Interviews of Interviews

60 Minutes on Psychedelic Medicine

Study participants at some of the country’s leading medical research centers are going through intense therapy and six-hour psychedelic journeys deep into their minds to do things like quit smoking and worry less. Watch the whole 60 Minutes episode here.

Today, Explained: Mushroom magic

Denver and Oakland have become the first US cities to effectively decriminalize magic mushrooms. Michael Pollan, author of “How to Change Your Mind,” explains how taking a trip could help treat depression. Listen here.

The Bioneers Podcast—Reluctant Psychonaut: How Psychedelics Changed Michael Pollan’s Mind

A quiet renaissance of serious medical research has once again arisen to study the therapeutic benefits of LSD and other psychedelics, including overcoming addiction and depression, and easing the existential terror of terminal illness. In this program, acclaimed journalist Michael Pollan shares a travelogue of his reportorial and personal journey with psychedelics. He slips through the rabbit hole into the mystery of consciousness itself, into the indivisible oneness of people and nature, and asks: could the transformational healing that psychedelics can bring on the personal ego level translate into cultural healing that could address the greatest issues of our time?

SXSW 2019—Michael Pollan and Tim Ferriss

A renaissance is underway in the scientific study of psychedelics, both as a mode of therapy for mental illness and as a tool for understanding the mind. Tim Ferriss takes up these issues and more in a conversation with Michael Pollan.

The Power of Awe

Michael joined Roshi Joan Halifax, Dacher Keltner, and Soren Gordhamer on a panel at the Wisdom 2.0 conference.

A Renaissance in the Forbidden Science of Psychedelics

After decades of being forbidden by law for recreation or research, psychedelics are legally enjoying a renaissance in the scientific community as a potential way of treating a wide variety of ailments including PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, OCD, anxiety, and dependence on alcohol and nicotine.

Michael Pollan on the Science and Sublimity of Psychedelics

Michael Pollan has long been fascinated by nature and the ways we connect and clash with it, with decades of writing covering food, farming, cooking, and architecture. Pollan’s latest fascination? Our widespread and ancient desire to use nature to change our consciousness.

Michael Pollan: Why I started taking LSD and what it helped me to do

Are psychedelic drugs, like youth, wasted on the young? Could middle age be the ideal time to try some consciousness expanding – to “shake the snow globe” as one neuroscientist puts it.

London Real: Psychedelics — How to Change Your Mind

Pollan’s new book How to Change Your Mind, dives deep into the world of psychedelics, through meetings with shamans, magic mushroom hunts, and using yourself as a guinea-pig, he takes the readers on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind.

The Guardian Books podcast: Michael Pollan on the history, science and experience of taking psychedelic drugs

On this week’s show, we’re talking to Michael Pollan. You may know him from his food writing – books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, or Cooked, which is also now a Netflix show. His latest focus, however, is something quite different – still something consumable – it’s psychedelic drugs.