Is it just remotely possible that human religion, language and culture are the by-product of our distant primate ancestors gorging themselves on hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms? And that in our modern age of dwindling resources, evaporating ideas, consumer meltdown, and global drug hysteria, it might be in our best interests as a species to turn back and consult these organic oracles once more for a path ahead?

These are the basic questions that Terrence McKenna poses in his book Food Of The Gods, and elaborated on further in later books, and on his spoken word recordings including those with UK rave-popsters The Shamen and the more experimental Zuvuya and Spacetime Continuum. Well-known amongst the global psychedelic community for thirty years, McKenna has experienced a new rush of interest in his ideas from young people suddenly birthed into 'psychedelic awareness' by recreational use of 'acid' and 'psychedelic-friendly' electronic music. He sees the period that we live in now as one of "Archaic Revival" where youth culture and the New Age culture of the White middle-classes are embracing the ideas and ideologies of our distant ancestors. Environmentalism, eco-feminism, interest in religions far older than Christ-inanity, anarchic youth subcultures formed around autonomous communities of young people (tribalism) - these all, for McKenna, point to a refocussing of direction away from the outdated models of Modernist "progress".

But possibly the greatest indicator of McKenna's "Archaic Revival" is the rediscovery of psychedelics. Where post-modern high-tech advertising and television culture are the popular face of this rediscovery, and fractal geometry and chaos science the respectable scientific face, it is perhaps the emergence of rave culture in the late-80s/early-90s throughout the West that has propelled it the most . . . and caused the reactive crackdown of McKenna's "Dominator society" (the State, the Establishment). With its hallmarks of large-scale communalism, underground global networking, anti-star "anonymous" attitude, and most importantly the non-lyrical bass heavy content of the music, the essence of rave, which many would argue evaporated somewhere around 1993/94, was highly compatible with low-dosage psychedelic drug use. The rave experiences of many people not only turned them on to a music which allowed far greater self-expression and interpretation than rock music, and the ego-dissolving effects of being in a large non-violent dancing mass helped into this state by the distinct absence of alcohol, but it also turned many people towards an awareness of the strange effects of psychedelic hallucinogens. Most obvious is the insight one gets into the total cultural construction of reality and perception (not unlike the conclusion you reach after three years of university study). The shape-shifting effects of visual hallucination call into to question what is real and what is not, and whether or not there is a "reality" or just a commonly shared web of meaning attached to particular perceptions.

Terrence McKenna, is not, however an advocate of widespread illegal drug use. He classifies popular and widely used drugs such as caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and tobacco in the same league as cocaine, heroin, marijuana and amphetamines; these being the Dominator-society drugs. Food Of The Gods gives a potted history of these drugs, drawing the conclusion that during the Industrial Revolution these drugs, coupled with the relatively recent development of television, are indeed essential to the functioning of modern capitalist society. Some pacify (cocaine, heroin, marijuana), keep docile (television) or amuse (alcohol, sugar), whilst others keep people awake and alert to work long hours of overtime (caffeine and tobacco), and all have a long history of colonial domination and exploitation behind them- none threaten the fabric of society. Even psychedelics like LSD if used in small doses can simply become short-term escapist worlds in between the drudgery of full-time work or study.

What McKenna does advocate however is the irregular, planned, experimental usage of relatively high doses of natural psychedelics, in particular DMT and psilocybin. He uses the phrase "use with intent" when he describes the ideal conditions for these "trips" - a darkened room, solitude, and, surprisingly for many, complete silence. This almost total removal of external stimuli allows, McKenna says to experience what the drug does to you in full, having the effect of making whatever you see, hear, feel, or perceive, only the result of the drug and you. For most recreational drug users this is a terribly frightening scenario and one that would make a lot of people reconsider their habits. Recreational drug use in the West is much like that other drug television, small harmless doses to pass the time - a direct mirroring of our otherconsumer fetishes. But elsewhere, in Central and South America amongst traditional tribes, amongst the remaining Native American populations, shamanic use of naturally occurring psychedelics is commonplace. McKenna is well-placed to talk about shamanism and psychedelics having spent a great deal of time amongst the tribes of the Americas researching and participating in their ceremonies and his descriptions of his psychedelic experiences with these tribes is both incredibly interesting and inspiring. He talks of "ecstatic states", "self-transforming elf machines", and being drawn to the brink by the total incomprehensibility of some of his experiences. His encounters with the powerful hallucinogen DMT are some of what he sees as his most challenging. In a mere fifteen minutes the drug passes without a trace through the body (unlike synthetic drugs like MDMA or Ecstasy, LSD and the rest which remain toxically in the body for days), but during that fifteen minutes McKenna describes suddenly being thrust into a totally incomprehensible world of ever-changing colours, impossible shapes, language that manifests itself physically, and strange creatures with a desire to communicate something. Encouraging a Tibetan llama to take a DMT "trip" with him, the llama described the experience as the closest one could go to discovering death without dying.

A much much longer version of this article including a long interview will appear in a forthcoming issue of Oyster Magazine. Numerous websites explain his theories in detail, two of the best are at - http://www.levity.com/eschaton/index.html and http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htm.

Yellow Peril

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