http://synthetic_universe.blogspot.com/2006/01/revolutions-of-consciousness.html
"What inspired the animal to look to the night sky and see, not just
stars, but constellations, deities, and mythological stories? What
forces drove the evolution of the primate brain to function beyond the
boundaries of behavioral instinct and into a universe of perception
which displaced time and space, projected meaning and purpose upon
environmental elements, and established synthetic symbols and icons
for subsequent cultural manipulation? What was it that initially
delineated early humans from the physical constrictions of the natural
world?
Carl Sagan speculates on such questions in his book, The Dragons of
Eden, and offers a little food for thought. He considers a band of
human Pygmies that intoxicate themselves on marijuana while performing
mundane tasks like fishing or hunting. He casually ponders the
possibility that "in human history the cultivation of marijuana led
generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to
civilization" (Sagan, 201). Of course, the "real" world is perhaps a
bit more complex than that. The forces that drive human evolution are
vast, and modern science continues to unwrap the mysteries of our
ontological existence. The fact that every human culture at some point
in history practiced the consumption of at least one version of a
psycho active substance shouldn't be ignored when considering the
evolution of the human animal (Weil, et al, 10). Some scientists
studying the molecular composition of flora have found evidence to
suggest a symbiosis between psychoactive plants (i.e. entheogens) and
indigenous wild-life consumers(3).
ENTHEOGENS AND ANIMALS:
Psychoactive plants typically manufacture chemicals analogous to
neurotransmitters functioning within the mammalian brain(3). Morphine
from the opium plant mimics the function of endorphins, and certain
cacti like Peyote produce ergot alkaloids and mescaline, which mimic
serotonin(3). Tobacco produces nicotine that mimics acetylcholine,
coffee beans produce caffeine which mimics adenosine (3), and
marijuana produces THC that mimics Anandamide(3). Anthropologist R.J.
Sullivan suggests that many of the psycho active plants which mammals
consume provide necessary nutrients for brain operation, especially
during times of potential malnutrition when food resources become
scarce. During these times, mammals that consume psychoactive plants
receive many of the chemical compounds necessary for efficient brain
function and can survive until other food sources are found(3). Plants
that manufacture analogous neurotransmitters potentially take
advantage of ecological niches defined by mammalian consumption.
Seeds, which can't be digested, may be transported by an organism and
deposited within excrement to a new location, and the boundaries of a
plant's ecological niche are expanded.
To enhance our perspective of the drug-animal relationship, examples
of non-human drug consumption should be considered. Chimpanzees have
been known to consume "medicinal" plants. In one case, a sick
chimpanzee in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park with "barely
enough energy to defecate"(4) dragged herself over to a Vernonia
amygdaline bush and plucked a few leaves. She chewed the leaves to
extract the juice and spit out the fibrous leftovers. To the surprise
of the observing scientists, she was healthy again and socializing
with the rest of her troop the next afternoon(4). Chimpanzees on
occasion ambulate for twenty minutes to find Aspilia leaves that they
ingest to kill parasitic infection(4). Other stories depicting the
animal consumption of psychoactive plants include pack donkeys chewing
on tobacco, goats munching on qat (an amphetamine like stimulant), and
African elephants feasting on fermented fruit (4). In 1979, Ronald
Siegel, psychopharmacologist at the UCLA School of Medicine,
discovered a shard from a ceramic bowl in the Peruvian Andes depicting
an image of two llamas eating from a branch of coca leaves(4). This
image and other stories from tribal lore reflect the notion that
animals do consume psychotropic plants, and this sets the stage for
the emergence of early man possessing a brain refined by mind-bending
plant consumption.
ENTHEOGENS AND HUMAN HISTORY:
Drugs are older than history. People all over the world today consume
psychotropic substances, and this behavior follows an ancient line of
tradition. Using archaeological evidence, we can speculate on the
behavioral practices of pre-historic humans, but during the early
millennia of human civilization, the consumption of "medicinal" plants
predates the emergence of writing and other facets of social
organization. From 10,000 to 2,000 BC ancient texts in Egypt, Sumeria,
China, and the New World suggest not only that medicinal herbs were
used to treat illness, but the ritualized function of psychotropic
plant consumption defined early religious belief as well (Roy, et al,
8). Rock paintings in the Sahara Desert and Algeria dating from 9,000
- 7,000 BC depict scenes of "harvest, adoration, and large masked gods
covered with mushrooms" (6) and imply the notion that early humans
established mushroom religious cults within the time period of the
Paleolithic. Other rock paintings found in Tanzania and Australia date
from 40,000 BC and earlier (6). Similar rock paintings depicting
images following motifs of the "Round Head Period" (9,000 - 7,000 BC)
have been discovered in Tadrart Acacus in Libya, Ennedi in Chad, and
also at Jebel Uweinat in Egypt (6). A painting at Jabbaren depicts
five people kneeling in a row worshipping three figures, and one of
the figures is shaped like a large mushroom (6). Clearly, the
consumption of psychotropic mushrooms refined the religious beliefs of
early humans. Would this behavior influence the evolution of human
culture?
Psychotropic mushrooms are commonly found in the dung of cows, horses,
and deer (6). This is significant because dung is commonly used by
human hunters to track prey (6). The skills required by human hunters
to kill game which are often bigger and faster are honed through the
exercise of cultural techniques involving displacement in thought,
group strategy, and the efficient construction and use of weaponry.
The hunter human must "see" beyond natural instinct in order to
survive and provide food and shelter for the human family. In this
way, cultures which maintain "super natural" systems to govern
subsistence and behavior plasticity will out-compete other organisms
for survival, especially in an environment of perpetual change. The
evolution of culture in human populations would yield the foundations
for human civilization and eventually establish Homo sapiens as the
ruler of the animal kingdom.
Psychotropic plants of all varieties are found alongside every human
civilization. African populations not only consumed mushrooms, but
also Qat (Weil, 54), Yohimbe (Weil, 54), and Ibogaine (Weil, 101) to
name a few. Mesopotamian, Asian Indian, and Chinese cultures consumed
qat (Weil, 54), betel (Weil, 54), opium (Weil, 82), cannabis (Weil,
114) and psychoactive mushrooms were used in Southeast Asian cultures
(Weil, 99). The Greeks and Romans consumed opiates (Weil, 82), and
Aristotle, Plato, and Sophocles among many others all participated in
rituals involving the ingestion of psychotropic fungi during religious
ceremonies at the temple of Demeter in Eleusis (6).
New World cultures maintained a profound relationship with entheogenic
plants to a greater degree than other world communities because
psychoactive flora grew in abundance. (note- an interesting spin on
this subject consists of the idea that perhaps the reason why "old
world" entheogens are fewer in number than "new world" entheogens is
because humanity's oldest ancestors came from Africa and then spread
to other parts of the hemisphere. In this way, our "ancestors" might
have had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to deplete
the Old World populations of native entheogens. Humanity's ancestors
are relatively new to the ecological framework of the New World, and
therefore perhaps New World entheogens are more numerous because
humans have had less time to consume these reasources. ). These plants
were: multiple varieties of mushroom (6), peyote and multiple
varieties of cacti, convolvulaceae, leguminosae "Red Bean", Yopo "DMT
snuff", ayahuasca (a culturally varied stew with an MAO inhibitor to
catalyze the breakdown of DMT containing vines), coca leaves (Weil,
23), morning glory, (7), and tobacco (3) to name a few. The use of
psychoactive plants for recreational, medicinal, and religious
purposes is a cultural function shared by humans all over the world.
Certainly, such a widespread behavior influenced in some way the
evolution of the human mind.
ENTHEOGENS, MIND, AND CULTURE:
Terence McKenna, author of The Invisible Landscape and Food of the
Gods, says this in an interview with Alexander Blair-Ewart: "It's a
great puzzle for evolutionary biology how it is that in a two million
year period the human brain effectively doubled in size. There are
evolutionary biologists, Lumsden being one example, who call this the
most rapid transformation of a major animal organ in the entire fossil
record, and it happened to us." (8)
It is my belief that the consumption of psychoactive plants
contributed to changes in the behavior of early man that influenced
this rapid brain development. McKenna suggests that the ritualistic
use of psychoactive mushrooms in early human populaces induced radical
changes in social behaviors, such as increased visual acuity,
stimulated nervous function, increased energy, heightened sexual
arousal, and gave rise to religious iconography such as cattle-like
"horned goddesses" and other anthropomorphic deities (9). What is
significant about this theory is that evolutionary behaviors such as
reproductive success and diet can now rapidly adapt, as cultural
belief revolutionizes human behavior. A great example of this type of
"ontological" transition is found in The Autobiography of a Winnebago
Indian by ethnologist Paul Radin. This narrative follows the life of a
Winnebago male who enters into the practice of a Peyote cult. Prior to
this experience, he lived a life of ambiguous meaning. At a young age,
he came to realize that many of his people's religious rituals were
deceptive "shows" to propagate cultural tradition and maintain social
order (Radin, 20). He falls away from his tradition and becomes an
alcoholic and even lands himself in jail. Finally, some family members
convince him join their Peyote cult where he ritualistically consumes
peyote and sees "supernatural" visions. Upon experiencing the
psychotropic effects of the peyote, he embraces his radical new
religious faith, and abandons the polytheistic rituals of his older
tradition for the monotheism and enlightenment of the Peyote cult
(Radin, 63). In this example, we see the power that the psychedelic
experience has on transforming the perceptions AND the behaviors of
the psychotropic plant consumer.
In our modern world, human culture influences our evolution in ways
unparalleled in the animal kingdom. Humans have invented the symbols
of language and math, mythologies, religion, calendars, agriculture,
animal domestication, art, science, tools, weapons, material wealth,
economies, and all of these creations of the human mind require
psychological mechanisms which displace time and space to enhance
social function. Although the influence of psychoactive plant
consumption on the development of human culture is largely
speculative, this idea must be included when constructing any paradigm
outlining the evolution of human civilization. Drugs are, after all,
older than history."
