內容簡介
內容簡介 深入研究三種植物藥物——鴉片、咖啡因和致幻劑(麥斯卡林)，探索和參與圍繞這些藥物而產生的文化與消費。✰ 紐時暢榜書＆郵報焦點好書飲食文化作家波倫深入探究鴉片、咖啡因和三甲氧苯乙胺等３種影響心智的植物藥，徹底挑戰我們對藥物的看法，並探索致幻植物對人類的強大吸引力與其同樣強大的禁忌。 ▍「本書就像這是一趟旅行：引人入勝、大開眼界、思維改變。」── 《New Statesman》（新政治家雜誌）《時代》雜誌全球百大作家《紐約時報》暢銷書作家《華盛頓郵報》年度選書美國全國公共廣播電台年度選書暢銷書《雜食者的兩難》作者麥可．波倫挑戰我們對植物藥品的認知探索人類意識最極限境界______________________________________鴉片、咖啡因、麥司卡林如何成為我們的心靈渴望？又為何成為毒品？對人類文化帶來什麼影響？______________________________________人類食用植物的目的除了滿足食欲，有時也為了改變意識，引發興奮或平靜的感受、擾亂或改變精神感覺。但，我們飲茶、喝咖啡來提神，而不會將茶與咖啡視為有藥性的植物，更不認為是成癮的藥物或毒品，可是若用罌粟花種子泡茶，卻會受到法律禁止。植物在何種情形下被食用，就被稱為是違法毒品？《時代》雜誌評選為全球百位最有影響力作家的麥可．波倫，研究飲食文化數十年，在本書中探索鴉片、咖啡因和麥司卡林，這三種與人類社會最緊密關聯的植物，如何豐富我們的文化，我們為何耗費心力使用它們改變意識，又為什麼用法律、罪惡感來箝制人們對這些植物的渴望。 本書融合科學、歷史與作者親身經歷，透過各種不同角度省思並理解，當我們食用這些植物，改變自己的意識，事實上也是以深切的方式經驗大自然。這是一趟豐富的思索之旅，讀者可以從書中了解，千年來人類對這些植物的依賴與迷戀，反映出我們的渴望與需求，以及與自然界一花一葉緊密且複雜的連結。本中文書介出自《植物靈藥: 鴉片、咖啡因、麥司卡林, 如何成為我們的心靈渴望? 又為何成為毒品? 對人類文化帶來什麼影響?》時報文化出版企業股份有限公司出版The instant New York Times bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of the Year“Expert storytelling . . . Pollan masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” —New York Times Book ReviewFrom #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants—and the equally powerful taboos.Of all the things humans rely on plants for—sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber—surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime?In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively—as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world."
