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Arizona Psychedelics Conference 2019

Arizona Psychedelics Conference 2019

by | March 26, 2019 | Consciousness & Psychedelics, Present & Past Events

 

Volunteer, Robert Hoberg, holding a copy of ‘Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs’ at the Synergetic Booth.

 

The First of its Kind

We were delighted to attend the first-ever conference related to the medicinal and therapeutic properties of psychoactive substances in the state of Arizona: The Arizona Psychedelics Conference! The conference, hosted by Entheogenic Research Awareness (ERA) at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (SCNM) at the University of Tempe, Arizona, took place February 8-10th 2019. While there, we met and connected with many like-minded and inspiring people who are dedicated to furthering the discussion on this important topic.

The 3-day event featured over 40 speakers including, among many others, Bia Labate, Brad Burge, Joe Moore, Mike Magolies, Kyle Buller, and Joe Tafur. The lineup was far-ranging and diverse, with speakers from varied backgrounds and disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience in addition to therapeutic practitioners, indigenous healers, herbalists, and veterans. Among the specific substances discussed were MDMA, cannabis, ayahuasca, ibogaine, psilocybin, 5-meo-DMT, kambo, peyote, ketamine, and San Pedro cactus . While the therapeutic use and potential risks of these visionary plant medicines and psychoactive substances was the focus of many workshops, attendees also had the opportunity to discuss important issues related to the responsible use of psychedelics in modern societies in workshops on issues of cultural appropriation, ecological sustainability, and healthcare as a human right.

A Revolution in Medicine

As the general public and medical practitioners become more aware of the age-old use of psychoactive substances as tools of spiritual and mental well-being, many previously stigmatized substances are increasingly viewed as valuable to our future growth and development. Conferences like this provide a beneficial opportunity for enthusiasts and experts to come together to expand their knowledge in order to continue to work with these powerful substances from an informed standpoint.

Congratulations are in order to the event organizers, Amanda and Raymond Ryskowski, for their massive personal efforts to make this inspired dream a reality. The event itself was so well-received, both by members of the university’s medical faculty and the general public, that it sold out quickly and more tickets had to be issued to enable more people to attend and learn about this growing field of research. We expect that this was the first in a succession of ‘Arizona Psychedelic Conferences’, and we look forward to being at more in futures to come!

 

Interested in learning more? Check out the conference video below, queued to the section in which our publisher, Deborah Snyder, discusses some of our featured titles:

 

 

 

 

 

About the Organizers

The conference was hosted by Entheogenic Research Awareness (ERA), a student-run organization based at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (SCNM) at the University of Tempe, Arizona. ERA is led by Amanda Ryskowski and Elliot Zyglis. ERA’s vision is to help create a new paradigm for healthcare which honors indigenous peoples and their knowledge of the natural world, integrating such understanding with the highest standards of evidence-based medicine. Their focus is to educate medical professionals and the general public about entheogens, and their potential applications in medicine through the integration of traditional uses alongside the current research on these powerful substances.

Check @ERA.SCNM out on Facebook to keep up-to-date with their future events.

In Memoriam, Dr. Ralph Metzner (1936-2019)

In Memoriam, Dr. Ralph Metzner (1936-2019)

by | March 20, 2019 | Consciousness & Psychedelics, Present & Past Events, Sustainability & Ecology

Ralph in 1963, photographer unknown

In Loving Memory of the Visionary Ralph Metzner

Psychologist, writer, pioneer in the field of psychedelic and consciousness research, Dr. Ralph Metzner passed away peacefully in his sleep earlier this week, March 14, 2019. He was truly an asset to this planet and will be greatly missed by us all.

Ralph was always far beyond his time and will be remembered for histories to come. He traversed the boundaries of traditional psychology through the integration of shamanic techniques that alter consciousness, and enable us a deepened awareness of the human psyche. As a graduate student in the early 1960s, Ralph worked closely with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) on the Harvard research into psilocybin. Beyond research, in the 1970s Ralph’s focus shifted to the intensive study and practice of yoga, incorporating a meditative system of life-energy into his work. Furthermore, he was a brilliant author, and some of his books include: Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone; Encounters with Mystics, Scientists, and Healers, Ecology of Consciousness; The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture and many more.

A planetary steward, Ralph was the founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation which strove to harmonize human understanding with the planet that we live in. In 2014, Ralph was interviewed by Michael Gosney at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Conference in Oakland, California regarding his views on ecology for the Eco Evolution Podcast. This podcast examines the ecological crisis that we are living through, illuminating the fact that our relationship to the divine has been severed.

“The idea that the spiritual and the natural are opposed or that spirituality must always transcend nature is a culturally relative concept not shared by non-monotheistic religions or traditional societies. In indigenous cultures around the world the natural world is regarded as the realm of spirit and the sacred; the natural is the spiritual. From this follows an attitude of respect, a desire to maintain a balanced relationship…-in short, sustainability.” —Ralph Metzner, “The Psychopathology of the Human-Nature Relationship,” 1995

Listen to the podcast in full here.

A Tribute to Our Beloved Friend

Dr. Ralph Metzner and publisher, Deborah Parrish Snyder, when she visited him in his home late November 2018.

“Our beloved Ralph Metzner, pioneer in consciousness research, left the planet early this morning. His friends agree, there is no person better prepared for death than Ralph. As he makes the ultimate transition, I say so long, friend, as you transcend, know how much wisdom you have left behind, and how we treasure you.” —Deborah Parrish Snyder, Synergetic Press Publisher

Global treasure Ralph Metzner, one of those on whose shoulders our evolving consciousness stands, passed over today. A quickening in the force as his human wisdom and inspiring journey informs the broader Gaiamind.

As the relatively obscure member of the “Harvard Psychedelic Club” trio, unlike Leary and Alpert he kept pushing the envelope in the field of psychology all the way until his final days, studying, researching, teaching, evolving. He held the first major conference on Ayahuasca in San Francisco in 2002 (we produced the private after party at the Anon Salon space), and was the guide of the guides one might say, in fostering the neo-shamanic movement of psychedelic Work, a culture just now making its way out of the underground as psychedelic-assisted therapy emerges as a new legal paradigm of caregiving and life enrichment, and a new respect for the spiritual and healing powers of ayahuasca, fungi and other plant teacher/healers dawns. He was a thoughtful, very kind man, and from early on saw the need for awareness and care of our planetary body while we are taking our human journey, as expressed through his Green Earth Foundation and contributions to the Eco-Psychology movement. His newest book, just released, is a wonderful biographical account “Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone: Encounters with Mystics, Scientists, and Healers”. He explored and taught us about the passage of death, making his own transition all the more poignant. As is often the case with our visionaries, his work and life’s legacy will now be more widely recognized, and we hope received, by the mainstream.

May your path bring more light, love, and life to you dear friend. Thank you from all of us.” —Michael Gosney, Synergetic Press Associate Publisher

An Exploration into Other Worlds

In 2013, Ralph collaborated with us to commemorate the publication of The Mystic Chemist, in the Collected Works Bookstore, Santa Fe, NM. In this talk, Ralph recounts personal stories of his extraordinary experiences into Other Worlds, whilst reflecting on the life of the late Albert Hoffman. 

Meditations on Mortality

After Ralph’s departure, it is comforting to have video footage from an interview taken for the revolutionary documentary, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, exposing his thoughts on the nature of death. Being avidly involved with research into psychoactive substances, Ralph discusses the ability of these mind-manifesting substances to transform our conception of death, helping us to evaporate fear in the realization that we are not our bodies, and that there is ultimately “nothing to be afraid of.”

Ralph, you were truly an inspiration and a guide to all that met you, the world has yet to digest the lessons that you spent your life teaching. 

R.I.P. Ralph Metzner (1936-2019)

 

2019 World Ayahuasca Conference

2019 World Ayahuasca Conference

by | March 14, 2019 | Consciousness & Psychedelics, Cultural Studies, Present & Past Events

2019 World Ayahuasca Conference

May 31 – June 2 | Girona, Spain

Hosted by the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS)

Save 10% by using discount code SYNERGETICPRESS10

Buy Tickets

 Looking Forward to Seeing You at AYA2019!

Synergetic Press is excited to announce our participation in the 2019 World Ayahuasca Conference being held this spring in Girona, Spain, May 31st-June 2nd, for the European debut of our seminal publication, Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (ESPD).  Among the many distinguished speakers at the conference will be the four editors of ESPD:  famed ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, internationally known botanist Sir Ghillean Prance, filmmaker/anthropologist Wade Davis, and the founder and Executive Director of ICEERS, Benjamin De Loenen. Several other contributors to the book including shaman/anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna and medical psychology researcher Ede Frecska, MD, will be giving presentations at the conference. Other Synergetic Press authors will be found at the conference including Allan Badiner (Zig Zag Zen) who will be speaking, and John Allen (Me and the Biospheres) attending. It promises to be a truly stellar event. – read more on our blog. 

The AYA2019 Conference is being hosted by the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS). ICEERS is a non-profit organization committed to integrating traditional medicinal plants such as ayahuasca, and iboga as therapeutic tools in contemporary society. Further, dedicated to preserving the integrity and traditions of indigenous cultures that have been using such plants medicinally for time immemorial, aiming to safeguard and harness ethnobotanical knowledge in response to the urgent need for better tools for personal and social development.

More than a Conference…

The 3rd World Ayahuasca Conference 2019 will be the largest gathering on the subject of ayahuasca ever held, bringing together a diverse community and a multiplicity of voices to share knowledge about this invaluable plant medicine and how we can use it in order to shape a better future for our planet.

The conference aims to explore the use of ayahuasca in a wide variety of contexts, and its ability to not only affect individuals in a transformative way, but whole communities, societies, and moreover our planetary landscape. The transformative and healing potentialities of this sacred plant must not be overlooked, with AYA2019 aiming to unite academics, practitioners, and communities around a shared vision – creating a sustainable, ecologically aligned paradigm for our species.

The conference is scheduled to span over three-days with additional events such as workshops, open-discussions, art, music and much more. Participants will have the opportunity to connect with one another, engage in dialogue, listen to inspirational talks, and enjoy art, food, film, and good music together.

Use code SYNERGETICPRESS10 for 10% off your tickets!  Buy Your Tickets Here

Speaker Line-Up

Dennis McKenna PhD

Dennis McKenna’s professional and personal interests are focused on the interdisciplinary study of ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He received his doctorate in 1984 from the University of British Columbia, where his doctoral research focused on ethnopharmacological investigations of the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two orally-active tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs.

Wade Davis PhD

Wade Davis is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker whose work has taken him from the Amazon to Tibet, Africa to Australia, Polynesia to the Arctic. Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 1999 to 2013, he is currently Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Author of 22 books, including One River, The Wayfinders, and Into the Silence, winner of the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize, the top nonfiction prize in the English language, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University.

Luis Eduardo Luna PhD

Luis Eduardo Luna has a B.A. from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1972), an interdisciplinary M.A. from Oslo University (1980), a Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Religion Stockholm University (1989), and an honorary doctoral degree from St. Lawrence, Canton, New York (2002).  Dr. Luna is since 1989 a Fellow of the London Linnaean Society. He was an Assistant Professor in Anthropology (1994-1998) at the Department of Anthropology of Santa Catarina Federal University (UFSC) in Florianópolis, Brazil. He is co-editor with Steven White of Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine. He is the Director of the Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art and Consciousness, Florianópolis, Brazil.

And many more! Check out the full speaker-line up here.

Interested in learning more? All of the talks from the 2016 World Ayahuasca Conference in Rio Branco, Brazil are open-source and available to watch for free through this link. 

Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs with Dennis McKenna

Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs with Dennis McKenna

by | January 31, 2019 | Books, Consciousness & Psychedelics, Releases & Announcements

Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs eBook Newly Available

For those who like to save paper, keep things minimal, or merely have their research library on easy tabs, we are excited to announce that the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (ESDP50) Volume 2: Proceedings of the 2017 conference held in Tyringham Hall, UK, is now available in eBook format!

 

McKenna’s Milestone Publication

The milestone publication, ESPD50, emerged as the brainchild of Dennis McKenna. McKenna, having attained a copy of the original publication from the 1967 conference, found himself inspired to shape his career in light of the book, delving into a lifelong investigation of the pharmacology of traditional medicinal plants.

“The realization that real science was being pursued in this field was a revelation to me, partly because it opened the possibility that one day I, too, might be able to achieve a place in this exclusive fellowship. At first, I thought I would be able to prove to my parents that I was serious about psychedelics and not just a confused hippie in search of cheap thrills, but they were not very reassured. However, over the years, they came to recognize the merits of my chosen career.”—Dennis McKenna, ‘The Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs: Reflections on a Book that Changed My Life.’

The first international gathering of researchers held on this subject was in 1967. It was an interdisciplinary group of specialists gathered in one place to share their findings on a topic that was gaining widespread interest: The use of psychoactive plants in indigenous societies. It was intended that follow-up conferences should be held about every 10 years. However, the War on Drugs soon limited any advances in this field of research, putting a prohibitive ban on psychoactive drugs, denying their medicinal value altogether.

 

The Future of Medicine

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of research into the medicinal and therapeutic properties of psychoactive substances. In spite of their prohibitive ban, researchers persevered. With their substantial discoveries and findings helping to reverse public opinion and reestablish the medical legitimacy of certain substances.

In June 2017, a group of interdisciplinary researchers from around the world convened to review their research and findings together in what was known as the second Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs Symposium. The papers given at the 2017 Symposium, organized by Dr. Dennis McKenna, have been collected and curated into what is now known as the ESPD50, representing the most significant body of knowledge in this field available.

 

McKenna Speaks at ESPD50 Conference

 

 

Interested in ESPD50, but find the science hard to digest? Make your reading interactive by watching the video lectures of individual authors presenting their research papers at the 2017 Symposium here

Check out Dennis McKenna’s recent interview on the Future Fossils Podcast with Michael Garfield, where they discuss the applications of psychoactive substances as tools for scientific investigation.

What Reviewers Had to Say:

For decades, the keepers of the psychedelic therapy and ethnobotany flames have guarded and passed along rare copies of the published proceedings of this January 28–30, 1967 conference at UC San Francisco, which were released later that year as “Public Health Service Publication No. 1645” and briefly sold for $4 by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

This month, the historic research papers from that mostly forgotten conference, along with the proceedings of a symposium held in England last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco gathering, have been published by Synergetic Press in a beautifully boxed, two-volume hardcover edition. 

—Don Lattin, award-winning journalist & author of Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy

Much of their discussion centers around the indigenous peoples of the world who have utilized these miraculous psychedelic fungi and plants (even the skin secretions of frogs and toads) in their cultures and religions. Of course, what’s most exciting is the potential for additional therapeutic discoveries, once the substances are better understood. 

—Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews

Ecology of Consciousness with Dr. Ralph Metzner

Ecology of Consciousness with Dr. Ralph Metzner

by | November 30, 2018 | Consciousness & Psychedelics

Recently, Synergetic Press publisher, Deborah Parrish Snyder, went to visit well-known counter-culture figure and pioneer in the field of consciousness studies, Dr. Ralph Metzner in Sonoma. There she found him continuing his prolific writing and received a copy of his latest book we would like to share with you here. 

Ecology of Consciousness: The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation (Reveal Press | New Harbinger)

Dr. Metzner’s new book The Ecology of Consciousness presents a cartography of the mystified landscape of consciousness resulting from his lifetime of research into Eastern philosophy, mysticism, and shamanism. The book aims to approach questions surrounding consciousness that have danced before us throughout the centuries, by providing a comprehensive overview informed by a wide range of perspectives and traditions.

Spanning from ancient philosophies to New Age spirituality, the topic of consciousness has been the subject of much contemplation and debate, with The Ecology of Consciousness approaching the subject through the lens of psychospiritual and consciousness studies. The book’s purpose is to give you a more fully fledged understanding of consciousness, providing practical tools through which you can approach your spirituality, teaching age-old shamanic and alchemical traditions and how to connect them with the healing practices of today.

The Ecology of Consciousness

Praise for Ecology of Consciousness

John Allen reading The Ecology of Consciousness

“A truly marvelous, scientific transmission of the exploration of consciousness and objective alchemy (the chemistry of transformations of human understanding). This brilliant book should go on the most treasured shelf of one’s library. Ralph’s synergy of experience and experiments of transformation of understanding is unique, comprehensive, and precisely expressed.” — John Allen, Pioneer in Biosphere Science

“Not since Virgil showed Dante around Hell and Purgatory have we had as gifted a guide as Ralph Metzner help us comprehend and appreciate the major realms of consciousness. His blend of erudition, wisdom, common sense, and personal experience makes each approach he describes (from Alchemy to Buddhism, Agni Yoga through psychedelics, and more) inviting, understandable, and enlightening. In addition, the practices he presents to open these many gates make this not only an illuminating book, but give each of us a way to investigate, experience, and ultimately decide for ourselves our own best path or paths. The book fulfills Metzner’s intention, ‘to awaken spiritual intelligence and bring about a deeper connection with our essential nature.’” — James Fadiman, author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide

Other books of interest by Ralph Metzner

Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties, Ralph Metzner, Ram Dass and Gary Bravo

ram dass psychedelic cultureIt can be thought that no understanding of the history of the sixties could ever be complete without a grasp of the paradigm-shifting work of Leary, Alpert, and Metzner, the cultural resistance to their experiments, and the way in which psychoactive drug use became a part of contemporary society.

The book Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, constitutes a five-part conversational memoir between Dr. Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass, covering the five year period of 1960-65. It sets out to illuminate their Harvard experiments as well as the cultural context from which they emerged, featuring never seen before photographs and personal experiences of authors Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass, who vividly recall descriptions of particular “trips” as well as conversations with luminaries such as Aldous Huxley, Charles Mingus, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others that appeared on the scene.

Birth of a Psychedelic Culture

About the Author

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. is a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He is a psychotherapist and professor emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. A recognized pioneer in studies of consciousness and its transformations, he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) in the study of psychedelic drugs at Harvard University in the 1960s and coauthored The Psychedelic Experience. Metzner has authored, coauthored, and edited several books, including The Unfolding Self, The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, Maps of Consciousness, The Roots of War and Domination, Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca, Allies for Awakening, and Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, among others.

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