Terence McKenna's attempt at a mainstream
scholarly
monograph, his hypothesis is that our pre-
Homo sapien ancestors formed a
symbiotic relationship with
psilocybin mushrooms in the grasslands of
Africa many thousands of years ago. Those who ingested the sacred
shroom gained a slight survival advantage due to increased visual and sensory acuity, spatial and abstract reasoning, and other benefits of a
threshold dose of
psilocybin. Greater doses introduced the first
numinous experience, resulting in
ecstasy (in the strict sense of the word). Thus we were propelled into what the
Indian
Vedas (circa 6000-2000 b.c.) refer to as "ancient times", when monthly rituals of
mushroom-taking occured (
soma) involving
ego dissolution,
ecstatic dance, sexual
orgy, and
group mind behavior.
The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom-dotted plains of Africa, where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are.
- from Alien Dreamtime
McKenna's book then leads us to the time when climatic changes made
entheogenic substances rare. This resulted in a
paradigm shift from the
feminine,
Goddess-worshipping,
polytheistic,
polygamous,
pastoral life maintained by regular mushroom-taking to the
patriarchal,
ego-centric,
monotheistic,
monogamous monotonous life maintained by ego-producing drugs like
alcohol. Our post-modern exploration of such things as
rave dance culture and
psychedelic drug culture are in fact a rediscovery of our lost cultural mode. McKenna calls this
the Archaic Revival.