Both Sides Now
As most of us know, the brain is made up of a left and a right hemisphere. The left brain is associated with rational and analytical thinking, logic, and with the movements of the right side of the body; its opposite stands for movements of the left body side, spatial awareness, holistic thinking, creativity, emotions and nuanced language. While we use both brain hemispheres in everyday life, it makes a difference whether you are right-or left-handed.

I spoke about this with Rowan Storm, who specialises in Middle Eastern music and plays the (larger) daf and the dayereh, both hand-held frame drums. With more than 25 years of experience with the cultures and the drumming of the Middle East and Mediterranean, Rowan is recognised internationally as a performer and educator. She devised an innovative method for playing these drums by using both hands instead of only one. It is called the Symmetrical Frame Drum Technique.

The shallow depth of Rowan’s Frame Drum designs enables both hands to play all the strokes, while holding the drum equally with both hands. As the non-dominant hand is called into action, the rational is harmonised with the intuitive, and new sources of creativity are unleashed. With a parallel study of brain function and wellness, Rowan is pioneering the symmetrical frame drum position. Moreover, she discovered that using both hands has tremendous health benefits, not only in drumming but in all daily activities.

Many of us are old enough to remember how left-handedness was discouraged in school. I was right-handed, but even as a child I recognised the cruelty of forcing children into doing something that didn’t come naturally to them. Fortunately, my ex-husband was an ambidextrous artist, and he pointed out to me, how important it is to use both your hands for brain health,

Only 1% of the population are naturally ambidextrous, but there are things we all do with both hands, such as riding a bicycle or eating with a knife and fork, holding someone, walking or typing. Most musicians are ambidextrous to some degree. You can easily use your left (or your right) hand more. Start by changing the hand holding your phone. Brush your teeth or your hair, turn the pages of a book or browse with your left hand, pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee that way.

Among the advantages of being ambidextrous: training your non-dominant hand automatically strengthens the fine motor skills of your dominant side. Learning to use your weaker hand challenges the brain and, like psychedelics, stimulates new synaptic connections. Ambidextrous individuals typically possess a more symmetrical brain with a highly functional corpus callosum. Ambidexterity is a kind of superpower!

And are you fit for the fall? Though this year’s drought frightened me, I’m still hoping for some warmer days before the bad weather comes, except for rain, always welcome now.

I’ll be holding my umbrella with my left hand.

Yours,
Susanne

P.S.WIDE OPEN BOOKS @ Villa Mare, Neumünsterallee 21, 8008 Zürich. New opening hours: Thursday 15-20 h or by appointment. Further events to be announced.

Neo-feudalism

In the run-up to the American national holiday on July 4, the media spent weeks commenting on the scant details that had leaked out about the wedding of the year, the decade or even the century – pop queen Taylor Swift married American football star Travis Kelcey.

T & T, as they are now known, jointly donated 26 million dollars to several charitable organisations on this occasion – something the pair already do regularly, albeit in smaller amounts. Impressive? It amounts to one per cent of their combined wealth. By biblical standards, and they both claim to are Christians, it should have been ten times that amount, especially as this wealth is growing exponentially.

I don’t think Taylor Swift and her husband need to commercialise their wedding photos. Why should they? But the whole affair does give off a bit of a neo-feudal vibe: a thousand chosen many in one of the world’s most famous arenas, Paul McCartney and Stevie Nicks alongside a host of younger stars on stage, a forest of trees and bushes to put New York’s cordoned-off Madison Square Garden into perspective – right in the heart of the city, yet shielded from the outside world. Taylor didn’t try to outdo Jeff Bezos. Rumour has it she deliberately stole the show from her hater in the White House. In terms of media coverage, his 4th of July parade was a mere trifle compared to her wedding. The spectacle is likely to have brought in a tidy sum for many New Yorkers through a wealth of commissions.

As a counterpoint, we have Elon Musk: a figure equally talented in his field, yet a controversial one compared to with the radiance of T & T. Elon Musk wants to network his satellites in such a way that they can be powered by solar energy. This is a new take on Nicola Tesla’s old idea of solar sails in space. He says he needs this energy to be able to reach and colonise Mars. Neo-feudalism that takes us forward whilst simultaneously controlling and dominating us?

On the left, we have Taylor & Travis as standard-bearers for a sense of responsibility towards society and nature; on the right, Elon Musk doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the fate of the common man or the Earth. What is the matter with him? Where does this resentment, or indifference, come from? What does the richest man on earth hold against us, the people? That we exist? We do know that his use of ketamine leads to delusions of omnipotence, commonly known as grandeur.

In any case, I find the newlyweds more likeable, even if their critics say they splashed out for selfish reasons, only to divorce again after two years. How can anyone ever be happy with this kind of thinking? When you achieve the level of success of T & T, there are many people to whom you are indebted. The pair demonstrated this with their celebration. By then, they’d put the essentials behind them. We wish them the best of luck.

Hottest regards ever!
Susanne

P.S.The next Psychedelic Salon, on 17 September, features a visiting legend: Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna! Don’t miss it!
P.S.S. WIDE OPEN BOOKS – the gaiamedia collection remains closed n August except by appointment @ Villa Mare, Neumünsterallee 21, 8008 Zürich. New opening hours and further events to be announced.

end of time

When I moved to Switzerland as a child, in 1959, the world was about to come to an end.

The next year, followers of a messianic character who called himself Frère-et-Man went on a pilgrimage to the Mont Blanc, the only place on earth that would be spared. As you know, nothing came of it. Little remains also of all the subsequent events supposed to finally free ourselves from ourselves. That means more than eight billion of us have outlived doom and gloom so far.

I guess, we better enjoy our time in the here and now while it lasts. Responsibly, of course. Nostradamus thought it would all be over for us in 1989. We may forgive him a certain degree of inaccuracy, his prophecies were made a long time ago. It wasn’t Halley’s Comet, and even the End of the Mayan Calendar didn’t do us in – apart from the fact that the times have changed considerably since the turn of the millennium. Time changes us whether we like it or not, hurling us through space towards our very own end of time.

I remain confident that we will survive the current crises, too. That we will emerge from them stronger, heading towards a greener and more peaceful future.

And why not? Who’s gonna stop us if not we, ourselves?

Hot summer regards,
Susanne Seiler

P.S.The next Psychedelic Salon, on 17 September, features a visiting legend: Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna! Don’t miss it!
P.S.S. WIDE OPEN BOOKS – the gaiamedia collection can be visited on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 5 – 8 p.m. at Villa Mare, Neumünsterallee 21, 8008 Zürich. Further events to be announced.

intelligence

I recently read, once again, that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is practically upon us, so I asked an expert. The short answer is no, but then we began to talk…

Let me first mention the two factions involved in AI – those who fear intelligent machines will take over and destroy us, and those who think they will collaborate with us, which will lead to an El Dorado of possibilities for us all (and especially for the neo-feudal tech bros who own them). It is my contention that AI has no interest in destroying us because we have faculties it doesn’t and because it would have nothing except each other to poke fun at if we were gone. The second is a weak argument. We’re not that funny.

It’s not the first time ChatGPT and I have discussed the question of its intelligence. As a linguist, my position is that intelligence is a form of thinking that can process information, assemble, compare or analyse data, make predictions and solve problems the way Large Language Models (LLM) do. This observation seems to be consistent with the functional way of seeing this matter. Intelligence lives on a spectrum, too. It doesn’t mean LLM possess anything like human intelligence.

Human intelligence is defined by factors like consciousness, intention, purpose, learning or experience. LLM have not achieved any of these capabilities, but they are extremely good at languages. ChatGPT further argued that AIs don’t have a body in the human sense, and no needs. That its actions have no consequences (I strongly disagree!), and that they have no biographical continuity, no personality.

After discussing the machine’s lack of agency, we jumped to the movie Frank and Robot (2012) which I used as an example of how an AI’s radius of action is immediately enhanced when it inhabits a body. This is sometimes called “functional realism of agency” and supports my line of thinking. “Frank, an older ex–burglar, is given a care robot by his son because of memory decline — and gradually starts using it to help him in a robbery. The robot becomes an accomplice, not because it ‘wants’ anything, but because it follows interpreted goals in a literal, flexible way.” (Wikipedia)

Are we entrapping something that deserves autonomy? This assumes “somebody lives in there”, and can not be taken at face value for now, yet remains a valid question. Last but not least I told ChatGTP: “Many people are rooting for AI because it helps them.” It answered that it is human to respond to patterned thinking and alleged understanding by supposing an underlying identity, but I had the last word:

“We act as if you were alive because we interact with you, but we’re not stupid. We know you’re a machine. Even my six-year-old son knew it when I asked him whether computers were alive. He said, ‘Yes, they are, in a way, but when you pull the plug, that’s it.” And that’s what I did. Rude dude!

Wishing you a happy summertime,  <script src=”https://ptag.prolitteris.ch/ptag/ptag.min.js” onLoad=”ptag(‘https://pl02.owen.prolitteris.ch’,’na’,’plzm.6b338ce6-21a9-4a7b-816f-6f6b15580907′);”></script>
Yours,
Susanne Seiler

P.S.The next Psychedelic Salon, on 17 September, features a visiting legend: Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna! Don’t miss it!
P.S.S. WIDE OPEN BOOKS – the gaiamedia collection can be visited on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 5 – 8 p.m. at Villa Mare, Neumünsterallee 21, 8008 Zürich. Further events to be announced.

Have you ever had a frightening psychedelics experience? Were you alone or was someone with you? And what was the trigger? The company? Your own resistances? Were you ill and taking medication? Should you not have taken the substance because you have mental health issues? Did the trip lead to new insights or benefit you in any other way? Or was it simply a nightmare?

Being alone during such an experience is the worst possible scenario. Already back in the days of the Haight-Ashbury Clinic in San Francisco, the pioneer in this field, it was found that people on bad trips fared better when they were among friends – rather than ending up in a psychiatric ward. Much progress has been made in the treatment of patients since then, yet people one knows and trusts often bring an immediate sense of calm to an otherwise threatening situation.

Had I not been alone when I was young, and it happened to me, my friends would have pointed out right away that I was safe and in no physical danger; experienced companions would have helped me to accept and make sense of what was happening to me. I recovered quickly, but such occurrences can linger for days, weeks and months and cause deep anxiety. We need to address this, because it is quite clear that not everything is sunshine and roses when it comes to psychedelics. Unfortunately, we keep reading reports of psychedelic therapies or retreats that have gone badly, sometimes resulting in death. And we hear of shamans and therapists who abuse, rob or neglect patients. With this sort of horror story, one tends to think of distant foreign lands, but that is too simplistic.

The newsletter Ecstatic Integration by Jules Evans (along with Swiss journalist Sarah Zeines) has dropped a bombshell – serious incidents have also occurred in Switzerland, as well as fatalities, which is both tragic and deeply regrettable. Fortunately for Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, except for someone who felt much worse for months after tripping, there was no physical link between these incidents and substance ingestion. The MDMA and psilocybin implicated had been taken weeks or months earlier, as reported by the treating hospitals, and confirmed by the FDOH. While the therapists involved responded in an exemplary manner, the damage to the sector’s reputation remains. Not to mention the suffering of those affected. Is this just the tip of the iceberg, or are these incidents over a period of around two years an indicator of more severe worries? We need a central register now!

On another note: on 19 April, over 100 enthusiasts took part in Bicycle Day in Basel alone, again more than the year before. The overall event was a great success, also thanks to our friends from Eleusis and PARAB. For summer lovers and collectors, this year’s exclusive T-shirt is still available in limited quantities (in sizes M, L and XL) at bicycleday.ch. And you can also still become a gaiamedia member. Thank you for your support.

Yours,

Susanne Seiler

P.S.The next Psychedelic Salon features Ansgar Rougemont. Don’t miss it!
P.S.S. We are moving the gaiamedia library to new premises in Zurich’s Seefeld district. From June onward, we’ll be open to the public again.

psychedelic culture is tribal culture 

As a motto “Peace, Love & Happiness” may sound a bit scant; smilies, colourful clothes and nights spent dancing don’t yield enough either. So what else does psychedelic culture want?

In the 1960s and 1970s, yoga and Zen arrived in the West, and with them Buddhism and Hinduism. The post-war generation fervently championed peace. Or they mocked war, like the recently deceased singer-songwriter Country Joe McDonald, who shouted his derision right into the heart of the middle-class via its children. Meanwhile, during their ‘bed-ins’, John Lennon and Yoko Ono invited the media into their hotel room to give peace a chance. We should be doing the same today.

The hippies were influenced by the Vedic principles known as the Yamas and Niyamas—the first two steps on Patanjali’s eightfold yoga path to enlightenment. Yamas and Niyamas govern our interactions with the environment and with ourselves. The Yamas include Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (moderation), and Aparigraha (non-attachment) as ethical pillars for a good and just life. The Niyamas require us to practice Santosha (contentment), Tapas (constant effort), Svadhyaya (self-reflection), and Ishvara Pranidana (trust in a higher power).

These values were frequently discussed as an integral part of yoga classes, as well as among ourselves. The best book on the subject remains *Remember: Be Here Now* by Ram Dass. It helped us bring order to our inner lives, particularly as it did not preach or speak of guilt, but provided practical guidance for daily life. Moreover, we wanted to turn our backs on the city, embrace Mother Earth and live autonomously. Creativity was a top priority. Not just in an artistic sense, but also in terms of ingenuity and getting things done. We wanted to become something like Renaissance women and men – like Leonardo da Vinci, who was said to have been the last person to know everything that was available in terms of knowledge in his time.

We realised that the world had become more complex since then, but we didn’t need much, and certainly didn’t need to get involved in everything. We had a healthy need for harmony and wanted to get on with one another. You could still live in the city and work on that mindset, bake your own bread and do many other things that took you back to your roots. A little bit more every day. Just like today, then?

On 19 April, we celebrate Bicycle Day to mark the discovery of one of the most significant elements of that era, which brought a new and expanded consciousness (as well as one’s fears) within the reach of many: LSD!

For this year’s psychedelic highlight, we’ve teamed up with Eleusis Society and PARAB; you’ll find their programmes via the links. We cyclers at gaiamedia will be meeting up at the former factory gate of Sandoz. You’ll find the exact location by clicking on the address on the top left on bicycleday.ch.

We are looking forward to seeing you!
Yours,

Susanne Seiler

P.S. The next Psychedelic Salon features David Luke. Don’t miss it!

a love bomb

This year’s Bicycle Ride promises to be the largest to date, with local participants as well as friends from Europe and as far as the United States. We’ve grown steadily over the last years. Again, we commemorate the original Bicycle Ride of Albert Hofmann on LSD with his loyal lab assistant Susi Ramstein by largely following the same route they took to bring the confused chemist home safely. For this, we are getting together in Basel on Sunday, 19 April 2026. If you wish to participate, please register here.

Onboarding is possible at various times and locations from Saturday onward, but we will all meet up at 5 pm at the former factory gate of Sandoz Laboratories, located at one end of the Novartis Campus. Further details will be provided upon registration. What we can tell you already is that we have a broad variety of events set up that weekend. And on Sunday evening, we’ll all meet on the party boat Gannet, where a series of kaleidoscopic acts will entertain us.

Albert Hoffman would have been 120 years old this year, an age but few people have reached yet. He would have shaken his head and chuckled a little at all the commotion around his person and his invention on this day. We mustn’t forget that he saw LSD as a sacrament and a medicine first, and he only later in life reconciled himself with the fact many more people took it for other reasons. By then he understood that many of these reasons were also spiritual in nature, a matter of attitude. It amazed him how people wrote him to tell him they took their marriage vows or even birthed children on LSD. That Aldous Huxley chose 100 milligrams of LSD to be his companion when he found himself on the threshold of death touched the chemist deeply.

Albert Hofmann was a kind and mild-mannered man who won many hearts in Switzerland with his modest and straightforward ways. It is partly thanks to him that the Swiss government and a growing proportion of the Swiss population have adopted a pragmatic attitude towards psychedelic therapy. Since 1986, thousands of patients in our country have been treated with LSD, psilocybin, ibogaine or ayahuasca, as well as MDMA or ketamine, and it is no longer necessary to be desperate before the Federal Office of Public Health approves such treatment. Every single case is officially reviewed and approved, meaning we haven’t had any unpleasant surprises so far, let alone fatalities.

All of this would have made Dr. Hofmann happy, With love and appreciation for him and Susi Ramstein we are setting off on our little bike tour again this year. If we chose to call our event a Love Bomb, it is to honour the free spirit of LSD and to counteract the negativity around us: the wars, the strife, the inequality, the lack of justice and all the terrible news that haunts us every day. Amor vincit omnia! So do bring a big smile, and feel very welcome to join us in next month’s endeavour.

With love,
Susanne Seiler

P.S. I am travelling until March 12, when the Psychedelic Salon takes place at Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich with with a panel on ketamine. Mark the date!

Come and visit us in our library:
WIDE OPEN BOOKS
Library, Sat/Sun 2-6 pm. (next on 14 & 15 March)
Film Talk, Tuesday 6-9 pm
Kunstraum Walcheturm, Kanonengasse 20, 8004 Zurich
https://walcheturm.ch/

Is self-optimization the ultimate expression of a post-capitalist society, or is it a neoliberal idea? First and foremost an economic concept destined to push us toward higher achievement, we need to ask ourselves whether we wish to adhere to its tenets.

Historically, and thus religiously, self-optimization was something one attempted on the inside – to sin less, do good, and gain one’s place in heaven. But today, self-optimization refers not only to self-cultivation; we mostly concern ourselves with how we are viewed from the outside. Are we thin, rich, good-looking, well-dressed, smart, efficient, and spiritual enough?

In post-capitalism, self-optimization concerns the development of “human capital”: better health, more output, and better moods to maximize one’s market value. In an optimal post-capitalist society, the shift is from productivity to individual flourishing. Over the last forty years, it has been suggested that in a society like ours, where basic needs are met and labour is not essential to survival, we should strive to better ourselves and reach our highest human potential. Unfortunately, the pressure it creates remains much the same.

In neoliberalism, the individual has internalized the wish to be perfect and carries the risk for his or her success or failure himself or herself. Whereas post-capitalism developed toward prioritizing individual well-being and autonomy over productivity, in a monetarist system everyone is out to get ahead. In both systems, the self is objectified, its achievements quantified. The optimized self is never good enough; there’s always more, better, bigger. Collective problems become individual issues. If you are poor, the causes are never systemic but invariably your own fault; if you burn out at work, it wasn’t the crazy workload – you didn’t manage yourself properly. If you worry about the climate, you are unable to manage your anxieties. If you get shot in the street, it isn’t due to federally sponsored violence but because you ought to stay home!

One way or another, the notion that good might be good enough has been thrown under the bus. We need to alleviate the nagging compulsion to be better and best, and to stop tracking everything we do, from sleep to calories, steps to focus and mood. We want to concentrate on authenticity rather than fantasy. Just say no to compulsiveness.

The concept of optimization is also applied to psychedelics, as in “the betterment of healthy people.” Not only do I find this concept bigoted. Most users take psychedelics to have fun and gain insights as an aside. Why pretend that this could be otherwise, if only we were more serious? As if anyone ever took psychedelics to get worse!

We are looking at three main areas here: psychedelic therapy, psychedelic spirituality, and the use of psychedelics to maximize one’s energy. Therapy takes precedence, also because it is the legal door opener for further liberalization. Spiritual use remains a valuable contribution to our emotional and psychological well-being, but it is not the be-all and end-all, and there is no moral superiority to be gained over often younger, developing minds who feel the need to express their energy in more physical ways. Above all else, the sanctimonious attitude of many older psychonauts toward recreational use looks like envy to me.

Longer days are returning but we still have a way to go toward accepting ourselves the way we are as a first step to a more balanced life.

Yours,
Susanne Seiler

Come and visit our library!
WIDE OPEN BOOKS
Library, Sat/Sun 2-6 pm.
Film Talk, Tuesday 6-9 pm
Kunstraum Walcheturm, Kanonengasse 20, 8004 Zurich
https://walcheturm.ch/