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Psychoactivity, Science, and Supernatural Technology
From Francis Crick to Robert Oppenheimer, Aldous Huxley, and Steve Jobs — psychonauts and world-changing science
This is an excerpt of Sky Gods and the Recipe for Immortality: The secret influence of psychoactivity over science, society, and the supernatural.
Humans across prehistory and today have a nearly universal desire for psychoactivity via countless means. From prehistoric shamanism to ancient religion, popular culture, and modern science — humanity has been profoundly psychoactive.
Mystical experiences catalyze world-changing technology while permeating great fiction. Similar to the supernatural histories of countless tribes and religions across the world, sci-fi challenges the imagination and the future as it should or shouldn’t be.
In a book called Life Itself, the Nobel psychonaut Francis Crick once described a non-fictional experience at a secret gathering hosted by the U.S. government decades ago:
“At the beginning of the meeting the agency explained that it had decided that it needed to know what scientific advances were coming in the future… At this, a well-known physicist rose and said… The people you should consult are the science fiction writers. They are the…
