Tripping on utopia

Emma — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the first era of widespread drug experimentation. It was their parents.’The generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the ’40s and ’50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach dolphins to talk. A tripping Cary Grant mumbled into a Dictaphone about Hegel as astronaut John Glenn returned to Earth.At the centre of this revolution were the pioneering anthropologists – and star-crossed lovers – Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Convinced the world was headed toward certain disaster, Mead and Bateson made it their life’s mission to reshape humanity through a new science of consciousness expansion, but soon found themselves at odds with the government bodies who funded their work, whose intentions were less than pure. Mead and Bateson’s partnership unlocks an untold chapter in the history of the twentieth century, linking drug researchers with CIA agents, outsider sexologists and the founders of the Information Age.

How Confidence Works

Emma — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

* Confidence makes your brain work better and boosts your performance
* Confidence acts like a mini-antidepressant, lifting your mood
* Confidence is contagious
* Confidence is anxiety’s greatest antidote
* Confidence is a set of habits that feel fake at first but become real with practice
* Confidence makes boys bullsh*t more than girls
* Overconfidence can have disastrous consequences
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‘Brilliant … it will change how you think about confidence.’ Johann Hari
‘Important for everyone but crucial for women.’ Mary Robinson
‘Interesting and important.’ Steven Pinker
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Imagine we could discover something that could make us richer, healthier, longer-living, smarter, kinder, happier, more motivated and more innovative. Ridiculous, you might say… What is this elixir?

Confidence.

If you have it, it can empower you to reach heights you never thought possible. But if you don’t, it can have a devastating effect on your future. Confidence lies at the core of what makes things happen.

Exploring the science and neuroscience behind confidence that has emerged over the last decade, clinical psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson tells us how confidence plays out in our minds, our brains and indeed our bodies. He explains where it comes from and how it spreads – with extraordinary economic and political consequences. And why it’s not necessarily something you are born with, but something that can be learned.
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‘Rich stories and change-inspiring examples for every kind of performer.’ Pippa Grange

‘Appealing… ranges from neuroscience to politics.’ Nature

Experimental psychology – The Bell Bookshop

Tripping on utopia

How Confidence Works