Originally aired as Salon #370 of the Psychedelic Salon podcast. "History is like self-reflection through the medium of language propelling itself into self-recognition." "Clearly, what is happening is there is a kind of global emergence of a new mental order." "The central figure in the archaic revival is the shaman."

"I'm proposing on one level that hallucinogens be thought of as almost as social pheromones that regulate the rate at which language develops, and therefore regulate human culture generally." "Where psychedelics comes together with that is that it's going to require a"

Excerpt from Sagan's CSICOP keynote 'Wonder and Skepticism', delivered at the 1994 'Psychology of Belief' conference and later published in Skeptical Inquirer.

Sagan's first Royal Institution Christmas Lecture in the 1977 'Planets' series, broadcast on BBC2 in early 1978.