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The theory that psychadelic mushrooms were the catalyst for human evolution. “McKenna posited that psilocybin caused the primitive brain’s information-processing capabilities to rapidly reorganize, which in turn kick-started the rapid evolution of cognition that led to the early art, language, and technology written in Homo sapiens’ archeological record. As early humans, he said we ‘ate our way to higher consciousness’ by consuming these mushrooms, which, he hypothesized, grew out of animal manure. Psilocybin, he said, brought us ‘out of the animal mind and into the world of articulated speech and imagination.’ “As human cultural evolution led to the domestication of wild cattle, humans began to spend a lot more time around cattle dung, McKenna explained. And, because psilocybin mushrooms commonly grow in cow droppings, ‘the human-mushroom interspecies codependency was enhanced and deepened. It was at this time that religious ritual, calendar making, and natural magic came into their own.’”