The Stoned Farmer Hypothesis
I've been listening to JRE Podcast (#2545) with Jesse Michels in bite-sized chunks over the last few days and was introduced to an idea that completely reframed my ideas surrounding the origins of human civilization.
There’s been a theory circulating for quite some time in human evolution, cognitive science, and psychedelic research circles called, “The Stoned Ape Theory.” The theory basically claims the ingesting of psilocybin and other psychedelics could be responsible for humanity’s sudden burst of evolution 2 million to 100,000 years ago. The theory claims early hominids regularly ate Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms growing in the dung of grazing animals on African savannas, and that this drove rapid brain growth of 50-60% plus the emergence of nearly everything that classifies us as human like language, symbolic thought, art, religion, and culture
There’s also been a widely held theory called the Agricultural Surplus Theory that claims the advent of agriculture was the thing that allowed humans to settle in one place, have free time to create and share more complex ideas, and eventually build civilizations.
But what if the agricultural surplus theory isn’t the full story of how roving tribes of hunter-gatherers turned into modern humans with all of our complex stories, beliefs, and gadgetry? Quite a few learned people have begun to ask this very question.
The very first crops humans grew were wheat, rye, and barley. As it turns out the powerful psychedelic, ergot, that grows on wheat, rye, and barley (which were among humanity’s first agricultural crops) were ingested accidentally from consuming the crops and this is the reason for the explosion of human innovation that created, Sumer, the first complex civilization in the fertile crescent? Perhaps it was agriculture that set the stage and psychedelics that provided the catalyst. Food for thought, to be sure.
The most interesting part of this all is most fungi spores can survive in the vacuum and harsh conditions of space. Some theorize psychedelic fungi was "seeded" intentionally or unintentionally from somewhere off-planet. This could be how consciousness is seeded across the galaxy. Pretty wild stuff.
What I've written about here just scratches the surface of what’s discussed in the podcast. If you have any interest in emerging theories about the origins of our species I highly suggest you give this episode a listen. I hope to be wrapping the entire podcast up this week.
