The seeds of McKenna's countercultural revolution are sown in the unlikeliest of places. One protégEis NASA Ames Research Centre scientist Creon Levit, who is testing the Timewave hypothesis. "I am interested in the Timewave," Levit told me. "Perhaps the most interesting point is that the big test of Timewave occurred in the past year. I believe that according to Terence's theory, mid 1996 should have been, by far, the most 'turbulent' or novel, in all of history, and now things should swing back to a bit more stasis for a while.

"If this happened, it will be evidence in favor of the theory, but not proof (in Karl Popper's sense). If it didn't clearly happen (i.e, the period was 'average' compared to, say, the last year or two), then the Timewave theory is in big trouble, and all that can save it is a recalibration or a reinterpretaion or new historical knowledge coming to light in the future about the novelty that we 'overlooked' in mid 1996.

"Another problem with the Timewave theory is that it is very difficult to objectively quantify, or measure, the "novelty" that it purports to predict (and retrodict). 'We know it when we see it' is not a scientifically valid way to graph what we would like to believe is an objective quantity. Nevertheless, I suppose a consensus opinion, a poll of some sort, could help in this. Ask 100 historians (or geologists, or biologists) to graph 'change' over their time-spans of interest, compare their answers to the wave by statistical analysis. Terence is essentially doing something like this, albeit informally.

"There are many other interesting derivative issues. For example, what about the effect of the wave on life elsewhere in the universe? If the Timewave rules, and has done so since the big bang, then it must rules the ETs as well (their history is resonant with ours), for I do not believe that the idea of two different waves is consistent with the theory. Finally, a pattern calibrated to match important dates in Terence's life, obviously would not match the important dates in everyone's."

"I'm somewhat uncomfortable with this last point," replies McKenna. "Sure, a person is a microcosm of the culture in which they live. The situation is analogous to astrology, which was originally a tool for charting destiny and family dynamics. When the world's first Yuppies arose, probably in the Hellenistic period, they felt their own self importance, and they demanded of astrology that it make statements about their personal lives. This was the environment within which the natal horoscope arose. Theoretically yes, everyone should have their own Timewave, but in terms of wanting people to chart their own waves or looking in newspapers for the 'daily Timewave' themselves, I'd definitely resist that!"

McKennaism: File Under Emergent 21st Century Religions

Creon Levit lightheartedly raised some other points about McKenna's memes. "My brother Ted interestingly observed that Terence's message (Timewave + Archaic Revival) has most of the hallmarks of an evangelical religion. The ones I remember are: a charismatic leader who "preaches", largely to the converted; appeal to a bygone Golden Age (in his case the Neolithic); other religions are corruptions; the end of the world is near, or at least the Rapture is."

But according to Levit, "that being said, 'McKennaism' is a lot more honest and appealing than other religions, at least to me. It is a broad synthesis of scholarship and speculation. He seeks dialogue. He is amusing. He preaches tolerance for all (except Catholics ;-} ). It is testable (just wait till 2012). You can grow your own blessed sacrament. If the Timewave is correct, which I doubt but do not rule out, then it's certainly one of the most important discoveries (inventions?) in human history. If not, it's still a beautiful piece of art."

"I can only say that my ideas about time and 2012 etc. while radical are mathematically based and best criticized within that context," McKenna contends, admitting that he is "anti-Guru and anti-ideology. My intellectual sympathies are with anarchy and deconstructionism. All ideology is toxic and suspect. 'Guru' and 'Messiah' are simply buzz words used by the mass media to trivialize anyone relationship with the public that they do not approve of. Call someone a guru and you have effectively undercut any contribution they might make to the political dialogue."

Even discussing the Timewave requires new paradigms of communications. "I'm very critical of the past two thousand years of Western history. At the cost of honing very powerful tools such as science and the mass media, we've thrown all sorts of good things out of the lifeboat, and we're now feeling their absence very heavily. The science of anthropology, which started out as a kind of white man's Sunday afternoon hobby, has turned out to be incredibly important to the salvation, because its reinforcing into the Western cultural values system such things as trance, shamanism, extra-sensory healing, all things that had previously been denigrated or denied."

The UFO as Epistemological Virus

One forum for such thought is the annual Incident conference at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. "It was first gathered together in Switzerland a few years ago, an effort to bring together avant-garde artists and UFO iconoclasts of various persuasions. One of the reasons I go to these things is that people touch on a lot of stuff that is very much outside the sanction of cultural categories. I've found it very interesting, as I have opinions about UFOs that make nobody happy. UFOs show us how transient and relative our language is. We are bedevilled by various kinds of epistemological viruses that are transmitted by the media. In an atmosphere of uncritical thinking. People spread stories [from urban legends to rumor panics] in much the same way that viruses replicate throughout the body. Its very difficult in that kind of environment to tell shit from shinoma. The UFO is an interesting half-take because people's blood pressure gets very high if you resist whatever version is being peddled.