05/22/2026
We all know about the science of ketamine, but we didnāt know there was a soul.
In 1962, a team of chemists synthesized a new compound they called ketamine. They were working in a laboratory, looking for a safer anesthetic, and they found one. The story seemed straightforward enough. A molecule built by human hands, for human purposes. Or thatās at least the story thatās known to us.
Then in 2020, researchers found a soil-dwelling fungus called Pochonia chlamydosporia that produced ketamine on its own, in the earth, long before any laboratory existed. Iām not talking about āsomething similar,ā Iām talking the exact same molecule. Pochonia chlamydosporia had been making it for millions of years to defend itself against parasitic worms.
The scientists didnāt know about the fungus. The fungus didnāt know about the scientists. They arrived at the same answer across a distance so vast it barely fits inside ordinary thinking.
Thereās something worth sitting with here, and it lives past what science can fully name. The first instinct, especially among those of us trained in evidence-based frameworks, is to explain this away as convergent evolution or some kind of biochemical probability. That could be true, but notice how quickly we reach for those explanations, how fast the mind moves to close the door on anything that feels too large or too strange to fit inside a known category.
Continued in the comments šš¼