Jeannette Montgomery Barron The just-published How to Change Your Mind takes readers along on author Michael Pollan's own psychedelic trips. The idea of using psychedelic drugs to expand consciousness or disrupt negative patterns of thinking had a well-documented moment in the 1950s and 1960s. To this end, the self-described even-keeled atheist-skeptic researched psychedelic drugs, interviewed scientists and finally embarked on a supervised test of three different psychedelic substances in search of a transcendent spiritual experience. Unlike Pollan and many of the drug researchers he profiled, de Wit has never taken psychedelic drugs herself. Harriet de WitI didn’t grasp why people cared so much if their transcendence was a placebo effect from psychedelic drugs vs. a “real” spiritual experience.

Source: Huffington Post May 24, 2018 23:15 UTC