Wear your Mushroom Hat Please!
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 18:07
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It almost goes without saying that Tax Season is stressful, but this year, it was made even more so by the fact that I hadn’t done my normal preparation and was really under the wire. Since my husband and I moved in with my elderly mom last summer, to be her caretaker, you can say that stress has been my default mode. Normally, when prepping taxes, I’ll put on music, catch up on things I have been meaning to watch, and so on. But, I wanted something to relax to and I had just finished another read/listen of American Gods,so I scoured our digital bookshelf for something and discovered the latest from Micheal Pollan, How to Change your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.
Two things off the top. First, I’ve been a Michael Pollan fan since hearing him discuss our food insecurity in Food Inc. Between my husband and myself, we’ve read all his books, watched all of the documentaries he’s been involved with, and just got ourselves tickets to hear him speak at the 92ndStreet Y at the end of May on the book tour for How to Change your Mind. Of our (living) intellectual heroes, he’s probably the last that we haven’t yet heard speak in person.
Second, I’m maybe a rung above layman in terms of psychedelics. Maybe two or three rungs since I’ve had some experience with psychedelics beyond reading about them which consists of one successful ayahuasca session and one where maybe I didn’t drink enough of the brew, along with being slipped a bit of LSD while at a high school party. While in college, some genius tossed a few “shrooms” on a pizza. I had a few bites before I was told the mushrooms on the mushroom pie, which had the consistency of desiccated baby ears, were the magical kind. I had been feeling nauseated
already and promptly purged myself of the mystery fungi. Since no one in the group had any visionary experiences, the desiccated baby ears were probably shredded shiitake. Being epileptic, I’ve shied away from pursuing psilocybin and I’ve never had an interest in MDMA. Ayahuasca though is on my list of medicines to go back to, particularly since when I had used the medicine, I was an uncontrolled asthmatic. Anthony recounts the story in his article, but before using the medicine, I did a bit of a dieta and stopped all my medications. Three months later, while having an argument over something, I remember shouting at him, “I thought this f**kingmedicine was supposed to help me.” We laugh about it now, because it was only then that we both realized I hadn’t used my asthma medications since the dieta and it’s been more than a decade since, nigh on two, and I still haven’t had a resurgence of asthma.
For me as with my husband, when talking about medicines like cannabis, ayahuasca, psilocybin, any herbal or plant medicine, the term medicine is more applicable than the term drug. I know for many people the difference is mere semantics, tomayto tomahto. But, as Anthony discusses in his the article cited above, his introduction to Earth Medicine “Healing with Earth Medicine: Part 1” plant medicines like psilocybin, cannabis, and ayahuasca (to name only a few) have been used as medicines by native peoples for millennia. A drug on the other hand has a different association, usually pharmacology based, usually a chemical and not food, and often something addictive, habit-forming, and not something grown in the earth.
As the psychedelic newbie, I have a passing familiarity with the totemic individuals in the field: Terrence McKenna, Timothy Leary, and Richard Alpert (though I never remember his name and he’s been the guy that worked with Leary in my brain). So, the first thing I truly appreciate in Pollan’s How to Change your Mindis how intimately and clearly he lays out the history of psychedelics, going back to the indigenous roots for medicines like psilocybin and ayahuasca. Essentially, Pollan does for psychedelics what he did for food with In Defense of Food.He approaches the field with full disclosure about his background (as a journalist not an expert) and his own personal connection to the topic, complete with humor, reflection, and candor. There’s a disclaimer in the frontspiece regarding the legalities of psychedelics, which serves as a shameful reminder about the stance the US has regarding these substances being used as either a drug or medicine; namely that they have no use for medical applications. Thank you Richard Nixon. Read the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 here.
There were a few moments when Pollan was laying out the history that I felt my eyes glaze a bit, but that wasn’t a failing on Pollan’s part. Remember, as I was listening I was prepping my taxes– and I finished Pollan in 2 days. The audiobook is 13 hours, 35 minutes. Because I was so behind on my work, I broke the first rule of doing work that I lay down for my freshmen comp students, the 45/15 rule. For every 45 minutes of work, take a break for at least 15 minutes. I was cramming for Uncle Sam, so the eye-glaze was from lack of sleep and all that math. I think on day 1 of listening to Pollan (who reads the audio, which is a plus) I began at 10 in the morning and didn’t take a break until after 5 pm.
Once I recovered from my momentary lapse, I was eager to finish the book. It was making my work easier and I was finally getting a crash course in psychedelics. I appreciate Pollan making what could have been a dry, detached catalogue into a personal journey. Alongside the history of psychedelics, he freely tracks his own history. I can’t call this an autobiographical account, but Pollan does something similar with In Defense of Food and with Cooked– tracks his own connection to the topic, which becomes the foil by which the reader is taken along on the journey. In his introduction, “A New Door”, he tells us exactly what his intention was:
…How to Change Your Mindapproaches its subject from several different perspectives, employing several different narrative modes: social and scientific history; natural history; memoir; science journalism; and case studies of volunteers and patients. In the middle of the journey, I also offer an account of my own firsthand research (or perhaps I should say search) in the form of a kind of mental travelogue (Pollan, 17-18).
While I would heartily recommend the book, especially to those wishing to learn more about psychedelics– either for simple edification or in order to determine if a specific psychedelic would be beneficial, as a therapy or a betterment tool (or both)– there are a few points I’d like to note. If I have a few critiques of Pollan in How to Change Your Mind, besides his misguided use of the semi-colon, it’s his liberal use of the term “drug” and his use of quotation marks.
I wouldn’t say How to Change Your Mind is or isn’t for those well-versed psychedelics. It seems like it’s more of a primer for newbies, especially since there are moments in the introduction that could turn off people Pollan describes as “Psychedelic aficionados”, people more familiar with psychedelics than he or I. The use of such terms as “Psychedelic aficionados” combined with his liberal use of quotation marks (without sourcing) seems a bit diminutive, not quite condescending but a bit. He uses quotation marks so much so that I’m left wondering if he’s actually quoting or just using quotations stylistically to show a demarcation. The terms he sets aside in quotations are terms like “aesthetic experience”, “experience of the numinous” –which could refer to any number of theologians, philosophers, or theorists from Kant to Otto to James, but unless he’s specifically quoting, I’m not sure the quotations are necessary. But, the quotations, like the term drugs, seems to set the mystical, the shamanic, the spiritual components of psychedelics to one side. I’m not sure that was Pollan’s intention, but as I said it may be something that turns off some folks that could benefit from exactly the information Pollan presents.
He opens a discussion about the various terms for psychedelics early on, noting that he’s somewhat uncomfortable since the term “psychedelics…carries a lot of countercultural baggage” (Pollan, 18-19). I found that initially a bit disconcerting, wondering if he felt that way about the term psychedelic, what about other terms like medicine, entheogen, or the term used to describe psychedelic pioneers and experimenters psychonaut?
Pollan gives a little elaboration about this particular term about midway through the book, when describing a 2010 Bay Area conference organized by MAPS he notes the defition of psychonauts as “people of all ages who make regular use of psychedelics in their lives, whether for spiritual, therapeutic, or ‘recreational’ purposes” (Pollan, 228). Again with the quotations (though here I’ve used single quotes since I am actually quoting Pollan.
He dismisses another term which Anthony and I use, along with most current psychonauts and psychedelic researchers like Alex Grey, Dennis McKenna, and Graham Hancock: entheogen. Pollan says:
Hoping to escape those associations and underscore the spiritual dimensions of these drugs, some researchers have proposed they instead be called “entheogens”—from the Greek for “the divine within.” This strikes me as too emphatic. (Pollan, 19).
He’s again referencing the aforementioned “cultural baggage” of psychedelics and perhaps his attitude may stem from Pollan’s place as a journalist, or without trying to psychoanalyze the author from what he called his “impatien[t]” personality (Pollan, 254). Being dismissive of a term that seems too touchy-feely or woo-woo is exactly the sort of thing a journalist, an unbiased researcher perhaps should do. But, it’s this dismissive stance that again may turn off readers, or at least mar what is otherwise a valuable volume in the vast psychedelic library.
Another issue Pollan may have with coining of the term entheogen, which Pollan doesn’t dive into.
Had he, perhaps he might not have felt the term too “empathic”. In their 1979 article “Entheogens”
Carl Ruck, Jeremy Bigwood, Danny Staples, Jonathan Ott, and R. Gordon Wasson note the reasons for choosing this term over others, hallucinogen and psychedelic, both have their own baggage for the authors. Entheogen is a term they crafted from the Greek, as Pollan notes, to denote a substance used for ritual, shamanic, purposes, or to create enlightenment via an altered state of consciousness.
I’m unsure why such an “empathic” term is off-putting for Pollan. Perhaps it comes from what he called“countercultural baggage” and some aesthetic disorganization in Paul Stamets’ “mushroom conferences” (Pollan, 102). The last conference Pollan watched on VHS with Paul Stamets, replete with his quotation marks: “’Conference’ might not do justice to what now appeared on Stamets’s television” (ibid). Pollan describes the eventin which Ott spoke about entheogens: “The proceedings looked more like a Dionysian revel than a conference” (Pollan, 102-103). I can see why Pollan may want to shy away from using entheogen in an effort to ‘legitimize’ psychedelics, since he is presenting a text which states the case for psychedelic therapy for a host of concerns (as noted in the text’s subtitle). However,I still feel dismissing the term entheogen is a bit sticky.
I find it problematic that he’s dismissive of a term because it seems “empathic.” As I stress with my students, empathy is something we need more of in order to be truly functional individuals. As another intellectual hero of mine, Neil Gaiman said in his brilliant talk, “Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming” (which I assign to my incoming freshmen every term since Gaiman gave the talk): “Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.” Gaiman was talking about the need for reading and reading fiction as a means of people-building and problem-solving (amongst other reasons), but isn’t the argument in favor of psychedelics trying to say the same thing? Psychedelics help build empathy. When you use psychedelics you have the ability to experience that element Rudolf Otto called the numinous– that which has an other-worldly, awe-inspiring, life-changing quality which cannot be translated into words. That experience lends to the sense of being more connected with the world around us, with people and nature and the very fabric of the universe. So, try as he might distance himself from these woo-woo terms, entheogen is an apt term I wish Pollan was more embracing of precisely because these substances build empathy. They allow us to experience something beyond ourselves which many spiritual and non-spiritual people have described as divine.
He’s a bit more comfortable with the term psychedelic, despite it having a bit of a “downside” for him, Pollan sticks to the term consistently, despite peppering the text with the aforementioned “drug” references. He notes that psychedelic “…is etymologically accurate. Drawn from the Greek, it means simply ‘mind manifesting,’ which is precisely what these extraordinary molecules hold the power to do” (Pollan, 18-19).
I also wish Pollan was more embracing of the term plant medicine. He doesn’t much refer to the latter term, except in passing. He doesn’t explore the term, but merely uses it perhaps in quoting others’ use of the term. In “A Rennaissance” when discussing the 2006 US Supreme court case (Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal), as Pollan outlines the reasoning behind why the US ruled in favor of the UDV (the União do Vegetal a Christian sect which uses ayahuasca as their sacrament), he refers to “plant medicine.” (Pollan, 27) However, this may refer specifically to the case. Later, when discussing the experiences of volunteers in the John Hopkins experiments with psychedelics and recounting the experience of “Amy Charnay, a nutritionist and herbalist” the term “plant medicine” is used again– but only in a quote from Charnay herself (Pollan, 66-67).
The separation again may be rooted in Pollan’s origins– as a journalist, as an outsider looking in, someone hitherto unattached to the topic. He’s also speaking to an audience that have needed some convincing: psychotherapists, psychologists, doctors of Western Medicine, scientists, even lawmakers and perhaps those in the position to re-classify psychedelics and remove the Schedule I stigma; the same journey that cannabis has been on. How to Change Your Mind may be the text that helps nudge the nay-sayers into a direction that will change their mind about the value of these medicines. Noting a difference between Western Medicine and Earth Medicine, without using the latter term, Pollan reminds us the Western Medical audience will need convincing. He says:
This hall of epistemological mirrors was just one of the many challenges facing the researchers who wanted to bring LSD into the field of psychiatry and psychotherapy: psychedelic therapy could look more like shamanism or faith healing than medicine (Pollan, 144).
This is a theme Pollan comes back to, particularly when noting the contributions of Sidney Cohen, psychiatrist and “dean of LSD researchers in Los Angeles”; Pollan notes how by 1959, “Cohen was made uncomfortable by the cultishness and aura of religiosityand magic that now wreathed LSD” (Pollan, 158). And yet Cohen himself felt despite his own personal misgivings, those conducting the research, doctors, psychiatrists, scientists should persevere. Pollan quotes a 1959 letter where Cohen tells a colleage that LSD “opened a door from which we must not retreat merely because we feel uncomfortably unscientific at the threshold” (ibid).
Cohen was a unique individual, hitherto unknown to me, who may serve as an inspiration for Pollan because Cohen was “an open-minded skeptic” regarding the use of psychedelics, at the time LSD (Pollan, 159). The use of psychedelics and the suggestibility of study participants, researchers, and patients presented a problem in Cohen’s studies which Pollan notes “takes psychotherapy perilously close to the world of shamanism and faith healing, a distinctly uncomfortable place for a scientist to be. And yet as long as it works, as long as it heals people, why should anyone care?” (ibid). Later, Cohen called psychedelic therapy essentially“’therapy by self-transcendence’ suggesting he saw a role in Western medicine for what would come to be called applied mysticism” (ibid).
Ultimately, Pollan shows a progression in terms of his own mindset about psychedelics. Midway, in Pollan’s “Travelogue”, when discussing the myriad underground applications of psychedelic therapy by trained therapists and delving the term psychonaut, Pollan shows his own change of mind in an aside on the term recreational, as in recreational use of psychedelics: “As Bob Jesse is always quick to remind me whenever I use that word, “recreational” doesn’t necessarily mean frivolous, careless, orlacking in intention. Point taken” (Pollan, 228).
So his use of terms, his style that may have been a bit on the patronizing side in the beginning shifts towards the end. He incorporates a more internalized mode, especially as he closes his discussion of psychedelic therapy and recounts aspects of his ayahuasca experience, shying away from the term “drug” and employing italics rather than quotation marks, which serve as a kind of integration and show the reader knowledgeable in psychedelics that Pollan has been integrating not only his psychedelic experiences but his experiences as a researcher.
The information presented also helped answer some questions I have been hitherto unable to find answers to, despite my reaching out to individuals in the field like Rak Razam, Chris Kilham, Joe Rogan, Dennis McKenna, and even Pollan himself, alongside trying to get more than raised eyebrows from my own doctors. Perhaps Pollan never responded because the answers are in this book. I didn’t want medical advice, but information about psychedelics and epilepsy, psychedelics and neurology. I wanted to be pointed in the direction of research, articles, books, et cetera to help me formulate a decision before trying other psychedelics, or even pursuing ayahuasca again. My ayahuasca experiences were before my epilepsy diagnosis and before I suffered a mini-stroke in 2009. I’ve had concerns specifically about psilocybin and possible contraindications. While discussing his own diagnosis of atrial fibrillation and discussing psychedelics with his cardiologist, Pollan noted that with the exception of MDMA most psychedelics “concentrate their effects in the mind with remarkably little impact on the cardiovascular system” (Pollan, 236). Does it mean I won’t have a seizure while on an ayahuasca or psilocybin experience? No, but having dinner with my mother can trigger a seizure. My use of cannabis, as I’ve noted in other articles, has helped control my seizures and the benefits from using ayahuasca and psilocybin outweigh the risks. My bigger concern wasn’t a seizure, but sparking another stroke.
I can’t help but wish that by the end of his journey, Pollan decides he’s comfortable enough to wear one of Paul Stamets’ genuine mushroom hats. If Stamets gave me an amadou hat, I’d certainly wear one, regardless of how silly it may seem.
Overall, is this a text I would recommend? Without a doubt. Is it the final word on psychedelics? No, nor is it intended to be. As I said before, Pollan does for psychedelics what he did for food and concepts of food security. How to Change Your Mindan invaluable resource that I will most likely reread this summer.
Source: http://www.green-and-growing.com/2019/04/wear-your-mushroom-hat-please.html
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