‘This is your Mind on Plants’ review: Mind-altering garden plants

Exploring the link between man and nature, Michael Pollan delves into the impact of the psychoactive elements in opium, caffeine and mescaline on the brain and its aftermath

Michael Pollan has been bedazzling us with his writing about our relationships with plants and nature. He has considered questions such as how and why plants evolved to gratify humans, what we should eat, why our connection to nature matters, and how our food emerges through water, heat, fire and earth. His writing is elegant, original, entertaining and thrilling. His latest book, This is your Mind on Plants, is no different. Utterly absorbing, it is a continuation of How to Change your Mind, where he opens the door on psychedelics — psilocybin, mushrooms and LSD. In the current volume, he draws us in through lyrical historical and cultural narratives, takes us on a path that explores the biology of some mind-altering chemicals, punches at confusing government policies on drugs, describes indigenous communities’ ancient practices with peyote, and tries to explain his own transformational experience with the guided consumption of psychedelics. He examines human involvement with three mind-altering chemicals: opium, caffeine and mescaline.