This Is Your Mind On Plants

Paperback, 288 pages

English language

Published July 6, 2022 by Penguin Books Ltd.

ISBN:: 9780141997339

(1 review)

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience.

In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief.

Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively.

In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply …

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience.

In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief.

Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively.

In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can.

This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

1 edition

B O A B reviewed This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan

Could also have been titled This Is What Plants do to Your Mind

5 stars

I find Michael Pollan to be a really engaging writer, with the prose easy and enjoyable to read. The fact that I learn so much while reading one of his books is just a bonus. The only real issue, which also relates to books like Ayelet Waldman's A Really Good Day, is that I want to try these drugs to see what effect they have on me; but I'm far too risk averse to try wandering down to the bad area of town to try and score some.

I found the section of Opium to be particularly interesting, as I have Oriental poppies growing in my own garden. The section on mescaline was also very interesting, especially the cultural issues around it's growing areas and usage.

If you enjoyed How to Change Your Mind, this is more of the same, and worth your time.