OPEN Foundation

OPEN Lectures

Labyrint: Mindblowing Therapy?

Will we be using Magic Mushrooms to fight depression? Or get an LSD treatment to cure your smoking addiction? On December 19 2012 Dutch Labyrint TV screened an episode about groundbreaking research using psychedelics in psychiatric treatment. Interviews with the scientists were filmed at OPEN’s Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research in 2012.

First broadcast on the 19th of December, 2012 (English subtitles)

Wouter Hanegraaff – Entheogens and Contemporary Religion

This lecture was first given under the title “Entheogenic Esotericism” at the First International Conference on Contemporary Esotericism, Stockholm University 2012 (link to video). The text has been published in Egil Asprem & Kennet Granholm (eds.), Contemporary Esotericism, Equinox 2013, 392-409.

ABSTRACT
Contemporary esotericism is replete with references to impressive “mystical” or visionary experiences, which are typically credited with having radically changed people’s lives by bringing them into contact with a “spiritual” dimension of reality. Given the widely acknowledged fact that the contemporary neo-esoteric revival has its historical roots in the 1960s, known for its widespread experimentation with psychoactive substances such as LSD, it is remarkable how rarely specialists in this domain (including the speaker himself, in his 1996 monograph on the New Age) have seen this dimension as relevant at all.

In my lecture, I will argue that widespread experimentation with psychoactive or “entheogenic” substances is a significant factor in contemporary esotericism and should be given more attention by scholars. With some notable exceptions, such as Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, or Alex Grey, esoteric authors and spokes(wo)men have tended to play down or deny this dimension, especially after the beginning of the “war on drugs” around 1970, and on the whole, scholars have been somewhat naïve in taking such emic denials at face value. Especially since “higher knowledge” or “gnosis” is widely seen as an important aspect of Western esotericism, the widespread claim that it may be attained or facilitated by psychoactive substances must be taken seriously in the study of contemporary esotericism.

About Wouter Hanegraaff:

Wouter J. Hanegraaff is Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, President of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE; see esswe.org), and a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Leiden 1996/ Albany 1998); Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe 2005; with Ruud M. Bouthoorn); Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven (West Chester 2007), and numerous articles in academic journals and collective volumes. His forthcoming monograph Esotericism and the Academy will appear with Cambridge University Press in 2012.

Matthew Johnson – A Systematic Research Program Examining Psilocybin, Mystical Experience, Personality Change, Adverse Effects and Therapeutic Applications

This talk will describe several lines of research with psilocybin conducted by our laboratory at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, USA). Completed study results to be presented include: the effects of different psilocybin doses on mystical experience and challenging effects (“bad trips”); the effects of psilocybin in altering personality (increased openness); and the effects of psilocybin on headache. Ongoing studies will also be described, including a study examining psilocybin to treat cancer-related anxiety and depression, a study examining psilocybin to facilitate the adoption of a meditation practice, and a study examining psilocybin in addiction (tobacco smoking) treatment.

BIOGRAPHY

Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, US. He received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Vermont, and completed a fellowship in behavioral pharmacology at Johns Hopkins.

Brian Anderson – Ayahuasca in psychiatry: From psiquiatría folklórica to neuroimaging

This presentation analyzes from an anthropological perspective some of the ways that ayahuasca’s curative potentials have been portrayed in conventional psychiatry from the 1950s until today. Through considering seldom-cited and difficult-to-access publications and other forms of academic psychiatric productions, it is shown how different cultures within psychiatry have shaped the construction of scientific ‘facts’ of how ayahuasca can affect and heal the mind. Suggestions are made for how such a historical and cultural analysis of psychiatric discourse can be applied to the development of the contemporary ethnopsychiatric study of ayahuasca.

Rama Leclerc – The bridge of knowledge: Special links between Shipibo curanderismo and Westerner practices with ayahuasca

The Shipibo-Konibo people from the Peruvian Amazon are part of the Pano ethnolinguistic family. Distributed within more than one hundred villages, the inhabitants live along the Ucayali River and its tributaries, on both sides of Pucallpa city. The Shipibo women are recognized for their handicrafts (especially pottery and textiles) decorated with magnificent geometrical drawings. The curandero sees these same patterns in his visions during the night-sessions of ayahuasca. The curandero is a practitioner, a shaman who thanks to his initiatory apprenticeship, has developed the capacity to make the link between the human beings in the physical world and the spirits in the world above. These spirits are endowed with volition and intentionality just like human consciousness. Moreover, they can find embodiment in an animal, plant, mineral or even in a geographical structure. The knowledge of the curandero is based on the incorporation of powerful plants called rao. The strength of these rao is linked to their double nature: a material aspect, the physicality or the body of the plant, juxtaposed to the spiritual aspect, the interiority or the spirit of the plant. After ingestion, these plants pass on some knowledge to the curandero during dreams or visions. He will learn to understand and to use them according to his progress along his initiatory route. After the initiation diet, he can see his recently acquired powers through the ingestion of the ayahuasca decoction.

For several years, and this movement accelerates, a greater number of Westerners visit repeatedly Shipibo curanderos in their small villages. They come from diverse horizons and their reasons are varied: a disease, a need for exoticism, a mystic quest, etc. By studying this growing tendency, we can observe a reappropriation of the speech of the other like a kind of knowledge crossing. Shipibo curanderos get better organized in order to welcome better these people in a more adapted way to their culture; whereas, in Europe, the followers of ayahuasca recreate a small community, developing a kind of subculture that integrates this non-native practice into particular processes of therapies. Making a link between both continents, I am interested to analyze elements absorbed, incorporated, and even thrown back in these new syncretic therapy practices as well as the transformation of the Shipibo curanderos’ speech. Moreover, I will approach other interesting peculiarities to understand better the functioning of the Shipibo shamanism; such as consubstantiation, the finished conception of the self-contained universe, the notion of niwe (energy), olfactory perception as a particular hermeneutic, etc.

Petra Bokor – Integration process and possible therapeutic effects of ayahuasca in non-therapeutic setting

The presentation starts with an overview of the research on the psychotherapeutic effects of ayahuasca and presents in details an investigation into the integration process of ayahuasca experiences. Eleven individuals participating in a series of ayahuasca rituals were followed for the period of one year in a study carried out in Hungary. A core theme was identified from each participant’s intentions and emerging psychological issues and the changes on such themes were tracked during both the participants’ ayahuasca experiences and their day-to-day lives. A methodology aiming to assess therapeutic change was used for the analysis, dividing the therapeutic process into seven phases from problem definition to termination. By the end of the research, almost all participants attained and began to practice a new behaviour pattern to their problems, all of them at varying levels and pace. Participants provided rich subjective reports involving remarkable breakthroughs as well as crises. Another Hungarian study carried out by Dr. Ede Frecska, aiming to investigate ayahuasca’s effects on creativity, will also be touched upon.

Janine Schmid – Self-therapy with ayahuasca

The often-used term ‘healing ritual’ for nearly all kinds of ayahuasca rituals (Santo Daime rituals, neo-shamanistic rituals, and even do-it-yourself-rituals) attracts people searching for an alternative method for treatment. In this study, fifteen people with first-hand experience with ayahuasca ‘therapy’ for a special disease (like chronic pain, cancer or tumours, asthma or allergic reaction to food, depression, alcohol abuse, Hepatitis C, tinnitus, glaucoma) were interviewed twice about their ideas and beliefs on ayahuasca and healing, and about their subjective theories on the etiology of disease and change. In most cases, people were convinced their illness was influenced in a positive way by ayahuasca. ‘Healing’ is not limited to the cure of physical and mental diseases but extends to a lot of psychological and even spiritual problems. Often ‘ self-transformation’ and ‘self-healing’ went hand-in-hand.

Although ayahuasca was an important help for all people coping with illness and self-actualization, it is clearly not a ‘universal remedy’ which provides healing for free – it involves a lot of personal work to succeed. Therefore there must be a critical discussion of some healing concepts and their implications. An idea commonly found – not only in the field of ayahuasca users – was that so-called ‘positive and negative thinking’ can influence the course of a disease. Likewise, ancient wisdom (“millennial indigenous knowledge”) was taken for granted and often used for legitimation and to deny negative effects or difficulties. These and other problematic issues will be questioned and discussed.

Jörg Daumann – Pharmacological modulation of attentional processes in the DMT and ketamine model of psychosis

Deficits in attentional functions are counted among the core cognitive symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Pharmacologic challenges with hallucinogens have been used as models for psychosis. In this talk, I give an overview of our studies on the pharmacological modulation of DMT and ketamine on different aspects of attentional functions. We investigated prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex (PPI), mismatch negativity (MMN), and visual and auditory alertness as well as spatial orienting of attention combined with fMRI. Data of fifteen healthy subjects were collected in randomized, double-blind, crossover studies. Ketamine increased PPI, whereas DMT had no significant effects on PPI. Ketamine decreased and DMT tended to decrease startle magnitude. Furthermore, we found blunted MMN after both drugs. However, the reduction in MMN activity was overall more pronounced after ketamine intake, and only ketamine had a significant impact on the frontal source of MMN. Administration of DMT and ketamine led to different cortical activations during the performance of both tasks. The ketamine model and the DMT model of psychosis display distinct neurocognitive profiles. These findings are in line with the view of the two classes of hallucinogens modeling different aspects of psychosis.

Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov – Molecules of Mysticism: Pharmacology Meets Anthropology

“Molecules of mysticism” are chemical substances that are able to induce mystical experience, increasing the feeling of closeness to the god (entheogens) or to other people (empathogens). It is quite likely, that every mystical experience is mediated chemically, either by some substances of external origin or by endogenous molecules produced directly in the brain. There are plenty of chemical structures, associated with entheogenic and empathogenic properties, and their action involves the release of other neurotransmitters, binding to many brain receptors (5-HT2a, 5-HT2c, 5-HT1a, CB1, NMDA, mAChR, etc.) followed by activation of several signal transduction pathways and alterations in gene transcription profile. Additionally, the mechanisms of several adverse effects for entheogens and empathogens have been elucidated during the last years. Considering that “molecules of mysticism” works not only and not so much on the body level, but mainly on consciousness and behaviour, and given the intrinsic difficulties associated with lab-based studies of scheduled substances on human beings, the methods of social anthropology (observation during fieldwork, surveys, interviews, and analysis of reports) might be used to supplement the classical pharmacological methodology. Web2.0 approach, based on content generated by users (like forums, wikis, online-based databanks of “trip reports”, multimedia-sharing services etc.), also may serve as a valuable tool and information source to study the relationship between drugs and humans.

About Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov

Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov, PhD, investigates the relationship between human beings and chemical substances by combining the methods of pharmacology and anthropology, with a special focus on Web 2.0 technologies. During his work as a researcher in Russia and Germany, he studied the molecular mechanism of brain function, as well as the implication of progress in pharmacology for modern society.

Torsten Passie – Astonishing Similarities of Physiological and Psychoactive Drug Induced States

Dr. Passie completed his training as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as his academic work at the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, in practice by Prof. Hans Carl Leuner in Göttingen and Hannover Medical School. He wrote his doctorate on existential aspects of psychiatric disorders and habilitation of altered states of consciousness. Prior to joining Oberberg, Dr. Passie was the Chief Physician of the Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, and Medical Director of the Hannover Centre of the Federal German model project for heroin assisted treatment of opiate addicts at the Medical University of Hannover.

2 April - New Insights on Addiction & Psychedelic Healing Followed by a Live Q&A!

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