The author and journalist Michael Pollan has become renowned for writing on the subject of food and agriculture.
When he published a book on psychedelics, this was considered a huge deviation in his interests, despite he was in a sense still writing about what we consume: the plants and mushrooms that alter our consciousness.
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018), became a No. 1 New York Times best-seller.
Pollan has been, is, and will continue to be an important figure in changing the conversation surrounding psychedelics, helping to increase acceptance of them as a legitimate therapeutic option.
The fertile period of psychedelic research in the past decade, these compounds still carry a lot of cultural baggage.
This began in the 1960s when the recreational use of psychedelics (mainly LSD) exploded. Their use was wrapped up with the hippie scene, the New Left, and the anti-war movement.
How to Change Your Mind includes up-to-date scientific research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics and honest accounts of his experiences, some of which were deeply meaningful and transformative.
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