Michael Pollan is the author of eight books, including How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. He is also the author of the audiobook Caffeine: How Coffee and Tea Made the Modern World. A longtime contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan teaches writing at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
“Pollan’s deeply researched chronicle will enlighten those who
think of psychedelics chiefly as a kind of punchline to a joke
about the Woodstock generation and hearten the growing
number who view them as a potential antidote to our often
stubbornly narrow minds . . . engaging and informative.” —Boston
Globe
“Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured.”
—New York Times
“Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of
Psychedelics changed my mind, or at least some of the ideas held in
my mind. . . . Whatever one may think of psychedelics, the book
reminds us that the mind is the greatest mystery in the universe,
that this mystery is always right here, and that we usually
dedicate far too little time and energy to exploring it.” —Yuval
Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st
Century
“A deep dive into the history of psychedelics . . . . Deliciously
trippy.” —NY Post
“Amid new scientific interest in the potential healing properties
of psychedelic drugs, Pollan . . . sets about researching their
history—and giving them a (supervised!) try himself. He came
away impressed by their promise in treating addiction and
depression—and with his mind expanded. Yours will be too.”
—People
“Astounding.” —Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine
“Sweeping and often thrilling . . . . It is to Pollan’s credit
that, while he ranks among the best of science writers, he’s
willing, when necessary, to abandon that genre’s fixation on
materialist explanation as the only path to understanding. One of
the book’s important messages is that the therapeutic benefits of
psychedelics, for the dying or seriously ill, can’t be separated
from the mystical experiences to which they give rise.” —The
Guardian
“Makes a compelling case for the potential value of psychedelic
experiences.” —Pittsburgh Post Gazette
“Journalist Michael Pollan explored psychoactive plants in The
Botany of Desire (2001). In this bold, intriguing study, he
delves further…Pollan even ‘shakes the snow globe’ himself,
chemically self-experimenting in the spirit of psychologist William
James, who speculated about the wilder shores of consciousness more
than a century ago.” —Nature, International Journal of Science
“Revelatory . . . Immensely fascinating . . . Pollan approaches his
subject as a science writer and a skeptic endowed with equal parts
rigorous critical thinking and openminded curiosity.” —Maria
Popova, Brainpickings
"Pollan, Cooked, 2013, has long enlightened and
entertained readers with his superbly inquisitive and influential
books about food. He now investigates a very different sort of
comestible, psychedelics (from the Greek: “mind manifesting”), and
what they reveal about consciousness and the brain. Pollan’s
complexly elucidating and enthralling inquiry combines fascinating
and significant history with daring and resonant reportage and
memoir, and looks forward to a new open-mindedness toward
psychedelics and the benefits of diverse forms of consciousness.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Pollan, Cooked, shifts his focus to other uses of plants
in this brilliant history of psychedelics across cultures and
generations, the neuroscience of its effects, the revival of
research on its potential to heal mental illness—and his own
mind-changing trips . . . . This nuanced and sophisticated
exploration, which asks big questions about meaning-making and
spiritual experience, is thought-provoking and eminently readable.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A trip well worth taking, eye-opening and even mind-blowing.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“Known for his writing on plants and food, Michael Pollan . . .
brings all the curiosity and skepticism for which he is well known
to a decidedly different topic . . . How to Change Your Mind
beautifully updates and synthesizes the science of psychedelics,
with a highly personalized touch.” —Science Magazine
“I've never regretted my adolescent use of LSD, but reading
this fascinating, lucid, wise and hopeful book did make me
wonder if those drug experiences weren't another example of youth
wasted on the young. Michael Pollan, who waited until he was a
grownup to experiment, is the perfect guide to today’s dawning
psychedelic renaissance.” —Kurt Andersen, author of
Fantasyland
“Michael Pollan masterfully guides us through the highs, lows, and
highs again of psychedelic drugs. How to Change Your mind
chronicles how it’s been a longer and stranger trip than most any
of us knew.” —Daniel Goleman, co-author Altered Traits:
Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain and
Body
“Very few writers, if any, have the gravitas and journalistic cred
to tackle this explosive subject—from both the outside and the
inside—extract it from its nationally traumatic and irrationally
over reactive past, and bring both reason and revelatory insight to
it. Michael Pollan has done just that. This is investigative
journalism at its rigorous and compelling best—and radically mind
opening in so many ways just to read it.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn,
founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction, and author of Full
Catastrophe Living and Coming to Our Senses
“Michael Pollan assembles a great deal of information here on the
history, science, and effects of psychedelics. I found his frank
recounting of his recent experiences with LSD, psilocybin, and toad
venom most revealing. They appear to have softened his
materialistic views and opened him to the possibilities of higher
consciousness. He did, indeed, change his mind.” —Andrew Weil,
author of The Natural Mind and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health
"Do psychedelics open a door to a different reality, or is it just
the same-old, same-old reality seen through a different set of
lenses? I quickly became engrossed in Pollan’s narrative—the
intersection of science, consciousness-enhancing, and government
prohibition. But at the center of Pollan’s story is the greatest
conundrum of all—why should substances that have been so beneficial
to so many people, be the focus of crazy criminal penalties? Why,
indeed.” —Errol Morris
“Michael Pollan has applied his brilliant mind and fastidious prose
to the Mind itself, specifically the modes by which psychedelic
substances temporarily obliterate the ego and engender deep
spiritual connectedness to the universe. Michael walks the
tight-rope between an objective ‘reporter’ and a spiritual pilgrim
seeking insight and sustenance from psychedelics, and his innocence
and integrity serve as a balance bar between cynicism and partisan
affirmation. His success here places these drugs and what they do
at the center of a potential revolution in medicine. It’s an
extraordinary achievement, and no matter what you may think you
know about psychedelics, if you even know the word, you should read
this book.” —Peter Coyote, author and Zen Buddhist Priest
“After 50 years underground, psychedelics are back. We are
incredibly fortunate to have Michael Pollan be our travel guide for
their renaissance. With humility, humor, and deep humanity, he
takes us through the history, the characters, and the science of
these “mind manifesting” compounds. Along the way, he navigates the
mysteries of consciousness, spirituality, and the mind. What he has
done previously for gardeners and omnivores, Pollan does
brilliantly here for all of us who wonder what it means to be fully
human, or even what it means to be." —Thomas R. Insel, MD, former
director of National Institute of Mental Health and co-founder and
president of Mindstrong Health
“A rare and utterly engrossing exposition that will most certainly
delineate a fundamental change in the understanding of the human
mind and the mystery of consciousness. Pollan previously reshaped
our knowledge of earthly landscapes in his writings. With this
book, he transforms our understanding of the innerscape, the
unbounded world we occupy every conscious second of our life
experienced by thoughts, suffering, awareness, joy, and reasoning.
This is more than a book—it is a treasure." —Paul Hawken, author of
Blessed Unrest
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