Tripping Past Your Ego with Michael Pollan [VIDEO]
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If you're a rat in a lab and you use LSD,

The experience that you have would probably be so all-encompassing that you cannot fathom using it again. You're in a lab. Imagine there are these giant monkeys making you walk through mazes and now you take LSD for the first time. You're like, what does a maze mean? Where am I going? Why do I like cheese so much? What is it that drives me? And now you're seeing the universe for the first time. You're thinking about cats in a completely different way.

If I was a rat in a lab, I'd be like, I don't know, I need to chill on this. I just need to think about my life a little bit more. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.

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Learn how to unleash the potential of your team at Atlassian.com. This episode is brought to you by Starbucks. You know, there's something special about coffee, especially when it's from Starbucks. It's more than just a beverage because it helps me connect. Whether I'm catching up with friends or just taking a breather with Christiana, what do I love most? Well, it's the passion and the craft that they put into every cup.

You can taste the care in every sip. And trust me, that matters. For me, it's those connections over coffee that lead to some of the most interesting conversations, sparking some of the best ideas. It's a great day for coffee. It's a great day for Starbucks. Do you think this could be the first topic where we don't agree at all? Yes, which has made me like afraid. Huh. Yeah, because normally there's some overlap.

Or I can even see where you're coming from. Oh, you don't even think you'll be... Okay, but wait, wait, wait. So help me understand this. We say we're going to have a conversation. We're going to be speaking to Michael Pollan. He has single-handedly changed the perception...

of, I mean, like millions and millions of people when it comes to psychedelics. And it's not only psychedelics, you know, he wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, This Is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind. And he's written beautiful accounts of how we see the world of what we take. One of my favorite books of his just even talks about

how we see coffee versus how we see something like taking, you know, mushrooms or marijuana. And he goes, you know, coffee, it's just, it's a drug that has suited the establishment. And so that's why it's allowed to stay around. So he's explored everything, but it's interesting how now, and we'll talk to him a little bit about it, is it's like now he has become the de facto go-to guy on mushrooms and psychedelics and, you know, alcohol.

And yes, it's funny you say he's the guru, but he's not even trying to present himself as a guru. He's like, no. He's like, guys, I'm a journalist. I'm just a guy. He's like, no, you're the chosen one. Everyone's like, you are the guru. Where do I score myself some dope shrooms?

Yeah, but it's funny. I've never seen you recoil like this. I know. I know. And I've been thinking about it. Even, I may have prayed about it. Oh, wow. Yeah, because I was just like, I don't want people at home to think like I'm like this lock them up conservatives about people that do recreational drugs. Okay. But I may be a little bit. Okay. No, I think it just, it brings up some stuff for me. Is this because of your upbringing? Because for me, like I think about...

growing up and my perception of drugs so i didn't touch weed my whole i've okay so i'll i'll even take it before even like drugs drugs uh my mom doesn't drink my mom doesn't smoke my dad doesn't drink my dad doesn't smoke all right so i grew up in a home where that wasn't a thing my grandmother etc and my mom said to me when i was 13 12 13 maybe even younger she came to my room

And she had cigarettes and she had beer. And she said to me,

do you want and and i was like oh this is a trap obviously this is a trap and i was i was almost disappointed and i was like come on lady i'm not gonna fall for a trap like that you're gonna come into my room and offer me cigarettes and she was like do you want do you want to try them and i was like no because these are bad things and we shouldn't and then she said to me listen you're gonna you're gonna encounter alcohol you're gonna encounter cigarettes and things so if you're gonna use it i would rather know that you use it

And then you use it at home. Yeah. And then I don't worry that now you're out in the world using it, you know, hiding it from me and then getting into situations where you can't share that you're using it. Harm reduction. Exactly. It's amazing. Which is wild. I mean, my mom is like super religious and super strict and super. Very progressive. Yeah. And so then she didn't even know how to like light a cigarette. So we had to go to an uncle of mine.

And then he was like, Trevor, what's up? And she said, he wants to try cigarettes. And the guy was like, okay, I want to smoke. And he gave us the cigarettes and I puffed with him. And I was like, this is trash.

I was like, how is the taste in your mouth? You know what I mean? It tastes like someone's eating everything disgusting and then farting it into your oral cavity. And then the alcohol beer just tastes like old water that has dribbled down a sewer. I'm a bad bre- I don't like it. So I didn't like any of that. And then drugs was almost in the same category for me. Because of that initial experience? Yeah. Okay. In fact-

Drugs, the way I grew up was, you are a loser. You are going to end your life. That's how I knew drugs. That hasn't changed now? That was just when you grew up? That's how I knew drugs. That's all I was told. These are the things that will happen when you take drugs. So I didn't touch weed. I smoked weed for the first time when I was 21. Okay. That's how like anti-drug. I used to judge people.

And I would look at them and I would say to them, it is a pity that you've chosen to do this with your life. I used to say that to my cousin. So I can see where you might come from. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's all of those things and a bit more. All right. But yeah, I just. Are you open to a conversation about it? I'm open to a conversation. And I think the thing that bothers me about this, I'm sad I'm not nuanced because I pride myself on being like gray area, nuance, both side is in Mormon. And on this, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, yeah.

The African mom has finally arrived. The African mom has just emerged and is just here. But, and the more I seem to read, the deeper I go into know. That's why I'm really curious about today's conversation. Oh, that's an interesting one. Michael, welcome to the podcast. But like, let me ask you this. Do you think or do you find...

that people become more open to the idea of exploring even the idea of psychedelics when they read? Or do you find that people become more closed off? I find when people read, they do become more open. There are a couple of things that make people more open. And by the way, Christiana, I'm not going to advocate you do anything. I'm going to advocate for that. I know, that's what Trevor's here for. I'm going to advocate. Yeah.

It's perfectly okay not to do these drugs. When I started talking about this, right when my book came out and I was talking to various groups of people, and I would notice when I spoke in positive terms about psychedelics, I found that unless I started talking about risk right at the beginning, there was always a person or two in the room before I said anything positive.

more about it, this person would not open her ears. So I learned in my conversations where I was trying to get a hearing for what have turned out to be some therapeutically really important

substances and the key was let's talk about risk right at the beginning can you get addicted to these substances can you overdose on these substances because i i came very late my i didn't use a psychedelic till i was in my late 50s i was somebody who you know with a family who uh and lots of responsibilities and i did a lot of investigation well how dangerous are these things right

And I found that on the classical psychedelics, and it's important to define what we're talking about, LSD, mushrooms or psilocybin, DMT,

but not ketamine and not MDMA. These are not technically psychedelics. There is no recorded lethal dose. That's quite remarkable because you have drugs in your medicine cabinet. If you have Tylenol, that is lethal at about 17 pills. But before we get into that, Michael, I love the idea of speaking about risk first. And

I've actually seen you do this in more than one setting. My favorite encounter with Michael and watching this in real life was we were at an event where it was myself, Michael, and then Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, and Ava DuVernay. And this is like a weird motley crew of people who found themselves around a table. And I don't know if it was Oprah or Ava who starts off and says,

Wait, you're the mushroom guy, you know? And I'm like, oh yeah, mushrooms, it's amazing. This whole thing, do you know? And I'll never forget, like the more I was speaking, I thought I was convincing people. Oprah's face got more and more concerned. Gail looked at me with more and more compassion. You know how Gail is. Like Gail looked at me like, oh Trevor, do we need to call somebody? And Ava looked like the cops were about to like swarm in.

And it was interesting to watch because when Michael started speaking, the first thing you spoke about was risk. The first thing you talked about was, hey, you cannot guarantee any outcome. You've got to be worried about your physical, you know, the physical aspect you've got. And I watched them slowly turn their bodies from the outside of a conversation to

back to the inside of the conversation. And so maybe we can talk a little bit about that aspect. So what are the risks then? If you cannot overdose, for somebody like Christiana who's going like this, you guys are putting yourself at so much risk. What are the actual risks? Well, if you put LSD in one of those classic setups with a rat given two levers to press and it administers a drug to its veins,

With amphetamines, cocaine, they will press that lever until they're addicted and they die. If you put LSD in that setup, they'll try it once and never again.

Oh, wow. That doesn't sound like an endorsement. No, it's not. I mean, animals like, no, thanks. Well, I mean, imagine being a rat and trying to interpret what's going on. We don't know what kind of experience they have. There's actually a study underway to try to figure out if rats and mice have the sort of mental, you know, hallucinations. Yeah.

All we know now is they head twitch when they take LSD. And that's not very useful for research. So no risk of addiction, no risk of overdose. The risks are of a psychotic break. I mean, there are people who have a psychotic experience

Sometimes it's just, it looks like a psychotic experience and it's just a panic attack. There's a wonderful story that Dr. Andrew Weil tells about working in the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in 1968 as a young, newly minted doctor who had had a lot of experience with psychedelics and

And the doctors were all saying, people are coming in, you know, having LSD-induced psychosis. Yeah. And he goes into a little examining room and there's somebody who's absolutely flipping out. And he takes a few notes and then he says, will you excuse me? There's someone in real trouble in the next room. Mm-hmm.

And as soon as he said that, this person realized, wow, I'm not so fucked up as I thought I was. There's somebody more fucked up than me. And they were fine. So he understood what was going on in a way that the other doctors didn't. But people do flip out. And these experiences can be mitigated, I think, if you work with a guide, someone who's with you to talk you down when this kind of thing happens. But

But without question, the bad trip is real and it can be absolutely terrifying.

And that, you know, as Trevor said earlier, the effects cannot be predicted. There's a kind of a physiological signature to alcohol or cocaine. That's not true with psychedelics. Everybody has their own experience. And a lot of it depends, as Timothy Leary famously said, on set and setting, that you've got to be in the right mindset and you need to be in a very safe setting, uh,

where you're not worried about the FedEx driver coming to the door or a call from your mother. Michael, let me ask you this. I distinctly remember, and it's purely anecdotal, how...

The conversation around weed, cannabis, marijuana, whatever you want to call it, changed when white American moms started smoking it. All of a sudden, America was like, actually, maybe it's not so bad. Tell me more, Snoop Doggy Dogg. You know what I mean? It started changing. Well, How to Change Your Mind, my book about it was in 2018.

And at that point, there were lots of people who were using psychedelics but would never talk about it publicly. And one of the things that's happened is that that taboo, and none of the scientists would ever admit to ever having had an experience on the record. They would off the record, which was hard for me.

But everything changed in the few years after that, and it became acceptable for people to talk about their use. But I think the big thing is the taboo thing.

you know, has lifted the way it did with cannabis. Right. It was moms doing it, but what happened first was, and this was the activists did this, they rebranded cannabis from Cheech and Chong, you know, goofy, to medicine for AIDS patients and people with wasting syndrome and things like that.

And remember, we started with medical marijuana, and that changed the image. And it may be that the same thing is happening with psychedelics, which are getting a lot of attention as a therapeutic aid. But, you know, as one of my sources put it, they're very important for the betterment of well people also, not just people who are ill. Yeah.

So, so far, though, the path that they're on, I think, is there are two paths, really. There's a medical path that we've talked about. There's also a spiritual path. There are a lot of people who are interested in religion. There was a really interesting study that hasn't been published yet that I'm writing about where religious leaders in like 13 different faiths were given a high dose of psilocybin to see what insight they might have on the religious visions they had and the mystical experience. And what did they find?

Well, a lot of these people were burnt out before. You're working with dying people at really hard times in their lives, and congregations are shrinking. And many of the ones I talked to had their faith renewed. They all had divine encounters, except for a Buddhist. So that's kind of what you'd expect. Yeah.

The Buddhist said, when I interviewed her, she's a Buddhist priest, and she said, I traveled to a realm beyond concept for which there are no words. Oh, I love that. It was a very short interview. There was nowhere to go from there. But others, they were really surprised that the divine didn't always conform to their faith. And in many cases, I think the majority, the divine was feminine.

And that blew some of their minds. I love that. God is a woman. I can get behind that. God is a woman. Now we've got her. Now we've got her. What's, what, okay, wait. So what's, what's the thing you're most, like when you, when you think about it, what's, it's so funny. What's the scariest thing you think of? What scares me? The benefits.

Wait, what? Yeah. Everything I read about the good... And I'd love Michael to go through the benefits first, and then I'll explain why I found it profoundly terrifying. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought you were going to be like... Yeah, this is interesting. Wait, I thought you were going to tell me that you were afraid of... Yeah, but all of that stuff also exists with alcohol, which I think if it was invented today, we probably wouldn't sell it so freely. Do you know what I mean? Like...

All of that stuff exists with other substances. But psychedelics, for me, the more I read, it was the benefits that was like, this is some cultist, scary shit. And people should just be Pentecostals. But Michael, I want you to talk through the benefits, particularly what did take me was end of life care. This was the most moving work that I saw getting done, which was...

people with cancer diagnoses, many of them terminal, having a guided psychedelic session. This happened at NYU in New York and at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. And I interviewed a lot of these people and they had their whole attitude toward death and their anxiety changed. Some had the experience of developed a confidence that something would happen to their consciousness after they died.

Other people had incredibly naturalistic scenarios in their head about what would happen. I remember one woman describing that she'd been flying all over the world and then went into the ground and

and was kind of disaggregated, and her molecules were taken up by plants. - Wow. - And she, now this is not a supernatural idea, this actually happens. - Yes, yeah, but you feel it, yeah. - But she felt it and she identified with it. And she identified with something beyond her ego that made it easier to think about her death, that we are all interconnected, and that in some way,

she would go on. And yes, her ego would not, but that was okay. And this experience of what's called ego dissolution, of feeling that your self has kind of been, I mean, I described in the book this experience of seeing myself explode into a cloud of blue post-it notes, which then fluttered to the ground and formed this pool of

thick blue paint. And from some new perspective, I'm observing this and I was like, okay, this is perfectly fine. That's okay being a puddle of blue paint. I don't have a problem with that. But what happens when your ego dissolves is that the barrier, your ego is a wall, is a defensive structure, right? And when the walls come down, there's nothing separating you from whatever is out there.

We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. This episode is brought to you by Starbucks. You know, there's something special about coffee, especially when it's from Starbucks. It's more than just a beverage because it helps me connect. Whether I'm catching up with friends or just taking a breather with Christiana, what do I love most? Well, it's the passion and the craft that they put into every cup.

You can taste the care in every sip, and trust me, that matters. For me, it's those connections over coffee that lead to some of the most interesting conversations, sparking some of the best ideas. It's a great day for coffee. It's a great day for Starbucks. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Managing a business is already tough enough, but throw in hiring and all the challenges that brings sometimes, it can feel impossible.

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I have friends who took psychedelics as atheists and then called me and said, I now believe in a God. I'm talking about the most skeptical, just like calloused individuals. They go like, I die and nothing. It's straight up materialist. You forget about this is stupid. And then they take psychedelics and they will say to me, look, I don't know what it's called.

I don't know who made it or whether it made me or how it works or doesn't work, but I now know that it exists. And you see them develop a different connection with themselves and with this idea that goes beyond themselves. And I always wonder, actually, Michael, we know that psychedelics affect, or at least mushrooms in particular, affect our neuroplasticity. So essentially what it does is,

It interrupts your brain's ability to make assumptions about things, which is how the human brain needs to work. The reason a baby is enamored by a box is because their brain is constantly going like, whoa, what is this? And then at some point you're like, it's a box. That's why when we, you know, when we have like cake, you know that, what's it called again? You know the trend.

You guys know the trend. And it's not a cake. Yeah, but cake's not cake. Yeah, but you know why that messes with us. You think it's a pencil, but it's a cake. Okay, yeah. So one of the reasons that messes with us and mesmerizes us so much as adults is because it's sort of returning us back to being a baby. Babies are constantly living in a world of, is it cake?

You with me? So when you play peekaboo with a baby, when you cover your eyes, you know you're gone to them. Yeah. Right? So the baby's like, where did you go? And then you open your eyes. They're such idiots. Yeah, exactly. But that's why they live in so much wonder. That's why they're like, wow, the world is so big. Sorry, Trevor. This is, I think, part of my objection. That shortcut to wonder. No, but it's not necessarily about the wonder that I'm talking. I'm talking about the brain being interrupted constantly.

in creating a fixed idea of what it is and what reality is or isn't, right? Yeah. But meditation can do that, no? No, you've never meditated so much that you thought something was cake. Don't lie. Okay, all right. Everyone who tells me this, you're lying. Wait, wait. Do you know what? I come from a spiritual tradition where people really believe in the transcendent and the supernatural.

Like I was raised in a Pentecostal tradition where people speak in tongues, they fall on the floor. It's all of this somatic body work. They see visions all the time. Like they have these out of body experiences constantly and they don't use shrooms.

Some of them say they have the experiences, but they don't necessarily... I mean, if they say it, it's still true. It's true to them. I don't know. I'll be honest with you. And it's true to people who take psychedelics, their insights, in the same way. Yeah. They're both subjective opinions. That can't be proven.

But the people having these religious experiences, you know, there is brain chemistry involved there too. Yes. So we're talking about, you know, chemicals produced by your own brain or chemicals introduced to your brain, that that's the distinction. And I don't know, you know, how important a distinction that is. But I think that going back to what Trevor said...

We don't really take in the world anymore as adults, right? We have a set of predictions and beliefs. And so that's why we don't think about boxes. It's just a box and it's just cake. And that we have stopped...

having the kind of what's sometimes called lantern consciousness of children, where they take in information from everywhere and everything's awesome and wonderful. We have what's called spotlight consciousness, which is very useful for getting stuff done. But it gives you a kind of focus and it's based on the world being as the world usually is. And so very little new information comes in. Our senses are only being used to correct things

the predictions that our minds are making. That's it. What psychedelics appear to do

is short circuit that predictive machinery. And what that means is they can help you break out of habits of thinking and habits of behavior that you're stuck in because you're predicting that, you know, I'm the kind of person who can't get through the day without a drink. Yeah. This is a prediction about who you are and an identity you're stuck in.

And the psychedelics, Trevor mentioned plasticity, they make the mind more plastic and they essentially temporarily dissolve those habits of thought.

And that's very useful for people struggling with addiction, for people struggling with eating disorders, people struggling with obsessive compulsive. I mean, these are all disorders where you're stuck in a loop and you have some habit of thought you can't break. And psychedelics appears to be able to help people break those habits. I'm curious. And this is a completely serious question. Can it be used to treat racism?

Because that is a pattern. No, that is a... To me, that's... I mean... I know you're being serious. I'm being so serious. No, I know you're being serious. That's maybe what made it funnier for me. It's not a ridiculous question. No, but I'm like... It's not. That's what made it so funny. Because I'm like, all right, some people have anorexia, some people have depression, but a lot of people have racism. A lot of people have racism, right. You or your loved ones suffering from racism. Do you find yourself hating people because of the color of their skin? No, but like, racism, homophobia, these are real...

real like consider shrooms talk to your doctor about shrooms it's a serious question i like it just it caught me off guard okay can it be used to treat racism homophobia etc it's a hypothesis that needs to be tested um you know they they do change people's beliefs there's a general belief that

The direction of those changes are toward feeling more like other people, more connected to other people, more connected to nature, less tolerance for authoritarianism. I haven't seen a study looking at racial attitudes, but it stands to reason that if there is this very common feeling of, I love everybody, we're all one,

You know, and so it's not out of the question. It would be very interesting to test. I mean, racism is a habit of thought, right? Because I actually thought about police officers. When you said that thing about like our minds making these predictions. Yeah. I thought of, sure, we can look at these institutions as racist and these are terrible people, but they are basing everything they do based on predictions and biases. Exactly. Often that they can't help themselves. Like to me, it's interesting if shrooms can unravel that.

You know, in a way that I think words and even living in sometimes diverse environments cannot. Well, you know, what happens with these experiences is that people begin to write new stories about who they are, about how the world works. But you need to be guided through it. The guide would talk to you about that after the experience to kind of solidify a new perception. Yeah, I think actually that's one of the biggest misconceptions. Mm-hmm.

that I've seen around psychedelics, you know, particularly mushrooms, is people will go, you take this,

And your life changes and everything will never be the same and it's perfect. And to what Michael's saying is I've found that people who take mushrooms unintentionally or like without intention behind their action don't have the same results. All they do is they experience a moment of joy. They experience a moment of feeling connected.

But then they quickly settle back into all the old patterns because they've been around for so much longer. But the people who have a guide or people who do what they call like reintegration, those people spend more time in the liminal space that is thinking about what you're experiencing. And that's another reason I didn't like it. Why? Because the...

As I understand it, right, the roots of this stuff is indigenous medicine, right? It belonged to a people before it was kind of codified and it becomes this thing that academics and, you know, Hollywood elites and white liberal people do. I don't think it belonged to anyone. I think people were just taking it. Sure, but like it's part of like indigenous plant medicine in a way that it's not connected to the white American experience. Am I wrong, Michael? No.

You're partly right and partly wrong. I love this. This is great. But like, go ahead. So some psychedelics have an indigenous history. Psilocybin is one. It was used in Mexico and Central America for thousands of years. Peyote, Native Americans and Mexicans for 6,000 years.

But LSD, MDMA, you know, these are these are creations of modern, you know, Western chemistry. I think that in general, the indigenous use of these substances has a lot to teach us. And that I think one of one of the places we went wrong in the 60s was medicine.

Not paying attention to the wisdom of indigenous cultures. And we figured we could, you know, we could create a whole new context and we failed. Mm hmm.

Where are we seeing the biggest changes in the adoption of psychedelics or even the acceptance of them? Where are we seeing a thrust coming from a particular segment of society in America? I think Silicon Valley has been a place where psychedelics are in widespread use. And these are the people who are the philanthropists funding a lot of the studies that are going on. One interesting community that I've been working on, I'm writing a book about consciousness and

And most of the philosophers and neuroscientists who are working on that issue are

are experimenting with psychedelics as an avenue of inquiry. You know, people who are completely brain-centric people who think, of course, consciousness emerges from the neurons, are having experiences of consciousness outside of the skull. And they're having crises, you know, metaphysical crises. So that's really interesting. I don't know where that'll go.

One community that's really important in this space is veterans. It's a community with high rates of trauma. What is it? 18 suicides a day in America among vets. And some of them are using it

often in groups, sometimes going down to Mexico or somewhere where it's legal or quasi-legal, but that they're getting a lot of relief from trauma using a series of specadelics. I think you have this interesting phenomenon of microdosing, which is very low risk and many people do it. Christiana alluded to it earlier. Some people find it very helpful. We don't have a lot of science on it to say one way or another. It may be a placebo effect,

But there's nothing wrong with a placebo effect. If it works, it works. Placebos are actually driving changes in your mind. But that, I think, makes it very easy for people to enter into this world at low risk and potentially high reward. And that seems to be in many, many different circles. So much to unpack here for me, because I do know part of my rejection of this is rooted in my own sense of ego. I will...

own that and having a family with mental illness and addiction issues. So there's a lot of stuff around substances for me. And now we have this drug that is coming more into emergence that some people can afford a fancy guide. Yeah. And it is very expensive. And it's very expensive and like settings, like...

it sounds like this is something that could be hugely beneficial for people who don't have much money and can't afford a guide. So first of all, I want to go back to what you said about family and addiction and stuff.

I, like you, have family members who have struggled with predominantly alcohol. And that addiction, when you see it, is one of the worst things. It's one of the scariest experiences you'll have. That's why when I first encountered any semblance of something that was even considered a drug, I was like, oh, this is the escalation of that. I was like, if alcohol is 10% bad, drugs are 500% bad. That's how I thought. And then what I came to find is how these people

These substances, these medicines, I would even call them, they do the opposite of alcohol. I always try to explain this to friends. I go, alcohol disconnects you from yourself and psychedelics connect you to yourself. I've met very few people, if any actually, who go, oh yeah, I can't believe I did that. No, alcohol will always have a story that ends with, and then I crashed the car and then I punched this person. Psychedelics, it's the strange definition

It's a strange, different connection that connects people to themselves and who they actually wish to be as opposed to like who they've sort of become, you know? It sounds so religious. No, no, it is. It is in many ways. But you know what I like about it is it's not easily manipulated by a religious figure. Is that how it's felt for you when you've done psychedelics? Yeah, that's exactly how it's felt. So I think in an optimistic world in the future,

Right now, it's expensive. There's guides. People have made it a little like, you know, like a... What do they call it? Like glamping. Yeah, glamping. They've made it glamping right now. But I do think...

There'll be apps. I do think there'll be a democratization of the idea of a guide. I genuinely think it'll be very short before you'll have an AI guide on your phone. So dystopian. No, I know it is in some ways, but can I tell you something? I actually think that that will be what opens it up to everyone in the right way. And I think that's going to open it in the right way. Because, you know, to your point, Michael, when people have used psychedelics in the right settings...

with the right company, with the right intention. I've witnessed people change their lives. I've seen people who couldn't build connections with their families. They had deep traumas that they've held their entire lives. And they couldn't, with all the talk therapy in the world, they couldn't let go of the feeling. You know the feeling you have when somebody has traumatized you or when you've experienced trauma because of them or around them? I've witnessed people lose that. I've seen people shift so much

of who they were to who they could be because of psychedelics. And when we live in a world where so many people do what they do because they're stuck in the idea of who they are,

I think of how magical it could be to find ourselves in a place where it's not, first of all, it's not a pharmaceutically controlled thing. Trevor, don't you want to create a world where less people feel they need to escape reality because they're so depressed, anxious, and traumatized? And that's what I'm saying. I don't know if you agree, Michael. But I feel like psychedelics are kind of like a plaster over the mother wound or whatever it is. Do you know what? If we weren't in a capitalist hellscape, right?

right and we had good housing and good schools and more people were healed this is work of like prison abolitionists right who were like don't put him in prison he just needs organic food and a nice house right no no no but okay let me challenge you on this real quick i think it is beautiful for us to think of um you know psychedelics as a soul for what's happening now and i think in many ways it can help with a lot of what society is going through however

This has been as old as time. There will always be something that makes time terrible. The human condition. You're going to get eaten by a lion. That is going to traumatize you. Okay? Well, and don't forget death. I mean, you could have the perfect society, but you're still going to have death. But that's...

That's very natural to me. Well, it's very natural, but it makes people crazy. It does. I mean, it's very disturbing to us and we're not very good at processing it. And so I agree. I mean, the goal should be to remove causes of trauma. And that's a worthy goal. And being able to treat people

People who have been traumatized does not in any way diminish the need to address the causes of it, but it's going to happen. Yeah. And so you do have to give some thought to how you how you treat people who've had this in terms of democratizing it. Yeah.

Yeah, you can, I guess, use technology and maybe AIs will turn out to be very good guides. But I think this is why there is so much energy on the part of researchers in this area to get FDA approval. I mean, that's really how you reach lots of people. And that's what we were hoping would happen with MDMA, although that approval has been delayed. Let's talk a little bit about that. This is my conspiracy theory. I'll put it out there. I love it. Already.

There's a conspiracy theory. My conspiracy theory is that governments won't legalize or won't fully accept these medicines or these substances or whatever you want to call them. They won't formalize them until the pharmaceutical industry has figured out a way to synthesize them. And when they've learned how to synthesize them and sort of like corral what they do, they're going to sell synthetic versions of it to people at a marked up price that nobody can afford.

Right. And then what they're going to do is they're going to outlaw the stuff that people were just growing and being able to make and distribute themselves. That's my problem. Like, I'm sure there's some FDA approval. No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying they should just go like, hey, you can use it the same way they let you use alcohol, you know, because I think, you know, and Michael, I don't know if you you have an opinion on it, but I I just go like.

Once it becomes a formalized medicine and they block out what it has been and can be for so many people, I think then we actually end up in a world where you can't get it now because you don't have health insurance or you don't have enough money to buy the medicine, the official FDA approved. When the thing grows out of the ground, it's mushrooms. It's the most resilient thing ever. Which is why…

Which is why I think it'll be hard to control. I mean, I think that the means of production are so easily acquired by everyone. But I think you're right. I mean, if you compare what happened with MDMA, whose approval was rejected by the FDA, to the approval of Spravato or esketamine, this is a form of ketamine-based

approved for depression. It's a nasal inhaler. They had to do three phase three tests before they got one that showed it worked at all. And yet it got through. Why? Because it had big pharma behind it. And it was also a drug that could be administered without any therapy. The FDA is totally stumped by the idea of what really should be called

psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy because you can't remove the therapeutic component. - Yeah, I agree. - It really is, it's important to its effectiveness, it's as important to its safety. It mitigates the chances of bad experiences and helps people consolidate what they've learned. And the FDA is not equipped to regulate therapies, so they kind of threw up their hands. But when the business model is figured out, and it hasn't been yet for any of these substances,

then Big Pharma will get involved. And then the sort of scenario that Trevor's describing, I'm afraid, could well come to pass. Don't go anywhere, because we got more What Now? after this. This episode is brought to you by Brooklinen. All right, people, let's talk about bedrooms for a second.

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Go to ShipStation.com and use code Trevor to sign up for your free 60-day trial. That's ShipStation.com, code Trevor. I fit a profile of a person who's typically anti-psychedelics, and that's a mother who has young children at home. And I guess, like...

My kids hit 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Exploration is just a normal part of adolescence. If it was sex, I'd be like, here's some condoms. You know, like everything out. And I'm like, with what we know about how adolescent brains are, their fragility, but also their ability to change so quickly.

how does a parent discuss this with their 15 year old 16 year old kid who's interested and who's probably going to try it is there a safe way for them to do it or they need to kind of be like Ronald Reagan over here me and just say don't do anything and stay in your room like and I'm just curious about what the conversations around shrooms looks like for parents to their children and is it even a

appropriate for like, I don't mind my 15 year old smoking some weed, but like when you say they're going on a journey and they may see vampires. So Michael, yeah. You know, I, I didn't have to deal with this. Um, my son, by the time I got interested, my son was, you know, well into his twenties, I think. And,

He had a couple experiences with mushrooms. Before you or after you got into it? Before me. Okay, okay. And, you know, I mean, I'll tell you very quickly what happened because it gives you some sense of what can go wrong. He and a friend went up to Tilden Park, which is in the park above Berkeley where we live. They drove up there in our car, I should say. They took mushrooms.

And his friend became convinced that his arm was falling off. And it was about to fall off. And my son could not persuade him that his arm was well attached. And it wasn't a problem. They were in, I think, high school, early high school.

And, you know, this became a freak out and they get to a parking lot and my son finds a sympathetic woman there and says, can you help us? My son, my friend thinks his arm is falling off. Can you drive us to his pediatrician's office? Yeah.

And that's what they did. And she was able to assure him in a way my son couldn't that his arm was not falling off and his arm was well attached and there was nothing to worry about. And they got through it. But, you know, my concern in that narrative is the car, is the involvement of the car, as it would be if he were using alcohol. I think, and some people would disagree with me about this, but in general, you're talking about...

chemicals that mess with your ego.

And it seems to me, until you've fully developed your ego, that might not be a good idea. And that, you know, kids and boys in particular are still developing into their early 20s. And it seems like that might not be the best time to do it. I see psychedelics as kind of a rite of passage. And cultures are always very specific about who's eligible for a rite of passage. And I would say a 13-year-old, not necessarily.

Not ready. No, I love that framing though. Right of passage. No, it's funny. So it's funny you say that. I am. So I remember talking to my, my youngest brother about it and he is 20 and we had this whole conversation and he was like, you know, what is, what is this thing about? Cause he knows me. We've grown up in the same household, you know? And so I said to my youngest brother, I said, you know, the biggest reason I would say to you, you shouldn't. And this is why I'll say to any young person, why you shouldn't do mushrooms is

is because it will not give you, other than like, oh, hallucinations and whatever. I mean, but it won't give you the thing

That is so important for like older people to get from it. And that is a loosening of how you see the world. Young people already have a loose view of the world. That's why they're the ones who start revolutions and they protest for different ideas. Tech companies. Yeah, no, it's true. It's all the young who think this could be different. And so I said to him, I was like, your brain is already so fantastically plastic. Why not keep that?

Keep that until you find that you're stuck. And I tell this to anyone. I go, you can use mushrooms for fun, but I go, if you can use it when you're stuck...

You're stuck in alcoholism. You're stuck in love and in relationships, and you can't figure out how to break your patterns. You're stuck in how you see the world. You're stuck in whatever it is. That's when I would say to somebody. Try Jesus. No, try. It's like they're so interchangeable to me. Okay. I'll say this as somebody who has done Jesus and I've done mushrooms. I've done both. I've done Jesus and I've done mushrooms.

Jesus is amazing. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. Trevor's like, my mom's listening. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. Don't get me wrong. But I always say, and I always talk to my mom about this. I go, don't forget, Jesus made wine when the party needed wine. So even Jesus knew.

that sometimes people need a little something, something. You know what I mean? And by the way, that wine was not just wine. I mean, there's a lot of evidence that the early communion wine was spiked. Oh, wow. Are you being serious? Oh, yeah, completely serious. So there are archaeologists that specialize in chemistry, and they've been looking at early communion cups.

And they found one in Spain that had residues of ergot, which is the fungus from which LSD was derived. No way. I know, I know. So there is a theory, and it needs a lot more research and proof. There's a good book on this called The Immortality Key by Brian Marescu.

And but that there is some reason to believe that there was another drug in the communion cups and they were trying to give people, as you know, the the the Native Americans. Yeah. Any other research? A big experience. And what we have left is, you know, this kind of Manischewitz wine. That's, you know, nothing special. But but once upon a time, it apparently had a real kick.

I think what I don't like is how...

I've seen how presidential advisors during the Nixon era and, you know, during the Vietnam War and all of that, they specifically set out to target these psychedelics because they felt they undermined what America was trying to be. And what was America trying to be at that time? A place where it fights wars, it bombs other countries, it gets their resources, and it makes people clamor for those resources in their lives. And they found...

When people started using these psychedelics, they didn't care about being a manager. They didn't care about getting more money than the person around them. They didn't care as much. They cared about other people.

They wanted other people to eat. Yeah. And this, they felt, undermined what the American dream was built on. And I get the US government in that. Because I'm someone that loves order. Like I'm an order over freedom type of person. Yes, but what I'm saying is you're conflating. So all these free people opening their consciousness. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, ironically, that's why I think the indoctrination has worked. They've tricked people into believing that.

that there is only one way to have order. Okay. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. They've tricked people into believing that the only way we can live in a civilized society is if everybody goes to an office and everybody tries to make as much money as possible and everybody screws each other over. That's order. But when it's ancient tribes, whether it was Native Americans, whether it was in South America, whether it was in Africa, they had order. Yeah. And this was a tool that they used

ironically, to maintain that order. - Because we did maintain that order. That's right. - Yeah, because when people are stuck, that's when there's disorder. - For sure. - You know? - Yeah. - This is when people now, they break, they fight, they hurt each other.

That's the thing that actually brings the order back because you go like, oh yeah, I'm part of something. I'm not alone in this thing. We're all part of something. Yeah, I think that's my problem. I'm not comfortable with a society where there's no yearning and like profound brokenness for people to keep striving. Yeah, but striving for what? No, but striving for what? Striving for just like...

this being their best, which is F-ed up. Actually, actually, so I'm going to ask Michael about this, but okay. You know what I'm talking about, right? And I would love to know, Michael, from your side, because look at you. You are one of the most accomplished writers. Did you find that you didn't have a yearning after taking psychedelics or how did it affect your perception of what to yearn for?

Well, you know, one of the things about psychedelics is you don't immediately want to do them again. It's kind of overwhelming. Yeah. And that's why they're not habit forming. I think it's like, oh, that's why the cartel doesn't sell mushrooms. Yeah. There's no money in it. I mean, even when these things are used in a treatment modality, it's one or two pills or experiences. That's it. You know, and the pharmaceutical model is based on taking the same pill every day for the rest of your life. But without question, they're very disruptive. You know, they're they're

So every society has drugs, right? I mean, it's just a given that humans change consciousness. It's one of the things we do. Children do it when they get dizzy. We're just not satisfied with everyday normal consciousness for whatever reason. We have caffeine. We don't even think about that as a drug, but it's a very powerful drug. It happens to be a drug that makes us fit

even more smoothly into the machinery of the capitalist order. It makes us very good workers, and that's why their coffee breaks, right? I mean, think about it. Your employer gives you free drugs and time to use them. Right?

Twice a day. Oh, that's amazing. And then there's alcohol, which kind of numbs people to a miserable life, although they can get into trouble with it. And there's cigarettes that actually help make people better workers in various ways. And then there are drugs that disrupt the whole system. Mm-hmm.

And psychedelics in the Western context in the 60s were definitely that. There's a famous quote from President Nixon that his domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, gave to a journalist. But basically, Ehrlichman said, yeah, the drug war, which Nixon starts in 1970, that wasn't about public health. That was all about politics.

Nixon's great enemies were hippies and black people. And by making LSD illegal, he could disrupt the hippie community. And by making marijuana illegal, he could disrupt the black community.

So we have to understand that which drugs are illegal, which ones are not, is always changing. And it depends on the nature of the drug, but also the nature of the society. What's happening with psychedelics now is it's undergoing a transformation itself

from being this very disruptive force to potentially being something that could help people deal with various mental health issues. That's the story that hasn't been completely written yet, whether our society can make peace with these incredibly powerful and disruptive molecules. And the answer, the jury is still out. Yeah, I don't think, I mean, I'm biased, but I'm biased because of the writing, the people I've met, the research,

I don't think it does, you know, to what Michael just said. It may interrupt people's yearning to be part of a system that has failed so many. Yes, I agree. I can agree with that. But look at what it's done to the world. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like we're bombing other countries because we want the black goo that's underneath them. And then we'll bomb another country because we want that thing or we feel like we need that.

And all of that yearning, I don't mind if some of that goes down. Because I think people will have a different kind of yearning. And I think that'll broaden us out again as people. Do you get what I'm saying? I completely feel you. Like I know that a lot of my objection is on one hand indoctrination. Yes. And then it's just like being a mother is fear.

Of course. No, yeah, that I understand. You know, it's just like, it's this loosening or this loss of yearning or happening all that terrifies. I couldn't even live through 2020. That was, we just had to be in our rooms. Yeah.

And black people were like, we want a few more rights. And I was like, what's going on here? Like, it was just like, it was any sort of upheaval. I guess it's the British in me. We never really had a revolution. It's just like, come from societies are all about order and hierarchy. And there's a king, there's a queen. And if you're Nigerian, you have a chief. Do you know what I mean? And so I like, there's a lot of fear on the other side of it. And the ego, even if not something that I should, because I think that even though I'm like, this isn't for me, there could be someone else in my life that's like,

I could say, you know what? You should try microdising. This could help you. Well, exactly. Or, I mean, it...

Even if I never wanted to use these substances again, I think I'd want to live in a world where other people were. I like that. Some other people. Yeah. Because, you know, what we're doing is, I mean, we haven't talked about creativity. And, you know, some people get great ideas on psychedelics. They're cultural mutagens, right? They're like mutations. I mean, the Beatles. We don't have the Beatles without psychedelics. Ringo Starr was the worst drummer. Yeah.

to probably ever live. Hot take. I think we're doing okay. Hot take. Terrible at keeping time. Shots fired. Sorry, yes, Michael. Or Steve Jobs, right? Who credited his creative vision to LSD. I mean, I think that...

You want to have a lot of different kinds of people in your world, in your culture, and some of them are exploring frontiers of knowledge or frontiers of the self and interiority, and some are not. And it's not for everybody. But I think that it's on balance a good thing they exist and the fact that people can achieve these states of consciousness, which may benefit all of us.

I love that. Michael, thank you. Thank you for joining us. You know me. I could talk to you for hours and hours about this because I do believe not that this is the solve for everything, but rather that there are many people who are stuck in their lives.

And when you can start to unlock that in people, you just change how people... When you change how you see the world, you change how you be in that world. Yeah. And I don't know. And the fact that you have a way of seeing the world, we're not even aware of. We're not aware of this windshield of consciousness, right? Yeah, I like that. And what psychedelics do is they kind of smudge the windshield and you realize, oh shit, there's a windshield there. Yeah. Why is it that way? Could it be another way? I would argue that...

world leaders should be doing psychedelics. Like you see the UN, one day at the UN,

Everybody should have to take psychedelics and they should all get guided. And then you can start, you can only start negotiating about how the world should be when you are fully able to see the world through multiple lenses. That's what I believe. So Michael, I'm going to try pitch. I'm going to pitch that. And you, I like that. You're going to come in. General assembly. Let's do it. We're going to do it like the communion. We're just going to spike all the water that's in front of them.

And then we start guiding them from the front. Michael Pollan, thank you so much. Thank you so much again for joining us. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, guys. And thank you, Christiana, for adding some hybrid vigor to the conversation. I love it. I love it. I call it hating, but you call it hybrid vigor. That's going to be the new term we use. Hybrid vigor. She's a hybrid vigorist. I love it. I'm going to put that in my Instagram bio. I love that. Thank you so much, Michael.

All right. You guys take care. You too. So, okay. So let me ask you this. So first of all, if we were at 100% no. For me personally or for society? No, for you personally. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. We can do both. You're at 100% no for both. Okay. So let's go with society. Where are you now? For society, I'm at like 50% no because I think...

That's a good jump, though. I think most people should not be anywhere near this shit. This is fine. I'm willing to take 50%. But when you're telling end-of-life care, veterans, people need relief. People need healing. And however you find the healing in a way that's not harmful, I don't want to be in the way of that. But for everyone else, you need to figure it out. I beg. Figure it out. Grow up.

Everyone's traumatized. And for you personally? For me personally, got me down to maybe 100% no to like 95% no. Because I don't want to augment my reality. So there's nothing in your life where you go like, I'm stuck and I haven't been able to unstuck this. Oh, my whole family situation is crazy. I can't fix them. I can't fix my extended family. No, but I'm saying, what about you in there? Okay.

agree there are like blocks and stories that we tell ourselves but I feel like someone that I encountered the divine and I have like a sense of wonder and nature and my children I don't have that yearning for it right now because I have things that do that for me but like I can I

I see the benefits. But Michael's great. You're great. You have changed my mind. I'll take it. 5%. I have moved somebody who is extremely vigorous. I'll take my 5%. Hybrid vigour. Hybrid vigour. Hybrid vigour.

What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?