Review 2019 • Outlook 2020
Last year, two projects were in the focus of the foundation: a psychedelic counselling center and the creation of a Gaia Lounge.
On November 1, 2019, “Psychedelics Counselling” a project of the Gaia Media Foundation in cooperation with the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy (SAEPT), began operations. It is intended to offer help with questions or problems related to the use of psychedelics and is financed for the time being by an earmarked donation of the Eulenpark Foundation to the Gaia Media Foundation. David York Münster is responsible for the telephone triage. Further information can be found at www.gaiamedia.org.
The project of a publicly accessible lounge similar to the former Gaia Bazaar is already well advanced. It is to become a meeting center where drinks and small meals are served. Furthermore, ethnobotanical products and media on the topics of the Gaia Media Foundation will be sold there and seminars, workshops and lectures will be held. If possible, the media library of the Gaia Media Foundation will also find a new home there. We have found a passionate ethnobotanist in David York Münster, who, with his ethnobotanika Ltd., will oversee the project together with the foundation. It is planned that the Gaia Lounge will open its doors in April 2020. Currently we are looking for a suitable location.
After the success of the one-day symposium 75 Years of LSD: Where is the journey heading? on April 19, 2018, at the Hofmatt Hotel near Basel, we are holding another one-day conference on April 18, 2020, entitled The Psychedelic Renaissance, at the same location. It is again being organised by the Gaia Media Foundation together with Nachtschatten Verlag and SAEPT. All information can be found on the website www.bicycleday.ch.
Since August 2017 Susanne G. Seiler has been the editor of the monthly newsletter gaiamedia goodnews, which is sent out in a German and an English version and has met with positive response. She is also in the process of cataloguing our media library.
Our YouTube channel gaiamedia with over a hundred of its own videos and dozens of others currently has 6,680 subscribers.
My thanks go to the two foundation board members Dr. Pierre Joset and Kerim Seiler. I would also like to thank Susanne G. Seiler for the content of the newsletters, Therese Hartmann for taking care of the formatting and dispatch of the goodnews and for her organisational support of the foundation, as well as David York Münster for the maintenance of the website gaiamedia.org and for his technical know-how.
Last but not least, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Foundation’s patrons and all other people who support the Foundation.
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 2020. 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
Chairman of the Board of the Gaia Media Foundation