psychopraxis

Survey on Psychedelics and Synaesthesia

2011-12-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

Survey on Psychedelics and Synaesthesia

This is an invitation for people to take part in a survey on the use of psychedelics (and other psychoactive substances) and synaesthesia. We are looking for people who have used psychedelics and other psychoactive substances, whether or not they have had experiences of synaesthesia, and we are looking for people who have synaesthesia, whether or not they have used psychedelics and other psychoactive substances.

Synaesthesia can be defined as experiences in which there is a blending of the senses, such as shapes having a particular taste, sounds having a particular shape, or numbers having a particular colour.

Depending on how many types of synaesthesia experience you have had, and how many different substances you have consumed, we expect this survey to take anywhere upwards from 5 minutes to complete (perhaps taking as long as 30 minutes in the extreme), although on average we expect that for most people it will take about 10-15 minutes.

Participation in this survey is completely anonymous, and has been approved by the University of Greenwich Research Ethics Committee. Please follow this link for further details and the survey:

https://greenwichuniversity.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bCW3OZwywP7IeNu

This research may be important in helping to establish the role of psychedelics in understanding unusual perceptual phenomena and neurobiological processes involved in consciousness, so thank you for taking part. Please forward this invitation to anyone else who may be interested in responding.

If you have questions about this study please direct them to Dr David Luke: d.p.luke@gre.ac.uk

Many thanks,

Dr David Luke
Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychology and Counselling
University of Greenwich

Dr Devin Terhune
Research Fellow
Department of Experimental Psychology
University of Oxford

Leading Parapsychology Conference in Brazil

2011-05-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

As the current President of the principal international scientific organization studying parapsychology and the nature of consciousness, the Parapsychological Association (PA), myself and colleagues will be hosting its 54th annual convention on August 18-21, 2011 in Curitiba, Brazil. Leading scientists and other academics from around the world will gather to present the latest parapsychological research into psi and other phenomena, such as extra-sensory perception, psychokinesis, psychic healing, altered states of consciousness, mediumship and survival of bodily death. Open to the public and academics alike, with most events in English but simultaneous translation available in English and Portuguese, the PA convention coincides with UNIBEM's 7th Psi Meeting and the 6th Journey into Altered States, adding local academic and experiential dimensions to the combined events.

In addition to hosting the largest contingent of PA members and affiliates outside of the US and Europe, Brazil contains a rich diversity of groups and individuals that engage in a range of apparently paranormal approaches to healing. Curitiba, Brazil is a modern city that has attracted attention around the world for its innovations in sustainability.

The convention will open with a reception featuring the release of the Portuguese edition of the book Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, first published in 2000 by the American Psychological Association, and edited by psychologists Etzel Cardeña, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner. Invited speakers include Dr. Wellington Zangari, Professor of Psychology at the University of São Paulo and coordinator of INTER PSI, a laboratory conducting studies and interdisciplinary research at the crossroads between anomalistic psychology and social psychology. Dr. Zangari will be speaking about the new horizons in psi research in Brazil. Dr. John Alexander, a leading advocate for the development of non-lethal weapons and a Senior Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University will provide a cross-cultural review of applications of psi phenomena. Dr Michael Winkelman, author of several books on shamanism, psychedelic medicine, and consciousness will deliver the PA’s annual J.B. Rhine banquet address titled, "Evolved Psychology and the Deep Structure of Psi: The Shamanic Paradigm." Dozens of presentations on a variety of parapsychological topics, as well as a panel session on ayahuasca and exceptional human experiences will round off the event.

The PA convention will offer an opportunity for attendees interested in that wide range of human functioning popularly known as the ‘psychic’ or ‘paranormal’ to hear the latest and most advanced scientific thinking about parapsychological topics .

2011-05-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Mapping myth and magic from Magog and Gog to the mound wherein is buried the Mabinogian hero's head, dark and distant topographies of London's mind are illuminated this month, Tuesday 31^st May, by urban Voodoo DJ occultist and psychogeographer, Stephen Grasso. Dust off your top hat and come join the march of dead to the October Gallery and hear one of the finest magical writers roll up the carpet on our capital city to reveal the megaliths, charnel houses, pagan temples and sacred healing wells lying forgotten below, obscured by Smoke and Mirror.

The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lectures series presents:

Smoke & Mirrors

Stephen Grasso

Tuesday, 31^st May, 2011

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

Please RSVP on Facebook (afraid so) so that we can anticipate numbers – Please pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=173567166029966

Writer and witchdoctor Stephen Grasso unveils the hidden occult landscape of the City of London. Dark rum hits old stone at the crossroads and we enter heavy Voodoo terrain, tuning into the dub echoes of history. The mysteries of the boneyard and the buried river slide into focus. The lunar temple of St Pauls Cathedral opens its doors for witchcraft, and the chained giants of the Guildhall break their bonds. The nefarious cyclopean towers of the square mile are struck by lightning and wicked houses are marched on by zombie chimney sweeps and the intranquil dead. Our Lady of the Thames pulsates outside of time bringing life and freshness, and opening the way to the rebel territories south of the river where sorcerers dream and conspire. The wanton Green pushes up through grey paving slabs and a parliament of trees sits in judgement. The primal jungle under London speaks its mind. Senses are washed clear and duplicitous spells are undone. All cities have magic.

Stephen Grasso was born in Newcastle and lives in South London. He writes about the occult, African Diaspora magico-religious traditions, music and culture. His work has been published in Strange Attractor Journal 4, Abraxas, Dreamflesh, Generation Hex, Devoted and XVI. He has a blog and is a regular contributor at liminalnation.org. He buys a lot of records and can move between worlds.

The Great Elf Debate

2011-04-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

Six hundred fractal thank yous to everyone (yep, 600 folk) who made it along to Canterbury at the beginning of April for the extraordinary Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness extravaganza, Breaking Convention. After a sleepless few days chipping away at the coalface of the new neurochemical renaissance there emerged a number of legendary quotes, cries of an epic and historic weekend, oodles of inspired blog reviews and even the odd manifesto manifesting online - all of which have been assembled here for your delight.

Attempting to bring as many of the departed Breakeros back together again, the ECC salon will now resume this Tuesday 19th April (tomorrow) at the October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London, in an effort to bridge the hyperdimensional divide between Kent's Breaking Convention and Daimonic Imagination with The Great Elf Debate, which will be led, widdershins, by Dr David Luke with help from friends. Elves, induced by DMT or otherwise, are of course a hot topic on Psychopraxis.

The Great Elf Debate

Dr David Luke + friends + you

Tuesday, 19^th April, 2011

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

Please RSVP on Facebook (afraid so) so that we can anticipate numbers – Please pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

A few saucy comments and mischievous taunts and counter-taunts to get the ball rolling on the ontology of elves and then over to the good people of the floor to take the debate on a merry dance. We'll throw in some DMT, mushrooms, aliens and preying mantises into the faerie ring for good measure and then probe the audience for some thoughts on imps, piskies, gnomes, self-transforming machine elves and possible pro bono proctologists. Representatives from the Social Constructivist quad and from Tir Na Nog will be on hand to stir the pot.

Dr David Luke directs and curates the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series at the October Gallery, which occasionally zoops off in new and interesting co-creative directions like the Breaking Convention. He has often considered taking McKenna up on his elfin call for creating an embassy for the invisible but is really just too busy being a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, the President of the Parapsychological Association, a Research Associate of the Beckley Foundation, a guest lecturer on the transpersonal masters at the University of Northampton, and an explorer of lost pirate utopias. He hasn't written a single book but promises to finish editing the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness anthology very soon.

Breaking Convention

2010-12-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series, in association with the UKC Psychedelics Society and with the Beckley Foundation, presents:

Breaking Convention:

A Multidisciplinary Meeting on Psychedelic Consciousness

Saturday & Sunday, 2-3^rd April, 2011

Virginia Woolf College, Univeristy of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7UG.

Early bird tickets available in advance. Prices, tickets and details coming soon.

Please also register your support on Facebook and spread the word however you can…

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133266406729236

...A conference in four quarters is to be held over the weekend of the 2nd-3rd of April, 2011. Workshops, seminars and presentations from submitted abstracts will run in parallel with the track of invited speakers. We have an open call for papers for the parallel track running currently. To apply, please fill in the form at the bottom of this page: www.ukcpsychedelics.co.uk/conference

The films 'DMT: The Spirit Molecule', and 'Dirty Pictures' (a documentary about the Shulgins) will be screened at the conference. There will also be live music from the Ragnagrok Allstars, plus other exceptional psychedelic sonic succour.

The 4 main symposia are:

What do psychedelics mean?

Organised by Dr. David Luke, PhD. Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Greenwich; President of the Parapsychological Association; Director of the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series at the October Gallery, London

Psychedelics are substances with multiple dimensions, and can be considered artistically, clinically, spiritually, psychologically, neuro-scientifically, legally, ecologically, historically, culturally, magically, ontologically, etc. This symposium will fuse together a number of diverse perspectives and help us assemble some of the intellectual jigsaw pieces we have created out of these plants, fungi and molecules.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, PhD.
Mike Jay
Paul Devereux
Charlotte Walsh
...plus more TBC

* * *

Current research on consciousness and psychedelics at the University of Kent

Organised by Dr. Cameron Adams, PhD., research fellow and lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent; and Dr. Anna Waldstein, PhD, lecturer in Medical Anthropology and Ethnobotany and convenor of the BSc in Medical Anthropology at the University of Kent.

In recent years the University of Kent has emerged as a centre for the study of psychedelic consciousness in the UK. This symposium presents a selection of relevant work by academics (and alumni) from across the University, including contributions from anthropology, conservation, sociology, criminology, mysticism and Hispanic studies. The breadth of research on psychedelic consciousness at the University of Kent spans from self-medication with psychedelics as a form of empowerment, the cultural identities of people who use psychedelics and other illicit substances, and the ability of consumers to influence drug policy, to the use of active imagination to access paranormal worlds, and the representation of altered states of consciousness in literature.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Dr. Cameron Adams, PhD.
Dr. Caroline Chatwin, PhD.
Dr. Axel Klein, PhD.
Dr. Anna Waldstein, PhD.
...plus more TBC

* * *

Ecstasy – Its place in medicine, society and politics: A Multidisciplinary Debate of the relative Benefits and Risks of MDMA.

Organised by Dr. Ben Sessa, MD. Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Somerset, UK.

During the so-called ‘Second Summer of Love’ in 1988 the media told us there would be ‘An Ecstasy Epidemic’ with the potential for serious harm or even death of young people on a large scale. This epidemic of mortality and morbidity did not happen and MDMA has remained a popular recreational drug in the UK for over twenty years. During this time it has been labelled variously as a potential neurotoxin on the one hand and ‘safer than horse riding’ on the other. Despite twenty years of extensive study there remains considerable lack of clarity about its actual degree of harm. In the last five years MDMA has become increasingly researched as an adjunct for psychotherapy; with several placebo-controlled trials completed or under-way throughout the world. Some therapists claim it is an essential tool for trauma-focused psychotherapy – yielding response rates for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder far in excess of traditional drug treatments. But despite these advances MDMA continues to experience an extremely polarised opinion from the general public. This symposium will bring together experts in the field to debate MDMA: Is it friend or foe?

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Dr. Rick Doblin, PhD (Chair)
Dr. Ben Sessa, MD.
Dr. Jon Cole, PhD.
Professor Val Curran, MD.
Dr. Andy Parrott, PhD.
...plus more TBC

* * *

Bold Visions: The Future of Psychedelic Research.

Organised by the UKC Psychedelics Society.

The psychedelic community is witnessing a research renaissance with rich results, legitimate protocols and government approvals. The success of MAPS is booming, the science is ever more supporting, groups such as the UKC Psychedelics Society are sprouting, and university courses on psychedelics are manifesting. This symposium will see data from current research and questions about where the future of psychedelics lies. What are the far reaches of research? What political problems present themselves? What limitations and lessons have we learnt from the past?

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Dr. Rick Doblin, PhD.
Amanda Feilding
Dr. Andy Letcher, PhD.
Andy Roberts
...plus more TBC

* * *

With thanks to MAPS for their affiliation with this project and Blue Firth for the artwork.

VIGIL: Haunted space, psychometry and spectatorship

2010-09-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

Artist Blue Firth, writer and attractor of the strange Mark Pilkington, and myself are (g)hosting an art-science experiment at the Royal Academy of Art... all souls invited...

VIGIL

An Investigation into Haunted Space, Psychometry and Spectatorship

Royal Academy Schools, 1-2 October 2010

Researching a series of unexplained incidents at this historic building, artist Blue Firth uncovered a first-hand account of apparent poltergeist activity in the artists’ studios.

While patrolling the 18th century corridors one night in 2008, Red Collar guard Nathan Phillips experienced something that prevented him from finishing his shift: ‘When I got back to where the skeletons are kept, the doors all slammed shut — like boom, boom, boom one after another. I tried to make out what it could be and checked all the doors again. I got to the same point in the same sequence and the bangs happened all over again. I didn’t finish my patrol that night.’

To make sense of what happened to Nathan, Blue has collaborated with parapsychologist Dr David Luke and writer Mark Pilkington. As preparatory research they undertook investigative training sessions with the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP).

Bringing together their knowledge and experience of the paranormal and arts fields, the trio have devised an event that merges Blue’s art practice with David and Mark’s expertise in making sense of the unexplained. The end result is a unique participatory experiment in which the audience are both observers and the observed, the haunters and the haunted.

Participants will be asked to complete psychological and physiological assessments before and after entering the site of the haunting, which will be monitored for any unusual occurrences. The vigil will take place under carefully controlled conditions and in total darkness.

Combining authentic investigative procedures with subtle performative aspects, Vigil examines and subverts the roles of audience expectation, spectatorship and belief.

Spaces for both nights are extremely limited so we advise reserving your position soon.

Visit the Royal Academy web site (www.royalacademy.org.uk) to buy tickets, or email vigilroyalacademy@gmail.com

Biospheric States of Consciousness: Where ecology meets psychology

2010-04-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

It’s been a tumbleweed-blown coupla months out here on Psychopraxis, ever since I took up co-editing Brainwaving.com, though I hope to try and squeeze out the odd post still now and then. In the past Psychopraxis ended up as a good spot to rant about the forthcoming talks at the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series, though I even managed to miss the last two, such as Dr Serena Roney-Dougal’s excellent talk on her 6 years spent living with yogis and lamas in India studying psychic abilities and Greg Sams’ cosmic delve into the consciousness of the Sun.

Now, back in the blogosphere again for a short spell, it’s a good time to big up the next lecture, having scored the ultimate heavyweight at the confluence of Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness: John Allen. The mastermind of Biosphere 2, the R/V Heraclitus ecological research vessel (“I sailed here what did you do?”) and the October Gallery, to name but a few projects, John Allen will be taking all on a journey from the geosphere to the noosphere, fusing biomes with psyches along the way in the discussion of “Biospheric States of Consciousness” on 27^th April, the last Tuesday of the month – as are (almost) all talks in this series. Get aboard now for an adventure into the furthest reaches of human possibility.

Biospheric States of Consciousness

John Allen, FLS

Tuesday, 27^th April, 2010

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

(Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). – email: rentals –AT- octobergallery.co.uk

RSVP so that we can anticipate numbers – Please book in advance by credit card to guarantee a place or pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Join us for an evening with the luminous mind of John Allen. Described as a “visionary, engineer, adventurer, avant-garde theatre producer, systems ecologist and all-round unique individual” (R.U. Sirius), Allen has told his story in Me and the Biospheres: a Memoir by the Inventor of Biosphere 2, which will be a background to his talk. In it, John Allen unfurls “both a warning and a call to action” (Tim Smit) and navigates the reader through his engaging account of the largest laboratory for global ecology ever built.

Biosphere 2 covered three acres of Arizona desert and included seven model biomes: An ocean with coral reef, and a marsh, rainforest, savannah, desert, farm, and micro-city. Eight people lived inside this structure for two years (1991-1993) and grew their own food, and recycled all air and waste.

His talk will introduce you to his extraordinary way of thinking and approach to biospheric states of consciousness, referring to some key people who have provided essential sources of inspiration to understanding our world of life, including: Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hoffman, Yaqui Shaman, Amazonian Shaman, Anil Thakkar, Sergeant Jackson, and Hamid the Deaf and Dumb Magician. John will discuss how to distinguish different biospheric states of consciousness.

John Allen is an accomplished total systems scientist, poet, philosopher, and inventor who started making Biosphere 2 by assembling together five “smaller” projects: The creation of a ferro-cement sailing ship (R/V Heraclitus) to study ocean and river ecologies and cultures; the development of a rainforest restoration project; a savannah regeneration station; a theatre group that performed on six continents; and the October Gallery, venue of this talk series, showing transvangarde art from around the world, and others. These projects, whose success led to Biosphere 2’s awe-inspiring construction and operation, demanded the efforts of a diverse team of international scientists, engineers, artists and thinkers with whom John Allen worked closely for decades. They included members of the National Science Academies of Russia, Great Britain, and USA.

Consciousness, creativity and the quest for human happiness

2010-01-30T08:01:00.000-08:00

Well at least I have an excuse now for my general lack of content here at psychopraxis recently. For the last few months I’ve been a busy cyber-elf helping source articles for the new edge cutting blog and website on consciousness, creativity and culture – Brainwaving.com

Established and created by the UK’s leading charitable foundation for research into altered states of consciousness and drug policy, the Beckley Foundation, the excellent (imho) new site features hard-hitting articles, films and documentaries on everything from parapsychology and ecology to drug policy, politics, the internet and the future of reality itself. Check it out.

According to the Beckley Foundation’s founder and director, Amanda Feilding… “Our world is changing fast, to adapt successfully we must have our wits about us. We must both maximise our access to the most useful and interesting information and optimise our consciousness, loosening the mind in the quest for better solutions. The Beckley Foundation was set up to investigate consciousness and its full range of altered states. It has a strictly academic, scientific approach to consciousness, how better to understand it and thus how to manipulate it in the quest for enhancing human happiness. The purpose of the new site Brainwaving.com is to expand the Beckley’s reach, to be an Exchange, thereby covering new areas not currently included in the scientific approach of the Beckley Foundation, and reaching new audiences, particularly the young.

The website will be an exchange of interesting information and ideas with the purpose of exploring love, creativity and the quest for human happiness. It will aim to be entertaining and illuminating. We expect it to evolve as it goes along. We see it as an information exchange for people interested in consciousness, evolution and a better world. We hope that with the collaboration of friends and fellow travellers, we will bring together a stimulating train of knowledge and ideas.

Around the world, there are many millions of people who are looking for commonsense solutions to the urgent problems facing humanity. But to see these solutions, we must free ourselves from the constricting shackles of redundant concepts. Brainwaving.com aims to provide a platform on which new ideas can be explored. It can be seen as an intellectual Go-board, an evolving web for the exchange of fresh thoughts at the frontiers of our cultural outreach.”

And did those Beats in ancient time, trip upon Englands mountains green?

2010-01-23T17:13:00.001-08:00

Ronnie Sandison brought it into the UK in 1952 and pioneered the psychotherapeutic treatment of mental “illnesses” at a Gloucestershire hospital using it, calling it psycholytic therapy. The following year Francis Crick supposedly gained enough insight from taking it at Cambridge to discern the double helix shape of DNA. How far has LSD traveled across the genes, neurons, minds, imaginations, songs, tongues, tastes, fashions, passions, protests, peace marches, parties, happenings, discoveries, ideas and cultural changes of Britain in the last 58 years? Come and take a trip down memory lane, and (turn on, tune in and) find out.

The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series, in association with the Scientific and Medical Network presents:

LSD in Britain: A Cultural History

Andy Roberts

Tuesday, 26^th January, 2010

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

(Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). – email: rentals “at”octobergallery.co.uk

RSVP so that we can anticipate numbers – Please book in advance by credit card to guarantee a place or pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Andy's book, Albion Dreaming: A popular history of LSD in Britain (Marshall Cavendish, 2008) was born from a desire to chronicle the history of this intriguing drug. Andy's talk, illustrated by powerpoint and DVD takes you on a history picnic to sample everything from the drug's arrival on these shores in 1952, through the medical and military experiments, the counterculture, to the sad death of Albert Hofmann. It is probably the only talk on LSD in which you'll hear the words of the Reverend Ian Paisley.

Andy Roberts is the author of several books on folklore, UFOs, cryptozoology and popular culture. His overall interest is in the strangeness of the multiverse and what and why people choose to believe. Besides his books Andy has written for numerous magazines including Fortean Times, where he currently co-writes a monthly sceptical UFO column. His magazine articles have dealt with cults, the Grateful Dead and telepathy, the search for the Death Ray and a great deal of other weirdness. He once edited an Incredible String Band fanzine and is really quite obsessive about the Grateful Dead.

His interest in LSD stems from his first acid trip in 1971 when the ultimate force of evil foretold the future to him. He's still waiting for that particular future to manifest but followed the Prince of Darkness' strange invitation into the labyrinth of 1970s counter culture to see what he could find.

A salon of attractive strangeness

2009-12-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

Friend of Psychopraxis, the bastion of weirdness and peculiarity, Strange Attractor, is celebrating 9 years of fantastical art-science with a salon featuring some of the contributors to its many festivals, gigs and publications. Anyone with an eye for the other should drift their way on over to Hackney in London for a month-long banquet of the bizarre.

The first Strange Attractor Salon will be held at Viktor Wynd Fine Art (incorporating The Little Shoppe of Horrors), 11 Mare Street, London, UK, E8 4RP, between 7 and 31 January 2010.

The exhibition will gather together, for the first time, a selection of art and illustration from Strange Attractor’s contributors, friends, allies and inspirations.

Like our books and events the Salon will incorporate a wide range of media (painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, sound and video) from both trained and untrained artists. The assembled exhibitors all share Strange Attractor’s fascinations with inner space, craft, science (natural and unnatural) and the fantastic.

Confirmed contributing artists are:

Joel Biroco * Richard Brown * Ossian Brown * John Coulthart * Rod Dickinson * Disinformation * Tessa Farmer *Blue Firth * Alison Gill * Doug Harvey * Josephine Harvatt * Stewart Home * Julian House * Ali Hutchinson * Alyssa Joye * Maud Larsson John Lundberg * Eleanor Morgan * Drew Mulholland * Katie Owens * Edwin Pouncey * Arik Roper * Gavin Semple * Martin Sexton * Catharyne Ward * Eric Wright *

M ore details

Image: Detail from The Electrochemical Glass (1997-2009) by Richard Brown, a living artwork that will be on display during the salon.

Government finally admits to abandoning reason on the drugs issue

2009-11-11T03:39:00.000-08:00

“Imagine you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest?

You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA.

This, of course, is only a thought experiment; nobody would consider doing it for real. But it puts the risks associated with ecstasy in context with others we take for granted. Yes, ecstasy is dangerous and people who take it are putting their lives on the line. But the danger needs to be put in perspective”*

(*taken from a New Scientist editorial by Prof. Nutt entitled "Drugs drive politicians out of their minds")

Unfortunately, the scientist who put forward this bold but reasoned statement, based on an intense scientific analysis of the evidence for the harms associated with MDMA, was recently sacked from his Government position for stating this and similar claims. Prof. David Nutt, was forced to resign last week from his post as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) by the home secretary Alan Johnson, after supposedly stepping over the line as a scientific advisor by refusing to keep quiet about the truth. Accused of campaigning instead of advising by Johnson, Nutt stated that his position as an independent advisor was severely compromised because the Government wished the ACMD to support their politically-led policy regardless of the scientific evidence.

Three more scientific advisors in the ACMD today resigned following Nutt’s sacking. Read Nutt’s latest response “Government’s should get real on drugs” in the New Scientist here. Read the important Lancet paper co-published by Nutt that reviewed the perceived dangers of 20 common drugs, both legal and illegal, according to a wide panel of experts. This categorisation clearly shows that both ecstasy and LSD are considered less dangerous than alcohol, indicating the current controlled drugs classification system is a farce and a mess. Science and sense must prevail over politics and prejudice! Please join the campaign to have Prof. Nutt reinstated by signing the petition, and join one of the Facebook groups. Also check out the "Nice People" Take Drugs cards by Release.

Taking the mush out of mushrooms: Forthcoming Letcher lecture

2009-11-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

Attempting to unravel some of the mycelial-like myths and mysteries that pop up in the mush surrounding the magic mushroom, Dr Andy Letcher will be deconstructing the cultural history constructed around fungal cultures this month at the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series. See you all down the rabbit hole on Tuesday, 24^th November at the October Gallery for a reinvigorating mycophilic gathering in true salon style.

Making Sense of Magic Mushrooms

Dr Andy Letcher

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

(Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). – email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk

RSVP so that we can anticipate numbers – Please book in advance by credit card to guarantee a place or pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

For those who have encountered magic mushrooms, the psilocybin experience is like an ancient codex whose glyphs are at once baffling and clear. To make sense of it, each person must perform an act of translation or interpretation by which the strange is rendered familiar. But how should this be done? In the post-war period alone an original psychological framework has given way to that of mysticism, itself replaced in turn by the language of shamanism.

In this talk, Andy Letcher will encourage us to move away from the mushroom experience itself – the usual province of trip-lit –, to a consideration of how it has been interpreted throughout history. For, contrary to received wisdom, very few cultures have decoded the mushroom as we do. Along the way he will ask whether magic mushrooms bring genuine transcendence, or if the experiences they occasion forever bound by culture.

Andy Letcher is a freelance writer, academic lecturer and folk musician living in Oxford, UK. He lectures at Oxford Brookes University and Bath Spa University on subjects as diverse as neo-Paganism, shamanism, and theory in the Study of Religion. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom and Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of Psychedelic Consciousness, published in the journal Anthropology of Consciousness. Known for his iconoclastic style, and with doctorates in both Ecology and the Study of Religion, he challenges us to question received wisdom about psychedelics and psychedelic history. A prolific song-writer, tunesmith and exponent of English Bagpipes, he fronts psych-folk band, Telling the Bees.

Vicious savages or progessive primitives?

2009-10-08T02:38:00.000-07:00

Many moderns will have you believe that urban sprawls are far safer than sparse deserts in terms of intra-species violence, and yet indigenous peoples, hunter gathers and shamanic tribes have long been held to offer wisdom on how to live harmoniously with Nature and one’s neighbours. What’s the reality of our so-called civilization in a war-torn age?

My good friend over at Dreamflesh, the writer, raconteur and cerebrally named Gyrus, is launching his new book exploring these very themes, War and the Noble Savage, and will simultaneously be pondering on the podium at the October Gallery on Tuesday 27^th October, provoking us to consider our primal nature past, present and future. Please join us at the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series for this event and every last Tuesday of the month for wine, wit and some wanging on in true salon style.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL

(Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). – email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk

RSVP so that we can anticipate numbers – Please book in advance by credit card to guarantee a place or pay on the door.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series presents:

War, Ecology and the Noble Savage – with Gyrus

Over the past couple of decades there's been a wave of revisionism, in academia and popular books, attempting to upend the hoary old idealization of the Noble Savage. From Steven Pinker's suggestion that the world today is, relatively speaking, more peaceful than it's ever been, to Steven LeBlanc's claim that no indigenous culture has ever lived sustainably, the idea that civilization itself is the source of all our ills has taken a battering.

Having just ploughed through much of the recent literature to satisfy his own curiosity, Gyrus has written a new work analyzing this recent debate, and tonight hopes to guide you through this thicket of polemics, false ideals, and dodgy statistics. Starting with a fresh look at the roots of this ideological battle in the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes, we'll go through the behind-the-scenes stories of recent scholarship.

Is the murder rate among the !Kung, the "harmless people", really higher than that of New York? Is conservation something that only the modern world has practiced? What can we actually know about the 94% of our species' existence spent as hunter-gatherers? And will Gyrus give answers, or just ask more questions? Come along and find out...

Gyrus is an independent publisher, free range scholar, and freelance web developer. In the 1990s he edited and published the rather acclaimed journal Towards 2012, and while doing so grew pretty bored of the whole 2012 thing. He may have to u-turn on this quite soon in order to cash in. His main interests are prehistoric art and culture, altered states, occultism, and everything in-between. He recently published his first collection of essays, Archaeologies of Consciousness, and abandoned the rather acclaimed journal Dreamflesh after one issue to focus on "a book". He gets by pretty well in London.

Halloween and the paranormal

2009-09-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

Academic interest in the odd, anomalous and outright paranormal seems to be continually growing. Hannah Gilbert, doctoral student at the Anomalous Experiences Research Unit, University of York, has organised a one-day conference entitled Exploring the Extraordinary, to be held on Halloween, of course. The entire day is spookily inexpensive at just £15 (£10 for concessions) and can be booked though Hannah (heg104 AT York.ac .uk). The line up too looks good, with two talks on drugs and the paranormal alone, I’ll be giving one of them (the talks) as usual, so hope to see you there.

Exploring the Extraordinary

10am-5pm, 31^st October, 2009

W222, Wentworth College, Heslington Road, University of York

Cyberpsychics: Subjective experiences of psychic readings on the internet
Tamlyn Ryan, University of York

Discarnate entities and dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Psychopharmacology, phenomenology and ontology
David Luke, University of Greenwich

Spirits and spirits: Seeing ghosts under the influence
Paul Cowdell, University of Hertfordshire

Ambassadors of spirit
Tony Hegarty, Liverpool John Moores University

Science, pseudoscience and the demarcation problem
Ian Kidd, University of Durham

Reproducing anomalous experiences in the laboratory: A review of some recent research developments in parapsychology
Chris Roe, University of Northampton

Art: L’Ange by Gérard Quenum; Photo: Jonathan Greet