Breaking Convention

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.

Psychedelic human origins and the war on drugs

Interesting (perhaps even unbelievable) developments in US drug policy this week coincide nicely with this month's speaker at the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series at the October Gallery in Bloomsbury, London. Obama's newly appointed "drugs czar", Gil Kerlikowske, under the official title of Director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy has this week called for an end to the fruitless and martial rhetoric of the unwinnable "War on Drugs", calling instead for a greater focus on treatment and prevention rather than incarceration.

Kerlikowske said "We are not at war with people in this country". With over a million people currently serving as "prisoners of war" (on drugs) in the US, this comes as refreshing news and could be the single greatest human rights maneuver so far this millennium. (Thanks to Prof. Thomas Roberts for the link to the New York Times article)

Auspiciously timed then, Graham Hancock's talk (Tuesday, 26th June) will transport us back in time to more psychoactively civilized and liberal millennia to speculate about the psychedelic origins of humanity.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Supernatural: Did psychedelic experiences make our ancestors human?

Modern technological societies value only the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, and have demonised trance states brought on by the consumption of psychedelic drugs. But in his book Supernatural, the background to his talk at the October Gallery, Graham Hancock presents staggering new information that experiences induced by plant hallucinogens may have played a vital role in the evolution of our species – opening our ancestors to supernatural realms and making us truly human for the first time. It all happened very recently.

Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as ‘the greatest riddle in human history’, all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In his lecture, Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious ‘before-and-after moment’ and to discover the truth about the influences that shaped the modern human mind. His quest takes him on a journey of adventure and detection from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain and Italy to remote rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa where he finds a treasure trove of extraordinary Stone Age art.

He uncovers clues that lead him to travel to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful plant hallucinogen Ayahuasca with Indian shamans, whose paintings contain images of ‘supernatural beings’ identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves and rock shelters. And Western laboratory volunteers placed experimentally under the influence of hallucinogens such as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD also report visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other ‘dimensions’.

Could it be that the human brain is not just a generator of consciousness, but also a receiver of consciousness, and could the ‘supernaturals’ first depicted in the painted caves and rock shelters be the ancient teachers of mankind? This new approach strongly suggests that human evolution is not just the ‘blind’, ‘meaningless’ process that Darwin identified, but something else, more purposive and intelligent, that we have barely even begun to understand. By criminalising and demonising the consumption of psychedelic drugs it may even be that our societies are blocking off the next vital step in the evolution of our species.

Graham Hancock is the author and coauthor of a number of best-selling investigations of historical mysteries, including Fingerprints of the Gods, Supernatural, The Sign and the Seal, Keeper of Genesis, Heaven's Mirror, The Mars Mystery, and Underworld. His books have been translated into 27 languages and have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. www.grahamhancock.com

The Songlines of Wildness

Where is wildness and wilderness these days?

A Harakmbut elder in his nineties talks about his memory of the first missionaries arriving to his part of the Peruvian jungle, "No one wanted to go to school, and anyway after the missionaries came, our children died. We learned things, though: we learned money and Spanish and work. We learned that we had to work for money for needs we didn't have before, matches, salt and sugar. Why were we civilized? For what were we civilized? To be taught that we needed sugar and oil and money and clothes and food from the markets, more and more."

The quote comes from acclaimed writer Jay Griffiths' book "Wild", which she will be talking about this month, April 28th, at the October Gallery.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

The Songlines of Wildness

Jay Griffiths will talk about her book, “Wild: An Elemental Journey” which describes her journeys to wildernesses of earth and ice, water, fire and air. This book is the result of a seven-year odyssey among Native people, listening to their philosophies; meeting cannibals; anchoring a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept; joining Inuit hunters on a whale hunt; drinking shamanic medicine with Amazonian healers; visiting sea gypsies and journeying to the freedom fighters of West Papua.

She will discuss the songlines of the earth, the paths in the Papuan highlands remembered in song, and the ethereal music of shamans, as well as the songlines of Aboriginal Australia. The talk will explore the words and meanings which shape ideas of wildness and it will illustrate the anarchic nature of wildness, as well as the kindness of what is wild, both in nature and the human mind. The talk will also explore some of the political resonances of wilderness and the corporate invasions of indigenous lands, arguing for the essential freedoms, and the necessary wildness of the human spirit, everywhere.

Jay Griffiths is the author of two works of non-fiction “Wild: An Elemental Journey” and “Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time”. She has also written a long short story, “Anarchipelago” based on the road protest movement of the 1990s. She is the winner of many awards, including the Orion prize and the Barnes and Noble award for the best first-time author. She lives in Wales.

Photo. Unknown man, unkown photographer - Papua New Guinea

Inner paths to outer space

In collaboration with Dr. Slawek Wojtowicz, Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, and Dr. Ede Frecska; Dr.Rick Strassman's new book Inner Paths to Outer Space is the natural sequel to his first book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, in which Strassman documented his extraordinary medical research administering the potent endogenous psychedelic neurochemical, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), to human volunteers. After receiving intravenous injections of DMT, Strassman’s participants reported a range of exceptional phenomena from entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences to near-death like experiences. Inner Paths considers the DMT-induced entity encounters and alien abduction-like experiences from Strassman’s research in further depth, particularly in the contexts of quantum physics, science fiction and shamanism, proposing that access to alien worlds in outer space occurs in the inner space of the psyche. A full review of the book appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Death, and the God of a thousand eyes

Following up on the sold-out lecture on "shamanism through the ages" that was given by Pablo Friedlander at the October Gallery at the end of November, the series of lectures on Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness we are organising continues this year, every last Tuesday of the month. Next up on 27th January is Dr. David Luke (yeah, I had to take the slot to get things started) who will be giving a talk entitled "Death, and the God of a thousand eyes". I´ll be there, obviously.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk
Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

This talk discusses both the scientific and the mystical understanding of people's experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places people have had profoundly real experiences of deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Sometimes these occur when a person is in altered state – dreaming, on drugs, or is near death. The connection between the altered state and the 'visitation' is explored in a vivid illustrated talk, which takes a personal tour through folklore, mythology, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, the Luciferian witch cult, brain anatomy, Tibetan demonology, the pineal gland, art, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients. A lively slide lecture format followed by discussion.

Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in parapsychology and altered states of consciousness. He has studied paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney.

Thanks to Alex Grey for the image

Shamanism through the ages

Suddenly Tuesday evenings in London don't look so dull. Following on from the Goldsmiths College lecture on Psychoactive plants and psychic people this coming Tuesday, a group of us have begun organising a series of public lectures on ecology, consciousness and the cosmos to be hosted at the amazing October Gallery in Bloomsbury, London. The first of many evenings begins with a lecture by South American ayahuascero Pablo Friedlander on the following Tuesday (25th November) entitled From Ancient Eleusis to Modern Ecstasy: Shamanism Through the Ages.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AL (Tel: 44 (0)20 7831 1618). Please RSVP as space is very limited, email: rentals AT octobergallery.co.uk
Entry £7/ £5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available

Pablo's talk will consist of a brief and deep analysis of a mysterious evolution: from shamanic practices to the rise of the first philosophical schools. Beginning with the symbolisms of shamanism in prehistoric times, a process of sophistication is followed that leads from the visionary art of caves in different continents to the theories about nature in archaic Greece. This comparative study between ancient European beliefs and contemporary shamanic practices in the Americas’ focuses on the relationship between magical plants, cosmological chants, iconography and insights. The constants and changes in the cultivation of mystical trances through key moments of history serve to explain what the Ecstatic Wisdom is and what it means.

Day of the Dead

Brace yourselves for a night of magic, ancestor veneration, voodoo, visionary art and music, brought to you by those titans of weirdness and bastions of peculiarity - Strange Attractor, Dreamflesh and Liminal Nation. Themed talks on altered states, magic, death and the archaeology of consciousness by Gyrus, Donal Ruane and Dr David Luke, and Voodoo shamanigans by Stephen Grasso. Raagnagrok All Stars will be providing sonic succor and sustenance. Saturday, 1st November, 7pm till late at the Horse Hospital, London. It's likely to sell out so reserve a place, below the flyer, by flying to the place below...

Day of the Dead

Magical summer (mis)adventures

OK so apologies (to both my readers) for the inordinately long delay in logging any posts. Things sure do move fast outside blog time and I’ve been busy making the most of summer, among other things, going to festivals, giving talks, writing papers, going to conferences, giving more talks, and planning and getting funding for some pretty exciting research projects. On the festival scene it was great to go back to Glastonbury this year for the first time since 2003 and view the stone circle from a liberated perspective - this one spot alone changed my life three times already over the years. Mighty blessings to the Bimble Inn crew for greasing the wheels of my adventures.

I also had a great time in Brazil for most of July giving papers at a fascinating conference on parapsychology and altered states in Curitiba. I had a chance to talk to the directors of an amazing Spiritist hospital where they use mediums to channel the voices of conventionally untreatable schizophrenics while the psychotherapist puts the voices in therapy, thereby treating the (absent) patient. I also got to take part in an Umbanda incorporation ceremony (pictured above), a Sante Daime ayahuasca ceremony, and a Guaraní tobacco ceremony as well as a dream workshop-workshop by Prof. Stan Krippner. With the great support of many people in Brazil I was lucky enough to run some preliminary parapsychology experiments with ceremony participants on ayahuasca, the Amazonian psychedelic decoction that was once called "telepathine" because of the typical paranormal experiences people encounter on it. More on that when the research is complete.

Probably the most adventurous thing that happened in Brazil was a narrow escape from the scalpel of a psychic surgeon who had me terrified at the prospect of an operation where I might have a had a pair of forceps slid all the way into my nasal cavity and twisted round a few times. There wasn’t even the slightest thing wrong with me, though I soon developed apoplectic fear. More on that too some other time. A few more talks at festivals and conferences and I’m back in cyberspace again, so expect a spate of posts…

Moses: A Holy Land shaman?

If you orbit the same bodies in cyber space as me you will definitely have come across this recent article by Prof. Benny Shanon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Putting the God back in the "entheogen" (a name for psychedelic substances used sacramentally, meaning “creating the God within”) this article by the leading expert on the cognitive psychology of ayahuasca visions brings the notion of sacred psychoactive substances to the very core of Islam, Judaism and Christianity – by investigating the extraordinary visions of Moses in the Old Testament.

In “Biblical Entheogens: A Speculative Hypothesis”, which appears in the inaugural issue of Time & Mind: Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture, Prof. Shanon puts forward a highly plausible (although painfully unprovable at present) thesis that Moses was actually under the influence of a Holy Land analogue of ayahuasca (the highly visionary South American jungle decoction whose active principle is DMT), made from the Acacia tree and the Perganum harmala bush of the Sinai Peninsula. This is a fascinating article, which deserves some special attention, and will find an important home in the literature on the religious and spiritual use of psychoactive substances. Here’s the abstract and link to the full paper…

Biblical Entheogens: A Speculative Hypothesis

A speculative hypothesis is presented according to which the ancient Israelite religion was associated with the use of entheogens (mind-altering plants used in sacramental contexts). The hypothesis is based on a new look at texts of the Old Testament pertaining to the life of Moses. The ideas entertained here were primarily based on the fact that in the arid areas of the Sinai peninsula and Southern Israel there grow two plants containing the same psychoactive molecules found in the plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew Ayahuasca is prepared. The two plants are species of Acacia tree and the bush Peganum harmala. The hypothesis is corroborated by comparative experiential-phenomenological observations, linguistic considerations, exegesis of old Jewish texts and other ancient Mideastern traditions, anthropological lore, and ethnobotanical data.