SacredPlants

The OPEN foundation is proud to present: ‘Mind Altering Science – An OPEN Conference on Psychedelic Research‘, at the University of Amsterdam, on the 23th and the 24th of October 2010. From the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with MDMA, and the use of ibogaine as a tool to combat addiction, to the globalization of ayahuasca religions; ‘Mind Altering Science’ will be the first conference on Dutch soil that offers a multidisciplinary perspective on recent developments in the exciting field of psychedelic research.

The two-day conference will include a variety of lectures, interactive dialogues and presentations of recent research data. Academics, therapists and medical professionals from various countries will discuss the use of psychedelics from their own disciplinary perspective. Everyone with an eagerness to lean more about psychedelic research is invited to attend this unique event, whether they are researchers, medical professionals or students.

Confirmed Speakers;

Torsten Passie MD (DE)
R. Andrew Sewell MD (US)
Peter Oehen MD (CH)
Amanda Feilding (UK)
Bia Labate PhD (BR)
Jordi Riba MD (ES)
Jose Carlos Bouso MD (ES)
Adele van der Plas (NL)
Katharina Kirchner MSc (CH)
Stephen Snelders PhD (NL)
David Luke PhD (UK)
Dr. Anwar Jeewa (SA)

Website and bookings: http://www.mindalteringscience.com/

Terence McKenna relates some of the curious history of European alchemy, and the attempted creation of a religious utopia based on alchemical principles. Dressed as the famed Hermetic magician John Dee, McKenna strolls wistfully through the crumbling ruins and sweeping castle vistas of Eastern Europe discussing the lost secrets of alchemy. He gives us a tour of the last remaining alchemical laboratory in Heidelberg, and tells a fascinating story of political intrigue and bohemian experimentation in the 16th century.

Terence McKenna in dialogue with some of the foremost thinkers of the Global Consciousness movement today. Footage was shot on location in Prague, Czechoslovakia during the International Transpersonal Conference in June 1992. Terence engages in mind expanding conversations with Ram Dass, Angeles Arrien, Kenneth Ring, Rupert Sheldrake, Jill Purce, David White and Alexander Shulgin.

Lecture by Christian Ratsch

Christian Ratsch is an author, an anthropologist and Germany’s leading expert on ethnopharmacology. He lived for three years with the Lacandon Indians in Chiapas, Mexico and did his doctoral thesis on their spells and incantations. Ratsch works in Hamburg, Germany, as a freelance author and lecturer and conducts research into the ethnopharmacology of psychoactive plants and animals. He has published a number of books on these topics, both in German and in English, and is the founder and co-editor of The Yearbook of Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness.

A feature length documentary which invites the viewer to rediscover an enchanted cosmos in the modern world by awakening to the divine within.

The film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstacy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and evolutionary awareness,electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds. Within a narrative framework that imagines consciousness itself to be evolving, Entheogen documents the emergence of techno-shamanism in the post-modern world that frames the following questions: How can a renewal of ancient initiatory rites of passage alleviate our ecological crisis? What do trance dancing and festivals celebrating unbridled artistic expression speak to in our collective psyche? How do we re-invent ourselves in a disenchanted world from which God has long ago withdrawn? Entheogen invites the viewer to consider that the answers to these questions lie within the consciousness of each and every human being, and are accessible if only we give ourselves permission to awaken to the divine within.