Summary

"Travelogue: Journeying Underground." This section of the book serves as an introduction to the next phase of Pollan’s own experiences with psychedelics. He begins by suggesting that since psychedelics were made illegal until relatively recently, overt research into their effects has been severely limited: instead, much of the work being done, and the experiences being sought, happened secretly. This means that a psychedelic experience is one he has had to look for carefully and discreetly. He also discusses his reluctance to do so, describing himself as being generally less interested in the spiritual and psychological than in the real and the practical. Nevertheless, he adds, he is also generally driven by curiosity, and so he prepares to undergo his own psychedelic experience.

Pollan then describes the years-long development of an informal network of guides whose intention is to work with, and...