A Fireside Chat with Dennis McKenna: Plants, Science, and the Evolution of Psychedelic Culture
Dennis McKenna, PhD
Wednesday 20 April, 2026 8PM CEST (7PM BST, 2PM EDT, 11AM PDT)
Online via Zoom
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Join us for an intimate conversation with ethnopharmacologist and psychedelic elder, Dennis McKenna. Over the course of several decades, Dennis has helped bridge the worlds of science, traditional plant knowledge, and modern psychedelic culture, through his extensive research and advocacy.
In this conversation, Dennis will reflect on his early fascination with psychoactive plants, his formative explorations with his brother, the psychedelic bard Terence McKenna, and the paths that eventually diverged as Terence became a cultural voice of the psychedelic movement while Dennis pursued a scientific understanding of how these plants work in the body and brain.
Drawing on a lifetime of research, travel, and study with Indigenous knowledge holders, Dennis will also speak to the limitations of a purely reductionist scientific worldview when it comes to understanding plant medicines. From questions of animacy and plants as teachers, to the tension between chemistry and spirit, the conversation will explore what may be lost, and what may yet be recovered, when ancient wisdom intersects with modern medical and scientific frameworks.
This session will take the form of a one-hour facilitated conversation, followed by 30 minutes of audience Q&A.
This event is part of the OPEN Plus Membership.
