Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor of the dominator attitude that alteration of consciousness by the use of plants or substances is somehow wrong, onanistic, and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic dissolution of the ego, has robbed us of life’s meaning and made us enemies of the planet, of ourselves, and our grandchildren. We are killing the planet in order to keep intact the wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural style.

When he later discovered that the end of the 13th baktun in the Maya Calendar had been correlated by Western Maya scholars with December 21 not far from his own hypothesized end date he decided that the Maya were more likely to be right on this subject and he adopted their end date. All these factors according to McKenna were the most important factors that promoted evolution towards the Homo sapiens species. He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home.

He was noted for his knowledge and the ability to articulate his knowledge of the use of psychedelics metaphysics plant-based entheogens and subjects ranging from shamanism language historical and civilizational timelines the theoretical origins of human consciousness and his concept of novelty theory. Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16 1946 – April 3 2000) was an American ethnobotanist philosopher psychonaut researcher teacher lecturer and writer.