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Speakers

In alphabetical order.

Alicia Danforth

Little Pieces of a Big Dream: Participants� Stories from a Cancer Anxiety Study with Psilocybin

Synopsis

As part of the recent resurgence of clinical psychedelic research, twelve volunteers with advanced cancer received treatment with psilocybin for anxiety in a study at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center from 2005 until 2008. The quantitative data led monitors to conclude that the protocol was safe, but what did participants report about their subjective experiences? Several individuals from the study left us a legacy of stories of hope and healing with the intention of sharing their insights with others. This talk will feature first-person accounts of what it felt like and what it meant to be one of the brave participants in the first FDA-approved psilocybin trial since medicinal mushrooms were banned in 1971.

Biography

Alicia Danforth is a clinical psychedelic researcher. Since 2006, she has coordinated and co-facilitated treatment sessions for Dr. Charles Grob�s Harbor-UCLA cancer anxiety trial with psilocybin. She also oversees a nationwide Web-based recruitment effort for a similar trial currently underway at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Inspired by seeing first-hand how psychedelic therapy can relieve suffering, she began a Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto. In 2008, she was a speaker on the �Rising Researchers� panel at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, Switzerland.

Earth & Fire Erowid

Connecting the Microdots: State of the Stone 2009

Synopsis

Now is the bridge between psychedelic history and future minds. Psychedelic subcultures (both online and off) have complex relationships to science, spirituality, media, and the Internet. With technologies of sharing at a historical peak and worldwide distribution of both products and thoughts being the norm, access to altered states of consciousness are mushrooming. Earth and Fire will discuss novel developments and what is available in the underground recreational drug bazaar, as well as questions about the state of the visionary sphere. Where does science meet subculture? Where do documented public knowledge and mystery school intersect? Where does the evolution of psychedelic knowledge go from here?

Biographies

Earth Erowid co-created Erowid.org in 1995. This non-commercial web site collects data and publishes original research on the topic of visionary plants and drugs. The site receives over 1 million unique visitors per month and has over 45,000 public documents and over 7,000 archived images. Earth has written and edited thousands of documents published on-line and his writings has also appeared in publications such as The Resonance Project and The Entheogen Review, Cato Unbound, and Trip magazine.

Fire Erowid co-created Erowid.org in 1995 (see description above). She has been the primary designer and chief editor of Erowid site since its inception. Fire has innovated and developed drug information designs that have been emulated across the web. Her work is cited by newspapers, books, school education programs, college classes, and professional seminars around the world. She and Earth have spoken at conferences sponsored by groups as diverse as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the North American Association of Clinical Toxicologists, the Mycological Society of San Francisco, and Mind States.

Bob Jesse

Entheogens, Awakening, and Spiritual Development

Synopsis

Profound experiences of non-dual consciousness sometimes lead to lasting, and lastingly beneficial, changes in values and behavior. Various activities (prayer, meditation, chanting, dancing, fasting) have been used to occasion such "primary religious experiences," and various wisdom traditions have developed practices and social vessels to increase the chances that a given experience will lead to lasting benefit. How can we gain scientific knowledge of these phenomena? How can we create social understandings that would make seeking out primary experiences seem less unusual than it now does to most westerners? How can we encourage the development of social contexts that would serve as appropriate vessels? Bob will discuss the psilocybin research he and his colleagues conducted at Johns Hopkins, which showed that psilocybin experiences can have substantial and sustained positive effects in healthy people.

Biography

Bob Jesse is organizer of the Council on Spiritual Practices (csp.org/about), which aims to shift modernity's awareness and practices with respect to primary religious experience (csp.org/PRE). CSP also encourages people to imagine and develop social contexts to contain such experiences and help them yield lasting benefit.

Through CSP, Bob and his colleagues initiated a study, conducted at Johns Hopkins and reported around the world, of the psychospiritual effects of psilocybin in healthy volunteers (csp.org/psilocybin). This expands the emphasis in hallucinogen research beyond the medical treatment of ill people to include the betterment of well people, contributing to a science of pro-social development.

On his home front, Bob is co-convener of a spiritual community formed around ecstatic dance. His formal training is in engineering.

Andy Letcher

Reading the Codex: Making Sense of Mushrooms

Synopsis

For those who have encountered the sacred mushroom, the psilocybin experience is like an ancient codex whose glyphs are at once baffling and clear. To make sense of it, each 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 mysticism, itself replaced in turn by the language of shamanism.

Here, I want to draw attention away from the mushroom experience itself � the usual province of trip-lit � to a consideration of the ways it has been interpreted throughout history. For, contrary to received wisdom, very few cultures have decoded the mushroom as we do. I shall ask a fundamental question: does the mushroom bring genuine transcendence, or are the experiences it occasions forever bound by culture?

Biography

Andy Letcher is a freelance writer, academic lecturer and folk-musician living in Oxford, UK. He lectures regularly at Oxford Brookes 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.

Valerie Mojeiko

Psychedelic Harm Reduction--Rethinking the "Bad Trip"

Synopsis

The use of psychedelics in uncontrolled circumstances is widespread. Inexperienced or overwhelmed users sometimes have challenging emotional experiences that are resolved through law enforcement or medical intervention, which may lead to psychological damage long after the trip is over. MAPS' psychedelic harm reduction project�through

Psychedelic Emergency Services

at events such as Burning Man and through the use of an educational video--empowers psychedelic users and their peers with therapeutic techniques for use in assisting others through difficult psychedelic experiences. We also offer a new framework for looking at

bad trips

as opportunities for emotional and spiritual growth. This presentation includes therapeutic methods, applications, and stories from the field.

Biography

Valerie Mojeiko received an education in Psychology and Integral Theory at New College of Florida and the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has worked with MAPS--the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies since 2000. MAPS is a non-profit 501c3 pharmaceutical company and educational organization currently conducting clinical trials under the US FDA with psychedelic medicines: MDMA (Ecstasy), LSD and Psilocybin. Valerie travels the globe to provide assistance and quality control to studies of MDMA- and LSD-assisted therapy in seven different countries. In her related work leading MAPS' harm-reduction project, she has prepared over 200 volunteers to provide peer-based Psychedelic Emergency Services from Burning Man to Tel Aviv.

William Richards, Ph.D.

The Rebirth Of Research With Entheogens: Lessons From The Past And Hypotheses For The Future

Synopsis

Reflecting on his cache of experience with psychedelic research, beginning in Germany in 1963, continuing at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center from 1967-1977, and focused at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine since 2000, Dr. Richards will present learnings and impressions that may inform and guide future investigations with these incredibly potent and sacred substances.

Consideration will be given to the definition and potential

fruits for life

of profoundly transcendental forms of consciousness and their possible implications for psychotherapeutic treatment, for education and for religion. The presentation will acknowledge the vastness of the realms of consciousness awaiting exploration, the primitiveness of our present knowledge, and the inadequacies of current concepts and language. Attention will be paid to the dangers of the uninformed and irresponsible use of these substances, both within research contexts and outside of them, as well as to their promise.

Biography

William (Bill) A. Richards, Ph.D. is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center. He is currently pursuing research with entheogens, and has a private practice in Baltimore. His graduate degrees include a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, a Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) from Andover-Newton Theological School, and a Ph.D. from Catholic University. Richards also studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Goettingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963.

From 1967 to 1977, Richards pursued psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center along with colleagues such as Walter Pahnke, Charles Savage, Stan Grof, John Rhead, and Richard Yensen. His research included protocols designed to investigate the promise of entheogens in the treatment of alcoholism, severe neuroses, narcotic addiction, and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. He helped design and served as the primary guide in the Hopkins research that demonstrated the positive correlation between psilocybin and mystical experiences (see Griffiths, et al. 2006).

Stephen Ross, M.D.

The NYU Psilocybin Cancer Project

Synopsis

This talk will present the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Research and Education Project, a government-approved study exploring the effects of a psilocybin-induced peak/mystical experience on the existential and psychospiritual suffering of patients with advanced cancer. The study is currently treating and recruiting patients. In this Talk, I will describe the objectives and development of the Psilocybin Cancer project, present the preliminary results of our research, and outline the research team�s new training program. I will also describe a potential future NYU study exploring the use of entheogens in addiction psychiatry and close with a discussion of the longer-term impact of psychedelics on medicine, science, and society.

Biography

Stephen Ross, M.D. is Principal Investigator of the new Psilocybin Cancer Project at NYU. He is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Oral Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and College of Dentistry. Dr. Ross completed received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating phi beta kappa, summa cum laude, and majoring in the biological basis of behavior. After matriculating from the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Ross completed general psychiatry training at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute, and received addiction psychiatry fellowship training at Bellevue Hospital & the NYU School of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Ross is the Director of the Division of Alcoholism & Drug Abuse at Bellevue Hospital, the Clinical Director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction, and the Associate Director of Addiction Education, NYU Department of Psychiatry. He has received eight teaching awards relating to education of medical students, general psychiatry residents, and addiction psychiatry fellows. His research focuses on co-occurring disorders, personality disorders, music therapy, public health, and the therapeutic application of hallucinogens.

Franz X. Vollenweider, M.D.

Neuronal Network and Neurotransmitter Dynamics Underlying Psychedelic-Induced Altered States of Consciousness in Humans

Synopsis

Vollenweider will present his work using state-of the-art neuroimaging tools to explore the brain activity patterns underlying the psychological dimensions of psychedelic-induced altered states of consciousness (ASC). The results show that the three key dimensions of ASCs,

Oceanic boundlessness

,

Anxious ego-dissolution

and

Visions

as originally described by Dittrich (1985), relate to circumscribed activity changes in different neuronal networks. Furthermore, he will also present novel data showing that the 5-HT2A neuroreceptor in human brain and its interactions with the glutamate system in prefrontal cortex plays a key role in the mechanism of action of classic hallucinogens such as psilocybin, and will discuss the implication of this recent finding for the understanding and putative treatment of some psychiatric disorders.

Biography

Franz X. Vollenweider, M.D. received his MD degree at the University of Zurich. He completed his doctoral thesis in experimental medicine at the Institute of Toxicology of the University and ETH of Zurich, was trained in neurochemistry at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich and in neuroimaging at the PET Center of the PSI-ETH. In 1994 he became certified in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis. He is currently the Director of the Psychopharmacology and Brain Imaging Research Unit at the University Hospital of Psychiatry, and holds the position of Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, University of Zurich.

Over the recent years, Dr. Vollenweider�s research interests have increasingly focused on the understanding of the neural basis of drug (e.g. psychedelic) and non-drug (e.g. pathological) - induced altered states of consciousness. In search of the neuronal correlates of altered states, the subjective and neurobiological effects of classic hallucinogens, dissociative anesthetics and psychostimulants have been assessed in more than 500 healthy human volunteers using neuropsychological and brain imaging methods such as positron emission tomography and high density electroencephalography, and measures of information processing.

Over the last decade, Dr. Vollenweider�s research has been continuously funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Federal Health Office, and the Heffter Reseach Institute (USA). He has received the Achievement Award of the Swiss Society of Psychiatry (1990), the Heffter Research Institute Award (1997), the G�tz Prize (2000) of the University of Zurich, and the British Association of Psychopharmacology Prize (2002). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, including many addressing the mechanisms subserving the effects of psychostimulants, hallucinogens, and entactogens.

Bob Wold

Suicide or Psychedelics

Synopsis

Cluster Headache is not what you usually think of when someone says they have a headache: the pain will wake you up out of your sleep and is so searing painful that people are known to pull out their hair or bang their head against the wall to distract themselves from this pain. Indeed, cluster has been nicknamed "suicide headaches." You will leave this talk knowing a lot more about cluster headache and the story of how patients just like me came to find in psilocybin and LSD a profound medication that helps more than the medicines we currently can get from our physicians. Clusterbusters is doing something about that: we work closely with Dr. John Halpern of McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and are, in fact, sponsoring Dr. Halpern's clinical project to evaluate psilocybin for people with episodic cluster headache. To bring research with psilocybin to Harvard has been a long and complicated road, but you will learn why it is the most important one to take: many lives depend on it and we want to count on your support. Over the past year, our work has expanded to include the addition of a new and very exciting direct offshoot of our psilocybin work. This successful study featuring breakthough treatment results will be announced at this conference.

Biography

Bob Wold is founder and President of Clusterbusters, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit charitable organization dedicated to the research of cluster headache and to support people with cluster headache and their families. Based in greater Chicago with his wife and 4 children, Mr. Wold has talked to 1000s of cluster sufferers. In fact, over 25 years of his adult life was burdened with severe cluster headache that was resistant to all standard treatments. That all changed after he tried psilocybin, which has helped regain control over this illness for him... and now hundreds to perhaps thousands of other cluster headache patients all over the world. He and Clusterbusters are currently involved in persuing the approvals for the clinical research required to allow these much needed treatments to become available to everyone. Treatments that far exceed anything currently available through conventional medicine. Treatments that can eliminate the suicide option that far too many people still choose.