• FRONTIERS OF THE MIND

FRONTIERS OF MEDICINE – THE ROLE OF PSYCHEDELICS AND SACRED PLANTS

Panelists: Rick Doblin, Alicia Danforth, Ben de Loenen, Benjamin Crystal, Seabrook Leaf and Jon Hanna (moderator).

Panelists draw on their varied backgrounds to address the current state of psychedelic research and how substances such as LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, and sacred plants like ayahuasca and iboga bring solutions to symptoms for which traditional medicine offers limited relief. From anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder to addiction, people from all walks of life are increasingly drawing benefits from a wide range of psychedelic substances, when administered in the appropriate contexts.

Rick Doblin (president of MAPS – Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) will describe how government approved research is developing around the world. Rick will touch on current therapeutic, spiritual, and basic neuroscience studies, while elucidating the budding relationship between regulatory agencies and psychedelic investigators.

Alicia Danforth will draw from her experience using psilocybin to treat anxiety in Stage IV cancer patients. She will also muse on the topic of her current PhD dissertation: the potential of using psychedelics and MDMA as supplements to treatment for Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism. Alicia will additionally touch on the importance of balancing masculine and feminine energies in psychotherapy that employs altered states of consciousness.

Ben de Loenen is a film-maker shooting a documentary on ayahuasca. Recently shooting in Chile, he will discuss new developments there and in Spain with regards to the legal situation surrounding the therapeutic use of ayahuasca. In addition, Ben’s powerful film Ibogaine: Rite of Passage will be screened once more as part of Paradigms Films (later this evening), followed by a first-time screening of a tribute to the late Howard Lotsof, discoverer of ibogaine´s anti-addictive properties.

Jon Hanna, a senior editor at Erowid.org will bring a different angle to the topic of psychedelics’ therapeutic use, drawing from twenty years of immersion in the underground. He’ll point out how many of the current medical investigations in this area of interest were born from unauthorized research. For example, did you know that the suspected active chemical from Salvia divinorum was first confirmed be a “kitchen chemist”?; or that the treatment of cluster headache with psilocybin-containing mushrooms, LSD, and ergine, was popularized via web posts prior to any formal, government-approved research having been done?; or that the discovery of ibogaine as an addiction interrupter was made by recreational drug users? Similarly, in recent years, there have been numerous reports of ayahuasca being used to treat diseases as diverse as cancer, Parkinson’s and substance addiction.

Benjamin Crystal will draw on his extensive first hand experience working with ayahuasca in a shamanic healing environment. He facilitates and leads sacred healing ceremonies as well as care takes land in the Peruvian Amazon. It is here that he also prepares his medicines and offers shamanic training courses.
His healing work and success stories include supporting participants to let go of alcohol, nicotine and drug dependancy, depression, mental illness, and physical dis-ease including, diabetes, ms & cancer.
Working with ayahuasca in this way also supports people to gain a deeper connection to a holistic, creative and sustainable lifestyle. By empowering individuals and supporting them to let go of their baggage, they start to walk with confidence in to their path of destiny, and begin to realise the limitless depth of their personal potential.

Seabrook Leaf will share an update of the first post-prohibition U.S.-government-approved clinical study on the effects of LSD on the brain progress and relate his experiences when given pharmaceutically pure crystalline LSD in a hospital setting with clinical psychologists testing certain brain and vision functions.

Frontiers of Medicine: The Role of Psychedelics and Sacred Plants provides an enlightening opportunity to get educated by some of the world’s leading voices on the mainstreaming of psychedelics into our culture, as we move gradually to a post-prohibition world.

Panelist Bios:

Rick Doblin

Rick Doblin founded MAPS in 1986. His dissertation (Public Policy, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government) was on “The Regulation of the Medical Use of Psychedelics and Marijuana,” and his master’s thesis (Harvard) focused on the attitudes and experiences of oncologists concerning the medical use of marijuana. His undergraduate thesis (New College of Florida) was a twenty-five year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. He has also conducted a thirty-four year follow-up study to Tim Leary’s Concord Prison experiment.

He studied with Stan Grof, M.D., and was in the first group to become certified as holotropic breathwork practitioners. His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise “healthy” people, and to also become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist. He resides in Boston with his wife and three children.

Alicia Danforth

Alicia Danforth has worked as a psychedelic research associate using psilocybin to treat anxiety in patients with Stage IV cancer. She is Black Rock City Ranger (Burning Man), harm reduction advocate, former broadcast journalist, and avid poi spinner. She’s also a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, focusing on the potential of psychedelics and MDMA to treat high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome.
In 2009, Danforth appeared in National Geographic’s production Inside LSD, and she has spoken about her psychedelic work at numerous events, including the World Psychedelic Forum, Horizons, Symbiosis, a Women’s Visionary Council salon; Burning Man (at Palenque Norte & Entheon Village), the Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s International Conference, and Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century.

Ben De Loenen

In 2004 Ben De Loenen graduated with honours from the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands in the Masters of audiovisual media with his documentary ‘Ibogaine – Rite of Passage’ which was the starting point for a growing involvement in the Ibogaine community and Ibogaine advocacy work until today. In The years following the documentary he started to combine his experience in the field of audio visual media, internet grassroots distribution and advocacy activities related to ethnobotanicals such as Ibogaine and Ayahuasca, resulting in the foundation of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research & Service (ICEERS) in 2009, a Dutch government recognized tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of ethnobotanical knowledge and its applied, integrative practice in contemporary society and to the continuance of the indigenous cultures, the support of their survival, and swift cessation of the progressive destruction of their habitat.
He has been researching Ayahuasca as a tool for personal growth and psychotherapy in the last four years in preparation of a documentary on this subject.

Jon Hanna

Jon Hanna is an event producer, editor, writer, lecturer, and harm reduction advocate working in the field of psychoactive drugs. He is best known as the producer of Mind States conferences (www.mindstates.org), which focus on altered states of consciousness. Projects he’s edited include Back From The Void by Zoe Seven, Higher Wisdom compiled by Charles S. Grob and Roger Walsh, Ketamine: Dreams and Realities by Karl Jansen, The Spirit of the Internet by Lawrence Hagerty, Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Bufo alvarius Toad by James Oroc, Tribal Revival: West Coast Festival Culture by Kyer Wiltshire and Erik Davis, Evolver magazine, contributions to The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, and three themed issues of the MAPS Bulletin. In 2008 he began working as a senior editor for Erowid.org. Author of the Psychedelic Resource List, Hanna is a psychedelic consumer advocate, highlighting reputable vendors as well as exposing companies, events, and individuals that have less than scrupulous records. He has written for the magazines Entheogene Blätter, The Entheogen Review, Erowid Extracts, Heads, High Times, Morbid Curiosity, The Resonance Project, and Skunk. He has spoken internationally on the topic of visionary art and entheogens, showcasing collections of psychedelic art and hallucinatory animation at events in Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, Portugal, and Switzerland. In the arena of harm reduction, Hanna has lectured and worked as a sitter at Burning Man and the Boom Festival.

Benjamin Crystal

Benjamin has been facilitating and leading ayahuasca and shamanic healing ceremonies for the last five years. He primarily trained with Santo Daime/União De Vegetal in Brazil and cites Carioca, Yatra and Darpan as initial influences. His full shamanic initiation and training was received through indigenous tribes in the Bolivian and Peruvian Amazon (Shipibo and mestizo lineages of Don Augustine, Don Enrique, Don Artiduro & Don Pablo).
Benjamin now care takes land in the Peruvian Amazon through his non profit organisation www.treesourcefoundation.org where he prepares his medicines and offers shamanic training courses. He has and continues to facilitate sacred healing circles in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, United States, Uk, Europe, Africa & India.
Before working in the Amazon, Benjamin seeded and facilitated UK based inner city creative communities and short life housing projects. He has also acted as consultant for communities and community based projects around the globe & co-created the Collective Future educational parties and festivals. He is a psychedelic trance dj & producer, relki/energy healer, nutritionist, biodynamic & raw food enthusiast.
Members of the healing circles past & present include.. politicians, diplomats, pop stars, authors, festival organisers, physicians, psychiatrists, therapists, raw food luminaries, political activists, musicians from the alternative community & many of the medicine carriers and facilitators currently working in the uk (shamanic, new age and Santo Daime lineages).

Seabrook Leaf

Seabrook is a California-based urban planner, working to transform consciousness through sustainable development and community empowerment. After more than twenty-five years of studying psychedelics for his own personal healing, learning, and creativity, he was invited to participate in the first post-prohibition U.S.-government-approved clinical study on the effects of LSD on the brain. His initial LSD session took place in August of 2009; Seabrook is now one of an extremely small number of people who have legally taken LSD in the United States since it was banned in 1968.

• FRONTIERS OF ART

THE EVOLUTION AND FUTURE OF VISIONARY ART

Panelists: Amanda Sage, Andrew Jones, Adam Scott Miller, Carey Thompson, Luke Brown and Jen Zariat (moderator).

Drawing upon centuries of artistic tradition, contemporary visionary artists are in a place never before experienced in the world of art. Through modern advances in technology and communications, artists have instant access to not only historical influence, but also trends in current art from around the globe. This allows for the exponential increase in creative novelty as the collective moves forward into the future. More and more visionaries are heeding the call and honing their craft to ride this cusp of creativity and propel our culture into new territories through their art. We have the great honour to feature many of these artists upon this panel representing the many facets of visionary art with the vision and gifts to help steer our species into a happier and healthier place. Topics will include the present state of the visionary movement as well as where we feel we can go from here as a collective.

More info at:
www.boomfestival.org/boom2010/arts-culture/the-drop/visionary-art-gallery