Dr. Mike Scott is an American horticulturalist who has been living in South Africa since 1981. Originally born in Santa Barbara, California in 1950, he grew up during the hippie revolution under the influence of Timothy
Leary, Herman Hesse, Aldus Huxley and the Beach Boys. The cognitive dissonance created by the dominator culture influenced him to take the spiritual path. After receiving a Master’s degree in horticulture from UC Davis, he emigrated to South Africa to teach horticulture at a Black university in what was then a Bantustan of the apartheid regime and to do missionary work for the Baha’i Faith.
The incredible plant and human diversity of the African continent, together with his interest in spirituality, brought him to the next level of consciousness, just in time for the visit of Terence McKenna in 1995, when he was able to helped him construct a more realistic world view.
Mike lives in the Lynedoch valley of the western cape where he has a medicinal plant nursery and consults on veld restoration projects. He has two kids and lives with his second wife, who is a professor of arid zone plant ecology at Stellenbosch University.
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