Food of the Gods
The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
An ethnobotanist’s exploration of humanity’s ancient relationship with psychoactive plants and how altered states shaped human evolution and culture.
Terence McKenna spent his career arguing that psychoactive plants shaped who we are, and this is his fullest case. The book surveys humanity’s long relationship with mushrooms, ayahuasca, alcohol, sugar, and synthetic drugs, treating each as a force that changed societies. Its most famous idea is the stoned ape theory, which proposes that psilocybin mushrooms accelerated the evolution of human cognition and language. Mainstream science remains unconvinced, but the book endures as a provocative history of consciousness and a plea to rethink how cultures classify the substances they fear.
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