The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Terence McKenna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1992

A mind-expanding workshop on humankind’s spiritual genesis, presented by the late controversial author and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna. Join him as he transports us from our prehistoric roots, across today’s digital landscape, and into the awe-inspiring events ahead that he predicted for humankind.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

When Terence McKenna passed away in early 2000, we lost not only a brilliant and daring writer on the nature of consciousness -- but one of the most entertaining speakers of all time. The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge was McKenna's magnum opus -- an in-depth series of public talks covering his lifelong investigation into our 20,000-year relationship with visionary plant substances and their impact on our species. With this new edition of The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, a legion of McKenna's fans gain the opportunity to hear these inspired talks for the first time -- as he transports us from our prehistoric roots, across today's digital landscape, and into the awe-inspiring events ahead that he predicted for humankind.

About the Author

Terence McKenna has been hailed as "the foremost spokesperson for the psychedelic experience." He has spent over 25 years studying the philosophical foundations of shamanism and the ethnopharmacology of spiritual transformation. McKenna graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a distributed major in ecology, resource conservation, and shamanism, and has since traveled the world studying spiritual practices and ethno-medicine. Terence McKenna is the author of many books, including The Archaic Revival and Food of the Gods, a book the Washington Post calls "the modern classic on mind-altering drugs and hallucinogens."

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated; Unabridged edition (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564552063
• ISBN-13: 978-1564552068
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,233,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terence doing what he does best., June 13, 2001

By 

"bpp4" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (Audio Cassette)

In this 11 hour rap Terence Mckenna covers all of his favorite topics of discussion, From the self transforming machine elves in DMT hyperspace, Ayahuasca, the gaian mind, the world as language, to his own unique blend of philosophy & social commentary. This workshop encompasses on the whole much of Terence's entheogenic musings. On a side note, in the Q&A spots many questions from the audience are sometime hard to hear, but Terence's answers usually straigten out any confusion. Highly Recommended!!!!!!!! I'd give it 6 stars if I could.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mc Kenna Code, July 28, 2005

By 

Scott A. Riddle - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (Audio Cassette)

Time seems to be agreeing with Mckenna's discoveries, Terence created a time line based on his deciphering of the mysteries of the oldest book known to humanity, over 5000 years old, the I-Ching. This time line, which is mathematically sound, charts novelty throughout history (def. Novelty - the quality or state of being new : quality of being different from anything in prior existence). The I-Ching is a Binary Code like that used in computers similar to the Yin-Yang that consists of opposing energies. The I-Ching is able to give advice based on the idea that every possible event that does happen, that can happen, has happened and will happen again, for example people fall in love, fall out of love, people are born, people die, people make peace and people war and all of those things that have happened before will happen again. Terence's line graph which he called Time Wave is explained in detailed length in his book "The Invisible Landscape" and how he came to this revelation is captured in wonderful fun detail, and I recommend you read first, in "True Hallucinations", Terence's time line goes up and down charting novelty throughout history but the line graph also went into the future! This graph charted that 2005 would be the most novel year in humanity's existence to date, only then to be surpassed by a happening of novelty so extraordinarily that it was off the chart on December 22, 2012 and then the line stops. According to the magazine "Scientific America" 2012 also happens to be the year in which a, not global which happens with some frequency, but a galactic polar shift or a reversal in the Milky Way is to take place, like for example how on Earth in the northern half of the planet's equator water goes down a drain in one direction and in the southern half it goes in the opposite direction and this actually reverses.

Also unbeknownst to Terence at the conception of his planetary calendar was the fact that his 2012 end date coincidentally corresponds with one thousands of years old found in the Mayan pyramids. I was also recently informed when retelling this prophecy to a devout Christian friend that the events in the book of Revelations are suppose to take place over a seven year period, like that between the years from 2005 to 2012, but unless people disappear and Jesus (who's real name was Yeshua) returns as describe in the Bible I wouldn't worry to much about that but perhaps the events of the Bible aren't to be read as being literal. Terence himself suggested some possible ideas as an attempt to convey the magnitude of the coming changes all of which he believed to be positive for humanity. I myself believe if you have been paying attention to the events of 05' I think you'd have to agree that a change in consciousness is taking place with the success of things such as The Da Vinci Code and the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, the popularity of the liberal radio station Air America Radio and the awakening to Bush's wicked administration and corporate greed and the up coming 3 gay television stations. Trust me a cultural revolution in consciousness is happening that is penetrating sexual, political, and philosophical beliefs causing an evolution in neuro-processes. The time line isn't trying to suggest novelty hasn't happened in 2004 or wont happen in 2006 and 7 just that it's culminating in 2005 in a way more unique and novel then has ever been before and it will happen again in 2012 and then life as we know it will end! The only foreseeable biological organic evolution left for the human body is the maturation of the human mind but on the other hand who says the possibilities are foreseeable.

This review is about just a fraction of all that Terence talks about, you could say if "Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything" was a bachelor's degree course into possessing an open mind (which I'd highly recommend getting) "The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge" is the masters degree and if you get both you'll be well on your way to possessing a truly free mind, what these two great minds convey is truly liberating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How can anyone know so much stuff?, September 8, 2001

By 

Brian T. Raymer (Newport, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (Audio Cassette)

McKenna has an amazing command of topics including: UFOs, mycology, James Joyce, entheogenic botany, psychopharmacology, comparative religions, art history, quantum physics..,and the list goes on. For what he lacks in accuracy, he makes up in the interconnectiveness of his perspective.

A truly compelling public speaker.