This week…. a encore of a 2018 conversation with Michael Pollan. When it was originally recorded in 2018, the idea of using psychedelics for therapeutic intervention was new to many people. Today, just a few years later, treating mental health disorders like depression and PTSD with drugs like psilocybin, LSD or MDMA, better known as a component in Ecstasy, is much more familiar. Some might say it’s rapidly gaining public acceptance.
Michael Pollan has written numerous books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect - on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, are all meticulously researched and wonderfully engaging to read. With “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence” -- Pollan takes a deep dive into the historical record and current research on psychedelics, as well as his own personal journey. On May twenty-first, 2018, Michael Pollan came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to talk about the science of psychedelics with Dacher Keltner.