Psychedelic Catalysts: Unveiling Their Role in Shaping Modern Civilization

This is regarding the theory by Terence Mckenna that states that plants and mushrooms have a relationship in our evolution & that these psychoactive plants and mushrooms gave us language, writing, religion, philosophy, science, etc. Basically, it is not a fossil that is missing in the link of our evolution, it is a menu. Food!

Even though I do not believe these substances should be trusted as I believe they are sorcery, I still believe that they paved the way for modern civilization.

McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in the diet.

I covered this theory in a wee video I made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy-0-Qfusqg&t=94s

This is a continuation of sharing this theory and I intend to do another, more detailed video about it in the future. For now, I shall write about it in this blog. This theory is called "Stoned Ape Theory" which is a very interesting theory regarding human evolution. Although, it could've done with a better name.

"The Lost Menu of Mankind theory" sounds more interesting.

Mckenna believed that psilocybin mushrooms were the "evolutionary catalyst" from which language, projective imagination, the arts, religion, philosophy, science, and all of human

culture sprang from. If you've ever consumed mushrooms, you'd most likely see this as obvious. I've had peculiar experiences on psilocybin mushrooms, such as visual acuity improvements. Experiencing an improvement in visual acuity is amazing as it allows you to see better. Mckenna mentions visual acuity in this theory stating that when humans were hunter and gatherers we'd eat these magic mushrooms and they'd improve the hunters eyesight and therefore bring back more food and nutrition , resulting in brain growth. Having experienced an improvement in visual acuity and then some, I can personally imagine this very well. Like for example, in this improved eyesight; you can see edges more defined in objects, which could've helped differentiate the animals camouflage from the jungles, which would've then helped our spear throwing ancestors capture their food.

Anecdotal notes from my personal experiences when consuming these mushrooms for improvement of my poor mental health can say that it is easily imaginable. But, more than just an improvement of visual acuity occurs. Self medicating these interesting mushrooms is like having the pill from Limitless. They can lower depression and anxiety and much more, you know....tripping. Tripping is very weird. It is like activating dormant parts of our brains.

Or increases the fractal dimension of cortical brain activity. In that study, it is reported that Psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and LSD, represent unique tools for researchers investigating the neural origins of consciousness. Currently, the most compelling theories of how psychedelics exert their effects is by increasing the complexity of brain activity and moving the system towards a critical point between order and disorder, creating more dynamic and complex patterns of neural activity. This makes a lot of sense for a tripper since we literally see fractals in our experiences. Studying fractals is very interesting as it leads you to the Mandelbrot Set. Some physicists have said that this mathematical structure is the "thumbprint" of God. In other words, what we could be seeing is the univeres' language.

Many mathematicians and physicists such as Max Tegmark and Sir Roger Penrose say that mathematics was discovered rather than a human invention. But that's for another blog.

Back to McKenna. I'd recommend giving this a watch. https://koutu.be/z5xfjjJJ-_I

I'm very experienced with psychedelics and I am convinced that Terrence McKenna's theory to be true. So, if it is true then that would mean our ancestors are also a fun guy! No, literally, a fungi. And could also include a relationship to plants such as cannabis, salvia divinorum & DMT. In Egyptian times, the Acacia tree was very prevalent. In Egyptian Mythology the ancient Egyptians believed that the first gods were born under a sacred acacia tree, while other members of their pantheon emerged fully formed from the trunk. It was believed that life and death were decided by the gods under an acacia tree.

What has this got to do with anything? Well, DMT (N, N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a naturally occurring compound found in members of the Acacia species and also in other places, such as the human body, so DMT is a endogenous chemical. On Netflix. an entire documentary on it titled "The Spirit Molecule" was created documenting its interesting and fascinating effects. Since I've tried it on several occasions I can see why the Egyptians were so obsessed about the after life.

Many people report entities they are visited by are independent from their minds. People are convinced that the trip is some kind of tool to tune our brains sort of like a radio into different realms of reality. A pretty big media 'Big Idea' which is usually reporting pretty much completed theories actually have considered taking these experiences seriously. Why? Well, once you consume this molecule you're honestly left convinced that other beings are out there. Researchers recently surveyed more than 2,000 DMT users about their encounters with 'entities' while tripping, finding that respondents often considered these strange encounters to be positive and meaningful. The majority of respondents believed the beings they encountered were not hallucinations.The results show:

The encounters produced an emotional response for 99 percent of people. The most common emotions were "joy (65%), trust (63%), surprise (61%), love (59%), kindness (56%), friendship (48%), and fear (41%) during the encounter experience, with smaller proportions reporting emotions such as sadness (13%), distrust (10%), disgust (4%), or anger (3%)." Interestingly, 58 percent of respondents said the being also had an emotional response, almost always a positive one.

The encounters felt more "real" than reality. This was true for 81 percent of respondents during the encounter, and 65 percent after the encounter. One respondent wrote: "There was an indescribably powerful notion that this dimension in which the entity and I convened was infinitely more "real" than the consensus reality I usually inhabit. It felt truer than anything else I'd ever experienced."

People described the entities in different ways. The most commonly chosen labels "were "being," (60%) "guide," (43%) "spirit," (39%) "alien," (39%) or "helper" (34%). Other labels selected by small proportions of respondents (range 10–16%), included the terms "elf," "angel," "religious personage," or "plant spirit," and very few (range 1–5%) reporting the terms "gnome," "monster," or a "deceased" person."

Most people said the beings weren't hallucinations. About three-quarters of respondents said they believe the being was real, but it exists in some kind of different dimension or reality. Only 9 percent said the being existed "completely within myself."

These now illegal foods that once played a very big part in our in diet need to be thanked.

Can you understand now why these things are illegal in the first place? Terrence once was quoted saying

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”

Let's end this blog with audio from Mckenna. It's a great consensus of his blog in which he speaks for approx half an hour, so would be more appropriate to listen rather than reading and typing.