I came home with 'The Archaic Revival', which introduced me to ideas such as the Logos (a rather more funky formulation than the Christian use of the word), the Mayan Calendar and prophecies about 2012. 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. It is important to use only those compounds that do not insult the physical brain; regardless of what the physical brain does or doesn’t have to do with the mind, it certainly has much to do with the metabolism of hallucinogens.

McKenna provides a revisionist look at the historical role of drugs in the East and the West, from ancient spice, sugar, and rum trades to marijuana, cocaine, synthetics, and even television--illustrating the human desire for the "food of the gods" and the powerful potential to replace abuse of illegal drugs with a shamanic understanding, insistence on community, reverence for nature, and increased self-awareness. They allowed human beings to leap ahead of other species, and it was mostly women, the plant gatherers of society, who did this. Beyond that, the experience of interpretation seems to be enhanced in ways which might be of use, in low dosages, for hunting. Birds, raccoons, horses, and even wasps and butterflies are aware of the fleeting virtues that attend eating fermented fruit.

Evolutionary logic dictates that in situations of food scarcity those animals able and willing to tolerate many marginal foods will be more evolutionarily successful than those that can accept only a limited number of items into their diet… there will be pressure on a given animal to broaden its definition of what are acceptable foods by broadening its tastes. She eats and shares the fruits of the Tree of Life or the Tree of Knowledge, fruits which are “pleasing to the eye and pleasing to contemplate. The enhanced capacity for cognitive experience made possible by psychedelics is as basic a part of our humanness as is our sexuality.

But his distaste of drugs such as caffeine and sugar is partly a consequence of his condemnation of "patriarchal dominator culture," in favor of "partnership" cultures. This was often combined with climbing very high mountains, which gives extra weakening to the brain by a lack of oxygen so that the sh** can kick in like hell. This book was my choice and it seems to be the best choice for a beginner of Terence McKenna, as the book 'Food Of The Gods' explains a lot of Terence's theories and ideas. The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the heavy user is probably heroin. This seems to suggest that Greek wines were more akin to extracts and tinctures of other plant essences than they were to wine as we know it today.through Homeric times people did not have the kind of interior psychic organization that we take for granted.

This is fine if you’re just looking for an interesting read with lots of anecdotal evidence, but it’s definitely not what you should pick up if you want more academic/scientific knowledge on the topics. The costs of drug education and drug treatment are small relative to routine military expenditures and could be contained. Ample anecdotal evidence supports the existence of a preference for intoxicated states among elephants, chimpanzees, and some butterflies. Il saggio di per sé è incentrato su un'idea estremamente suggestiva: spiegare la nascita dell'autocoscienza umana come frutto dell'assunzione inconsapevole da parte dei nostri antenati di allucinogeni, grazie agli stimoli e alle suggestioni che questi avrebbero apportato alla mente umana, e in conseguenza del formarsi delle prime civiltà umane incentrate su un uso del tutto conscio di queste piante, attraverso la presenza di sciamani e riti collettivi che avrebbero permesso una complementarietà totale tra uomo e natura, in virtù dell'intima connessione tra allucinogeni e l'animo Gaiano. The premise that spoke to me most was how our society has gone from a partnership model with nature to an abusive one.

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. An eloquent proposal for recovering something vital-a sense of the sacred, the transcendent, the Absolute-before it's too late. In fact, part of his argument for the stoned ape theory is based on misrepresentation of one particular study. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. He gets some things hilariously wrong, with regards to the development of language he says that women developed language more than men because men don't need much language to hunt whereas women needed lots of language to describe edible plants (as if men didn't go on days long hunts and didn't also forage for food).

He has added to their shared knowledge of rituals his own efforts to preserve the plants used in these ceremonies. I have listened to several lectures and interviews by and with McKenna but this is the first book by him I have read. Before the brainwashed hippy types that read McKennas books start pointing fingers and condemning me for saying this I've read stuff where even these South American Indian shamans that guide white people through Ayhuasca sessions have said they believe that it effects whites differently than other races. There is very little substantive basis for determining which specific drugs are dangerous and should be outlawed, and which are harmless or even beneficial in certain conditions. He is a pleasure to read and preferable to the YouTube videos which filter his rather nasal, monotonous psychedelic guru voice into your living room.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. Plus whites have much more powerful imaginations and the ability to create both in and out of their heads. What could genetic engineering make possible, like combining the positive or mind-altering aspects in one single plant? This book is an essential read for anyone interested in history, be it from an interest into ancient cultures, ethnobotany, ethnic oragins or simply looking to answer the question "Why are we who we are? A daring work of scholarship and exploration, it offers an inspiring vision for individual fulfilment and a humane basis for our interaction with each other and the natural world.