Terence McKenna’s Last Interview

My Hero… We all love and miss you, Terence.

This film is dedicated to the work and play of Terrence McKenna, on the fractal edge of time, 1946 – 2000.

Terence Kemp McKenna was an American author, public speaker, metaphysician, psychonaut, philosopher, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, Platonist and skeptic. During his lifetime he was noted for his knowledge of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, mysticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, biology, geology, physics, phenomenology, and his concept of novelty theory.

This video is included as a bonus film on the DVD “Shamans of the Amazon” now available in a 3-DVD Box Set – 260 mins – Cat# U670. Loaded with Bonus Features and featuring Terence McKenna. Go to http://www.UFOTV.com.

“Shamans of the Amazon by Dean Jefferys is one of the best documentaries available on the use of ayahuasca in contemporary context, in traditional cultures that are being destabilized by the forces of globalization. As Jefferys’ documentary makes clear, the revival of traditional shamanic practices with ayahuasca is proving to be a potent political and propaganda tool for reaffirming and preserving cultural values and identity in indigenous societies that are buffeted by environmental, economic, and societal forces beyond their control.”

- Dennis McKenna PhD, co-author The Invisible Landscape

Dream 9-09-10: Ayahuasca Journey

Damn… i forgot to post this dream from a few weeks ago. Luckily i typed it all up right after i woke up. This could easily be the most amazing dream experience i’ve ever had. There are years of memories in here that i lost, but the things that i remember are amazing enough….

I think it started somewhere in elk grove where there was this motorcycle cop with a metal jaw that was falling off or something… this is the haziest part… i had to go find something I think. anyway i end up in the jungle… felt like Peru but the trees seemed decidedly “norcal”… authorities were coming and i had to hide this DMT or Ayahuasca which kept shape-shifting into a leather bound book-of-secrets or something… which is an interesting metaphor. I end up sliding down this slope of leaves on the forest floor and the bag/book is at the bottom. I cover it up with my body and suddenly this family of pygmy camels comes and curls up next to me… drawn to the bag/book/thing.

i enter this cabin where i am followed by a person. I have the bag (now definitely fees like a bag) in my pocket and he seems to not have any idea that i have it. He goes to the door at some point to go get another person (this is all very non-threatening) and i quickly stash the bag in a black file cabinet… top drawer… i find the key in lock on the bottom drawer and use it to lock both drawers real fast (but i can see the top drawer is bent and the latch is probably not going to work) … stash the key in my pocket.

People enter this cabin. it’s night time now. I recognize some of them as my friend Jay Schneider (and old-money dude who went with us to burning man in 06) and some guy named john who i recognized in my dream but not now. Also a strange old Asian dude dressed kinda like the actor, Victor Wong in the golden child. and a few other men and women. Looks like a travel group of some kind. They’re all kinda dressed like this but not as red as in the golden child. more earthy colored burlap and what not. I give people hugs and I’m amazed to run into them down here.

Next thing I know I’m sitting under the stars outside the cabin with cliff who asks me if i remember this conversation we had the first time we did acid, in which he saw a diagram of the structure of an atom and claimed to suddenly understand “how it all worked.” I told him I remembered. He pointed up to the stars and told me to imagine a bunch of concentric circles that rotated in alternating directions and I could suddenly see this in the sky… then he drew these big figure eights in the air with his hand and all these orange sparks followed his hands… he said something like “it goes left like this… then right like this….” and was creating stars and somehow I understood this.

I touch his arm and tell him to be quiet because people are coming. I see in the distance another cabin with people in it. I assume that they’re other people on vacation. a man holding a lantern approaches. as he gets closer I see that he’s a tree-person. Not like the Asian dude you see on TV but he looks like part oak tree or something… he’s Jay’s nephew. We go up and talk to him and marvel over his skin. He says “yeah people keep telling me it’s warts or something but I’m not like that guy on TV.” We go to another part of the cabin and there is a man sitting there who is half kiln. By that I mean he’s a fucking human kiln. He’s too big to move and he has a fire burning inside of him and there is pottery all around him. I grab a piece of pottery and ask him if a piece of his body breaks off can he just fire a new one and graft it back on? He says no, he cannot but he can make me anything I want.

Next thing I remember I’m on a boat, floating down a river and the Asian guy from the cabin is with us. it’s just me, him and Emily now. He is teaching us how to use these blow-guns that shoot little hardened metal arrowheads that are cone shaped but double sided. about the size of the sharpened end of a pencil but with a shaft in between that is probably 1/8″ long… Emily and i start discussing the shape when the Asian guy catches one out of the air that was being shot at us. We look up to see who is shooting and the Asian guy says “pay attention.” I look out at the water and see that it’s a small monkey floating down the river, with a blowgun. I marvel at this fucking monkey.

Suddenly the river is full of boats… canoes… rowboats maybe… definitely not inflatables. There are people in these boats from what looks like every time period. I see a woman who looks like Cleopatra… people from ancient Rome… people from India… you can tell by their faces that they’re not all from this century or locale. I am told that this is a kissing festival and i see people leaning over boats to kiss their neighbors. Not like a make-out party… but just a light ceremonial kind of kiss. There is the sound of legions of people all singing the same song which sounds very Indian. The river is so full it feels like the Ganges River or something during a pilgrimage. The sky is overcast and everything has a white/gold aura… I get the strongest feeling of bliss like this is heaven or something. I intuitively know that neither Emily nor I can or will be jealous about this because it’s very not sexual. We paddle closer to a boat with the roman people.

I fall overboard and swim up the boat but the Romans have been replaced with Hindi folks. I try to hold onto the side but people push me down under the water. I’m not upset about it because it’s very playful. I decide to swim lower to look at the bottoms of the boats and then swim sideways for a bit before surfacing. When i surface i am totally separated from my boat. I am not worried though because I feel like when i get where we’re going, it will be easy to find Emily and whoever else. We drift for a while. I am in total awe of the spectacle.

The next thing i remember I’m in this house and I’m telling some strange girl that “i’m sorry we never got together but please understand that I was going through a really difficult time back then and the fact that you’re a shape-shifter was just too much to deal with”… she is angry and doesn’t seem to understand… I spend a while trying to explain myself.

a LOT of stuff happened here that i just cannot remember, but the next thing I know I’m back in the cabin… daytime… total silence. the dreamy quality in the air is gone. no more sparks in the sky… no more strange outfits… no more white/gold glows or auras. I think I’m alone. No idea how I got there. I wander around looking for clues. Everything is dusty. The floor is made of 2x4s and there is a rocking chair in one corner of this room. Suddenly the Asian dude walks in. I ask him what the hell happened and he tells me “you did some suicidal kind of act but you’ll be ok.” I’m disturbed and confused by this. “Suicide?” I ask… “Why would i do that?”… He says “you were under the influence… it’ll be ok. You’re back now”… I’m still confused. “Under the influence of what?”… He replies “DMT of course.”

That’s when my head explodes. not literally… but that’s when I put it all together. the hazy part I just mentioned where a LOT of stuff happened seriously spanned YEARS… at the time it felt like I had lived an entire LIFE and suddenly came back to this cabin where it all started. It dawns on me in waves… that the Asian man was a shaman… that we were all in the forest here on an Ayahuasca journey and that jay was part of my travel group. I am utterly floored. I check my pants to make sure i didn’t piss myself. I remember Terrence McKenna saying that the only danger of DMT is the possibility of being overwhelmed by astonishment. I start running around looking for my digital audio recorder so I can record these memories before they fade away but I remember the I never brought it with me on the trip. So i start looking for a pen and paper and I’m absolutely bawling from the sheer beauty of everything I have seen. It’s all just too much. I get back to the front room and there’s the whole group and they all want to hear my story. I try to collect myself and get my notepad out and right as I begin to tell the tale…

I wake up in bed. I’ve only been asleep for 4 hours. I am TOTALLY FUCKING FLOORED. my head feels weird and I’m farty and I feel like I’m going to throw up. now I’m remembering Terrence McKenna saying that if you’ve ever done DMT, then one day you will have a dream in which you do DMT and you will have a full blown experience right there in your dream… in this case it would be a full blown Ayahuasca journey but this is way different than what I experienced on Ayahuasca. but the time dilation fits the bill. That’s when I remember that I have my digital audio recorder now and I run to grab it and I spend 25 minutes or so telling the tale.

DMT