What if Psychedelics Could Heal?
Friday, May 31, 2019 22:28
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Review 92nd Street Y Event
So, Wednesday night my husband and I braved torrential thunderstorms, trekking into NYC to hear Michael Pollan speak at the 92nd Street Y. It was an event we heard about several months ago and, since we had the $$ at the time we jumped on tickets, despite the event being billed as a “Conversation with Hamilton Morris.”
As I’ve said before, Michael Pollan has been one of my intellectual heroes– not quite on par with Tolkien and Gaiman– but certainly up there with Graham Hancock and Dennis McKenna. As I was knee-deep in his latest book How to Change your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, we snagged tickets. I thought it would round out a nice triptych; hubby and I saw Dennis McKenna at a half-day seminar at COSM (the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors), hosted by psychonauts Alex and Allyson Grey back in the winter of 2015, and then in the fall of 2016 we got to see Graham Hancock in conversation with Anthony West in Middle Collegiate Church. And, I’m not sorry we went last night despite the horrid commute, despite the chaos that is Manhattan during rush hour at Penn Station, despite Hamilton effing Morris sitting there all pouty, privileged, and supercilious. It was fitting; when we saw McKenna, we braved an ice-storm and fishtailed in white-out conditions on a particularly winding road in upstate New York. When we saw Hancock, I almost lost a shoe down a storm drain and the weight of the rain (not the wind) destroyed a favorite umbrella not to mention our mood, especially when the storm and the lights at night brought on a few seizures on our homeward journey, and then I spent the remainder of the year battling a nice bout of bronchitis that turned into walking pneumonia by January of 2017. In preparation for last night’s endeavour, I repaired my kraken umbrella, wore appropriate shoes, upped my vitamin C, made sure I had my cannabis to the rescue, and kept a stiff upper lip, chaos and assorted crankiness notwithstanding.
| Me and my favorite umbrella. |
When we arrived at the 92ndStreet Y, I recalled having seen Neil Gaiman there some years ago with the re-release of American Gods. Without googling it, I couldn’t recall how long ago it was, but I did remember it was another “conversation” event. Google told me it was 2011, with Lev Grossman as host, which had slipped my mind. As a contrast to the evening with Morris, check out a brief video from the 92ndStreet Y’s archives. There were a few points worth noting: Grossman took the time to introduce his guest; there was a certain flow to the conversation, punctuated by Grossman playing to one of Gaiman’s strengths, reading his own work. They weren’t there to directly sell books because everyone in the audience, as with the Pollan event, got an autographed copy, but there was a focus on Gaiman’s text as a running theme of the evening. There was an attention paid to the audience largely absent with the Pollan-Morris conversation, especially in the questions Grossman asked– questions that were complex but also reflected questions many people may have about Gaiman’s work. And, for someone who had seen Gaiman already, who had been an active reader of his blog (as well as his fiction), I learned a lot about an author I already knew quite a bit about, but I also learned about storytelling– an invaluable thing for a storyteller. But, something else. Grossman wasn’t just a moderator. He has his own writing chops as author of The Magicians Trilogy and yet, time and again, Grossman’s own expertise wasn’t a focus of the talk. He was there to host a talk with Neil Gaiman. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with Grossman as an author, but I was familiar with him as a journalist. Either way, he was cognizant of his own status within the realm of storytelling in the way he conducted the talk.
| Gaiman reading at Grossman’s request. |
This wasn’t the case with this week’s event since I came away feeling unsettled and even a bit angry. Not at the subject, but as to how it was handled by the host and by the fact that they chose Morris to be the host, the venue.
As I soggily waited on the queue in the lobby just outside the theater, there were two women in front of me, an elderly woman and a woman about my age, maybe a tad older. They were resuming a conversation from earlier and it seemed to be about whether or not programs like the one we were about to attend were at all open to “the poor.” The older woman had asked the younger if the 92ndStreet Y made certain programming accessible to people who couldn’t afford the steep prices. People like my husband and myself maybe? People worse off without those periodic windfalls that make attending events like the ones I noted above possible? I’m certain between the Pollan, Hancock, and McKenna, my husband and I easily spent one of my paychecks and it’s something we do even when we (financially) probably shouldn’t. We have very few vices, but attending talks is one of them.
The younger woman’s response seemed to set a certain tone for the evening for me. She launched into a semi-diatribe noting how poor people and anyone without “means” really couldn’t understand or benefit from the information or the experience. She made comparisons to yoga practice and how horrible her daughter has it in today’s world– especially being well-off and unable to manage money; being a rich kid in today’s world is so very hard was the message I got from this yuppified, middle-aged twit, who obviously considered herself a good liberally minded person (politically, too). She lamented how hard her daughter’s generation has it – “Today’s kids suffer so much more danger than any generation before” – to a woman who more than likely has memories of the last World War, a woman who in her golden years decided to attend a talk that promised discussion of a subject and a book that focuses on new approaches to dying, a woman who in her prime was probably taller than me but now is about the shape and size of Master Yoda. Who has it hard? I suppose we haven’t moved very far from Swift’s A Modest Proposal.
As I said, this conversation left a mark on me as I entered and looked around the auditorium to see a sea of white faces. There were few exceptions and most of the time I saw someone of color, he or she was a 92ndStreet Y employee. On top of that, I couldn’t help but doubt that many of these people attending had made much of a financial sacrifice to attend and I wondered how many of them agreed with that younger woman: that people like me and people worse off than me were somehow by Fortune determined to be useless, irrelevant, ignorant by nature. That people of lower income brackets didn’t deserve the benefits not only such a talk could bring, but didn’t deserve the benefits of psychedelics. The social injustice issue of cannabis arose in my mind and I couldn’t help but think, rightly or wrongly, this issue and this superiority complex has contributed to cannabis – and indeed psychedelics – remaining Schedule I. If they are finally reclassified, then cannabis and psychedelics, like opioids and SSRIs, would potentially be covered under health insurance. Then the poor can better afford to use these medicines. Then Big Business would potentially lose their profit margin in industries like the Cannabis Industry – and any similar industry that will pop up around psychedelics. I wondered how psychedelics could be a key to chipping away this idea, this alienation of each other and this lack of compassion, lack of empathy for those who struggle, who suffer, who endure, whatever the hardship. Myself included.
It was also a thought I keep coming back to in light of exactly who the audience of Pollan’s books is: the mainstream. By the fact that Pollan notes, both in his book and in the conversation at the Y, that he made a decision not to travel to South America to participate in psilocybin or ayahuasca ceremonies – or travel anywhere outside the U.S. to participate in any psychedelic experience precisely because it’s a means not open to most people. While there is yet another Renaissance happening with psychedelics, there are so many in the psychedelic community who are in the same scope at that 92ndStreet Y audience: privileged people of means. I don’t deny them that, but when there’s something so auspicious that it can heal not only our culture, but our society and our very species? Then it should be open to everyone. By Pollan seeking out the psychedelic underground in the US to guide his experiences, he approached the topic like any person in the mainstream could approach it. Even when answering an audience question Morris reluctantly was forced to ask (at Pollan’s prodding), Pollan joked about how he himself found avenues to pursue a psilocybin experience in the US: everyone knows a guy who knows a guy.
Perhaps this superiority concept is what made the Hamilton Morris side of the Y’s “Conversation” so cumbersome. I know next to nothing about this person, except that he’s a correspondent for VICE, has had 2 seasons of VICELAND’s Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, is a chemist and is the son of documentarian Errol Morris. After seeing one online note on his education, which listed an elite private high school, after realizing who his father is, and having Google show me a list of popular searches on Hamilton Morris which included his net worth, I realized he was in that privileged class.
My husband and I saw his Sapo Diaries when it aired on VICELAND and I’ve since noted it’s now been billed as sort of a pilot for Pharmacopeia. It was a horror show about a privileged kid who wants to trip balls in the Amazon. (When we saw it though, I don’t recall the seizure-inducing intro which I’m reeling from after finding the right link on YouTube.)
Morris is exactly what Pollan feared about the term “recreational” as in “recreational use of psychedelics.” In How to Change Your Mind, Pollan notes being taken down a peg by psychonaut Bob Jesse: “As Bob Jesse is always quick to remind me whenever I use that word, ‘recreational’ doesn’t necessarily mean frivolous, careless, or lacking in intention. Point taken” (Pollan, 228). But, when you read the companion piece to the Morris’ Sapo Diaries much less watch it, that’s exactly what Morris is doing, using substances without a care, being frivolous. I can’t say he was “lacking in intention” but maybe his intention was merely to trip balls.
When Morris decides haphazardly to include ayahuasca in his “Sapo Diaries” (Day 10), he brews aya which he drinks before deciding to “eat a Ritalin” and wander the streets of Tabatinga, Brazil, alternating between lying in the road and eating bubble-gum ice cream. Maybe he decided his pharmacologist status allowed him to mix Ritalin and ice cream with ayahuasca, but that in and of itself encapsulates his attitude as an insufferable know-it-all: as someone who thinks his privilege (and his technological knowledge) makes him superior to other cultures. I have to wonder if he became a pharmacologist to make his own ball-tripping substances himself and cut out any middle-man (or woman).
This privilege is reflected in his discussion of the tribe he stays with in the Amazon in his “Diaries”. Perhaps Morris thinks he’s on par with Herodotus, but Morris notes that he was told the “Mayoruna Indians practiced cannibalism, breast-fed monkeys, and stole white women as sex slaves” which is followed by a comment that his can of bug spray was as complicated as a “Rubix cube” with the implication that his guide was too dumb to understand how to spray it. Morris’ disgust about where he travelled in Brazil and the tribe he initially stayed with, smacking with racial overtones, gives another facet as to why he’s so dismissive of and disrespectful toward shamanic healing and earth medicine. After reading the “Diaries” I’m more than a bit angry that he was the host at the 92ndStreet Y and irritated that Pollan sat down with him, though perhaps Pollan was unaware of this tone in Morris’ Diaries.
Regardless of how many times I see certain people I admire in documentaries, hear them on podcasts or broadcasts of talks, read their work, there’s something unique about seeing them in person. I’m not a fan-girl either, so I’m not talking about just seeing them on the street. Maybe it’s the academic, but I truly revel in hearing people I admire on paper speak in person about their passion, their field, their thing. And, over the years, hubby and I have seen a lot of folks. We’ve hosted talks ourselves, being two people who have been organizing conferences and the like for nigh on 20 years now. (See what we do at The New York Tolkien Conference). I’ve sat in chairs on both sides– interviewer and interviewee.
That said: Hamilton Morris is one of the worst interviewers I’ve ever seen. Hands down. Prior to that, when Anthony and I attended Star Trek: Mission New York for the 50thAnniversary of Star Trek back in 2016, I thought the interviewer who hosted the Voyager panel was bad – but I see now maybe it was just a nerdgasm that dissuaded the host from doing a comprehensive interview, leaving the panelists to hijack the show. Last night? Morris came off as he did in the “Sapo Diaries” from 2009: elitist, condescending, disinterested.
It was a conversation of course, but it didn’t feel like the audience was part of any of it. Since I have the Gaiman conversation with Lev Grossman as a direct comparison – I can say that perhaps was the intention by the 92ndStreet Y: to have an interview that feels like a casual chat with the audience included. Sort of like Inside the Actor’s Studio, but for other artists and thinkers that aren’t on stage or screen.
There was an introduction of the evening by Sue Soloman, Associate Director of the 92nd Street Y Talks, but then Pollan and Morris walked out on stage as though they’re equals. Despite Morris’ show and his degrees and his penchant for tripping balls, he is not the equivalent of Michael Pollan, who can run rings around Morris on writing alone. I’m of the opinion that someone behind the scenes at the Y decided, “You know what would be cool? Having HAMILTON MORRIS interview MICHAEL POLLAN! It’ll be Pharma-copeia meets Omivore’s Dilemma and it will rock!” Maybe that person was Soloman herself.
They were banking on Morris as an “influencer” and I’m certain a number of the audience, were there because of him. But he wasn’t the headliner of the event and he certainly carried himself as though he was. When he sat down, Morris didn’t open the conversation with any preamble. There was no introduction of Pollan, no recognition that we were here to hear Pollan discuss his new book and his findings from that investigation into psychedelics as a tool – both medically and culturally. It was as though the two men had been in conversation back stage and just decided to sit in more comfortable chairs on stage, which we lowly mortals were granted eavesdropping rights. Morris rarely deigned to look at the audience and when he did, he made a show about how bright the lights were, shading his eyes, with an expression that said “Oh, there are people here? What a bother.” Of course his fans laughed.
Here Pollan’s skill as a speaker, a journalist, and an educator came to the fore. He spoke eloquently, with candor, and inclusivity, while Morris was exclusive. Pollan carried himself as is his wont: as a storyteller who wants to invite the audience along. For Morris, we were a burden. I lost count exactly how many times Pollan paused to ask or cajole Morris to explain a particular phrase, term, or mode of thought.
| Dennis McKenna, Alex and Allyson Grey at COSM February 2015 |
Morris reminded me of the element in academia that I, an academic and faculty member at a leading university, detest in academia: the alphabet-soup elitists that conform to the traditional ivory tower modality. It’s tired, false, and needs to be eliminated. Morris is a pharmacologist, so he’s got his alphabet-soup. But, this wasn’t the case when I heard Dennis McKenna speak. Forget about McKenna’s infamous brother Terrance and the work the two did together on psychedelics, that alone gives him a certain level of expertise. McKenna has a doctorate in botany and post-doctoral work in pharmacology and neurology. Plus as a founding member of the Heffter Research Institute? I’d say McKenna knows quite a lot more than Morris. If anyone has a right to be egotistic, McKenna’s position in the field of ethnopharmacology has earned him that. But, he wasn’t. Hearing him in documentaries like Neurons to Nirvana and hearing him speak at COSM, he discussed the complexities of the science, didn’t shy away from terminology, and was careful to unpack concepts for his audience despite that audience being an in-the-know group of assorted psychonauts, artists, seekers, and researchers. Morris disdained from doing so and often Pollan did the unpacking for those of us without that alphabet-soup, or those of us whose soup deals in different ingredients.
| Allyson and Alex Grey |
It seemed that since Morris has his influencer mode with VICE, he seemed to think he is Pollan’s equivalent – since they’re both bringing the psychedelic conversation into the mainstream. I can’t deny that Morris has done that – but he wasn’t the first and his focus is on the freedom of doing the drug (whatever that drug is) and not the benefit of the substance, be it a health, spiritual, creative, or cultural runs counter to the very notion of a psychedelic as sacrament. Both the McKennas and others like Alex and Allyson Grey are firmly in the camp of recreational use – but as Bob Jesse noted: with intention, with care, without frivolity. This is the very basis for COSM. Spirituality, personal peace, creativity, the betterment of “healthy normals” is a key concept Pollan comes to in his book and something he was very much highlighting at the talk. Set and setting are key concepts he had to come around to understanding, but they’re things he winds up believing in firmly by the end of his journey in How to Change Your Mind. They seem irrelevant to Morris who wants to have a good time, casually smoke his JWH-018 cigarettes and eat his Ritalin (both substances he mixes freely with sapo and ayahuasca as noted in his Diaries).
The 92ndStreet Y conversation touched on many topics, but often Morris disregarded the microphone and spoke directly to Pollan, leaving the audience out completely. Maybe Morris forgot the etiquette of speaking into a microphone, but I doubt it. There were so many moments where Pollan had to remind the interviewer that there was an audience that he (Morris) was leaving behind. There were moments when Pollan noted something– in the news, in his book, whereever– and Morris gave no comment or an unaudible mutter that served to diminish that aspect of the conversation. When the evening turned to audience questions, Morris seemed unwilling to touch them, often tossing them to the side, between his leg and the chair as though they were dirty tissues– and there weren’t many questions, so the 92ndStreet Y staff certainly waded through the stacks of index cards they had collected from the audience. Morris skipped over several questions without explanation, asked a question about Pollan’s “profit margin” of psychedelics, which got audience laughter– reminding me again of the earlier comment about the poor being unable to comprehend such a program by that dithering woman in the hallway.
Morris wanted to ditch the scant handful of questions as being overly “basic” when Pollan stopped him. “There’s nothing wrong with basic.”
That spoke volumes. That comment reflects all of who Michael Pollan is– most especially his background, from a middle-class family in Long Island, and his position as both a journalist and professor, at Harvard no less. Morris has his own pedigree, but without the middle-class underpinnings. I’m reminded that as a pharmacologist, his grounding is in a lab and not a waiting room or a classroom. I’m reminded that as a rich kid, easily worth 10 times what Michael Pollan is worth (yeah, I looked through the Google list out of sheerest effing curiosity) he never had to understand what working for a living is. Pollan is what I would call weathy and of a privileged class, but one that worked up, that earned his position. What’s more, Pollan has advocated for those less privileged than himself. The common person, the working person is someone valued and regarded by Pollan. That’s clear in his books and throughout his career, as a journalist and a professor.
Morris was equally dismissive of the medical questions he received, but perhaps that wasn’t his fault but the venue’s. Morris perhaps was the one on stage perhaps more qualified to answer several of the questions since he does have a medical degree, but Pollan is not. He’s a journalist and makes no allusions to his credentials. But, instead of insult the questioner, Morris could have actually been a host. He could have made a statement to tell the audience that neither he nor Pollan are in a position to give medical advice. He could have acknowledged an important fact: that in a world of prohibition, when there’s the possibility of a treatment that can help you and your loved ones, you will do anything. When Anthony and I attended a talk in early 2017 tracking updates to New York State’s Compassionate Care Act, one of the host’s noted that while medical conditions were to be discussed and that while medical use of cannabis will also be discussed, the audience should refrain from asking overly personal or medically specific questions. It should have been something noted in the introduction to the 92ndStreet Y discussion if Morris felt he was above making such a note. Again, this was something Pollan himself had to steer the conversation around. While he did laugh, Pollan strikes me as someone who might laugh not to detract or seem disingenuous, but if anxious or uncomfortable. I’m certain getting medical questions plagues him, just as people turn to him to tell them how to eat. He’s said in his myriad writings on food that he is not a nutritionist. But, as he reluctantly admitted on stage that at this point in time, despite his initial naivete on the topics, after his investigation into food and now psychedelics, he is an expert. But his expertise doesn’t grant him the ability to dole out medical advice.
| “Onadas de La Ayahuasca” by Pablo Amaringo |
There was one point that Morris made that I do find interesting: why must a substance be deemed medically useful to be acceptable, socially and legally? But, it’s part of our conversation in a world since the Controlled Substance Act. And Pollan addressed this aspect, but also the concept that healing isn’t limited to medical use. Healing and wellness is so intimately connected with psychedelics stretching back to their earliest uses. (See Steve Beyer’s brilliant blog companion to his book Singing to the Plants and his post on ancient use of ayahuasca or the many discussions by Graham Hancock in his myriad writings on ancient cultures.)
There were a few moments early on that I got the sense that both Morris and Pollan were laughing at the expense of the psychedelic community and the psychonauts that started the whole ball rolling, particularly Timothy Leary and the nay-sayers to Pollan’s recent op-ed in The New York Times: “Michael Pollan: Not So Fast on Psychedelic Mushrooms.”
But, Pollan spent ample time clarifying that if it wasn’t for Leary– and the host of others like Bill Richards and Roland Griffiths both of whom were mentioned– then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, nor would the folks in Denver have voted to decriminalize psilocybin, regardless of how small the passing margin was. Since How to Change Your Mind is a journey Pollan already took, he approached the Y’s conversation without the contention for ideas like entheogens, psyconauts, and so on which I note in my review of the book.
He also spent a fair amount of time defending his position and somewhat addressing the controversy around his New York Time’s piece, particularly noting the exaggerations surrounding Denver’s so-called “legalization” of psilocybin – which isn’t legalization as many on social media claim, but decriminalization. It’s not to say Denver won’t legalize, but not just now. Pollan also brought up another ballot initiative that I wasn’t aware of all the ins-outs and what-have-yous of, again hearing on the interwebs that Oregon was to “legalize” psychedelics. Again, no, but psilocybin therapy, yes – so like with the Native American Church and the UDV União do Vegetal (the “ayahuasca church”) – there will be paths to use, provided the seeker is willing or able to follow those paths.
There’s an aspect of this entire conversation that I’m left with, one which I found a bit contentious in Pollan’s book, one which I’ve inadvertently wound up arguing about with my husband (inadvertently because we’re both on the same side of the issue so how can we be arguing): the quantifiable vs. the numinous. At one point, perhaps while they discussed the “placebo effect”, Morris said something to the effect of, “I want these things to be true, to be real.” Without getting all woo-woo, define truth? When discussing psychedelics, define real? As in the book, Pollan spent some time defining the “placebo effect” and came to the same essential conclusions that he does in the book: “And yet as long as it works, as long as it heals people, why should anyone care?” (Pollan, 159).
It’s what I note in the first part of my “The Cure is You series when Dr. Andrew Wiel”, who ironically enough “brought down Timothy Leary” (as Pollan noted in the conversation and in his book (pg. 201-203). Weil, however, uses a term I personally like more than “the placebo effect.” Weil calls it spontaneous healing as outlined in both his book of the same name and in his 8 Weeks to Optimum Health:
“When illness persists, the healing system is blocked, stalled or overwhelmed and needs help. The true purpose of medicine is to facilitate healing; the aim of treatment should be to unblock the healing system and allow it to do its work. Please keep in mind the distinction between healing and treatment: treatment originates from outside, whereas healing comes from within. …The best treatment is the least –the least invasive, least drastic, least expensive—that activates spontaneous healing (Weil, pg. 17-18)
Perhaps his background as a pharmacologist means that essentially all Morris deals with is the quantifiable, that which can be weighed, measured, and administered. It was evidenced in his utter dismissal of microdosing. While on one hand, Pollan dismissed it as well – but his dismissal wasn’t because he doubted the validity of microdosing. Pollan seemed to dismiss microdosing because of the lack of respect implicit in those microdosing “bio-hackers” in Silicon Valley taking psychedelics in these micro-doses because of ideas about increased productivity in the workplace. Pollan notes this aversion subtly in How to Change Your Mind “As I write, the practice of microdosing—taking a tiny, ‘subperceptual’ regular dose of LSD as a kind of mental tonic—is all the rage in the tech community” (Pollan, 175). He delves how Myron Stolaroff introduced psychedelics to Silicon Valley but that introduction doesn’t discuss micro-doses (Pollan, 176-177). Steve Jobs and others in the tech world used and use psychedelics much in the same way that artists like Alex and Allyson Grey do. I don’t
think that’s Pollan’s objection, nor do I think he objects to microdosing for this effect – to enhance creativity. But as a regular dietary supplement no different than a vitamin pill? It’s the disrespect, the disregard, the dismissing of set and setting that I think Pollan objects to.
| Allyson Grey in her studio |
Morris seemed disinclined to discuss it and was irreverent, insolent when merely mentioning it. Maybe because with the clinical approach, the doses are too small and too woo-woo for Morris. But isn’t that the point? To take a does that would be considered “sub-perceptual” by the default mode everyday thinking, but noticeable by the subtle mind, even at the cellular level? Microdosing, especially psilocybin, as I’ve understood it isn’t an everyday supplement, but something done every so often and has shown promise in studies for treating depression and anxiety as touched on in this piece from earlier this month in The Guardian.
Overall, as I’ve said before, I appreciate the conversation and don’t regret attending. I didn’t learn more than I did reading Pollan’s book, but I came away feeling that this is merely an introduction, for me into this topic. After my husband suggested I do a follow-up to the book review, especially since I found myself stewing over Morris’ cavalier approach, when we came home, he handed me a stack of other books to delve. Just last week he gave me a copy of the anthology Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine by Papaspyrou, Baldini, and Luke, with an introduction by Allyson Grey, knowing that my background in women’s studies alongside my spiritual path and herbalism practice made the book perfect for me to explore. Several weeks ago, we watched the brilliant documentary From Shock to Awe which examines psychedelics, legalities, and our veterans, which we’ll review when it’s released to the public – and we can rewatch it. The documentary was made available to rent earlier this year for a short time. We followed that by watching Rosyln Dauber’s A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin and I can’t help but wonder if having a society supportive of psilocybin – and other psychedelics – instead of prohibitive might have made my father’s death more bearable. He might not have lingered in a semi-comatose state for almost a fortnight – with neither food nor water, lingering in a state worse than death because he was terrified of dying. I’m certain despite my perceptions of them as privileged, many in the audience at the 92Y this past Wednesday harbor similar notions about what psychedelics could open for them.
So I hope, despite all the misgivings and winging and hurt feelings that Pollan does for psychedelics exactly what he did for food security: make them household concepts and open the doors to self-education. And yet, when we were leaving the 92ndStreet Y, after the storm had literally passed, I found 2 copies of Pollan’s book sitting on a trash can. Hubby and I looked around to see if the person would be coming back to retrieve the books, but there was no one around. I could only suppose that the topic was too uninteresting for the individual who tossed the information aside. Or maybe they were Morris fans, who thought Pollan – without his alphabet-soup – was too mainstream, too common-place to know what he was talking about; or, even worse, were Morris fans who had no qualms about eating a few Ritalin before drinking some ayahuasca tea or scarfing a few shrooms before heading out on the town.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL POLLAN Via the 92nd Y Below
WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL POLLAN Via the 92nd Y Below
Source: http://www.green-and-growing.com/2019/05/what-if-psychedelics-could-heal.html
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