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@ Cabaret Voltaire
The Psychedelic Salon Zürich
Jeremy Narby: Talking About Hemp .The author of The Cosmic Serpent and Intelligence in Nature takes a look at cannabis as a complex plant with a long and controversial history.
Zürich | Cabaret Voltaire | Spiegelgasse 1 | Wednesday, 15 January 2025 | 6–9 p.m.  | CHF 15/10 | Please reserve!

Peer-to-Peer Psychedelics
Psychedelics as Educators with Luisa & Nizzy
To register, please contact Luisa here.
Zürich | Cabaret Voltaire | Spiegelgasse 1 | Wednesday, 22 January 2025 | 6.30 p.m. | CHF 10

@ gaiamedia lounge
The Psychedelic Salon Basel
Stephan FundingerPsychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy and the Role of Gestalt Therapy
Stephan Fundinger is a licensed psychologist and a psychedelic activist. Join us for an insightful presentation on the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, where we will explore why Gestalt Therapy is particularly well-suited for this transformative approach.
Basel | gaiamedia lounge | Hochstr. 70 | Thursday, 23 January 2025 | 6–9 pm | CHF 15/10

Related
The Whole World in a Herbarium
Basel | University Library | till Monday, 8 January 2025 | not open on Sundays

Terapia Asistida con Psicodélicos
1st Conference of psychedelic-assisted therapy in Mexico City
Mexico City | Universidad Anáhuac Mexico Norte | 30 January -1  February 1 2025

Wisdom of the Leaf Coca Summit
Willka T’ika Retreat Center | Central Valley | Peru | 3 – 7 February 2025

Psychedelic Buddhism 2025
A Gathering for Evolving Practice and Connecting Communities
Hybird | San Francisco | 21 & 22 February 2025 | Details upon registration

good to see

Enteo TV presents: James Oroc – Confession of a moden mystic. 
Oroc’s transformative experiences with psychedelics, especially 5-MeO-DMT, and his insights into the mysteries of consciousness and reality.

Psyche Films: My dad asked me what acid felt like

Aaron Rodgers: Enigma | Official Trailer | Netflix
The trailer for a Netflix documentary which follows NFL star Aaron Rodgers has been released, with the film set to drop on December 17th. It prominently features his use of ayahuasca.

Queer (2024) by Luca Guadagnino, with Daniel Craig & Drew Starkey
See the uneasy couple on the yagé (ayahjuasca) William Burroughs came to Mexico for in this first autobiographical novel of the great Beat auteur.

good to hear

Leny Andrade 
Cantor da noite
Leny de Andrade Lima (1943-2013) can hold her own with any jazz great. She was recently praised in the New York Times as an exceptional singer who is not well enough known here. And her music makes you happy. So here is something for your soul right at the beginning of the year. Leny was born in Rio (where else?) and often had hits in the Brazilian charts. She sang in clubs, also abroad, with stops in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Toniy Bennett called her “the Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil”.
Albatroz

São Paulo Underground
Olhaluai, from their 5th album Cantos Invisívels
The multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi.musical São Paulo Underground are a great example of the new vanguard in music. Rob Mazurek leads in contemporary jazz and forward-looking rock, and Guilherme Granado, Mauricio Takara and Thomas Rohrer in updating and modernizing Brazilian musical forms. In a fascinating mixture of Sun Ra-esque cosmic noise and rhythms and phrasing we also find elements from samba, maracatu, rock and free jazz traditions.
Cuneiform Records

Elis Regina
At the Montreux Jazz Festival
There are few more accomplished vocalists than Brazil’s Elis Regina Carvalho Costa (1945-1982), whose warm and sonorous voice conveyed a wide range of musical content. Here we see her with the famous keyboardist Hermeto Pascoal. She made her appearance at the 13th Jazz Festival in 1979 legendary in the twinkling of an eye by virtuously singing three songs by Carlos Jobim in three different keys. Elis Regina was born in Porto Alegre and started performing as a child. Her death at the age of 36 from a combination of alcohol and cocaine shocked the nation.
Studio Luna Azul

Liniker e os Caramelos
Tiny Desk Concert
Here we segue into the present with Liniker (de Barros Ferreira Campos), born in 1995 and also from São Paul, two generations later, but with the same kind of voice, capable of anything. Liniker identifies as they/them and gives a sublime soft jazz performance here with their Brasilian as well as international friends. Liniker’s way of being smooth, laid-back and sincere is both professional, in the sense of well-practiced, and heart-felt.
NPR

Billie Eilish
Tiny Desk Concert
Billie Eilish, no doubt one of the great singer-songwriters of her generation, shows us an intimate side of herself. Her voice is beautifully clear and pure; and she always works in collaboration with her brother Finneas O’Connor who mostly doesn’t use, or need, his last last. For those of you who don’t know that she’s a mega star, Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, born 2001 in Los Angeles, broke out at age fourteen with the original song “Ocean Eyes”.  A steep international career followed.
NPR

goodnews editorial

a consequential fungus

The story of ergot, the parasitic fungus growing on grains such as wheat, barley and rye, reaches far back in time, as an upcoming book by Frank Petersen, Director of the Department of Natural Product Research at Novartis Pharma meticulously documents. The Mystery in the Rye. Ergot and LSD – A Cultural Historical Quest follows the history of the alkaloid Claviceps purpurea and documents how ergot was known in Mesopotamia, Persia, and as far a China and Japan, and not only in Egypt or Greece, where it was ritually used as a component of psychoactive brews.

Novartis has recently revived Sandoz, the mother company of the ergot alkaloids, as an independent firm for the production of generics.

In the Hellenic world, ergot was interwoven with the myth of Demeter and her daughter, the mysterious Persephone. As its German name, Mutterkorn, suggests, ergot was and is used in childbirth. Its healing qualities pertain to our blood, either contracting or expanding its flow. During the Middle Ages ergot lived through an inglorious period by causing poisoning in those who ate rye bread infested with the fungus, and its properties as a contractive agent at birth had to be reaffirmed. It has saved and continues to save countless lives. Ergot alkaloids have found their rank among the essential medicines. The ancients knew why they dedicated ergot to the goddess of fertility and childbirth.

In 1943,  Albert Hofmann not only discovered LSD as the 25th derivate of ergot, prepared by Sandoz under the name Delysid, until it became illegal in 1963. He also created the precursors to a number of further valuable drugs based on Claviceps purpurea.

Dr. Petersen describes how modern chemistry started with ergot, eventually turning its alkaloids into many useful medicines. Ergometrine or ergobasine, used in obstetrics around the world, is the most beneficial ergot alkaloid. LSD continues to have the greatest mental and social impact.

I wish you all an enlightening 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!

good to read

Psychedelic Mindmeld. Telepathically Exploring Shared Consciousness

Wade Richardson
Many psychonauts have spontaneously experienced telepathy, but how does one intentionally share consciousness? In this guide to psychedelic mindmelding, experienced psychonaut Wade Richardson shows how, with the aid of psychedelics, sharing consciousness is possible. As he reveals, psychedelic journeying with a partner can help you shatter illusions, expand consciousness, dissolve our egoic separations, and enable a cooperative exploration of non-duality.
Park Street Press

Psychedelic Psalms

Joshua D. Rogers
Josh Rogers is the CEO of Arete, the largest distributor of alternative investments in the United States. Written as short snippets suited for modern-day attention spans, it is a synthesis of Rumi’s Spiritual Poems, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. An easy to read and entertaining analysis of our human existence, the book is at times poetic and spiritual, while at other points the author offers the reader hard-hitting pragmatic critiques of culture and education.
Hat and Beard Booksone

Dengue Boy

Michael Nieva
The year is 2272. New York and Buenos Aires were submerged years ago and the Patagonian archipelagos are the only habitable lands on Earth. Here, Dengue Boy is a humanoid mosquito whose monstrous appearance repulses everyone. Dengue Boy searches for the meaning of his life and his true origins. Elsewhere, adults exploit the value of pandemics on the Stock Exchange and waste the last of Earth’s resources, while their privileged children plug into virtual realities and stream violent video games. With joyful, savage flair, Nieva blends body horror and cyberpunk to deliver an extraordinary portrait of a demented future.
Profile Books

The Inherited Mind:A Story of Family, Hope, and the Genetics of Mental Illness

John Longman
James Longman was a preteen in boarding school when his dad, who was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, died by suicide. As he got older, James’s own bouts of depression spurred him to examine how his father’s mental health might have affected his own. He engaged with experts to uncover the science behind what is inherited, how much environmental factors can impact genetic traits, and how one can overcome a familial history of mental illness and trauma.
Hyperion

An African History of Africa. From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence

Zeinab Badawi
Everybody is originally from Africa. Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history – from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.
Vermillion

good to discover

Brainforest Café: The Spirit of Huáchuma
Dennis McKenna speaks with Laurel Sugden and Josip Orlovac del Río about the San Pedro cactus. Laurel talks the decline of wild Huáchuma populations in Peru, while Josip, an experienced curandero, speaks about it cultural history.

Hardvard Divinity School. Center for the Study of World Religions
Thinking with Plants & Fungi. An interdisciplinary exploration into how plants and fungi help us rethink the nature of mind and matter, and humans’ relationship to the “more-than-human” world.

good to know

Healing the feminine
psychoactive | Reality Sandwich | December
Psilocybin and women’s health

Past wrongs
culture | igh Country News | 1 December
California’s Black reparations shift toward land access, ownership and stewardship.

Presidential
psychoactive | Mother Jones | 2 December
Hunter Biden Got a Pardon. Will Drug War Victims?

Spritual emergence
psychoactive | The Conversation | 3 December
Hospital stay after taking hallucinogens increases the risk of schizophrenia more than threefold

MDMA
psychoactive | VA News | 3 December
Dept. of Veteran Affairs funds first study on psychedelic-assisted therapy

In the know
psychoactive |   UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics | 4 December
BCSP, Psychedelic Alpha, and Calyx Law Launch Psychedelic Law and Policy Tracker

Doggerland
science |  Hakai Magazine | 5 December
Conjuring the Lost Land Beneath the North Sea

Addiction
psychoactive | The Psychedelic Blog | 6 December
Psychedelics help pick up the pieces to make us whole again

Popular
psychoactive | Yale News | 6 December
Mind-altering remedies: inside the new wave of psychedelic research

Regulated
psychoactive |   Netherland’s Government | 10 December
As of April 2025, coffeeshops in the Netherlands can only sell licensed weed

Tripping C.E.O.s
psychoactive |  New York Times | 12 December
The theory that mind-altering drugs can improve business leadership

Ibogaine
psychoactive | New York Times | 16 December
Veterans with brain injuries turn to psycheelic therapy abroad

Generalized Anxiety Disorder
psychoactive |MindMed Press Release | 16 December
First patient dosed in Phase 3 Voyage Study of MM120 in GAD

Life-changing
psychoactive | New York Times | 17 December
Psychedelics in palliative care

Longevity
nature | Science | 20 December
Whales could live twice as long but for us

Chemical evolution
psychoactive | The New York Times | 21 November
The remarkable drop in U.S. overdose deaths

What the science says
psychoactive | The Conversation | 28 December
Hallucinogens approved for psychiatric disorders

Threatened species
psychoactive | AP News | 29 December
Peyote endangered by over-harvesting

Medicine
psychoactive | The Guardian | 29 December
Traumatized first responders are helped with psilocybin in Mexico

good to meet

Plants of the Gods
Part 1 — Ayahuasca and Tobacco Shamanism: an Interview with Ethnobotanist Dr. Glenn Shepard

Transform Drug Policy Foundation
An independent, UK-based charity working nationally and internationally towards a just and effective system of legal regulation for all drugs.

DanceWize
Harm reduction and help for psychedelic, and/or spiritual emergencies at festivals and other peer meetings are a necessity wherever people get together in large numbers.

partner

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