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McKenna's hypothesis (footnote 6). Psychedelic influence on
H. erectus and even more remote human predecessors is of
course possible, as McKenna's model suggests, but I believe
it was unlikely, and if so, unimportant to either social or
neurological evolution. Certainly, evidence is very sparse
indeed, and there are important counter-arguments to be
considered: For example, H. erectus lived on 3 continents in
various habitats and through several periods of disruptive
climatic change for a period of 1 or 2 million years, yet
remained in a relatively unchanging state, with few signs of
significant cultural or technological innovation. This is
certainly a sign of normal, slow evolution, not psychedelic
evolution. By contrast, the culture of early Greece, with
psychedelic influence, advanced dramatically from a quite
primitive state to an advanced civilization in the space of
a thousand years or so. In addition, the progression from
Australopithecus to erectus to sapiens involved many
different anatomical developments, not only brain size and
reorganizations, but speech-enabling changes to the larynx,
(10) even an enlargement of nerve canals in the spine
suggested as facilitating the precise diaphragm control
needed for speech, (11) and many other anatomical changes.
This is certainly an argument for slow gradual evolution,
not psychedelically-enabled or "psychedelic-mutagenic"
evolution as suggested by McKenna.
From the preceding arguments concerning social
stability, we may thus surmise that the influence of
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psychedelics on our immediate ancestors must have also
involved some other simultaneous and important changes or
events which helped to suppress the described tendencies to
greater and greater dependence on habit routine and the
sophiolytic mode. Some unusual change must have occurred to
allow and ensure that psychedelic use would occur on a
significant scale and would rapidly and irreversibly
transform the habits of the hominid group that was the
precursor of modern humans.
It is necessary to point out, however, that the very
brain changes which facilitated social evolution and a
powerful habit routine cognitive system would be the same
changes that would make an eventual psychedelic intervention
most effective: A greatly expanded cortex to allow the
storage of long-lasting and complex memory data used for
habit routine search, would also implement creativity that
was far more than random trial and error, creativity that
could intentionally produce wide-ranging positive results:
we would not expect attempts at creativity by a small-
brained animal to result in much more than increased risk
for that animal. A greatly expanded portion of the cortex
involved with "association processing" allowing the assembly
of habit routines of a multisensory and intentional
complexity, would also facilitate highly effective
creativity. And a greatly expanded frontal cortex, the seat
of working memory and other advanced cognitive abilities,
facilitating habit routine based upon simultaneous nested
levels of intentionality, would likewise be instrumental to
a being requiring the frequent use of improvisation in
situations which involved simultaneous trains of logical
operations. The same nervous system improvements that enable
advanced habit routine generation and use also provide for
psychedelically-enlightened operation that is productive and
creative, and not just hazardous to an animal. Here we have
an additional argument against the influence of psychedelic
agents at an early, small-brained stage of hominid
evolution: psychedelics would not have "worked" on animals
with limited brain capabilities. We might say that
psychedelics haven't really "worked" on humans either,
considering our backsliding tendencies to ignore (and
eradicate) psychedelic tribal wisdom that has accumulated
for millennia. The present state of Western Civilization in
this "century of holocaust" is a direct result of that
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ignorance, and if it should lead to the scenarios of
devastation and collapse which have all too often been
predicted by some, we will have to conclude that the great
experiment, the psychedelic intervention, will indeed have
been a failure.
One further argument will suffice to eliminate from
consideration an early psychedelic influence on hominid
evolution. The role of language in hominid development has
been another hotly-debated topic of late. It is my
contention that the psychedelic state of consciousness would
have been of little or no value for an individual, and would
have provided no evolutionary breakthrough for a social
group which did not already have the benefit of complex
language abilities. Psychedelic use and its effects are most
valuable as a cumulative phenomenon. The psychedelic
experience must not only be individually integrated but
socially integrated as well, if it is to provide a key to
rapid cultural advance. There must arise a "psychedelic
culture" which is transmitted and developed from one
generation to the next, and through which the beginnings of
shamanism can arise. Without symbolic language, it is
difficult to see how such a process might happen. Once a
fairly complex language ability had evolved, however, we may
imagine that psychedelic experience would have provided an
impetus for further important language development into
abilities concerned with the expression of the abstract, the
mythical, the artistic, language capable of elaborating and
transmitting tradition, the hallmark of culture.
Whereas written language is a cultural phenomenon which
must be taught, (a child who is not taught to read and write
will certainly not pick up the ability spontaneously),
spoken language is assimilated spontaneously. Spoken
language is a biologically-inherent feature of the human
brain, a realization that became apparent to the linguist
Noam Chomsky several decades ago. Steven Pinker, a former
student of Chomsky, has made several conclusions concerning
language and its evolution which are pertinent to a
hypothesis of the time period in which psychedelic influence
might have played a role in human evolution. (12) On the
strength of much recent research, Pinker concludes that the
first anatomically modern humans already spoke the
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