A stand-up philosopher who made a unique contribution to science, humanism, and the hidden arts, Terence K. McKenna (1946-2000) was the 20th century’s psychedelic renaissance man. More than twenty years since his untimely passing, across the virtual popstream, in pervasive digitization, and social media networks dedicated to his “small mouth noises,” McKenna has an enduring magnetism. As the first biography of this enigmatic figure, Strange Attractor: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna detects the signal behind the noise.

 

Perfecting his rugged philosophy on the role of psychedelics in evolution, consciousness, and time, McKenna was a riotous charmer who stalked the shadows, sought the iridescence, and brought the house down. The book is an engaging chronicle of the life, works, and legacy of this brazen adventurer of the inner and outer dimensions, whose weird intelligence affected multitudes and who continues to haunt the present.

 

Accessing previously unpublished materials, using interviews with friends, family, and co-conspirators – over seventy people, many sharing their stories for the first time – and featuring a fine gallery of photographs and artworks, this intellectual biography documents one of the most celebrated and yet least understood figures of the late twentieth century. Neither glorifying nor disparaging its subject, Strange Attractor: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna will appeal to those interested in the evolution of a psychedelic intellectual, and to those for whom his wisdom endures.

 

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Art by Mike Wehner