To fall in hell or soar Angelic

You’ll need a pinch of psychedelic

This couplet, sent to Aldous Huxley by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in 1956, coined the word we use to describe mind-expanding drugs like LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and psilocybin. With Greek words for “spirit” and “manifesting,” Osmond made the word psychedelic. It had nothing to do with wild designs or bright colors but was offered by Osmond to express what was experienced and understood to happen to persons affected by these substances before a slew of social rents and fears grew to the hysteria that halted research and access in the mid-1960s.

In his courageous new book, food writer and activist Michael Pollan applies his careful, skeptical mind and intimate personal writing style to the complicated history, the reality, and the astounding potential of psychedelic drugs. Pollan tells how a few fortuitous events aligned early in the millennium, permitting doors of research to be reopened. Recent discoveries in neuroscience refute a few old myths but, to a compelling degree, support observations and understandings from past eras. How to Change Your Mind is an encouraging and aspirational book. For ourselves and our planet, let’s hope psychedelics can escape their badly perverted reputation and senseless incarceration.