George Boreas · Christianity and anthropology
The Psychedelic Delusion
A Girardian Christian Critique of Psychedelic Transcendence
The essay puts together a series of five articles published on my Substack account in response to the question of how the anthropological theories of René Girard and his Christian apologetics square up against the “Psychedelic Renaissance,” the contemporary reemergence of scientific, medical, philosophical, and cultural interest in psychedelic drugs such as magic mushrooms (psilocybin), ayahuasca (DMT), acid (LSD), and others. The first article critiques the “Stoned Aped Theory” of the biological origin of the human species (hominization) in light of the competing theory of René Girard on the same topic. The second article proposes where and how psychedelic drugs fit, historically, in Girard’s anthropological scheme: as psychological aids in ritual. The third article investigates the transcendental vision behind contemporary advocacy of psychedelic drugs, presenting it as a quintessentially modern revision of the historical role of altering the states of consciousness. The fourth article elaborates on the nature of transcendental or sacred or divine visions as they arise out of archaic and pagan ritual, drawing parallels between it and the psychedelic transcendental. Finally, the fifth article investigates the several motivations and consequences observable within the Psychedelic Renaissance movement and judges them from the viewpoint of Girard’s Christian anthropology and Christian theology in general.
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Contents
- Stoned Ape Theory vs René Girard
- The Role of Psychedelics in Ritual
- The Psychedelic Transcendental
- The Mimetic Transcendental
- Christianity and the Psychedelic Transcendental
Read an excerpt
From Part 1: Stoned Ape Theory vs René Girard
Joe Rogan bros and other types of recreational drug enthusiasts have been talking about a theory of hominization that arose in 1990s with the publication of Terence McKenna’s book Food of the Gods. McKenna was a magic mushroom aficionado who theorized that their consumption triggered the process of hominization – the accelerated evolution from pre-hominid species to homo sapiens. His work and what it later inspired have been dubbed The Stoned Ape Theory.
There are some details and variations to the theory. McKenna writes how hominids first began consuming psychedelic mushrooms that grew in the dung of bovine species they were hunting; how at small doses, their active ingredient, psilocybin, increases visual acuity and energy levels, which aids in hunting; how it increases sexual energy and sociability that might have improved mating success. But at its core, the theory points to the mind-altering effects (“neuroplasticity”) of psychedelic drugs to propose that they were the secret ingredient to the sudden appearance of humans with their unique intelligence.
The Stoned Ape Theory is wholly different from Girard’s hypothesis. The latter points to the problem of managing rivalry as the evolutionarily unprecedented problem and the one that triggered the unique process of biological hominization. Intelligence did not evolve rapidly due to psychedelic drugs but due to the need to distinguish between permissible and impermissible objects of desire, and of aggression resulting from desire, concurrent with the birth and rapid evolution of the sacred as the psychic force that enforced that distinction.