
Darwin's Pharmacy
Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Gerard Allen
-
By:
-
Richard M. Doyle
About this listen
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 listeners 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.
The audiobook is published by University of Washington Press.
©2011 University of Washington Press (P)2019 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
LSD and the Mind of the Universe
- Diamonds from Heaven
- By: Christopher M. Bache, Ervin Laszlo - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher M. Bache
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journey alongside professor Bache as he touches the living intelligence of our universe - an intelligence that both embraced and crushed him - and demonstrates how direct experience of the divine can change your perspective on core issues in philosophy and religion. Chronicling his 73 sessions, the author reveals the spiral of death and rebirth that took him through the collective unconscious into the creative intelligence of the universe.
-
-
Profound! Stands Among the Best of All of Time
- By Curtis Barnhart on 03-20-20
By: Christopher M. Bache, and others
-
The Myth of Normal
- Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
- By: Gabor Maté MD, Daniel Maté
- Narrated by: Daniel Maté
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?
-
-
Bought book after hearing podcast...
- By Adrian on 09-14-22
By: Gabor Maté MD, and others
-
Entangled Life
- How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
- By: Merlin Sheldrake
- Narrated by: Merlin Sheldrake
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
-
-
Mycology for Everyone
- By Cephalopods Revenge on 05-12-20
By: Merlin Sheldrake
-
The Immortality Key
- The Secret History of the Religion with No Name
- By: Brian C. Muraresku, Graham Hancock - foreword
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock, Brian C. Muraresku
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations.
-
-
A Fun ‘Trip’—But Not a Sober One
- By Joshua on 11-28-20
By: Brian C. Muraresku, and others
-
Change Your Brain Every Day
- Simple Daily Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Memory, Moods, Focus, Energy, Habits, and Relationships
- By: Daniel Amen
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Change Your Brain Every Day psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist Daniel Amen, MD, draws on over 40 years' clinical practice with tens of thousands of patients to give you the most effective daily habits he has seen that can help you improve your brain, master your mind, boost your memory, and make you feel happier, healthier, and more connected to those you love.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Gary on 04-13-23
By: Daniel Amen
-
My Grandmother's Hands
- Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
- By: Resmaa Menakem MSW LICSW SEP
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.
-
-
Think You Don't Need This? Think Again, Please!
- By Carole T. on 03-27-21
-
LSD and the Mind of the Universe
- Diamonds from Heaven
- By: Christopher M. Bache, Ervin Laszlo - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher M. Bache
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journey alongside professor Bache as he touches the living intelligence of our universe - an intelligence that both embraced and crushed him - and demonstrates how direct experience of the divine can change your perspective on core issues in philosophy and religion. Chronicling his 73 sessions, the author reveals the spiral of death and rebirth that took him through the collective unconscious into the creative intelligence of the universe.
-
-
Profound! Stands Among the Best of All of Time
- By Curtis Barnhart on 03-20-20
By: Christopher M. Bache, and others
-
The Myth of Normal
- Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
- By: Gabor Maté MD, Daniel Maté
- Narrated by: Daniel Maté
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health?
-
-
Bought book after hearing podcast...
- By Adrian on 09-14-22
By: Gabor Maté MD, and others
-
Entangled Life
- How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
- By: Merlin Sheldrake
- Narrated by: Merlin Sheldrake
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
-
-
Mycology for Everyone
- By Cephalopods Revenge on 05-12-20
By: Merlin Sheldrake
-
The Immortality Key
- The Secret History of the Religion with No Name
- By: Brian C. Muraresku, Graham Hancock - foreword
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock, Brian C. Muraresku
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations.
-
-
A Fun ‘Trip’—But Not a Sober One
- By Joshua on 11-28-20
By: Brian C. Muraresku, and others
-
Change Your Brain Every Day
- Simple Daily Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Memory, Moods, Focus, Energy, Habits, and Relationships
- By: Daniel Amen
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Change Your Brain Every Day psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist Daniel Amen, MD, draws on over 40 years' clinical practice with tens of thousands of patients to give you the most effective daily habits he has seen that can help you improve your brain, master your mind, boost your memory, and make you feel happier, healthier, and more connected to those you love.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Gary on 04-13-23
By: Daniel Amen
-
My Grandmother's Hands
- Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
- By: Resmaa Menakem MSW LICSW SEP
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.
-
-
Think You Don't Need This? Think Again, Please!
- By Carole T. on 03-27-21
-
The Cosmic Serpent
- DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
- By: Jeremy Narby
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences", leads the listener through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge. In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals how startlingly different the world around us appears when we open our minds to it.
-
-
Very Good Religious Text
- By Blair K. Hartman on 08-09-17
By: Jeremy Narby
-
How to Change Your Mind
- What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: Michael Pollan
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction, and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third.
-
-
A delightful trip
- By Paul E. Williams on 05-19-18
By: Michael Pollan
-
The Road to Eleusis
- Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries
- By: R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The secretive Mysteries conducted at Eleusis in Greece for nearly two millennia have long puzzled scholars with strange accounts of initiates experiencing otherworldly journeys. In this groundbreaking work, three experts - a mycologist, a chemist, and a historian - argue persuasively that the sacred potion given to participants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactive entheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show that natural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual rituals across history and cultures.
-
-
really?
- By Anonymous User on 09-19-23
By: R. Gordon Wasson, and others
-
PIHKAL
- A Chemical Love Story
- By: Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Petrea Burchard
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexander (better known as “Sasha”) and Ann Shulgin’s PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story has become a foundational work in the genre and was the first book to fully impart the how-to chemistry, and convey the effects, of many of the entheogenic drugs that are currently being studied and used to heal trauma and deal with death.
-
-
Very Insightful
- By Stefan Jernberg on 01-09-22
By: Alexander Shulgin, and others
-
Waking Up
- A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From multiple New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, and "new atheist" Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds.
-
-
I don't completely agree. BUT THAT SAID...
- By World Peace on 09-11-14
By: Sam Harris
-
Real Magic
- Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe
- By: Dean Radin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) turns a critical eye toward such practices as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis. Are such powers really possible? Science says yes. According to noted scientist and best-selling author of The Conscious Universe, Dean Radin, magic is a natural aspect of reality, and each of us can tap into this power with diligent practice.
-
-
Pertinent but lackluster
- By Marci B on 05-22-18
By: Dean Radin
-
Why God Won't Go Away
- Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
- By: Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili, Vince Rause
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: The religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. In Why God Won't Go Away, Newberg and d'Aquili document their pioneering explorations in the field of neurotheology, an emerging discipline dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain.
-
-
My opinion
- By David Berry on 09-06-18
By: Andrew Newberg, and others
-
Conscious
- A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
- By: Annaka Harris
- Narrated by: Annaka Harris
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This mind-expanding dive into the mystery of consciousness is an illuminating meditation on the self, free will, and felt experience.
-
-
Perhaps a better definition?
- By Eratosthenes on 06-19-19
By: Annaka Harris
-
Decoding Jung's Metaphysics
- The Archetypal Semantics of an Experiential Universe
- By: Bernardo Kastrup
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carl Gustav Jung was the 20th century's greatest articulator of the primacy of mind in nature, a view whose origins vanish behind the mists of time. The present book scrutinizes Jung's work to distil and reveal that extraordinary, hidden metaphysical treasure: For Jung, mind and world are one and the same entity; reality is fundamentally experiential, not material; the psyche builds and maintains its body, not the other way around; and the ultimate meaning of our sacrificial lives is to serve God by providing a reflecting mirror to God's own instinctive mentation.
-
-
Fantastic read.
- By Anonymous User on 09-03-23
By: Bernardo Kastrup
-
The Universe in a Single Atom
- The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
- By: His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Narrated by: Richard Gere
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gallileo, Copernicus, Newton, Niels Bohr, Einstein. Their insights shook our perception of who we are and where we stand in the world and in their wake have left an uneasy co-existence: science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical enquiry. Which is the keeper of truth? Which is the true path to understanding reality?
-
-
This book is right on the mark
- By Theresa on 09-24-05
-
Consciousness Explained
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.
-
-
Confuses Consciousness with Ego
- By Rahul Yadav on 07-11-19
-
From Bacteria to Bach and Back
- The Evolution of Minds
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is human consciousness, and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture.
-
-
The only other review was so bad that I wrote this
- By Adam on 02-13-17
Critic reviews
"Offers unique insights into the pleasures and desires that animate our relationships." (Women's Studies Quarterly)
What listeners say about Darwin's Pharmacy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-18-22
Sprawling Content Nearing the Esoteric
Initially drawn in by the keyword "noosphere" in the title (like the flowers discussed at length), I found myself wandering with the author along a broad path of tangential content. With the eloquence of writing, a lay reader can soon get caught in the weeds along the path. It definitely reads like the trips described within. Be prepared to look past the dizzying vocabulary and absorb what your mind is ready to hear, there is plenty of content for multiple readings to provide new content.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!