The Ancient Psychedelics Myth
5 laurex 4 5/2/2025, 7:24:21 PM theguardian.com ↗
Comments (4)
delichon · 1d ago
My priors are that ancient people were scholars of the effects of every plant in their environment, that intoxication was valuable to them, and that a major force behind the development of language was to share such survival knowledge. So if you assert that it's a myth that they knew a particular shroom could make them high, or that knowing that they would ignore it, the burden of proof is on you.
EA-3167 · 1d ago
Based on reading the article it seems that the myth isn't that people were aware of the properties of these plants, but that they weren't in regular use by people to for "healing" purposes. That's quite a different claim from sheer ignorance.
delichon · 1d ago
If rebutting an assertion that some ancient tribe may have used psychedelics to treat, say, PTSD, I wouldn't feel very convinced by an absence of evidence, but only by evidence of absence. E.g. if a particular plant's consumption should leave traces in bone, but didn't, and there are lots of bone samples.
EA-3167 · 1d ago
I don't know what to tell you, the assertion in the article comes down to, 'The stories told to tourists are inventions for the sake of tourists' and not, 'These plants were never used in history."