How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics [Hardcover] [May 17, 2018] POLLAN MICHAEL Hardcover – May 17, 2018

“Turn off your mind and float downstream…” are the words beginning the Beatles song Tomorrow Never Knows, on the album Revolver. The following is a review of 6 fairly recent books centered on these 7 words and the music that accompanies them. They are, listed from wide to narrow focus: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, 2018The Gospel According to the Beatles by Steve Turner, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties, 3rd ed. by Ian MacDonald, Chicago Review Press, 2007Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s by Nick Bromell, University of Chicago Press, 2000Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock, 2nd ed. by Allan F. Moore, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2001The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by Allan F. Moore, Cambridge University Press, 1997________________________________________________________I will provide a brief bio of your reviewer so you can see where I’m coming from (and maybe where I’m going to):I first heard Tomorrow Never Knows at age 12 in 1974, when my uncle had given me Rubber Soul and Revolver to add to my burgeoning private record collection. When the Beatles hit America, I was 2 years old, had young hip parents who always had pop radio on, and even then had absconded with my grandmother’s 5 transistor (proudly displayed) “pocket” radio. It became mine, and even television didn’t supplant the importance of the music I was listening to on the radio.When my uncle gave me Revolver, I had already possessed the White Album (my dad bought it in 1968 when I was 6, and strangely enough, bought John and Yoko’s Two Virgins LP, as an investment I suppose), Abbey Road, and the 1962-1966, 1967-1970 compilations. But, I had never heard anything like Tomorrow Never Knows, and was endlessly fascinated by the music and then the lyrics which were imploring me to listen to the colors of my dreams. Huh?Four years later, 1978, age 16, I began a decade long spiritual quest beginning with a query into Christianity I was familiar with through cultural osmosis, compared to the ideas expressed in Tomorrow Never Knows.For ten years I searched for someone I could trust to give me a psychedelic. My first of four magic mushroom trips started on my 26th birthday. I was intellectually primed for an experience having read books from the Electric Koolaid Acid Test to the Tao of Physics and The Cosmic Code. Digesting what I had just experienced, it was my great fortune to discover on PBS special featuring Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers in “The Power of Myth,” and through him, the psychology of Carl Jung. (Freud had turned me off in college and I hadn’t yet given Jung a chance, silly me.) The rest, as they say, is history.I’ve been most focused over the years on what now can be called psychedelia. (I had aspired to be like the professor of applied narcotics in the hilarious Rutles movie All You Need Is Cash. “Listen, lookit, very simply…”) In particular, I’m most interested in the years of 1966-1968._______________________________________________________From the outset, one cannot understand, naturally, psychedelia without knowing something about psychedelics in general. A new book, as of this writing, is Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind.I have long been in the habit of reading the bibliography and index of books, and sometimes notes and references, before even opening up to read the first page. I find it’s a good habit, and Pollan’s bibliography doesn’t disappoint. It alone is worth the price of admission.He divides the history of psychedelics into two periods: the first ending with the prohibition and disfavor of psychedelics (and hippies in general) in the backlash during the 70s. The second period is the resurgence of psychedelic research, almost all underground initially, that started a few years later.I am intimately familiar with the texts of the first period, and almost completely ignorant of the second, despite having joined MAPS in the early 80s. (I remember in the early 70s finding a urine soaked box of sugar cubes in our apartment parking lot with the adults present saying it was a dreaded drug. Scary. I had no idea then, but know know, that LSD laced sugar cubes are not yellow, usually.)Pollan comes to psychedelics from a traditional journalistic/scientific worldview: “My default perspective is that of a philosophical materialist who believes that matter is the fundamental substance of the world and the physical laws should be able to explain everything that happens.” (pg.12)A mystic or proselytizer (think Timothy Leary) he is not, and it is his generally skeptical approach which should help elucidate the subject for those with an “objective” worldview on the subject of psychedelics. For example, by someone considering only scientifically measurable phenomenon worthy for study or exploration.A most excellent introduction to psychedelia as a whole.John Lennon, 1968: “If this scene is (around) in 2012 . . . the masses will be where I am today and I should be as groovy as Jesus by then.” (pg. 1) When I read this quote on the first chapter of The Gospel According to the Beatles, I thought to myself, oh this should be good.Having already scanned the sources at the back of the book, I knew that the author, music journalist Steve Turner, had many interviews he personally had about religion with the major characters involved, including John Lennon in 1969 and a whole host of people who were there.Add in a deft analysis from a Christian author, as he defines himself, and you get an insight into the Beatles particular brand of spirituality as it developed through the years. He writes: “In what follows I won’t be endorsing everything they said. I will simply be arguing that they had things to say and that these things were taken seriously at the time by a large proportion of young people, many of whom are still affected by those views.” (pg. 11) Indeed.And yet, Turner only mentions Tomorrow Never Knows specifically and in passing only 3 times. For me, this leaves much to be desired. Read on:Next comes Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald. One of those most cited books in the Beatles canon, and for good reason. (The first edition came out in 1994.) A book that analyses each song, and also has a very good introduction (an essay really) which begins with a quote by Aaron Copland: “If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of the Beatles.” (pg.1)In his essay, MacDonald, a British music critic, places the Beatles’ spirituality (expressed via their songs) in a broader sociological context. He writes in 1997, “the destabilizing social and psychological evolution witnessed since the Sixties stems chiefly from the success of affluence and technology in realizing the desires of ordinary people. The countercultural elements usually blamed for this were in fact resisting an endemic process of disintegration with its roots in scientific materialism.” (pg. 36) And, “The Sixties seem like a golden age to us because, relative to now, they were.”On the plus side, for my purposes, MacDonald devotes 8 pages to the Tomorrow Never Knows track. In it, he discusses the recording process (in much less detail than Mark Lewisohn’s book) and also a bit of musicology (but less than Allan F. Moore, see below). His best observation is, “... yet it is easy, thirty years later, to underestimate its original cultural impact.” (pg. 191) Indeed yes.But MacDonald has an exceedingly dim view of psychedelic drug use, calling it “Russian roulette played with one’s mind” (pg.186) To each their own opinion, I say. In support of his argument, he cites several times that his source of the effects of LSD on Lennon’s life is Albert Grossman’s biography of John. (I decline to comment here.)Such opinions are why I started this review with Michael Pollan’s book. The truth of the matter is much more nuanced than MacDonald or Grossman’s account.It’s true that there were so-called “acid-casualties” like Syd Barrett and Peter Green, they being two famous examples. Both, however, suffered from schizophrenia, which can be triggered by psychedelic use. Says David Gilmour (from Wikipedia): “In my opinion, (Syd’s) nervous breakdown would have happened anyway. It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."Clearly, we will have to go somewhere else to get perhaps a more balanced view:In the introduction to his wonderfully titled (in my opinion, anyway) book Tomorrow Never Knows, a professor of history, English, and American Literature, Nick Bromell, states: “This book isn’t conventional history or cultural studies or popular culture analysis or musicology or memoir, but a hybrid of all of these.” (pg. 6) Now we’re talking! A short but packed book, I wish I could have read it long ago. Impossible to describe in fewer words than the text itself, so I shan’t even try.After noting (and agreeing) that many critics regard Tomorrow Never Knows as the most important rock song of the decade, Bromell takes that as just the starting point in his discussion. I myself have had over the years a rotating list of favorite Beatle songs (Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life, I am the Walrus, Dear Prudence) but Tomorrow Never Knows was the most influential in my life.Bromwell writes: “Yet we must also remember that to the millions of young persons who, innocent of Leary and LSD, eagerly unwrapped the new Beatles album and sat back to see where it would take them, Tomorrow Never Knows was an enigma they would understand only gradually, through many listening and over many months.” Or years, in my case. “They heard it first and foremost as a place to dwell, not as an answer or a deliverance.” (pg. 93)Need I say more? A most excellent read and a wonderful book to create more avenues for exploration. (For example, he references Heidegger in his explanation of the song’s significance. I did not know that. Off to Wikipedia I go…)As mentioned in his introduction, Bromell includes the discipline of musicology in his analysis. For those who are very interested in this topic, I recommend two books by musicologist Allan F. Moore.Rock: The Primary Text is a great introduction to a serious analysis of rock music. Although there were exceptions (like Twilight of the Gods by Wilfred Mellers), there was precious little analysis of rock music in academia for a long time. Presumably, many scholars didn’t think there was much to this simple rhythmic (at least at the beginning) music of the unwashed masses, made up of people like me. Such attitudes are hopefully not as strong these days.Moore stresses the sounds of rock music. He writes in his introduction, “We can, however, evolve an understanding of what ‘rock’ is, in musical terms, by treating it as structured by multiple-evolving but coherent set of rules and practices.” (pg. 7) If this sounds at all interesting, this book is for you.Moore also wrote The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which begins, quite rightly, with Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane (the finest single ever made, so says I) and then onto Sgt. Pepper proper. A bit denser than than the book above, but much shorter, I personally understood only some of it. (I did take music theory in college, but the class didn’t speak to me. The academy didn’t seem to care about the music I was interested in.)_______________________________________________________________“Trust your divinity, trust your brain, trust your companions. Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.” - The Psychedelic Experience (pg. 6) by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, University Books, 1964In one of those rare moments of synchronicity (aka meaningful coincidences), as I was writing this review I learned that Ralph Metzner had recently died, and, further, that I unknowingly was a neighbor of his for the past 20 years, in a small hamlet called Sonoma, California, in wine country. Small world, huh?Best Wishes for his family. - March 2019

I've enjoyed several if Michael Pollan's other books and I was intrigued after watching his Google talk on this one. I have never used psychadelics and knew very little about them, other than various stereotypes from TV and film, anecdotal reports from friends, and horror stories from health class. In his talk he touched on a few points that really stuck with me, such as the promising research into psychadelics treating a variety of mental disorders, and the history and influence of them in high tech. I'm so glad I decided to pick this book up because I absolutely loved it. It's one of my favorite books I've read, and my favorite from Michael Pollan. Other longer reviews likely delve into what content to expect so I'll outline what stuck out to me as especially interesting and enjoyable.- Michael Pollan's writing is a joy to read. I highlighted a hefty portion of this book, and many of those were little phrases and descriptions which perfectly captured what he was trying to describe or captured the essence of someone's character. - Speaking of characters, Michael Pollan crossed paths with a host of eccentric characters, and his descriptions of them were a delight to read. Many were "out there" by most standards but he documented their ideas, theories, and life choices fairly and without judgement. - On that note, this book deals with a tricky subject matter, and handles it quite well. Much of what he's documenting is at least for now outside the realm of science, and he does an excellent job describing what science is there now, where the research is headed, and what experiences and ideas we may just never be able to explain with the tools of science. The subject matter is also, of course, illegal, and many readers with certain backgrounds or in a certain age bracket will come to this book with prejudices, thinking they understand psychadelics as a negative force on society which derails lives and drives young minds to mental disorder. I would strongly encourage anyone with a negative view of psychadelics to give this book a try. Michael Pollan's narrative on these drugs is largely positive (assuming the right setting and context), but I think he also gives a fair voice to their potential risks and detractors. - This book changed how I think about my own mind, and while I'm not about to rush out and buy a bunch of LSD I have been very reflective of how my mind works, what this experience of conciousness even is, and most importantly how my ego / sense of self doesn't have to be my entire identity and what the benefits of letting go of that a bit could be. I've struggled my whole life with anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking, and thought spirals. The descriptions of getting stuck in certain modes of thinking and becoming destructively inward focused felt dead on. That something as simple as a mushroom or meditation can shake the brain up and help someone escape from deeply ingrained patterns of thinking is fascinating and potentially extremely important. I feel like I can now step back a bit and identify some of these destructive patterns in my own thinking where my ego runs wild, and on the other end of the spectrum can reflect back on sublime "mystical" feeling experiences I've had, and how small but connected I felt to things (like MP I feel uncomfortable using like "mystical" and "spiritual" but that's the language I have to work with). - The stories in this book are great and often very funny. Because each section, even the more science heavy ones, are presented as well told stories, the book is very engaging and information easy to take in.This review may come across as disjointed but that's because I'm still sorting out all of the interesting information and insights I gained. Definitely give this one a read if you're feeling open minded.

Uno de los mejores libros que he leído y con mucho aprendizaje sobre la psicodelia y la historia de los pioneros de la terapia con psicodelicos

Gostei! Muito. Importante para se manter devidamente informado sobre avanços do conhecimento e as batalhas travadas

We are fans of Michael Pollan, having enjoyed the classic Botany of Desire and his Omnivore’s Dilemma .. “ Don’t eat anything with more than 5 ingredients, Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food, Don’t eat anything with ingredients you can’t pronounce… In any case I’ll get off my sattvic soap box and recommend this wonderful read…. Even though I personally am too sensitive to enjoy psychoadelics, I do appreciate a fair and open minded treatment of 5he subject.

One of the most important and best books I have read in recent memory. A beautiful intertwining of personal experiences, research and interviews culminates in a trip that leaves no stone unturned. Pollan explains a topic as seemingly complicated as the human mind in clear easy to follow yet well thought out terms. An amazing read that left me in “awe.”

Cet ouvrage met à mal beaucoup d’idées reçues sur les drogues psychédéliques et ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur la façon dont nous devrions aborder la mort, la folie, et les addictions.