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Michael Pollan, a journalist long known for his work in food and nutrition, and as the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, shifted his attention to psychedelics when they were beginning to win favor again after having been shunned—legally and culturally—for three decades. Pollan’s interest took the form of “immersive journalism,” meaning he tried some of the psychedelics himself, and directed his investigation into “the potential for these molecules as a tool for both understanding the mind and, potentially, changing it.” The result was his 2018 book, How to Change Your Mind, and a companion documentary film. Taking our lead from his book, we focus on: consciousness, spirituality, and mysticism as what is at work in the effects psychedelics produce, and how they may delineate limits to biomedicine (rational or not), that is, how they brighten or blur the line between classic biomedicine and whatever isn’t.

Links

• Michael Pollan's website
• Trailer for Netflix documentary film based on How to Change Your Mind
• The UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics cofounded by Michael Pollan
• Russell Teagarden’s blog pieces on his book, How to Change Your Mind, and on his book, This is Your Mind on Plants
• Video of Timothy Leary at Golden Gate Park Human Be – In (Jan 14, 1967

Our next episode will feature Maddie Mortimer’s novel, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies. We are interested in this common, but tragic story of a mother and wife with terminal cancer and a daughter coming of age, told in an uncommon way with cancer cells serving as narrators at times and the use of graphics, poetry, and other forms of storytelling. Joining us will be Dr. Laurel Lykholm, who is a medical oncologist and who also works in medical ethics and medical humanities.

Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to this text link, or email to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.

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