Dance With the One That Brought You

by Andrew Rutajit

Many plants/fungi have been used in ceremony for spiritual purposes throughout the evolution of this planet and this connection continues to this very day. Recently, the usage of these plants has been condemned and the practitioners have been demonized, either being slaughtered (past) or incarcerated (today). This article was built upon notes taken from a two day workshop at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1995 given by the late Terence McKenna as well as other thoughts and ideas from myself and Terence McKenna.

In nature and in our own homes, we can easily see that animals have "mono-diets" with very little variation in flavor; this is nature in action. Animals are highly specialized in their choice of foods; a random diet for an animal in nature is a reckless diet. A good strategy for survival in a species is to have a specific and specialized diet, developing enzymes that can handle substances that might otherwise make one ill. So most animals seem to evolve to these very bland, mono-diets…finding what works, and sticking to it.

When something happens that drives these animals from their natural habitat, they can choose to either starve to extinction or change their "palate" and become more flexible in their diet, trying out previously rejected potential foods from their environment. This could very well be the origin of experimentation with unknown plants.

As the rainforest retreated, (the natural occurrence that drove our animal ancestors away from their natural habitat), our primal ancestors were forced to experiment with new foods. Our remote, canopy living ancestors were fruititarian insectivores, they were forced out of the trees and began exploring the grasslands for food. Now look at us…our palates are wide open and our species enjoys a wide verity of spices and foods, not just from the area where we live, but from all over the world.

One food source our primal ancestors would surely have quite literally stumbled upon in the grasslands would have been mushrooms. Many mushrooms growing in grassland areas and on the dung of cattle contain psilocybin. Psilocybin is a major psychoactive alkaloid and it is not found outside of the fungus world. According to McKenna, psilocybin is the best model for human interaction with a psychedelic, other man made psychedelics (LSD and the like) are all in effort to return to or somehow re-invoke the human relationship with psilocybin.

Aside from their psychedelic qualities, these mushrooms have other attributes. In lower doses, psilocybin increases visual acuity and edge detection. This has been proven under laboratory settings…see Roland Fisher for more info. Enhanced edge detection would be at a high premium for any animal who had found themselves in a hunter/prey situation. Be it the hunter or the hunted, edge detection (crisp and clear vision) could be the difference between life or death (or dinner vs. no dinner). I can’t think of a situation where blurred vision is a advantage. Animals, who accept something into their diet that increases edge detection, would have a slightly enhanced success in hunting. The better the hunter an animal is, the more nutrition they have for themselves and for their offspring…offspring who are in turn raised eating this psychedelic mushroom. At slightly higher doses, mushrooms containing this psilocybin will cause arousal. Arousal not only meaning unable to sleep or restlessness; but sexual arousal as well. So we have a species with plenty of food and plenty of offspring, thus out breeding the non-mushroom using members of the population.

I suggest that whatever it was that kept us in the same mental category as the other animals for so long, was interrupted by the introduction of a particular item to our diet.
These mushrooms could very well be responsible for many of the things that make us a human animal: Language, art, poetry, dance, music…all of these things that separate us from other animals, suddenly sprang into existence circa 100,000 years ago. I contend that this mushroom is quite literally the "missing link".

We humans are the most conscious of all animals, maybe because we are carnivorous. Cows have very little interest in the goings on of the birds or prairie dogs that share the same field with them. Carnivores on the other hand have an acute interest of the behaviors of other animals. The earliest consciousness was not self awareness or self consciousness, but rather how dinner must think. Because if you can think in the manner in which your prey thinks, then you can place yourself ahead of its path and have the upper hand in the hunt. After incorporating the mushroom into our diet, the attention to the behavior patterns of other animals was all that it took to knock over the first domino of evolution.

So to sum up, our canopy dwelling ancestors were forced into a grassland environment where Psilocybe mushrooms flourish; where both large and small animals are preying upon one another. And in this new and highly competitive environment, without the largest brain in size or weight, without huge fangs or claws, and long before we had access to the technology of weaponry, we moved to the top of the food chain. This could only happen because, as our species made its adaptive choices, it unintentionally moved further and deeper into the realm of consciousness and mind by means of necessity; we out-thought our predators. We learned the patterns of other animals, the growth cycles of the new plant environment, where to find water, and etc. Language was right around the corner. But look at us now...We have abandoned our sacred mushroom - more than just abandoned it, we punish those who possess it.