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.

Consciousness, creativity and the quest for human happiness

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.”

Spiritual Emergency: Mental health coming out of parapsychology

Several years ago I read about Stan Grof's notion of genuine paranormal phenomena and other seemingly "mad" experiences occurring as a part of natural psychological healing crisis, which he and Christina Grof termed a Spiritual Emergency. Since then I have been wondering why there isn't a more visible network of professionals in the UK exploring Grof's ideas seriously or investigating mental health issues within a shamanic self-healing framework where exceptional human experiences aren’t merely ignored out-of-hand or derided as only delusory - though, obviously, in some cases they are just that.

Plugging what I perceive as an intellectual gap, it's reassuring, then, to see that Dr. Christina Simmonds-Moore and The Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University are hosting the First Conference on Health, Mental Health and Exceptional Human Experience, for just one day, on Monday, 7th September, 2009. I’m certain it will be a fascinating event, so why not be a part of it? The speakers are:

Dr. John Gruzelier - The mind-body connection and healing

Dr. David Luke - Altered states of consciousness, mental imagery and healing

Dr. Ginette Nachman - The interface between placebo effects and non-local aspects of healing/consciousness

Dr. Carl Williams & Dr Di Dutton - A phenomenological exploration of energy healing

Dr. Eve Binks - Religious belief as a moderator of mental health

Dr. Stefan Schmidt - Meditation, exceptional experiences and mental health

Dr. Nicola Holt - Creativity, anomalous experiences and mental health

Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore - Manipulating anomalous experiences for mental health and transcendence

Mrs. Isobel Clarke - Exceptional experiences from the clinical perspective

Dr. Martina Belz - Clinical psychology of exceptional human experiences in practice

Dr Eberhard Bauer - Counselling people with unusual experiences

Dr Ian Tierney - Clinical psychology of exceptional human experiences in the UK

Image: Pablo Amaringo

Neuroscience and psi

It’s relatively well known that in 1924 the German psychophysiologist Prof. Hans Berger named the electroencephalograph (EEG) and was the first person to use it on humans, thereby identifying some of the different brain waves (e.g., alpha rhythms). What is not so well known is that Berger had switched from studying astronomy to studying psychology in the early 1890’s after he had a near fatal accident during which his sister apparently telepathically knew that he was in danger, and she forced her father to send Berger a telegram to check he was alright. Consequently, Berger developed the EEG to study the electromagnetic signals emitted from the brain that he believed carried the telepathic transmissions between minds.

Continuing with this tradition, the oldest continuous running organisation established to scientifically study the mind (predating any psychology bodies still in existence), the Society for Psychical Research, a body dedicated to paranormal research, is this month holding a lecture day on psi and the brain. Lectures, among several, include one on near-death psi experiences in the absence of any brain activity by Dr. Peter Fenwick, and another on the speculated psychedelic neurochemistry of psi by Dr. David Luke (yes me again). Should be a good day out.

10am – 5pm Saturday, April 25th

PSI AND BRAIN

Chair: Prof. Bernard Carr

Speakers: Dr. Peter Fenwick, Adrian Ryan, Dr. David Luke, Dr. Ian Baker and Robert Charman

What are the implications of psi for the relationship between mind and brain? Can some psychic interactions be explained by or associated with particular brain processes? If so, what physical or chemical effects on the brain are likely to trigger or accompany such interactions and what is the relationship between the brains of the people interacting? What sort of psi experiences would seem to transcend a brain-based explanation altogether?

In this Study Day, five leading experts will address these questions, placing particular emphasis on geomagnetic and neurochemical effects, EEG correlations during psychic healing and ESP experiments, and the apparent independence of the brain of near-death experiences. The meeting will end with a general discussion with audience participation.

St Philip's Church, Earls Court Rd, London W8, 10am-5pm.
Cost: Members £30 / Non-Members £35. / Students, Over 60s or Unwaged: £2 discount.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served, but bring your own lunch.
Advance booking is recommended, as space is limited (Tel/Fax: 0207 9378984)

A New Science of Life

Last week saw another great evening of ranting and decanting at the Old Gloucester Street Salon, sipping wine amidst stunning artwork and listening to Paul Devereux lead us down some very tangible spiritual paths on his beautifully illustrated talk about "Shamanic Landscapes".

This month, Tuesday 31st March, at the October Gallery we have one of the greatest lateral thinking scientists of our time, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, coming to talk to us about "Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature." Rupert will be giving us some fresh insights from the updated reissue of his fascinating yet shocking book "A New Science of Life", which when it was first published in the early '80s it received a review from the senior editor of the leading science journal, Nature, under the title "A book for burning?", clearly indicating an open-minded and scientifically objective reaction to new ideas.

The editor in question, John Maddox, later commented that Sheldrake was a scientific heretic as much as Galileo was a religious heretic for the pope, thereby rather absurdly condemning his own dogmatism. But Sheldrake's approach to his own rather radical ideas about the organisation of life and the location of memory is scientific and Sheldrake has been extremely vocal about trying to get scientists to test his claims, but like those who refused to look into Galileo's telescope, Sheldrake's radical hypotheses have been tested by merely a few scientists other than himself. Ex research fellow at the Royal Society, the bastion of establishment science, Rupert's most recent attempts to verify his theories have adopted a particularly parapsychological methodology and he has published numerous positive findings on his experiments into household psychic abilities such as telephone telepathy and the sense of being glared at. A definite treat.

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

A New Science of Life: Morphic Resssonance and the Habits of Nature

According to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation, all self-organizing systems, including crystals, animals and societies contain an inherent memory, given by a process called morphic resonance from previous similar systems. All human beings draw upon a collective human memory, and in turn contribute to it. Even individual memory depends on morphic resonance rather than on physical memory traces stored within the brain. This radical hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits, and evolution, like human life, depends on an interplay between habit and creativity.

Zombie neuroimaging: High-tech phrenology?

Having a conversation with a professor of social psychology the other day concerning the two recent papers about voodoo neuroscience (voodoo neuroscience & snake oil), I was told something like, “At its best neuroimaging can tell us something interesting things about human psychology and the brain, but at its worst its nothing more than high-tech phrenology. I think the best thing it could do however, would be to locate the part of the brain that makes neuroscientists die-hard reductionists and then have it surgically removed”. Interesting food for thought, but only if you like the taste of brains! Material reductionists, however, would have us all believe that we are deluded zombies devoid of any free will and real consciousness anyway, so perhaps they would be happy with brains on the menu after all? For anyone taking offence, remember science is a method not a belief.

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.

Voodoo Neuroscience

Following up on an older post on the pseudoscientific appeal of neuroscience (Brain imaging: Old snake oil in new bottles?) an article due for publication in Perspectives on Psychological Science demonstrates how numerous brain imaging researchers have been fudging the books to show very strong relationships between personality correlates and specific-brain region activity. Given the already enormous complexity of the cortex, etc. and the intractable difficulty mapping the mind to the brain, it doesn’t help matters when social neuroscientists and the like just conveniently report only the most significant relationships in their studies and ignore the huge bin full of unrelated data they’ve collected.

Such selective reporting, which appears to be rife in social neuroscience according to this new research by Harold Pashler and his team at MIT and the University of California, violates principles of probability and grossly distorts what can be understood about neuropsychology, thereby painting a far brighter and clearer image of personality in the brain than the genuinely muddy picture we really have. Honing in on particular correlations is all well and good in voodoo, which works based on acausal associative principles, but in science this kind of misreporting is just mumbo jumbo. Perhaps neuroscience isn't actually any more scientific than magic, but at least voodoo sticks to its principles!

Thanks to the BPS Research Digest Blog...

Do you do Voodoo?

They are beloved by prestigious journals and the popular press, but many recent social neuroscience studies are profoundly flawed, according to a devastating critique - Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience - in press at Perspectives on Psychological Science (PDF).

The studies in question have tended to claim astonishingly high correlations between localised areas of brain activity and specific psychological measures. For example, in 2003, Naomi Eisenberger at the University of California and her colleagues published a paper purporting to show that levels of self-reported rejection correlated at r=.88 (1.0 would be a perfect correlation) with levels of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex.

According to Hal Pashler and his band of methodological whistle-blowers, if Eisenberg's study and others like it were accurate, this "would be a milestone in understanding of brain-behaviour linkages, full of promise for potential diagnostic and therapeutic spin-offs." Unfortunately, Pashler's group argue that the findings from many of these recent studies are virtually meaningless. (Read more…)

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

Can liberty caps liberate remote memories?

Well much like the myth of Santa Claus being based upon the shamanic use of the psychedelic mushrooms, Christmas has generously provided us with the announcement of the first official UK research project into the use of psychedelic mushrooms with humans since prohibition. After a long hiatus of about 40 years, official human research with psychedelics is about to resume in the UK following a collaboration between a leading London research institute (presently undisclosed to deter negative media) and the Beckley Foundation of Oxford, a leading drug policy think tank and foundation for the research of consciousness and its altered states.

Certain types of magic mushrooms such as Psilocybe semilanceata (known as the 'liberty cap'), in which the chemical psilocybin is found, grow naturally in the UK, one of the country’s few indigenous psychoactive plants. Yet the consumption of dried mushrooms in the UK has been illegal for decades and, tying up a loophole in the law, the picking and consumption of fresh psilocybin-containing mushrooms was made illegal in 2005.

Resuming the scientific psychedelic research that was stopped by prohibition virtually the world over in the late 1960s, the Beckley Foundation (logo pictured above) has initiated a research project at a leading London academic institution into the potentially beneficial effects of psilocybin on psychophysiology and consciousness.

The project is entitled “A study investigating changes in blood flow and remote memory access brought about by psilocybin” and aims to investigate the reported effects that psilocybin has in helping people access forgotten memories, which, along with the profound mystical experiences that can be occasioned with psilocybin may have great potential in helping people in psychotherapy, particularly for resolving trauma-related anxiety disorders, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In their Christmas newsletter the Beckley Foundation wrote “This study will investigate, with the latest brain imaging technology, both the changes in cerebral blood flow brought about by psilocybin and how psilocybin affects regional activation and emotional responses. In so doing, this study will help inform the psychotherapeutic applications for this fascinating and important compound.”

The beyond within: Ketamine and the near-death experience (NDE)

Seems it's psychedelic season in London after all, and all with a nice parapsychological twist. Next month at my favourite London boookshop, Treadwells, Dr. Ornellla Corazza will be giving a talk on her PhD research on ketamine and near-death experiences. I won't be there, unfortunately, because I'll be in Ecuador doing my own parapsychopharmacological research, but I was lucky enough to catch a similar talk by Ornella back at the beginning of last year, which I wrote a review of for the Paranormal Review.

10 December 2008 (Wednesday)
Near Death Experiences
Exploring the Mind-Body Connection
Ornella Corazza (SOAS)
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

In this illustrated slide lecture, Dr Ornella Corazza will share the fruits of her groundbreaking research on Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). Along with the reports and studies of NDEs, she refers to accounts of sessions with the powerful dissociative drug, ketamine, and draws from contemporary Japanese philosophies of embodiment to argue against the traditional "survivalist" interpretation of NDEs and offers us a new perspective on what human life is and also what it can be.

Ornella Corazza, PhD, is a NDE researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. In 2004-5 she was a member of the 21st Century Centre of Excellence Program on the Construction of Death and Life at the University of Tokyo. She teaches on the Lampeter MA on The Body: Eastern and Western Perspectives. Academic publications include Remember (2006), on ritual practices in North-East Italy. Her latest is Near-Death Experiences: Exploring the Mind-Body Connection (2008). She lives and works in London.