How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

by Michael Pollan

“There is so much authority that comes out of the primary mystical experience that it can be threatening to existing hierarchical structures.”

“This guy is lying on the couch right there where you are, with tears streaming down his face, and I’m thinking, how absolutely beautiful and meaningful this experience is. How sacred. How can this ever have been illegal? It’s as if we made entering Gothic cathedrals illegal, or museums, or sunsets!

The mycelia in a forest do link the trees in it, root to root, not only supplying them with nutrients, but serving as a medium that conveys information about environmental threats and allows trees to selectively send nutrients to other trees in the forest.* A forest is a far more complex, sociable, and intelligent entity than we knew, and it is fungi that organize the arboreal society.