By Terence McKenna and Timothy Ely

The story behind this book is that Terence McKenna attended an exhibition of Timothy Ely’s books and prints where they met and took a liking to one another. Timothy Ely asked Terence McKenna to write the manuscript for the book that would become known as Synesthesia.

Synesthesia is a rare book with only 75 copies made. Each copy was hand illustrated by Ely, making every book unique and quite expensive. The original listing price by Granary Books, the publisher, was $2,500 each, making this a book only accessible to certain libraries and collectors.

A little more about this book: As you probably know, Terence McKenna was a psychedelic writer and speaker, and Timothy Ely, who you might not know, is a well-respected artist and bookmaker, best-known for his book Flight Into Egypt. The text is an artistic jumble across the page, an organization by Phillip Gallo, and the text reads like a sort of manifesto of Terence McKenna. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, but in the space of less than 1000 words, Terence McKenna packs his views on the nature of the universe. Certain concepts like the archaic revival, the singularity, and 2012 will undoubtedly stand out to Terence McKenna fans. As for Timothy Ely’s contribution, illustrations primarily consist of smeared paint and geometric designs all done in water color.

Someone has kindly scanned and uploaded a copy, specifically #16, to Z-Library, Libgen, and the Internet Archive. Under normal circumstances, since Timothy Ely is still alive, I would ask that you consider supporting him by purchasing this book on Amazon or at your local bookstore, but in this case, that’s obviously not an option.

Internet Archive – Click to read

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