How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018)

Pollan begins his dive into the “modern renaissance of psychedelic research” (21) in the year 2006. Three separate events occurred that year that shifted popular thoughts and eased the suppression of psychedelics.

The first event occurred in Basel, Switzerland, at the 100th birthday of Albert Hofmann, the man who discovered LSD. Albert was still alive at his centennial, which included a birthday celebration and a three-day symposium (21). The event was attended by journalists, psychiatrists, healers, mystics, researchers, and many others whose lives were changed by LSD. Most there were well versed in the story of the drug’s discovery, but Hofmann told the story again.

As a young chemist at Sandoz Laboratories, he was tasked with isolating compounds from plants to find new drugs. Specifically, he isolated alkaloids from a fungus that was used by midwives to stop postpartum bleeding. Sandoz wanted to isolate some sort of drug from the fungus, based on this herbal use. In 1938 Hofmann isolated the 25th molecule from the fungus and named it lysergic acid diethylamide (23). The compound did not show any promise when tested, so it was shelved. Five years later Hofmann gave LSD a second look, because he “‘liked the chemical structure of the LSD molecule’ and something about it told him that ‘this substance could possess properties other than those established in the first investigations’” (23). Somehow, during another synthesis of the compound, Hofmann absorbed some of the chemical and found himself having strange sensations. What followed seemed to be a dream, and he saw a stream of shapes and colors and pictures. This was the first acid trip.

The second time Hofmann tried taking the drug, he had the first bad acid trip. After diving into what seemed like madness, he took his bike home, lay down on the couch, and waited for a doctor (24). This day is celebrated by psychedelic users as Bicycle Day (April 19). The doctor found nothing amiss with Hofmann’s vitals, and eventually the effects wore off. Hofmann’s experiences with LSD are the only ones that occurred without influence of other accounts. While Hofmann thought LSD would become a great medicinal drug, he did not expect it to become a drug used for pleasure. He did, however, understand the adoption of LSD for pleasure, especially during the 1960s. He referred to LSD as his problem child (25).

The rest of his birthday celebration featured days of research presentations that explored the impact of LSD on society and culture, discussing its potential use in treating mental disorders, or uncovering the mysteries of human consciousness (26). Many at the time felt that the hiatus in psychedelic research would be over, and many felt that time was coming.

The second event came from the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. The court unanimously ruled that ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic tea, could be imported for the use of sacrament by the UDV, a religious society also known as the Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal. This followed the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act that allowed Native Americans to use peyote in their ceremonies (27). Using this act as a basis, the court stated that the federal government did not have the right to restrict religious groups from using psychedelic substances in their religious observing. The UDV was led by Jose Gabriel da Costa, who formed the group after his own experience with ayahuasca in the Amazon. Since this ruling, the use of ayahuasca has expanded beyond religious use. At the least, this ruling showed that there is a path to use of psychedelics in a religious context, which created hope for wider legal use (28).

The final event of 2006 occurred in Baltimore, Maryland, when the paper Pollan described in the Prologue was published in Psychopharmacology. Prominent scientist Roland Griffiths was responsible for this groundbreaking study, which “was the first rigorously designed, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study in more than four decades—if not ever—to examine the psychological effects of a psychedelic” (29). The press surrounding the study was enthusiastic, and Griffiths even had the journal invite prominent drug researchers to comment on the study.

Griffiths himself was not someone that you would imagine working in the realm of psychedelic research, but after years of studying psychopharmacology, drug use, and behavior, he garnered a reputation as a respectable and successful career scientist. His career path shifted following an introduction to Siddha Yoga and meditation, which sparked his curiosity mystical experiences and “the mystery of consciousness and existence” (33). He became less passionate and excited about his current scientific projects. Griffiths was told to get in touch with Bob Jesse and Rick Doblin, who had organized group retreats focused on the therapeutic and spiritual potential of psychedelic drugs.

Bob Jesse and Rick Doblin were two scientific outsiders who helped get psychedelic research off of the ground. Doblin founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 (35). Jesse founded the Council on Spiritual Practices in 1995 (43). Both men were interested in bringing psychedelic research back to the forefront, not just for therapeutic uses but for the betterment of people and their spirituality.

The final person who made this study happen was Bill Richards, a psychologist with experience guiding psychedelic journeys throughout the 1960s and ’70s. Richards administered the last legal dose of psilocybin at Spring Grove State Hospital in 1977 (52). Following that, he practiced psychotherapy and waited for psychedelics to move back into the mainstream. It was in 1998 that Roland Griffiths, Bob Jesse, and Bill Richards met, which led to the groundbreaking publication in 2006.

Prior to the 2006 study, the last powerhouse for psychedelic research was Spring Grove State Hospital, located outside of Baltimore. Several hundred patients between 1960 and the mid-1970s received psychedelic therapy through well-designed studies that were regularly published. The research being done at Spring Grove, at least in the 1960s, had public support, and news outlets reported on their work regularly. The support was strong enough that Maryland built a research facility on Spring Grove’s campus, the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (57). Stan Grof, Walter Pahnke, and Bill Richards were hired to run the program. The program continued through the 1970s before it fell victim to lack of funding and lack of approval for research projects, much like other psychedelic programs across the country (57). Pressure to end the research program mounted, and its shutdown closed the chapter on psychedelic research in science, at least for a while.

That 1998 meeting marked the beginning of Griffiths, Jesse, and Richards’s first work designing psychedelic studies. The framework that came out of the meeting was the foundation of the 2006 study, which was “designed to determine whether psilocybin can elicit a transcendental experience” (60).

In 1999 the protocol was approved after passing review from Johns Hopkins, the FDA, and the DEA. Richards began to guide research volunteers on psychedelic journeys again after a 22-year hiatus. This marked the start of gathering data for the 2006 paper.

Pollan spoke to numerous volunteers who took part in the study. Several volunteers could recall their experiences in vivid detail; many said that they “were the most meaningful experiences of their lives” (63). The volunteers initially reported fear and anxiety, but with encouragement and guidance from the trip sitters, they were able to relax and enjoy their experience. The sitters were given guides that focused on trust, openness, and letting, all themes which were relayed to volunteers during their experience. The volunteers were also told they might experience “death/transcendence of your ego or everyday self” (63), followed by a rebirth and return to normalcy. Most of the Hopkins volunteers still felt the impact of their psilocybin experience, even though it occurred 10 or 15 years prior to the interview. Pollan details many of the volunteers’ experiences in the remainder of the chapter.

For Roland Griffiths, the 2006 study gave insight into how prospective studies into consciousness and psychedelics could be done, allowing for traction in science. Although the beginning of this study was a gamble, Griffiths had devoted himself to the study of psychedelics and mystical experiences. Additionally, the 2006 paper allowed for the expansion of psychedelic research; as of 2015 there were around 20 people researching the topic (78). Griffiths, Jesse, and Richards not only restarted the field of psychedelic research, but they showed that this work is scientifically viable. Comparative religion scholar Huston Smith wrote this about the 2006 study:

“The Johns Hopkins experiment shows—proves—that under controlled, experimental conditions, psilocybin can occasion genuine mystical experiences. It uses science, which modernity trusts, to undermine modernity’s secularism. In doing so, it offers hope of nothing less than a re-sacralization of the natural and social world, a spiritual revival that is our best defense against not only soulnessness, but against religious fanaticism. And it does so in the very teeth of the unscientific prejudices built into our current drug laws” (81).

While LSD was the main focus of Chapter 1, psilocybin becomes the main focus of Chapter 2. Outside of psychedelics, “fungi constitute the most poorly understood and underappreciated kingdom of life on earth” (88). They recycle organic material and provide nutrients to the soil, but they form large communication networks between plants, trees, and other forest communities. From an evolutionary and genetic level, fungi are some of our closest relatives (in comparison to plants) (88). Like humans, they use the energy that plants create to fuel their growth and reproduction.

Along with their ecological uses, fungi have other useful properties. Mushrooms have been shown to help stimulate the immune system, produce antibiotics and antiviral compounds, help bees overcome colony collapse disorder, and get rid of carpenter ant infestations (89). Paul Stamets, one of the leading scientists in the field of mycology, has also shown that mushrooms can clean up pollution, oil spills, and other forms of industrial waste (88). Stamets has dedicated his life to researching the uses of fungi and has built a successful business off of patenting and selling fungi for some of the above uses.

Stamets is not a classically trained scientist—he does not hold any graduate degrees—but he is still published in peer-reviewed journals and has had a large impact in the fungi community. One of Stamets’s books, Mycelium Running, details the vast network of filaments that connect fungi to plants through the soil. These filaments act as a faux neurological network in which the forest organisms can communicate with each other and send nutrients. Stamets talks frequently about “Earth’s natural Internet,” which is “a redundant, complexly branched, self-repairing, and scalable communications network linking many species over tremendous distances” (90). Forests’ ability to interconnect and almost create consciousness has shown that forest ecosystems are much different than originally believed. Fungi allow forests to become social and intellectual masses, sending information about threats while helping each other survive.

Pollan sought out Paul Stamets to further his research on psychedelic mushrooms: “I was curious to find out how his own experience with psilocybin had colored his thinking and life work” (90). Stamets invited Pollan to visit his home in Washington and offered to take him hunting for Psilocybes. They planned for a trip to the Colombia River around Thanksgiving, at a time when the mushrooms would be fruiting. Specifically, Stamets wanted to take Pollan to the only place where Psilocybe azurescens, a variety Stamets discovered, is consistently found (92).

With over 200 species of Psilocybe around the world, it’s not clear if these mushrooms have always been so widespread. The fungi live off of dead plant and fecal matter, and often appear around sites of floods, storms, and man-made ecological destruction (93). Psilocybes have even begun to pop up in urban areas, due to the increase in mulching with woodchips. Though spread widely, these mushrooms can be difficult to find and identify. One must use caution; while some contain the psychedelic compound psilocybin, others are fatal when ingested.

Psilocybes are mostly nondescript, small, brown mushrooms, with not much else distinguishing the different species. Some have small protrusions called umbos. Some become slimy when wet. Some are dull and gray; others are light brown. Many Psilocybes have “a condom-like layer of gelatinous material covering the cap that can be peeled of” called a pellicle (94). Stamets has devised a way to determine which Psilocybes are psychedelic and which are fatal. He calls it “The Stametsian Rule”: “If a gilled mushroom has purplish brown to black spores, and the flesh bruises bluish, the mushroom in question is very likely a psilocybin-producing species” (95). The blue pigment in the bruises is actually oxidized psilocin, the other psychedelic compound found in Psilocybes (95).

The introduction of Psilocybes and the psychedelic mushroom experience is credited to R. Gordon Wasson by way of Life magazine. The founder of the magazine, Henry Luce, had extreme interest in psychedelic drugs and partook of them often (104). R. Gordon Wasson approached Luce with his experiences with psychedelic mushrooms, hoping to write and publish a story in Life. He got approval, $8,500, and editing and wording rights (104-5). The article was published in 1957, to a circulation audience of 5.7 million (105).

Wasson’s story began in 1927 during his honeymoon. He and his new bride had a small argument over cooking mushrooms for dinner; she loved mushrooms, and he refused to eat them. This argument piqued the couple’s curiosity into how such different opinions on mushrooms could be held and where their love and hate of mushrooms came from. They found that depending on the area people grew up in, the culture was either mycophobic or mycophilic. They also postulated that there might be cultures in which mushrooms were worshipped or were important to cultural activity.

In 1952 a friend sent Wasson an article from a pharmaceutical journal that talked about a mushroom with psychoactive properties used in Mesoamerica. Prior to the article Wasson was looking at Asia for mushrooms used in divine practice. Now his focus moved to Central America, and Wasson made his first trip there in 1953.

He made several trips, many of them to the village of Huautla de Jimenez, dear the Oaxaca mountains (108). Wasson heard rumors of healers using mushrooms in their practice, but he found many of the villagers were not forthcoming with information about any healing mushroom. Much of the villagers’ hesitance came from the 1600s, when Spanish conquest of Mexico drove mushrooms as sacrament underground. The Roman Catholic Church condemned the use of plants in divination, citing “an act of superstition condemned as opposed to the purity and integrity of our Holy Catholic Faith” (109).

Eventually Wasson was able to experience the mushrooms used by healers on June 29-30, 1955 (110). He persuaded Mazatec healer Maria Sabina to let him observe and take part in the sacred ceremony that used the mushrooms. He and his photographer were the first outsiders to participate in the ceremony. Wasson’s field notebooks were detailed with his descriptions of vivid colors and angular motifs. His experience bolstered his hypothesis that experiences with psychoactive fungi would lead to the worship of them in certain cultures (111).

Maria Sabina and the Mazatec community saw the mushrooms as vehicles for healing and the divine. Wasson abused the ceremonial purposes to experience the psychoactive effects and conflate his preconceived theory of the use of the mushrooms in Central American culture without truly understanding the cultural significance (112). This would eventually lead to colonization of the village and the mushrooms’ purpose in healing.

Wasson’s article on his experience with mushrooms reached millions of people (113). Even the American Museum of Natural History created an exhibit dedicated to magic mushrooms. Wasson sent some of the mushrooms he collected on his trips to Mexico to Albert Hofmann, who isolated the psychoactive compounds in the mushrooms (psilocybin and psilocin) in 1958 (113). He also developed the synthetic version of psilocybin, which is still used in research studies today. Hofmann and Wasson both visited Huautla, where they gave Maria Sabina the synthetic form of psilocybin. She “declared they did indeed contain the spirit of the mushroom” (113).

Soon thousands of people were finding their way to Huautla, as Wasson did not keep Maria Sabina’s identity anonymous. The mushrooms went from being a closely guarded spiritual sacrament to being openly sold around the village. The influx of foreigners made the villagers to turn against Maria Sabina, who was thrown in jail and had her home burned down (114). Maria Sabina came to regret allowing Wasson to partake in the mushrooms for the rest of her life. She once told a visitor, “From the moment the foreigners arrived […] the saint children lost their purity. They lost their force; the foreigners spoiled them. From now on they won’t be any good” (114).

On the eve of Pollan’s mushroom-hunting trip with Stamets, he learned of a popular theory in the psychedelic mushroom community, the Stoned Ape Theory. Terence McKenna, who first wrote about the theory, said that psychoactive mushrooms were partially responsible for giving hominids access to self-reflection, speech, and imagination. This theory uses the concept of synesthesia, “the conflation of the senses that psychedelics are known to induce: under influence of psilocybin, numbers can take on colors, colors attach to sounds, and so on” (115). This allows sounds to gain meaning through links to concepts, and so the stoned ape would bring about language, which set us on the path from ape to human. There is no real way to prove or disprove this theory, since fungi do not leave traces in the fossil record. McKenna could never explain how these mushrooms might have impacted biological evolution, either. Even though there is little likelihood of the theory being proven, many believe that psilocybin “was pivotal in human evolution” (116).

Pollan and Stamets’s trip to the Colombia River proved to be a success; Pollan found Psilocybe azurescens and gained insight about the mushroom along the way. Stamets believes that Psilocybe azurescens was carried out of forested areas by logs that floated down to the mouth of the Colombia River (118). Pollan used Stamets’s experience to better learn how to spot the mushroom, eventually finding a few of the mushrooms growing very close to the yurt they were staying in. After spending the day searching for mushrooms, they found seven of the small fungi and spent the rest of the night sharing stories and fungi knowledge.

Pollan continued to be intrigued by why a mushroom would come to produce a psychoactive chemical and wondered whether there was a benefit to the mushroom. He asked Stamets’s mentor, Michael Beug, for his thoughts on the matter. According to Beug, it’s unlikely that psilocybin was a defense chemical because it was produced in the fruiting bodies of the fungi (not a place where defense would be needed) (122). Instead, he hypothesized that the production of the chemical selected those specific mushrooms to be eaten, thus spreading their spores (122). Psilocybin-producing mushrooms continued to spread and be selected for because animals were drawn to eating them.

Pollan finally describes partaking of the azzies he found with Stamets, months later with his wife. He details his experience and how the mushrooms gave a “perpetual slant” to his reality. Though he wouldn’t call his experience religious, Pollan found himself more openminded and ready to continue his research journey down the path of psychedelics.