By Michael Pollan
Psychedelics transform science and consciousness
Subject
Themes
Two molecules, LSD and psilocybin, arrive in the Western world in the mid-twentieth century and set off a cascade of consequences that would reshape science, culture, and the understanding of human consciousness. LSD is accidentally synthesised by Albert Hofmann in 1938 at the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Sandoz; psilocybin has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples of Mexico in sacred mushroom ceremonies overseen by curanderas like Maria Sabina. When R. Gordon Wasson, a banker and amateur mycologist, participates in one of these ceremonies in 1955 and publishes his account in Life magazine, the Western public encounters a new form of consciousness for the first time.
Two molecules, LSD and psilocybin, arrive in the Western world in the mid-twentieth century and set off a cascade of consequences that would reshape science, culture, and the understanding of human consciousness. LSD is accidentally synthesised by Albert Hofmann in 1938 at the Swiss pharmaceutical…
Published in 2018, the work arrives at a moment of significant cultural and scientific transition in attitudes toward psychedelic substances. Since the mid-1960s, psychedelics had been classified as Schedule I drugs in the United States, a designation reserved for substances deemed to have high…
The discovery of the default mode network (DMN) provides a biological foundation for understanding both ordinary consciousness and the profound alterations produced by psychedelic compounds. First identified by Washington University neuroscientist Marcus Raichle in 2001, the DMN is a set of…
Perhaps the most important insight to emerge from both the history and the science of psychedelics is the extraordinary degree to which the psychedelic experience is shaped by factors external to the drug itself. "Set" refers to the mind-set, expectations, and emotional state that a person brings to…
A striking finding runs through the modern clinical trials of psychedelics: across every therapeutic application tested so far, the depth of the mystical experience, as measured by the Mystical Experience Questionnaire, is the single most reliable predictor of lasting therapeutic benefit. Cancer…
The history of psychedelic research is inseparable from the politics of consciousness. Twice in the span of seventy years, the same class of compounds has been embraced and then rejected by Western culture, and in both cases the turning points were driven less by scientific evidence than by…
William James, writing in The Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902, proposed that "our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of…
In 2006, Roland Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University, publishes a paper in the journal Psychopharmacology with a title that raises eyebrows across the scientific establishment: "Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal…
Paul Stamets, the world's foremost mycologist, serves as a guide to the natural history of psilocybin mushrooms. An eccentric evangelist for the fungal kingdom who wears a hat made of amadou (a mushroom fibre), Stamets recounts how a high-dose psilocybin experience in his youth cured his severe,…
Timothy Leary, facing a thirty-year sentence for a marijuana charge in 1966, meets Marshall McLuhan over lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York. The media guru offers the LSD guru a piece of advice that will shape the public image of psychedelics for decades: "Whenever you are photographed, smile.…
Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist posted to the bleak Saskatchewan Mental Hospital in the early 1950s, decides to try LSD himself. The experience convinces him that the drug bears no resemblance to psychosis; instead, it feels like a journey of profound self-discovery. Working with his…
Timothy Leary arrives late to psychedelics. By the time he launches the Harvard Psilocybin Project in 1960, a full decade of productive research has already been conducted across North America, with hundreds of academic papers and several international conferences to show for it. But Leary seldom…
Three psychedelic journeys, each guided by an underground therapist, form a personal travelogue through altered states of consciousness. The first trip uses LSD, administered by a guide called Fritz in a house perched on a mountainside. Fritz has prepared the setting with meticulous care: beautiful…
All three psychedelic molecules encountered in the travelogue, psilocin, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT, belong to the tryptamine family and bear a striking structural resemblance to serotonin, the neurotransmitter that plays a central role in mood, cognition, and perception. Psychedelics work primarily by…
The therapeutic promise of psychedelics unfolds across three domains: dying, addiction, and depression. At Johns Hopkins and New York University, researchers administer psilocybin to cancer patients struggling with existential distress, the crushing anxiety and depression that often accompany a…
By Michael Pollan
Subject
Themes
Two molecules, LSD and psilocybin, arrive in the Western world in the mid-twentieth century and set off a cascade of consequences that would reshape science, culture, and the understanding of human consciousness. LSD is accidentally synthesised by Albert Hofmann in 1938 at the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Sandoz; psilocybin has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples of Mexico in sacred mushroom ceremonies overseen by curanderas like Maria Sabina. When R. Gordon Wasson, a banker and amateur mycologist, participates in one of these ceremonies in 1955 and publishes his account in Life magazine, the Western public encounters a new form of consciousness for the first time.