These things are hard to prove, but no doubt, some of early humanity liked to get high, just as many animals do, whether by accident or intention. McKenna thinks popular fears of the consequences of the legalisation of drugs are analogous to Establishment fears of the eradication of slavery or emancipation of women in the past. In my country, psychedelics are illegal, but there’s a clear sort of agreement between government and narcos that benefits them both, meanwhile the people suffer.

It may be true, as he asserts, that in small doses they help with visual acuity, while in large doses they help dissolve one’s ego and foster a sense of community.McKenna's claims that low dosages of psychedelics enhance visual acuity and therefore confer reproductive advantage to those populations utilizing them has some credibility as such seems to be the case. So, for example, a tree has a structure and pattern behind it, but different people might interpret the meaning of it, in stories or art, depending on their own perspective and the context in which the tree was presented. McKenna was way ahead of his time as he anticipated modern developments and provides the only real solution to our modern problems.

If you’re a fan of Robbins’ fanciful writing style, you might enjoy Food of the Gods, as I admit I did. At the metaphorical level, they had attained consciousness of themselves as individuals and of each other as “Other.

To those that may be put off by the fact they might not necessarily agree with all of McKenna's theories. Although I personally don't believe McKenna provides all the right answers he does get us asking the right questions. It's as if Terence knows his ideas don't hold much water, so he throws in as many slightly related things as possible to make it look like he has a solid theory. All later adumbrations of religion in the ancient Near East can be traced to a cult of Goddess and cattle worship, whose Archaic roots reach back to an extremely ancient rite of ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms to induce ecstasy, dissolve the boundaries of the ego, and reunite the worshiper with the personified vegetable matrix of planetary life. For these reasons Marijuana is unwelcome in the modern office environment, while a drug such as Coffee, which reinforces the values of industrial culture, is both welcomed and encouraged.

Founders of sects could find many inspirations by getting high and getting in contact with whatever their already damaged, possibly already mentally ill and sober voice-hearing and vision seeing, minds wanted to imagine. It's the same style of writing as a highschooler with a thin grasp of an essay topic and too much access to a thesaurus. It can get too specific in history topics and a little boring for me, but I’m sure some people love that.

Anyhow so his thing is like, mushroom trips break down the ego and through mushroom tripping and orgies society was more equal and women were shamans and decision makers and everyone got along and made telepathic decisions about what the group should do, which is why he thinks we need everyone to trip on mushrooms or smoke raw DMT and communicate with entities I guess. Thus, at this second level of usage, by increasing instances copulation, the mushrooms directly favored human reproduction. I am very health conscious so I’m a fervent believer of the power of the plants have on the body and mind, and that yes, in fact it’s usually the legal drugs that kill us more. If we want to be really awesome and reach our true potential, then we need to follow this new ideology I just pulled out of my ass. Ma ciò che ho maggiormente detestato è il pressappochismo con cui McKenna tratta qualsiasi altra prospettiva di vita e sociale che non sia la propria: la seconda parte del saggio è incentrato sulla decadenza e la scomparsa della società sciamanica, e di come l'utilizzo originario di allucinogeni sia stato sostituito dall'utilizzo di sostanze fortemente assuefattive e dannose, diretta conseguenza dell'avvento di una civiltà del dominio incentrata sul controllo della popolazione attraverso suddette sostanze.

When you don't know what the hell you're talking about, but you want to sound like modern biology is on your side, and you want to develop a transcendent philosophy, it's tempting to assume that evolution means progress. He wonders why we are so fascinated by altered states of consciousness, do they reveal something about our origins as human beings and our place in nature? Among his major premises is the theory that the human brain, and higher human consciousness, evolved in large part from early hominids’ use of mind-expanding hallucinogens—primarily magic mushrooms.

Anyone who claims he is an eloquent speaker, or that the audio book is better, has been tricked by Terence's ability to ramble for hours, and isn't aware they aren't learning anything and that he has no coherent ideas. Part of his book is about how there were initially two competing cultures, one (I forget the exact terms) partnership, one dominance hierarchy, the partnership culture was a gaia hippie cult that ate mushrooms and was woman-centric, the dominance group was patriarchal and I guess drank alcohol and didn't eat mushrooms.