A book is shown. The cover reads: Good Chemistry by Julie Holland.

Good Chemistry tells a hopeful story of empowerment for all

But there’s a kicker: personal responsibility 

I really admire Julie Holland, whose book puts her in groundbreaking territory. In it, she says that SSRI’s don’t really work. And in fact, big pharma and the whole model of medicine based on prescriptions as the solution doesn’t work.

In the early pages of her book, Holland describes how frequently prescribed mood-altering drugs like Prozac and Zoloft, as well as stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, are masking our underlying ailment, which she describes as loneliness. By suppressing the symptoms, we render ourselves unable to solve the bigger problem.

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The book Swimming in the Sacred is shown beside a coffee cup.

Psychedelics aren’t a mental health trend, they’re a sacred message from nature

And women are the wisdom holders

In the first pages of her 2023 nonfiction book Swimming in the Sacred, author Rachel Harris dedicates it to “the women who have practiced the art of guiding journeys despite great legal risk to themselves.” She goes on to describe these women as “the true heroes of the psychedelic renaissance.”

When I first read that line, I couldn’t help but see in my mind’s eye a list of the people typically named in the histories… Gordon Wasson, Stan Grof, Allan Watts, Aldous Huxley, Albert Hoffman, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Wade Davis…

The names came to mind easily, and the parade of men marched proudly on. Swimming in the Sacred effectively interrupts the parade of men to introduce 15 unknown women who have been ethically, gratefully and quietly working in the psychedelic underground for the past two decades.

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With her essays on the theme of trauma, Sarah Polley hits work culture right in the body

BOOK REVIEW: Run Towards The Danger

by Sarah Polley

Let me start this rave review by stating that I’m far from unbiased as a book reviewer.

I don’t pick up books that don’t interest me. I don’t finish books I don’t like. I don’t write about books I wouldn’t recommend to a friend. So if I pen a book review, it’s automatically a four- or five-star treatment. And this one is no different.

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