Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere

by Richard M. Doyle

Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? Darwin’s Pharmacy shows they are by weaving the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of rhetoric together with the science and literature of psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the human tool kit, psychedelic plants can be usefully modeled as “eloquence adjuncts” that intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse.

Psychedelic plants seduce us to interact with them, building an ongoing interdependence: rhetoric as evolutionary mechanism. In doing so, they engage our awareness of the noosphere, or thinking stratum of the earth. The realization that the human organism is part of an interconnected ecosystem is an apprehension of immanence that could ultimately benefit the planet and its inhabitants.

To explore the rhetoric of the psychedelic experience and its significance to evolution, Doyle takes his readers on an epic journey through the writings of William Burroughs and Kary Mullis, the work of ethnobotanists and anthropologists, and anonymous trip reports. The results offer surprising insights into evolutionary theory, the war on drugs, the internet, and the nature of human consciousness itself.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Biology, Evolution, Drugs, Spirituality

336 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Richard Matthew Doyle is associate professor of rhetoric and science studies in the Department of English at Penn State University. He is the author of On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (1997).

Reviews

[Caleb Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging but rewarding journey bearing meditations of the evolution of humans and plant-based reality switching technologies.

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is is an intriguing book that explores the rhetoric of entheogens and how people discuss the experiences they've had with entheogens. The author interweaves his own narrative and experiences with the analysis he provides about entheogens. If you are interested in entheogens this book will be a good read that provides you some fascinating insights into the subculture around them. The author also bases a lot of his discussion around the works of Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, the McKenna brothers and other luminaries that have discussed entheogens in their own work. What I found particularly fascinating was the connected he made to Darwin's Theory of evolution and how work with the plants is a symbiotic relationship of evolution for both humans and plants.

[Travis Hosgood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most fascinating books I've encountered so far. Doyle asks the right questions, and acknowledges the collective works of heavyweights. Are plants playing a much larger role influencing human sexual selection and evolution? Very plausible, and overlooked idea. A reassured message of the deep interconnected nature of all beings known as the noosphere. Let us step back and ask ourselves "who is cultivating who?"

[Roger Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a unique exploration of the rhetorical aspects of psychedelic experiences.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not a load of horseshit, but it frustrated me just as though it was a load of horseshit.

There are brilliant insights in here. I especially like his inversion of immanence and transcendence, his idea of the Nth person in trip report writing, the term “chaosmosis,” his critique of the Huxleyian “reducing valve” metaphor, and all the random conceptual leaps he makes here and there in undeveloped but nonetheless brilliant asides.

But this book is not well written. It’s not kind to the reader, it’s not organized, it repeats itself and sometimes does so word for word within the same paragraph, and it’s opaque and obfuscatory in the worst academic way.

More frustratingly: Richard Doyle is a highly entertaining man when he speaks. Just look him up on Youtube.

I have this impression that Doyle intended it to be like this, maybe thinking that the reading itself could become a kind of “ecodelic” experience.

I’d rather just take mushrooms.

[Trace Reddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book even better the second time through (first read right after it came out). More timely than ever for those looking for positive supports for thinking through and beyond the our current ecosystemic crises thanks to a solid dose of idealism and transcendence without losing sight of our entanglement with plants and the biomass of this lovely planet. Just don't forget all those fantastic fungi upholding the planetary network of plant intelligence!

[Arielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, while probably very interesting, read like a boring textbook and I couldn't get into it.

[João · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever heard of a joke that starts with Philip K Dick, Charles Darwin, William S Burroughs and Terrence McKenna go to a bar and...?

Curious? Then that book is for you.

[Imogen]

Mostly gibberish.

[Mahmoud Awad · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Like any good kan, Dick's thought experiment of sending the reader to a repetitious theater resists interpretation even as it summons our attention. Only by both carrying out the rhetorical recipe, “I am seeing the chariot again,” and letting go of it, “Where was I?,” can one satisfactorily render the magnitude of ecodelic experience."

The rest of the book is just as incoherent. Skip.

[Evan Mantri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended.