TERENCE MCKENNA, 53, WRITER, SPIRITUAL THEORIST

SAN RAFAEL - Terence McKenna, spiritual theorist and author of
several books proclaiming the virtues of psychedelic mushrooms, has
died after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 53.

One of Mr. McKenna's best known books was 1975's ``The Invisible Landscape:
Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching,''
which he co-wrote with his brother Dennis. ``Food of the Gods,''
published in 1992, and 1993's ``True Hallucinations'' followed in the same
vein, exploring the idea of consciousness and its link with nature
and the environment.

Mr. McKenna, who died at a friend's home Monday, drew a loyal
following including members of the Grateful Dead.

Lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia once said of him, ``Most of us
who have been involved in the psychedelic experience wish we had the
discipline and rigor of Terence McKenna, the only person who's made
serious effort to objectify the psychedelic experience -- and done a
good job of it.''

Mr. McKenna, who grew up in Paonia, Colo., moved to the San Francisco
Bay Area while in high school. He attended the University of
California-Berkeley for two years and traveled extensively through
Asia, Europe and South America before completing a self-tailored
degree in shamanology at Berkeley in 1975.

In the years following, Mr. McKenna became known for his controversial
lectures and books claiming that psychedelic plants, most notably
psilocybin mushrooms, were the key to the evolution of human
consciousness.

He married Kathleen Harrison in 1976 and formed a company called Lux
Natura, which circulated tapes of his lectures, and disseminated
spores that were said to grow the psilocybin mushrooms.

In 1992, he divorced and later moved to Hawaii, where he lived with
Christy Silness. He was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer
last May and returned to the mainland for treatment.

On his Web site, Mr. McKenna posted numerous updates on his condition
along with his thoughts on the disease. In a message dated June 1999,
Mr. McKenna wrote, ``I welcome the love and support of friends. This
is a mad and wild adventure at the fractal edge of life and death and
space and time. Just where we love to be, right, shipmates?''

Mr. McKenna is survived by Silness, his brother, Dennis, and two
children, Finn, 22, and Klea, 19.