So, from scratch, let us look at Mr McKenna, but don’t forget the Brother, Dennis.
Psychedelic pioneers following in the footsteps of Ginsberg and Burroughs,
Into the vast throbbing heat of the tropical jungle,
Whose potions, they had heard,
Would turn their worlds upside down
And inside out.
On the way to find the Shamans in the dark green recesses of the collective unconscious,
They find a mushroom in a cowpat, and, without thinking too hard,
Eat the mushroom,
Recognising Gordon Wasson’s Food of the Gods when they see it.
Reality, already malleable and liquid in the Amazon’s funky murk,
Becomes something magical, internal and external,
Terence is high, higher than before, not ever before,
But definitely higher.
In the valley where they camp to await news of the
Ayahuasca vine, and the harmine compound with which it must be mixed
For the DMT to really hit you where you live,
They find more mushrooms.
It is the Stropharia Cubensis mushroom,
Re-classified in recent years as a Psilocybe,
One of those that contains a group of Psilocybin compounds,
Which bend your head.
They bend theirs,
Over and over again,
Whilst awaiting contact with the medicine men who will prepare the vine.
They hear stories of bad ju-ju, and the DMT is connected,
Somehow…
But the days drag on, and the dope and the mushrooms work just fine.
But Dennis does seem to be going a little strange,
And then stranger still.
He dreams of a quest into the forest, and an ascent of the World Tree.
He returns wild-eyed and rambling,
Unable always to cognify those around him,
Or their words of kindly concern.
He is excited, and the mushroom is key, the key,
No less, to a whole new reality.
They have procured the bark, the Harmine compound,
And Dennis says that this is also part of the puzzle.
They will prepare the mixture and the mushroom,
And perform an experiment.
The sun sets.
Another joint burns down in the Amazon night.
The fateful time arrives,
Dennis emits his machine noise,
His whir, his uncommon vibration,
So as to set the process in motion.
The Harmine molecule will bind to the DNA
And the mushroom will become sentient,a
And their DNA will be a receiver, an antenna,
And all the secrets of the ages will be theirs.
As the waves of quantum impossibility spread outwards across the jungle,
From the epicentre of this outrageous psychedelic drama,
In which some say, “get Dennis professional help”,
And Terence says, “let’s give his ideas a go”.
By morning, the camp is split.
The results are inconclusive.
They are expecting perhaps something more visible,
Or at least tangible.
Terrence is sure their work has been a success,
But Dennis’ sanity seems to hang in the balance.
But as they return to civilisation,
He returns to his old self.
The brothers bring back spores,
And spend much time through the remaining decade
Perfecting their growing method.
Now millions have tried the mushroom,
Seen the UFO, or at least one side of it,
And the cultivation practices are good enough for non-psychedelic cultivation too…..
Did they change the world?
Yes, irrevocably, and they knew it, they could actually feel it.
Is this the divine revelation of psychedelics?
Your actions echo in eternity……
To be aware, in the now, that you are right now staring down the barrel of infinity,
And act accordingly, act bravely, act without fear….
This is far easier than might be first imagined.
Play is the first rule of interaction,
Let the game deepen, urges Terrence,
Now from beyond the grave.
He stresses experience over dogma,
And this is where we agree.
Thank you Terrence for the mushrooms,
Thank you for saying it was okay.
Thanks also to the Allman Brother’s Band,
Who, by cosmic coincidence, were playing live at the Fillmore East on
The weekend that was the climax of Dennis and Terrance’s little blast of chaos magic.
12-13th March 1971.
So, if you have the Psilocybin,
And the time,
And a record player,
You can return to that hot sweaty night in the Amazon,
To when the soul of the world connected with the soul of man,
And the Harmine entered the DNA, and the mushroom came alive once more.
The Allman Brothers were tuning in to just that particular frequency
On the next continent along.
Wanna hear the song of the UFO?
Top Gear baby, top gear,
As in, great drugs!
Laurie Sedgefield Dillinger is the mild-mannered alter-ego of The Analogue Detective, who, in turn, is the metaphysical projection of the investigative mind of Tim Wakefield of Bolton, Lancashire.
Laurie was born early enough to witness, but too late to take part in the consciousness revolution of the late 1960s. So, he has spent his life researching any and all methods of awareness enhancement available at this point in the continuum, at great personal cost. He hopes one day to transcend the boundaries of spacetime permanently, and all his current researches point in this/these direction(s).
Laurie currently resides in the artistic Utopia that is beginning to manifest in the Sheaf Valley of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He has no pets.
