Changing Consciousness with Psychoactive Plants - with Michael Pollan and Jules Evans
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Humans have changed their consciousness with plants for millennia; from the legally and socially acceptable consumption of coffee and tea to plants that are criminalised, such as the opium poppy.
Michael's book "This is Your Mind On Plants" is available now: geni.us/pollan
Watch the Q&A: • Q&A: Changing Consciou...
In Michael Pollan's new book, 'This is your mind on plants' the renowned science writer asks: Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?
Join Michael in conversation with writer and philosopher Jules Evans as they discuss these plants from several angles and contexts, and shine a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively-as a drug, whether licit or illicit. Michael will argue that by putting these plants into our bodies and letting them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can.
For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers; three of them (including his latest, How to Change Your Mind) were immediate #1 New York Times bestsellers.
Jules Evans is a practical philosopher. He researches ideas from different eras and cultures, then tries them out in life, and interviews others to see how ideas have helped or harmed them. From Stoicism to CBT, from Aristotle to ayahuasca, Jules searches for the best wisdom to help people suffer less and flourish more.
This talk was recorded on 5 August 2021.
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Catnip - yes indeed. We notice how cats can totally destroy plants - it makes sense the catnip plant would want to erase the memory of location.. Every cat owner knows the effect of catnip is very strong ... and we should never allow cats to drive or operate heavy machinery. 💿📀
I would be extremely concerned about cats driving under the influence of catnip!
Thank you both for this wonderful moment of visionary future world with cats doing the heavy work
how very true and something to get all cats should know
Catmint/catnip is my favorite tea! I prefer it with a little lavender, but usually use it by itself.
Lol thanks for the mental image of a cat driving a tractor 😂
He's been a real pearl in the development of understanding and bringing it to a wider public.
I am extremely grateful for the work you have done and risks you have taken!
Many tribes has been using for thousands of years. Great to see our scientists are exploring these dimensions
?! Our backyard and bush doctors never stopped using them. They did and do not care what scientist have to say about it...truth and health prevails.
About @#$%ing time
I'm writing a book, listening to this, and I eat coffee beans in ice cream, fine ground espresso, accompanied by more thc than it would take to sedate a hippo. So much of this converstaion resonated with me.
Hear hear!
Excellent discussion, bravo and thanks.
What an amazing discussion and conversation. People should be free to use whichever drugs they want and there should be systems in place to help prescribe and inform people about proper drug use.
Yes, but when you say "free to use whichever drugs they want" and then, in the next sentence talk about prescribing systems, you aren't speaking consistently.
Every substance that is prescribed is not completely free to use. They are guarded. Only doctors can grant you access to them.
I'm absolutely fine with the medical system for anything and everything that has enough proven risks associated with them and limited OTC access to other substances if being informed about those substances is an essential part of access to them.
i don't think it should be okay for pseuomedical claims to be made for substances. That includes cannabis, where they presently go unchallenged. (Some seem to believe it is a cure-all, now. I recently saw a medical cannabis promoter claim it would even help eczema - a skin condition, of all things.) Ultimately, dispensaries should probably be operated by a pharmacist, not a salesperson.
Consciousness isn’t changed just perception
15:25 I love observing the different systems and survival tactics of different plants. There’s an amazing variation.
On the point of the drug war is anyone really surprised by the outcome. It’s essentially the same result as prohibition. If there is a demand people will seek it out and those able to supply it will get rich but with it being outlawed those risking to supply it are not the nicest characters and will outright fight each other for competition of that market. Prohibition helped the mob rise the drug war helped the cartels rise.
i'd suggest the ones keeping it alive aren't as bad as you might think
easy to avoid criminals when legal purchase is available
I absolutely love this channel! Great perspectives As usual
Always thought the RI was a worthy institution but they've gone up a whole lot more in my estimation with this mature and objective discussion
Wire like neuronal structures that conduct electricity via ions/neurotransmitters in the CNS/PNS possess no attribute of thinking/life and yet that has “randomly” led to life. Consciousness/thinking is an innate idea(“Fitra”) that is distinct from carbon skeleton and yet the materialist scientist believes that chemistry turned into biology via “god of randomness”/”Emergent property”/”law of nature”. Consciousness can only stem from Necessary Consciousness (Allah-one/indivisible/loving/self-sufficient Perfection)
Die Autonomie und das Recht auf mentale
Selbstbestimmung ist ein entscheidendes Thema
der modernen deutschen Philosophie des
Geistes und des Bewustseins.
RUclips tells me that this video has been available for 4 minutes and yet 104 people have 👍 it and 4 have 👎 it. I understand that many will be pleased to see anything from the RI, but 4 'dislikes'? That must surely be based on the title and an inherent dislike of psychoactive drugs? It seems odd, to me, to dislike a video before it is possible to have watched it
Maybe RUclips fibs - I see some comments were left an hour ago
THIS is your worry? That someone clicked a button on a web page? What do YOU do if a cat gets sad???
@@Neilhuny talk to some humanoids. You are scary.
I disliked it as a reaction to your comment
@@defwishfx4400 Take a chill pill
I knew all this 20 years ago nice to know people are finally catching up
Everything is about set and Setting .
I don’t find any vulnerability to accidents etc via psychoactive substances, I believe there is precious little negative to changing consciousness.
Diving, rock climbing, and chainsaws are 3 things I tend to avoid trying while on big doses.
Small doses I wouldnt recommend mixing it up with those either. I have but really dont think its a good idea, at all.
That bit about the DOJ cracking down on gardeners and florists selling poppy heads the year Oxycontin was released is mind boggling. Do you think that effort was at the request of Purdue Pharma?
I found it interesting to ponder the correlation of caffeine's broad introduction to the West with the rise of western business and the disruption/backlash caused by the rediscovery of psychedelics in the 60s.
From what is said here, caffeine appears to consolidate the ego and emphasise the individual, while psychedelics appear to dissolve the ego and emphasise the group or whole.
The 60s backlash would appear to be the western, individualist, capitalistic system having an immune response to the psychedelic's potential to disrupt/dissolve the focus on the individual, upon which capitalism seems to depend.
Given society has now given ground to the return of psychedelics it would suggest, at first glance, we are potentially living in more interesting times than it would appear.
Interesting times indeed.
Ai, biotech and transcendental.
One way or another human consciousness is set for an upgrade soon.
That or we destroy ourselves.
Yes, the rise of neoliberalism but coffee has been around through all of that. Maybe the psychadelics offset the cultural influence of caffeine.
When scanning the brain, boredom is observed to activate 'the pain matrix' or regions of the brain responsive to pain. I can therefore understand why drug consumption will never be 'edited out' for evolutionary reasons.
People who benefit from cannabis as a pain relief might not be able to smoke it because of asthma. That was me. So, chewable was one alternative.
As a Brit I am completely convinced of the psychoactivity of tea. If I don't get a mug of it as soon as I get up, I don't function correctly.
The catnip story had me laughing.
My cat goes mean on catnip,I talking one on plank, that is why they get none.
@@cyankirkpatrick5194 Both my cats love it, but the dried catnip they will always eat right away. The fresh stuff they roll around in.
Fascinating and informative!
Maybe you could look into nootropics now, that's something I can only see growing in importance over the years and its mostly related.
Well, that was a perfect talk to accompany my morning coffee 🙂
Fantastic video.
The candy ? Is complex.
My aged mother cannot tolerate cannabis other than the gummies
We been through them all .
She is mobile now after 2 years crippled with arthritis. .
My friend's mother is the same way. Her lungs cannot handle the harsh carcinogens involved when burning and inhaling.
@@GrimSleepy I hope she is getting some relief from the chronic pain.
@@dermotmccorkell663 My buddy got her 3 or 4 different gummies of varying levels of Sativa x Indica ratios. Pain, sleep, and appetite. I'm not sure how they're working for her, I second your hopes that they're helping.
I'm amazed at some of the miracles cannabis has achieved in recent times. The Charlotte's Web strain that a father grew free of THC that miraculously reduced and I believe stopped the seizures his daughter regularly suffered... Your mother's story kind of gives me hope, Rheumatoid Arthritis runs through my family, maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope the best for you and your mother. Love and be loved, friend!
@@GrimSleepy they are sold in stores here, but there are no issues with it. No massive addiction, no kids eating them by accident, no desperate junkies, nothing.
@@deltalima6703 It's cannabis. One would have to be highly susceptible to addictive behavior to be addicted to THC. They wouldn't even be addicted to the THC as far as I understand, it would be the behavior that they were addicted to.
I live in Michigan, we have dispensaries popping up everywhere. I'm not a fan of edibles myself, I vaporize the 'wax' concentrates when I partake.
P.S. Hehe, responding to your other comment regarding the drug war being lost: Coincidentally, Nuclear plants are guarded with rifles. If plants have nuclear weapons, wouldn't that make them nuclear plants, and our responsibility to guard?
😃
Plantas y demás unidades del universo tienen conciencia. Quienes hemos experimentado la unidad del todo comprendemos que la conciencia no es la capacidad cognitiva o la inteligencia, sino el observador silencioso detrás de todo el fenómeno.
Great insights. Very interesting!
Remember, space travel is only safe when high
"He who controls the spice controls the universe"
I think of drugs as being helping me. But as far as creativity , I think you have to already have . In other words, drugs don't change people. It only helps to improve or other thoughts. Ultimately all the choices are made by oneself based on previous experiences and interpretations.
Very cool info. I want more
"You're a walking drugstore" -Josh White.
With that said, the Inuit do, indeed, get high . . . well, they get out of towners high by feeding them Sleeper shark meat in their food. The dude gets pretty high, but also has the greasiest farts ever. The Inuit jokesters enjoy much hilarity over it. True story.
That's poetic justice.
Well I am shure the indigenous population are laughing.
Self defense tool of choice
It is wonderful that he decided not to take that drug out of considerations for the Native Americans. Appreciation and appropriation sometimes overlap. He was still able to get a perspective of the usage and ritual just by being there without consumption.
I _get_ the historical issues involved, the arguments about cultural appropriation and so on; but at the end of the day, who is anyone to say to _anyone,_ "Oh this is ok for _Us,_ but _You?_ No, it's not for You..."
Pleased I got to add the 420th like to this.
I can vouch for Frank the cat and his poor memory when looking for his 'Nip dose', my cat does exactly the same thing, and only for nip! Not exactly a clinical trial but more evidence...lol. Great interview, I will buy the book, thank you gentlemen!
That "putting yourself back together" in the morning can happen without caffeine. I do it every morning without much trouble, though it probably takes a bit longer.
How? Enlighten us.
About caffeine: the combination with theanine is fascinating... attenuates the side-effects
☘🌵🌱🌺🌻🥀Bring on the plants.
Using plants to reconcile expectations with reality 🤔
Huxley's Doors to perception.
A mirror to nature vs nurture.
The tempting pathway to the infinite answer to the question "why?"
Nature's neural exploration.
I wonder what a computer would eventually achieve if programmed to constantly ask the 'why' of every piece of information it receives ..
Is that Stamets mushroom cap?
💡💞💡💞. Thank you one million times. 👍👍👍💯💯💯✔✔✔♾♾♾😌😌😌💡💞💡💞.
I like the one that changes consiousness from sleepy to fully awake.
I think they call it coffee.
So agreed about 34:40 but also: psychedelics are in some ways the opposite of narcotic drugs. The term drugs being usually associated with narcotics, that make you feel certain things less rather than more.
But that subject is pretty divorced from why commercialization is quite concerning.
Decriminalization different story. Legalization is fantastic if you dont think about it but if you do you realize it must come with mature precautionary measures.
Go Oregon.
Don't forget Portugal.
I lack the emojis to go to far.
You obviously also lack the ability to communicate and spell.
@@EmilMToft I get my point a cross 🙊🙈🙉
Can you have a caffeine and lsd balance? How do you dissociate the ego but still stay driven?
The hat on the end of that bookshelf looks very familiar!
It’s the In door to the out door
We are dependent upon the other Kingdoms
That 1998 poppey story is insane.
Graham Hancock's "Supernatural" is an excellent book.
kinn grimm
vor 35 Sekunden (bearbeitet)
Seems like it would be beneficial within societies which already legalized certain drugs to create groupes which do these together and also in a ritualistic way, to avoid abuse equally to having someone softly leading you through the experience or a group supporting you when your issues manifest.
In comparison to only having a hedonistic pleasure seeking money making consume orientated aproach.
"The drugs have won the drug war"....indeed!!
Why no mention of tobacco plant?
Regarding cannabis chocolate bars with 1000 mg. Many patients who are in constant pain use these bars to reduce pain and there is no overdose.
Could you not publish the 'missing' pages as a free anonymous/'unconnected' reference/research, stating that it is only someones personal opinion? Then buyers of your book would have a complete copy without you being at risk.
I’d live to be a botanist 💚
love from kerala❤🌈
I spent quite a lot of time trying to read the text on Michael Pollan's sweater, until I realised it isn't text. And I'm not on anything, I swear.
Or is it, though. I'm beginning to freak out, man
cool
The difference between poison and medicine is the dose”
Alcoholics anonymous does a type of group healing in some areas. Holiness churches give a type of group healing in some churches.
"Sugar has drug-like effects, especially on children" - wow.
You didn't know that
@@ediedotson7865 Other than what's in fresh fruit, sugar I don't eat at all.
I prefer outers.
17:00 I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me) - Marilyn Manson
🧪⚗🦄💜
I feel all drugs that come from plants should be legal and all lab made unless used by surgeons and Doctors should not be.
Yes. That's good advice.
Wrong and arbitrary “feeling.” What you “feel” is not based on evidence.
@@tantzer6113 He's still permitted his feelings, and opinion. Rather than attack like he's your enemy, just share your difference of opinion. If you have any, provide some factoids.
@_P-i-V_ * As for my feelings, I could see trends starting where masses of people learn of a certain species of plant, and all go to it's locale to harvest it for themselves, and effectively causing damage to the local ecosystem.
Keep in mind that every chemical compound created in a lab is made up of the same atomic building blocks of the universe. Nothing in nature, whether man had a hand in it's formation or not, is truly unnatural. Then there have been chemical compounds (not sure about drugs) that we had believed were novel creations, that were later found to exist in one form or another in the natural world.
Finally, some of the drugs that come from plants, have to be manipulated through chemistry to provide the desired mind altering substance. There's a point where the line blurs between 'manicured' and 'manufactured'.
You are entitled to your feelings. Please try not to affect any laws that will impact me, however, because I completely disagree. Plants are a lab, thats reality. The war on drugs is lost, plants have nuclear weapons we only have assault rifles, its time to surrender, not double down and be destroyed. If somebody like shulgin or pollan wants to explore entheogens let them.
I have seen people ruin their lives on marijuana.
I have known people that went to ahuasca sessions and had wonderful exp. As i knew them later they still had immense personal problems and one other person committed suicide because she could not handle a cold world after her wondrous elevated loving exp.
hallucinogens.... take a trip and never leave the farm,as it were. great way to pack a weeks worth of vacation into a weekend too. note: not for the insecure nor weak minded.
Just don't overdo it, according to the other members of Pink Floyd at the time Syd Barrett took too much LSD one night and never really came back.
When we're all mushrooms we will
Be the halluci nation
LSD my favorite drug
Salvia gang
New book title:indigenous use of psychadelics!
Seriously, not one mention of Melange from the planet Arrakis ? although it is the poop of gigantic sandwormds. But still.
I think I am missing something with the coffee thing, it jus dons do it for me.
Psychedelics are one of the few treatments for psychopathy, they changed me. Having said that, for many, they are also a route to subtle insanity.
Plonts?
Missing the point. When social conditions are so alienated from nature the desire is to escape. When rats overbreed they go crazy......this is where we are.....there are too many humans. They have become domesticated animals.
psychedelics in the royal institution = cool
michael pollan as the academic spokesperson for psychedelics = not cool
Look into the rise of Jansianism, mysticism was alive and well in the 18th century.
in 5:00, did he say drug mutate memes!?
I question an agency.
Exercise and the locomotive body - fasting - bathing in freezing water, sensory deprivation... all expand consciousness. No drugs required.
I suggest naming the psychoactive drugs "inner" rather than "outer."
Not really.
"oh man I'm into my mind" what a good idea, "out of my mind" the hippy trip quip seem now inappropriate in the light of conciousness changing research. I expect that the people who hate this idea are reincarnations of the same people that killed the Cathars in their thousands for their (simliar) beliefs!
The Bible states clearly that he made the plants for our healing, why is it such a discovery now.?
States clearly where? Do you have book, chapter and verse?
Bowdlerized
In the UK there is no statute of limitations. No time limit for crime which in a way can be a good thing.
Be very very careful when we were young a friend of mine was fed too much mushroom and he was never the same, it devastated his entire family
Excess consumption can indeed be dangerous. Thirty little Liberty Caps is the sweet spot.
Agreed. Drugs brought out panic attacks in me. It was cannabis though, and it was most likely there in the background anyhow, lots of people get panic attacks without trying drugs.
I had a friend killed by an asprin.
Have you ever tried Oxygen? Look at me I'm hooked forever!!!
He became enlightened when he was high and saw his family for what they really were - and told them...fail
Nothing psychoactive grows in Greenland.. what about mushrooms?? 🍄🍄🍄🤣
Experts cant know about them. Esp. not if they spend time and money to do research. Sure, any clown can google and knows better. But the expert already has his pay check...and is way to high to remember.
Not a plant. :)
I like Michael Pollan. He's a brilliant guy while looks like being on acid all the time.
No difference between doctors giving you meds only difference is they get paid by companies other than that self help is what is the goal
Drugs will 100% alter your consciousness. No matter how you try to make sense of this experience you will always come back to the same issue of how to prove P=NP, but now with psychedelic coloured cats alive and dead at the same time.
Schroedinger's Molly Cat
I hereby decree my next cat shall be called Molly. .......If the current one turns out to have exploded in a black hole.
@@dazzz81 I heard a thought experiment recently: Assuming there are an innumerable quantity of universes. Put yourself in the position of the cat. You will never wake up as the dead cat, as you would then be dead. Therefore you will always find yourself to be the living cat. Are we therefore immortal creatures, if we cannot experience being dead?
Mark Compton You're not factoring in all the components of the equation. From the perspective of the cat, humans look like dogs. It's the direction of rotation of the yin yang. The circle of life. P will therefore will always be greater the NP. It's the flow of entropy. "The corn will grow if the chickens are not hungry." Brushy One String. Peace be upon him.
@@dazzz81 My cats look at me like I'm the sanitation worker sometimes and the waitstaff others... I think the Egyptians gave cats a big head, and I'm not sure we'll ever live it down. 🤪
I don't drink and I don't smoke tobacco but use mdma psilocybin cannabis and DMT every now and then and have always been advocating for the safe regulation of these substances to allow people who choose to put them in their body to do it safely and know what they're taking. I use mdma to enhance my experience of live music that takes away some of the sensory issues I would normally be having that are part of being autistic and being in a large crowd of people so I can spend a night dancing and forget about the stress of life. I harvest psilocybin mushrooms once a year when they grow in my area which I micro dose for mental health and anxiety issues until they run out. I take DMT to experience not only the visualisations but to aid creativity, mental health and meditation on things that really matter. All drugs can be abused that's obvious to all with legal and illicit but by encouraging a criminal element to that trade that's never going to go away. People should be allowed to use things that they choose to take themselves and by providing a safe source and regulation of these products you'll save more lives by allowing people to do it safely.
4:03 - Echoing Carl Hart already - which is good, the stigma needs to be taken down.
I am also not writing a book
No rest for the wicked...[ ; ))) ]
I do not follow his line of logic when he speaks about peyote and the Native American Church. It is perfectly possible to grow peyote for medical and even recreational use, if we decided we wanted to do that, without disrupting the availability of peyote to American Indians through that church or any others that might come into being on reservations.
Where's the conflict?
Besides, the kind of Americans who might want to use peyote recreationally are far from being the kind of Americans who would allow themselves to exploit native America.
Psilocybin mushrooms grow in cow dung around Austin.
Sure a litle alcohol works positive if jou are looking for a partner. but later it is negative
in Europe alcohol addictive sensible is all ready filterd outt
Certain drugs are pro-social. Interesting and an obvious observation that is easily overlooked. Cultural mutations? Think internet and 'smart' phones!
Psychogenic
The effect of sugar on kids has been shown to be placebo I believe
Clearly, you haven't raised any kids!!
@@lastchance8142 Amen!! 😳🤣
Some call it a man's sport . Exercising demon'sthat can Make or break not recommended if married or with children or the weak spirited.👊
I wouldnt be holding Oregon up as an example of enlightened social policy. It is a cluster...
its a cluster of the peacemakers and empaths
@@frednelson3556 The voter got the cluster. Others are moving to Texas.
When we're reliving the dark ages
It's hard to be enlightened
The whole drug war was about
Diversion
Oregon is a properous state which is doing pretty well by most objective standards of measurement.
Actually, there is no disparity whatsoever between the races as far as incarceration rates when the sample is controlled for income etc. I am a White man and got 25 years for Possession and don't appreciate you making false claims about stuff like that, pal.