Food of the Gods explores the idea that psychoactive plants played a central role in shaping human consciousness, culture, language, religion, and creativity. McKenna argues that early humans encountered visionary plants such as psilocybin mushrooms, which acted as catalysts for neural expansion, perception shifts, symbolic thinking, and the mystical impulse.

The book proposes psychedelics as ancient tools of initiation — dissolving the ego, revealing the deeper field of awareness, and opening access to archetypes of death, rebirth, and divine communion.

Rather than portraying these substances as escapes, McKenna frames them as technologies of evolution — part of the human dialogue with nature and the invisible world.