Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
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Synopsis
An attempt to chart out human evolution from the point of view of drugs, where drugs are conceived to be everything from Coca and mushrooms to sugar and red meat, with a lot of speculation on human culture.
Review
If you're at all familiar with McKenna's output through his public lectures, then this book is just filling out the details. Terence is hitting a lot of his familiar riffs in this book, so you might skip it. However, for the really curious I can (of course) heartily recommend this book as I think McKenna is a pretty good author (and his ideas are in any case very interesting).
Table of contents
- Introduction: A Manifesto for New Thought About Drugs
I Paradise
- 1. Shamanism: Setting the Stage
- 2. The Magic in Food
- 3. The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
- 4. Plants and Primates: Postcards From the Stoned Age
- 5. Habit as culture and Religion
- 6. The high Plains of Eden
II Paradise Lost
- 7. Searching for Soma: The Golden Vedic Enigma
- 8. Twilight in Eden: Minoan Crete and the Eleusinian Mystery
- 9. Alcohol and the Alchemy of Spirit
- 10. The Ballad of the Dreaming Weavers: Cannabis and Culture
III Hell
- 11. Complacencies of the Peignoir: Sugar, Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate
- 12. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Opium and Tobacco
- 13. Synthetics: Heroin, cocaine, and Television
IV Paradise Regained?
- 14. A Brief History of Psychedelics
- 15. Anticipating the Archaic Paradise
- Epilogue: Looking Outward and Inward to a Sea of Stars
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index