Strange Attractor

An intellectual biography of one of the most celebrated and yet least understood figures of the late twentieth century, Terence McKenna.

A stand-up philosopher who made a unique contribution to science, humanism, and the hidden arts, Terence McKenna (1946–2000) was the twentieth century’s psychedelic Renaissance man. Perfecting his rugged philosophy on the role of psychedelics in evolution, consciousness, and time, McKenna was a riotous charmer who stalked the shadows, but also sought the iridescence. More than twenty years since his untimely passing, McKenna has an enduring magnetism across the virtual pop stream, in pervasive digitization, and within social media networks. In Strange Attractor, the first biography of this enigmatic figure, Graham St John detects the signal behind the noise.

This book is an engaging chronicle of the life, works, and legacy of this brazen adventurer of the inner and outer dimensions, whose weird intelligence has affected multitudes and whose spirit continues to haunt the present. It draws on original documents and letters, features fifty two rare photographs and artworks, and shares previously untold stories from over eighty people. Neither glorifying nor disparaging its subject, Strange Attractor will appeal to those interested in the evolution of a psychedelic intellectual, and to those for whom McKenna’s wisdom endures.Introduction
Freak Gnosis
Book Outline
PART I
Chapter One — Edge Runners
Chapter Two — Berkeley
Chapter Three — Terry Incognita
Chapter Four — La Chorrera
Chapter Five — Return to Paradise
Chapter Six — Growmance
Chapter Seven — Special Projects
Chapter Eight — Stand-Up Philosopher
PART II
Chapter Nine — Timewave Zero
Chapter Ten — Psychedelic Guru
Chapter Eleven — Zone Ghost
Chapter Twelve — Metamorphosis
Appendices
A. Acknowledgements and Sources
B. The McKennaverse“An account as weird, wild, and nontraditional as its subject.”
– Publishers Weekly

“ [A] delightful new biography.”
– Reason

“Due to St John’s intellectual reach, the book has, like a dark planet, drawn an entire menagerie of late 20th-century weirdness into its oblique orbit. With two appendices and 75 pages of notes, it is comprehensive and reference-heavy and seems to have left nothing unexamined in the labyrinth of the McKennaverse. The McKenna persona, familiar today from countless audio recordings strewn across the internet, is not so much invalidated here as given a merely human quality; the book is nothing if not the biography of a mortal. And for this we can be grateful, given the near-deification of McKenna that is well underway in some corners of the internet . . . The second part of the biography is a valiant attempt to lay out the various components of McKenna’s theoretical project, in what may constitute a groundwork for McKenna studies.”
– Los Angeles Review of Books

"A sympathetic and infectious travelogue of McKenna's psychedelic multiverse, but also pretty unflinching and even rigorous in unpacking the very, very high weirdness.”
—Jesse Jarnow, author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America

"Excellent scholarship, eloquently written, and deeply illuminating of its subject... Now it is possible to see the complexity of the man behind the raps." —Psychedelic Press

“The definitive biography of Terence. Indispensable!”
—Dennis McKenna, president of the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy

“Graham St John is our best contemporary historian of psychedelic culture. This biography is filled with wonders, striking the perfect balance between historical accuracy and sympathetic engagement.”
—Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam

“This enrapturing book is psychoactive in all the best ways. You don’t know Terence McKenna until you’ve read Strange Attractor.”
—R. U. Sirius, cofounder of Mondo 2000

“The life and work of Terence McKenna have been largely unchronicled. Until now. This hugely enjoyable book is required reading for anyone with an interest in psychedelic experiences, altered states, and countercultural thought.”
—Christopher Partridge, Professor of Religious Studies at Lancaster University

“When Terence passed in 2000, we all thought that Humpty Dumpty had fallen and lay shattered everywhere. With painstaking diligence, St John has put him back together again for the benefit of generations to come.”
—Dr. Bruce Damer, Astrobiologist and President of The Center for MINDS

“A monumental work of epic proportions. Terence McKenna could not have found a more capable chronicler. With discernment and flair, St John deftly peels back the layers of legend to reveal the fascinating, complex human beneath. Meticulously researched and exquisitely written, this is the definitive portrait of the tryptamine elf king.”
—David Jay Brown, author of Dreaming Wide Awake and The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities

“An immense accomplishment. Beautifully written, painstakingly researched, fascinating, insightful and, at times, deeply moving. I can’t imagine another author improving upon this definitive biography of the late psychedelic bard. It is done.”
—Andrew R. Gallimore, author of Death by Astonishment: Confronting the Mystery of the World’s Strangest Drug

“A deeply human examination of a figure who wandered the edge of the known and spoke to a generation seeking meaning in chaos. This is not just McKenna's story. It is the song of a life lived in reverence—to the Earth, to the ineffable, and to love.”
—William Leonard Pickard, author of The Rose of Paracelsus

“The life and lore of a countercultural icon is finally laid bare, with all of its shadows and contradictions, in this brilliant biography.”
—Michelle Lhooq, journalist and founder of Rave New World

"Beautifully written and impossible to put down . . . A real triumph in the art of biography."
—Libbie Grant, bestselling author of The Prophet’s Wife, The Ragged Edge of Night (as Olivia Hawker), and other novels

"A captivatingly humanizing depiction" revealed in . . . "an account as weird, wild, and nontraditional as its subject"
--Publishers Weekly

"Strange Attractor will rightfully take its place in the psychedelic canon as an accomplished work of biography, evincing deep research and a sympathetic, though not uncritical, approach to McKenna’s life and work."
--Ben Brooker, The Monthly

Graham St John is a cultural anthropologist and a recent recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship in the Department of Media, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Huddersfield where he is a Senior Research Fellow. He is the author of ten books, including Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT, Global Tribe, and Technomad. He is founding Executive Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture and has published widely on the ethnobiography of transformational events.