How To Change Your Mind

In How To Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan writes about the new research in psychedelics, mostly LSD and psilocybin, and how they may treat maladies such as addiction, PTSD, depression, and alleviating the despair of the terminally ill. This is all a bit of a surprise to many of us, mostly because these drugs were so tainted with bad publicity in the 1960s and carried so much bad baggage.

"Midway through the twentieth century, two unusual new molecules, organic compounds with a striking family resemblance, exploded upon the West. In time, they would change the course of social, political, and cultural history, as well as the personal histories of the millions of people who would eventually introduce them to their brains. As it happened, the arrival of these disruptive chemistries coincided with another world historical explosion—that of the atomic bomb. There were people who compared the two events and made much of the cosmic synchronicity. Extraordinary new energies had been loosed upon the world; things would never be quite the same." These two molecules are :Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD, was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938, shortly before physicists split an atom of uranium for the first time" and "Produced not by a chemist but by an inconspicuous little brown mushroom, this molecule, which would come to be known as psilocybin, had been used by the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America for hundreds of years as a sacrament."

Pollan covers the subject inside and out, at times going on a bit long, about the discovery of these drugs, the initial research into them, their being outcast by the medical establishment, the new research, and by his own experiences with them. After reading this book you will probably have one of two reactions: either, enough already, or I want to try that.

The discovery of both of these drugs was initially seen as auspicious. LSD came from ergot, a fungus found on wheat, and psilocybin comes from a variety of mushrooms. They were coined psychedelics, which is Greek for "manifesting the mind." Pollan points out that the mushrooms were ballyhooed in Life magazine of all places, during the 1950s, and LSD was researched by the military.

But something went wrong, and that came from research done by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard. "Just about everyone I’ve interviewed on the subject—dozens of people—has prefaced his or her answer by saying, “It’s far too easy to blame Leary,” before proceeding to do precisely that." Leary and Alpert saddled psychedelics with the counterculture, and their research techniques were questionable. Leary went full guru and famously urged people to "Tune in, turn on, and drop out," and President Nixon called him the most dangerous man in America. Alpert, who is still alive, went to India, became a guru, and changed his name to Ram Dass. Serious research into psychedelics was completely closed, and the drugs were made illegal.

Pollan talks to many doctors and pharmacists who are again working with the drugs, as research shows they can be helpful. While a section on what these drugs actually do to the mind went over my head, the basic thing is the dissolution of the ego. Apparently, when one takes a "trip," one realizes that there is more to the universe than one's self. Smokers have said they were able to quit because they realized smoking was irrelevant. Those with terminal illnesses were easier able to face death. It has helped with all sorts of addictions: Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, got on the road to recovery after a psychedelic experience.

Pollan, a participatory journalist, experiences things first hand. He goes mushroom hunting with an expert (not all mushrooms produce psilocybin, and some can be deadly), and takes three different trips, all with a guide: on LSD, mushrooms, and smoking the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad. While many people have been unable to put into words what going on a trip is like, Pollan captures it pretty well. During his LSD trip, on a trip to the bathroom, he sees his grandfather's face in the mirror.

The research is exciting, in that it could treat such a wide variety of problems, and the medical establishment is slowly coming around and forgetting about the Leary days. At times I think the book is redundant--how many trips do we need to hear about--but Pollan is a good companion (I highly recommend his book The Omnivore's Dilemma) and while I am very curious about these drugs, especially mushrooms, I haven't the foggiest idea of how I would get some.