Graham St John: Strange Attractor - The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna (Part 2)

Second installment of the Brainforest Café interview with Graham St John, exploring his highly anticipated biography of Terence McKenna, "Strange Attractor." Tune in for deep insights ahead of the book's release on October 7th 2025.
Support the McKenna Academy: https://mckenna.academy/donate

Watch this next (Part 1):    • Graham St John: Strange Attractor - The Ha...  

EPISODE LINKS:
Pre-order the book at MIT Press (Pub date: October 07, 2025) https://mitpress.mit.edu/978026204957...
About the book (with excerpts) "Strange Attractor: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna" https://www.edgecentral.net/terence-m...
Terence´s song with the Shamen Re:Evolution (Shamen Vocal Mix/Edit)    • Re: Evolution (Shamen Vocal Mix / Edit)  
The last known audio recording from Terence, dated November 1972, in San Francisco (recorded by Tamma Starr and provided by We Plants Are Happy Plants    • Terence McKenna - Amazon Psychotropical Qu...  
Terence McKenna first website: Levity http://www.levity.com/eschaton/hyperb...
Terence McKenna web’s largest list of books, articles, audio, video, interviews, and translations https://www.terencemckenna.com/
Graham St John website Edgecentral https://www.edgecentral.net


COURSES:
Mckenna Academy Course Catalog: https://mckenna.academy/course-list/

SOCIAL MEDIA & WEBSITE:
Twitter:   / mckennaacademy  
Instagram:   / mckenna.academy  
Facebook:   / mckenna.academy  
Website: https://mckenna.academy


Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Introduction to Graham St. John and the biography Strange: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna.
00:05:32 – Terence's First Pivotal Event: His first encounter with DMT in February 1966.
00:07:05 – The Biography's Purpose: A sympathetic and honest account intended to generate curiosity and further conversation.
00:09:09 – Terence's Second Pivotal Event: The La Chorrera experiment, which grew out of his DMT experiences and exploded his existing worldview.
00:13:00 – The La Chorrera Experience: The discovery of mushrooms and the encounter with a hyper-intelligent entity that led to Terence's developing time wave and eschatological vision.
00:15:39 – Science vs. Ritual: Dennis suggesting La Chorrera was more like a "ritual" or "ceremony" than a scientific experiment.
00:21:25 – Rejection of Science: Terence's argument that La Chorrera was a "uniquely irreplicable event," leading him to reject the scientific paradigm.
00:32:34 – The Anti-Guru Guru: Characterizing Terence as an authority who rejected authority, actively avoiding the role of a messianic cult leader, and presenting his ideas as "entertainment”.
00:45:34 – The "Timothy Leary of the 90s": Leary's mantle passed to Terence, who was a more anarchical figure.
00:54:56 – Rave Culture Frontman: Terence's unexpected role as a spokesperson for rave culture and psychedelic electronic music in the early 1990s.
01:09:47 – The Transcendental Object and AI: Speculation on what Terence would think of the current global state and the emergence of AI and cybernetics merging with collective consciousness (the singularity).
01:16:26 – The Eschaton AI App: Discussion of an upcoming AI oracle app, a large language model built on Terence's extensive archive of raps.
01:24:52 – Cognitive Libertarianism: Terence's political stance in defending the right to trans-dimensional experience as a human birthright (First Amendment implications) during the War on Drugs.
01:35:07 – Clandestine Past: Graham St John's research on Terence's 1969 hash smuggling network bust and the subsequent two-year probation.
01:39:01 – Carl Heinz: The apocryphal and mysterious figure from Terence's book True Hallucinations.
01:43:04 – Terence McKenna Archive: Mention of Clea McKenna's project to start an archive of photos and documents.



#mckennaacademy #dennismckenna #TerenceMcKenna #GrahamStJohn #StrangeAttractorBook #PsychedelicCulture

About:
This is the second installment interview with cultural anthropologist Graham St John on Brainforest Café, diving deeper into his upcoming biography "Strange Attractor: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna," releasing October 7th, 2025. Discover rare insights into Terence McKenna's complex legacy, his groundbreaking psychedelic explorations, the La Chorrera experiment, and his ambivalent relationship with science and spirituality. Explore the personal stories, untold histories, and McKenna's role as an anti-guru guru through candid discussions with Dennis McKenna and Graham St John. Perfect for fans of psychedelic culture, visionary philosophy, and McKenna's enduring influence.