How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Now, How to Change Your Mind has been adapted into a four-part docuseries for Netflix, which premieres on July 12. From food to caffeine to marijuana, his writing has always tended to focus on how various things humans ingest can affect and benefit our bodies, so the psychedelic examination offered by his 2018 book release How to Change Your Mind was a logical extension of his investigative interests. And it seems to me that’s as legitimate as any other use.”Īt 67, and having been only recently baptized in the strange seas of psychedelia, Pollan might seem like an unlikely candidate for the voice of the movement, but if you look over his body of work it becomes apparent why he would take up the mission. And we have this word ‘recreation’ that we think is negative, but we should go back and think - what is that? Well, re-creation is a very positive thing and people are using them to re-create themselves. There are all these other ways people are using them. “It’s for spiritual experience,” he explained to Rolling Stone. Today these substances are increasingly embraced for their therapeutic, spiritual, and recreational value, and journalist Michael Pollan has emerged as arguably the most prominent champion of their kaleidoscopic rewards. But those days are ending - if they haven’t already slipped into the past. ‘An irresistible blend of history, research and personal experience.There was a time when psychedelics such as LSD, mushrooms, and mescaline were primarily relegated to those who were wild and weird enough to brave the legal and social throes imposed by the War on Drugs. ‘A mind-altering book … full of transformations’ Richard Godwin, Evening Standard This is a serious work of history and science, but also one in which the author, under the influence of toad venom, becomes convinced he’s giving birth to himself’ Oliver Burkeman, Guardian ‘A sweeping and often thrilling chronicle of the history of psychedelics, all interwoven with Pollan’s adventures as a psychedelic novice. In this podcast, LBC presenter Matthew Stadlen asks Michael about his dive into this extraordinary world, taking a tough but open-minded approach to the promises and perils of the new science of psychedelics. That path recently led him to investigate the role of mind altering drugs in humans culture – from shamans and magic mushroom hunts to the pioneering labs mapping our brains – and to put himself forward as a guinea-pig. Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? In Episode 7 of the How To Academy Podcast, Michael Pollan takes us on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind.įor twenty years the author and activist Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect, including, most famously, in his acclaimed books on the ethics and ecology of food, such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire.

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan