26 Jul 2018 - Graham
previously: on tidying with mari kondo
Michael Pollan changed my life. Sophomore year of college, Will S. recommended that I check out his In Defense of Food. This book convinced me that food was one of the most interesting and pressing issues of our time. Shortly after finishing it, I noticed Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma on Chad Lavin’s desk and he let me write a paper about food that turned into a thesis, a job, and a better reason to go to law school. Since then I’ve mostly hung out with people who are deeply influenced by, but also very critical of, Pollan.
With this newest book, I was surprised to find how much I’ve caught up with Pollan. We are both a bit worn out on food; we had both our minds blown reading William James; and we both decided to try hallucinogens.
In How to Change Your Mind, Pollan, the master storyteller, tries to revive a history of legitimate psychedelic research. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that history to be particularly interesting and his personality-driven blow-by-blow got a bit tedious.
For example, Pollan wants to de-center Timothy Leary. But he can’t help himself from constantly teasing the reader with allusions to the Leary-led debauchery at Harvard that probably put an end to legal research on psychedelics. When he finally deals with Leary squarely, near the end of the history, Pollan simply reconfirms the mainstream view: that Leary both is and is not responsible. I wish he’d just dealt with Leary early on and gotten it out of the way; instead it haunts the book and ends in anti-climax.
By emphasizing this “forgotten” history of therapeutic research, Pollan joins the effort to move psychedelics from the category of “hard drug” to “useful medicine.” As in his books on food, he elevates traditional knowledge and the early findings of divergent research, while remaining skeptical of mainstream science which he paints as a toxic combination of epistemological hubris, corporate corruption, and inefficient bureaucracy.
Pollan seems to genuinely believe that the only safe and responsible way to use these powerful substances is with a trained guide who can provide a safe space and cultural container to productively channel the experience. All 6 of his own trips are firmly in the therapy mold.
Few doubt that “set and setting” determine the quality of psychedelic experiences, but Pollan’s decision to focus on elite use makes his history incomplete. His story of PhDs, eccentric government insiders, movie stars, and the future-wealthy of silicon valley seems calculated to assuage both his own concerns about the safety of these drugs and the concerns of our nation’s worried parents and policy-makers. But this frame leaves out the story of how most people have encountered and been changed by these drugs.
My own trips (thus far) have been unguided and almost entirely recreational. When I gave up drinking last year, I figured tripping very very occasionally would be considerably less dangerous than regular drinking. And I didn’t want to be 100% sober and in control all the time. (This theory of moderation in sobriety turns out to have been anticipated in 405 BCE by Eurpidies’ Bacchae, which pointed out the dangers of too much self-control.)
And I, like Pollan, found a useful description of the effects of psychedelics in William James’ 1902 Varieties of Religious Experience, which analyzes the transcendental experiences of Christian mystics. Pollan repeatedly cites James’ idea of the noetic - the unparalleled TRUTH and IMPORTANCE of insights found during transcendental experiences. To the brain high on god or drugs a cliche like “all is love” suddenly becomes the answer to vexing questions about the nature of the universe. As a result of these epiphanies, users of psychedelics (like religious mystics and readers of Mari Kondo) tend to get a bit evangelical.
But my favorite part of James, which Pollan does not directly cite, is his theory of how these transcendental experiences can help us become better people, or rather, the people we want to be. James notices that it is tremendously difficult to choose to be better because our current, flawed self resides in our choosing brain. The people he writes about, notably Leo Tolstoy, become saints only after undergoing a profound spiritual crisis that finally drives them to give up control entirely to god. James hypothesizes that during the active struggle with existential evil a better self incubates in our un-choosing brain, and a higher self can emerge only when we give up.
I haven’t taken a high enough dose to have the kind of ego-dissolving experience that James and Pollan write about as a precondition for change. But psychedelics have improved my mental health.
After a serious concussion in 2015, I found myself unusually anxious and depressed. The concussion shattered my privilege-produced sense of invincibility and damaged my brain wiring. For two years, I gritted my teeth and semi-successfully tried to push through. Then, last spring, I shared a very small dose of mushrooms in Rock Creek Park with a good friend. The trip itself was wonderful, although it was so mild that we weren’t sure we were tripping until we realized that we’d devoured a pound each of generic-grocery-store-brand trail-mix and thought it was the most delicious thing ever. But the happier change came in the months after, when I found myself at a higher plateau of happiness.
Pollan finds a similar un-stuck-ness on his own trips. His travelogues describing these experiences are the second best part of the book, but they too are marred by repetition. I suspect that Pollan hadn’t quite figured out what his point was, or perhaps was too afraid to make it, and so ended up circling around it. Maybe something about tripping made it difficult for Pollan to reach his usual level of insight or maybe it was just bad editing. It could even be that his writing style is the same (the repetition might even make the writing more accessible) and I’ve just gotten much more critical since sophomore year of college.
The most useful and interesting part of the book summarizes the early findings from new research and the deeply moving experiences of the study participants. But almost all of that can be found in his relatively short 2015 New Yorker article. You should read that article, you should definitely read the William James directly, and you could probably enjoy a podcast of Pollan telling a part of the history, but to save you from reading this whole book, here’s my take-aways:
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (spotify)
To Terrapin (spotify)
Recommendations thanks to Brennan D. for the Sturgill Simpson and Josh K. for the Grateful Dead.
Thanks for reading this far. Hopefully the next updates will be more frequent and shorter. As always, I look forward most eagerly to your reactions.
love, Graham
next post: the not-so simple tomato