A Journey into Consciousness

Live Online Discussion with Michael Pollan

“Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day.” —Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction”

“I open my eyes and a world appears.” —Anil Seth, Being You

We move through the world carried by thoughts, sensations, memories, and moods, yet the source of this inner life remains stubbornly mysterious. How does experience arise at all? What makes a mind feel like something from the inside? And how widely might awareness, agency, or selfhood be shared across animals, plants, or even machines?

In A World Appears, Michael Pollan turns his attention to these questions with the curiosity and clarity that have defined his work for decades. Moving across neuroscience, philosophy, literature, biology, contemplative traditions, and emerging ideas around artificial intelligence, he explores the many frameworks we use to explain consciousness. Along the way, he measures these theories against the most immediate evidence available: his own lived experience as an embodied, thinking, feeling human being.

Join Michael’s journey into one of nature’s greatest mysteries in this discussion on how it unfurled. Whether scientific, philosophical, personal, or speculative, your questions will help shape the conversation. This is an opportunity to engage with one of the most profound subjects, a lived reality we all share.

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, will be published February 24, 2026 and is available for preorder now at Amazon (here), Barnes & Noble (here), Bookshop (here), and Books-A-Million (here).

Schedule 

Tuesday 14th April
Live Discussion: 7:00-7:30

Live Q&A: 7:30-8:00

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an award-winning author, activist and journalist. His international bestselling books about the way we live today - including How to Change Your Mind, This is Your Mind on Plants, In Defence of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma- combine meticulous reporting with anthropology, philosophy, culture, health and natural history. Time magazine has named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world. He lives in the Bay Area of California with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer.

Your Organiser and Host

Kate is an event coordinator at the Psychedelic Society. Her research background spans clinical sleep studies, altered states of consciousness, and personalised gene therapies. She currently works applying neuroscience to the arts at the neuroaesthetics lab, Kinda Studios. Working with Onaya Science, she explores how rituals, music, and plant medicines support trauma recovery. Kate brings curiosity and care to the ways we feel, connect, and transform (and will usually be found outside).

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