Nerdshit

entheogenetics & the future of mind

WE KNOW THAT ONE of the main characteristics of the human species
is a fascination with exploring alternative states of being and consciousness. The first roots of human development, the shamanic cultures of our early human ancestors, already show a fascination with exploring alternative states of consciousness through ritual, sound, movement, ordeal, and entheogenic drug ingestion. These technologies of the sacred have been expanded over the centuries of human development in the disciplines of art, religion, sports, yoga, devotion, service, and the increasingly worldwide use of plant teachers. Recent research has lead many to postulate that these technologies of ecstasy all lead to the same neurochemical events (1).

These ways of exploring alternative states of consciousness and connection, both ancient and new, have always appealed to a certain fraction of the earth’s population ? those who have an inquisitive mind and a daring nature. Now however, we are faced with a situation in which we have over five billion human beings on this planet, and a doubling time for our population of under forty years. We no longer have the luxury of unlimited time for a cultural elite to gradually evolve, and for cultural diffusion to gradually spread the ideas of this elite to our burgeoning population.

Accordingly, in this article I will put forth the daring proposition that, along with the genetic engineering of our future population to meet environmental constraints, we also have the possibility of genetically engineering new, connected, mystical states of being, not just for the religious geniuses or the mystically motivated, but for the common man and woman. It seems that only those states of mind that are common and ordinary among the population will have the ability to change the behavior patterns of our species in such fundamental ways so as to avoid an ecological catastrophe.

It is now possible to fully appreciate the implications of recombinant DNA technology and the psychedelic experience for the evolutionary future of our species. As one molecular geneticist has said,”It is possible to take a gene out of anything, and put it into anything”.

The implications of this statement are that, as a species, we will theoretically be able to redesign any life forms we wish, including ourselves. From this point on, at least in theory, we can choose to be the inhabitants of any ecological niche we desire. As a successful species diversifies in order to fill ever more ecological niches, so we too have the possibility of reacquiring the gills from the fish family in order to exploit the ocean depths, or to grow the coat of the bear in order to inhabit the northern climates without undue energy consumption. It is also possible to transform our annual food crops, the growing of which requires much labor, technology, and energy, into self-regenerating earth-healing perennials. But it is to the genetic engineering of future states of consciousness of our species that I wish to address this paper.