Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain

by Allan H. Ropper

“I’m going to give you a potion, it will solve your problem.” That statement promises some control over mortality and destiny. That’s why what we do is as much shamanistic as medical, because society cannot relinquish that hope, the belief in the curative power of something, of medicine, of prayer, of diet, of therapy, of sheer expertise, of connecting with another human being, rather than acknowledge that the universe is like the eye of a dead fish: cold, uncaring, unreflective, unresponsive.