Presenters
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| John
Perry Barlow |
| John Perry Barlow is a former Wyoming rancher
and Grateful Dead lyricist. He graduated in 1969 with High
Honors in comparative religion from Wesleyan University in
Middletown, Connecticut. More recently, he co-founded and
still co-chairs the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was
the first to apply the term Cyberspace to the "place"
it presently describes. He has written for a diversity of
publications, including Communications of the ACM, Mondo 2000,
The New York Times, and Time. He has been on the masthead
of Wired Magazine since it was founded. His piece on the future
of copyright, "The Economy of Ideas" is taught in
many law schools and his "Declaration of the Independence
of Cyberspace" is posted on thousands of web sites. In
1997, he was a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and
has been, since 1998, as a Berkman Fellow at the Harvard Law
School.
He writes, speaks, and consults on a broad variety of subjects,
particularly digital economy. He lives in Wyoming, New York,
San Francisco, On the Road, and in Cyberspace. He has three
teenaged daughters and aspires to be a good ancestor. Finally,
he recognizes that there is a difference between information
and experience and he vastly prefers the latter.
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Ram Dass, Ph.D. |
Ram Dass received an M.A. from Wesleyan and a Ph.D. from
Stanford. He then served on the psychology faculties at Stanford
and the University of California, and from 1958 to 1963 taught
and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the
Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. In 1961,
while at Harvard, Ram Dass' explorations of human consciousness
led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner,
Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others, to pursue intensive
research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals.
Out of this research came two books: The Psychedelic Experience;
and LSD. Ram Dass continued his research under the auspices
of a private foundation until 1967. In that year he traveled
to India, where he met his Guru (spiritual teacher), Neem
Karoli Baba. Ram Dass studied yoga and meditation, and received
the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God."
Since 1968, he has pursued a variety of spiritual practices,
including guru kripa; devotional yoga focused on the Hindu
spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana
Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and
Jewish studies. |
| Presentation:
Gratuitous Grace |
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Erik Davis |
Erik Davis is a San Francisco-based writer and author of
TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information.
Davis is a contributing editor for Wired, and has appeared
in numerous magazines and book anthologies, including Zig
Zag Zen and Radical Spirit. Some of his work can be accessed
at www.techgnosis.com.
He is currently writing about the history of alternative spirituality
in California. |
Presentation: The
Posthuman Condition |
Workshop: The Spirit
of Chaos |
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Delvin |
Delvin holds a B.A. in magic, divination and emerging culture,
as well as a post-baccalaureate degree in transformational
education, future studies and shamanic traditions. Work along
the Way in plant-human relations, eco-theory, and bioremediation
has led him to his job as a teacher of whole systems and permaculture.
Publishing underground art and literature with Dew Press,
Delvin's current project is Galactik Trading Cards. As Open
I Productions he is an active community builder and facilitator
of a number of workshops, rituals, councils, circles and tribal
gatherings, he has been traveling down the west coast giving
workshops on visionary culture and post-civilization. |
Presentation:
Crystal and Spore : The Implications and Applications of Visionary
Experience in the Post-Civilization |
Workshop: Crystal
and Spore : Applied Visionary Culture Design Lab |
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| Leslie Gray, Ph.D. |
| Leslie Gray is a Native American psychologist
who has maintained a long-standing psychotherapy practice
in the city of San Francisco and taught Native American studies,
ecopsychology and cross-cultural shamanism at numerous Bay
Area universities including U.C. Berkeley, California Institute
of Integral Studies and San Francisco State. Her innovative
work blending ancient and modern healing modalities has been
featured in many publications including Re-vision Journal,
East West Journal and The Bioneers Newsletter as well as the
Sierra Club Books anthology, Ecopsychology: Restoring the
Earth, Healing the Mind. In 1998 Leslie founded The Woodfish
Institute (www.woodfish.org ) to promote "education for
an ancient future". Leslie is the creator of the "Woodfish
Prize" which is awarded annually for a transpersonal
social action project. |
| Presentation:
Turning the Wheel
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| Workshop:
Sonic Driving and Visionary Experience
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| Stanislav
Grof, M.D. |
| Stanislav Grof, M.D., is a psychiatrist with
almost fifty years of experience in research of non-ordinary
states of consciousness. In the past, he was Principal Investigator
in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research
Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Chief of Psychiatric
Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Assistant
Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Maryland, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen
Institute in Big Sur, California. Currently, he is Professor
of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies
(CIIS) and Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA,
conducts professional training programs in holotropic breathwork
and transpersonal psychology, and gives lectures and seminars
worldwide. He is one of the founders and chief theoreticians
of transpersonal psychology and the founding president of
the International Transpersonal Association (ITA).
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| Panel: The
Politics of Revelation |
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| Shabda
Kahn |
| Shabda Kahn has been a disciple of Sufism
since 1969. He is a direct disciple of Murshid Samuel Lewis
(Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) and worked closely with the great
American Mystic Joe Miller. Shabda is currently the Pir (Spiritual
Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International and the Director
of the Chisti Sabri School of Music. He is also a disciple
of the illustrious Tibetan Buddhist Master, the 12th Tai Situpa
Rinpoche. He spent 24 years (since 1972) developing as a vocalist
under the living guidance of the late Pandit Pran Nath, the
Master North Indian Classical Vocalist, who planted the 800
year old oral transmission of Chisti Sufi Vocal Music in the
Western world. Shabda travels throughout the world spreading
the Sufi Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty. Shabda brings
warmth, humor and clarity in his efforts to help seekers on
their Path to Awakening. |
| Presentation:
Beyond the Psychedelic
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| Stephen
LaBerge , Ph.D. |
| Stephen LaBerge received his Ph.D. in Psychophysiology
from Stanford University. He has been researching lucid dreaming
for well over a decade and is the author of Lucid Dreaming
and co-author of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. He
is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology
at Stanford University and Director of Research at the Lucidity
Institute. |
| Presentation:
Awake in Your Dream: The Promise and Paradox of Lucid Dreaming |
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Jean Milay, Ph.D. |
Jean is the author of the book Multidimensional Mind: Remote
Viewing in Hyperspace (NAB, 1999). She is the past president
of the Parapsychology Research Group and co-editor - Silver
Threads: 25 Years of Parapsychologist Research (Praeger, 1993,
Kane, B., Millay J., Brown, B.) Her acheivements include winning
the 1965 Film As Art Award with her project “The Psychedelic
Experience” (Millay & Willis). |
Presentation: PSI
& Psychedelics: Stories from the Underground |
Workshop: Practical
Uses of Psychedelics |
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Valerie Mojeiko |
Valerie Mojeiko, ambassador of the Multidisciplinary Association
for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), aspires to make drugs legal.
She is a recent alumnae of New College of Florida, where her
work focused on drug use, abuse, and addiction; drug policy
activism; harm reduction; and idea transmission. She is currently
head researcher for a MAPS-sponsored study of ibogaine therapy
in the treatment of drug addiction. Other fascinations include
GHB, MDMA, and her dog. |
Panel: The Politics
of Revelation
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Beverly Rubik |
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.
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Presentation: The
Human Aura in Altered States |
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| Shams
Samuel Shirley |
| Shams Samuel Shirley has always been fascinated
by states of conscious. Introduced to shamanism a dozen years
ago, Shams has had the opportunity to study under several
shamanic teachers. He practices energetic healing modalities
and is a member of the Sufi Healing Order. With 18 years of
martial arts experience, he holds a blackbelt in and teaches
traditional Shotokan Karate. Shams is also an active participant
in an intentional community that facilitates and nurtures
primary religious experience through music and dance.
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| Panel: The
Politics of Revelation |
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Ann Shulgin |
Ann Shulgin 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. |
Presentation:
Entheogenic Explorations: Getting the Most from Psychedelics
(Q&A session) |
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Sasha Shulgin,
Ph.D |
Sasha Shulgin, Ph.D., is a pharmacologist and chemist who
has synthesized and bioassayed hundreds of psychoactive compounds.
He has written the book Controlled Substances: A Chemical
& Legal Guide to Federal Drug Laws, and along with his
wife Ann, he co-authored the books PIHKAL and TIHKAL. He is
currently working on a forthcoming book that dabbles in cactus
quinoline alkaloids, tentatively titled Book 3, and also spends
his time fielding questions for "Ask Dr. Shulgin"
on the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics web site. |
Presentation:
Entheogenic Explorations: Getting the Most from Psychedelics
(Q&A session) |
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Sijay |
Sijay is a multimedia developer, graphic/permaculture designer,
and new systems consultant living in the Elphinstone Rainforest
of BC. He holds a B.A. in poetics, linguistics and cultural
theory. He has been a magazine layout editor, a free lance
illustrator, photographer, electronic musician, and currently
runs ONBEYOND METAMEDIA, a multifaceted infosystems design
company. He co-facilitates workshops around the world on intuitive
utopias, applied visionary experience and harm reduction.
His active interests include cultural cartography, digital
art, yoga and transtemporal meme dispersal. |
Presentation:
Crystal and Spore : The Implications and Applications of Visionary
Experience in the Post-Civilization |
| Workshop: Crystal
and Spore : Applied Visionary Culture Design Lab |
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Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D. |
Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., degreed in from Princeton where
he received the Timothy Leary Award, and CIIS where he is
a Trustee and instructor, is Copresident of the Association
for Transpersonal Psychology and Co-convener with Robert Thurman
of the 2001 Infinity Roundtable on Eastern Religion. Between
1972-78, he opened one of the first yoga studios in the US
and was first choice to co-direct Ram Dass's "prison
ashram." A therapist for 30 years specializing in sustaining
long-term relationships, author of Words From the Soul (recommended
by K. Wilber), Eros, Consciousness & Kundalini and "The
History of Euro-Hinduism in America" in the Columbia
University Desk Companion on Eastern Religion, he has pioneered
the application of electronica to Yogic chanting with the
Tantric Ritualist group, Axis Mundi. |
Presentation:
Beyond Silent Meditation: Infinite Vibrating Consciousness |
Workshop: A Culture
of Enlightenment in “Real” Life |
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