Terence McKenna, self-styled ‘psychonaut’, ethnobotanist, writer, lecturer, freedom fighter and culture-doubting intellectual, was arguably one of the greatest minds who ever lived. He believed passionately in a basic human right to explore one’s own consciousness, and he advocated the use of psilocybin (the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms) and other natural psychedelic drugs to do so. Controversial until his untimely death in 2000, McKenna was dubbed the ‘Tim O’Leary of the 90s’. Ground-breaking books such as The Archaic Revival, Food of The Gods and The Invisible Landscape inspired a generation to turn off the TV and reclaim their minds from the clutches of culture. This, McKenna told us, ”is not your friend.”
