Hey All,
I'm a big fan of McKenna's "tripping Ape" theory of human evolution and am wondering if anyone knows of any psychedelic experiments conducted on Chimps or any of the greater apes?
If this hasn't happened, I really think it should. Imagine if Chimps were fed 1 gram of psychoactive mushrooms at the first trial and then 2, and then 3, etc.
The scientific team would observe the brain activity of the chimps, and also see any changes of behavior. The team should be equipped to see if the dosed apes show any increased interest in art, music, finger painting, etc.
Considering the non toxicity of mushrooms and their ingredients, I really don't think their would be any ethical objections, and as I said, the doses would be extremely small at first.
-------------------- Master: Everyday change your clothes and eat your food and you will become enlightened. Pupil: Master, I do not understand... Master: If you don't understand, eat your food and change your clothes.
Edited by MXNR (07/29/06 02:30 PM)
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That's an intriguing idea. Do post if you find anything online, I'll take a look around too.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Yeah,
I thought so too. See, the basic idea is that groups of higher primates, long ago, took upon eating psychoactive substances in the course of their foraging. Supposedly the increased mental activity/creativity from the plants, lead the primates to us, "the tripping ape."
A small blurb:
basically, his contention was that early hominids followed around troups of big hairy animals, hunting them when possible, and eating the yummy magic mushrooms which grew in their poo. these mushrooms become a major stimulus in human synesthesia (blurring of the senses), developing speech centers of the brain, and improving visual accuity.
he also believed that this regular mushroom consumption resulted in oligarchical tribal arrangements, and that the climate changes which took psilocybin shrooms out of the environment resulted in more hierarchical, brutal, male dominated forms of social interaction.
So, what I was thinking it would be important to see, would be if we could entice higher apes (chimps, for example) to digest mushrooms for leisure; to see if they would enjoy the effects and thereby give a little bit of a nudge to this theory.
I was thinking of a possible experiment. OK:
The group of experimental chimps would be put into a zoo-like enclosure. The chimps would inhabit 6/8this of this enclosure throughout the course of the study. However, there is also and area of the enclosure which is off limits to them due to a pane of removable glass that cuts off the remaining 2/8ths of the enclosure. In the 2/8ths of the enclosure would be two batches of mushrooms. Batch #1 would be dyed red with harmless coloring of some sort. Batch #2 would be died blue. Now, batch #2 would be the psychoactive variety and batch number one would be a nonactive lookalike shroom. Also, the chimps are able to see into this part of the enclosure, they just cant get into it. OK, so the experiment would go something like this:
A scientist would walk into the 2/8ths off-limits enclosure and take off ten grams of wet red mushrooms from batch #1. The scientist would then walk into the chimp enclosure and feed the shrooms to the chimp(s). The next day, the same thing would be repeated except the chimp would be fed the blue shrooms. Now, it should be noted that at all instances after being fed a shroom (either red or blue) the chimps will be provided with a number of toys, visuals, paints, musics, sensory exciters of all varieties. In addition to a brain scan, the scientist are to observe and see if they notice any mental reaction after being does with the blue shroom.
The team will also attempt to determine if the chimps enjoys any variety over the other. This could be determined if the chimp refuses the red and wants the blue or refuses the blue, etc.
But I mean, if the study was able to determine that the chimp did indeed enjoy the blue shroom over the red shroom and did seem more artistic, for example, I would consider that very interesting indeed.
-------------------- Master: Everyday change your clothes and eat your food and you will become enlightened. Pupil: Master, I do not understand... Master: If you don't understand, eat your food and change your clothes.
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