In this article, I would like to highlight my findings in a diverse number of disciplines. The areas that my research on hallucinogens have touched upon include the following: cultural evolutionary process, symbolic behavior, psychiatry/ psychology, ethnobotany, art history and prehistory, parapsychology and postmodernism. I would like to summarize and highlight the main findings within these different areas. I suggest that hallucinogens have been always viewed in human cultures as a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they have been utilized by different societies over time and space because of their perceived ability to access spiritual realms. That is to say, if we change our body chemistry, we can ascertain realms of being that are not ordinarily available to most human beings. The obverse of this, of course, is simply a "faulty wiring" hypothesis which argues that the plant chemicals deceive and trick. In a Euroamerican rational world, there is no spirit realm to access, so we are merely left with tricks of the mind. The second major finding that I have to report derives from a recent publication in the Journal of Drug Issues (Grob and Dobkin de Rios 1991) which examines the role of plant hallucinogens as a tool, or psychotechnology (in the words of Charles Tart 1975), that allows tribal elders to manage the altered states of consciousness of their adolescents through hypersuggestibility. In this way, they can brainwash their youths in the service of survival (see Dobkin de Rios 1992b). It is, of course, hard to summarize one's long term research activities in a few pages, and much of what I have said here is schematic. However, in conclusion, I would say that there are two major areas I find fascinating in all of this research. The first is the refusal of Western scholars to acknowledge the important role of plant hallucinogens in human history and expressive behavior. In my studies of the ancient Maya, I was reprimanded by scholars such as J. Eric Thompson that "their Maya" would not take drugs. Years after my publications in this area, major archaeological findings show that the water lily was utilized in a complicated agricultural mulching system that supported large populations among the Maya. Yet, no acknowledgement of the drug properties of the plant are accorded by working scholars, even in light of evidence to the contrary. Hallucinophobic Westerners see in the hallucinogens the forbidden and irrational. Yet in tribal societies, access to supernatural power and the unitive experience was highly valued. Psychedelic plants were used to enhance perception and intuition and played an important role in healing. The second area is the enormous potential of these plants to create hypersuggestible states that can be used to control youth while contributing to the survivability of the social order (Dobkin de Rios 1992b). There are many issues that I have not touched upon for lack of space, including the role of women in hallucinogenic ingestion and shamanism, the role of such substances in recreational and self-development activities for Westerners, and their important role in psychiatry. Nonetheless, I do feel privileged that I have been able to participate in understanding a complex and compelling area of human behavior.