by Terence McKenna
signed copy
$55
# Hardcover: 311 pages
# Publisher: Bantam
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0553078682
# Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
# Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
An exploration of humans' symbiotic relationships with plants and chemicals presents information on prehistoric partnership societies, the roles of spices and spirits in the rise of dominator societies; and the politics of tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, and alcohol.
Food of the Gods explores mankind's connection with the Earth as an organism. The author's speculations on our long lost mutualist relationship with plants has deep implications in science and offers sound insight into modern conditions of human iniquity.
To give you an idea, McKenna postulates that:
- The loss of the feminine in today's 'dominator' cultures
has been further catalyzed by our abuse of plants, drugs,
and nature as a whole
- The psychedelic experience, with its ego dissolving effects
represents an important component of the symbiosis of man
on Earth
- The striking similarities in the chemical structures of
neurotransmitters in the brain and indole compounds in
hallucinogenic plants are no coincidence
Despite the exhaustively researched and largely scholarly presentation of this work, unfounded criticism ensues when the subject matter stands as evidence in the indictment of many commonly held belief systems. However, most often the tone of McKenna's opponents caries the confident smirk of one safely distanced from his fierce intelligence, by their lack of experience with psychedelics.
Terrence McKenna didn't write for the amusement of those unfamiliar with the psychedelic experience. It was well within his mental capacity and scholarly abilities to legitimize his work for an audience of intellectual indifference. I wont say it's easier, but it certainly displays less integrity and truth of cause for one to cater to the lowest common denominator when attempting to relate ideas of this scope, even if they are only speculative.
Neither was it that the uninitiated were intentionally ignored and his priceless intellectual contribution was meant to be out of reach from common people, in an extension of Huxley's philosophy which he is often mistaken for representing.
Rather, his weakness seems to be his naivety in assuming that people inexperienced with psychedelics would approach his work with the unbiased mindfulness due of a reader of any great work of cultural and spiritual diagnosis.
The fact is that any intelligent, honest approach to this work will inevitably lead one to an intersection with a reality that cannot be negated.
Those who are experienced with psychedelics are likely to find in this book truths which they will integrate without hesitance - truths with implications profound enough to dissolve many of the illusions that largely pass as fact.
This book is a powerful catalyst of intellectual growth for anyone engaged in the pursuit to understand this world.
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