Change your consciousness

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Change your consciousness: What the new psychedelics research teaches us about addiction, depression, fear of death and transcendence ( English original title : How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence , First published in 2018), is a book by Michael Pollan from 2018. It describes the long and rich history of psychedelic drugs , from their turbulent heyday in the 1960s to the countermovements and setbacks that resulted. Through his report on the recent renaissance of this field of research and through his personal experiences with psychedelics, presented in a “mental travelogue”, Pollan tries not only to illuminate the effects of drugs themselves, but also the inner workings of the human mind and consciousness.

content

The book is divided into a prologue , six chapters and an epilogue :

prolog

A new door

First chapter

A renaissance

second chapter

The natural history

Under the spell of mushrooms

Résumé

third chapter

The history

The first wave

Résumé

Chapter Four

Travel reports

In the underground

Fifth chapter

Neuroscience

The brain on psychedelics

Sixth chapter

The trip treatment

Psychedelics in psychotherapy

Summary - meeting with my Default Mode Network

epilogue

reception

Germany

Michael Lange writes in a book review on Deutschlandfunk Kultur : “The journalism professor Michael Pollan is skeptical of all kinds of New Age phrases. As a curious observer, he explores a still largely unexplored world between nature, chemistry and mysticism without blinkers, but with a lot of down to earth.

foreign countries

Kevin Canfield of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “In How to Change Your Mind, Pollan examines the widespread history of these often misunderstood substances and reports on the clinical studies that suggest that psychedelics are incurable for depression, addiction and anxiety Illnesses can help. He does so in the breezy prose that includes his earlier books The Omnivore's Dilemma and Cooked, the inspiration for his hit Netflix documentaries of the same name bestsellers. "

Reason's Jacob Sullum gave the book a generally positive review, but criticized Pollan for citing Timothy Leary's self-portrayal as a reason for stopping promising scientific studies of psychedelics without acknowledging the part politicians and journalists had in it.

The New York Times Book Review named Change Your Mind one of the best books of 2018.

expenditure

  • Michael Pollan: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Penguin Press, London 2018; ISBN 978-1-59420-422-7 (English original)
  • Michael Pollan: Change your consciousness. What the new psychedelics research teaches us about addiction, depression, fear of death and transcendence. Kunstmann Verlag , Munich 2019; ISBN 978-3-95614-288-8 (translated by Thomas Gunkel)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Michael Lange: Knowledge instead of enlightenment. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  2. Kevin Canfield: How to Change Your Mind. In: San Francisco Chronicle. May 17, 2018, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  3. Jacob Sullum: Who Controls Your Cortex? In: Reason. December 1, 2018, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  4. ^ The New York Times Book Review. In: The New York Times. November 29, 2018, accessed November 22, 2019 .
  5. Tom Bissell: Michael Pollan Drops Acid - and Comes Back From His Trip Convinced. In: The New York Times. June 4, 2018, accessed November 22, 2019 .