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Event
Enhancing Consciousness, Enhancing Conscience: Research, Methods, Tools
A Panel Discussion and Four Workshops featuring:
Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
Alex and Allyson Grey
Julie Holland, M.D.
Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. (moderator)
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We believe that developing mature consciousness leads to enhanced conscience: altruism, service, Love. This event is about concrete ways research, methods, and tools to achieve the state of advanced conscience.
Our evening features top experts on the topic:
Rick Doblin, Ph.D., founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 and is its executive director.
Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. (moderator) is a psychotherapist, author, and public speaker specializing in psychospiritual development, with particular expertise in psychedelic psychotherapy.
Alex Grey, visionary artist and co-founder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is best known for paintings portraying multiple dimensions of reality, interweaving biological anatomy with psychic and spiritual energies.
Allyson Grey is a visionary artist, co-founder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, and creator of a visual language of the sacred.
Julie Holland, M.D. is a psychiatrist who specializes in psychopharmacology, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, and an expert on street drugs and states of intoxication.
Jeremy Wolff has worked as a journalist, travel writer, songwriter and photographer, and is currently owner of Front Street Gallery in Patterson, NY.
A panel discussion will be followed by workshops led by each of the panel experts. Attendees will be free to attend any of the four concurrent workshops.
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PANEL DISCUSSION (7:30-9:00PM)
The panel discussion will offer expertise from the panel and discussion on the research, methods, and tools necessary to develop enhanced consciousness in individuals and in society as a whole. We encourage questions and interaction between panelists and audience.
The Panel Talks:
1) Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
"Methodological Issues in MDMA/PTSD Drug Development Research"
Rick will discuss various methodological issues that MAPS is exploring in their international series of Phase 2 MDMA/PTSD pilot studies, issues that will inform the design of their pivotal Phase 3 studies that will be proposed to FDA in an End-of-Phase 2 meeting. These issues include addressing the double-blind challenge, determining the magnitude and variance of the therapeutic effect, refining our treatment method and our training of co-therapists, developing our adherence criteria and method to evaluate therapist adherence to our treatment manual, discovering whether our treatment is the same or needs to vary according to the cause of the PTSD, and whether there are cultural differences.
2) Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D.
"Psychedelic Love: Sex to Transcendence"
What is psychedelic love? We make love, love that sweater, love God. We sometimes think of love in the form of sex as lower than love in the form of romantic relationships, and romantic love as lower than love in the form of spirituality. Is this an accurate representation of reality? From Jesus to The Beatles, in psychedelics, through all seven chakras, and including sex, romance, and spirituality: Love is the very essence of the Universe. This talk will be part overview of the latest research, part clinical guide, and part personal report from the field.
3) Alex and Allyson Grey
"Higher Consciousness and Higher Conscience"
Alex and Allyson will speak on the topic of Higher Consciousness and Higher Conscience in Visionary Art and Culture.
4) Julie Holland, M.D.
"Straight Talk about Drugs: Health and Wholeness in a Fractured Time"
In America, we spend our time keeping busy and unconscious, over-medicated and under-mindful. Our distractions are pulling us away from the "now" and from being fully present and conscious, where we are better able to monitor and fine-tune our behavior. Our culture of fear, dissatisfaction, and denial pushes us out of the joy of life, love, and beauty that is the here and now.
Sometimes compulsive drug taking, masturbating, food ingestion, or web surfing is done in private, hiding the behavior not only from others, but often from ourselves. This self-deception fosters a level of un-consciousness that can propagate unwanted behaviors. Awareness is the first step out of our habitual behaviors. Through mindfulness, and various mechanisms to enhance consciousness, we can reach altered states of consciousness, sometimes higher states, which can have tremendous therapeutic potential. These should be fostered in a healthy, healing environment, optimally resulting in personal growth and transformation.
WORKSHOPS (9:00-10:30PM)
After the panel discussion and Q&A, we will break into individual workshops led by the panel experts. Attendees may choose whichever of the four workshops they prefer:
1) "MAPS' Method of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD"
Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
By its very name, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy prioritizes the psychotherapy over the MDMA as the primary agent of healing. In this workshop, we'll discuss what participants know about MDMA and about PTSD, what they think might be key elements of the method and why, and then we'll review several key principles of MAPS' method and our adherence criteria. We'll also do a bit of role-playing with some people being therapists and others being patients.
2) "Developing Psychedelic Love"
Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D.
One clear truth encountered on the path of consciousness development is the fundamental nature of conscience, love, kindness and altruism.
- How does psychedelic love relate to romance, tantra, prayer, fidelity, family, polyamory, friendship, intimacy, hormones, freedom, trust, agape, transcendence?
- How do psychedelics compare to meditation as a method for developing spiritual love?
- How do psychedelics and practices such as tantra provide access to our deepest, truest selves, as well as a direct connection to the essential vibratory frequency of the Universe: love.
- How do the actions of a single person - and a willingness to take responsibility for one's actions - cause a ripple effect in the collective?
This interactive workshop will employ exercises and open discussion to identify the most effective ways to achieve this state of mind and way of life.
3) "Better Religion Through Science and Art"
Alex and Allyson Grey
Creativity is a spiritual path for many artists. Entheo-art, art that points to the God within, is a sacred creative manifestation of visionary culture. Entheo-artists paint the transcendental realms from observation. The viewer, especially one with a dilated psyche, comes into contact with the visionary source through contemplation of the artwork, uniting with the transformative evolutionary creative force working through the artist.
After of life of studying the rise and fall of civilizations, Arnold Toynbee posited that civilizations exist to give birth to better religions. In Roland Griffith's Johns Hopkins study, a majority of spiritually inclined subjects had a full-blown mystical experience after a single dose of psilocybin. The mystical experience is the foundation of all religion. Visions that glimpse divine imagination catalyze the primary religious experience. Religion is not just tradition and dogma. At the heart of religion is a life lived in relation to the creative force of the Divine.
In the entheogenic state, our perception of self-existence is altered and our life path and the way we relate to others and the world is transformed. For those that have a mystical experience, an enhanced moral compass may play a part in activating stewardship of the ailing planet. Entheogens have catalyzed reconnection with and compassion for all life. This awakened "ecology of being" translates from the spiritual world to the physical, promoting creative, even visionary ways of remediating our ailing environment and aesthetically transmitting unitive consciousness. Many who have experienced infinite Oneness claim to have seen themselves as a part of a light web of souls. Co-recognizing our interrelatedness is at the heart of visionary culture and is a harbinger of universal spirituality and the dawning of planetary civilization.
4) "The Poet Guides the Scalpel in the Surgeon's Hand: A Conversation Between Science and Art"
Julie Holland, M.D. and Jeremy Wolff
Dr. Holland sees things from a biological, evolutionary, and pharmacological perspective. Jeremy Wolff is an artist, writer and songwriter with an approach through the eyes of a poet. They share a love of music and two children.
A moderated discussion will include a range of topics:
- Food and drug administration: the continuum of what we put in our bodies, from sugar to spices to drugs.
- Screens: the medium is the message.
- Posture and Consciousness: everything is held and revealed in our bodies and what we do with them.
- Sexuality and couplehood: the value of the dyad.
- The cancer of yang: living in this "age of testosterone"
- Living in heaven: we are all survivors; our scars are our strengths.
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PANELIST BIOGRAPHIES:
Rick Doblin, Ph.D., founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS; http://www.maps.org/) in 1986 and is its executive director. He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2001. His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise healthy people, and also to become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist.
Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. (moderator) is a psychotherapist, author, and public speaker specializing in psychospiritual development, with particular expertise in psychedelic psychotherapy. Dr. Goldsmith's book, Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development (http://store.innertraditions.com/isbn/978-1-59477-250-4), describes the influence of psychedelics on the development of his personality theory and clinical practice and "Fusion of Spirit and Science" (http://vimeo.com/7517009) is a six-minute clip of his vision for society. Trained in humanistic, transpersonal, and eastern traditions, Dr. Goldsmith maintains a (non-psychedelic) psychotherapy practice in New York City and Sag Harbor, NY and may be reached via his Web site: http://www.nealgoldsmith.com/psychedelics
Alex Grey, visionary artist and co-founder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (wttp://www.cosm.org) is best known for paintings portraying multiple dimensions of reality, interweaving biological anatomy with psychic and spiritual energies. Grey's world-renowned career includes exhibitions and keynote addresses from Basel to Tokyo to Sao Paulo, and features on the Discovery Channel, the CBC, in Newsweek and Time magazines. Grey's art has been used on albums for the multi-platinum bands Nirvana, Beastie Boys, Tool, and String Cheese Incident. Grey's most outstanding and widely appreciated works of transformative art were exhibited for five years in the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (http://www.cosm.org/art/index.html) in New York City.
Allyson Grey is a visionary artist and co-founder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors( http://www.cosm.org/art/allysongrey) Her paintings invent a symbol system representing chaos, order and secret writing. Allyson received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tufts University in 1976. She has edited and co-written a dozen books and journals, taught art at Tufts University, the Boston Museum School and at Omega Institute for 17 years and has spoken widely at conferences and symposia. Allyson has received several commissions for long-term and permanent installations of her artwork, which has been exhibited throughout the U.S.
Julie Holland, M.D. is a psychiatrist who specializes in psychopharmacology and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine. An expert on street drugs and intoxication states, she was the attending psychiatrist in the Psych ER at Bellevue Hospital from 1996 to 2005 and regularly appears on the Today Show. The editor of The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis and Ecstasy: The Complete Guide and the author of the bestselling Weekends at Bellevue, she lives in the Harlem Valley. Jeremy Wolff has worked as a journalist, travel writer, songwriter and photographer, and is currently owner of Front Street Gallery in Patterson, NY.
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SCHEDULE, LOCATION, INFORMATION:
Date: April 14th, 2012
7:00 PM:Doors open
7:30: Enhancing Consciousness, Enhancing Conscience Panel begins
9:00: Research, Methods, Tools Workshops begin
10:30: Conclude
Location:
Chelsea Studios
151 West 26th Street, (between 6th and 7th Avenues)
Room 507, 5th floor
$30 one price for the entire evening - the panel and any workshop!
Information Contact:
Danielle Bohmer
Longtallweek@gmail.com
513-310-8940
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Location Chelsea Studios /Theatreworks USA (View)
151 West 26th Street (bet 6th & 7th Aves.)
New York City, NY 10001
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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