My understanding of McKenna's view is that cultures which used psychedelics like the Aztecs/Mayans (im not a history buff here) have created uniquely different civilizations vs those where alcohol and tobacco heavy cultures produced male dominated, capital driven societies. Extrapolating here a culture that consumes modern psilocybin mushroom in theory should produce the opposite-female dominant or "wokeness" (not the political woke) by activation of whats called the third eye or the pineal gland. If you ever experienced ego death and the subsequent transcendental meditative experiences its easier to understand what Terrence Mckenna spoke of.
I also fell into the mistake of thinking chimpanzees were screwing around and ended up ingesting psilocybe creating visual acuity and abstract thinking but from an evolutionary point of view, doing this amongst a combat/warfare prone species is counter productive and would've led to the decimation of those groups that partook in psilocybin fueled orgies (the supposed theory of psilocybin mushrooms and group sex shaped human evolution which i also assume to be a rabbit hole like the stoned ape theory popularized by Joe Roegan)
What I find the most interesting about McKenna's theory about psilocybin compound is that it is very uniqiue in that its chemical signature (something to do with Nitrogen and indoles, i did not pay attention in biochemistry in my university years) cannot be found but outer space suggesting that its origins may precede even earth and possibly opening up to the possibility that psilocybin could be some sort of extra-terrestrial intelligent self replicating bio-software. McKenna then draws from his own experience (which is also replicable and from my own personal experience to test his claims) from a simple experiment after ingesting psilocybin that it is possible to "steer the psilocybin program" by simply requesting a specific experience including one you could not have experienced previously and the frightening reality of requesting "show me your source code" (not recommended).
What excites me about McKenna's theory is the existence of some higher-dimensional "internet of consciousness" which the activated brain then accesses with relative ease and freedom and that we may not be the only living things in this universe to have come across this compound and that this also aligns with lot of religions and cultures that talk about accessing any knowledge in any point in time during deep meditation or trance like state.
Again all of this is highly experience orientated meaning that somebody reading all of this without it is like watching a 2d cartoon without being aware of colours or depth or sound. This is not a recommendation or to encourage people into the experience but to open their minds to new possibilities and entertaining way of looking at things.
when they could just as easily cite burgeoning non-peer reviewed research on epigenics, which allows for same generation evolution from the diet and other things, operating in parallel to evolution by natural selection
