“A rich and resonant portrayal of the man and his mind.”

— From the foreword by Erik Davis, author of Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium
 

I used to say that those wishing to truly understand Terence McKenna, and our complicated shared career, should consider my memoir The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss and Terence’s True Hallucinations as required reading. Now I am pleased to add Graham St John’s incredible book to that list. He has tracked down many of Terence’s old friends and associates and persuaded them to excavate the caverns of their own memories. The result is something like the definitive biography of Terence. Much of his account was unfamiliar to me. This biography is indispensable!

— Dennis J. McKenna, president of the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy

 

“While Graham St John is our best contemporary historian of psychedelic culture, Terence McKenna was undoubtedly its most famous public intellectual. This biography is wonderful in the literal sense—a big book filled with wonders that keeps a perfect balance between historical accuracy and sympathetic engagement with the high priest of weirdness in the internet age.”

— Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam

 

"Terence McKenna was fond of quoting J. B. S. Haldane: 'The universe is not only stranger than we suppose, it is stranger than we can suppose.' This enrapturing book about the life and ideas that made McKenna a hero of 1990s psychedelic cyberculture is composed of the ideas and lived experience of McKenna and those who shared space and time with him. It’s stranger than you can suppose and it must be read to be experienced. It’s psychoactive in all the best ways. You don’t know McKenna until you’ve read Strange Attractor."

— R. U. Sirius,  co-founder of Mondo 2000.

 

“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

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“An immense accomplishment. Beautifully written, painstakingly researched, fascinating, insightful and, at times, deeply moving. I can’t imagine another author this side of the Eschaton 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

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“A monumental work of epic proportions. This long-awaited biography could not have found a more capable chronicler. Meticulously researched and exquisitely written, St John's extraordinary book unravels the life and legacy of the tryptamine elf king with kaleidoscopic clarity. With discernment and flair, he deftly peels back the layers of legend to reveal the fascinating, complex human beneath. This is the definitive portrait of the phantasmagoric orator supreme—one of the most original and spellbinding storytellers ever to emerge from the psychedelic underground.”

— David Jay Brown, author of Dreaming Wide Awake and The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities

 

"Terence McKenna is one of the most important, influential, and idiosyncratic modern psychedelic theorists to emerge out of the 1960s counterculture. However, unlike Timothy Leary, his life and work are not widely known, and he remained a largely underground thinker for many years, before becoming briefly popular as a rave prophet during the 1990s. What he has needed and deserved is an informed, engaging, and carefully researched biography. This is that biography. For anyone with an interest in psychedelic experiences, altered states, and countercultural thought, this hugely enjoyable book is required reading."

— Christopher Partridge, Professor of Religious Studies at Lancaster University, and author of Cannabis, Sacred and Profane 

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​“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 Paracelsusrs

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"The life and lore of a countercultural icon is finally laid bare, with all of its shadows and contradictions. Dancefloor devotees who know McKenna as the “bard of hyperspace” sampled on countless electronic music anthems will especially appreciate the book’s excavation of his reluctant relationship to raving, as well as the strangely pivotal role his stash of DMT played in the creation of Goa trance—one of many such gems buried inside this brilliant biographical tome." 

—  Michelle Lhooq, drug journalist at Rave New World

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