About sixty years ago the scientist C.H.W. Horne wrote that "it is remarkable that one characteristic which seems to separate man from the allegedly lower animals is a recurring desire to escape from reality." He was referring to the widespread use of
hallucinogens by young people during the middle of the last century. What is even more remarkable, in my opinion, is how long humans have been documenting their interest in the use of hallucinogens. Cultural and
religious rituals developed around the use of these hallucinogens probably as soon as they were discovered in the various plants and fungi that were present in their environment.
Imagine that the year is 2000 BCE (before the current era) and as you are foraging for something safe to eat you discover a small yellowish mushroom that would one day be called
Psilocybe mexicana. We now realize that this mushroom contains a hallucinogen called psilocybin. Indeed, psilocybin would ultimately be discovered in at least 75 different species of mushrooms, so there was a good chance that someone, one day would have stumbled onto a mushroom containing it. Regardless, today is your lucky day - you discovered it first...
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