Amazonian Shamanism (Complete Weekend) [ft. Nicole Maxwell]
Terence McKenna
Six-and-a-half hours of the 1989 weekend Terence McKenna shared with Amazon explorer and medicinal-plant researcher Nicole Maxwell. Sound Photosynthesis sold the full event as a seven-and-a-half-hour set (5 audio cassettes #A478-89 / 4 video cassettes #V192-89) under the title "Shamanology of the Amazon"; this collection previously held only a one-hour video excerpt of it. McKenna opens by noting "last year I was here with Riane Eisler", which places this at the Ojai Foundation the year after that 1988 weekend. Maxwell is audible throughout, trading Amazonian pharmacopoeia -- contraceptives, abortifacients, plant taxonomy -- against McKenna's overview of shamanism and the ecological crisis.
Transcript
Summary
Terence McKenna and Nicole Maxwell discuss Amazonian shamanism, ayahuasca, and indigenous medicinal plants as sources of healing, knowledge, and altered consciousness. The talk expands into conservation, drug policy, women’s reproductive plants, and a critique of modern industrial culture and ecological destruction.
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