Penguin Random House | The Psilocybin Connection

A comprehensive guide to psilocybin mushrooms and their impact on our psychology, biology, and social development.

How—and why—do psychedelics exist? Did psilocybin catalyze our early human ancestors’ social evolution? And how can an integral understanding of psychedelics quite literally change the world?
 
In an ambitious and comprehensive look at psilocybin—and an inside look at how humanity co-evolved alongside “magic” mushrooms—Jahan Khamsehzadeh, PhD, explores our historical and ancestral relationship to psychedelics and presents new and exciting research about what psilocybin can mean for us today.
 
Separated into three sections—Present, Past, and Future—The Psilocybin Connection advances our understanding of psychedelics in unexpected and original ways. Khamsehzadeh shares compelling research that suggests how naturally occurring psychedelics may have played an essential role in humanity’s social, cultural, and linguistic evolution. Supported by archaeological evidence, neuroscience, and academic studies, he explores how mushrooms gave rise to art and expression, impacted spiritual experiences, and even spurred human brain development.
 
Blending the most comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of psilocybin research with stories of his own and others’ psychedelic awakenings, Khamsehzadeh moves our understanding of the psychedelic mushroom forward toward a fresh, hopeful, and exciting future.