Same old story

In the 16th century medical students had to steal corpses off the gallows and from battlefields in order to do dissections because the church would not allow dissection of corpses to take place. So medical students of that era risked imprisonment in order to obtain corpses so that they could find out how the human body worked. This is the kind of situation that we're in--constipated patriarchal institutions are standing directly astride the forward progress of the human race....

  We call these substances consciousness expanding agents, well now, if consciousness does not play a major part in the future history of our species, then what kind of a future history are we talking about? Are we going to become stupider? duller? more animal-like? I don't think so. Consciousness is our defining quality and it must be nourished, encouraged, catalyzed--never more so than now because we have a planet in peril. The entire evolutionary enterprise may rest on the kinds of decisions we make about how we order and carry out our priorities over the next 50 years.

  We need all the help we can get, and these plants have always been there to render council and give advice to evolving human populations that would humbly and reverently seek their input.

Terence McKenna