I'm going to talk to Mr. Terrence McKenna right now.
 Terrence is an ethno-botanist.
 He's the author of Food of the Gods, True Hallucinations,
 and numerous other very informative books and articles.
 And he's been featured in many magazines,
 such as Omni and Psychedelic Illuminations,
 many other books.
 Are you on the line there, Terrence?
 I'm hanging in.
 All right.
 How you doing, buddy?
 I'm here.
 I'm up.
 I don't know how long we can do it with cellular from Hawaii,
 but I'm willing to give it a whirl.
 You sound good on this end.
 Yeah.
 The phone line's much better than the last time
 we had you on the show.
 This is another time period where people haven't
 heard this information before.
 And I don't know if they realize how ancient this plant is,
 the marijuana cannabis plant.
 Could you give people a little background information
 on how old this plant is?
 Well, probably this plant is as old as agriculture, in fact,
 probably much older.
 Because it has so many uses, you know,
 as food, as fuel, as fiber, as animal fodder,
 it was really just there when we came out
 of the darkness of pre-civilization.
 And it grows very well across the Middle East,
 the kind of areas that human populations
 were migrating into.
 I think it's arguably one of the oldest cultivated plants.
 Now, this plant's been used in many different ways
 down through the millenniums of time.
 What are some of the things that you've found in your research
 that the plant's been used for?
 Well, I'm particularly interested in the intoxication
 of it and how that's affected various cultures.
 And one of the interesting things about that
 is how recent smoking cannabis is.
 In the 19th century, people who were experimenting
 with cannabis for its psychological effect
 were eating it.
 As far as the other uses, you know,
 I think probably we find cordage and impressions
 of weavings on the sides of clay pots
 that go back nearly 7,000 years.
 And that cordage probably was hemp.
 And that was catalaya.
 It's been used as a basis for material culture that long.
 And it's also been used as a basis
 for the imaginative and theatrical and fun
 side of things.
 One of the things we learned from Lynn and Judy Osborne's
 book, Green Gold, the Tree of Life, Marijuana, Magic,
 and Religion, is that the ancient sacred incense that
 was burned in all the temples of all religions
 was actually hashish.
 And that the Scythians, for instance,
 had felt tents that they built.
 And they would stick their head into it
 and breathe in the smoke or vapors
 from the hashish or cannabis buds.
 Yes, that's in Herodotus.
 Right.
 I talk about that in my book, Food of the Gods, as well.
 I think that's the earliest literary mention of cannabis.
 Can you hear me?
 Yeah.
 That's the earliest literary mention.
 But at the presence of cordage and weaving, in my book,
 I talk about how all the words associated with storytelling,
 like spinning a yarn, unraveling a tail,
 tying up loose ends, these are all words associated
 with weaving and spinning.
 And I think probably in the long hours of the Paleolithic,
 people made cordage.
 And they wove.
 And they were high on cannabis.
 And they told stories.
 It helped them recite the database of the culture
 and, of course, children were present, observing all this,
 learning the stories and the ways of the weavers.
 Well, I think one of the interesting things
 I find about this plant is the way
 it opens up doors of communication amongst people.
 Yes, it's a strong social glue.
 And the impact of this on a socially bound animal
 like ourselves is very hard to calculate.
 It seems to incline people more to an erotic, laid-back family
 style than a warring, hunting, outward pushing
 kind of predator style.
 Hello?
 Go ahead.
 Yeah.
 Well, I was just going to say, I'm
 a great enthusiast of mushrooms and their impact
 on prehistory.
 But I think when people moved out of Africa,
 the obvious substitute for the religious complex that
 had been established in Africa was cannabis.
 I mean, cannabis was worldwide, easy to grow.
 As I said, the food, the fuel, inputted
 into material culture, it was like a new incarnation
 of the goddess to these people moving out of Africa
 and trying to cross the Anatolian,
 what's up, Manitourian, and so forth.
 Well, and so it's obviously had some influence in cultures
 throughout time.
 And I'm looking at the political climate of today.
 And one of the premiums, or one of the gifts
 that we're giving away today is your talk
 from the Phoenix Bookstore call on true hallucinations.
 And you said in that that you happen
 to believe that if marijuana became legal,
 it would be a very big deal.
 And I was just wondering if you could expand on that
 a little bit in the political climate of today
 and in the global market where this plant is taking off
 as a resource for food and fiber and medicine,
 and yet it's still being stifled information-wise
 in this country.
 Well, I think that's because we never,
 in the whole discussion about legalizing cannabis,
 have come to grips with what I think
 is the real issue, which is it does change people.
 And the way in which it changes them
 makes it hostile toward the values
 of industrial capitalism.
 That's for sure.
 And yet it provides a base for an economic recovery.
 As a product itself, but as a habit,
 it makes you very uninterested in the values and schedules
 and hierarchies of industrial society.
 So I've always felt that it was being suppressed
 with that fully in the mind of the suppressors,
 that this is very, very important, I think,
 to how society and social polity will develop in the future.
 The question being, will it be with or without
 an ambiance of cannabis?
 And I think cannabis promotes Gaian values,
 feminine values, unity values, and a hard look
 at the other set of values, unbridled materialism,
 that is being sold in the media marketplace.
 That's right.
 And in this day and age when the entire world is starting
 to come onto this thing, and yet it's still
 being suppressed information-wise in this country
 and the whole--
 Well, I've always felt that when the whole world was
 free and enlightened, that probably the United States
 would be the last gasp in the confrontation
 and crypto-fascism on the planet.
 I think you're right, bro.
 Yeah, I know.
 It's amazing that we stick with it.
 And that's the other thing, is that throughout time,
 against all opposition to do otherwise,
 there has been a certain faction of people on this planet that
 have continued to keep this seed alive over the centuries,
 over millennium, and continue to use it against all opposition
 to do otherwise.
 Well, it's the phenomenon of the margin.
 And in the United States, it was black people in the '20s
 and so forth.
 It retreats to the margin in eras
 when social control becomes totally autocratic.
 And then in periods of social confusion or plurality,
 it can make an emergence.
 But whether it will ever, in the United States,
 be legal to just twist one up and go for it,
 I just don't know.
 Because to me, it is so inexorably
 linked to political dissent.
 And you just don't hear this said much on either side.
 No, it's like, if you really want
 to know what's going on in an office,
 listen to what they're not talking about.
 That's right.
 But there seems to be an agreement
 on the part of the hemp proponents and the hemp
 opponents not to discuss the actual social impact of what
 it would mean to let people relax for God's sake.
 And a drug like Prozac, patented and owned
 by drug companies--
 Happy drugs.
 --is in a sense being marketed, I
 think, as a cannabis substitute.
 I have to agree.
 It's controllable by the pharmaceuticals.
 You know, also, I think one thing I found about it
 is it teaches people to share.
 In fact, in all of the people in the hemp community
 that I deal with, we end up bartering things and sharing
 food.
 And a very communal-type lifestyle
 follows this around also, tribal lifestyle.
 Well, like all hallucinogens or psychedelics,
 it tends to dissolve boundaries.
 And so the idea of me and mine is not quite so strong.
 And then we let our hair down a little, and we can share food.
 And who knows what else, if we were to explore it.
 Yes.
 No, I think it's wonderful.
 I think that, in a sense, it's the first step
 toward curing our dis-ease with civilization.
 I mean, I wrote a book called The Archaic Revival that
 was basically about trying to turn people
 toward shamanistic lifestyles, especially lifestyles
 based on relationship to plants.
 And cannabis is right up there.
 Terrence, we're in the last day of a fundraiser
 here at KPFK.
 And we'd like you to maybe tell the listeners why
 you think it's important that they support this radio
 station in bringing them this information.
 Oh, I'd be happy to say why I think Pacifica
 radio is important.
 I started listening to Pacifica when
 I came to Los Angeles, the Mojave Desert, in 1965.
 And I've stuck with it.
 When I lived in Northern California,
 I listened to the Berkeley station.
 And over all that time-- '65, '75, '85, '95-- 30 years,
 consistently, Pacifica radio has been the best
 source of information of a countercultural and critical
 sort.
 And that's speaking through the Vietnam War,
 through the Nixon years, through Watergate, Carter, all of that.
 I just think I can't say enough good things about KPFK
 and the people who run it.
 It's one of the last beacons of freedom
 in a progressively more fascistic and constipated
 country.
 Right on.
 Yeah.
 Well, Terrence, we're going to let you go,
 so we don't run up your phone bill too much.
 And we want to thank you so much for coming on and helping
 us raise money for KPFK, because we
 do have to keep it going in order
 to keep bringing out this kind of information.
 Well, I hope it wasn't too crackly.
 And any time I can help out, just send me email or let me
 know.
 Do you want to give out your email number?
 I'd love to give out-- not my email number,
 but let me give out my website address.
 Great.
 I'd love to have people visit my website.
 OK.
 It's http://www.levity.com/eschaton,
 E-S-T-H-A-T-O-N/.
 And I won't repeat it.
 We'll just hope people are really on the ball.
 Anyway, you can find it by searching Terrence McKenna
 in Lighthouse.
 I love talking to you.
 I hope that the politics of cannabis continue to blossom.
 And in spite of my own skepticism,
 I'd love to see a world where we could all throw our food,
 get high, stop cutting the forest, and live in community.
 Thank you so much, Terrence.
 Okey-doke.
 Bye-bye.
 Bye.
 [MUSIC PLAYING]
 [MUSIC - "COME, COME, O BROTHER"]
 [MUSIC - "COME, COME, O BROTHER"]
 Come, come, O brothers and sisters,
 all who want to smoke the ganja of love.
 Rolling up our spliffs and twisters,
 we're rocking out until we get enough.
 Dance, dance, your feet big blisters.
 Take off your shoes when they start to rub.
 Sing, sing, O brothers and sisters.
 We're down and high, but the angels above.
 Tell me, can you really get high on anything else?
 Yeah, tell me, can you really get high on anything else?
 Like a ganja, yeah.
 [MUSIC PLAYING]
 [MUSIC FADES]
 [BLANK_AUDIO]


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