This is an engaging book. It is a classic for the psychedelicists, recounting an expedition into the rainforest in search of novel hallucinogens, but it also touches on Ufology. It is in this volume that McKenna first develops his theory that hallucinogenic mushrooms may be understood as a seeded alien technology. Their longevity as a feature of life on Earth makes them a vehicle for interstellar contact suited to evolutionary timescales.
It is not as daft as it sounds. Jung after all considered the UFO to be an archetype of the soul. In particular he saw the saucer, in its roundedness, as a symbol of wholeness that compensated for man's broken psyche in the age of war and destructive technology.
Insofar as the mushroom opens up an archive of hidden subjective knowledge, it may - McKenna argues - also open us up to the UFO as an ultimate transcendental object to be found at the end of time. Dependent on the social maturity of the subject experiencing the hallucinogen, knowledge may be revealed by the mushroom. Where the shaman finds community medicine, future man may find the blueprint for stellar travel, itself - following Jung - a form of medicine for contemporary man.
Like I say, the book is engaging and stimulating.
