August 27, 2010

Videos from Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century are located at www.maps.org/media/videos

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April 17, 2010
   "Psychedelic Science Connie Littlefields’ Tribute to the Shulgins" .

Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century - Shulgin Tribute from Conceptafilm on YouTube.

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April 26, 2010
  Originally found at: http://theweek.com/article/index/202281/Can_ecstasy_cure_PTSD "Can ‘ecstasy’ cure PTSD?" by .

An illegal psychedelic has promise as a cure for post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers. Following, a quick guide to "the peace drug"

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April 23, 2010
  CNN "CNN: Hallucinogens Could Treat Ailments" by Dan Simon.

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April 23, 2010
  USA Today "Psychedelic drugs aid anxiety treatments in cancer patients" by .

With this mention in the USA Today, it really does seem that the mainstream media has become friendly to discussing psychedelic research!

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April 23, 2010
  Yahoo News "Psychedelic trips aid anxiety treatments in study" by Malcolm Ritter.

This article discusses one subject's treatment with psilocybin as part of the NYU psilocybin/cancer anxiety research project, as well as mentioning the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference. Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Steve Ross, M.D., and David Nichols, Ph.D. are each quoted.

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April 23, 2010
  Associated Press (VIDEO) "Cancer Patients go on a Psychedelic Trip" by .

This video news article interviews Steve Ross M.D. of the NYU psilocybin/cancer anxiety reserch team and one of his subjects who took psilocybin under his care.

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April 21, 2010
  Huffington Post "Amanda Feilding’s Talk at the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century Conference" by Amanda Feilding.

The text of Beckley Foundation Director Amanda Feilding's opening talk at Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century was reprnted on the Huffington Post.

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April 21, 2010
  Popular Science "Study of Vets Finds Ecstasy an Effective Treatment For PTSD" by Jeremy Hsu.

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April 21, 2010
  CNN "Psychedelic Drugs For Your Health" by Campbell Brown and Sanjay Gupta, M.D..

Watch it on the on the MAPS website (or fullscreen on CNN's website.)

This is one of many great media pieces that arose from the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference. This television news piece features interviews with Steven Ross, M.D. from the NYU psilocybin/cancer research team and CNN health correspondent Sanjay Gupta, M.D.

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April 20, 2010
  CNN "Science Takes a New Look at Psychedelics" by Dan Simon.

This television news article (MOV) features short interviews with Rick Doblin and Michael Mithoefer, and coverage of the Psychedelic Science in 21st Century conference. (Watch in fullscreen at CNN's website.)

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April 20, 2010
  Santa Cruz Weekly "Santa Cruz Psychedelic Drug Research Group Sees Progress" by Jessica Fromm.

This is a different version of the article that appeared in the Silicon Valley Metro News the week before the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference.

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April 20, 2010
  Scientific American "Can the Peace Drug Help Clean Up the War Mess?" by Brian Vastag.

At the Psychedelic Science conference, researchers reported positive results on the effectiveness of MDMA in relieving PTSD and talked about psilocybin in reducing stress in late-stage cancer patients

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April 20, 2010
  Muslims.net and PressTV "Psychedelic confab closes in NorCal" .

The largest gathering on psychedelic science in four decades has been held in San Jose, California.

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April 19, 2010
  MSNBC (Reuters) "Party drug ecstasy eases PTSD in small study" by .

Talk therapy combined with MDMA curbed distress, experiment showed

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April 19, 2010
  ABCnews.com "Psychedelics Soothe Dying: NYU Researchers Study Use of Psilocybin to Help the Terminally Ill" by Susan Donaldson James..

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April 19, 2010
  SantaCruz.com "Psychedelic Conference a Big Hit" by Danny Wool.

Timothy Leary once said that “We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history, but they’ve got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.” Well, they could have gone to the San Jose Holiday Inn to attend the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Conference. The Santa Cruz-based group brought together 1,000 people to discuss the benefits of psychedelic drugs, especially as a means of helping people tackling such problems as depression, OCD and PTSD.

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April 18, 2010
  Silicon Valley Mercury News "Psychedelics conference describes the long strange trip to the lab" by Lisa M. Krieger.

This article discusses the close of the Psychedelic Science conference in San Jose, California. (Reprinted in the Philadelphia Inquirer with the title, "Psychedelic drugs get a second look from science.")

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April 17, 2010
  The Times of India "Ecstasy could help ease trauma long term" by .

Ecstasy pills may offer treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), say experts. According to clinical-trial results presented at a conference in San Jose, California, the effect of the party drug seems to continue for years after the initial treatment, reports Nature.

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April 16, 2010
  Nature News "Party drug could ease trauma long term" by Lizzie Buchen.

Ecstasy, a drug that is illegal in most countries, is showing increasing potential as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to clinical-trial results presented at a conference in San Jose, California, today. The effect seems to continue for years after the initial treatment.

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April 15, 2010
  KQED "Forum" by Michael Krasny.

Rick Doblin, Ph.D. and Charles Grob, M.D. spoke on KQED, San Franciso's largest NPR station the opening morning of Psyhcedelic Science in the 21st Century.

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April 13, 2010
  Fox 5 (Atlanta) "Hallucinogens Tested to Help Treat Cancer Patients" by .

According to The New York Times doctors are dabbling in psychedelic drugs, like psilocybin, to treat patients with depression and anxiety with a new focus on the terminally ill. To further investigate the effects of hallucinogens the Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Cancer Project is looking for cancer patients between the ages of 21 and 70 who are willing to volunteer. Eligibility requirements include a cancer diagnosis that is potentially life-threatening and experiences of anxiety or depressed mood.

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April 13, 2010
  Digital Journal "Psilocybin, psychedelics back on scientific radar" by .

Since the early 1960s scientific research into Psilocybin and other hallucinogenic drugs has been at a standstill because of widely held taboos. In the twenty-first century that bias is fading and the medical value of psychedelics is again in the news.

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April 12, 2010
  New York Times "Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again" by John Tierney.

This article by John Tierney, written for the NY Times Health section, gives an overview of emerging psychedelic research in medicine. The article follows up with a patient who participated in the Johns Hopkins Psilocybin end-of-life distress study as an introduction to the greater psychedelic science community. Rick Doblin, president of MAPS, is quoted, as well as UCLAs Dr. Charles Grob.

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April 12, 2010
  AOLNews.com "Doctors Again Dabbling in Psychedelic Drugs" by Katie Drummond.

Katie Drummond, a contributor for AOL News, followed up the recent NY Times article "Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again", by expanding on psychedelic science being conducted in the U.S. The article has quotes from Michael Mithoefer, a MAPS-sponsored psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., who has been running FDA-approved studies using MDMA.

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Here is a link to a PDF of the conference program, which was given to all conference attendees.

Facebook is a great platform for connecting with other conference-goers.

If you have a Facebook account you can try to reach others who attended the conference on the event page or the conference Facebook group page.

This is where we will post handouts for the various presentations as they become available:

• Julie Holland - "CME Outline" (pdf)
• Stan Grof - "Psychology of the Future" (pdf)

international experts will present the state of the art of psychedelic science and psychedelic psychotherapy studies, including:

• biological and neurological effects of psychedelic substances
• mdma-(ecstasy) assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd)
• psychedelic psychotherapy for treating anxiety and depression associated with life-threatening illnesses
• mystical-type experiences catalyzed by psychedelics and their therapeutic implications
• psychedelics’ role in the treatment of drug addiction
• psilocybin research with obsessive-compulsive disorder
• standards for conducting psychedelic psychotherapy research

the intended learning objectives for medical doctors and ancillary medical professionals are:

1) apply new techniques and strategies for enhancing communication, trust and therapeutic effectiveness with patients in their regular therapeutic practices, based on transferable lessons learned from presentations about recent psychedelic research and associated psychedelic psychotherapy techniques.
2) counsel patients and their families more effectively with drug-related issues and/or questions by implementing knowledge of recent scientific research about the mechanisms of action and potential risks and benefits of psychedelic drugs.
3) make informed decisions about initiating and/or improving their own clinical research with psychedelics, by having additional information on special regulatory issues, current research methodologies and therapeutic approaches.
4) evaluate methodological rigor of clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and research in general, in light of presentations about the design of state-of-the-art research in the field.
5) implement compassionate psychedelic psychotherapy intervention techniques in emergency room situations and in private practice when attending to patients undergoing acute psychedelic crises.
6) refer patients with relevant medical conditions to active clinical trials.
7) post conference, be able to share with colleagues knowledge from recent scientific studies pertaining to the medical and non-medical use of psychedelic drugs.

this activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the institute for medical quality and the california medical association’s cme accreditation standards (imq/cma) through the joint-sponsorship of cme consultants and the multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies (maps). Cme consultants is accredited by imq/cma to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Cme consultants takes responsibility for the content, quality and scientific integrity of this cme activity.

cme consultants designates this educational activity for a maximum of 15.0 ama pra category 1 credit™.  physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. This credit may also be applied to the cma certification in continuing medical education.

Presenters in the CME track (in alphabetical order):

• Matt Baggott, Ph.D. Candidate, (University of California Berkeley, LSD, MDMA, MDA, Salvia Divinorum researcher)
• Anthony Bossis, Ph.D. (NYU School of Medicine, psilocybin / cancer anxiety researcher)
• Jose Carlos Bouso, Psychologist, Ph.D. Candidate (Spain, MDMA/PTSD researcher)
• Robin Carhart-Harris, Ph.D. PostDoc, Imperial College London, Neuropsychopharmacology Unit (psilocybin researcher)
• Alicia Danforth, Ph.D. student (ITP, UCLA psilocybin researcher)
• Peter Gasser, M.D. (Switzerland, LSD/end-of-life anxiety researcher)
• Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University, psilocybin/mystical experiences, psilocybin/cancer anxiety, psilocybin drug dependence, dextromethorphan, Salvia Divinorum researcher)
• Charles Grob, M.D. (UCLA, psilocybin/cancer anxiety researcher)
• Stanislav Grof, M.D. (Co-founder of transpersonal psychology, leading theorist in psychedelic psychotherapy, founder of Holotropic Breathwork™)
• John Halpern, M.D. by video link (Harvard, MDMA, Peyote, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, and LSD researcher)
• Julie Holland, M.D. (NYU School of Medicine, psychiatric emergency services)
• Ilsa Jerome, Ph.D. (MAPS, Research and Information Specialist)
• Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins psilocybin and addictions researcher)
• John Mendelson, M.D. (UCSF, LSD, MDMA, MDA, Salvia Divinorum researcher)
• Michael Mithoefer, M.D. (U.S., MDMA/PTSD researcher)
• David Nichols, Ph.D. (Heffter Research Institute, Purdue University)
• Peter Oehen, M.D. (Switzerland, MDMA/PTSD researcher)
• Ingrid Pacey, M.D. (Canada, MDMA/PTSD researcher)
• Torsten Passie, M.D., Ph.D. (Germany, psilocybin research)
• Jordi Riba, Ph.D. (Spain, ayahuasca researcher)
• William A. Richards, Ph.D. (JHU, psilocybin/cancer anxiety researcher)
• Stephen Ross, M.D. (NYU, psilocybin/cancer anxiety researcher)
• Franz Vollenweider ,M.D. (Switzerland, psychedelic neuroscience researcher)
• Andrew Weil, M.D. by video link. (Integrative medicine, introducing new approaches to medicine without backlash)
• Michele Weitz, B.A. (U.S., Clinical Research Expert)
• Christopher Wiegand, M.D. (Psilocybin/OCD researcher)

Matt Baggott, Ph.D. Candidate, University of California Berkeley
A graduate student at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at University of California Berkeley and research associate at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, Matt Baggott’s professional interests bridge neuroscience and psychopharmacology, and include mechanisms of hallucinations, toxicity of drugs of abuse, pharmacokinetics and dynamics of phenethylamines, and neural correlates of consciousness. His most recent studies are centered on Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD).

Anthony Bossis, Ph.D.
Dr Bossis is the co-principal investigator on the NYU / Psilocybin Cancer Project. He is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Anesthesiology at the New York University School of Medicine. He is the founder and former co-director of the Palliative Care Service and former co-director of the Pain Treatment Center at NYU / Bellevue Hospital Center in NYC. Dr. Bossis’ clinical, teaching, and research activities are dedicated to the enhanced understanding and treatment of chronic pain and end-of-life patients. He will present on the existential and psychosocial suffering in advanced cancer and implications for entheogen facilitated psychotherapy and provide an overview of the NYU / Psilocybin Cancer Study. Dr. Bossis may be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Robin Carhart-Harris, Ph.D. PostDoc, Imperial College London, Neuropsychopharmacology Unit

Using pharmacological fMRI to investigate the effect of intravenous psilocybin on brain activation and blood flow in healthy hallucinogen-experienced volunteers

In 2005, after completing a Masters in Psychoanalysis, Dr. Carhart-Harris applied to the Psychopharmacology Unit, University of Bristol, UK, headed by Professor David Nutt, to study for a PhD on the topic of fMRI, psychedelic drugs and Freudian theory. Carhart-Harris was advised by David Nutt that this project was too ambitious at this stage but that he could instead study for a Ph.D. on the topic of MDMA, serotonin and sleep EEG. While completing his Ph.D. in 2008 he obtained the necessary approvals and some initial funding to carry out the fMRI work, and in 2009 his team completed a small scale pilot study in which they administered intravenous psilocybin to nine volunteers in a mock-fMRI setting. They are currently on course to begin the fMRI scanning in the coming weeks and this talk will report on our progress and the wider theoretical aims of this project. This work has the collaborative support of the Beckley Foundation, the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation, Prof. Karl Friston of University College London, Prof. Richard Wise of Cardiff University and Prof. David Nutt of Imperial College London – for whom Carhart-Harris continue to work.

Jose Carlos Bouso, Ph.D. Candidate
Jose Carlos Bouso’s studies addressed the safety of different doses of MDMA administered in a psychotherapeutic setting to women with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) secondary to a sexual assault. He also obtained initial data on the efficacy of MDMA-assissted psychotherapy. He currently works on Dr. Riba's team conducting neuropharmacological research on psychedelics.

Alicia Danforth, Ph.D. student
A graduate student of clinical psychology and a research associate and co-facilitator for the Harbor-UCLA cancer anxiety trial with psilocybin, Alicia Danforth will provide an overview of the research from the late 1950s through the early 1970s on the use of LSD and psilocybin in the treatment of severe autism in children. She will also discuss the potential use of MDMA-assisted therapy as a supplement to treatment for individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome.

Peter Gasser M.D.
Dr. Gasser will present data on an on-going randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with end-of-life issues. This study will be completed in 2010 and will become the first study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in human subjects in over 35 years.

Roland Griffiths Ph.D.
Dr. Griffiths, a professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, has had a principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. He will present research investigating psilocybin-induced mystical experiences in psychedelic naïve adults and psilocybin induced-mystical experiences in volunteers with cancer.

Charles Grob M.D.
Dr. Grob will discuss a completed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with cancer. A paper about this study was submitted for publication in August 2009. His talk will also cover the psychobiologic effects of MDMA in humans, the MDMA-neurotoxicity controversy, the effects of MDMA on cerebral blood flow, and the neuropsychological effects of MDMA in recreational users.

Stanislav Grof M.D.
A pioneer researcher of the use of altered states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche, and one of the founding fathers of the field of transpersonal psychology, Dr. Stanislav Grof will be discussing LSD-assisted psychotherapy in patients with terminal cancer, the experimental use of psychedelic psychotherapy, the conceptual challenges from researching consciousness, and DPT as an adjunct in psychotherapy of alcoholics.

John Halpern M.D. (presenting by live video link)
Dr. Halpern will report on an ongoing randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in 12 subjects with anxiety associated with advanced-stage cancer, taking place at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Data will also be presented from Dr. Halpern’s National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded 5-year controlled, blinded study of the neurocognitive effects of Ecstasy use. Preliminary data from this study has also been published and includes the psychological and cognitive effects of long-term peyote use among Native Americans and evidence of health and safety in American members of a religion who use a hallucinogenic sacrament.

Ilsa Jerome, Ph.D.
Recognizing that most scientists are interested in the potential of MDMA to answer big questions in neurobiology, and that the breadth of scientific literature on MDMA can appear daunting, Jerome’s talk will discuss how to find those big answers from the existing literature. The talk will address the nature of the literature and scientific and extra-scientific factors shaping the literature. She will discuss where to look and how to look for exciting research findings. Finally, she will trace the trajectory of an engaging development in human MDMA literature, tracing its formation and development.

L. (Ilsa) Jerome earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Maryland, where she studied social psychology. She works as MAPS’ research and information specialist. She has written informational documents on psilocybin, LSD and MDMA and has co-authored publications examining the beliefs and experiences of ecstasy users. She is interested in using behavioral science and neuroscience methods to study emotion and social interaction, and sees MDMA as a valuable research tool. She encourages playfulness, persistence and building community in the pursuit of knowledge.

Julie Holland, M.D.
Dr. Holland will present lessons she learned in a psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital, NYC. Dr. Holland, editor of Ecstasy: A Complete Guide, will also speak about the potential therapeutic use of MDMA in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D.
Dr. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is co-investigator of the Johns Hopkins studies on psilocybin and mystical experience, and psilocybin in the treatment of cancer anxiety/depression. He has investigated the human psychopharmacology of a wide range of drugs including psilocybin, Salvia Divinorum, dextromethorphan, GHB, cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. Dr. Johnson is principle investigator of a research program on the psychological underpinnings of addiction, and is currently conducting a pilot study investigating the therapeutic use of psilocybin in the treatment of nicotine dependence. He was lead author on a recent review paper describing the unique safety requirements of human hallucinogen research, and will present on this topic.

Michael Mithoefer M.D.
Dr. Mithoefer, will report on data from the completed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in 21 subjects with treatment-resistant PTSD, and on the subsequent long-term follow up of these subjects > 1 year after study completion. He will also describe the design and progress of a dose-response MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in US war veterans that he expects to complete in 2011.

David Nichols Ph.D.
The founding president of the Heffter Research Institute and Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology at Purdue University, Nichols is considered to be one of the world's top experts on psychedelics. His recent studies investigate the phylogeny and structure of serotonin receptors, their signaling systems and receptor oligomerization. The general theme of his research is to understand how changes in brain neurochemistry affect behavior, through the use of molecular probes. His laboratory has published numerous studies elucidating details both of the mechanism of action of MDMA and of the biochemical events related to the neurotoxic effects seen in animals following administration. Dr. Nichols coined the name 'entactogen' to describe the unique psychopharmacological effects of MDMA and related compounds.

Peter Oehen M.D.
Dr. Oehen will report on data from an on-going randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in 12 subjects with treatment-resistant PTSD. The 12th subject has recently been enrolled into the study, which will conclude data-gathering around January 2010.

Ingrid Pacey, M.D.
Dr. Pacey is a psychiatrist from Vancouver, Canada. She has worked with patients with PTSD for over 30 years. She trained in Holotropic Breathwork™ with Dr. Stan and Christina Grof 1987-1990 and facilitated Holotopic Breathwork groups mainly with trauma survivors for 15 years. She is principal investigator, along with Andrew Feldmar, M.A., for the Canadian MDMA/PTSD study which has been approved by Health Canada. It awaits further permits and will start in 2010.

Torsten Passie, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Passie is assistant professor for clinical psychiatry and consciousness studies at Hannover Medical School, a major research institution in Germany. He studied philosophy, sociology (M.A.) at Hannover University and medicine at Hannover Medical School. His medical dissertation was on existential psychiatry. His clinical training included all areas of clinical psychiatry and a year in clinical neurology. His psychotherapeutic education was in psychoanalysis and psycholytic therapy. Actually he is chief physician of a German model project for the heroin-assisted treatment of opiate addicts.

For more than 20 years he has worked in the area of altered states of consciousness. He worked at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Zürich (Switzerland) with the leading European psychopathologist, professor Christian Scharfetter, on the conceptualization of states of consciousness. During the 1990s he worked with Professor Hanscarl Leuner (Göttingen), the leading European authority on clinical research and psychotherapeutic use of hallucinogenic drugs. Due to his specific interest in unconventional healing practices, he has travelled extensively in Mexico and Guatemala. He has done extensive research on the psychophysiology of altered states of consciousness, their conceptualization and their healing potential, including clinical research with different induction procedures including hallucinogenic drugs (cannabis, ketamine, nitrous oxide, psilocybin). He is one of the very few European experts on the pharmacology and clinical/therapeutic use of hallucinogenic drugs. He is also an experienced addiction therapist and researcher, actually at the frontier as the chief physician of the German model-project of the heroin-assisted treatment for opiate addicts.

Jordi Riba M.D.
Dr. Riba conducted the first controlled pharmacological study of ayahuasca in experienced psychedelic users. These studies have assessed the general pharmacology of ayahuasca in humans, including alkaloid disposition, and electroencephalography and neuroimaging measures of acute ayahuasca effects. The results of these studies have been published in various scientific journals like Psychopharmacology, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. He is currently conducting a neuropsychological study assessing the effects of long-term ayahuasca use.

William Richards, Ph.D.
William A. Richards, Ph.D. is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center. His graduate degrees include a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, a Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) from Andover-Newton Theological School, and a Ph.D. from Catholic University. Richards also studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Goettingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. From 1967 to 1977, Richards pursued psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. His research included protocols designed to investigate psychedelics as a treatment for alcoholism, severe neuroses, narcotic addiction, and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. He helped design and served as the primary guide in the John Hopkins research that demonstrated the positive correlation between psilocybin and mystical experiences (see Griffiths, et al. 2006).

Stephen Ross, M.D.
Stephen Ross, M.D. is Principal Investigator of the new Psilocybin Cancer Project at NYU. He is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Oral Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and College of Dentistry. Dr. Ross completed general psychiatry training at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute, and received addiction psychiatry fellowship training at Bellevue Hospital & the NYU School of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Ross is the Director of the Division of Alcoholism & Drug Abuse at Bellevue Hospital, the Clinical Director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction, and the Associate Director of Addiction Education, NYU Department of Psychiatry. He has received eight teaching awards relating to education of medical students, general psychiatry residents, and addiction psychiatry fellows. His research focuses on co-occurring disorders, personality disorders, music therapy, public health, and the therapeutic application of hallucinogens.

Franz Vollenweider M.D.
During the past ten years, Dr. Vollenweider has established a research program aiming to understand the neural basis of altered states of consciousness in health, schizophrenia, and affective disorders. Dr. Vollenweider’s research interests have increasingly focused on the understanding of the neural basis of drug (e.g. psychedelic) and non-drug (e.g. pathological) - induced altered states of consciousness. In search of the neuronal correlates of altered states, the subjective and neurobiological effects of classic hallucinogens, dissociative anesthetics and psychostimulants have been assessed in more than 500 healthy human volunteers using neuropsychological and brain imaging methods such as positron emission tomography and high density electroencephalography, and measures of information processing. Dr. Vollenweider’s research has been continuously funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Federal Health Office, and the Heffter Research Institute (USA). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, including many addressing the mechanisms sub-serving the effects of psychostimulants, hallucinogens, and entactogens.

Andrew Weil M.D. (presenting by live video link)
Andrew Weil, M.D., is a world-renowned leader and pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, a healing oriented approach to healthcare, which encompasses body, mind, and spirit. Dr. Weil is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (AzCIM) at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, where he is also a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health and the Lovell-Jones Professor of Integrative Rheumatology.

Michele Weitz, BA
Michelle Weitz has 15 years experience in a clinical research setting and is an expert on good clinical practice for pharmaceutical research. She designs and evaluates quality assurance infrastructure and clinical operation processes to prepare researchers for inspections by regulatory agencies. She will provide training for investigators who are interested in conducting clinical trials of psychedelic therapy in line with international standards for pharmaceutical research.

Christopher Wiegand, M.D.
Background/Purpose: Anecdotal reports suggest that psychedelic agents may relieve symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This modified double-blind study investigated the safety, tolerability, and clinical effects of psilocybin, a potent 5-HT-1A, and 2A/2C agonist, in patients with OCD. Methods: Nine subjects with OCD and no other current major psychiatric disorder participated in up to 4 single-dose exposures to psilocybin in doses ranging from sub-hallucinogenic to frankly hallucinogenic. The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) were administered at 0, 4, 8, and 24 hours post-ingestion. The Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS) was administered at 8 hours, and vital signs were recorded at 0, 1, 4, 8, and 24 hours after ingestion. Results: Nine subjects were administered a total of 29 psilocybin doses. One subject experienced transient hypertension without relation to anxiety or somatic symptoms, but no other significant adverse effects were observed. Marked decreases in OCD symptoms of variable degrees were observed in all subjects during one or more of the testing sessions (23 to 100% decrease in Y-BOCS score). Repeated measures ANOVA for all Y-BOCS values revealed a significant main effect of time on Wilks’ Lambda (F= 9.86, df= (3,3) p= .046), but no significant effect of dose (F= 2.25, df= (3,3) p= .261), or interaction of time and dose (F= .923, df= (9,45) p= .515). Improvement generally lasted past 24 hours. Conclusions: Psilocybin appeared to be safe and well tolerated in this group of subjects with OCD and was associated with robust acute reductions in core OCD symptoms.

Christopher Wiegand, M.D., is a psychiatrist currently in private practice in Tucson, Arizona. His clinical practice includes outpatient psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, hospital and nursing home consultation, and electroconvulsive therapy. In addition, Dr. Wiegand is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona; he participates in research, resident supervision, and medical student education. He received his B.A. in Archaeology at the University of Virginia in 1995, his M.D. at the University of Virginia in 1999, and completed Psychiatry residency training at the University of Arizona in June, 2003. Dr Wiegand will be discussing, among other things, the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of psilocybin in patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

The non-cme track will have presentations about a variety of topics related to psychedelic research, psychedelic psychotherapy, applied science, neurobiology, issues relevant to healthcare, and social, cultural, and psychological issues surrounding the therapeutic and spiritual uses of psychedelics.

The call for proposals to present is closed. The following presenters have been selected (in alphabetical order):

Peter Addy, Ph.D. (cand.)	Salvia divinorum
Allan Ajaya, Ph.D.	LSD-Assisted Myofacial Therapy: A Case Study
Brian Anderson	The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research
Sylvia C. Bagge, R.N.	Psychedelic Therapy and the Alexander Technique
Paulo Cesar Ribeiro Barbosa, Ph.D.	A Six-Month Prospective Evaluation of Personality Traits, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Quality of Life in Ayahuasca-Naive Subjects, and The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research
Simon Brandt, Ph.D.	The Chemical Anaysis of Hallucinogenic Tryptamines Obtained from Organic Synthesis
Tom Kingsley Brown, Ph.D.	Ibogaine Treatment for Drug Dependence: a Study of Quality of Life
Susana Bustos, Ph.D.	Icaros: Song and Healing in Ayahuasca Ceremonies
Shannon Campbell, M.S.	Enhanced Mysticism, Perception, and Cognition of Psychedelic States of Consciousness: Assessment of a New Questionnaire
Clinton Canal, Ph.D.	Hallucinogenic behavioral response in rodents: role of serotonin 2A and 2C receptors
Henry Cox, Ph.D. (cand.)	Pituri: Identity and Effect
David Coyote	Waking Up Together: The Intertwining of Buddhism and Ayahuasca
Nicholas Cozzi, Ph.D.	Recent developments in N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) pharmacology
Jag Davies	Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Policy
Frank Echenhofer, Ph.D.	Shamanic EEGs and Adult Development
Earth and Fire Erowid	Connecting the Microdots
Yalila Espinoza	Erotic Healing Experiences with Ayahuasca
Josep Maria Fabregas, M.D.	Long Term Effects on Mental Health of Ayahuasca Ritual Use
James Fadiman, Ph.D.	Psychedelics as Entheogens: How to Create and Guide Successful Sessions
Kevin Feeney, J.D.	Revisiting Wasson's Soma: Exploring the Effects of Preparation on the Chemistry of Amanita muscaria, and Re-examining the role of muscarine in the chemistry of amanita muscaria
Amanda Feilding	Director of The Beckley Foundation
Robert Forte	Ayahuasca, Indigenous Medicine, and Cancer: Preliminary Findings
Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia	The Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, and avoiding another backlash
Neal Goldsmith, Ph.D.	Psychedelic Therapy and Change: Research, Challenges, Implications
Alex and Allyson Grey	Better Religion Through Science and Art
Alberto Groisman, Ph.D.	Ayahuasca Religions in Contemporary Society: Law, Health, and Cultural Implications
Jeffrey Guss, M.D.	The NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Research Project's Psychedelic Psychotherapy Training Program
Rachel Harris, Ph.D.	Ayahuasca in North America
Andreas Hernandez, Ph.D.	Cultural Trauma, Capitalist Modernity, and the Global Expansion of Santo Daime: 1930-2009
Scott Hill, Ph.D.	Implications of Jungian Psychology for Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Bob Jesse	The Council on Spiritual Practices
Henrik Jungaberle, Ph.D.	Learning from the Best (and also from the Rest): The Development of a Professional Rule Culture in Psychedelic Therapy
James Kent	The Mechanics of Hallucination
Mark Kleiman, Ph.D.	Regulating the Hallucinogens
Beatriz Caiuby Labate	The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research
David Lukoff, Ph.D.	Implications of Jungian Psychology for Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Marcelo Mercante, Ph.D.	Ayahuasca, Spontaneous Mental Imagery, Homeless People, and the Treatment of Drug Addiction and Alcoholism, and The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.	Psychedelic, Psychoactive and Addictive Drugs and States of Consciousness
Michael Montagne, Ph.D.	Metaphors and Meanings: How We Interpret and Understand Psychedelic Drug Experiences
Levente Moro, Ph.D. (cand.)	Autognosis, Life Quality, and Spirituality in Psychedelic Drug Users
Tom Pinkson, Ph.D.	Psychedelics and Death: Exercising the 'Letting Go' Muscle
Silvia Polivoy, Ph.D.	Ayahuasca: Handle with Utmost Care
Alexandre Quaranta, Ph.D.	Psychedelics Use and Lucid Dreaming: The Providential Synergy
Deborah Quevedo, R.N., Ph.D.	Psychospiritual Integration of an Ayahuasca Retreat Experience
Maggi Quinlan, Ph.D.	Healing from the Gods: Ayahuasca and the Curing of Disease States
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D.	Public Education: A University Course in Psychedelics
Zeno Sanchez-Ramos, M.D.	Effects of Psilocybin and other Selective Serotonin Agonists on Hippocampal-Dependent Learning and Neurogenesis
Ben Sessa, M.D., B.Sc., M.R.C.Psych.	History of Psychedelic Research in the United Kingdom
Bruce Sewick, LCPC, RDDP, CADC	Public Education: A University Course in Psychedelics
Benny Shanon, Ph.D.	The Antipodes of the Mind
Diana Slattery, Ph.D. (cand)	Ecstatic Significations: Psychedelics and Language
Kaleb Smith	Hyper-Sensitive States and Indirect Semantic Priming: Inferring The Mechanics of Psilocybin's Novel Association Effect
Leanna Standish, N.D., Ph.D., L.Acup, FABNO	Ayahuasca, Science and Medicine
Luis Fernando Tofoli, M.D., Ph.D.	Mental health safety of Ayahuasca religious use: results from an epidemiological surveillance system by the União do Vegetal in Brazil
Steven Toth, R.M.T.	Incorporating Bodywork into the Psychedelic Journey
Stephen Trichter, Ph.D.	Out of the Jungle and onto the Couch: Applying Ayahuasca's Lessons to the Therapy Room
Kenneth Tupper, Ph.D. (cand.)	Psychedelics, Entheogens, and Public Policy
Bryan West	Education and Training
Bob Wold	Cluster Busters

Peter Addy, Ph.D. (cand.) – Salvia divinorum
I performed basic scientific research administering the psychedelic plant Salvia divinorum to 30 human participants. I utilized a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study design that incorporated both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis in my attempt to study the subjective experience of S. divinorum and consequences of use after 8 weeks. Participants were screened for medical and psychological issues in order to minimize the chance of a negative reaction. An Emergency Medical Technician was present during administration of either 1000 mcg salvinorin A or placebo dose. I found that smoking salvinorin A in a controlled research setting facilitated psychedelic and transpersonal experiences with few negative experiences reported. The effects were sudden, fleeting, and incomparable to the effects facilitated by other psychoactive. During an 8-week follow-up interview no participants met DSM criteria for substance abuse or dependence of S. divinorum. Use of this plant is increasing, and medical professionals should be aware of what an S. divinorum experience can look like and how to treat a user. This presentation will serve as both an introduction to the plant, its use as a psychedelic, my research findings, and suggestions for future research.

Allan Ajaya, Ph.D. – LSD-Assisted Myofacial Therapy: A Case Study
Wilhelm Reich and his successors have elucidated the way in which childhood and other traumas lead to the formation of body armoring and character structure. Dissociation or disembodiment, emotional and physical frozenness, identification with the intellect, denial of the body, and heartlessness are consequences of avoiding the pain of past traumas. A host of therapies have evolved that work with the body to release such long held reactions to traumas. While hundreds of reports, research studies and books have documented the effectiveness of LSD in facilitating psychotherapy, this presenter has not found any in-depth reports that demonstrate the use of LSD to enhance the effectiveness of body centered therapies. This is a case presentation of an adult male who undertook weekly sessions of myofacial therapy over the course of eighteen months. Most of these sessions were experienced after ingesting mild to moderate dose of LSD. The progression of his unfolding is described from his perspective. The way in which these experiences differed from myofacial sessions when he had not ingested LSD is considered. Effects of myofacial release that he was unaware of during sessions without LSD became vivid. His capacity to shift from an observing awareness to direct participation in the bodily, emotional, and energetic releases was made possible by LSD. He was able to open and become more responsive to touch, experience safety, being nurtured and to experience a greater sense of embodiment and presence in ways that did not occur in sessions that were not facilitated by LSD.

Brian Anderson – The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research. With Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, Marcelo Mercante, and Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa.

The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research This discussion will present a series of reflections on the therapeutic potential of the ritual use of Ayahuasca in the treatment and handling of substance dependence problems. Anthropological and psychiatric data on the ritual use of Ayahuasca for “healing” dependence in psychotherapeutic centers (in Peru and Brazil), as well as in Ayahuasca religions (in Brazil), are reviewed and critiqued. Methodological, ethical and political considerations for current and future research in this area are then discussed, and an interdisciplinary agenda for studies on the use of Ayahuasca to treat or handle substance dependence is proposed.

Sylvia C. Bagge, R.N. – Psychedelic Therapy and the Alexander Technique
I am a registered nurse working in an AIDS hospice in San Francisco called Maitri. I am currently working on a paper that addresses the potential relationship between psychedelic therapies and the Alexander Technique aimed at the resolving of musculoskeletal pain and the restoration the body's functional organization following traumatic injury, repetitive strain injury, and scoliosis. This paper explores the possibilities of re-patterning unconscious habits of "harmful use" of the body through the experience the spine's natural energetics rapidly through psychedelic insight. The method of F. Matthias Alexander is particularly suited for use with psychedelic therapies because of its focus upon the cessation of "fixing" ourselves, and its insistence upon awakening the body's natural flow of movement through the zen-like mental discipline of "not trying." Aldous Huxley himself studied the technique in London in the 1930's and stated "...we cannot ask for more from any system." I am enthusiastic about this paper because I observe the allopathic medical model pathologizing pain in a way that locks people into pain replicating patterns. This encourages the sometimes unnecessary long-term or permanent use of pharmaceutical opiates, anti-inflammatories, and medications for neuropathic pain that are associated with many serious side-effects.

Paulo Cesar Ribeiro Barbosa, Ph.D. – A Six-Month Prospective Evaluation of Personality Traits, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Quality of Life in Ayahuasca-Naive Subjects
The authors assessed 23 subjects immediately before and six months (27.5 weeks) after their first Ayahuasca session experienced within the urban Brazilian religious context of Santo Daime (N = 15) and União do Vegetal (N = 8). The measures applied included: 1) the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised Edition (CIS-R), which is designed to assess minor psychiatric symptoms; 2) the Short Form–36 items Health Survey (SF-36), a questionnaire designed to measure eight dimensions of general health and well-being (physical functioning, role-physical, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional and mental health); 3) the Temperament and Character Inventory–125 items (TCI-125), which measures four domains of temperament (novelty seeking, reward dependence, harm avoidance and persistence) and character (self-directedness, cooperativeness and self-transcendence). Independent variables were the frequency of Ayahuasca use throughout the period and the length of Ayahuasca wash-out after six months. Santo Daime subjects showed a significant reduction of minor psychiatric symptoms, improvement of mental health, and a change in character traits towards decreased harm avoidance behavior (i.e. less anxious and pessimistic and more outgoing and optimistic). The União do Vegetal group showed a significant decrease in physical pain, and temperament change towards less reward-dependent behavior (i.e. less social approval-seeker and more cold and aloof). Changes in reward dependence was positively correlated with the frequency of Ayahuasca use and negatively correlated with the length of wash-out period. We discuss possible mechanisms by which these changes may have occurred and suggest areas for future research.

Simon Brandt, Ph.D. – The Chemical Anaysis of Hallucinogenic Tryptamines Obtained from Organic Synthesis
Several N,N-dialkylated tryptamine derivatives are known to induce altered states of consciousness and the term ‘‘hallucinogens’’ is commonly used in an attempt to describe their powerful impact on the human mind. These compounds have generated growing interest in the psychiatry, neuroscience, psychopharmacology and recreational communities. Recent representatives that have been used in human clinical studies include N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and psilocybin. A large number of these derivatives are classified as controlled substances and one predictable consequence of prohibition by legislation is the creation of a clandestine trade. The corollary of this is the inability to exercise quality control over the illegally prepared compounds which often leads to low quality drugs with unpredictable biological activity and ill-defined impurity profiles. One reason for the analytical characterization of synthetic procedures is to install proper pharmaceutical quality control protocols in order to comply with regulative issues when clinical use is concerned. Another reason is based on the necessity to provide information about the principal drugs and their impurities to the clinical welfare, forensic or drug rehabilitation communities. An introduction to the topic is presented and a few representative examples from research experience are provided. It is also aimed to include an example about the incorporation into university teaching.

Tom Kingsley Brown, Ph.D. – Ibogaine Treatment for Drug Dependence: a Study of Quality of Life
The current study examines life narratives and changes in quality of life for patients receiving ibogaine treatment for drug dependence. The patients all received residential treatment at the Pangea Biomedics clinic in Playas de Tijuana, Mexico. To assess changes in quality of life the generic version of the Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index is used; preliminary results are discussed. Using ethnographic interviews, the lives of patients prior to treatment, their motives for seeking ibogaine treatment, their experiences of the ibogaine treatment itself, and post-treatment outcomes are examined. Another study, currently in the planning stages, is discussed. This study would compare outcomes for different treatments of opioid drug dependence. Outcomes and methods for ibogaine treatment at the Pangea Biomedics clinic will be compared with outcomes at clinics using methadone or suboxone substitution treatment.

Tom Kingsley Brown, Ph.D. graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. He received his M.S. in Chemistry from CalTech with research on the neurochemistry of learning and memory. While earning his doctorate from UCSD in Anthropology with an emphasis on psychological anthropology, he studied altered states of consciousness and religious conversion. He has taught anthropology courses on religion, the environmental crisis, and mental illness and deviance. He currently lives with his partner and their two sons in San Diego. He runs a research program at UCSD and is studying the lives and experiences of patients undergoing ibogaine treatment at the Pangea Biomedics clinic in Baja California.

Susana Bustos, Ph.D. – Icaros: Song and Healing in Ayahuasca Ceremonies
This paper discusses some of the results of an exploratory study of healing experiences attributed to an icaro (a type of shamanic song) by individuals who participated in Ayahuasca ceremonies in the context of the Peruvian vegetalismo tradition (Bustos, 2008). The data were collected in Peru during an eight-month fieldwork period. Participants in this study were 5 adult men and women with extensive past experience with Ayahuasca, who reported their healing experiences after a sound-recorded ceremony and identified the icaros that were significant to them. The method of analysis was Giorgi’s (1986, 1997) descriptive phenomenology as it pertains to psychology, which uncovered the essential structure of meaning of the phenomenon under study, as it emerged in lived experience. This paper discusses the connections between musical perception and meaning constituents, thus aiming to contribute to the larger understanding of the use of singing in facilitating therapeutic states of consciousness under psychotropic effects in a controlled setting.

Shannon Campbell, M.S. – Enhanced Mysticism, Perception, and Cognition of Psychedelic States of Consciousness: Assessment of a New Questionnaire
Natural psychedelics have been used by indigenous cultures for centuries for spiritual, medicinal, and educational use. So far current research is limited regarding the full range of possible uses. The new Cognitive Tool Questionnaire was created to assess the self perceived changes and enhancements in the cognitive effects of psychoactive cacti and psilocybin mushrooms using Gardner’s multiple intelligences as a framework. Strassman’s Hallucinogen Rating Scale and Hood’s Mysticism scale were also included in the survey given to 215 participants on the internet to assess the physiological and mystical effects of natural psychedelics. Results showed little increase in the physiological effects of the experience over time, but a greater enhancement of mystical experiences and cognitive benefits for those users with a healthy diet, a more traditional or non-traditional religious affiliation, and those users with the most experience with the natural psychedelics. These results highlighted the importance of not only the vegetarian diet of many South American shamans, but also how the natural psychedelics have greater spiritual significance as entheogens. This study also found that these natural psychedelics can be used as cognitive tools to aid in human development.

Clinton Canal, PhD – Hallucinogenic behavioral response in rodents: role of serotonin 2A and 2C receptors
Hallucinogenic serotonin 2A (5HT2A) receptor partial agonists, such as 1-[2,5­dimethoxy-4-iodophenyl]-2-aminopropane (DOI), induce a frontal cortex-dependent head-twitch response (HTR) in rats and mice that is blocked by 5HT2A receptor antagonists. In addition to 5HT2A receptors, DOI and most other serotonin-like hallucinogens have high affin­ity and potency as partial agonists at 5HT2C receptors. We tested for involvement of 5HT2C receptors in DOI-induced head-twitch, a behavioral proxy of a hallucinogenic response in mice. Comparison of 5HT2C receptor knock-out and wild-type lit­termates revealed an approximately 50% reduction in DOI-induced HTR in knock-out mice. We conclude that the HTR to DOI in mice is strongly modulated by 5HT2C receptor activity. This novel finding invites reassessment of hallucinogenic mecha­nisms involving 5HT2A receptor function in human clinical populations.

Henry Cox, Ph.D. (cand.) – Pituri: Identity and Effect
Australian Aboriginal people have relied on their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) for some 50,000 years in the Australian landscape. They have utilised a natural larder known in Australia as "bush-tucker" and "Pituri", a plant-based chewing product from Duboisia hopwoodii, an inland desert plant in the Solanaceae family, is one of these items. It was traded across the continent and even at the time of British Sovereignty was regarded by Aboriginal people as the most valuable trade item in the country. It was initially investigated in the 19th Century by Australian doctors and described as a 'narcotic'; it kept a low profile until the late 20th century, where it is even credited as having played a significant role in "D-Day". In the 1980's it was re-described by visiting American anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios as a ‘hallucinogen’. What then does this transition in nomenclature tell us about the plant and substance, and more importantly, western science? Is the change in identity simply a matter of an incremental advance in a positivist epistemological field of endeavour, or is there something else at play behind the overt science involved? What indeed are some of the cultural constructions which surround not only this case study of pituri use, but the hallucinogens in general? How is it, that if one assumes that modern western medicine is founded on principles of an evidence -based approach, and risk management, that substantial Traditional data and early western research into the therapeutic uses of the hallucinogens (and associated chemicals) clearly showing potential benefits, was curtailed worldwide. How is it that an international regulatory framework denies the legitimacy of current day human research? This paper examines the historical and present day cultural constructions of pituri use through a deconstruction of the terms 'hallucinogen', 'narcotic' and ‘Aboriginal’, and a Foucauldian analysis of the associated power relations.

David Coyote – Waking Up Together: The Intertwining of Buddhism and Ayahuasca
As we walk deeper into the third millennia CE, the Buddhist wisdom tradition of Asia and Ayahuasca shamanism from the Amazon basin of South America are growing here in the same cultural soil. Buddhist meditators are sitting in shamanic ceremonies and shamanic practitioners are sitting in meditation retreats. The experiences are powerful and productive. The Buddhists find Ayahuasca to be a powerful tool to look deep into the nature of mind and to clear away attachments to afflictive mental and emotional states. In Buddhist teachings shamanic practitioners find an effective and supportive framework for the medicine experience and in meditation a way to integrate the intensely compressed and sometimes overwhelming ceremonial experiences into their daily life. This presentation will explore this spiritual encounter and discuss some basic questions such as: Do these traditions work well together? What specifically are the benefits or problems that may come from participating in both practices? What is their right relationship and how can they best serve us in waking up as individuals and as a species?

Nicholas Cozzi, Ph.D. – Recent developments in N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) pharmacology
Background: The plant hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) has been used for religious and other purposes for many centuries. The psychological effects of ingested DMT are characterized as an intense dream-like state with fantastic visual imagery, altered time and space perceptions, changes in body image and sensations, and feelings ranging from euphoria to sadness to amazement. Over the past several decades, scientists have linked the psychoactive effects of DMT to various neurochemical processes including binding to serotonin receptors, serotonin uptake transporters, and monoamine oxidase enzymes.

Latest findings: We recently identified the sigma-1 receptor as the latest molecular target for DMT. We reported that DMT binds to sigma-1 receptors at low micromolar concentrations, inhibits sigma-1 receptor-regulated sodium ion channels at higher concentrations, and induces a hypermobility response in wild-type mice that is abolished in sigma-1 receptor knockout mice (Fontanilla et al. 2009). In a later study, we reported that DMT and other psychedelic tryptamines exhibit substrate behavior at plasma membrane and synaptic vesicle uptake transporters (Cozzi et al. 2009). We hypothesize that these uptake processes may allow the accumulation of DMT within neurons to reach relatively high levels and, when stored in synaptic vesicles, to function as a releasable transmitter. We have now obtained direct experimental evidence in support of this hypothesis by observing that DMT can be taken up by model neuronal cells (PC12 cells) and subsequently released by these cells under conditions of controlled depolarization. The psychedelic effects of DMT and related compounds likely arise from a complex interplay among all of these enzyme, receptor, and transporter mechanisms.

Jag Davies– Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Policy
Harm reduction is a public health philosophy that aims to lessen the dangers that drug use – and our drug policies – cause to society. Because some drugs, such as psychedelics and marijuana, have proven therapeutic and medicinal uses, a harm reduction strategy not only seeks to reduce the harms that drugs can cause, but also to maximize their potential benefits.

People who use psychedelics sometimes have challenging emotional experiences that can become dangerous when they lead to counterproductive medical interventions or contact with law enforcement. In response, some harm reduction services aim to empower people who use psychedelics and their peers with techniques for assisting others through difficult experiences – and, in doing so, to provide a new framework for looking at “bad trips” as opportunities for psychological growth.

What are the policy implications of psychedelic harm reduction services? And how might the scientific research community, policy advocates, and harm reduction practitioners work together to improve and expand existing theoretical models and on-the-ground practices?

Jag Davies is the publications manager for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the nation's leading organization working to end the war on drugs. DPA's mission is to advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug misuse and drug prohibition and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies. Beforehand, Davies was the policy researcher for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Drug Law Reform Project, where he coordinated local, state, and federal efforts to end punitive drug policies that cause the widespread violation of constitutional and human rights. He also previously worked as director of communications and other positions for MAPS from 2003-07.

Frank Echenhofer, Ph.D. – Shamanic EEGs and Adult Development
The Amazonian psychoactive brew ayahuasca induces shamanic journey experiences and is reported to facilitate psychological and physical healing, creativity, and spiritual development. A new model regarding the experiences, functions, and neural processes of ayahuasca, that integrates evidence from neuroscience and the human sciences, suggests ayahuasca facilitates three main sequential psychophysical change process stages of form dismantling and healing processes, form creation processes, and form expression processes. Dominant experiential ayahuasca themes will be summarized and related to similar process themes in psychotherapy, mythology and religion. Our EEG research shows ayahuasca significantly alters global EEG frequency coherence patterns across widely distributed neural networks. The reported neural changes and benefits of ayahuasca may arise through the enhancement of a normal although rare state of consciousness involving widespread neural networks combining both deliberative thought and spontaneous thought processes within a unified field of consciousness where highly complex and creative cognition emerges spontaneously.

Earth and Fire Erowid – Connecting the Microdots
Fire Erowid and Earth Erowid are the co-founders of Erowid Center, an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that collects, reviews, and publishes data about psychoactive plants, drugs, technologies, and practices. Their primary project is the Erowid.org website, established in 1995 as an independent public library of information about psychoactives. The site hosts more than 50,000 public documents and images and receives around 12 million unique visitors each year. Earth and Fire have spoken at conferences sponsored by groups as diverse as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the North American Association of Clinical Toxicologists, the Mycological Society of San Francisco, and Mind States.

Where does science meet subculture? Earth and Fire will discuss novel developments in the underground recreational drug bazaar as well as questions about the state of the visionary sphere. Now is the bridge between psychedelic history and future minds. Psychedelic subcultures have complex relationships to science, spirituality, media, and the Internet. With technologies of sharing at a historical peak and worldwide distribution of both products and thoughts being the norm, access to altered states of consciousness is mushrooming. Where does the evolution of psychedelic knowledge go from here?

Yalila Espinoza – Erotic Healing Experiences with Ayahuasca
This presentation will explain how the spiritual guidance inherent in the practice of vegetalismo (entheogenic plant medicines) provides the individual with erotic experiences that can transform the quality of his/her spiritual life. I argue that the multi-dimensional energies of plant medicines are a pathway to eroticism, and that plant-induced trances and dream-time are altered states of consciousness in which spiritual learning can occur. The work in vegetalismo involves energetic openings and realignments that inspire transformation on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. “Eroticism” for the purpose of this presentation, means an intimate energetic union between physical beings in the worldly realm and non-physical entities in the cosmic realm. This study’s focus on women’s experience is intended to empower the valuable female voice within vegetalismo practices, and the goal of this presentation is to affirm the erotic nature of reality, the feminine, and women’s embodied wisdom.

Josep Maria Fabregas, M.D. – Long Term Effects on Mental Health of Ayahuasca Ritual Use
Scientific research regarding the long-term effects of the use of hallucinogens is scarce. Only few well-designed studies have thoroughly researched this topic. In 2004, our research team went to different Brazilians communities in order to initiate long-term studies with the objective of assessing the effects of the chronic consumption of Ayahuasca on user’s mental health. We administered tests to assess personality, neuropsychological functions, psychosocial wellbeing, purpose of life, and spirituality to 120 Ayahuasca practitioners and then were compared them to 115 control subjects. Eight months later, the same tests were administered with the objective of assessing the stability of the results. The results found in these studies will be showed in this talk.

James Fadiman, Ph.D. – Psychedelics as Entheogens: How to Create and Guide Successful Sessions
98 % + of people using psychedelics worldwide use them illegally. In the United States alone, there are 600, 000 new users of LSD each year. Restrictive laws have not led to any less use. Many users can only guess at how to prevent harm and maximize the benefits of their experiences. Manuals have been developed to teach how these experiences can be made safe and supportive by the proper understanding of set, setting, sitter, substance, session and support. We will consider the advantages and limitations of the use of guides and discuss how to establish the best possible conditions for spiritual or entheogenic (as distinct from psychotherapeutic and other uses) experiences. Other manuals have been developed for psychotherapeutic use, as well as for scientific or technical problem solving. These will be presented and discussed as time allows.

Kevin Feeney, J.D. – Revisiting Wasson's Soma: Exploring the Effects of Preparation on the Chemistry of Amanita muscaria
In 1968 R. Gordon Wasson first proposed his groundbreaking theory identifying Soma, the hallucinogenic sacrament of the Vedas, as the Amanita muscaria mushroom. While Wasson’s theory has since garnered much acclaim, it is not without its faults. One omission in Wasson’s theory is his failure to explain how the pressing and filtering of Soma, as described in the Rig Veda, supports his theory of Soma’s identity. Several critics have reasoned that such preparation should be unnecessary if equivalent results can be obtained “by simply chewing the plant materials, as is the case with psychotropic mushrooms.” While many areas of Wasson’s theory have been subject to criticism, it is my contention that a proper understanding of the chemical properties of Amanita muscaria, and how they are altered by the preparations described in the Rig Veda, will lend further credence to Wasson’s theory. To determine the importance of preparation on Amanita muscaria inebriation I have collected and analyzed hundreds of anecdotal reports detailing various preparations of Amanita muscaria and the resulting effects. While the chemistry of Amanita muscaria is not yet fully understood, my findings help explain the significance of preparation on the effects of this mushroom.

and:

Kevin Feeney, J.D. – Re-examining the role of muscarine in the chemistry of amanita muscaria
The chemistry of the Amanita muscaria mushroom has long been a puzzle for scientists, and many pieces of this puzzle remain in dispute. One recurrent dispute centers on the role of muscarine in Amanita muscaria inebriations and poisonings. Currently, it is widely (and mistakenly) believed that muscarine does not occur in Amanita muscaria in pharmacologically active levels. While muscarine is unable to cross the blood-brain barrier, and contributes no psychoactive effects to Amanita muscaria inebriation, a review of anecdotal case reports suggests that muscarine is present in sufficient quantities to have a physiological effect when moderate amounts of this mushroom are consumed. Failing to recognize the physiological contribution of muscarine to the Amanita muscaria experience leaves us with an incomplete picture of the properties of this mushroom and how it was perceived by the cultures who revered it.

Amanda Feilding - Director of The Beckley Foundation
Amanda Feilding founded the Beckley Foundation in 1998 with the purpose of investigating the neurophysiological changes underlying altered states of consciousness in order to expand our understanding of consciousness, and how to use these compounds to the benefit of the individual and society. The second aim of the Beckley Foundation is to work towards the rationalization of international drug policies, which currently are ineffective and harmful, and also obstruct scientific research into the potential benefits of psychoactive substances.

Amanda has built up a collaborative network of leading scientists around the world, with whom she works on a wide range of projects. Recent projects include: the first neuroscientific study in recent times to use LSD and human participants; the first study in the UK to investigate the neurophysiological effects of a psychedelic, using fMRI to assess how psilocybin affects cerebral blood flow and access to remote memories, thereby shedding light on why psychedelics may offer such potential benefits when used with psychotherapy; in the USA a ground breaking pilot study into the use of psilocybin as an aid in the treatment of resistant addiction. Key studies involving cannabis include: research into the physiological effects of THC and the therapeutic potential of CBD; the effects of cannabis use on creativity; investigating the chemical content of differing strains of cannabis in medical use, and a study investigating the neurophysiological changes underlying the ‘high’ users find beneficial.

The Beckley Foundation investigates how psychoactive substances work, why people use them, and what is the best way for society to control and integrate their inevitable presence. Towards this aim, the Beckley Foundation Press and Oxford University Press have recently published a new book, researched and written by a group of the world's leading drug policy analysts, entitled ‘Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate’, which concludes that cannabis prohibition policies have comprehensively failed, and outlines alternative policies from depenalisation to a fully regulated legal market. A second book currently being published with OUP is entitled the ‘Pharmacology of LSD’. The Beckley Foundation Press has also recently published ‘Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis’.

Robert Forte – Ayahuasca, Indigenous Medicine, and Cancer: Preliminary Findings
There are many ways to do research with psychedelics that are legal, valid, important, and outside the domain of the FDA regulations. This presentation offers one example that shows the merits and drawbacks of what we might call "guerilla" research. Inspired by a growing number of compelling anecdotes which showed positive effects of Ayahuasca and other elements of indigenous medicine on cancer, for this project, we recruited two cancer patients and embarked on a month long immersion in traditional medicine at the astonishingly beautiful Mayantuyacu, deep in the jungle of northern Peru. There, under the guidance of the acclaimed ayahuascero-curandero, Maestro Juan Flores Salzaar, we participated in Ayahuasca ceremonies nearly every other night, in addition to consuming two other botanical medicines of the traditional Ashanika pharmacopoeia three times a day. This presentation begins with a presentation of background anecdotes that inspired the study, 3 case histories, and includes many beautiful slides of the Mayantuyacu expedition, as well as digital recordings of the icaros, the sacred songs, that guided the Ayahuasca journeys. Projects like this can point the way to further, more systematic inquiries into the healing potential of psychedelics.

Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia - The Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, and avoiding another backlash
Psychedelic veteran Carolyn Garcia aka Mountain Girl joined the Merry Pranksters in 1964 and traveled on Ken Kesey’s bus “Furthur” presenting “Acid Tests” in California. She joined the Grateful Dead family in the Haight Ashbury in 1967. Jerry Garcia and Carolyn have two daughters.

She has been on the board of Rex Foundation among others, for many years, and keeps up with psychedelic and cannabis issues and developments as best she can. Currently she serves as President of the Women’s Visionary Council, which presents the annual Women’s Visionary Congress and other educational events investigating the marvelous. Carolyn will discuss her experience with the Grateful Dead and the Merry Pranksters, and she will talk about how the future of the psychedelic community can avoid a backlash similar to the 1960s.

Neal Goldsmith, Ph.D. - Psychedelic Therapy and Change: Research, Challenges, Implications
This talk will introduce tracks 2 and 3 for the conference, and so will be part about my research, but very much about the theme and focus of the tracks. I’ll start by describing the tracks, and the history it comes from and contributes to. I’ll then outline the research environment, focus, and results from 1947 to the present, outlining how the climate has changed over the decades, the key research areas (substance abuse, end-of-life, etc.) and findings, and the current research underway and planned. Next, I’d like to focus on key open questions (e.g., Can psychedelics provide lasting cures? Is psychedelic spirituality real; helpful? Should we take a medical, sacramental, or some other approach to this work? Is double blind effective; necessary? How will psychedelic researchers and therapists be trained? What should be done about re-scheduling psychedelics? How can we introduce psychedelics into mainstream medicine; society?) I’d then like to move to a discussion of how medicine, science, and Western culture as a whole will be changed by the re-integration of psychedelics into society. I’d like to close with a review of the Therapy/Cultural track, it’s aims and approaches, outlining the panels in the track and how they will help us address the issues raised in this talk.

Biography: Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist and consultant in private practice, specializing in psychospiritual development – seeing “neurosis” as the natural unfolding of human maturation. Dr. Goldsmith’s psychotherapy training includes Imago Relationship Therapy, Psychosynthesis, yoga psychology, regressive psychotherapies, Rogerian client-centered counseling, and other humanistic, transpersonal and eastern traditions (in addition to the lessons found in the research literature on psychedelics). He is also an applied research psychologist and strategic planner working with institutions such as Princeton University, AT&T, American Express, and Gartner to foster innovation and change.

Dr. Goldsmith has a master’s degree in counseling from New York University and a Ph.D. in public affairs psychology from Claremont Graduate University, with an orientation toward action science in the tradition of Kurt Lewin. He conducted his dissertation research, on the factors that facilitate or inhibit the successful utilization of mental health policy research, as a federally-funded doctoral research assistant at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. During this period, Dr. Goldsmith was also deputy principal investigator of a four-year, nation-wide study of the utilization of mental health policy research.

Dr. Goldsmith is a frequent speaker on spiritual emergence, resistance to change, drug policy reform and the post-modern future of society. Among Dr. Goldsmith’s publications, he is perhaps proudest of “The Ten Lessons of Psychedelic Psychotherapy, Rediscovered” (in the Psychedelic Medicine textbook, Praeger, 2007), his affidavit to the California Superior Court in Santa Cruz on “Rescheduling Psilocybin: A Review of the Clinical Research,” and the frequently-cited, “The Utilization of Policy Research.” He is a founder of several salon discussion groups in New York City and of quality improvement councils at American Express Company and AT&T. While still a graduate student, he was an affiliate of the Center for Policy Research at Columbia University, a founder of the Claremont Center for Applied Social Research, and an invited member of the Network of Consultants on Planned Change at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Goldsmith may be reached via his Web site, www.nealgoldsmith.com.

Other: This talk is based on my forthcoming book: “Psychedelic Healing: Psychotherapy, Entheogens, and Change” (Inner Traditions, in press).

Alex and Allyson Grey - Better Religion Through Science and Art
Creativity is a spiritual path for many artists. Entheo-art, art that points to the God within, is a sacred creative manifestation of visionary culture. Entheo-artists paint the transcendental realms from observation. The viewer, especially one with a dilated psyche, comes into contact with the visionary source through contemplation of the artwork, uniting with the transformative evolutionary creative force working through the artist.

After a life of studying the rise and fall of civilizations, Arnold Toynbee commented that civilizations exist to give birth to better religions. In Roland Griffith's Johns Hopkins study, a majority of spiritually inclined subjects had a full-blown mystical experience after a single dose of psilocybin. The mystical experience is the foundation of all religion. Visions that glimpse divine imagination catalyze the primary religious experience. Religion is not just tradition and dogma. At the heart of religion is a life lived in relation to the creative force of the Divine.

In the entheogenic state, our perception of self-existence is altered and our life path and the way we relate to others and the world is transformed. For those that have a mystical experience, an enhanced moral compass may play a part in activating stewardship of the ailing planet. Entheogens have catalyzed reconnection with and compassion for all life. This awakened "ecology of being" translates from the spiritual world to the physical, promoting creative, even visionary ways of remediating our ailing environment and aesthetically transmitting unitive consciousness. Many who have experienced infinite Oneness claim to have seen themselves as a part of a light web of souls. Co-recognizing our interrelatedness is at the heart of visionary culture and is a harbinger of universal spirituality and the dawning of planetary civilization.

Alberto Groisman, Ph.D. – Ayahuasca Religions in Contemporary Society: Law, Health, and Cultural Implications
Motivated by the fundamentals of the transubstantiation doctrine, as researchers like Jonathan Ott have argued, Christianity nowadays may experience a relevant paradigmatic controversy with the emergence in Contemporary Society of a set of Christian Religions known as Entheogenic Religions. These religious systems, most of them founded in the Americas, reunite people around the ritual use of psychoactive substances, classified pharmacologically as hallucinogenic, but more recently conceptualized as entheogenic sacraments. This paper has as an aim to present and discuss the contemporary impact of the emergence, increasing visibility of, and the growth of the number of participants at, the Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions, worldwide. It has also as a particular interest to raise and discuss the implicit implications which the emergence and visibility of these religious systems may have in to influence the way different cultures and specifically their legal systems may develop to deal with the use of psychoactive substances in general.

Jeffrey Guss, M.D. – The NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Research Project's Psychedelic Psychotherapy Training Program
In September 2008, the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Research Project began a training program for study therapists. The program integrated training in the basics of palliative care with preparation to become psychedelic psychotherapists in preparation to work with subjects enrolled in our research study. In this presentation, I will present: 1) Goals of the training program; 2) Structure of the training program (didactic, experiential and supervisory) and 3) Feedback from therapists regarding the components of the training and relevance to work with subjects.

Rachel Harris, Ph.D. – Ayahuasca in North America
This research explores how Ayahuasca is being used in North America. The sample will be described in terms of gender, age and education. The focus is not on the Ayahuasca experience, itself, but on the impact the experience has in a person's on-going life. How do people prepare for the experience? How do they change as a result of their Ayahuasca experiences? How do their lives change? Is there a difference in their moods, self-acceptance or spiritual experiences? How do their relationships with others change? Most people report using Ayahuasca with great care given to set and setting. The context is usually spiritual with careful attention to preparation and intention. People report that their Ayahuasca experience leads to greater self-acceptance and compassion, often mentioning a sense of heart opening. They also describe improvement in health habits like giving up drinking and smoking. Some mention stopping habitual use of marijuana. Many report a personal relationship with the spirit of Ayahuasca that continues and develops beyond the experience. Preliminary findings from the quantitative scale adapted from the Persisting Effects Questionnaire used in the Hopkins psilocybin study will be described.

Andreas Hernandez, Ph.D. – Cultural Trauma, Capitalist Modernity, and the Global Expansion of Santo Daime: 1930-2009
This paper is a historically grounded analysis of the political economy associated with the expansion of the Ayahuasca based Santo Daime religious movement. Analyzing Santo Daime’s expansion historically, this paper argues that Santo Daime has transformed from a counter-modern to post-modern movement, through a series of adaptive and innovative responses to crisis moments in capitalist modernity. The paper interprets these crisis moments as ‘cultural trauma’- impacts which 'tear' the tissue of the 'social body'. It concludes that Santo Daime's expansion has not only been a restitutive response to the cultural, psychological and subjective fractures of capitalist modernity, but also increasingly an attempt to reconstruct culture beyond this modernity.

Scott Hill, Ph.D. – Implications of Jungian Psychology for Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Scott Hill will discuss how Jung’s therapeutic method of integrating unconscious material into consciousness can contribute to the theory and practice of psychedelic psychotherapy, especially work with difficult psychedelic experiences occurring in response to overwhelming material released from the deepest layers of the unconscious. Scott will also discuss the role that therapists can play in mediating ego-consciousness on behalf of the individual undergoing psychedelic psychotherapy. Drawing on the unique and extensive clinical experience of two pioneering Jungian-oriented British psychedelic therapists, Margot Cutner and Ronald Sandison (who coined the term psycholytic therapy), Scott will discuss the issue of using Jungian integration to increase conscious participation by individuals during psychedelic psychotherapy, potentially enhancing the inherent healing effects of the psychedelic experience itself.

Bob Jesse - the Council on Spiritual Practices
Bob Jesse is convenor of the Council on Spiritual Practices , which aims to shift modernity's awareness and practices with respect to primary religious experience (www.csp.org/PRE). CSP also encourages people to imagine and develop social contexts to contain such experiences and help them yield lasting benefit. Through CSP, Bob and his colleagues initiated a study, conducted at Johns Hopkins and reported around the world, of the psycho-spiritual effects of psilocybin in healthy volunteers (www.csp.org/psilocybin). This expands the emphasis in hallucinogen research beyond the medical treatment of ill people to include the betterment of well people, contributing to a science of pro-social development.

Henrik Jungaberle, Ph.D. – Learning from the Best (and also from the Rest): The Development of a Professional Rule Culture in Psychedelic Therapy
In a research project at Heidelberg University we collected data (2003-2006) from those psychotherapist who were able to legally perform outpatient psycholytic therapy in Switzerland between 1988-1992 (Swiss Association of Psycholytic Therapy). We analysed this data with qualitative research methods (content analysis) and were able to formulate 39 "rules" that guided the practice of these medical doctors. These rules are considered a repertoire of collective knowledge that these professionals developed in a process of trial and error. This rule culture provides an up-to-date treasure of reflective practice that seems to be relevant for current studys and future regular psychotherapy with LSD, MDMA and Psilocybin. Beyond these professional guidelines ("rules") it was also important to analyse the group process within this network of psychedelic experts over a period of 20 years (retrospectively). In our presentation we will discuss the reported developments with respect to standards in psychotherapy research.

James Kent – The Mechanics of Hallucination
Psychedelic hallucination is at the core of all psychedelic transformation and therapy. The geometric visuals and dreamlike archetypes of psychedelic hallucination are universal, indicating that there are fundamental properties of the human brain that allow for spontaneous creation of phantom matrices. By examining the connective structure of the perceptual system and the methods by which the brain processes sensory data, it is possible to model the pharmacological and neural origins of hallucination, and the unique physical conditions which describe a psychedelic experience. Topics discussed will include dreaming, psychosis, psychedelic pharmacology, phosphenes, geometric hallucinations, dreamlike hallucinations, the visual processing system, perceptual destabilization, ego dissolution, and memory. This presentation will be in the Ignite format of 20 slides in 5 minutes, with roughly 15 seconds per slide. There will also be a five-minute question and answer period.

Mark Kleiman – Regulating the Ineffable
The hallucinogens (including, for this purpose, MDMA and its relatives), have been or could be used to treat disease, to generate spiritual experience both individually and communally, and to enhance creativity, in addition to their recreational/social uses. Those four uses suggest different regulatory approaches. Neither the risks nor the benefits associated with hallucinogen use are sufficiently close to those of alcohol or of the other classes of controlled drugs to allow a simple appropriation of existing regulatory schemes.

Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs. His latest book is When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment He is also the author of Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control and Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results. He edits the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis and founded a widely-read blog called The Reality-Based Community.

Previously, he taught at the Harvard Kennedy School (where Rick Doblin was among his students) and the University of Rochester and served as Director of Policy and Management Analysis for the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice and as Deputy Director for Management of the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget in Boston. Mr. Kleiman graduate from Haverford College with a B.A. in Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics and did his MPP and Ph.D. (public policy) at Harvard.

Beatriz Caiuby Labate – The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research. With Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, Brian Anderson, Marcelo Mercante, and Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa.
The treatment and handling of substance dependence with Ayahuasca: reflections on current and future research This discussion will present a series of reflections on the therapeutic potential of the ritual use of Ayahuasca in the treatment and handling of substance dependence problems. Anthropological and psychiatric data on the ritual use of Ayahuasca for “healing” dependence in psychotherapeutic centers (in Peru and Brazil), as well as in Ayahuasca religions (in Brazil), are reviewed and critiqued. Methodological, ethical and political considerations for current and future research in this area are then discussed, and an interdisciplinary agenda for studies on the use of Ayahuasca to treat or handle substance dependence is proposed.

David Lukoff, Ph.D. – Implications of Jungian Psychology for Psychedelic Psychotherapy
David Lukoff will present on psychotherapeutic methods, based on Jungian theory, for integrating psychedelic experiences that have been problematic for the individual, at times even leading to psychiatric hospitalization. This approach is based on the concept of spiritual emergencies which are crises that include non-ordinary states that in the west would be seen and treated as psychosis and treated with suppressive medication. But using Stanislav Grof’s observations from his study of non-ordinary states and also of diverse spiritual traditions, such episodes can be treated as crises of transformation or crises of spiritual opening. If properly understood and properly supported by the therapist, they are actually conducive to healing and transformation.

Marcelo Mercante, Ph.D. – Ayahuasca, Spontaneous Mental Imagery, Homeless People, and the Treatment of Drug Addiction and Alcoholism
The objective of this presentation is to contribute to the investigation of the subjective experiences of participants in drug and alcohol addiction programs which ritualistically use the psychoactive drink Ayahuasca as part of their treatment model. This application of Ayahuasca seems to promote novel subjective experience, perception, and perspective in substance abusers, thus creating a foundation for changing their life habits. The spontaneous mental imagery associated with the experience seems to be at the core of that process. They are "revelatory moments" that put into evidence internal and external dimensions of being. The physical, social, and spiritual transformation of the participant appears in the form of spontaneous mental imagery that draws on what is already present in the participant’s own consciousness – memories from the past, interpretations of present experience, and dreams about the future. The presentation will be about two different sets of research data. The first research was conducted during 2007 in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, where a group called Ablusa – led by a psychiatrist, was using Ayahuasca as a tool to help homeless people have a “normal life” again. The second research was conducted in three diferent places: the Takiwasi Center, in Peru; the Ceu Sagrado, in Sorocaba, Brazil, and the Centro de Recuperação Caminho de Luz, in Rio Branco, Brazil. The Brazilian centers are linked to the Santo Daime (Ceu Sagrado) and União do Vegetal (Caminho de Luz), both Brazilian Ayahuasca religions. They have different treatment systems, and during my presentation I will be exploring the points they have in common and their differences. I will present data concerning the effectiveness of their treatments, and about the links between the spontaneous mental imagery of people undergoing that kind of treatment and its relationship with their recovery.

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.– Psychedelic, Psychoactive and Addictive Drugs and States of Consciousness
In this talk, I propose to examine the states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs in the framework of a heuristic model of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). I suggest that William James’ philosophy of radical empiricism provides the appropriate epistemological underpinning for the empirical study of states of consciousness, as well as their correlations with brain functions. According to this heuristic model of ASCs, the content of a state of consciousness is a function of the internal set and external setting – regardless of the catalyst or trigger, which might be a drug, or hypnosis, or rhythmic drum beat, or music, or the naturally occurring variations of the sleep/dream cycle. ASCs, whether induced or naturally occurring, differ energetically on the dimensions of (1) arousal vs. sedation, (2) pleasure vs. pain, (3) expansion vs. contraction. The psychoactive, or mood regulating drugs, such as the stimulants and sedatives, affect primarily the dimensions of arousal and pleasure-pain. I argue that the classical psychedelic drugs are consciousness expanding, and therefore opposite in effect to drugs such as the opiates, alcohol, cocaine and amphetamines, that produce contracted and potentially addictive states of consciousness. This is the basis for the therapeutic applications of consciousness-expanding psychedelics in the treatment of addictions and behavioral compulsions. In general, expansive states of consciousness, whether induced by drugs or by meditative, shamanic and yogic methods, play a significant role in the world’s spiritual growth traditions and in indigenous vision practices.

Michael Montagne, Ph.D. – Metaphors and Meanings: How We Interpret and Understand Psychedelic Drug Experiences
Psychedelic drug experiences are unique, malleable, highly variable, often tacit and profound in nature. The neuropharmacological changes produced by psychedelic drugs require perception, interpretation, description, and comprehension, in order for the experience to have significance for the user. Social context and reason for use can direct the types of effects that are experienced and described, whether medical-therapeutic, creative, spiritual, or destructive. How do users come to understand the meaning of their experiences? It is constructed individually and socially, primarily through the use of metaphors, language that describes something new in terms of other experiences that are more familiar. In this presentation, metaphors for the psychedelic drug experience are presented and described. The process of applying meaning to these experiences and attributing effects to the drug that is taken are delineated. Guidance on employing metaphors in therapeutic and other contexts is provided with the goal of improving beneficial outcomes from psychedelic drug use.

Levente Moro, Ph.D. (cand.) – Autognosis, Life Quality, and Spirituality in Psychedelic Drug Users
A growing number of cultural studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that purposes of psychoactive drug use - both legal and illegal - may also include the pursuit of increased personal well-being. Psychoactive substances, especially psychedelics (e.g., LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, LSA, and salvinorin-A), have been used in relation to religious and spiritual practices, creative processes, social cohesion, and autognostic purposes (i.e., for increasing self-knowledge). The salutogenesis model of Antonovsky assumes that the meaningful interpretation of exceptional life events - which could include psychedelic experiences as well - may lead to a better psychological functioning and an improved quality of life. In our recent on-line survey study, we assessed 667 drug users and non-users with three psychological instruments regarding their life quality, coping, and spirituality. Our target "psychonaut" group - consisting of participants who previously used or currently use mostly psychedelic drugs with primarily autognostic purposes - was matched against drug user and non-user control groups. Results from a cross-table of 23 psychoactive drugs and 14 drug use purposes show a strong connection between psychedelic drugs and autognostic purposes. Moreover, we found support for the initial hypothesis about a positive relationship between psychedelics and self-evaluated life quality. Contradictory to suggestions of previous studies about spirituality as a protective factor against drug use, we also found a positive correlation between spirituality and autognostic purposes of psychedelic drug use. In light of our results, the autognostic use of psychedelics may play a kind of role in mental well-being that cannot be interpreted within psychopathological or social-deviance models of drug abuse. These questions are to be explored in our further qualitative interview studies about psychonaut culture, patterns of autognostic drug use, health behavior, and quality of life.

Tom Pinkson, Ph.D. – Psychedelics and Death: Exercising the 'Letting Go' Muscle
Author of "Do They Celebrate Christmas in Heaven? Spiritual Rite of Passage Teachings from Children with Life-Threatening Illness" and "The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol: Ancient Medicine for Modern Times", consultant, retreat & ceremonial Leader, has played a key role in three social movements of the 20th Century: the establishment and growth of the second Hospice Program in the United States, the introduction of the Native American based Vision Quest to mainstream America and the spread of Attitudinal Healing, a forerunner to today's popularity of "positive psychology", through helping Dr. Jerry Jampolsky start the internationally renown Center for Attitudinal Healing where he worked for thirty-two years counseling life-threatened children and adults.

Tom is the founder and director of WAKAN, a shamanically-based community committed to restoring the sacred in daily life, and of "Recognition Rites For A New Vision of Aging", a program that shifts attitudes and behaviors towards what is called by some, "The Third Age".

Tom has spent over forty years studying with indigenous elders around the world learning about their healing ways, always with an eye to practical application of their wisdom teachings to the crisis of modernity. He completed an eleven year apprenticeship with Huichol shamans in Mexico with a Bull Ceremony in the shaman's rancho.

Silvia Polivoy, Ph.D. – Ayahuasca: Handle with Utmost Care
Many people aren’t aware of the intricacies of working with sacred plant teachers like Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is sometimes mistakenly categorized with recreational psychedelic drugs. When used in a proper set and setting, Ayahuasca may help to heal the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—not just alleviating or suppressing symptoms. Although Ayahuasca is not a quick fix; a person working with it must have honest intention and commitment to change their patterns of behavior. Sometimes people relive traumatic experiences and then release repressed memories that are tucked in the corridors of the unconscious. Deep emotional issues that do not respond to conventional psychotherapy are often resolved. Ayahuasca should never be used without first knowing and understanding both the benefits and potential adverse effects.

Alexandre Quaranta, Ph.D. – Psychedelics Use and Lucid Dreaming: The Providential Synergy
Lucid dreaming is the amazing possibility of being fully awake and aware in the dream state while having at the same time access to faculties such as will, reason, memory (notably of waking state based intention), imagination, intuition, empathy. It is today proven to be a learnable skill which wide opens the door of the pure and free ecstatic imagination and of the transpersonal realm. The practice of lucid dreaming (and not reasoning or discussing on it) is today known to be as efficient as psychoactive substances to deconstruct the way we create and coagulate our perceptions at several levels and can be considered a providential "hack" for that purpose. For that reason genuine lucid dreaming exploration necessarily leads to freeing philosophical considerations and metaphysical insights. This presentation is designed to offer a panoramic view on lucid dreaming possibilities, describe more precisely some of them, and to offer also some practical understanding on how the lucid dream state can be achieved. Then, the link with the subject of hallucinations become obvious and possibly a new light can be casted on the understanding of the variety of such phenomenon.

Deborah Quevedo, R.N., Ph.D. – Psychospiritual Integration of an Ayahuasca Retreat Experience
The results of my dissertation research study will be presented. Ayahuasca is an entheogen that has been used for several thousand years by the indigenous people of the Amazon jungle for healing, learning, and divination. This research was conducted at neo-shamanic Ayahuasca retreats in Brazil that were led by a transpersonal psychotherapist. The retreats were conducted without the overlay of a religious doctrine or a particular cosmology. Twenty-two international (English-speaking) retreat participants completed quantitative and qualitative assessments on a confidential website using a repeated measures design.

Maggi Quinlan, Ph.D. – Healing from the Gods: Ayahuasca and the Curing of Disease States
This presentation describes the medical healing reported, as experienced through the use of Ayahuasca, in a case study with five co-researchers and myself. In each of the accounts the co-researcher was suffering from either a terminal or chronic illness. In four instances, the people came to Ayahuasca because they had exhausted all other options within the allopathic system. Two of those were facing imminent death. One person chose not to engage with allopathy beyond diagnosis. One person was both shown the presence of the illness, and the healing was facilitated with Ayahuasca alone. Another instance revealed ADHD/ADD and other "leaning disabilities" as an evolutionary process rather than a pathology. This presentation explores concepts of healing: what healing means and how it is achieved with psychedelics/entheogens. It is a record of the inner and outer journey through illness that each person experienced using Ayahuasca as the catalyzing agent for the curing that was reported. It investigates the potential for healing that does not currently exist in an allopathic system of medicine. Ayahuasca, and other entheogens, offer a potential to change that paradigm, and to expand current medical options in treating terminal and chronic illness. By providing access to a larger image of the psyche, Ayahuasca shows us the transpersonal and perinatal roots of symptoms and the energetic concept of healing that offers a new model of medicine.

Bruce Sewick, LCPC, RDDP, CADC and Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. – Public Education: A University Course in Psychedelics
Bruce Sewick teaches a 1-credit weekend class called "Psychedelic Mindview" at the College of DuPage that is open to anyone with no prerequisites, and Tom Roberts teaches a 3-credit course, currently under the title of Foundations of Psychedelic Studies, that is open to undergraduate juniors and seniors of all majors who are enrolled in the Honors Program at Northern Illinois University. They will discuss the experiences, possibilities, and pitfalls of offering these courses and hints for people who would like to offer similar courses at their colleges or universities.

Ben Sessa, M.D., B.Sc., M.R.C.Psych. - History of Psychedelic Research in the United Kingdom
Recent history of psychedelics in the United Kingdom - A child and adolescent psychiatrist working in the South West of England, Dr. Sessa developed a lifelong interest in psychedelics as a youth and has spent the last several years working to present his skeptical peers in psychiatry with a straight-laced, objective and unbiased point of view on the history and potential of these contentious and fascinating substances. Since publishing an article in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2005, he has had ten peer-reviewed articles in medical journals, and presented at medical conferences throughout the UK and Europe, chairing two symposiums at the Royal College of Psychiatry, offering consultation to the British Government on MDMA and contributing to numerous media articles in the British press on psychedelics. He will be giving a brief presentation on the History of Psychedelic Research in the UK, with particular reference to the work of Ronald Sandison, M.D. and LSD treatment explored by the maverick psychiatrist RD Laing, and will describe a pilot study that has recently been completed at Bristol University using intravenous psilocybin in healthy human volunteers in a mock-MRI scanner environment.

Zeno Sanchez-Ramos, M.D. – Effects of Psilocybin and other Selective Serotonin Agonists on Hippocampal-Dependent Learning and Neurogenesis
A. Does Psilocybin Impact Neurogenesis in Adult Hippocampus? Selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are known to stimulate the production of new neurons in the hippocampus by increasing synaptic concentration of serotonin (5-HT). The delay in the appearance of anti-depressant effects corresponds to the time required to generate new neurons. However, it is not clear which of the many serotonergic receptors in the hippocampus are responsible for the enhanced neurogenesis. The current study evaluated the effects of the acute and chronic administration of 5HT2A agonists psilocybin and 251-NBMeO and the 5HT2A/C antagonist ketanserin on hippocampal neurogenesis. To investigate the effects of acute drug administration mice received a single injection of varying doses of psilocybin, 251-NBMeO, ketanserin or saline followed by i.p. injections of 75 mg/kg bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) for 4 consecutive days followed by euthanasia two weeks later. For chronic administration 4 injections of psilocybin, ketanserin or saline were administered weekly over the course of one month. On days following drug injections mice received an injection of 75 mg/kg BrdU and were euthanized two weeks after the last drug injection. Unbiased estimates of BrdU+ and BrdU/NeuN+ cells in the dentate gyrus revealed a significant dose dependent reduction in the level of neurogenesis after acute 5HT2A receptor agonist or antagonist administration. Interestingly, chronic administration of psilocybin increased the number of new born neurons in the dentate gyrus while the antagonist suppressed hippocampal neurogenesis, suggesting that the 5HT2A receptor appears to be involved in the regulation of hippocampal neurogenesis.

B. Does Psilocybin Affect Hippocampal-Dependent Learning? Aberrations in brain serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission have been implicated in psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression and deficits in learning and memory. Many of these disorders are treated with drugs which promote the availability of 5-HT in the synapse. However, it is not clear which of the 5-HT receptors are involved in behavioral improvements. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of psilocybin, a 5HT2A receptor agonist on hippocampal-dependent learning. Mice received a single injection of psilocybin (0.1, 0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 mg/kg), ketanserin (a 5HT2A/C antagonist) or saline 24 hours before habituation to the environment and subsequent training and testing on the fear conditioning task. Trace fear conditioning is a hippocampal-dependent task in which the presentation of the conditioned stimulus (CS, tone) is separated in time by a trace interval to the unconditioned stimulus (US, shock). All mice developed contextual and cued fear conditioning; however, mice treated with psilocybin extinguished the cued fear conditioning more rapidly than saline treated mice. Interestingly, mice given the 5HT2A/C receptor antagonist ketanserin showed less of cued fear response than saline and psilocybin treated mice. Future studies should examine the temporal effects of acute and chronic psilocybin administration on hippocampal-dependent learning tasks.

Benny Shanon, Ph.D. –The Antipodes of the Mind
Benny Shanon. Professor and of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel). Holds B.A. degrees in philosophy and linguistics from Tel Aviv University, an M.A. in linguistics and a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University. In addition to his permanent post in Jerusalem, taught at MIT, Cornell University and Swarthmore College. Was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, Princeton, the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Autonomy and Epistemology in Paris, The French National Institute for Mental Health, the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Bielefeld (Germany), The Center for Study and Research of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio (Italy) and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the humanities and the social sciences. His fields of expertise are the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, the phenomenology of human consciousness, the conceptual foundations of cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology. Amongst his publications are two books: The Representational and the Presentational (1993), which is devoted to a critique of the representational-computational view of mind in cognitive science, and Antipodes of the Mind (Oxford University Press, 2002), which is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of special state of mind induced by the psychotropic brew Ayahuasca. At present he is writing a book presenting a new psychological-phenomenological theory of human consciousness. "In this lecture I present an overview of my book "The Antipodes of the Mind" (Oxford University Press, 2002/3). This book presents a comprehensive scientific analysis of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca. My study of Ayahuasca is grounded in the belief that the real puzzles associated with this brew pertain neither to the brain nor to culture but rather to the human psyche. So far, practically all the scientific research on Ayahuasca were in the framework of either the natural sciences (botany and ethnobotany, pharmacology, biochemistry and brain physiology) or anthropology. This is the first scientific attempt to study Ayahuasca from a cognitive psychological point of view. Empirically, my research is based on the systematic recording of my own quite extensive experiences with the brew and on the interviewing of a large number of informants - indigenous persons, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, as well as foreign travelers. My corpus is the largest and most systematic ever collected of people's experiences with Ayahuasca. Naturally, each ayahuasca experience--both for the same individual on different occasions and across individuals--is different. However, when a large corpus of such experiences is examined repeated patterns are encountered and a unified global structure may be appreciated. Theoretically, I propose, the overall study of the ayahuasca state of mind may be likened to that of language. Specifically, like language, which can be investigated on several levels and dimensions (e.g., syntax, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics), ayahuasca visions can be investigated with respect to their formal structure, specific content elements presented in them, their themes, their narrative structure, as well as with respect to the interaction that the individual has with his/her visions. These various levels of analysis serve not only for the psychological study of the Ayahuasca experience but as the conceptual foundations for the cognitive study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general. In this lecture I argue the case for the special orientation of my research, define the major dimensions of the ayahuasca state of mind and some of the conceptual distinctions, associated with them, highlight several empirical findings of prime interest, and note broader implications of these to the study of human consciousness at large. General philosophical ramifications will be indicated as well."

Diana Slattery, Ph.D. (cand) – Ecstatic Significations: Psychedelics and Language
Examining psychedelic experiences of language, a new perspective on the relations of language, consciousness, and reality emerges. Embedded in cocoons of culture woven between ourselves and nature, our realities are symbol-laden and symbol-driven. Psychedelics can propel one outside the veil of language, to a place exterior to culture and cultural conditioning. From this vantage, “natural” languages can be perceived as more technological than natural, the software of social intercourse and civilization. With the decoding of DNA, and the molecular designs of nanotechnology, the biosphere and the material world have become “linguistically pliable,” in Mark Pesce’s words. This presentation surveys these phenomena and relates them to the neurobiological models of Charles Laughlin, Michael Winkelman, and Steve Farmer. The phenomenological data, the reports from lived experience of individuals, stand in reciprocal, mutually informing relation to these scientific models. The question becomes not only, “How can these (or other) neurobiological models explain these linguistic phenomena in all their diversity?” but “What can these linguistic phenomena, however anomalous, tell us about our models of brain and cognition?”

Kaleb Smith – Hyper-Sensitive States and Indirect Semantic Priming: Inferring The Mechanics of Psilocybin's Novel Association Effect
The semantic network model provides a powerful analogy with which to understand the nature of the attentional processes which act and interact in the composition of a thought. While the metaphoric nature of the semantic network, itself, has been argued, (Anderson (2000) claiming his ACT-R model as something closer to a neurological actuality), several studies (A. Pecchinenda, C. Ganteaume, & R. Bansestudies, 2008) have suggested that a subjective networking structure underlies the biological networking structure of neuronal interconnection in the brain, supporting the notion of spreading activation and semantic priming. Throughout the presentation, I intend to explore what may be implied from the developed instrumentation and data of these and other studies and form an argument which seeks to describe the effects of psilocybin using the semantic network by expanding upon the cognitive mechanism of latent inhbition (LI) described by Carson (2003) and its correlatable research data. Key to relating the LI model to the activity of psilocybin on the semantic network is the indirect priming and schizophrenia research of Spitzer (1996, 1994). By interpreting semantic priming as a function of attention, the length of activational spread within the network can be seen as dependent on, not only the capacity of memory, but also the capacity of one's attention span.

Leanna Standish, N.D., Ph.D., L.Acup, FABNO – Ayahuasca, Science and Medicine
Ayahuasca has much to teach us about consciousness and holds the potential as a medicine in the treatment of psychiatric disorders and immunological disorders including cancer. A human research agenda using modern technologies to explore the brain and psychological effects of ayahuasca will be described. This lecture will discuss the ontological, psychological, and medical questions that the ayahuasca experience begs and methodologies to answer these questions.

Luis Fernando Tofoli, MD – Mental health safety of Ayahuasca religious use: results from an epidemiological surveillance system by the União do Vegetal in Brazil
The risk of psychotic outbreaks and major psychiatric incidents is an important but yet unresolved issue regarding the safety of the Amazonian entheogenic beverage Ayahuasca. The União do Vegetal (UDV, one of the Brazilian syncretic Ayahuasca religions) has a set of customs and beliefs that reinforces the attention to one’s mental health status before approving one’s experience with Ayahuasca.

Steven Toth, R.M.T. – Incorporating Bodywork into the Psychedelic Journey
The potentials for psychedelic sessions to catalyze substantive gains in individual self-awareness and well-being have been definitively established. However, within the pertinent literature this presenter has found a generic lack of reportage in respect to sessions which included intervals of therapeutic bodywork.

Some of the constructive potentials of incorporating a specific ethos of bodywork will be presented in the context of the psychedelic process. We will discuss the value and import of working without an agenda; of the critical need for empathy; and cultivating the ability to maintain a non-judgmental presence.

A brief overview of this realm of psychedelic work will be put forth in the context of select case studies. It is the presenter’s position that there are invaluable linkages between the use of psychoactive substances, a deepening understanding of optimal personal development and the potential resolution of a host of corresponding deficits by including bodywork in journeywork.

Steven Toth is a Registered Movement Therapist in private practice in the Bay Area, New York City, and Madison Wisconsin. As a survivor of two near death experiences he is grateful to be alive and dedicated to working with individuals and groups committed to unfolding their truth. He has been extremely fortunate to have studied and trained with several master teachers, including Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen (Bodymind Centering); Eliot Cowan (Plant Spirit Medicine); Fritz Smith (Zero Balancing); Stan Grof (Holotropic Breathwork); James Sun (Eight Step Preying Mantis) and Azom Choktul Rinpoche (Dzogchen Buddhism).

Stephen Trichter, Ph.D. – Out of the Jungle and onto the Couch: Applying Ayahuasca's Lessons to the Therapy Room
Ayahuasca is one of many substances in a group of compounds that have shown promise in harnessing the power to increase an individual’s spirituality and strengthen their sense of well-being. These substances, known as entheogens, a term etymologically rooted in Latin that means “generating the divine within,” are commonly referred to as psychedelics or hallucinogens. Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant brew from the Amazon basin that has been used as part of healing ceremonies by the region’s indigenous people for centuries, has found more recent use in a wide variety of modern spiritual contexts and communities, and is now consumed by growing numbers of people throughout the world. Anecdotal evidence and previous research suggest that participants who take part in Ayahuasca ceremonies experience significant spiritual effects. A study conducted by the presenter (Trichter, Klimo, and Krippner, 2006) found statistically significant changes in novice participants’ subjective spiritual experiences as a result of participation in their first Ayahuasca ceremony. “Out of the Jungle” will present the research findings from this study, examine the psychospiritual risks and challenges that come with the adoption of these practices in Western culture, and propose a preliminary psychoanalytic model of how Ayahuasca ceremony can be integrated into treatment to maximize potential benefits and minimize potential harm to patients.

Kenneth Tupper, Ph.D. (cand.) – Psychedelics, Entheogens, and Public Policy
This presentation considers how policy makers should respond to re-emerging evidence of the therapeutic and other benefits of psychedelics or entheogens. After a period of quiescence for several decades, academic research on psychedelics has begun to pick up momentum and is already beginning to corroborate many of the positive findings initially generated in the 1950s and 1960s. These include not only specific medical indications for clinical disorders, but also broader psychological and/or spiritual benefits for healthy individuals. At the same time, novel information and communications technologies allow for a much more rapid dissemination of ideas and social trends involving such substances than ever before. Along with these new research findings and cultural shifts come new challenges for how to translate academic knowledge not only into effective clinical interventions, but also into healthy public policy. One such challenge is how to balance the biomedical perspective of psychedelic therapy with the spiritual perspective of entheogenic practices. The techniques, methods and explanatory frames of psychedelic therapy have been grounded in the Western biomedical paradigm, whereas those of entheogenic healing or spiritual practices have a much longer history stemming from traditional indigenous forms of cultural knowledge. The globalization of the traditional Amazonian brew Ayahuasca presents a useful case example of the potential divergence between these two approaches: Ayahuasca drinkers frequently attest to its health and/or spiritual benefits with “evidence” apprehended directly from experience with the brew, whereas physicians working from a biomedical perspective have very different requirements of evidence. From a public policy perspective, such differences demand a difficult balancing of competing interests of the state, including public health, human rights, criminal justice and free-market economics.

Bryan West – Education and Training
Rudimentary research done by Eric Kast in the late 1950s and early 1960s indicated that psilocybin and LSD could mediate pain, not only during the dosing session but for weeks after a single dose. I am interested in “reopening” this old branch of research using the technology and scientific rigor of the twenty-first century. Beyond exploring the role of psychedelic pain control and management, I would simultaneously use modern imaging techniques, such as quantitative-EEG (QEEG), to examine the “brain-state” of subjects both under the influence of psychedelics and in follow-up.

Multitudes of imaging modalities are available to modern researchers that were unavailable, even unimaginable, fifty years ago. In my own separate research technically outside of the field of psychedelics, I have become fascinated by the power of fMRI, quantitative EEG, and somatosensory evoked potentials. Via their work with these imaging devices, researchers such as Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, Dr. E. Roys Johns, and Dr. Leslie Prichep have implicated the role of thalamic oscillations and rhythmicity to consciousness, to what, as I like to say, “makes us us”.

Furthermore, these discoveries suggest altered rhythms lead to disease states such as OCD, anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. I am very excited by what I see as the endless possibilities presented in these avenues of research. All of these techniques can show alterations in brain chemistry, firing, blood flow, etc. These new technologies could be employed to discover more about psychedelics in relation to every aspect of the brain, including pain, because most of these imaging techniques are already being used to examine pain patients not under the influence of psychedelics.

Bob Wold – Cluster Busters

Psychedelic Science Presenter Podcasts

Podcast 1: Ken Allen interviews Ayahuasca Researcher Rachel Harris, Ph.D.

Podcast 2: Ken Allen interviews psychotherapist and curator of conference tracks 2 and 3, Neal Goldsmith, Ph.D.

Podcast 3: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Diana Slattery, Ph.D.c.

On March 9, MAPS Director of Communication and Conference Organizer Randolph Hencken, M.A. spoke on Chico's KZFR 90.1 FM's program Shatter Lives about the Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference.

Podcast 4: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter and visionary artist Alex Grey.

Podcast 5: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter and WVC Founder Annie Oak.

Podcast 6: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter and author James Fadiman.

Podcast 7: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Kenneth Tupper.

Podcast 8: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Maggie Quinlan.

Podcast 9: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Kevin Feeney.

Podcast 10: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Steven Toth.

Podcast 11: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Andreas Hernandez.

Podcast 12: Ken Allen interviews conference presenter Thomas Pinkson.

More soon to come! Check back each week for a new episode as we approach the conference.

Thursday, April 15, 2010. 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, with morning, lunch and afternoon breaks (food is not included).

$130: Pre-registration is required.

Michael Mithoefer, M.D., Annie Mithoefer, B.S.N., and Rick Doblin, Ph.D. will lead a workshop on therapist techniques used during MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. This full-day workshop will explore issues discussed in MAPS’ MDMA-therapist manual, lessons learned from MAPS MDMA/PTSD pilot study, and theoretical applications of these techniques for use with patients who don’t suffer from PTSD. You won’t want to miss this workshop if you have an interest in becoming a psychedelic therapist.

Rick Doblin is the Executive Director and founder of MAPS. Michael and Annie Mithoefer are the Principal Investigators for MAPS’ MDMA/PTSD pilot study and upcoming MDMA/PTSD study with veterans of war.

Thursday, April 15, 2009. 10AM-1PM and 2PM to 5PM (two periods of 3 hours; food is not included)

$130: Pre-registration is required.

Visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey teach painting and drawing from the wellspring of divine imagination.  In this workshop artists at any level of experience draw and paint from the sacred ground and the mystic eye.  Through an illustrated talk, a vision practice, and group interaction, participants can enter the doors of the imagination to the theater of revelation.  Utilizing basic materials such as graphite, colored pencils, pastels, and watercolors, we commit mental pictures to paper and discuss the aesthetic dimension of our mystical experiences.

BIOS:
Alex Grey
Best known for paintings that “X-ray” multiple dimensions of reality, Grey interweaves biological anatomy with psychic/spiritual energies.  His visual meditation on the nature of consciousness has led to exhibitions and keynote addresses from Tokyo to Sao Paulo, features on Discovery Channel, Newsweek, Time, and album art for Grammy Award winning bands such as Tool, Beastie Boys, Nirvana and SCI.

Allyson Grey

An accomplished visionary artist, Allyson Grey's paintings invent a symbol system representing chaos, order and secret writing. Allyson has taught art for decades and exhibited widely.  She co-founded the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tufts University, has edited and co-written a dozen books and journals including CoSM Journal of Visionary Culture and Damanhur: Temples of Humankind, .

Material list for Visionary Art Intensive

The following is a list of items to bring with you to the workshop:

• Pencils and pens for drawing
• Pencil sharpener
• Drawing/watercolor pad with heavy paper – 11” x 14”
• Colored pencils—20 or more colors
• Kneadable eraser

  Optional:

• Watercolor set and brushes
• Watercolor paper block
• Images of past work – small portfolio or CD of images preferred

Monday, April 19, 2010. 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, with morning, lunch and afternoon breaks (food is not included).

$130, pre-registration is required.

In this slide-illustrated seminar, we will use the paintings from depth-psychological work with psychedelic substances and Holotropic Breathwork ™ to explore the new extended map of the psyche that has emerged from modern consciousness research. We will put special emphasis on the process of psychospiritual death and rebirth. The understanding of this process throws a new light on emotional and psychosomatic disorders and is essential for any serious approach to the ritual and spiritual history of humanity - shamanism, rites of passage, healing ceremonies of native cultures, ancient mysteries of death and rebirth, the great religions of the world, and the mystical traditions of all times and countries.

The insights from this work also offer new insights into two forces that have been driving human history - insatiable greed and unbridled violence - and into sociopolitical psychopathology, such as wars, bloody revolutions, terrorism, suicide bombing, concentration camps, and genocide. In a series of slides, we will demonstrate the remarkable similarities between the symbolism of posters and cartoons from the time of wars or revolutions and the visions accompanying the reliving of birth and the experience of psychospiritual death and rebirth.

Objectives:

1. To describe - with the use of paintings of individuals undergoing therapy and self-exploration in non-ordinary states of consciousness - the vastly extended model of the human psyche that has emerged from this research and explore its implications for psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy.
2. To discuss the relevance of this new cartography for the understanding of the ritual and spiritual life of humanity and for conducting assessment of non-ordinary states and therapy.
3. To show that unbridled violence and insatiable greed - have their deep roots in the domains of the unconscious as yet unrecognized by mainstream psychiatry and psychology (the perinatal and transpersonal domain) and explore the implications of this finding for the current global crisis and its alleviation.
4. To illustrate the political relevance of the new findings by comparing the symbolism of political posters and cartoons from the time of wars, revolutions, and societal crises with painting of persons depicting their perinatal experiences in non-ordinary states.

Dr. Grof is a psychiatrist with over forty years experience of research into non-ordinary states of consciousness (induced by psychedelic substances and various non-drug techniques) and one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology. Dr. Grof 's early research in the clinical uses of psychedelic substances was conducted at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, where he was Principal Investigator of a program systematically exploring the heuristic and therapeutic potential of LSD and other psychedelic substances. In 1967, he was invited as Clinical and Research Fellow to the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. After completion of this two-year fellowship, he stayed in the US and continued his research as Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Henry Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. In 1973, Dr. Grof was invited to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he lived until 1987 as Scholar-in-Residence writing, giving seminars, lecturing and developing Holotropic Breathwork with his wife Christina Grof. He is the founder of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA) and its past and current president. At present, he lives in Mill Valley, California, conducting training seminars for professionals in Holotropic Breathwork and transpersonal psychology and writing books. He is also Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco and at the Pacifica Graduate School in Santa Barbara and gives lectures and seminars worldwide. In 1993, he received an Honorary Award from the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP) for major contributions to and development of the field of transpersonal psychology given at the occasion of the 25th Anniversary Convocation held at Asilomar, California.

Monday, April 19, 2010. 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, with morning, lunch and afternoon breaks (food is not included).

$130, pre-registration is required.

David Nichols, Ph.D. and Franz Vollenweider M.D. will lead an intensive workshop about contemporary research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlay the action of psychedelic substances and its relevance for clinical studies. The workshop will feature presentations by Drs. Nichols and Vollenweider on their own research, as well as open questions in the field of psychedelic neurobiology. General background on psychedelic pharmacology and neurobiology will be provided.

Dr. Nichols has conducted extensive research into the receptor sites of LSD. Dr. Vollenweider has conducted over twenty years of research using PET scans, MRI’s and other brain scanning technologies on the neurobiological correlates of states of consciousness.

Monday, April 19, 2010. 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, with morning, lunch and afternoon breaks (food is not included).

$130, pre-registration is required.

In this workshop we will use methods derived from the shamanic, yogic and alchemical traditions of spiritual growth and consciousness transformation – methods that have been tested and applied in psychedelic as well as non-drug forms of psychotherapy and practice over the past twenty years. They are processes of structured intuitive inquiry, using yoga practices supported by rhythmic rattling/drumming for  mildly heightened states of consciousness.  Small group sharing, toning and drawing are used to further the integration of insights received (participants should bring art materials to the workshop).

We work in the spirit of the Roman deity Janus, god of doorways and transitions, whose two faces look in a balanced way into the past and the future.  We start by recognizing and exploring the interconnected web of relations that constitute our Present, the field of awareness and identity we call our Self, our life-world.

Using focused regression we can connect with unresolved or incomplete aspects of our past experience, especially the formative years of childhood and youth, to re-member and re-integrate them into our present life-world. This leads to a deepened sense of self and its history, and greater freedom to make choices in the present. These processes have applications in psychotherapy and healing.

Using focused anticipatory visioning, we can search the probability lines of possible future developments in work, relationships, creativity and spiritual growth. This leads to a heightened sense of self and its potentials and inspiration to realize our highest aspirations. These processes have applications in coaching and the development of creativity.

Objectives:

• To experience and practice the meditative therapeutic divination methods developed by Ralph Metzner from shamanic, yogic and alchemical traditions.
• To experience how this kind of divination encompasses both therapeutic and healing processes involving the past, as well as visionary anticipation of future possibilities, providing guidance and inspiration.
• To experience how our developmental past can be accessed for healing and therapy; and our possible/probable futures can be accessed for increased freedom of choice and expression.
• To experience how simple rhythmic drumming/rattling can support a concentrative process for the asking of questions and receiving answers from inner sources of intuition.

Monday, April 19, 2010. 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

$65, pre-registration is required.

EXPANSION, INFUSION, ENGAGEMENT
The Women's Visionary Council (WVC) is a nonprofit organization that supports women healers, scholars, activists and artists who explore the therapeutic and spiritual dimensions of expanded consciousness. The WVC organizes the annual Women’s Visionary Congress and regional salons where women discuss how they apply knowledge gained in their visionary experiences. This workshop will focus on the WVC’s three main areas of interest:  EXPANSION of scientific inquiry in our field to include a variety of rigorous research approaches most often practiced by women ; INFUSION of vitality into the larger culture through exploration of visionary space; and  ENGAGEMENT with the dying process in both visionary and practical ways. While our mission is to privilege the voices of women, our events are inclusive of the gender spectrum and all genders are invited.

In additional to thoughtful discussion and reflection on these topics, this workshop will include performances by local women artists who share our interests. We acknowledge that women arrive at visionary experiences in different ways. Deep insights can be reached through inner reflection, meditation, music, prayer, dance, love, art, the use of sacred medicines, encounters with the natural world and other catalysts that open us to divine inspiration. After the moment of clarity has passed, the challenge is how to sustain and manifest that vision.