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\u201cPsychedelics are not suppressed because they are dangerous to users; they\u2019re suppressed because they provoke unconventional thought, which threatens any number of elites and institutions that would rather do our thinking for us.\u201d ~ Dennis McKenna, The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss.
Dennis McKenna, 67, is a noted ethnopharmacologist, focusing on pharmacognosy, especially with psilocybin and ayahuasca. After travels to the Amazon, in search of the Sixties experience with his older brother, Terence, Dennis' curiosity was piqued in a scientific way. He wanted to know how these plants worked.
In 1979, McKenna earned his Masters in Botanical Sciences at the University of Hawaii. With his continued studies in the Botanical Sciences, he earned his Ph.D. in 1984 at the University of British Columbia. He studied the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two orally-active tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by the indigenous peoples in Northwest Amazon.
McKenna received post-doctorate fellowships in the Lab of Clinical Pharmacology at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and in the Department of Neurology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He recently completed a project, funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute, to study the Amazonian ethnomedicine for the treatment of schizophrenia and cognitive deficits.
In 1990, McKenna became director of ethnopharmacology at Shaman Pharmaceuticals. In 1993, he became senior research pharmacognisist for the Aveda Corporation. In 1993, he also founded and continues to serve as VP and board member of Heffter Research Institute, where they are researching use of psilocybin with cancer patients.
In 2001, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota\u2019s Center for Spirituality and Healing and has since become a popular professor. He serves on the advisory board of The American Botanical Council and on the editorial board of Phytopharmacology.
McKenna\u2019s authored four books and countless research papers. In 1976, he wrote the still popular, cult classic Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide.He can be seen in documentaries on the esoteric. He continues to lead expeditions to the Amazon to study the culture, shamanism and ayahuasca.

Far Out, Man
For anyone who\u2019s been to Paonia, CO, it\u2019s no surprise that the small mountain hippie town produced two of the most learned ethnopharmacology luminaries \u2014 the dynamic duo, brothers Dennis and his senior, Terence, now deceased. What began as a popular recreational experimentation in the Sixties counterculture opened the door to new realms of legitimate soul-searching, growth and healing. Dennis wrote about his accounts with his brother in his 2012 book, The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss. They discovered there was some power in the medicine! Thus began the McKenna\u2019s pursuit in the mysteries of ethnopharmacology \u2014 Terence,