Self and Spirit define the opposite ends of a spectrum, but that spectrum needn't reach clear to the heavens to have meaning for us. It can stay right here on earth. When the ego dissolves, so does a bounded conception not only of ourself but of our self-interest. What emerges in its place is invariably a broader, more open-hearted and altruistic – that is, more spiritual – idea of what matters in life. One in which a new sense of connection, or love, however defined, seems to figure prominently.
How to Change Your Mind dovetails so nicely into my reading interests about the brain and consciousness and picks up some related threads that other recent reads wove for me (in particular, What Are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson and Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich), and continues a course of inquiry that I left dangling decades ago (with reads like Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism by R.C. Zaehner and The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda) – left dangling because, as someone raised on shocking Afterschool Specials, the flashback scene in Go Ask Alice, and the horror story of kindly Art Linkletter's tripped-out daughter jumping off a building because she thought she could fly, I knew that I would never consume acid or 'shrooms or peyote as a shortcut to enlightenment; institutionalised fear worked its trick on me. How odd to have been sent this ARC of a book by Michael Pollan – whose only previous work I had read was The Omnivore's Dilemma, back when I was interested in the philosophy of food – just at the time that other books started talking about the resurgence of research into psychedelic therapy. This book came at such a good time for me, and so perfectly suits my interests, that's there's some danger of me overrating it; I'm giving it five stars anyway. (Usual caveat: As I read an ARC, quotes may not be in their final forms.)
How to Change Your Mind is divided into sections covering the history of research into and the eventual banning of psychedelics (and especially the invention of LSD and the introduction of psilocybin – the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms” – to the West, which both occurred in the mid-twentieth century), Pollan's recent personal experiences with psychedelics, a brief section on neuroscience and how psychedelics impact the brain, and the uses to which these chemicals are being put to therapeutic study today. As a journalist first, Pollan is present in each part of the book – interviewing subjects and describing his own experiences – and every bit of it was interesting to me.
Pollan writes that nearly every culture on earth has used psychedelics – the exception being the Inuit, who simply don't appear to have access to the right chemicals in their environment – and with reference to the “Stoned Ape” theory (that prehistoric experimentation with psychedelics might have shocked the brains of early hominids into becoming us; although this theory isn't widely accepted, at any rate, these early visions of “the divine” might explain the persistence of religious belief throughout human civilisations), he makes the case that their use has been widespread throughout time and place. There are, of course, nonchemical ways of achieving a psychedelic experience: the characteristic dissolution of the ego can be attained through meditation or hypnagogic breathing techniques; the nineteenth century Romantics – Emerson, Whitman, Tennyson – were so in awe of nature that they became one with it and wrote about it in language that prefigures the accounts of acid trips; Appollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell describes his sudden mystical experience when viewing the Earth and its place in the universe from space:
Suddenly I realized that the molecules of my body, and the molecules of my spacecraft, the molecules in the bodies of my partners, were prototyped, manufactured in some ancient generation of stars. [I felt] an overwhelming sense of oneness, of connectedness...It wasn't 'Them and Us,' it was 'That's me! that's all of it, it's one thing.' And it was accompanied by an ecstasy, a sense of, 'Oh my God, wow, yes' – an insight, an epiphany.I can't help but think that if most of us can't achieve (or won't put in the work to train ourselves to achieve) spontaneous mystical experiences that have the potential to show us that all of humanity is connected and deserving of love, then what's the harm in guided recreational use of psychedelics? On the other hand, you can kind of see why there was such a backlash against Timothy Leary in the Sixties: if everyone does tune in, turn on, and drop out – if everyone suddenly sees the pointlessness of their worker bee lives – then who will keep the lights on and the grocery stores stocked and streets ploughed while the rest of us are seeking higher consciousness? It feels ironic to read of Aldous Huxley's enthusiasm for widespread LSD use so many years after writing Brave New World, where he seemed to be advocating for the more authentic life lived by the savages in the wild who weren't blissed out on Soma. One way or the other, psychedelics are making their return to respectability:
So maybe this, then, is the enduring contribution of Leary: by turning on a generation – the generation that, years later, has now taken charge of our institutions – he helped create the conditions in which a revival of psychedelic research is now possible.Recreational (or religious/shamanic) use of psychedelics has never gone away – and Pollan was easily able to find trained and experienced guides to help him safely use LSD, psilocybin, and “the toad”. I was impressed by the level of attention that all of these guides paid to preparation (the set and setting that primes the mind), their care of Pollan during the experiences, and their training in helping him make sense of his trips after the fact. I was also impressed by Pollan's efforts to describe the ineffable, as well as his apparent transparency in sharing what seems such private encounters with himself. These guided trips seem to be like compressing years of therapy into a weekend (it can be Freudian or Jungian, depending on how you prepare your mind beforehand), and that sounds valuable.
Even more remarkably, there are reputable institutions currently conducting research into using psychedelics to combat depression, addiction, and obsessions (what all of these seem to have in common are brains that are stuck in destructive modes of thinking that can literally be rebooted – like shaking a snowglobe – by a single acid trip.) Terminal cancer patients who are given psychedelic therapy discover their loving place in the universe and accept death as nonthreatening, smokers realise that their habit is pointless, people with depression (so far, temporarily) see the beauty in life – even Bill W, the founder of AA who had quit drinking after tripping on belladonna, is said to have wanted psychedelic therapy available to alcoholics; his philosophy of fellowship and surrendering to a higher power comes directly from what he experienced on his own psychedelic trip.
Love is everything. Is a platitude so deeply felt still a platitude? No, I decided. A platitude is precisely what is left of a truth after it has been drained of all emotion. To re-saturate that dried husk with feeling is to see it again for what it is: the loveliest and most deepest of truths, hidden in plain sight. A spiritual insight? Maybe so. Or at least that's how it appeared in the middle of my journey. Psychedelics can make even the most cynical of us into fervent evangelists of the obvious.Pollan is careful not to conflate the metaphysical with “God” – even avowed atheists who could only describe their experiences as having been “bathed in God's love” still assert that they don't believe in God after it's over – but as the common experience seems to be seeing oneself as a part of all creation, and as this fosters a feeling of love for all humanity, it's hard to see what governments are afraid of by banning the recreational use of psychedelics (except for that whole needing the worker bees to keep the lights on and the grocery stores stocked and the streets ploughed). Full of history, science, and personal experience, How to Change Your Mind suited me and my interests perfectly.
And because I so like synchronicity: The other night, Dave and I were watching Norm MacDonald's latest standup special and we thought this was one of the funniest bits -
I don’t drink, so I’m no good at parties for that reason. And drugs, I don’t do them. Used to. When I was a boy, young, I would do anything, you know? LSD, that was about the strongest drug I ever did – acid. I don’t know if you’ve ever done acid, but… When I was young, they would tell me, “You have got to be careful with that acid, on account of you can do it,” and then you have a flashback. Like, ten years could pass, 20 years could pass, “and then you get a flashback.” So I thought, “Well, that sounds like a good deal,” you know? I went to my drug dealer Frank. I said, “Frank…” is there a drug on the market where I pay you $5… I take the drug, I get high, “and then, 20 years later, I get high again?” He said yes. And I think of myself as somebody who’s good at stretching his drug dollar. But the point of the whole thing is for me to tell you young folk… that it’s not… it’s not true at all, you know? Because I have not done LSD since I was a teenager. Ten years have passed, 20 years have passed. Sadly, 30 years have passed. And still… no flash… What a gyp that turned out to be. I… Just more horseshit by the big acid companies if you ask me. I don’t want to… I don’t want to get too political, but… If you think big acid… cares about you, the little guy… They care about their third-quarter profits. That’s what they care about.Funny as that was on its own, it begs the question: are flashbacks really not a thing? I referenced Go Ask Alice in this review because it really affected me: there's a scene (if I remember it correctly) where Alice, after many months off drugs, is babysitting and has a flashback; is found in a closet clawing at herself to "get the spiders off". While I always thought that a drug-induced metaphysical experience would be fascinating when I was a teenager, I also thought that if I ever wanted to be a mother, it would be crazy to put myself at risk of losing control like this - what if I was pregnant someday and had a flashback and tried to claw the alien out of my tummy? (I have never heard of this actually happening, but Alice scared me straight.) Pollan doesn't write about flashbacks, but he does warn that a young person who would otherwise be at risk of a schizophrenic breakdown could be put over the edge by psychedelics (just as can happen with the stress of university or a bad break up). Between Pollan describing his own thoughtful experiments and him quoting Jung's belief that everyone should try to have a metaphysical experience in middle age, I could totally see myself seeking out one of these underground guides.
Which makes me a hypocrite - as a rule, I'm not impressed by drug users (although I drink), and I have no problem thinking of my imagined quest as spiritual and elevated, and at the same time, young people at a rave with their glow sticks and their MDMA as debauched and juvenile. I can be touched by the idea of this great sea of interconnected consciousness out there that can be accessed through a guided journey, but roll my eyes at New Age healers manipulating "energy fields". I want to see the face of God but can't bring myself to follow religion.
My coworker Carrie - a lovely and upstanding Christian woman - asked me the other day what I was reading, and after I described this book, I asked her if she would take illegal drugs if it meant that she could see God. She said:
I would. I haven't seen God, but I have felt Him. You know I go to a Pentecostal church (I didn't), and when the Holy Spirit is present, you can see it rolling through the crowd. People start to talk in tongues. People experience healing. And as the Spirit rolls over me, I fall to the ground in a wave with everyone else. My husband always says, "There's no way I'm falling", but when the wave is rolling, down he goes. And no one has a mark or a bruise after - Spirit is on the move and just gently overwhelms you and you carefully collapse. Now, I haven't seen this, but others have told me about miracles; about having limbs grow back.I must have looked increasingly surprised by this, because that's where Carrie stopped and smiled; her right hand hovering over where she had demonstrated a left hand "growing back" thanks to the Holy Spirit. While I would love to have this kind of faith, I was inwardly thinking about the power of suggestion and the hysteria of crowds; skeptically dismissing another person's experience as superstition while elevating my own ideas as science-based. I understand my hypocrisy, and also understand that Carrie and I share the same desire to make sense of our worlds. If there are guides who can prep a psychedelic experience, keep me safe in the moment and act like therapists after the fact to make sense of the journey - if flashbacks or other side effects aren't even a thing - the only thing holding me back would be my ingrained distaste for recreational drug users; which is more an effect of my upbringing in an era of anti-hippie backlash than anything I've actually observed. So much to think about, and that's why this book seems to be appealing to something particular within myself.