Some of Terrence’s ideas are very interesting like I could see how human kind developed creativity to use tools and developed a language or form of communication through hallucinogenic experiences. Unfortunately, that theory, and likely many of the others McKenna presents, is nothing more than speculation unsupported by any real scientific evidence. There are more ways to crack open the egg of consciousness than he gives credit to in his book, and I wonder if he is leading people down a hippy cul de sac/dead-head end, rather than relativising drug use into just one possibility for entrance into the Age of Imagination which he prophecises. Heroin flattens the image; with heroin, things are neither hot nor cold the junkie looks out at the world certain that whatever it is, it does not matter.

His world view and perspective is one of someone who has great vision and insight into the workings of the human mind and condition.Attempting to distinguish between habits and addictions does damage to the insoluble confluence of mental and physical energies that shape the behavior of each of us. In many cases, alcohol literally was slavery as the triangular trade of slaves, sugar, and rum and other practices of European civilization spread over the earth, subjugating other cultures. His emphasis on chocolate and television were particularly amusing, as if to say, "It doesn't matter what your poison is.

a field watch on the easting habits of 'stoned' apes and chimpanzees - these adventures are all a part of ethnobotanis t Terence McKenna's extraordinary quest to discover the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. McKenna was way ahead of his time as he anticipated modern developments and provides the only real solution to our modern problems.

I later read 'The Invisible Landscape' on a Buddhist retreat (inventing my own programme which supplemented meditation with copious amounts of time spent reading other people's books in the dormitory). Soma, a conscious-expanding, ecstacy-inducing drug of prehistory, is said to have played an important part in the establishment of consciousness.