McKenna, though, saw a much grander role for those humble toadstools. He mused that complex linguistics sprang from the synaptic superconductivity of the psychedelic trip. It was, according to McKenna, the most likely candidate for how we went from grunting and pointing to poetry and song. And the truly heroic, blow-out-the-pipes shamanic adventure—or, as he so memorably put it, “Five grams in silent darkness”? The catalyst for nothing less than the prehistoric birth of awe and the origins of religion.
