Our Team

Philip Franses uses his expertise in holistic thinking and teaching to address global challenges through multistakeholder processes. He studied mathematics at New College, Oxford, and has designed intelligent software for a variety of organizations. Philip is the cofounder of The Flow Partnership, through which he creates platforms for communities to share their knowledge with each other, helping them restore water to its vital place within the cycles of nature.

Philip also teaches holistic science and is the author of Time, Light and the Dice of Creation: Through Paradox in Physics to a New Order.

Deborah has published over 40 books through her publishing house Synergetic Press, Ltd. in global ecology, regenerative agriculture, ethnobotany, psychedelics, and social justice, since establishing it in 1984. In 1986, she was on the team that designed and built a large-scale closed ecological system, Biosphere 2, developing the publications and educational programs for the complex. In 1990, she started The Biosphere Press, an imprint of the Biosphere 2 project, producing a dozen books and a classroom curriculum for children on biospheres and biomes. While at Biosphere 2, Deborah met Richard Evans Schultes, the grandfather of contemporary ethnobotany. She went on to publish his two books of photographs he made documenting people’s use of plant medicine in the NW Colombian Amazonia. Deborah is a director and VP of the U.S. non-profit, the Institute of Ecotechnics, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Synergia Ranch. The Institute owns the RV Heraclitus, an 84-foot ferrocement Chinese Junk design that sailed 270,000 miles around Planet Ocean, with two years up the Amazon on an ethnobotanical expedition inspired by Schultes (1980-1982). Deborah currently lives at Synergia Ranch organic farm and retreat center where she lives, contributes to the farm operations when she can, and continues publishing books.

Omar Fayed is an entrepreneur, environmentalist, and businessman. He is CEO of ESTEE (Earth Space Technical Ecosystem Enterprises), based in Switzerland and Britain, that advocates human space exploration, space colonization, and sustainable human development within the biosphere. He is co-founder and CEO of EarthX, a data visualization and mapping company based on NASA’s World Wind Project. He is chairman of Synergetic Press and a fellow of the Institute of Ecotechnics.

Allison Felus is a twenty-year veteran of the publishing industry, with experience managing workflows and creating efficiencies across editorial and production departments. She has edited and/or prepared for print scores of titles in a variety of genres and is currently a proud resident of Chicago.

Jasmine Virdi (she/her) is a writer, educator, poet, activist, and harm reduction practitioner based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her writing centers on psychedelics, spirituality, and deep ecology and has been featured in DoubleBlind Magazine, Open Democracy, Psychedelics Today, Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, Psychedelic Press, Synthesis Institute and Lucid News. Jasmine has an MSc in Transpersonal Psychology and offers private coaching and mentorship to clients. She is an advocate for decolonizing healing practices, and integrates earth-based wisdom, trauma-informed, and somatic approaches into her work.

Since 2018, she has collaborated with the independent publisher Synergetic Press, where her passions for ethnobotany, consciousness, and regeneration converge. Additionally, she volunteers for Fireside Project’s psychedelic peer-support line, aligned with their mission to provide compassionate, accessible, and culturally responsive support to all. Often breaking away into the wilderness, Jasmine can be found wherever there are birds singing. You can follow her work and find out about her offerings here.

Guy Gaffney is a recovering banker who realized he would rather leverage his commercial lending experience by helping small businesses with all aspects of their day-to-day bookkeeping, as well as interpret financial information in a meaningful way.  So he established his bookkeeping & tax practice, FiscalGrit, to do just that.  He received his MBA from UMass and is new to the world of publishing but thoroughly enjoying it.

Fernanda is a transpersonal psychologist, writer, marketing specialist, and training Shaman dedicated to the expansion of consciousness. As a Marketing Consultant for Synergetic Press, she supports organizations that inspire transformation. Pursuing an MSc in Spirituality, Consciousness, and Transpersonal Psychology at the Alef Trust, she explores parapsychological phenomena through research. Deepening her spiritual path, she learns from the Qero communities of Peru and the Incan Medicine School, honoring the wisdom of her ancestors.

Faye Sakellaridis is an NYC-based writer and editor. She served as the managing editor for Reality Sandwich, the leading web magazine for the transformational community, from 2012 to 2019. She also managed the online blog for The Alchemist's Kitchen from 2015 to 2018. In 2016, she was a recipient of the Cosmic Sister Plant Spirit Grant, a merit-based scholarship that financially supports women as they experience the profound healing and empowerment of journeying with ayahuasca in the Amazon rainforest. She earned both her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and an M.F.A in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Queens College.