Those two famous promoters of drugs – Terence McKenna (Psilocybin) and Timothy Leary (LSD) – claimed that drugs were a “template” or “blueprint” of the human psyche – but nothing can be further from the facts. The conspiracy-theorist Graham Hancock is the latest such advocate of this nonsense. A revised version of his book on drugs and the origin of human consciousness is due to be published in 2022.

If drugs are the “yardstick to the totality of human psychology” then what are people doing advocating the existence of a “primordial and original” civilization that never existed (just another manifestation of “Atlantis” – that also never existed). And why can't drugs be used to cure people of belief in Flying Saucers and other such “faults” in the human system, such as crypto-zoology.

True, drugs have been responsible for enormous good – like for example to aid the invention and development of micro-chip technology. Not to mention the beneficial medical treatment of psychological problems, put into use since the 1960s. Two examples. Here lies the key. Basic Human Psychology is required to begin with, and the application of drugs is only a supplementary addition. What's more, drugs involve a “subjective” and not an “objective” experience. The Human Mind comes first, drugs are an addition – but drugs are still far removed from what the likes of Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary and Graham Hancock claim. And drugs are not the prime origin of human consciousness and psychology and responsible for the origin of human civilization in the distant past.

The existence of people's beliefs in Flying Saucers is a good example of human gullibility. Not only are there people who believe in Flying Saucers, but there are lawyers who believe in “the fact” that planet Earth is part of an intergalactic confederation, and that alien beings walk among us – conversing with the highest politicians.

It's a fact that not one Observatory in the whole world has ever spotted a Flying Saucer, and that the “sightings” and “visitations” and “experiences-of-the-third-kind” never involve landing in the middle of big cities with film crews and journalists at the ready. The Flying Saucers always appear to individuals far away from other people, far away from big cities.

The latest craze to hit the world are the so-called “Pentagon UFO Lights”. The solution to identifying these lights spotted by two American Warships is easy to explain. But we live in a world where the internet (websites, podcasts, blogs, etc), books, eBooks and PDF documents, and the medium of television (all formats) have been used for the last few decades as a dumping ground for all manner of conspiracy theories and quack beliefs. Gone are the days of responsible documentaries where both sides were invited to pitch in their respective positions and people could easily work out who the jerks were.

The $10bn James Webb Space Telescope recently left Earth on Christmas Day – perhaps it can find at least one Flying Saucer.

Erich von Däniken was definitively debunked in 1977 with his Ancient Astronaut theory (M. K. Jessup was the first popular author putting forward this theory in 1956). Erich von Däniken was also exposed as the promoter of hoax archaeology put forward in his book “Beweise: Lokaltermin in fünf Kontinenten” (According To The Evidence: My Proof of Man's Extraterrestrial Origins, 1977).

This has not stopped Däniken – some 45 years later – from publishing several more dozen books and acting as an “authority” on many “documentaries”.

When drugs cure the Human Race of beliefs in such conspiracy theories and related superstitions – that’s when the drugs as promoted by the likes of Graham Hancock can be taken seriously.