Looking back & looking ahead
Dear Friends
As a first project, on 19 April 2018 near Basel, the new Board of Directors of the Gaia Media Foundation, along with Nachtschatten Verlag and the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy (SÄPT), organised the symposium 75 Years of LSD: Where is the journey going? Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD, was a member of the Gaia Media Foundation’s Board of Directors until his death, loyally supporting its aims.
The conference was sold out, and a live stream was set up. Information, recordings and a press review can be found on the website 75-jahre-lsd.ch. On 19 April 2020, we are again planning a conference around the subject of psychedelics. Actually, we already wanted to do so for Bicycle Day 2019 but many of the speakers we invited for this date – Good Friday – declined, leading us to postpone the event by one year.
Starting in June 2019, the Gaia Media Foundation, in cooperation with the SÄPT, will be offering a new psychological-psychiatric counselling service – all about changing states of consciousness, psychedelic integration and crisis intervention. Anyone wishing to deal with issues around psychoactive substances or who needs psychological support in the aftermath of an experience will find advice and help from trained, experienced counsellors in a personal exchange or by telephone or Skype. The offer is financed by the Gaia Media Foundation. More information will be available after May 2019 on gaiamedia.org.
We are very pleased that our offers and contributions continue to be viewed with great interest. Our YouTube Channel alone, with over a hundred of our own and dozens of other videos, inspires more than 5,000 subscribers.
The foundation’s extensive media library has been in storage since the Gaia Lounge was abandoned. As of last autumn, Susanne G. Seiler has been viewing the collection, and we are considering to make at least some of its content digitally accessible. Furthermore, we want to create a physical meeting place again, similar to the former Gaia Lounge, where both our consulting project and the media library can find a home, and where those interested can exchange ideas. Further projects are planned, including a series of evening events. We will keep you posted about these projects in our gaiamedia goodnews.
My thanks go to the foundation councillors Pierre Joset and Kerim Seiler. I would also like to thank Susanne G. Seiler for taking care of the content of the newsletter and for her commitment, Therese Hartmann for the formatting and mailing of the gaiamedia goodnews and for her organisational work for the foundation, and David York Münster for maintaining the current website. Above all, however, I would like to thank all patrons and all other persons who support the foundation from outside: For our future activities we depend more than ever on you. We therefore ask you to become a patron or to renew your subscription. Contributions will remain unchanged in 2019. Information on patronage can be found here Donations are also more than welcome. Thank you very much!
With my best wishes and warm regards
Lucius Werthmüller
President of the Gaia Media Foundation
Raranga, the art of weaving
Hutia te rito o te harakeke
Kei hea te komako e ko
Ki mai ki ahau
He aha te mea nui i te ao
Maku e ki atu
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
If the center shoot of the flax is uprooted
Where will the bellbird sing?
If you were to ask me
What is the most important thing in the world
I would reply
Each person, each person, each person.
Traditional Maori weaving poem