Could the human evolutionary jump to consciousness have been catalyzed by hallucinogenic plants (comparable to psilocybin and ayahuasca) consumed by our ancestors? This hypothesis has been explored by Graham Hancock and others including David Lewis-Williams on the College of the Witwatersrand. The idea came as considerably of a shock to me when I first encountered it. I learn a book by Ken Wilber, Up From Eden, many years in the past that cemented an thought of the evolution of consciousness for me. The fundamental premise laid out by Wilber in this e book is that at periodic instances in human history the vast majority of people in a civilization expertise a shift in consciousness, which makes them more self-conscious and able to manipulating their setting and their fellow people. These jumps in consciousness additionally moved humans forward from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies with kings and hierarchical power constructions and led in the end to the trendy world during which we dwell. The evolution of consciousness is a continual course of and lots of imagine that we may be at the cusp of one other jump. During any given time in human historical past, most individuals inside a specific civilization were working at the similar stage of consciousness, but there have all the time been some people who had been "forward of the curve". In response to Wilber, these might have included shamans and visionaries that pushed the boundaries of consciousness. This concept additionally suggests that individuals residing hunter-gatherer existence should not as evolved as those that have already gone by means of the phases of evolution in consciousness. This was the particular part of Wilber’s concept that troubled me.
If the hypothesis on hallucinogenic crops is appropriate, then many people residing as hunter-gatherers may have been the FIRST folks to experience jumps in consciousness and these jumps might have occurred in many various parts of the world impartial of one another. Wilbur’s theory can also be confounded by the truth that many tribes of the Amazon reside very merely, as subsistence farmers and hunter-gatherers, but they have been using vegetation such as ayahuasca that alter their consciousness for hundreds of years. They're as self-conscious as anyone dwelling in a contemporary metropolis though they might not have entry to the technology that many city dwellers do. Our ancestors in many parts of the word had entry to thoughts-altering vegetation and infrequently employed them for non secular/ceremonial and therapeutic functions. It's common to have drastic shifts in perception which can be permanent when consuming hallucinogenic crops. Perhaps this, greater than any archaeological proof attests to the flexibility of these crops to spur such jumps in consciousness. A soar in consciousness may be both an individual and a collective expertise.
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