Updated 2 years ago
by Cliff
Update: Terence McKenna has frontal lobe brain cancer.
This is a brief update on Terence from his brother Dennis:
Terence has decided to proceed with the p53 gene therapy protocol, which is an experimental protocol in Phase I clinical trials here at the UCSF Med Center. It involves using a genetically engineered adenovirus to deliver a gene, p53, to the tumor, which codes for a tumor suppressor protein. P53 is mutated or damaged in cancerous cells, which is one reason they are cancerous in the first place. The virus is used to replace the defective gene with an active, wild-type gene; if the cells take it up, and the gene is functional, it should program the cells to stop growing, and to die.
It’s a great idea, and the closest thing to a magic bullet that high-tech medicine has come up with so far. It’s also highly experimental and unproven; Terence is the fourth, or fifth person in the world to ever receive this therapy. The other patients were all treated recently so there is no data on whether it has worked for them or not. It has worked rather spectacularly in animal models, which is one reason we felt it was worth a shot.
He’s now in recovery, having completed the first and easiest step of what is a two stage process. First, he was given a biopsy to determine that the tumor was still alive, and active, and to collect tissue for later uses. This first procedure, other than getting a biopsy, is not therapeutic, it is part of the protocol, to determine if the cells do in fact take up the gene and express it. It’s important for the research that this be known, but does not directly benefit Terence (but it will afford an idea if the therapy is likely to work). Then, a catheter was implanted into the tumor bed, and the virus cocktail was administered over about 10 minutes. Now he has to remain in the hospital for three days, with the catheter implanted. He can get up and move around, and does not seem to be set back much from this first procedure (he was conscious and under very light anesthesia during this phase). So he is staying in the hospital over the next few days so they can monitor him and also to minimize the risk of infections.
On Monday, he will receive the “big op,” which is a craniotomy in which they will remove the bulk of the tumor, and will administer additional adenovirus/p53 to the tissue that remains following surgery. This second operation, the craniotomy and debulking of the tumor, and in which he will get more adenovirus, is designed to be therapeutic. He will in any case get the craniotomy, which is being done by one of the world’s best neurosurgeons, Dr. Mitch Berger. He will also get an additional dose of the p53 gene, which, if it is taken up into the tumor cells and expressed, will definitely be therapeutic if it works.
If it does not work, Terence will still benefit from the craniotomy; and, the gene therapy does not preclude him from receiving additional treatments down the line, which was one reason we decided to go for it; it did not require that we “burn any bridges,” as the doctor put it. So far, so good. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hopes up for a similarly successful outcome on Monday.
Keep your good vibrations coming our way, and look for an additional update to come your way by the middle of next week.
Here is an earlier email from him:
Dear Friends–
Thanks to all on the list who have responded with hope and good wishes expressed to me and my friends and family during my encounter with brain cancer. I am briefly back at home on the Big Island. Next week I will return to Honolulu for further treatments. The knowledge that so many people were pulling for me was amazingly sustaining to an old hard core rationalist like me. I need a miracle to remain part of the community but I believe in miracles and I do not feel doomed. I feel challenged and I am learning about the emotional side of human existence in ways that I obviously needed to do. Life has become a different creature and so have I; thank you all for your loving care.
All the best,
T
Terence McKenna
P O Box 677
Honaunau, HI 96726
e mail: syzygy@ultraconnect.com
New York Review May 6, 1999
so how many of us attended McKenna’s little talk last night? can we see show of hands?
i personally thought he was quite cogent and more on topic than he usually is. he has a tendency to wander all over the board, sometimes only coming back round to the point long after you’ve forgotten that there was a thrust toward any particular point to begin with. not that that’s bad, it’s just his style.
I’m sure everyone figured out who “J” was, if the flashing brainmachine goggles didn’t give him away, surely his question to Terence about whether he “saw crass commercialization turning DMT into the ‘Bud Light’ of psychedelics in the future” could’ve been a clue… “J,”, I we know you were an adman once, but I doubt the elves would allow advertising billboards to be erected alongside their hyperspace bypasses. when you’re traveling that fast, you have no time for consumerism!
oh, and I don’t know if anyone here caught it, as he didn’t elaborate, but McKenna made a great analogy about the method with which shamanism has emerged from the jungles. I was describing the way that at the turn of the century we’d gotten very interested in the aboriginal peoples and had gone to their lands and returned with their masks and artwork and medicine chests and brought them back here for study. and that although we saw that as us seeking greater understanding of these ”less-civilized’ cultures, that those things came to us as a sort of ”Trojan horse’.
then he moved on.
what he was referring to here is how DMT and other shamanic allies came to our ‘civilization’ wrapped in the trappings of a culture study, but have begun to extend their tendrils into our culture. the ‘archaic revival’ as he refers to it, the rise of interest in tribalism and shamanism in our culture is quite interesting seeing as how we have ‘civilized’ ourselves and left such ‘primitive’ things behind.
but when these things came back from the jungle to be studied, the powerful underlying memes infected our group consciousness and began to take hold. in this way the Trojan horse rolled up to the ‘walled city’ of our unsuspecting civilization and when we brought it inside, these powerful things poured out – silently, stealthily, into our culture and began to take root.
shamanism – enlightenment, spirituality, wisdom and guidance aided by the botanical allies of the shaman, is something that is transforming our society from the underside. our society is based on such rigid rulesets none of which explain or offer assistance in the most basic of human endeavors: being. that is to say, existing in harmony with the universe around us and finding inner peace even though we are buffeted about on a sea of unending turmoil.
DMT (or any chemical ally) does not encode the wisdom of the ages in a molecule. if that were the case, we could isolate some ‘magic compound’, give it to everyone at birth like a ‘chaos inoculation’ and then we’d all grow up to live in harmony.
in the jungles, the shaman uses DMT and other allies to ‘speak to the spirit world,’ allowing him to tap into the wisdom of his ancestors which he uses to guide his tribe. not everyone in the tribe becomes a shaman. the shaman isn’t ‘elected.’ the old shaman seeks and grooms his replacement from the tribe as he grows older. for whatever reason, some are meant to be shaman, and some aren’t. And you NEVER know who the shaman are.
some people smoke DMT and never get more from it than a sense of amazement and wonder, some are frightened at the sheer vastness of what they saw and never wish to go back. to some, the only thing they see is incredible ‘brain-candy’ for 5 minutes.
but some are profoundly, irrevocably and fundamentally changed by the experience.
this is what happened to me. the experience – as breathtaking and awe inspiring as
it was – was only the tip of the iceberg!
in the weeks following, insights that permanently rearranged my belief system were pouring into my head at a fantastic rate, with such clarity it was astonishing.
and I was left with an eternal flame of peace burning inside my chest. and a knowledge that all that I had considered important was, in fact, frivolous. that there are two important things for me to do with my life: 1) to BE, 2)to connect with others and spread this meme.
the first part sounds rather overly simple, but then Zen monks spend their lives in constant struggle for the attainment of just this. to BE – unfettered by worry or regret, to cast aside expectations and live in what Terence calls the ‘felt presence of immediate existence’ – requires constant attention to one’s motivations, and one’s purpose. truly being requires only that you banish the constant internal chatter of mind and thought, allowing you – the observer, to become one with the universe about you – the observed. when this state – satori, is achieved, you have reached the pinnacle of what it is to be. it is at this point that you realize that there is a grand orderly design unfolding all around us and we are all a part of it, all connected, the threads of our individual lives weaving together to form the great tapestry of human existence. and when you have glimpsed this Grand Orderly Design (refer to it by acronym if you’d like), the peace that besets you cannot be shaken, cannot ever become subject to doubt, cannot be dislodged or displaced by other memes, for knowledge of it is the most powerful meme that man is capable of playing host to.
the second part – connecting with others and spreading this meme, is where shamanism becomes more than a road to personal enlightenment. for as I said, the peace and enlightenment are not encoded in a molecule. you cannot expect J. Random Citydweller to consume a ‘hit’ of DMT and gain spiritual enlightenment as easy as cracking open a Bud Light and watching the game on ESPN. he needs direction. and he may never need to take the drug to see ‘the light’. each person’s path to enlightenment is uniquely his own. but once you have seen the light, it is obvious that you must help others to see it as well.
and I don’t mean by cramming any particular ideology down anyone’s throat as is the way with ‘organized’ religion. ‘you must believe this or you’ll burn in hell!’ no, that is not the way.
the way is quite simply to face each person you contact in life with the conscious thought: ‘this person is both my student and my teacher’ acknowledge the fact that no matter who the person is, they have something for you. some bit of wisdom intended solely for your consumption. they may not know it, but they are carrying around something in their experience which was meant to be passed on to you and you must be about your business of finding out what that is with everyone you meet. when you begin to see people this way, your threshold for triviality lowers considerably. you begin to be very attentive with people, to see who they really are, to ‘break the ice’ with people quickly, so as to get on with the real business of figuring out what your connection with them is meant to be and what wisdom is to be shared. you are not only listening for what it is that they have for you, but for clues to what it is that you have for them.
and when your connection has been forged you begin
to pass on to them – in that unique way that each human connection has – to pass on your peace.
and in this way, shamanism is merely about individuals finding inner peace and passing it on to others. not via dogma or organized ‘schools of thought,’ but on a personal one to one basis.
and to close this totally unexpected shamanic rant that just popped out of my head, I’ll share a little Zen joke which sort of illustrates my point about shamanism as opposed to organized dogma as a way of bringing one’s fellow man closer to enlightenment.
two Zen masters were walking along a path in the woods, when one stopped suddenly and bent down to
pick up something that had caught his eye. the other asked ‘what have you found there, friend?’ to which the first replies ‘why, I think a bit of truth!’ the second smiles broadly and exclaims ‘wonderful! lets go back to town and organize it!’
-Cliff
