Chief Scientist, BIOTA Institute and Associate Researcher, UC Santa Cruz Department of BiomolecularEngineering, photo by Kathryn Lukas     To achieve breakthroughs in his work in science and technology Dr. Bruce Damer has long practiced astyle of visionary...

Huachuma in the Wild: building sustainable futures for the San Pedro Cactus   Often called “the heart medicine,” the mescaline-containing San Pedro cactus is a bright green thread that weaves through millennia of Andean spirituality, shaping the indigenous...

The Evolution of Our Intimacy: An Iboga Medicine Love StoryAuthor Elizabeth Bast was originally brought to the iboga medicine to help treat the opiate relapse of her lover and then her own PTSD, but the medicine gave the couple much more than they anticipated. Bast...

Waking Up the Sacred Warrior: Viral Culture, Social Illness, and Disrupting the Structure that Lives Inside. Samantha Retrosi, a PhD student investigating the sociology of culture, structural inequality, gender politics, and political economy at George Mason...

Yessia Muse is the first certified Kambo practitioner in the state of Oregon. She received her certification through the International Association of Kambo Practitioners. This medicine has been gifted through the Matses Tribe to Karen Uma, who is both the founder of...

“Opening Your Beautiful Heart: The Work of Integration and the Perils of Spiritual Bypassing” Bruce Sanguin is a psychotherapist living on Denman Island, B.C. where he practices. Before taking early retirement he was a minister in a progressive church for 28 years and...

As husband-and-wife founders of the Oregon Psilocybin Society (OPS) and authors of the Psilocybin Service Initiative (PSI), Tom and Sheri Eckert have set in motion a historic campaign to legalize Psilocybin Services, also known as Psilocybin Assisted Therapy, in their...

Thomas Hatsis is an historian of witchcraft, magic, Western religions, contemporary psychedelia, entheogens, and medieval pharmacopeia. He recently published The Witches Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic the first study to address how medieval witches...

Salvia Divinorum: The New Teacher Christopher Solomon has been cultivating a relationship with Salvia Divinorum for over a decade. After an unexpectedly profound and healing Salvia experience, Christopher discovered the multi-faceted and misunderstood character of...

Lunch Hour ‘Mini-workshop’: Healing Chronic Illness with Amazonian Medicines.Rama (HeartOfKambo.com) is the first and only advanced IAKP Kambo practitioner in Canada. She's an Intuitive healer supporting healing from chronic illness as well as plant medicine...

Thomas Hatsis is an historian of witchcraft, magic, Western religions, contemporary psychedelia, entheogens, and medieval pharmacopeia. He recently published The Witches Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic the first study to address how medieval witches...

Mary Porter is a descendant of the Nez Perce; Yakama, Wasco tribes, and is the co-founder of Looking Glass Peyote Church of Oregon. Mary is a Chaplin and former Sergeant at Arms for Northwest Veterans Motorcycle Association. Recognized by the Peyote People in Texas as...

Sonja Myllymaki has been learning and practicing shamanic plant medicine for the past ten years, primarily within several Shipibo-Conibo vegetalismo lineages, but also working ceremonially with a number of different plant medicine traditions from Mexico and Peru. She...

Mark Blumenthal is the Founder and Executive Director of the American Botanical Council (ABC), an independent, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to science-based education for the responsible use of herbal medicine and beneficial plants. He is...

Dr. Natalie is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor, Herbalist, and Core Faculty member in the Integrative Health Studies Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a graduate of the Certificate for Psychedelic Therapy and Research program at CIIS...

Nese Devenot is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Puget Sound, where she teaches classes on psychedelics and literature and is also working on her book project, "Chemical Poetics: The Literary History of Psychedelic...

Dawn D. Davis, M.A., is a tribal person belonging to the membership of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona where she completed her research on potential sustainability practices of peyote within...

Cristina Orbé is a non-profit founder, artist, educator, and seeker. In 2008, she co-founded FEEST, a nationally (USA) recognized youth food justice organization, that continues today without her leadership. Over the past 15 years, she has released several albums and...

Joe Tafur, M.D., is a Colombian-American family physician originally from Phoenix, Arizona. After completing his family medicine training at UCLA, Dr. Tafur spent two years in academic research at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry in a lab focused on mind-body...

Kateri Walker is a tribal member of the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation, Ontario, Canada, and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied theatre because she wanted to be...

Terry Sidhu, International Life Coach and CEO of VanCity Life Coach Inc., launched his coaching practice with a mission to help evolve of the human experience; A Dharma he inherited from his mother, who taught him how to access the value of life through meditation....

Trevor Millar is a social-entrepreneur and owner of Liberty Root Therapy Ltd., serving those called to experience the healing properties of African plant medicine Tabernanthe Iboga and its derivatives.  Iboga is a powerful psychedelic and an exceptional addiction...

Soheil Samimi’s professional background is in business and technology, having been a pioneer and a founder of innovative start-ups in the field of automated media solutions. At a deep personal level, his long-standing interest and quest in the realms of sacramental...

Chief Scientist, BIOTA Institute and Associate Researcher, UC Santa Cruz Department of BiomolecularEngineering, photo by Kathryn Lukas     To achieve breakthroughs in his work in science and technology Dr. Bruce Damer has long practiced astyle of visionary...

Thomas Hatsis is an historian of witchcraft, magic, Western religions, contemporary psychedelia, entheogens, and medieval pharmacopeia. He recently published The Witches Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic the first study to address how medieval witches...

 Kathleen Harrison is an ethnobotanist, artist, and photographer who researches the relationship between plants and people, with a particular focus on art, myth, ritual, and spirituality. Harrison currently teaches field courses for the University of Minnesota...

Chris Kilham~"The Shaman’s Pharmacy - Indigenous Psychedelic Pharmacology" Chris Kilham, known globally as The Medicine Hunter, conducts research on beneficial plants around the world. He is the author of fifteen books,including The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook, The...

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. is a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He collaborated with Leary and Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics at Harvard University in the 1960s, co-authored...

Martin A. Lee is the cofounder and director of Project CBD, an educational service that reports on cannabis science, therapeutics and political economy. A widely published writer, Lee is the author of Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical,...

Dr. Erica Wohldmann holds a joint Ph.D. in Psychology and Cognitive Science from the CU, Boulder, and is a Professor at CSU, Northridge where she teaches classes about ecopsychology, food choices, sustainability, and cognition and neuroscience. Her research has been...

The Psychedelic Renaissance: Learning from History The Psychedelic Renaissance: Learning from History Mark Haden is a major figure in the field of psychedelic medicines, with a long list of past and present activities and responsibilities in this field. Among—and...

Dr. Standish is a neuroscientist and physician living and working in Seattle WA. She holds faculty appointments at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Radiology Department as well as at Bastyr University. As a physician she specializes in...

Robyn Griggs Lawrence is sharing the tremendous health and wellness benefits of cannabis with the world. She envisions a world in which cannabis grows freely and organically everywhere and no one is ever persecuted or imprisoned for possessing this sacred plant....

Cvita Mamic is a healer, artist and co-founder of Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual Ayahuasca Healing Center in Peru. Her journey with plant medicine began in 2010 while searching for personal healing. For the past 6 years she has been apprenticing under Maestro Shipibo...

Galen R. Brandt is a writer, cross-cultural storyteller, performer, songwriter and singer. She pioneered the exploration and use of ground-breaking, interactive digital technologies as artistic medium and alternative healing modality in live performance, arts,...

Anand David Embry (B. of Music in flute and Certified Clinical Musician) studied vocal awareness with Chloe Goodchild of ‘The Naked Voice’ and is a NV facilitator. For over 30 years he's investigated our relationship with sound, listening and music influenced by the...

Chief Scientist, BIOTA Institute and Associate Researcher, UC Santa Cruz Department of BiomolecularEngineering, photo by Kathryn Lukas     To achieve breakthroughs in his work in science and technology Dr. Bruce Damer has long practiced astyle of visionary...

 Kathleen Harrison is an ethnobotanist, artist, and photographer who researches the relationship between plants and people, with a particular focus on art, myth, ritual, and spirituality. Harrison currently teaches field courses for the University of Minnesota...

The Psychedelic Renaissance: Learning from History The Psychedelic Renaissance: Learning from History Mark Haden is a major figure in the field of psychedelic medicines, with a long list of past and present activities and responsibilities in this field. Among—and...

5 Psychedelic Family Values 5 Psychedelic Family Values Jonathan is the Founder of PyschedelicParenting.org, a resource for building community and family traditions around traditional plant sacraments in the Global North; he is also the father of 3, committed husband,...

Roots to Treasure – Integrating Deep Healing with Plant Spirits Roots to Treasure – Integrating Deep Healing with Plant Spirits Rites of passage and soul initiation have been deeply interwoven with spirit plant healing for millennia, and the complete cycle of...

Nondual Energetic Therapy with Entheogens Nondual Energetic Therapy with Entheogens Martin W. Ball, received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from UCSB in 2000, and is the author of over fourteen books (both fiction and non-fiction) on entheogens, nonduality, and the...

Rekindling Our Relationship with Traditional European Spirit Plants. Rekindling Our Relationship with Traditional European Spirit Plants. Annie Oak  is the founder of the Women's Visionary Congress (WVC) http://visionarycongress.org the first U.S. non-profit...

Tales of a Reincarnated Delphic Oracle: Tales of a Reincarnated Delphic Oracle: How the Plants Have Informed My Life & Given Vision to My Work In this daringly revealing talk, scholar Marguerite Rigoglioso, Ph.D., talks about the genesis of her own use of plant...

Psilocybin Tool Of Consciousness Exploration Psilocybin Tool Of Consciousness Exploration This talk will explore psilocybin as an exploratory tool? Psilocybin at high dosage is the supreme ally to submerge the human consciousness into itself and tweak the genes...

Roots to Treasure - Integrating Deep Healing with Plant Spirits Roots to Treasure - Integrating Deep Healing with Plant Spirits Rites of passage and soul initiation have been deeply interwoven with spirit plant healing for millennia, and the complete cycle...

Using Entheogens with Integrity: Problems, Pitfalls, & Possibilities - Panel Discussion Using Entheogens with Integrity: Problems, Pitfalls, & Possibilities - Panel Discussion Don Blaikie has been about as steeped and processed as anyone in the Earth and...

Andean Wisdom Teachings of a Traditional San Pedro/Huachuma Master: A Sharing of Tradition through the practice of Saminchay, Ayni and Suma Causay Andean Wisdom Teachings of a Traditional San Pedro/Huachuma Master: A Sharing of Tradition through the practice of...

Manifesting the Mind: Inside the Psychedelic Experience Manifesting the Mind: Inside the Psychedelic Experience Gabor Maté is a medical doctor recently retired from active practice. He was a family physician for two decades and for seven years he served as Medical...

Zach Walsh, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where he directs the Therapeutic Recreational and Problematic Substance Use lab. He has published and presented widely on topics related to...

Chris Bennett has been researching the history of cannabis for 25 years, with a particular focus on its role in magic and religion. He has authored and co-authored 3 books on the subject, Green Gold the Tree of Life Marijuana in Magic and religion (1995); Sex, Drugs,...

Aletheia is an ecumenically minded, classically trained Spiritual Director and Vajrayana Tantrika whose work has been deeply informed by and incorporates the wise use of spirit plant medicines and other sacraments. A recurrent theme in her work has been engaging with...

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...

Gerald Thomas is an Associate with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse in Ottawa and a Collaborating Scientist with the Centre for Addictions Research of BC. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Colorado State University in 1998 and has worked in the...

Evgenia Fotiou is Assistant Professor of anthropology at Kent State University. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology and Latin American studies from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she completed doctoral research on ayahuasca use in the context of...

Don Blaikie has been about as steeped and processed as anyone in the Earth and Spirit wisdom worldview of Native North American understanding.  He has been working with indigenous ways since 1974 and became involved with the peyote road of the Native American Church...

Gillian Maxwell is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada.  She is an experienced coach and facilitator, public speaker, and knowledge exchange broker and has been dedicated to the reform of drug policies nationally and internationally since 1999.  She is a board member of...

Kenneth Tupper is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, where his research interests focus on the cross-cultural and historical uses of psychoactive substances; public, professional and school-based...

Mark Haden has provided public education on drugs and drug policy for over thirty years. He works with the Health Officers Council of British Columbia on their position papers on the issue of a regulated market for all currently illegal drugs. He has published on the...

Oliver Hockenhull works in film, video, hyper media installations, writing, and design. He has taught at Northwestern University in Chicago and presented at Universities in Canada, the US, and Europe. Most recently (2013/2014) he completed a double versioned feature...

Paul Kroeger has studied mushrooms for over thirty-five years and is a founding member and current president of Vancouver Mycological Society. He is considered a leading expert in field identification of mushrooms of western Canada. Paul has made a special study of...

Stephen Gray has been a lifelong student, teacher and researcher of spiritual paths, in particular Tibetan Buddhism and the peyote ceremonies of the Native American Church. He has studied and practiced several other modalities in the healing and awakening fields and...

Philippe Lucas has a Masters degree in Studies in Policy and Practice from the University of Victoria and is a PhD student in the University of Victoria’s Social Dimensions of Health program. He is a Graduate Researcher with the Center for Addictions Research of...

Soheil Samimi’s professional background is in business and technology, having been a pioneer and a founder of innovative start-ups in the field of automated media solutions. At a deep personal level, his long-standing interest and quest in the realms of sacramental...

Rielle Capler, MHA. After obtaining her masters degree in health administration, Rielle worked at Canada’s first medical cannabis dispensary from 1999 to 2007 where she gained first-hand experience with patients using cannabis to address diverse medical conditions and...

Yalila Espinoza is a spiritual health practitioner and intimacy coach who integrates art, music, dream-work, ancestral ritual and sacred plant teachings. She received a PhD and Spiritual Counseling training from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San...

Andrew Feldmár is a psychologist who has worked as a psychotherapist in private practice, in Vancouver, for 45 years now. He first experimented with altered states of consciousness in 1967. He has been trained and supervised in LSD therapy by R. D. Laing in London,...

Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policies, shamanism, ritual, and religion....

James W. Jesso is a Calgary, Alberta based author, conference speaker, workshop leader, and event coordinator who used psilocybin mushrooms to heal himself from mental illness resulting from substance abuse. His insightful and engaging book Decomposing The Shadow:...

Martin W. Ball, Ph.D., is a writer, independent publisher, energy worker, visionary artist, and musician currently living in Ashland Oregon  In the spring of 2009 Martin underwent a profound energetic opening and transformation – the result of intensive work with...

An Entheological Guide to the Nature of Reality Natasha English is a Nondual / Transpersonal Therapist . In her practice she employs a pragmatic process of psychosynthesis and entheogenic medicine. This combination assists her clients to attune and harmonize to their...

Richard has been a pioneer in transpersonal psychology since 1972 when he began his psychedelic research career at Maryland Psychiatric Research Center working with Stanislav Grof in Baltimore as a Research Fellow. He went on to work in Mexico with Salvador Roquet and...

Robert Tindall, M.A. is a writer, classical guitarist, long-time practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and an inveterate traveler, whose work explores the crossing of frontiers into other cultures, time depths, and states of consciousness. He is the author of two books on...

Sean Hamman has a longstanding and intimate relationship with visionary, healing plant medicines. He has undoubtedly been called to this vocation, through dreams and visions that led him toward his current lifework as an Iboga ceremony leader with his working partner...

Presenting “MEDICINE” at SPMC TJ Dawe is a Vancouver based writer, performer and director. He’s participated in more than one hundred theatre festivals across North America. He has six published plays and a humor book. His play Toothpaste and Cigars recently debuted...

Susana Bustos, Ph.D., holds degrees in Clinical Psychology (1992) and in Music Therapy (2002) from Chilean universities, as well as a doctorate in East-West Psychology from CIIS (2007), where she presently teaches courses in Entheogenic Shamanism and Research Design....

Gabor Maté M.D. is a bestselling author whose books have been published in nearly twenty languages worldwide.  Dr. Maté is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics, from addiction and attention deficit disorder (ADD) to mind-body wellness, adolescent...

Don Blaikie has been about as steeped and processed as anyone in the Earth and Spirit wisdom worldview of Native North American understanding.  He has been working with indigenous ways since 1974 and became involved with the peyote road of the Native American Church...

Satyen Raja, Founder of WarriorSage and Ignite Passion Now.  He is a living synthesis of Eastern wisdom and Western practicality, combining the power of the warrior and the wisdom of the sage. He is a Kung-Fu Master and an Illumination Intensive Master. In fact,...

Dee Dussault is a teacher of yoga, tantra, and sacred sexuality. She is one of the only western yoga teachers to publicly advocate and teach ganja-enhanced yoga, meditation, and sexual-awakening classes. A yogini for over fifteen years, Dee began to use cannabis five...

Jonathan Dickinson is a traveller, writer, and organizer with a longstanding passion for ceremony, and the healing and inspirational qualities of visionary medicines. He has worked for the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and helped to establish their...

Kenneth Tupper is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, where his research interests focus on the cross-cultural and historical uses of psychoactive substances; public, professional and school-based...

Stephen Gray has been a lifelong student, teacher and researcher of spiritual paths, in particular Tibetan Buddhism and the peyote ceremonies of the Native American Church. He has studied and practiced several other modalities in the healing and awakening fields and...

Stephan V. Beyer, Ph.D., J.D. For more than forty years, Steve Beyer has been fascinated by the sorts of anomalous human experiences that have been ignored, marginalized, and pathologized by mainstream psychology — meditation, hallucinations, lucid dreams, shamanic...

Sitaramaya began working in the physical and spirit plant realms after a thirteen year period of abstinence from all alcohol and drugs and followed a dietary regime to support her work with the spiritual aspect of the plants. After her first Ayahuasca ceremony, she...

Kathleen Harrison is an ethnobotanist, artist, and photographer who researches the relationship between plants and people, with a particular focus on art, myth, ritual, and spirituality. Harrison currently teaches field courses for the University of Minnesota...

Author of The Psychedelic Explorer, talk title: “New Applications for Visionary Plant Wisdom” James Fadiman B.A. (Harvard) M.A., Ph.D. (Stanford) His dissertation was on the effectiveness of LSD-assisted therapy. He has held a variety of teaching consulting, training,...

Jennifer Rae, MSc, Botanist based in Saskatchewan, Canada. "What the Plant Kingdom is Telling Us" Jennifer Rae is a plant ecologist and a dancer. She is a botanist by day, working with Latin names, classifying plants and planning prairie restorations. At night, she...

AyasminA Flores is a professional interpreter, translator, legal advocate, and documentarian fluent in six languages, whose lifelong passion for people and travel is dovetailed with her longstanding interest in spirit medicine from around the world. Over the past many...