Predecessors
A seminal work, at least in the western tradition is by William James who wrote The Varieties of Religious Experiences while he was at Harvard. I remember being particularly attracted to the chapter on mysticism towards the end of the book. That book written in 1902, was panoramic. In tune with the times, Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception published in 1954 was more existential in its vantage. While James' book was objective third person, Huxley's was subjective first person. Both are seminal works.
Befitting our times, at the beginning of this century, where we are living in the age of genetic modification, liberalization of marijuana laws, cross-disciplinary scientific research, decline in religiosity (notwithstanding the increase in headline grabbing fundamentalism).
A half a century after Huxley's book, Pollan has written, How to change your mind: What the new science of pscydelics teaches us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence. Pollan's combines James' objective approach and Huxley's subjective take. Rather than an uncomfortable meeting of the two, his gift for writing and experience conveying ideas about food, make him the perfect author to produce this highly readable and informative work.
History, Science and Experience
The first part of the book is a historical tour of the study of psychedelics. There is an entire chapter on mushrooms, referred to as fungi. I have heard tangentially of magic mushrooms. But an entire chapter on it was a pretty incredible tour of what fungi mean to our biosphere. The central figure of this topic is Paul Stamets. He is famous for his Ted Talk on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world. AUM to the mushroom, I suppose!
The second part of the book is the developments in the science of psychedelics. It is news to me that labs at Johns Hopkins, New York University and other prominent academic settings are actively conducting scientific trials on psychedelics. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to Timothy Leary and his partner Richard Alpert who started LSD trials at Harvard University. Leary is of course known for his quote, "Turn on, tune in and drop out." This quote was the epitome of a movement that spooked the authorities into totally banning psychedelics. Richard Alpert went on to become Ram Dass (the spelling irks me, but I realize I need to calm down!)
The third part of the book gets Huxley-esque. Carefully and skeptically, Pollan undertakes three guided trips. One with LSD, one with psilocybin (the ingredient in a variety of mushroom) and the third on DMT, which is a poison extract from a South American toad.
This is a brilliant chapter. Because it combines James erudition, Huxley's descriptive powers, Pollan's own wry skepticism, this chapter becomes a compelling read.
Here is a key passage from his second "trip" with psilocybin: I watched as that familiar self began to fall apart before my eyes, gradually at first and then all at once. “I” now turned into a sheaf of little papers, no bigger than Post-its, and they were being scattered to the wind. [.....] Yet something had succeeded it: this bare disembodied awareness, which gazed upon the scene of the self’s dissolution with benign indifference. I was present to reality but as something other than my self. [.....] There was life after the death of the ego.
The fourth part of the book is about the application of psychedelics for medical use. While the third chapter was thrilling. This last chapter I can see is most important for our social and policy discourse. This is the route through which, all the research that was driven underground in the 1960s will find its way back to help those who are suffering.
Suffering and Relief
Pollan writes extensively, as the book's sub-title suggests about the benefits of psychedelic treatments for the terminally ill, addiction and depression. Indeed, in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, its founder Bill Wilson actively sought to introduce psychedelics as a way to treat addiction to alcohol.
Here is what a cancer patient, who was being treated with psychedelics had to say about her perspective: I saw my fear. Almost as in a dream, my fear was located under my rib cage on the left side; it was not my tumor, but it was this black thing in my body. And it made me immensely angry; I was enraged by my fear. I screamed, ‘Get the fuck out! I won’t be eaten alive.’ And you know what? It was gone! It went away. I drove it away with my anger. [....] The cancer is something completely out of my control, but the fear, I realized, is not.
Base camp
Towards the end of the book, Pollan describes a conference on psychedelics (oy vey!). He attends it and describes a most unusual conference that is a mix of public officials, scientists, therapists, patients and recreational users. One of the prominent panels had regulators on it. They warn the community to not jump guardrails like Timothy Leary did; lest the research be made illegal again.
Pollan was being interviewed about this book in the New York Times review of books podcast. And the interviewer wryly asked him if he was concerned that a whole bunch of people are going to use his book as an excuse to go try psychedelic drugs.
I really liked his answer that I am paraphrasing, "I read a book about an author climbing Mount Everest. I really enjoyed it. Taking psychedelics is illegal except in lab settings. So I hope readers learn something about this new science, and enjoy my trips vicariously, like I did about another author climbing the mountain."
This truly is a wonderful book and did change my mind. At least it opened it up to this renewed area of research that first started in the 1940s that holds the promise of making life better for those who are suffering mentally or physically.
6 comments:
Hi KS
Well written. I haven't read Pollan and will look to read this. Areas like this have a negativity clouding them. Looks like this demystifies...
Well written. And as you write…
This truly is a wonderful book and did change my mind. At least it opened it up to this renewed area of research that first started in the 1940s that holds the promise of making life better for those who are suffering mentally or physically.
I too now look at the subject of psychedelics differently.
I also expected that you’d have found the following bit of interest too (from an article about this that Pollan penned in the WSJ, The New Science of Psychedelics):
Typically described as the dissolution of one’s ego followed by a merging of the self with nature or the universe, a mystical experience can permanently shift a person’s perspective and priorities. The pivotal role of the mystical experience points to something novel about psychedelic therapy: It depends for its success not strictly on the action of a chemical but on the powerful psychological experience that the chemical can occasion.
As you know, there’s another way to do this. It’s through the discplines of various Eastern religious practices. And though getting there that way requires much more effort, I still believe it’s the preferable route to get there as it can be ‘institutionalized’ in your life, so to speak.
But that route may not be available to many people, such as those with psychological/health afflictions. So the direct route may be more appropriate for them.
One of the lessons of the new research is that not just mental illness but garden-variety unhappiness may owe something to living under the harsh rule of an ego that, whatever its value, walls us off from our emotions, from other people and from nature. “For the moment,” wrote Aldous Huxley, describing his own psychedelic journey in 1954, “that interfering neurotic who, in waking hours, tries to run the show, was blessedly out of the way.”
Perhaps it could become a national holiday with associated civic rituals. A Fourth of July for the soul.
Fascinating. I wouldn’t even be tempted to read this book based on the title (although I know that Michael Pollan is great) but your review has inspired me to put it in the queue on my Audible wish list!
Have you heard his interview with Tim Ferriss? Very interesting! I loved his book ‘Omnivores Dilemma’ which truly got me started on healthy eating.
Good review. Summed it up in the words of the cancer patient:
The cancer is not in my control but the fear of it is.
Good review. This is very sensitive research that we need. Lots of patients suffer from mental disoorders and do not even know it, let alone undergo treatment.
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