#16 Andy Mitchell on 10 trips

Uncharted Territory

Is passively receiving a pill, even a psychedelic one, ever truly beneficial? Writer and neuropsychologist Andy Mitchell presents his new book 10 Trips, and speaks of how the new reality of psychedelics is characterised by hype around the current incarnation of them as mental health antidotes. Andy had issues with addiction in his late teens, and stayed drink and drug free for 25 years. But then he ended up revamping Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind and set out to curate 10 different trips with 10 different molecules in 10 different settings. This soon became 40 trips in 60 days, though he hasn't now tripped for a year.
His prevailing thesis from the experience centres around a scepticism about the medical model, and a belief that the standardisation and monetisation of the psychedelic experience will dilute its potency, and limit its ability to re-enchant us with the world. Andy describes his intrepid adventures researching and writing the book. Notably, he visited the Kogi tribe in Colombia and explains how he met a former Lithuanian criminal who quit the gangster life and started a recycling company after drinking ayahuasca.