November 9-22, 2023
Invited speakers
Monica Gagliano, Evolutionist Ecologist
Jeremy Narby, Anthropologist
Jorge Ferrer, Clinical Psychologist, Author
Dale Millard, Naturalist
Sarima Rodríguez, Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator
Christine Hauskeller, Professor of Philosophy
Luis Eduardo Luna, Anthropologist
Monica Gagliano
Biography
Monica Gagliano is a Research Associate Professor in Evolutionary Ecology, an adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, a Research Affiliate at the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney and a former Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council.
She is the author of numerous scientific articles in the fields of animal and plant behavioral and evolutionary ecology and is coeditor of The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (Lexington, 2015) and The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature (Minnesota University Press, 2017).
Her research is radically transforming our perception of plants and more generally, Nature. She has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics by demonstrating for the first time that plants emit their own ‘voices’ as well as detect and respond to the sounds surrounding them. She has extended the concept of cognition to plants by demonstrating experimentally that plants can learn just like animals do, re-igniting the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical standing.
Her progressive and holistic approach to science interfaces with areas as diverse as ecology, physics, law, anthropology, philosophy, literature, music and art, and spirituality. By re-kindling a sense of awe for this beautiful place we call home, she is creating that fresh imaginative space that inspires truly innovative solutions to arise. For more information, visit www.monicagagliano.com.
Lectures by Monica Gagliano
Lectures and Interviews with Monica on Youtube
Jeremy Narby
Biography
Jeremy Narby grew up in Canada and Switzerland, studied history at the University of Canterbury, and received his doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University. He is the author of The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (1995), Intelligence in Nature (2005), and Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco and the Pursuit of Knowledge (2021), co-authored with Rafael Chanchari Pizuri. He is co-editor with Francis Huxley of Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge (2001). Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has been researching the subject of psychoactive cannabis across disciplines for the last 2 years and is in the process of writing a book about the subject.
Lectures by Jeremy Narby
Lectures and Interviews with Jeremy on Youtube
Jorge N. Ferrer
Biography
Jorge N. Ferrer is a clinical psychologist, author, and educator. He was a professor of psychology for more than 20 years at California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, where he also served as chair of the Department of East-West Psychology and launched a concentration on Shamanic Studies. He currently teaches in several psychotherapy training programs in Spain and internationally, as well as couches top-rank world executives through Mobius Executive Leadership.
Ferrer is the author of dozens of articles and several books on psychology, education, and religious studies, including Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality (State University of New York Press, 2002), Participation and the Mystery: Transpersonal Essays in Psychology, Education, and Religion (State University of New York Press, 2017), Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), and his co-edited anthology, The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies (State University of New York Press, 2008).
Ferrer is considered one of the main architects of second-wave transpersonalism and his participatory approach to spiritual knowing and religious pluralism is widely discussed in academic journals and conferences. He is also the creator of Embodied Spiritual Inquiry, a second-person contemplative inquiry method and holistic educational approach featured in many journals and anthologies, including Y. Nakagawa and Y. Matsuda’s Transformative Inquiry: An Integral Approach (Kyoto, Japan: Institute of Human Sciences, 2010), based on Ferrer’s teaching at Ritsumekian University, Kyoto.
In his international private practice, he offers professional psychospiritual counseling to individuals as well as couple counseling focused on the design of more satisfying intimate relationships. Ferrer received the Fetzer Institute’s Presidential Award for his seminal work on consciousness studies, was a member of the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research, and an advisor to the Religions for Peace organization at the United Nations. Ferrer is a wachumero (San Pedrista) in the Peruvian lineage of Rubén Orellana and Victoria Hughes and has studied entheogenic shamanism for more than two decades. He was born in Barcelona, Spain. Learn more at www.jorgenferrer.com.
Lectures by Jorge N. Ferrer
Lectures and Interviews with Jorge on Youtube
Dale Millard
Biography
Dale Millard is Dale Millard is a naturalist and biodiversity explorer, with diverse interests and experience in fields ranging from herpetology to ethnobotany.
His interest in the study of snake venoms for drug development later led to study of the chemistry and use of plant medicines. Dale has lived and travelled in Indonesia, Brazil and African countries and has worked with traditional healers in these areas, documenting their use of medicinal plants.
He has maintained a lifelong interest in the healing role of entheogens and continues to document their use in poorly explored regions of the world.
Dale has a special interest in the cultivation of medicinal plants and mushrooms and has taught numerous workshops relating to agro forestry and plant based primary healthcare. He is a contributing author of the books Ethnobotanical search for Psychoactive Drugs. ESPD 50 and ESPD55 published through Synergetic Press.
He currently works as an ethnobotanist and advisor for Neuromindbiopharma, a biotech company doing research into novel psychoactive and plant compounds to develop new medicines.
Lectures by Dale Millard
Sarima Rodríguez
Biography
Sarima Rodríguez has a Master in Language and Communication, accredited in techniques of corporal expression, dance and theater. She was certified in Holotropic Breathwork by Grof Transpersonal Training USA, leading groups in Spain since 2002. She was trained in the SAT Program of Claudio Naranjo 2004-2007, and is Certified in the Hoffman Process. Sarima is a retired school teacher, living in Banholas, Catalunya.
Holotropic Breathwork is a method developed by Stan and Christina Grof. Its basic elements are deeper and accelerated breathing, evocative music, and facilitation of energy release through a specific form of bodywork. With the eyes closed and lying on a mat, each person uses their own breath and the music in the room to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness. This state activates the natural inner healing process of the individual’s psyche, bringing him or her a particular set of internal experiences. With the inner healing intelligence guiding the process, the quality and content brought forth is unique to each person and for that particular time and place. While recurring themes are common, no two sessions are ever-alike.
Christine Hauskeller
Biography
Christine Hauskeller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK. She holds an M.A. in Philosophy, Sociology and Psychoanalysis (University Frankfurt on Main) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Christine is an expert in the philosophy of science, especially medicine, ethics and applied ethics. Research interests focus on constellations of knowledge and power, of epistemology and normativity. After two decades working on life sciences, she now works on emerging psychedelic medicine, animism and concepts of nature, as well as decolonising approaches in psychedelic studies using methods and concepts from Critical Theory and Feminism. Christine co-founded the Exeter transdisciplinary research group on philosophy and psychedelics. Among her recent publications are the books The Matrix of Stem Cell Research (Routledge 2020) and Philosophy and Psychedelics. Frameworks of exceptional Experience (Bloomsbury 2022) and the article ‘Decolonization is a metaphor towards a different ethic. The case from psychedelic studies’. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. Open access @ https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2122788.
Lectures by Christine Hauskeller
The philosophical question is whether the environment affects the ethical salience of experiences of nature- and interconnectedness. Can lasting ethical change, i.e. personal attitude, perspective and action arise just as well from encounters with imagined as with living environments?
Psychedelic art and iconographies portray both unusual and typical images of nature, be it plants, forests, animals, often animated lives objects entangled and grown into one another. Reporting of intense experiences within and of nature abound in trip reports, too. This leads psychologists to believe that psychedelics can enhance meaningful nature-connectedness (e.g. Kettner et al. 2019).
Assuming that the distancing from and disenchantment of nature are related to alienation and mental suffering, being in nature is increasingly part of therapeutic protocols. Similarly nature-connectedness via psychedelics is couched as a curative element in psychedelic medicine. I want to discuss – in the botanical garden – the role of actual nature encounters in fostering sensual and cognitive openness. In current clinical research settings participants attention is deliberately guided at inner processes and visualization. If the aim is expanding consciousness, then centering participant’s memories or phantasy on their expectations of what a psychedelic nature experiences might be, rather than actually having such experiences.
There might be good reasons to direct a patient-participants attention inwards to achieve the therapeutic goal. I argue that if ethical and aesthetic connectedness to nature is an aim or desirable out come of psychedelic experiences, then real living environments need to be encountered. What is required for experiences of connectedness that elicited ethical changes?