March 30-April 12, 2019

Invited speakers

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Biologist
NM Lee, Microbial Ecologist and Astrobiologist
Dr. Ede Frecska, Psychiatrist and Psychopharmacologist
Dale Millard, Naturalist
Merlin Sheldrake, Tropical Ecologist and Mycologist
Cosmo Sheldrake, Musician

Lectures by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

  • The rebirth of nature
  • Morphic resonance
  • Science and spiritual practices

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD is a biologist and author of more than 85 scientific papers and 12 books, including Science Set Free and Science and Spiritual Practices. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, a Frank Know Fellow at Harvard, and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. From 2005-2010 the Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, and of Schumacher College in Devon, England. His web site is www.sheldrake.org

Lectures by NM Lee

  • The mystery of life and transformation, from the smallest to the largest: From alchemistry to the modern global microbiome and beyond.
  • Arthropods and their connections to plants and the rest of the world: ignored, feared or awed – why and what then?
  • Exo- and astrobiology: the search for life and intelligence in the universe, the missing link and mankind ́s responsibility

NM Lee is a microbial ecologist and astrobiologist, with a PhD in environmental biotechnology and a multicultural background. She has conducted nearly 30 years academic research in these fields at different universities and locations, ranging from the dark subsurface and caves to different extreme ecosystems on the Earth ́s surface, out to the outer space, exploring e.g. meteorites and the impact of space radiation on life from Earth – viewing this all both from a single cell perspective as well as from a large complex symbiotic perspective, such as those between microbes, insects and plants and how this affect our global ecosystem and future survival. She is also interested in understanding the essence of life and the universe and how that relates to consciousness and mankind ́s role in the universe. Parallel to this she has studied different kinds of philosophical, psychological, metaphysical and spiritual topics. Her most recent effort to combine this all was presented at the International Transpersonal Conference in Prague in 2017

Lectures by Dr. Ede Frecska

  • Parmenides, the Two Ways of Truth and Nonlocality
  • The Therapeutic Potential of DMT in Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury
  • Toxic Parenthood, the Menace of Western Civilization

Ede Frecska received his medical degree in 1977 from the Semmelweis University in Hungary. He then earned qualifications as certified psychologist from the Department of Psychology at Lorand Eotvos University in Budapest. Dr. Frecska completed his residency training in Psychiatry both in Hungary (1986), and in the United States (1992). He is a qualified psychopharmacologist (1987) of international merit with 17 years of clinical and research experience in the United States, where he reached the rank of Associate Professorship. another one in Frontiers in Neuroscience that DMT has neuroprotective effect in hypoxia.

During his academic years, Dr. Frecska’s studies were devoted to research on schizophrenia and affective illness. In his recent research he is engaged in studies on psychointegrator drugs, especially on the physiological effects of DMT in acute and chronic cellular stress like hypoxia. His theoretical work focuses on the interface between cognitive neuroscience and quantum brain dynamics. He is specifically interested in the mechanism of initiation ceremonies and healing rituals. He published more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters on these topics. Dr. Frecska is a member of several professional organizations (APA, ECNP, CINP), and has received grants and awards from a variety of sources (NARSAD, NIAA).

Ede Frecska is a co-author with Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz and Luis Eduardo Luna of Inner Paths to Outer Space and has chapters in Ervin Laszlo’s books (The New Science and Spirituality Reader and A New Map of Reality). A recent study lead by him, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, proves that ayahuasca increases creativity and another one in Frontiers in Neuroscience that DMT has neuroprotective effect in hypoxia.

Lectures by Dale Millard

  • Mother Mycelium Cracks Rocks: Medicinal and Culinary Mushrooms
  • Psychoactive Australian Acacias: An Overview
  • Evolutionary Trends in the Genus Nepenthes

Dale Millard is a naturalist and explorer with diverse interests and experience in fields ranging from herpetology to ethnobotany. He was curator of herpetology at the Swadini Reptile Research Institute for many years. His interest in the study of snake venoms for drug development, later led to his study of the chemistry and use of plant medicines. Dale has interviewed healers from many traditions, notably the Sangoma of Africa and more recently the Balians from Indonesia. His main interest of study relates to medicines that modulate immune function in chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and cancers. His work explores cost effective and alternative approaches to tropical diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and typhoid. He has also maintained a lifelong interest in Entheogens and continues to document their use in poorly explored regions of the world.

As an explorer he is regularly exposed to “new” medicines and healing modalities. Dale has a special interest in the cultivation of medicinal plants and medicinal mushrooms, and has taught numerous workshops relating to Permaculture and Plant Based Primary Healthcare. He has been involved in a number of documentaries and has authored a number of articles relating to plant medicine. He as advocate and campaigner for food safety and organic agriculture. He currently lives in Indonesia and works as an international ethnobotanical consultant.

Lectures by Merlin Sheldrake

  • Underground connections and the Wood Wide Web
  • Faraday wave patterns and the relationship between sound and form

A tropical ecologist and mycologist, Merlin Sheldrake studied Natural Sciences and History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University, with a focus on ethnobotany. His PhD. research concerned the ecology of mycorrhizal fungal networks in Panamanian rainforests, where he worked as a research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Merlin’s work featured in a recent piece in the New Yorker by Robert Macfarlane (‘Secrets of the Wood Wide Web’, August 2016). He is currently conducting research into the resonant properties of physical systems, with a focus on the organising effects of sound on matter. Merlin is an experienced accordionist and pianist, and maintains a keen interest in fermentation. He lives in London.

Cosmo Sheldrake

Cosmo Sheldrake is a 28 year old multi-instrumentalist musician, composer and producer. He released his first single ‘The Moss’ in 2014, followed by the ‘Pelicans We’ EP in 2015, and recently released his debut album ‘The Much Much How How and I’ in April 2017. Much of his work is to do with play, nonsense, ecology and the sonorous environment. Cosmo has also toured internationally. In 2015 he ran a community choir in Brighton. He has composed music for film and theatre. He has also worked as a facilitator and a teacher running music workshops for young people in England, Canada and the U.S.A. He recently released a series of “Wake up calls” pieces of music composed using recordings of endangered British birdsong. He is currently artist in residence at Edinburgh University’s Department of Evolutionary Biology.
https://cosmosheldrake.bandcamp.com/album/wake-up-calls
www.cosmosheldrake.com

Lectures by Luis Eduardo Luna

  • Animism and personhood in Amerindian cosmology
  • Animal and plant intelligence. The view of (some) evolutionary biologists
  • Ayahuasca and yajé, a comparative overview

Luis Eduardo Luna was born in Florencia, in the Colombian Amazon region (1947). He studied Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, earned an interdisciplinary Masters degree while teaching Spanish and Latin American Literature at the Department of Romance Languages of Oslo University. He is a former Senior Lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland, from where he retired in 2011, and a former Professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil (1994-1998). He received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Comparative Religion at Stockholm University (1989), and an honorary doctorate from St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York (2000).

Luna is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. He is the author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism Among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon (1986), and with Pablo Amaringo of Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (1991). He is co-editor with Steven F. White of Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine (2000, with a revised new edition in 2016), and co-author with Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz and Ede Frecska of Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys Through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies. In 1986 he co-founded with Pablo Amaringo the Usko-Ayar Amazonian School of Painting of Pucallpa, Peru, serving as its Director of International Exhibitions until 1994. He has lectured about Amazonian shamanism and modified states of consciousness worldwide, and has curated exhibitions of visionary art in several countries. Luis Eduardo Luna is the Director of Wasiwaska.