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Good Life Project

Michael Pollan: Psychedelics, Science, Fear and Hope.

Good Life Project

Jonathan Fields / Acast

Education, Wellness, Self-improvement, Midlife, Health & Fitness, Intentional Living, Personal Growth, Living Well, How To

4.53.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2018

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael Pollan is the author most recently of mega New York Times bestseller, How to Change Your Mind, and of seven previous books that became global phenomena, including Cooked, Food Rules, and The Omnivore's Dilemma.

A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he also teaches writing at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley where he is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Science Journalism. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world.

In today's episode, we explore his lens on the writing life, then dive into his year's long investigative journey into the mysterious world of psychedelic molecules, like LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA and something called "the toad." We talk about the fact, fiction, history, science and revolutionary clinical studies now underway, mostly from the lens of therapeutic outcomes.

This conversation is not a permission-slip to experiment with any of what he talks about, nor an endorsement, so please do not take it as such. Rather, it is a balanced, non-hyperbolic or sensationalized conversation about a category of substances that are now at the cutting-edge of research in the treatment of mental conditions that afflict tens of millions of people.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

So if I asked you whether you'd be willing to take LSD or magic mushrooms in the name

0:09.3

of expanding your consciousness, I'm guessing most people would probably say no.

0:15.2

What if I asked you whether you'd be willing to do it once in the name of being exceptional

0:20.5

at your job, of being way more creative, of having an edge in your professional life?

0:27.1

I'm guessing a couple of people would raise their eyebrows.

0:30.9

Now, what if I asked you if you'd be willing to do it because you were suffering from years

0:36.4

of treatment, resistant depression, pervasive, sustained anxiety, PTSD?

0:44.4

Well, that kind of changes the equation a little bit for most people.

0:48.1

And that is the conversation that we're having with today's guest, Michael Pollan.

0:53.2

Michael, you probably recognize his name.

0:55.5

He is the author of, I believe, seven massive New York Times bestselling books, including

1:01.7

Food Rules, Yom Noors, Delama, Cooked, and a bunch of others.

1:06.9

He has a new book out called How to Change Your Mind, which is a pretty fascinating deep

1:12.0

dive into the world of psychedelic molecules, these things that I was just talking about.

1:17.7

And we're not talking about just mystical experiences and expanding consciousness.

1:22.1

It's a really fascinating look at both the therapeutic, the research and the political

1:27.1

history of these substances, the fact and the fiction and man is there a lot of fiction.

1:33.9

And the resurgence, the profound resurgence of interest in these substances in the academic

1:41.7

and scholarly research communities now.

1:44.5

There are now large scale trials going on at some of the biggest, most acclaimed and

1:50.5

reputable research institutes in the world, like John's Hawkins and NYU.

1:56.1

And some of the outcomes, the early outcomes are pretty astonishing.

...

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