How to Change Your Mind

by Michael Pollan

  “convinced that [Al Hubbard] was the man”: Ibid.

  Osmond abandoned the psychotomimetic model: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 54.

  Hubbard was the first researcher to grasp: Dyck, Psychedelic Psychiatry, 93.

  “He said, ‘Now hate them’”: R.C., “B.C.’s Acid Flashback.”

  “We waited for him like the little old lady”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 51.

  impressive rates of success: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 175.

  “The CIA work stinks”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 52.

  “I tried to tell them how to use it”: Ibid.

  “What came through the closed door”: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 56.

  “What Babes in the Woods”: Ibid., 54.

  “who, having once come to the realization”: Ibid., 57.

  Commission for the Study of Creative Imagination: Eisner, “Remembrances of LSD Therapy Past,” 10.

  “Explorers have not always been the most scientific”: Ibid., 57.

  “My regard for science”: Dyck, Psychedelic Psychiatry, 97–98.

  Steve Jobs often told people: Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, xix.

  “He’d be a broader guy”: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, 172–73.

  “That was a remarkable opening”: Goldsmith, “Conversation with George Greer and Myron Stolaroff.”

  “After that first LSD experience”: Fahey, “Original Captain Trips.”

  “The greatest thing in the world”: Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, 58.

  Seventy-eight percent of clients: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 178.

  “We were amazed”: Fadiman, Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide, 185.

  “Our investigations of some of the current social movements”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 198.

  “to provide the [LSD] experience”: Fahey, “Original Captain Trips.”

  “Al never did anything resembling security work”: Ibid.

  his first shattering experience: Leary, Flashbacks, 29–33.

  “In four hours by the swimming pool”: Ibid., 33.

  Listen! Wake up! You are God!: Leary, High Priest, 285.

  Experimental Expansion of Consciousness: This course description is in the New York Public Library’s collection of Leary’s papers. http://archives.nypl.org/mss/18400#detailed.

  “We were on our own”: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 135.

  Leary reported eye-popping results: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 75.

  Rick Doblin at MAPS meticulously reconstructed: Doblin, “Dr. Leary’s Concord Prison Experiment.”

  “it was the sort of research”: Cohen, Beyond Within, 224.

  “If we learned one thing”: Lattin, Harvard Psychedelic Club, 74.

  “We were thinking far-out history thoughts”: Leary et al., Neuropolitics, 3.

  “We’re going to teach people”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 77.

  “Psychedelic drugs opened to mass tourism”: Grinspoon and Bakalar, Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, 86.

  A 1961 memo from David McClelland: “Some Social Reactions to the Psilocybin Research Project,” Oct. 8, 1961.

  “analyz[e] your data objectively”: Memo from McClelland to Metzner, Dec. 19, 1962.

  “I wish I could treat this”: Lattin, Harvard Psychedelic Club, 89.

  The next day’s Crimson: Robert Ellis Smith, “Psychologists Disagree on Psilocybin Research.”

  “Hallucination Drug Fought at Harvard”: Lattin, Harvard Psychedelic Club, 91.

  “Psychedelic drugs cause panic”: Grinspoon and Bakalar, Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, 66.

  “these materials are too powerful”: Leary and Alpert, “Letter from Alpert, Leary.”

  “For the first time in American history”: Ibid.

  “We’re through playing the science game”: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 189.

  “had talked such nonsense”: Ibid., 190.

  “powerful chemicals [as] harmless toys”: Eisner, “Remembrances of LSD Therapy Past,” 145.

  Osmond tried once again to coin a new one: Dyck, Psychedelic Psychiatry, 132.

  “You must face these objections”: Ibid., 108.

  “wreak havoc on all of us”: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 191.

  Leary was happy to state it: Leary, High Priest, 132.

  “He blew in with that uniform”: Fahey, “Original Captain Trips.”

  “I liked Tim when we first met”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 88.

  “Al got greatly preoccupied”: Fahey, “Original Captain Trips.”

  “I suppose there is little hope”: Stevens, Storming Heaven, 191.

  “using hallucinogens for seductions”: Weil, “Strange Case of the Harvard Drug Scandal.”

  “Yes, sir, I did”: Lattin, Harvard Psychedelic Club, 94.

  Alpert and Leary appear to be: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams.

  “an undergraduate group”: Weil, “Strange Case of the Harvard Drug Scandal.”

  “given to him” by Marshall McLuhan: Strauss, Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, location 352.

  “The kids who take LSD”: This quotation appears in a video made by Retro Report, available here: https://www.retroreport.org/video/the-long-strange-trip-of-lsd/.

  With Ken Kesey, the CIA had turned on: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 124.

  “by blurring the boundaries”: Grob, “Psychiatric Research with Hallucinogens.”

  “the drugs to themselves”: Grinker, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.”

  “rendering their conclusions biased”: Grinker, “Bootlegged Ecstasy.”

  “aura of magic”: Cole and Katz, “Psychotomimetic Drugs,” 758.

  “the transcendental into psychiatry”: Eisner, “Remembrances of LSD Therapy Past,” 112.

  But when the study was later discredited: Presti and Beck, “Strychnine and Other Enduring Myths,” 130–31.

  For his first study: Cohen, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.”

  “the dangers of suicide”: Cohen and Ditman, “Complications Associated with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25),” 162.

  In another paper published: Cohen and Ditman, “Prolonged Adverse Reactions to Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.”

  A fourth article: Cohen, “Classification of LSD Complications.”

  feverish cover story: Moore and Schiller, “Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug That Got out of Control.”

  “LSD has been your Frankenstein”: Novak, “LSD Before Leary,” 109.

  “Why if [these projects] were worthwhile”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, 93.

  “four men lay, their minds literally expanding”: Fadiman, Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide, 186.

  Someone made a videotape of the event: And it’s available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjylxvQqm0U.

  he’s traveled from Casa Grande: Fahey, “Original Captain Trips.”

  CHAPTER FOUR TRAVELOGUE: JOURNEYING UNDERGROUND

  there are three things human beings are afraid of: Quoted in Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker, 119.

  three thousand patients and trained 150 guides: Stolaroff, Secret Chief Revealed, 28, 59.

  “laid the Torah across my chest”: Ibid., 36.

  “Many times I’d be in much agony”: Ibid., 61.

  “Just leave ’em alone!”: Ibid., 50.

  surveying their musical practices: Barrett et al., “Qualitative and Quantitative Features of Music Reported to Support Peak Mystical Experiences During Psychedelic Therapy Sessions.”

  “forms of consciousness entirely different”: James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 377.

  “For the moment that interfering neurotic”: Huxley, Doors of Perception, 53.

  “the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large”: Ibid., 24.

  “of being overwhelmed, of disintegra
ting”: Ibid., 55.

  “If one always saw like this”: Ibid., 34–35.

  “Standing on the bare ground”: Emerson, Nature, 13.

  “Swiftly arose and spread around me”: Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 29.

  “All at once, as it were out of the intensity”: Tennysons, “Luminous Sleep.”

  “I saw that the universe”: Quoted in James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 391.

  CHAPTER FIVE NEUROSCIENCE: YOUR BRAIN ON PSYCHEDELICS

  One candidate for that chemical: For more detail, see David Nichols’s talk “DMT and the Pineal Gland: Facts vs. Fantasy,” available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeeqHUiC8Io.

  psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin work: Vollenweider et al., “Psilocybin Induces Schizophrenia-Like Psychosis in Humans via a Serotonin-2 Agonist Action.”

  “there is nothing of which we are more certain”: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 12.

  The classic thought experiment: Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”

  consciousness may pervade the universe: Frank, “Minding Matter.”

  a landmark paper: Raichle et al., “Default Mode of Brain Function.”

  “Chaos is averted”: Raichle, “Brain’s Dark Energy.”

  It also lights up when we receive “likes”: Brewer, Craving Mind, 46.

  In an often-cited paper: Killingsworth and Gilbert, “Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.”

  Shortly after Carhart-Harris published: Carhart-Harris et al., “Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State as Determined by fMRI Studies with Psilocybin.”

  The bee perceives a substantially different spectrum: Srinivasan, “Honey Bees as a Model for Vision, Perception, and Cognition”; Dyer et al., “Seeing in Colour.”

  the sense that allows bees to register: Sutton et al., “Mechanosensory Hairs in Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Detect Weak Electric Fields.”

  a dimension of music that conveys emotion: Kaelen, “Psychological and Human Brain Effects of Music in Combination with Psychedelic Drugs.”

  “serves to promote realism”: Carhart-Harris et al., “Entropic Brain.”

  “Distinct networks became less distinct”: Carhart-Harris, Kaelen, and Nutt, “How Do Hallucinogens Work on the Brain?”

  the usual lines of communications: Petri et al., “Homological Scaffolds of Brain Functional Networks.”

  her superb book: Gopnik, Philosophical Baby.

  “Adults have congealed in their beliefs”: Lucas et al., “When Children Are Better (or at Least More Open-Minded) Learners Than Adults.”

  CHAPTER SIX THE TRIP TREATMENT: PSYCHEDELICS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

  “For me that is not a medical concept”: Kupferschmidt, “High Hopes,” 23.

  “If we are to develop optimal research designs”: Grob, “Psychiatric Research with Hallucinogens.”

  only about half of the people who take their lives: Beacon Health Options, “We Need to Talk About Suicide,” 10.

  “psychiatry has gone from being brainless”: Solomon, Noonday Demon, 102.

  “alter[] the experience of dying”: Cohen, “LSD and the Anguish of Dying.”

  “of cosmic unity”: Richards et al., “LSD-Assisted Psychotherapy and the Human Encounter with Death.”

  “I am the luckiest man on earth”: Grob, Bossis, and Griffiths, “Use of the Classic Hallucinogen Psilocybin for Treatment of Existential Distress Associated with Cancer,” 303.

  In December 2016, a front-page story: Hoffman, “Dose of a Hallucinogen from a ‘Magic Mushroom,’ and Then Lasting Peace.”

  In a follow-up study to the NYU trial: Belser et al., “Patient Experiences of Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.”

  “is to make your interests gradually wider”: Bertrand Russell, “How to Grow Old.”

  “And suddenly I realized that the molecules”: Hertzberg, “Moon Shots (3 of 3).”

  80 percent of the volunteers were confirmed as abstinent: Johnson et al., “Pilot Study of the 5-HT2AR Agonist Psilocybin in the Treatment of Tobacco Addiction.”

  This suggests that the ability: Personal communication with the neuroscientist Draulio Araujo.

  The record was a complete muddle: Krebs and Johansen, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) for Alcoholism.”

  “Given the evidence for a beneficial effect”: Ibid.

  a 2015 pilot study: Bogenschutz et al., “Psilocybin-Assisted Treatment for Alcohol Dependence.”

  volunteers spent a minute looking: Piff et al., “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior.”

  the after-awe self-portraits: Bai et al., “Awe, the Diminished Self, and Collective Engagement.”

  researchers gave psilocybin to six men: Carhart-Harris et al., “Psilocybin with Psychological Support for Treatment-Resistant Depression.”

  Watts’s interviews uncovered two “master” themes: Watts et al., “Patients’ Accounts of Increased ‘Connectedness’ and ‘Acceptance’ After Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression.”

  “It was like a holiday”: Ibid.

  “The sheen and shine that life and existence”: For Rouiller’s full account, see http://inandthrough.blogspot.com/2016/08/psilocybin-trial-diary-one-year-on.html.

  obsessive-compulsive disorder: Moreno et al., “Safety, Tolerability, and Efficacy of Psilocybin in 9 Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.”

  “Depression is a response to past loss”: Solomon, Noonday Demon, 65.

  “What started as a pleasure becomes a need”: Kessler, Capture, 8–9.

  psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity: Vollenweider and Kometer, “Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs.”

  In a college commencement address: Reproduced, in part, at Brain Pickings: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/12/this-is-water-david-foster-wallace/.

  “how we relate to our thoughts and feelings”: Brewer, Craving Mind, 115.

  EPILOGUE IN PRAISE OF NEURAL DIVERSITY

  “We are not the counterculture”: Schwartz, “Molly at the Marriott.”

  mentioned the plenary panel: A video of the talk is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oZ_v3QFQDE.

  a videotaped interview with Ram Dass: Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhlTrDIOcrQ&feature=share.

  Bibliography

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  Barrett, Frederick S., Hollis Robbins, David Smooke, Jenine L. Brown, and Roland R. Griffiths. “Qualitative and Quantitative Features of Music Reported to Support Peak Mystical Experiences During Psychedelic Therapy Sessions.” Frontiers in Physiology 8 (July 2017): 1–12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01238.

  Beacon Health Options. “We Need to Talk About Suicide.” 2017.

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  Bogenschutz, Michael P., Alyssa A. Forcehimes, Jessica A. Pommy, Claire E. Wilcox, P. C. R. Barbosa, and Rick J. Strassman. “Psilocybin-Assisted Treatment for Alcohol Dependence: A Proof-of-Concept Study.” Journal of Psychopharmacology 29, no. 3 (2015): 289–99. doi:10.1177/0269881114565144.

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  ———. “A Classification of LSD Complications.” Psychosomatics 7, no. 3 (1966): 182–86.

  ———. “LSD and the Anguish of Dying.” Harper’s Magazine, Sept. 1965, 69–78.

  ———. “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: Side Effects and Complications.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 130, no. 1 (1960): 30–40.

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