The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge

For the people of ancient times, the greatest source for healing, nourishment, and even religious inspiration were the thousands of edible plants all around them. Among these were a select and sacred group of foods, namely psychoactive plants, that were known to open the doorway to the mystical realms.

On The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, ethnobotanist and author Terence McKenna offers a stunning proposition—our biological evolution leaped forward when these foods appeared in the diet of early humans, and today these plant teachers may be more crucial than ever for the survival of our endangered planet.

Join Terence McKenna as he fast-forwards us to the seminal moment in history when our earliest ancestors first discovered the psilocybin mushroom on the African plains. This fungus is known to amplify perceptual acuity, symbolic thinking, and consciousness, says McKenna—and may well have launched us “out of the stream of biology and into the fast-rising tide of language and culture.”

Did sacred vision plants spark an era of paradise on earth 20,000 years ago on Africa's Tassili Plateau? What is the true origin of the Bible's Genesis story and what does it reveal? And how can we tap into our own innate biological symbiosis with these plants today? Through a rich anthropological framework, The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge answers these questions and others, offering 11 hours of eye-opening information about the ethnopharmacology and ritual use of sacred plants ranging from psilocybin to peyote to ayahuasca; specific methods for navigating these nonordinary states; McKenna's intriguing predictions for the future of humanity; and much more.

Join this visionary thinker as he traces the roots of our evolution as a species—and our primal relationship with the earth's great botanical teachers.