december 2024 – editorial: tabs & blotters

Could the possession of small amounts of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, LSD and DMT be legalized in the same way the possession of cannabis and hashish were decriminalized in Switzerland?

“Anyone who prepares only a small amount of a narcotic for their own consumption […] is not liable to prosecution.10 grams of a narcotic drug of the cannabis effect type shall be regarded as a small quantity.” (Art. 19b)

This momentous sentence amended the Narcotics Act in 2017. Last year, it was also decided that the police may no longer confiscate such quantities. But let’s start from the beginning.

When a pothead was caught with small amounts of cannabis (0.5 grams) and hashish (0.1 grams) in Basel some years ago, proceedings were initiated. The case was dropped, but he was fined 300 francs for procedural cost. He refused to accept the verdict and took it to the Federal Supreme Court, leading to the surprising decision. Since then, municipal pilot projects have set things in motion for full legalization.

To many people, the fact that you are allowed to possess but not consume weed or hash is not obvious, because why else would you have it? But from a legal point of view, it makes sense, because an act can only be punishable if it is carried out
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Psychologist Stephan Fundinger, journalist Claude Weiss and information technician Michael Good now want to use the case of cannabis as a precedent to implement the same regulation for small amounts of psychedelics. Because MDMA does not fall into this category, it is excluded for the time being.

They are on the lookout for people who have been picked up by the police for possession of such small amounts: as they were leaving a party, at the Zürich Street Parade or purely by chance. Stephan Fundinger and Claude Weill are old acquaintances. They have been guests at The Psychedelic Salon, both in Basel and in Zürich. You can get in touch with them through us. Of course, your details will be treated confidentially. However, it should have occurred relatively recently. We would be delighted if we could help this interesting approach achieve a breakthrough. It seems a good way to move psychedelics out of the criminal corner for people who use them other than therapeutically.

Please tell your friends about it. We need people who want to pursue the matter with enthusiasm.

Wishing you all the best for the holiday season and a hopefully better New Year,

Yours
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

november 2024 – dear next generations – we need you!

Last Monday I was in Solothurn and met with some of the administrators of the association Bibliotheca Psychonautica (BP), which, unlike gaiamedia’s archives, consists exclusively of psychedelic books and magazines. Together we own close to 2’000 titles in German, English, and other languages.

Present were Nachtschatten publisher Roger Liggenstorfer himself, board members Michael Schlichting, and Lukas Emmenegger, the new director of the Nachtschatten publishing house, as will as two BP members: Albert Rutz, and me. We all were of one mind about needing to do more to make our archives attractive and accessible. And that we need enthusiastic young helpers so that Switzerland’s psychedelic culture is not lost in nightlife and tribalism.

On my way home, I read about a Silent Reading Rave recently held in Zürich. Given a choice of books, the young participants silently read for exactly two hours. Then they went their way. What a great idea!

gaiamedia owns more than 3’500 books on a large variety of topics. Wouldn’t it be great to launch a monthly Silent Reading Rave in our gaiamedia lounge in Basel, where you can sit and read comfortably? Stay tuned.

Shortly after you will have found our November newsletter in your inbox and/or online, the United States will hold its fateful presidential election. It remains to be seen whether the world will move further to the right or not. Whether our lives will become more chaotic or move towards more self-determination and reason. Of course, these elections are our business too; the days when social trends from across the Atlantic took years to arrive in Europe are long gone. According to surveys, most Swiss people would vote for Kamala Harris. In America, this seems not so clear. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for us.

Either way, we should keep warm now.

Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

october 2024 – editorial

vague news

There are three kinds of news, just as there are three kinds of people: good, bad, and indifferent. In any profession, about 15% of people excel, 15% underperform, and 70% are mediocre. While the bad may stand out, mediocrity is harder to spot. We hope to rely on the best professionals – doctors, electricians, teachers – but that doesn’t always work out as planned.

The same goes for the news. Some stories lift our spirits – medical breakthroughs, acts of kindness, peaceful resolutions. Other reports cover wars, disasters, and injustices. Fake news, which is often misleading and negative, also falls into this category, but thankfully, many can spot the lies. Then, there’s vague news: insufficient information that leaves us in the dark. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s incomplete, leading us to believe we’ve in the know when we aren’t.

Gossip is one form of vague news—rumors about celebrities, politicians, or royalty, often unverifiable and irrelevant to our lives. Propaganda also fits here, telling us what to think without offering detailed or balanced information. Manuals or product descriptions, leaving us just as confused after reading them, can give us that same sense of frustration. Even when dealing with institutions, we often encounter vague, unclear communication.

If 70% of the news is vague, where does that leave us? How can we determine if something is true, fake, or indifferent? In this information age, we are bombarded with endless details, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Perhaps the answer lies in leading a life where we’re not glued to screens, consumed by things we cannot influence. It’s not wrong to care or get involved, but we shouldn’t let ourselves be bogged down by information we don’t truly need.

Wishing you a peaceful and unburdened start to the colder months.
Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

goodnews august 24 – instinctively

What is well understood can be clearly stated,
And the words to say it come easily.
Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711)

Intuition, hunch, deeper knowledge, gut feeling: there are many names for the way we intuitively decide who we trust, how we behave and the winding paths we take to find our way through the labyrinth of our lives. The brain has the task of transforming our impulses into feelings to give them a meaning we understand. This happens within milliseconds. If our gut feeling and our mind agree, we leave it at that, but it happens often enough that our intuition gives us an answer our head rejects.

It takes a triggering event, internal or external, to evoke an emotional response that is passed on to the brain so that it can be evaluated and made conscious. The head and gut are also connected by neurotransmitters, produced in the brain and in the stomach. The information they provide helps to control feelings of anxiety and fear. This connection is inhibited by stress. The gut and brain are also linked via the immune system, which provides many other connections affecting our mental health.

“Are you from Beijing?” I asked a Chinese tourist when my inner voice had already told me he was from Shanghai, which turned out to be correct. How did I know? Science says it was an educated guess. Unfortunately, in this case I didn’t go with what immediately came to mind but discarded my intuition – a process known as overthinking. Without emotions, the brain has no answers to our inner processes. I can well imagine that not only the head, stomach and guts, but also the heart contributes to our hunches. It is important that we trust them. Gut feelings can save lives, and they help us make important decisions every day. It doesn’t hurt to be a little less rational from time to time. Holidays are predestined for this.

I hope you have a great time!
Yours,
Susanne Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

goodnews july 2024 – editorial

the role of evil in the world

Last weekend I got involved in a discussion about vaccinations and coercive measures. It was about “us” versus “them”. I don’t belive in this categorizaton, nor do I believe in the supremacy of evil, whatever form it takes.

Why does evil exist? In theological terms, it’s about learning to discern and grow morally so that good finally prevails. In Taoism, on the other hand, yin and yang are considered complementary as the embodiment of the light and dark principles. As existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre said: “The confrontation with evil forces the individual to come to terms with the absurdity of existence and to find his own meaning.” Hegel assumes that the conflict between good and evil determines the progress of history and the development of human consciousness. Postmodern philosophy, on the other hand, believes that moral considerations are relative and culturally conditioned.

Carl. Jung calls evil our shadow and sees it as an external manifestation of unconscious inner conflicts. Some sociologists argue that the concept of evil serves to strengthen social norms and the cohesion of a society. Evil is also often projected onto individuals or groups as scapegoats. From an evolutionary perspective, it is possible that evil had an adaptive function. That aggression and competition were important for our survival.

ChatGTP says: “Your view that every person embodies both good and evil and that there is no absolute ‘us’ and ‘them’ is supported by various psychological, philosophical, sociological and literary perspectives. This understanding fosters empathy, self-awareness and a more nuanced approach to human interactions and moral judgements. It encourages us to look beyond simplistic pigeonholes and recognise the common humanity and complexity of each individual.”

Nobody is in control – that could be the problem!

Yours sincerely,
Susanne Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

goodnews june 2024 – spirits

The psychedelic community overwhelmingly believes in spirits – both good and bad, whereby it is thought that positive entities outweigh negative beings six to one.

Of course there are also many who don’t believe in anything outside of themselves, as well as those who are not sure. Are spirits real, or are they a figment of our imagination? Our visions and dreams testify to the rich history and mysterious dimension of our minds. Spirits are often a patr of it, especially on psychedelics. Should we be frightened? Fascinated? Indifferent? Is it wishful thinking? Madness?

We distinguish human, vegetal and elemental spirits. They are not firm; their bodies are made up of spiritual energy. They show themselves to us under many guises, shifting shape for us to better see and comprehend them. They feed us, and they feed on us. Six to one? They live in a dimension that doesn’t cross ours easily anymore since our world is full of things now. Even so, everything has a spirit, man-made objects included, and it is up to us to recognize spirit in matter and in the ethereal. For monotheists, there’s nothing but one spirit – called God, Allah, Yahweh. Except for the hierarchy of angels, sometimes intimidating but basically benevolent. For the Abrahamic religions, all other sprits are bad news.

Yet spirits are present in all cultures. Some have more power than others. That may frighten some people. But at the end of the day, they take form in relation to us, in destructive or constructive ways. When they are among themselves, they are pure energy. And now that we are spending more time outdoors and in nature again, we also have more opportunities to contact them if we wish and feel comfortable doing so.

Spiritually Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

goodnews april 2024 –bicycle day

bicycle day

Eighty-one years ago, on April 19 1943, Albert Hofmann and his laboratory assistant Susi Ramstein – the first woman to take LSD – cycled from Sandoz headquarters in the Basel Wettstein district to Bottmingen, the suburb where the chemist lived with his family. Hofmann had intentionally taken LSD for the first time about an hour earlier.

Since 2018, the Gaia Media Foundation has been inviting people to retrace the approximately four kilometer route he took with the help of young Susi, while recalling Albert Hofmann’s many spiritual adventures and Susi Ramstein’s courage as the first tripsitter.

We’ll meet on Friday, April 19 at the gaiamedia lounge from 4 p.m. onward, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (see below). Leaving at 5 p.m. sharp for the Novartis Campus whence we’ll cycle to Bottmingen to see the house where Albert Hofmann lived, albeit only from the outside. From there, we return to the lounge around 6 p.m. for a Happy Hour with psychedelic music from the Sixties and Seventies as well as some snacks.

Non-locals can rent a bicycle here or here.

Those wishing to participate in the program of our partner, the Swiss Psychedelic Society – Eleusis – has organized for the occasion at OstQuai, in the former cargo port of Basel, near the German border, will leave the lounge around 7 p.m. The party includes a collective experience, a talking circle, and, from 8.30 p.m- onward, ecstatic dance as well as a concert. Everyone is welcome. Tickets can be purchased here.

We are counting on as many of you as possible. Please let us know if you’ll come along for the ride and for our Happy Hour so we know how many participants to count with. The Happy Hour finishes around 9 p.m. or when the last attendants will have left.

We are looking forward to being with you

Marion Neumann Susanne G. Seiler
Member of the Board Editor
Gaia Media Foundation & Eleusis Society gaiamedia goodnews

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

goodnews march 24 – editorial

safe tripping

In the sixties and seventies, young and inexperienced people – like myself – embarked on LSD and other trips without knowing how to make them safe. We’d heard of set and setting but the terms trip sitting, and safe tripping were coined much later. We often relied on people we barely knew to help us navigate journeys they were clueless about themselves. Fortunately, we often were part of smaller or larger gatherings of the like-minded, affording us a certain measure of emotional and physical safety. Being young and unburdened overwhelmingly made for positive experiences. If young adults were also most often in trouble, it is because consumers of psychedelic substances were mostly under 25. Older subjects may have been better prepared, but had they taken psychedelics in comparable numbers, more problematic use would have arisen among them too.

What works for safe tripping holds true for life in general. Why do some people stumble upon charlatans and hypocrites time and again, whereas others easily find the right doctors, friends, teachers, or sources? Is it because some are so traumatized as to be completely out of touch with their feelings? “If it feels good, do it!” says an old hippie adage. The contrary is also true: “If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it!” And it helps to keep your eyes peeled for your surroundings, and to observe. For psychedelic journeys, therapy or healing circles ask: are the potential sitters, teachers or therapists well-prepared? Are they warm and generous or aloof and expensive and/or insufficiently equipped? Do they have a sense of humor and a ready smile? Or are they the kind that don’t let you in on their feelings, ranging from stoic to stern? Are you intimidated?

What was the first thought that came to mind when you entered the room/came to this new situation? What were you first impressions? Don’t let your eagerness to attend or partake in new experiences cloud your judgment. Do not decide you’re going no matter what! Being informed helps you know what to expect, and to make better choices. Like Terence McKenna said, taking psychedelic trips starts on the internet.

Alternatively, you might want to expand your consciousness by being in nature. Spring is almost here!

Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaialounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

january 2024 – editorial: the imposter symdrome

Do you sometimes feel like you are not the character you are inhabiting? That you are faking it, somehow, and your achievements aren’t truly yours but were surreptitiously acquired? Yes, you went to school and obtained an M.A., and you have a career, and a family, or other loved ones. But you still think you are playing at being who you are. This is not uncommon, famous spiritual teachers like Ram Dass or Claudio Naranjo struggled with these feelings, standing before their mirrors, asking themselves if they were for real. It’s normal, and healthy, to question ourselves.

If you are an imposter or not boils down to the degree of authenticity you bring to your personal and professional life. If you are going around trying to please everyone to the point of exhaustion; if you suffer from poor self-esteem and take insufficient care of your own physical, mental, and emotional needs, you are going to end up feeling untrue to yourself. Something must be wrong with you and who you are. Quite wrong maybe?

Ours personas are a difficult part of us to step away from. The ego serves as our protective shield, just like it makes sure we can handle social situations by performing the roles expected of us. It is just as important, however, to leave the malnourished – or the overblown – parts of ourselves behind, and to become (more of) who we really are.

Wishing you a peaceful, fructuous, and happy new year!
Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaialounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

december 2023 – editorial

let’s march again!

Between 1978 and 1992, large crowds of European citizens came together and marched for peace, to protest the armament race, and the increase of military budgets in general. But we didn’t just want peace at home, we wanted peace everywhere! By marching, we launched the idea for the movement that followed, an option nobody had seriously considered before. In the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness that is our plight, Peace Marches helped push things in a more positive direction. A measure of disarmament followed. To the surprise of many, communism crumbled almost overnight. We naively thought all was well with Western and Eastern Europe now, and let things run their course.

Since then war’s madness has yet confronted us. This must stop. We need to march again. We must not only rally against a myriad of lesser struggles but FOR the one commodity capable of uniting us. No matter where we live on ailing planet, no matter our religion, the color of our skin, whether we are male or female or many shades thereof – to live a meaningful and fulfilled life, we need peace.

The only contemporary movement comparable to the peace movement of the Eighties is Fridays for Future, the ecological marches born in the wake of Greta Thunberg’s lonely school strike. Wars and conflicts are immensely detrimental to the environment, let alone the suffering they bring, both collectively, and individually. Peace and the well-being of our planet go hand in hand.

Next Easter Sunday, 31 March 2024, seems the ideal first date for a new series of Peace Marches. It could be the Resurrection Day of the Peace Movement, a celebration of the earth and our shared humanity. To be a part of this revival, a deep desire for peace must take root in our everyday lives.

Other than love, peace on earth is the single most important force to support us, our families, and our environment. Without peace, life is hell. Let us remind ourselves that wars happen against our will. This blatant disregard of the will of the people is something we need to talk about. No matter how deeply our realities conflict, if there is one thing we may agree upon, it is our common need for a life free of fear.

Let us strive for peace, not only around this time of the year, and we may even end up making the world a bit of a better place again.

Peace on earth, and a happy holiday season for all of you!
Yours
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaialounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

P.S.S. The historic townhouse on Spalenberg, corner of Nadelberg in Basel, where Dieter Hagenbach lived and worked, is still for sale. If any person or body with an interest in psychedelics wishes to own it and help us turn it into an LSD Museum, including the history of LSD, our library, and a Psychedelic Information Center, please let us know.

P.S.S.S. A very happy 70th birthday, dear Rick Doblin!

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vague news

the role of evil in the world

bicycle day

safe tripping

let’s march again!

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