Confirmed Presenters

Morgan Brent, Ph.D.

Morgan Brent received an MA in anthropology from SFSU with research in Taiwan on traditional Chinese sexual vitality concepts and practices. In the early 1990s he made his way through the San Francisco dance underground in many roles, among them a teacher of tai chi chuan and ceremonial energetix. In 1995 he decided to take a growing interest in vision-inducing plants and fungi to a doctoral program in ethnopharmacology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. There his research focused on the great herbalist traditions of the world, their role in spiritual revitalization movements, and their common message to humanity. He finished his PhD work in the emerging field of spiritual ecology (2001). Currently, he spends part of the year teaching at Chaminade University of Honolulu, part working with the "plantas maestras" or teacher-plant tradition of Amazonian Peru, and all of the year as a servant of the Vibe. A sample of his published work is available on line.

Lecture: The Sylvan Cosmopolitan
Workshop: The Psycho-Spiritual practicalities of trypping

Etzel Cardeña, Ph.D.
Currently Chair of the Dept. of Psychology and Anthropology, University of Texas-Pan American, Etzel is the president of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) and Past President of Division 30 of the American Psychological Association (APA). He has received various awards from SCEH, Division 30, and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation. His almost 100 publications include the book Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, and various studies on hypnosis, responses to trauma, and performance.

Lecture: The Varieties of Anomalous Experiences
Workshop: Hypnosis and Positive Psychology

Dr. Concrescence
Dr. Concrescence has no degree just amateur status as a doctor of the poor in the following areas: Clinical Neurofeedback, Entheogenic Exploration, Critical Theory, Psychedelic Thought, Sensory Deprivation, Psychoacoustic Vibration and Trance Politics. He is also a practicing Hoodoo Priest and a Dad.

Lecture: Disassociation and Integration: The Techgnostic Pursuit of ‘True Hallucinations’
Workshop: QUEST (Quite Unexpected Experience State Training)
Panel: Spirituality, Technology, and Altered States

Erik Davis
Erik Davis is the author of Techgnosis: Myth, Magic & Mystery in the Age of Information. As a freelance journalist, his articles and interviews have appeared in WIRED, The Village Voice, Gnosis, and other publications. He currently pens "The Posthuman Condition" column for Feed magazine, and he is a contributing editor to Trip Magazine. He has lectured internationally on the topics of technoculture, visionary drugs, and the fringes of religion. See www.techgnosis.com.

Panel: Spirituality, Technology, and Altered States

Frank Echenhofer, Ph.D.
Frank Echenhofer is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at CIIS in San Francisco where he teaches Transpersonal and Experiential Psychotherapy. For the last 30 years his areas of research and personal inquiry are in exploring the practices and models used for spiritual development in the Wisdom Traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, Mystical Christianity, and Shamanism. His approach has been to attempt to unite the systematic EEG quantitative and qualitative phenomenological methods of Western science with the Wisdom traditions. This integrated apprach is called Psycho-Spiritual Inquiry.

Lecture: Implications of the similarities and differences between the EEG and Phenomenology of Tantric Tibetan Buddhist Mediation and the Ayahausca Shamanic Journey experience
Workshop: An Introduction to the common navigation skills among the Tantric Tibetan Buddhist, Shamanic, Diamond Logos Teachings, and Western Body-Oriented Psychotherapy Traditions

Earth Erowid
Earth co-created The Vaults of Erowid in 1996. This non-commercial web site collects data and publishes original research on the topic of visionary plants and drugs. The site receives over 250,000 unique visitors per month and has over 16,000 public documents and over 3000 images. Earth has written and edited hundreds of documents published on-line and his writing has also appeared in print publications such as The Resonance Project and The Entheogen Review, and he is a contributing editor to Trip magazine.

Panel: Entheogenic Explorations, Q&A with Ann Shulgin, Fire and Earth Erowid

Fire Erowid
Fire co-created The Vaults of Erowid in 1996 (see description above). She has been the primary designer and chief editor of the 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. Her well-referenced article "70 Common Drug Myths," which appeared in The Resonance Project, exemplifies the dedication to straightforward, factual information that has become the hallmark of the Erowid web site. Fire is also a contributing editor to Trip magazine.

Panel: Entheogenic Explorations, Q&A with Ann Shulgin, Fire and Earth Erowid

Ruth Inge-Heinze, Ph.D.
With a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion and Psychological Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, Ruth-Inge Heinze has devoted her life to spirituality and healing. She is teaching and conducting research in Asia, Europe, and the United States since 1960. Her work is reflected in six books, e.g., The Role of Buddhism in Modern Thailand (1974); Tham Khwan: How to Contain the Essence of Life (1982); Shamans of the 20th Century (1991); Trance and Healing in Southeast Asia Today (1988/1997); The Nature and Function of Rituals (2000); The Search for Visions (2001), and over a hundred of essays in professional journals.

Ruth Inge-Heinze is a long-term meditator and has been president of a meditation society in the Bay Area. She also holds licenses in Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, Reiki I and II. Aside from her regular presentations at national and international conferences, she is also the founder and moderator of the Annual International Conference on the Study of Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing since 1984. Currently she is involved with a monthly Dream Group and designs the lectures for the Universal Dialog series and two other organizations. She is, furthermore, the founder and national director of Independent Scholars of Asia, Inc.

Lecture: The Nature And Functions Of Different States Of Consciousness
Workshop: The Nature And Funcitons Of Different States Of Consciousness

Robert Jesse
Bob Jesse is president of the Council on Spiritual Practices, which sponsors scientific research and encourages dialog about approaches to primary religious experience and conditions that help channel such experiences into favorable long-term outcomes. Bob is also a founding member of a local community of spirit, and for the past twelve years he has observed at close hand the spiritual aspects of electronic dance culture.

Lecture: Communities of Spirit

Jon Klimo, Ph.D.
A professor for 29 years, Jon is currently core psychology faculty at Argosy University, and previously a program-director at Rutgers. Author of the definitive book on channeling, his research, publishing, teaching, and presentations have been in creativity, parapsychology, consciousness studies, new paradigm science, Ufology, and the transpersonal. Current projects include: working with people with non-ordinary experiences; scientific information from paranormal sources; reality creation; extraterrestriology, and a five-year grant to study survival of physical death.

Lecture: Working with the Politics of Consciousness

Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.
A professor of psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, Stanley is formerly president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and the Parapsychological Association. He co-authored Dream Telepath, edited Dreamtime and Dreamwork, and co-edited Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence.

Lecture: Conflicting Perspectives on Shamans and Shamanism
Workshop: Using Dreams to Discover Your Personal Mythology

Luis Eduardo Luna, Ph.D.
Luis Eduardo Luna, Ph.D. received his Ph.D. in 1989 from the Institute of Comparative Religion at Stockholm University, and an honorary degree from St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, in 2002. A Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnean 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). He was Professor of Anthropology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil (1994-1998) and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland. He is the director of Wasiwaska, Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art and Consciousness, based in Florianópolis, Brazil.

Lecture: Symbol and Metaphor in Ayahuasca Experiences in a Non-Religious, Non-Shamanic Ritual Setting
Workshop: The varieties of ayahuasca experience: A multicultural journey

Maria Mangini, Ph.D. FNP, CNM
Mariavittoria Mangini recently completed a study of the long-range impact of psychedelic drug use on middle-aged users, and is the author of a major review of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. Her current research interests center on the medical uses of cannabis.

Lecture: Yes, Mom Took Acid

Justine E. Owens, Ph.D.
Justine completed doctoral and post-doctoral studies at Stanford University in the areas of human memory and lucid dreaming. She studied over 500 cases of Near Death Experience and published this work in the Lancet. She then became the Research Director of the Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies at UVA. Justine has extensively studied the personality trait of “Absorption” and is currently researching human energy fields at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center.

Lecture: Individual Differences in Altered States of Consciousness
Workshop: Biosonic Voice Analysis and Aura-Soma Color Therapy

Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway Books, 2002). A founding editor of Open City Magazine, he has written for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, and many other publications.

Lecture: Cosmic Thought, Cosmic Memory, Cosmic Dream
Workshop: Post-Illumination, Pre-Enlightenment

Beverly Rubik, Ph.D.
[CANCELLED] A biophysicist (Ph.D., 1979, University of California at Berkeley), Beverly is a leading scientist internationally renowned for exploring the frontiers of science and medicine. A former academic at San Francisco State University (1979-1988) and Temple University (1988-1995), in 1996 Dr. Rubik founded a nonprofit corporation, the Institute for Frontier Science in Oakland, CA, to conduct research on subtle energies and energy medicine. She is author of over 50 papers and the book, Life at the Edge of Science, and editor of another book, The Interrelationship Between Mind and Matter. She serves on the editorial board of several scholarly journals of alternative and complementary medicine, including the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. She was a member of the Advisory Council at the U.S. National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine (1992-1999), and chaired the NIH panel on bioelectromagnetic medicine. Presently she is PI of a project on biofield therapies funded by the NIH, at the Institute for Frontier Science in consortium with the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science at University of Arizona, Tucson. Her research project includes a clinical trial on the influence of biofield therapies on chronic pain patients as well as a basic science study on human energy emission. Dr. Rubik is also a popular speaker to various organizations and conferences worldwide.

Lecture: The Human Aura in Altered States

Ann Shulgin
Ann is a researcher and writer who—for a time, while they were still legal—worked with psychedelics such as MDMA and 2C-B as a lay-therapist. Her unique insight into the beneficial effects that psychedelics can have is invaluable. With her husband Sasha, she has co-authored the books Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved: A Chemical Love Story (PIHKAL) and the long-anticipated sequel, Tryptamines I Have known and Loved: The Continuation (TIHKAL), and is currently working on a forthcoming book that dabbles in cactus quinoline alkaloids, tentatively titled Book 3.

Panel: Entheogenic Explorations, Q&A with Ann Shulgin, Fire and Earth Erowid

Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D.
Co-president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, Stuart is a trustee for the California Institute of Integral Studies since 1991, director of the first-ever "spiritual emergence" service since 1984, Co-convener with Robert A.F. Thurman of the 2001 Infinity Foundation Roundtable on Indian Thought. He has presented at the Tucson Science of Consciousness Conference, convened the first International Conference on Prison Meditation in 2001, and received the first Federal grant to bring Yoga to incarcerated youth in 1976. He authored the entry on "The History of Hinduism in America" in the Columbia University Desk Reference on Eastern Religions, Words From the Soul: Time, E/W Spirituality and Psychotherapeutic Narrative (SUNY), and Eros, Consciousness and Kundalini (Inner Traditions, reissued by MBL in India) and journal articles on gender, mystery, the enneagram, suicidal linguistics and Buddhist impermanence. A graduate of Princeton University and CIIS, he has 30 years experience as a psychotherapist and with the practice of Shakti-pat Kundalini and Bhakti Yogas, including one CD, Mystery School (Synapse, 1999) as lead vocalist in the anahata-nad chanting style based in these Yogas.

Breakout Session: Lunch with Dr. Stuart Sovatsky: Kundalini Up Close and Personal

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.
Charles Tart is internationally known for research on transpersonal psychology and parapsychology. His 13 books include two classics, "Altered States of Consciousness" and "Transpersonal Psychologies." His latest book, "Mind Science: Meditation Training for Practical People" shows it is possible to be both a rigorous scientist and a spiritual seeker.

Lecture: (Unenlightened?) Reflections on Enlightenment and Spiritual Growth

Robert L. Van de Castle, Ph.D.
Bob is a clinical psychologist who studied ESP performance among the Cuna Indians of Panama. A former president of the Parapsychology Association (1970) and the Association for the Study of Dreams (1985), he co-authored the Content Analysis of Dreams with Calvin Hall and authored Our Dreaming Mind (1994). . His exceptional success as a telepathic dreamer at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn earned him the honorary title of “The Prince of the Percipients”. Bob is Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center.

Lecture: A Survey of Responses to the Presence of Angelic Figures in Dreams
Workshop: Using the Dream Helper Ceremony for Individual and Group Healing