6pm – Vegan Food
7pm – Presentation
Terence McKenna (1946-2000) was the 20th century’s psychedelic
renaissance man[1]. More than twenty-five years since his untimely passing, across the virtual popstream and in networked communities dedicated to his “small mouth noises,” McKenna’s magnetism endures. As the first biography of this stand-up philosopher, rogue scholar, and surreal oracle, Strange Attractor detects the signal behind the noise.
Perfecting his rugged philosophy on the role of psychedelics in evolution, consciousness, and time, McKenna was a riotous provocateur who charted the edges of mind and matter with razor wit and poetic charm. As an intellectual biography, the book offers a hallucinatory chronicle of the life, work, and legacy of this bold cartographer of the weird.
Accessing original documents and letters, featuring rare photographs and artworks, sharing previously untold stories from over eighty people, Strange Attractor chronicles one of the most celebrated and yet least understood figures of the late twentieth century. Neither exalting nor condemning its subject, it documents the evolution of an altered statesman whose mellifluous voice affected multitudes and continues to haunt the present.
Join us at BASE autonomous social centre in Easton for the UK release of Strange Attractor, with the author, Graham St John. Cafe is open for vegan dinner and dessert from 6pm. Talk starts at 7pm. Graham will have copies available at BASE on the night for sale and signing, and we’ll have a relaxed evening with music and food. Come by for our regular Sunday Cafe night and enjoy the presentation and atmosphere.
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Graham St John[2] is a world-leading anthropologist, cultural historian and author in the study of electronic music and dance cultures. His work has explored the intersections of music, technology, and consciousness, with a focus on the global rave and psychedelic scenes. Graham’s work covers topics such as the international techno-traveller scene (Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures[3]), the outback party scene in Australia (Off Road Show: Techno, Protest and Feral Theatre[4]), to the cultural history of the powerful short-acting hallucinogen DMT (‘Mystery School in Hyperspace – A Cultural History of DMT'[5]), and the transformational festival, Burning Man. Graham is also the founder of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture[6].
[1] https://www.terencemckenna.com/
[2] https://www.edgecentral.net
[3] https://www.edgecentral.net/technomad
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1030431052000336261
[5] https://www.edgecentral.net/mystery-school-in-hyperspace
[6] https://dj.dancecult.net
