Four Talks and More

Terence McKenna began his public career not as a writer but rather as a speaker. From the early 1980s into the 1990s he gave talks at Will Noffke's "Shared Visions" Community Center in Berkeley, and he gave weekend workshops at Esalen Institute (Big Sur, California). The late Paul Herbert recorded many of his talks, resulting in over 100 tapes.

Terence became a very popular speaker not only because he dared to stand up in public and defend the use of psychedelics (despite their illegal status) but also because his knowledge of the Hermetic Tradition (including alchemy), ethnobotany, shamanism and history, combined with a unique ability to speak on these subjects in a way that led his hearers to believe that they were privileged to be hearing some quite profound insights (even if these did not always stand up to examination in the light of day) which had never occurred to them before, made listening to him a memorable experience. His writing career began (around 1990) only after certain book publishing companies discovered that whenever Terence gave a talk the room was packed to the rafters.

On the USB flash drive there are four MP3 (audio) files of vintage McKenna which can be listened to using Winamp, GOM Player or any other program which plays MP3 files. Each of these lasts about one hour or more.

  1. New and Old Maps of Hyperspace (Berkeley, CA, 1982)

  2. Psilocybin & the Sands of Time (1982)

  3. Tryptamine Hallucinogens & Consciousness (Esalen, December 1982)

  4. The Definitive UFO Tape (Mill Valley, CA, 1983)

Also on the USB flash drive is a 7-minute MP4 video file and two short (15-minute) audio files.

  1. McKenna discusses if reality is real (MP4)

  2. Terence McKenna on anthropology and modern anxiety (MP3)

  3. Nobody knows jack shit about what is going on (MP3)

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