Ayahuasca and the evolution of consciousness

Could the human evolutionary leap to consciousness have been catalyzed by hallucinogenic plants (such as psilocybin and ayahuasca) consumed by our ancestors? This hypothesis has been explored by Graham Hancock and other individuals such as David Lewis-Williams at the University of the Witwatersrand. The notion came as somewhat of a surprise to me when I 1st encountered it. I go through a guide by Ken Wilber, Up From Eden, a lot of years ago that cemented an thought of the evolution of consciousness for me. The fundamental premise laid out by Wilber in this book is that at periodic occasions in human history the vast majority of people in a civilization experience a shift in consciousness, which makes them much more self-conscious and capable of manipulating their atmosphere and their fellow humans. These jumps in consciousness also moved humans forward from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies with kings and hierarchical electrical power structures and led in the long run to the modern world in which we live. The evolution of consciousness is a continual procedure and several believe that we may possibly be at the cusp of yet another jump.Throughout any offered time in human history, most individuals within a certain civilization had been working at the same level of consciousness, but there have always been some folks that have been "ahead of the curve".According to Wilber, these could have incorporated shamans and visionaries that pushed the limits of consciousness. This idea also suggests that men and women residing hunter-gatherer lifestyles are not as evolved as people that have presently gone via the stages of evolution in consciousness. This was the certain part of Wilber's concept that troubled me.

If the hypothesis on hallucinogenic plants is proper, then several folks residing as hunter-gatherers might have been the Initial people to knowledge jumps in consciousness and these jumps could have occurred in numerous different parts of the planet independent of each and every other. Man Should Wish to Attain Perfect Wisdom Wilbur's concept is also confounded by the fact that several tribes of the Amazon reside very just, as subsistence farmers and hunter-gatherers, but they have been employing plants this kind of as ayahuasca that alter their consciousness for thousands of many years. They are as self-mindful as any person living in a modern city even even though they may possibly not have accessibility to the technology that numerous city dwellers do. Our ancestors in several elements of the word had entry to mind-altering plants and usually employed them for religious/ceremonial and healing functions. It is frequent to have drastic shifts in perception that are permanent when consuming hallucinogenic plants. Possibly this, much more than any archaeological evidence attests to the capacity of these plants to spur such jumps in consciousness.A leap in consciousness can be the two an individual and a collective experience.