# Quote — Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire

> The brain can be made to drug itself, as seems to happen with certain placebos. We don’t merely imagine that the placebo antidepressant is working to life our sadness or worry—the brain is actually producing extra serotonin in response to the mental prompt of swallowing a pill containing nothing but sugar and belief. What all this suggests is that the workings of consciousness are both more and less materialistic than we usually think: chemical reactions can induce thoughts, but thoughts can also induce chemical reactions.

- Author: [Michael Pollan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan.md)
- Book: [The Botany of Desire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan/the-botany-of-desire.md)
- Page: 171
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan#The_Botany_of_Desire_(2001)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan/the-botany-of-desire/the-brain-can

## More from this book

> Aldous Huxley did his best to argue us out of the view that a chemically conditioned spiritual experience is false—and he did so long before we knew anything about cannabinoid or opioid receptor networks….He points out that mystics have always worked systematically to modify their brain chemistry, whether through fasting, self-flagellation, sleeplessness, hypnotic movement, or chanting.†
>
> †Huxley suggests that the reason there aren’t nearly as many mystics and visionaries walking around today, as compared to the Middle Ages, is the improvement in nutrition. Vitamin deficiencies wreak havoc on brain function and probably explain a large portion of visionary experiences in the past.

p. 171 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan/the-botany-of-desire/aldous-huxley-did.md)

> But is this wonder the real thing? At first glance, it wouldn’t seem to be: a transcendence that’s chemically induced must surely be fake. Artificial Paradises was what Charles Baudelaire called his 1860 book about his experiences with hashish, and that sounds about right. Yet what if it turns out that the neurochemistry of transcendence is no different whether you smoke marijuana, meditate or enter a hypnotic trance by way of chanting, fasting, or prayer? What if in every one of these endeavors, the brain is simply prompted to produce large quantities of cannabinoids, thereby suspending short-term memory and allowing us to experience the present deeply?…From a brain’s point of view, the distinction between a natural and an artificial high may be meaningless.

p. 170 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan/the-botany-of-desire/but-is-this.md)

> There are a lot more roses and tulips around today, in a lot more places, then there were before people took an interest in them. For a flower the path to world domination passes through humanity’s ever-shifting ideals of beauty.

p. 79 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-pollan/the-botany-of-desire/there-are-a-lot.md)