Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss

Dennis McKenna is an ethnopharmacologist who has studied plant hallucinogens for over forty years. He is the author of many scientific papers, and co-author, with his brother Terence McKenna, of The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching, and Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. He holds a doctorate from the University of British Columbia, where his research focused on ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé, two hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. He received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine. In 1990, he joined Shaman Pharmaceuticals as Director of Ethnopharmacology, and in 1993 became the Aveda Corporation's Senior Research Pharmacognosist. Dennis has been an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota since 2001, where he teaches courses in ethnopharmacology and botanical medicine. He has taught summer field courses in Peru and Ecuador, and has conducted fieldwork throughout the upper Amazon. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization focused on the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines. Dennis McKenna is the editor of Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (Vol. 1 & 2): 50 Years of Research, published by Synergetic Press in 2018.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword to the 2023 Edition

Foreword to the First Edition
Preface to the 2023 Edition
Preface to the First Edition


Part One: Beginnings
1 Beginnings
2 Three Sisters
3 Roots and Wars
4 Terry and Denny
5 Happy Day Rides
6 The Nobody People
7 The Collector
8 Flying, Fishing, and Hunting
9 Goodbye to All That
10 The Big Picture
11 First Loves: 1962
12 The California Crusade
13 The Experimental College: 1965
14 Cannabis: 1966
15 The Tutor
16 A Psychedelic Education
17 Mapping Inner Space: Carl Jung
18 The Ladders of Ecstasy: Mircea Eliade
19 Summer of Love: 1967
20 The Secret Encountered
21 The Stoners' Revenge
22 My Datura Misadventure
23 Escape from Mordor: 1968
24 The Church Lawn Bunch
25 Busted Again: 1969
26 Girl with a Gun: 1970


Part Two: Into the Abyss
27 The Brotherhood Forms
28 Our Mother's Death
29 A Narrow Passage: 1971
30 On the Edge of the Abyss
31 The Experiment at La Chorrera
32 Waiting for the Stone
33 The Bell Tower and a UFO
34 Reflections on La Chorrera


Part Three: Invisible Landscapes
35 Invisible Landscapes
36 The Timewave
37 To See the Great Man
38 Fun with Fungi: 1975
39 A Lab in Paradise
40 In the Trenches
41 An Encounter with Ayahuasca
42 The River of Poisons
43 Adulthood and Its Victims
44 The Plant Teachers: 1985
45 The Perpetual Postdoc
46 Climbing the Vine: 1991
47 New in Town
48 The Bard in Light and Shadow
49 A Desperate Situation
50 Into the Fire

Epilogue

The Rearview Mirror

Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Appendix
Index