“It’s easy to explain the appeal of drugs like heroin and cocaine, which directly stimulate the brain’s reward centres. What’s less easy to explain is the appeal of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin that produce altered states of consciousness. After all, there’s no obvious reason why unusual patterns of thought and perception – typically, the symptoms of poisoning or illness – should be attractive. And yet, people not only pay money for these experiences, they even run the risk of being imprisoned or worse for doing so. Why is this?…”
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“Among scientists, there are tentative signs of a psychedelics renaissance. After decades of stigma, impressive research is showing the power of these substances to help sufferers of depression and addiction, or to comfort patients with a terminal cancer diagnosis, struggling to face their own end. This is the fascinating territory that the journalist Michael Pollan explores with his new book, “How to Change Your Mind.” Pollan dives into brain science, the history of psychedelics (and our tortured attitudes towards them) but his larger subject is the nature of human consciousness. Eventually Pollan decides to try psychedelics himself — and documents, beautifully, a number meaningful experiences and the way his own mind has changed. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook….”
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"Psychedelics are technology, and they can show us what we really are. Are we really that evolution? Or there’s more? It’s a reflexion, the most pure one, a portal that opens a door to a garden full of everything. New species of animal and trees, the sun baths the strange and beautiful flowers with exquisite smell and shape. That’s what we are, and if that’s our evolution then it’s ok to think that psychedelics are important because they show you the path, they put it in front of your eyes and makes you look without caring the consequences and perhaps that’s what evolution is about."

“IMAGINE HOMO ERECTUS, A NOW-EXTINCT SPECIES OF HOMINIDS THAT STOOD UPRIGHT AND BECAME THE FIRST OF OUR ANCESTORS TO MOVE BEYOND A SINGLE CONTINENT. AROUND TWO MILLION YEARS AGO, THESE HOMINIDS, SOME OF WHOM EVENTUALLY EVOLVED INTO HOMO SAPIENS, BEGAN TO EXPAND THEIR RANGE BEYOND AFRICA, MOVING INTO ASIA AND EUROPE. ALONG THE WAY, THEY TRACKED ANIMALS, ENCOUNTERED DUNG, AND DISCOVERED NEW PLANTS. But that’s just the version of our origin story that happens to be widely accepted by scientists….”
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"The human being suffers and has always suffered at the hands of the human mind. The sense of imprisonment, confusion and estrangement experienced regularly by most humans daily naturally takes a toll. We seek to escape the clutches of the mind, even if just temporarily. We find such refuge through many means - from excessive eating, exercise, watching TV and using our phones, to consuming alcohol and drugs. All of these examples are similar in that they are all mind-altering. They take us out of a certain state of mind and place us into another - almost immediately. Venturing into the realm of psychedelics, we see a perhaps different type of mind-altering substance. An intention less of...