In The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, Lewis-Williams draws on his own previous work, and also that of cognitive psychologists like Heinrich Klüver and Ronald Siegel and anthropologists like Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who have cumulatively demonstrated that, in altered states, the same visual and sensory phenomena are generated both in the lab and in the field. [ read more ]

In Shroom, Andy Letcher has cut through this dense tangle of pseudohistory and urban legend with bracing scepticism, clearing the space for an elegant and authoritative telling of the true story that it conceals. He establishes that although fungi have fascinated, inspired and revolted us throughout history, and one source of this fascination has certainly been their strange intoxicating properties, there are only two parts of the world – Mexico and Siberia – where there is clear evidence that these properties have been deliberately sought out and culturally sanctioned. [ read more ]