Well, the title pretty much states the question. I've never been a huge fan of McKenna but there was an article about him on Vice I decided to read this morning. One of the statements in the article is that McKenna claimed "Psilocybin is the only 4-phosphorylated indole on this planet." Is this correct? My chemistry is hardly up to par with that of many other Nexians but this sounded questionable to me. Wouldn't at least ethocybin be a 4-phosphorylated indole? I've been using psychedelics along time and this is my first time ever hearing this claim so I'd just like to clear it up. Here is the article from Vice if you are curious, not the greatest piece in the world but somewhat interesting.
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I believe Terence is referring to naturally-occurring molecules here. Certainly, a chemist could synthesize any number of 4-O-phosphorylated indoles, but that would reflect nothing on the chemical-producing genetic instructions of said chemist.
The argument Terence puts out is that because it's such a rare molecule, there must be something special about these mushrooms. He's also quoted as saying he puts out the argument that Psilocybe cubensis is an extraterrestrial, but that he doesn't *believe* that exactly.
Still a funny question, why do the fungi 4-hydroxylate tryptamines, while plants and animals 5-hydroxylate and 5-methoxylate? Sea sponges even 6-bromonate!
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