MUSHROOMS. Most of us never give them a second thought, unless it’s to pick them out of our microwaved M&S risottos. But perhaps they deserve a wee bit more respect. There exists a theory – you may now strap yourselves in – which suggests they are very special organisms indeed. Ones which supercharged our primal brains around 1.8 million years ago and opened the Pandora’s box of our species’ limitless potential.

Yes, psychoactive fungi – otherwise known as magic mushrooms – may have stimulated higher levels of conscious awareness in our ancient ancestors’ brains. It will perhaps be a while before this possibility is ever explored in biology classrooms, but you won’t find a convincing explanation for the rapid rise of human intelligence there either. No-one knows what turned homo sapien from hunter-gatherer to dreamer, inventor, poet and self-obsessed, consumerist parasite.

Our rapid physical and mental evolution remains one of science’s biggest mysteries – one cherished by religious extremists determined to fit God into any gap. The clumsy term “missing link” certainly has a lot to answer for. Some even believe our genetics were manipulated by aliens. But, to misquote Aldous Huxley, perhaps the doors of perception were kicked open by hearty mushroom stews around the campfire.

The (limited and wildly incomplete) fossil record suggests early proto-human brains nearly doubled in size during a remarkably quick evolutionary period. Some scientists believe that the weird biological anomaly of human “intelligence” – defined by our insatiably curious nature, acute self-awareness, artistic expressiveness, comprehension of our own mortality and ability to communicate complex natural laws – is just a by-product of physical evolution. Our weak bodies simply had to grow smarter to evade predators and pass on DNA. This was a process aided by better nutrition as we learned to cultivate animals and land.

Some scientists go even further back in the search for an explanation, way back to when we were fish. Not generic fish that you’d serve with chips and a big pickle, but weird aquatic oddities that left no fossil record. Cleft lips, hernias and hiccups provide definitive evidence of our oceanic origins, but that’s a story for another time. Without doubt, however, how we perceived the world changed seismically upon leaving the sea 400 million years ago.

This new spacial awareness led to a complete rewiring of every single land organisms’ thought functions. Their brains simply adapted to the possibilities and dangers of their new environment. Yet none of our ancient ancestors ever built cities, made music or felt the need for hairstyles. So why us and not the tyrannosaur who broke free from instinctive hive-think to paint cave walls, shape tools and create fire? What is known as the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis” attempts an answer. And it is simply because mind-expanding fungus hadn’t yet evolved. When it did, so did we.

This controversial theory was put forward by the late Terence McKenna, a prolific writer and, yes, prolific user of psychedelics. To this US freethinker, it was obvious our ancestors’ use of psychoactive mushrooms tuned their brains to a “hyper-connected” state of consciousness, which quickly required a bigger brain to contain it.

It is true that early humans’ attempts at cattle farming would certainly have put them within close proximity of cow manure, where the most potent psilocybin mushrooms naturally grow. This substance, so I hear, would have gifted early man awe-inspiring visions which invoked communion with the cosmos. Comedian Bill Hicks once suggested it’s not called “holy s**t” for nothing.

What’s even more far out is the follow-on theory. This has Mother Earth creating fungi to help our primitive minds develop the tech required to explore the galaxy. Either encouraging her birds to leave the nest – or ridding herself of a particularly nasty rash.

The Herald:

ANCIENT ALIEN INVASION?

IT’S generally accepted that fungi evolved from one of the myriad algaes that slunk onto land from the sea countless moons ago. Yet, there are many scientists who wouldn’t laugh if you suggested it could originate from another planet.

Fungi is certainly otherworldly. It gave us the fermentation of alcohol, makes its own wind, has more than 28,000 sexes – luckily they don’t need toilets – and can even make zombie slaves of ants. They also go really well with garlic.

But what is perhaps most remarkable is that they continually emit spores so small and light that they can be carried out into Earth’s atmosphere – and have indeed been detected there.

These truly odd organisms actually seem to be custom-built to survive the vacuum of space – making it scientifically viable that spores from Earth may have already colonised other nearby planets in the Milky Way.

Conversely, there’s always the possibility that it is we who have been invaded by another planet. And we use this alien flesh to either commune with the universe or accompany a nice steak.

Fungi, if as abundant in space as speculation suggests, could actually be the universe’s way of understanding itself – by switching on the minds of sentient species across the galaxies then simply tuning in to their cosmic harmonic frequency.

The Herald:

STONE AGE, MAN

BIOLOGISTS, somehow, have discovered that an “endocannabinoid system” exists in our bodies – receptors that are highly sensitive to the active cannabis compounds THC and CBD.

The former is a chemical that, I’m led to believe, makes you laugh, love and sometimes wonder if ninjas are hiding in the bushes outside. The latter – non psychoactive CBD – can apparently be used to treat anything that ails ya, from pain, depression, anxiety, PTSD, MS and even cancer. Musician George Clinton has suggested funk also shares these magical attributes – and he’s still alive at 136. But he also smoked a lot of cannabis.

Beyond the heretical suggestion that natural herbal remedies can be beneficial, this discovery of an internal mechanism for processing cannabis also, remarkably, suggests humans have enjoyed a type of “co-evolution” with this deified and demonised substance. And with almost perfect synchronicity, researchers within the starch-collared officialdom of the World Health Organisation have now discovered that cognitive enhancement and brain cell growth are influenced by cannabis.

As intriguing and surprising as these results were, there also was one truly seismic discovery – that cannabis can also affect our genes. This hints at the possibility of its influence upon our evolution at a molecular level. Perhaps if it wasn’t banned we’d have grown wings by now.

It’s widely accepted that, like cattle and dogs, original breeds of marijuana have been wiped out by human cultivation and consumption over thousands of years.With no fossil record, the origins of the plant are shrouded in mystery. However, its first human ingestion is believed to have taken place, entirely coincidentally I’m sure, in the same era that agriculture began to take literal root in early human societies.

The famed astronomer, philosopher and avid THC proponent Carl Sagan certainly believed the astonishing global variance of cannabis proves that it is one of the oldest cultivated plants on Earth. Sagan was also a proponent for the substance being beneficial to early social cohesion and reducing tribalism, competitiveness and war. Cannabis, to Sagan, gifted early mankind with the clarity to view these traits as destructive abstractions best avoided.

That our species’ most shameful and bloodiest century coincided with an authoritative global clampdown on cannabis use is surely entirely coincidental, but a new era of decriminalisation and legalisation is rapidly taking root across the Western world. Perhaps we will live to see if the our bodies’ endocannaboid systems and the planet’s countless strains of cannabis are evidence that any type of co-evolution on Earth can always be a mutually beneficial relationship.