Below is my review of Michael Pollan's book as submitted to the editor for the April, 2019 issue of The Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine.
Mind
Blowing
How
to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About
Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence
By
Michael Pollan
Penguin
Press, 2018
Hardcover,
480 Pages
By
Richard Morchoe
How to Change Your Mind: What
the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying,
Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan was not what someone of my
generation might have expected. Baby boomers would remember the subject
by conjuring up pictures in their minds of news reports from Woodstock and
people in tie dyed tee shirts as well as friends telling of their “Trips.” That is, of course, if they were not doing it
themselves.
As the 60s became the 70s, the LSD culture that had been part of
hippiedom seemed to wane. True, there may have been a persistence
invisible to the general society, but few would have known.
Is Mr. Pollan writing about a resurgence of the counterculture?
Not at all. Has he taken notice of
the “Microdosing” of psychedelics that is the rage in Silicon Valley among
techies? Yes, but only in passing.
How to Change Your Mind is a history of all that has happened in
the development of substances that do change the mind, but it is much more than
that. It is also an exploration of what the drugs can and are doing and
it is personal.
The author and I are baby boomers with him being five years my
junior. This leads me to wonder about his motivation. When the “Summer of Love” happened in 1967,
he can’t have known anyone who had “dropped acid” at the time. Scott
MacKenzie’s lyrics beginning with “If you’re going to San Francisco” would have
had little meaning to him as he would not have known someone wearing “flowers
in their hair.”
Then again, in his youth, the man was braver than I. No
matter who was doing what around me, your reviewer never touched the stuff
while Pollan ate magic mushrooms with his future wife.
If you were looking for someone to tell us where the world now
stands with mind altering substances and how we got here, you could do worse
than Michael Pollan.
Pollan is the author of several books, probably best known for the
Omnivore’s Dilemma, an engaging discussion of where our food comes from and how
it affects us. The book was controversial as he is not for many of the
practices of industrial agriculture.
Pollan’s attitude toward food is popular enough with many and thus
is hardly out of the mainstream. At this point in time, psychedelics are
nowhere near that, yet the subject matter is not really a departure for someone
with as inquisitive a mind. Who knows, it may have been unanswered
questions from his experiments with his partner that spurred his interest, or
not.
Albert Hofmann did not invent psychedelics, indigenous people of
the Americas had been doing mushrooms for centuries. He did discover what
we know as LSD. Hofmann himself may not
have set out to get high, but he did.
The Swiss research chemist partook of the molecule in 1943.
His experience, not completely pleasant, convinced him that the substance
would be of no little value to psychiatry. Hofmann, according to Pollan,
did not foresee that it would also become a “pleasure drug.” Yet he understood it as a response to a
spiritually impoverished society needing a “spiritual balm.” He was not a
soulless scientist.
LSD would be studied seriously in the academic and medical world
along with mushrooms and derivatives. The famous novelist, Aldous
Huxley would write of his 1953 experience with Mescaline in his book The Doors
of Perception.
Interestingly, Bill Wilson, also known as Bill W, founder of
Alcoholics Anonymous was interested in psychedelics as possibly part of the
program due to its spiritual aspects.
Of course, Timothy Leary was inevitable and LSD, Mescaline, Psilocybin
et al went out into the world. The world got to see it all through the
eyes of the media and pushback occurred such that the substances would become
scheduled by the government.
The hibernation appears to be over and thus Mr. Pollan’s book.
He documents where the study and experimentation is now headed. The author personally became part of his
research. He does also admit to some, not demons, but questions maybe and
“there are moments when curiosity gets the better of fear.”
Participation would be necessary as all you have are the
subjective experiences of study volunteers, as well documented as they may be.
Taking the substances without some guidance and in the wrong
environment, what is referred to as “set and setting,” could be a problem.
A guide is necessary as the result could be a “bad trip” with the wrong
person or none at all. Pollan documented
his search for a discerning chaperone.
The author would use LSD, Psilocybin, and 5-MeO-DMT (found on a
psychoactive toad species and is obscure, a tribute to Pollan’s dedication and
daring that he would do it). The effects on him would vary and be a
learning experience.
When he was taking LSD, he asked the woman guiding him if they could
change the music that accompanied the session. Music was part of each
experience and had run to New Age and Pollan found it bland. He and the guide agreed on a Bach
unaccompanied cello suite. Michael described it as mournful and it is
somber.
The author began his recounting of the “trip” by writing, “Never
before has a piece of music pierced me as deeply as this one did now” and went
on to wax eloquent on what it evoked. One might wonder how valid it all
was and they would not be alone. In a later
recollection, he would think, “Fool, you were on drugs.”
Reflecting on it further led him to write “everything I
experienced, I experienced…” and in a session with the guide, was able to
realize what he could take from it.
After the voyages to inner space, How to Change Your Mind explores
what psychedelics can do for the greater world in the chapter, “Trip
Treatment.” It begins with the story of the latter days of Patrick
Mettes. Patrick would participate in a
trial with
psilocybin at N.Y.U. As
Pollan puts it, it “would change his death.”
Mettes had a virulent cancer and, according to Michael, “was
buckling under the weight” of the chemo and “the dawning realization that he
might not survive.” Patrick’s end of life journey is lovely to read.
The rest of Trip Treatment speaks to research in addiction and
depression and though there is promise, that is all there is at this point and
much is to be done.
So, should we all be thinking about the possibility of seeking a
change of mind? The last chapter has a debate about the purpose of it
all. We might applaud uses that lead to
amelioration of suffering, but is that it? Is the promise that all the
researchers after Hofmann saw not to be realized? Will we not see psychedelics be used, in the
words of Bob Jesse, for “the betterment of well people?”
The whole experience did change Pollan’s mind. He ends with,
“Mysteries abide. But this I can say
with certainty: the mind is vaster, and the world ever so much more alive, than
I knew when I began.”
