Early Life: Curiosity Sparked in Colorado
Born in 1946 in Paonia, Colorado, Terence’s upbringing reflected a rural, traditional way of life. He later joked about the town’s name, saying, “They wanted to name it Peony but didn’t know how to spell it. In your last year of high school, you got your girlfriend pregnant, married her, and went to work in the coalmines. An intellectual was someone who read TIME.”
From a young age, he was interested in the natural world. After being introduced to geology by his uncle, one of his favorite pastimes became searching for and collecting fossils. Terence also loved butterflies, a passion that continued into his adult life.
A Seed is Planted: Early Encounters with Psychedelics
At the age of 10, Terence stumbled upon the now-famous LIFE magazine article, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” igniting a lifelong fascination with psychedelics. By 14, he was diving into Carl Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy, showcasing an early interest in mysticism and consciousness.
Reflecting on his childhood, Terence explained, “My interest in drugs, magic, and the more obscure backwaters of natural history and theology gave me the interest profile of an eccentric Florentine prince rather than a kid growing up in the heartland of the United States in the late 50s.”
Education and the Experimental College Experience
At 16, Terence convinced his parents to let him finish school in California, where he lived a year each in Los Altos & Lancaster. By 18, he joined the Tussman Experimental College at UC Berkeley. This unique undergrad program emphasized self-directed learning, intense discussions, and personal reading lists rather than traditional grades.
“No grades were given; evaluations were based on intense dialogues with faculty members and fellow students,” his brother Dennis later recalled in Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss.
By the end of his second year of college, Terence had acquired a personal library of over 1000 books. 3 years later it was destroyed in a fire. His second library had over 3000 books at his death. This library was also destroyed in a fire, 7 years after his death.
Exploring the World and Mind-Altering Substances
In 1967, Terence began studying shamanism and Tibetan folk religion. The same year, which he called his “opium and kabbala phase”, he traveled to Jerusalem where he met his future wife, Kathleen Harrison, an ethnobotanist.
He briefly returned to the US in 1968, meeting with a friend in NYC where he came to the conclusion “we should stop fucking around and go off and grapple with the DMT mystery.” After NY, he traveled to Nepal to research the Tibetan language, paintings, and traditional shamanism.
While in Nepal, his main source of income was smuggling hash. This went well until “one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs.” Fearing the worst, he wandered through SE Asia viewing ruins, then worked as a pro butterfly collector in Indonesia.
In 1969, he lived for a time in Taipei, then taught English in Tokyo, then lived in British Columbia for three months.
La Chorrera and the Mushroom Revelation
Following his mothers death in 1970, he planned a trip to the Colombian Amazon with his brother Dennis and two friends in search of oo-koo-hé (Yopo).
Following a “4 day trek through the jungle” they arrived in La Chorrera. Instead of oo-koo-hé they found fields full of gigantic Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.
Within 24 hours of their arrival, Terence and Dennis had their first experience with psilocybin.
“I knew only that the mushroom was the best hallucinogen I had ever had and that it had a quality of aliveness I had never known before, it seemed to open doorways into places I had assumed would always be closed to me because of my insistence on analysis and realism.”
On March 4, the McKenna brothers performed “the experiment at La Chorrera,” which involved ayahuasca & psilocybin.
Terence claimed the experiment put him in contact with “Logos”: an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience.
Publishing, Public Speaking, and Growing Influence
In 1972, Terence returned to U.C. Berkeley to finish his studies and in 1975, he graduated with a degree in ecology, shamanism, and conservation of natural resources. He also began a relationship with his future wife and the mother of his two children, Kathleen Harrison.
Terence and Dennis published their first book “The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching” in 1975. In 1976 they published another book under pseudonyms, “Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide”, giving ordinary people the tools to grow magic mushrooms.
In the late 1970’s into the early 1980’s Terence grew mushrooms as a way to supplement his income, but stopped once he fully realized the potential legal ramifications. From there, he began public speaking at Esalen, underground radio shows, raves, college campuses, and more.
He credited his oratory skill to his “innate Irish ability to rave [which] had been turbo-charged by years of psilocybin mushroom use”.
Terence spoke on human history, nature, metaphysics, language, and psychedelic drugs, with a focus on psilocybin, ayahuasca, cannabis, and DMT.
He grew in popularity quickly and by the late 1980’s he was regularly giving speeches to audiences of 1000.
Major Works and the Stoned Ape Hypothesis
In 1992, Terence released two influential books:
- The Archaic Revival, which argued for a return to pre-civilization ideals.
- The Food of the Gods, his bestselling work introducing the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis”—the theory that psychedelics played a pivotal role in human evolution.
Following a divorce, Terence retired from his botanical conservation project and moved to Hawaii, where he built a modernist home surrounded by rare psychoactive plants.
In 1985 he founded “Botanical Dimensions” with his wife, a 19 acre garden designed to preserve thousands of plants used by indigenous people from tropical regions.
1992 was a big year for Terence- he got divorced and published 2 books: ‘The Archaic Revival’, arguing that we should revisit pre-civilization ideas, and ‘The Food of the Gods’, his best selling book and the book that introduces ‘The Stoned Ape Hypothesis’.
Following his divorce, he retired from Botanical Dimensions and moved to Hawaii full time, building a modernist house in the hills near Kona. He filled his land with rare plants, with a focus on anything psychoactive.
In 1993 he released his final book, ‘True Hallucinations’, an easier-to-read version of ‘The Invisible Landscape’ that also expanded on his life before and after La Chorrera.
Final Years and Legacy
He spent his final years on the psychedelic circuit, attending conferences, lecturing to large audiences, and spending time at his Hawaii compound with his girlfriend Christy Silness.
He frequently suffered from extremely painful migraines and had a brain seizure May 22nd, 1999.
A visit to the doctor showed that he had an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. He tried a number of different treatments, but he understood that he didn’t have much time left.
Here’s a clip from one of Terence’s final interviews where he further elaborates on how he feels about death:
Terence died April 6th, 2000, at the age of 53. His death was grieved by the psychedelic community, but his spirit lives on through his books and lectures, which are still popular online today.
Terence’s death marked a profound loss for the psychedelic community. Yet, his ideas endure—his books, recorded lectures, and insights continue to inspire seekers of consciousness and truth.
Sources:
- True Hallucinations
- Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
- Various online articles and interviews
