; 64 hexagrams with 6 lines apiece) extrapolated to the full circumvolution of the precession of the equinoxes (approx. 26,000 years) and beyond, to the proposed origins of the universe, is nothing short of compelling.
As you may have guessed, the testimony that this book encompasses may be of cosmic importance. In the words of Terence himself, "My God, man, what if its true? And even if it isn't, you've still got a great computer game."
January 11, 2016
Some parts of this book are interesting, especially the still culturally relevant statements about shamanism. However, a bulk of the material is very complex, and it dives deep into neuroscience, biology, mathematics, physics, etc. and pulls a bit from many areas to make their case.
There was a portion of one of the last chapters in the first section that I had to skim through to keep myself from losing interest. For attempting to make the point that the validity of some theories are in "the eye of the beholder" and that science is insufficient to prove or disprove certain parts of the speculation in regard to the I-Ching—which is agreeable in context—the McKenna brothers used an overwhelming amount of scientific material to support their case. A good bit of the referenced theories/models seem to have been relevant or new to the scientific community when this was written. However, one downside is that this book is now 40 years old, and not being a scientist or eminent scholar, I am unaware of whether the theories—or at least which ones— referenced that have changed, expanded, or been discredited since publication. At the very least, there is a lot of intriguing reference material used, and much like any other media I've experienced featuring or created by Terence McKenna, this book has opened up to me new topics for further research and consideration.
The described experiment at La Chorrera is not very detailed, and I am assuming that to get a better account I will need to read True Hallucinations, as I already intend to do. The lack of details in this description and some of the deep assumptions made throughout make a lot of the proposed ideas less believable, even though they are still interesting thinking points. Among these curious points are the speculation regarding different scales and cycles of time, universal novelty over time as a fractal wave form, holographic reality, etc. all in relation to the I-Ching.
Although there is no mention of it in the book, I find it very interesting that the hexagrams used in the I-Ching are similar to binary, each Yao being broken or solid, much like on/off states. However, this is my own idea drawn from this book. In this sense, each of the 64 hexagrams are like a 6-bit variation of the modern byte. Perhaps the pattern means more than a position based multiplication of two? Perhaps the interrelation of positions means more than binary math? It seems that by grouping or considering 3 Yao composing 2 trigrams in each hexagram, this is further breakdown of each unit to serve some purpose. Through my elementary understanding of this material, it seems like the I-Ching is using a hybrid of different number systems, and though this could be way off, this at least intrigues me deeply and I am interesting in reading more about it.
Long story short, it's worth reading some sections, but don't feel bad if you get bored and want to skim some/most of the material. Do so cautiously however, as some material is highly technical and builds right off of the last mentioned theories/laws/models, and skipping might cause more confusion and disinterest.
There was a portion of one of the last chapters in the first section that I had to skim through to keep myself from losing interest. For attempting to make the point that the validity of some theories are in "the eye of the beholder" and that science is insufficient to prove or disprove certain parts of the speculation in regard to the I-Ching—which is agreeable in context—the McKenna brothers used an overwhelming amount of scientific material to support their case. A good bit of the referenced theories/models seem to have been relevant or new to the scientific community when this was written. However, one downside is that this book is now 40 years old, and not being a scientist or eminent scholar, I am unaware of whether the theories—or at least which ones— referenced that have changed, expanded, or been discredited since publication. At the very least, there is a lot of intriguing reference material used, and much like any other media I've experienced featuring or created by Terence McKenna, this book has opened up to me new topics for further research and consideration.
The described experiment at La Chorrera is not very detailed, and I am assuming that to get a better account I will need to read True Hallucinations, as I already intend to do. The lack of details in this description and some of the deep assumptions made throughout make a lot of the proposed ideas less believable, even though they are still interesting thinking points. Among these curious points are the speculation regarding different scales and cycles of time, universal novelty over time as a fractal wave form, holographic reality, etc. all in relation to the I-Ching.
Although there is no mention of it in the book, I find it very interesting that the hexagrams used in the I-Ching are similar to binary, each Yao being broken or solid, much like on/off states. However, this is my own idea drawn from this book. In this sense, each of the 64 hexagrams are like a 6-bit variation of the modern byte. Perhaps the pattern means more than a position based multiplication of two? Perhaps the interrelation of positions means more than binary math? It seems that by grouping or considering 3 Yao composing 2 trigrams in each hexagram, this is further breakdown of each unit to serve some purpose. Through my elementary understanding of this material, it seems like the I-Ching is using a hybrid of different number systems, and though this could be way off, this at least intrigues me deeply and I am interesting in reading more about it.
Long story short, it's worth reading some sections, but don't feel bad if you get bored and want to skim some/most of the material. Do so cautiously however, as some material is highly technical and builds right off of the last mentioned theories/laws/models, and skipping might cause more confusion and disinterest.
February 22, 2017
Ambitious, fascinating, and a little insane. This is a peek into the initial experiences that gave birth to the McKenna brothers as we know them today.
It should not be read as a scientific report of an experiment, at least not in the traditional sense, for the brothers themselves would be the first to tell you not to let the facts and science get in the way of a good story. Firstly, this is because of the colossal and alien experiences that psilocybin and related tryptamines plunges one into, and indeed I feel that the tone of excitement and wonder and astonishment the brothers were attempting to convey would likely be lost on any reader ignorant to the experience. Secondly, the gravity of the experience precludes itself from any study that does not take into consideration at least a passing nod to the spiritual, the alien, the ineffable and the insane. Cut-and-dried physics has serious limitation in shedding light on the mechanics and meaning of these realms.
Nonetheless, the subject matter is unravelled with an academic vigor that would be impressive to anyone(doubly so considering the authors' young age) who can palette the overall strangeness. Shamanic ecstasy as comparable to schizophrenia, holographic mind theory, the I Ching, mathematically deconstructed as a cosmic calendar(this book was the formation of Terence's Timewave theory). Each of these corridors of thought(and many others) is explored as parts of the concept, with sobering logic and analytical skill.
A confounding and fascinating read.
It should not be read as a scientific report of an experiment, at least not in the traditional sense, for the brothers themselves would be the first to tell you not to let the facts and science get in the way of a good story. Firstly, this is because of the colossal and alien experiences that psilocybin and related tryptamines plunges one into, and indeed I feel that the tone of excitement and wonder and astonishment the brothers were attempting to convey would likely be lost on any reader ignorant to the experience. Secondly, the gravity of the experience precludes itself from any study that does not take into consideration at least a passing nod to the spiritual, the alien, the ineffable and the insane. Cut-and-dried physics has serious limitation in shedding light on the mechanics and meaning of these realms.
Nonetheless, the subject matter is unravelled with an academic vigor that would be impressive to anyone(doubly so considering the authors' young age) who can palette the overall strangeness. Shamanic ecstasy as comparable to schizophrenia, holographic mind theory, the I Ching, mathematically deconstructed as a cosmic calendar(this book was the formation of Terence's Timewave theory). Each of these corridors of thought(and many others) is explored as parts of the concept, with sobering logic and analytical skill.
A confounding and fascinating read.
August 16, 2017
It may be that the psychedelic experience cannot be understood using only the reductionist model of science, and that only by a conscious unification of the reductionist, analytical methods of science with the holistic, nonanalytical approach of the shaman can we hope to understand, appreciate, and apply the lessons learned from such experiences. This book is a first, faltering, step in that direction. (p. xix)
And it is faltering, as well as sprawling and audacious and promethean and probably mostly nonsense. The Brothers McKenna, after tripping their brains out per this narrative, spent quite some time trying to figure out what it all meant.
Their attempt at an explanation, as presented in this revised edition of the original underground, weirdo "classic," ranges from topics as varied as shamanism, schizophrenia, process philosophy, holonomic brain theory, DNA-binding as the mechanism of psychedelic drug activity, and the I-Ching, and results in a concept called the Timewave. This concept presents time as a variable with changing qualities, and the authors argue that the I-Ching presents a fractal map of "novelty" (never rigorously defined, alas) throughout history at all scales, a fractal structure to time which was intuited long ago by psychedelic shamans; at least, I think that's the argument.
Honestly, it covers a lot of ground, assumes familiarity with a good number of big ideas, and is burdened with the half-crazed convictions and tone of two smart, literate, twenty-something, hippie-psychonauts. A strange book for sure. And contrary to popular belief, this book and the Timewave software it discusses did not predict the end of the world in 2012; it instead assumed that this would be the end date of history and the point of "maximum ingression of novelty" (whatever that even means).
November 15, 2023
A friend sent me this book because he thought I might enjoy the McKenna's theory on consciousness. And, there are several reasons I should have enjoyed the book. But, a more dense treatise on navel gazing psycho-babble has never been written. Rather than digressing into wildly incorrect theories on schizophrenia, the rise of primitive man, insectoid intelligence, the I Ching, outlandish math problems, and ancient Mayan apocalypse planning this book should have read as follows. Once upon a time there were two privileged white boys at Berkeley who really liked taking LSD. After taking all the LSD these youngsters looked around for something new to trip on. One day they decided to run on down to the Amazon to "discover" Ayahuasca even though the people there been tripping on that for like 2,000 years already. On the way our wacky young explorers ran into some nice villagers who were more than happy to share their magic mushrooms. So, Terrence and Dennis, who really liked getting high, said forget about Ayahuasca, let's just stay here and eat up all these friggin incredible mushrooms. Then, all day and all night, those crazy McKenna boys chowed down on those yummy mushrooms until, weeks and weeks later, all the magic mushrooms were gone. After seeing lots of pretty colors and a big bug they wandered back to Berkeley where they said "you know when we were trippin balls we babbled like babies so maybe primitive man grew mushrooms in cow shit and then babbled like babies and, like, you know language got invented." Then one of them got the really bad idea to write down all the stream of consciousness ramblings they had spouted from being strung out on psychedelics for weeks. They threw in lots and lots of quotes from other people, tossed in some fancy words like "schizophrenia" and "I Ching," and decided to "define shamanism" despite the fact they hadn't done any primary research on it themselves (and shamanism had already been defined, like over two millennia ago, and didn't need white saviours to stick their noses in). Oh, and the brainy one threw in a bunch of boring math equations. The End.
February 22, 2009
Dense and written in an academic style, the McKenna brothers put forth a pretty interesting interpretation of consciousness, reality, and time. While some of the theories on drug metabolism have since been disproven, the notion of intercalation of drug molecules is still potentially accurate. While the overarching theory of time and reality appeals to me, I don't know that their method of producing that theory is anything more than some occult numerology dressed up with some complicated mathematical analysis.
Certainly a thought provoking read, and whether or not you agree with them, they generally provide a definite train of argument and/or evidence for their speculation. The ideas presented still seem pretty radical today, and this will reward anyone who enjoys having their sense of certainty challenged a bit.
Certainly a thought provoking read, and whether or not you agree with them, they generally provide a definite train of argument and/or evidence for their speculation. The ideas presented still seem pretty radical today, and this will reward anyone who enjoys having their sense of certainty challenged a bit.
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