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!

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!

take the money!

Colorado collected 2.5 billion in taxes on cannabis and cannabis products in the first two quarters of 2023, almost the same as in all of 2022. Old neighborhoods are restored, grants flowing. Illegal cultivation and distribution have halved  since Canada legalized cannabis in 2018. Here, too, the economic factor is considerable. In California, Oregon and multiple other American states, cannabis is freely available if you are 18 or older. Thailand has recently decriminalized marijuana, and in Luxembourg, possession and use of cannabis were eased in 2001. On the same list are South Africa, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Mexico, Georgia, Honduras.

And what do we do? We stick our big toe in the water with pilot trials in all major Swiss cities and throw money around like there’s no tomorrow. Apparently, it’s not good enough anymore to discreetly relax with cannabis in the comfort of our own home. They want us to get high in social clubs. Gifted by a person in the program, I tried both the marijuana and the hashish from an official Zurich dispensary. Nothing to write home about. And what if I don’t want to socialize but go to the movies or the theater? Visit someone? Write, read, draw, paint, practice music or yoga. Play a sport? Does using marijuana mean hanging out like a vegetable, barely able to vocalize? Should privacy completely disappear from our lives? I see it as my basic right to live my life away from the public eye. I have nothing against openness and publicity, but my life is still mine, and I decide when I want to be with others.

Swiss health authorities would do well to do an about-face on drug policy and declare all cannabis products legal, provided they adhere to certain standards, see the regulation of CBD as an example. Cannabis cultivation wants to be effected by professionals, improving quality.  At the same time, it must remain possible for smaller producers to generate an income. There must be a market for specialties, where the big players support smaller colleagues, for example by providing laboratory time and space, so that family businesses can also meet official standards. Letting everybody grow their own plants is also a great idea, if you allow no more than four bio plants per household, or we’ll eventually be overgrown.

Our authorities, once again, are trying to regulate life with a yardstick. But the men and women who sign up for the cannabis pilot programs are only the tail on the elephant in the room. The elephant is us countless others who use cannabis – occasionally – as a stimulant, as a substitute for alcohol or to relax after work, before sex, or to listen to music. We don’t engage in pilot projects and are not interested in consuming mediocre goods in “social clubs”.

Wouldn’t it be better for our government to put guard rails in place, i.e. to define the standards and issue the permits for growing THC-containing cannabis, and to let the market regulate itself, rather than to helicopter over every plant and every consumer? The reality is that there is a large market for cannabis and cannabis products in Switzerland. Deal with it!

Falling for fall,
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!

sing to me, autumn

house of psychedelics

The House of Psychedelics at this year’s World Economic Forum was for profit, but I have a different idea. I see Houses of Psychedelics springing up in all major cities and towns to meet the need for safe access to the psychedelic experience. First, we need to extend the use of psychedelic therapy to all interested psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychotherapists. As the example of Australia has recently shown, where therapeutic use of substances is now possible for all medical practitioners, authorized use means training. This training would be one of the services offered in psychedelic houses. Allow me to take you to one of these new facilities for a virtual visit.

We arrive at an inconspicuous house on a tree-lined street. No need to ring the bell or make an appointment – the door Is open from 9 am. Once inside, we are confronted by a large desk, where information about substances is laid out. The man behind the counter asks us what we came for. We are introduced to Annie who will show us around. Our mentor explains that the ground floor is dedicated to learning. She quickly opens and shuts the doors to two small and one larger room, all used for training and/or counselling. The library is to be found in what used to be the living and dining rooms of the house, turned into a cozy lounge lined with books, comfortable couches, and large plants. You can’t take any books home with you, Annie explains, but you can come here and sit and read anytime we’re open. Though empty early in the morning, the library is in brisk use, she assures us. In the back we find a small kitchen with free tea and water as well as vending machines for coffee and snacks.

The second floor is reserved for sessions of various kinds. This is where professionals and lay people accompany clients on psychedelics and where integration circles meet. For a reasonable fee, these rooms can also be reserved for private sessions with or without guidance. On the top floor, a lovingly decorated, remodelled attic is used for ceremonies and accommodates groups of up to twelve people. The thought alone that someone is on the premises, in case help is needed, has a reassuring effect, Annie explains. The services provided by the House of Psychedelic are open to anyone over the age of eighteen.

How would these facilities be funded? Membership is a good way, and educational courses help finance our colorful house. It also has sponsors, and the city recognizes with financial support that it is providing a valuable service, preventing harm by allowing its patrons to experience transcendence in a secure environment.

That’s how I would do it. Perhaps you also have ideas about the legalization of psychedelics that you would like to share with us?  In French-speaking Switzerland, the Eleusis Society and GREA (Groupement Romand d’étude des addictions) are gathering opinions and developing a concept on how to decriminalize psychedelics that will be presented to the Health Department of the Swiss Government. Your opinion and ideas matter!

I just returned from Elefsina/Eleusis where I visited the Symposium «How to Change your Mind to Change the World”, organized by the World Human Forum. It was a lovely event with great speakers. Among others, I met Brian Muraresku, author of The Immortality Key, a book I recommend you read asap. Unfortunately I spent half of my time there in bed with bronchitis, and I’m still not well. Please accept my apologies for the delay of this newsletter. I didn’t have the energy to get it done sooner.

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!

covering stan getz

on offer

Starting in September, Iris Andres will hold a monthly Psychedelic Integration Circle in our gaialounge, alternating between German and English. Some people already know Iris from the Psychedelic Salon. She is a holistic integrative breath therapist, trauma therapist & facilitator for holotropic breathing.

We are delighted to welcome Iris and her group every second Thursday of the month, and wish her much success. In our psychedelic integration circles, participants will find a safe space to share their journey with others and find inspiration on how to post-process their experiences.

The first group will meet on September 14 from 18 – 21 h, this month in German. The number of participants is limited to a maximum of 15 people. Doors open at 17 h. Please register in advance (see under events below).

If you wish, you can visit us in the gaialounge beforehand. We’ll be happy to have welcome you.

I have the pleasure of attending several conferences this fall and hopefully making many new contacts, whether in Elefsina/Eleusis later this month where the theme is “Mysteries of Transition: How to Change Your Mind to Change the World”, in Berkeley at the annual conference of the Women’s Visionary Council, or at the 3rd ALPS conference in Geneva – both in October. I will be happy to report on my experiences here again. In Berkeley I will also speak myself on the subject of Susi Ramstein, Albert Hofmann’s lab assistant, the first woman and the youngest person to try LSD. More about her on another occasion.

Wishing you a good start into a promising fall!
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!

life is the only way

consuming society

Years ago, I saw a concert by Bob Dylan, playing at the Nippon Budokan, an indoor arena, in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Originally built for the 1964 summer Olympics and for martial arts contests, it is one of the best performance halls in the world, where scores of famous musicians have played. When the Dylan concert was over, and the audience had left, there wasn’t a crumb of thrash left behind on the huge grounds. You could have eaten off the floor.

In downtown Denver, where I recently visited the Psychedelic Science Conference, the picture was similar, a few scraps here and there, but not the amounts of waste I encounter in my neighborhood every day. Nor did I see a single police patrol car, whereas they are ubiquitous here. It doesn’t stop people from leaving their trash behind wherever they go. Certain cultures don’t view trash as such, waste is just dirt to them, like all other dirt. Some people are frustrated and feel bitter about their circumstances. They leave their mark on the streets out of spite. I get it. Hot spots such as the boardwalk of Lake Zurich are a wasteland every summer morning. The problem is not only one that meets the eye: trash or parts of it end up in animal stomachs, in our water, and in fields and forest. Trash infests nature, including our own nature.

When I think of the money our cities spend on cleaning up behind people who are either too stupid or too lazy to walk a few meters to the next trash can or take home what they would leave behind, my hair stands on end. I wish our authorities were less casual about it. The good things we could with this money, if only we invested a little in teaching people that it is not okay to behave like they don’t know any better. Education, caregiving, the arts, nature, better jobs for the people who now clean up after us – the list seems endless. I am not the only one to complain, it’s just that nothing happens. I also understand that police people feel they have better things to do after three years of extensive training than to play trash patrol.

To have to pry on people never feels good, but the auxiliary sheriffs who distribute fines for over-parked cars and other minor traffic infractions – surely, they wouldn’t mind? They can’t go out there on their own though. Appealing to reason is not always well-received: it isn’t as easy to pin a fine on a rambunctious individual as it is to identify a license plate number. Should I just look away? Move to a gated community? Live in the country? Sigh.

Our jubilee on 23 July drew a nice little crowd. Many thanks to those of you who attended. We are steadily increasing our membership by keeping you informed and entertained, to connect you, and by steadily working on the registration of our archives and media library. Membership costs the equivalent of five bucks a month. We are grateful for and depend on your support. Think about it!

   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!

wind swirls

our anniversary & psychedelic science 

Most of you already know – we are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the gaiamedia foundation on Sunday, July 23, with an open house party that will last into the early evening. We hope many of you will make time for it, and that we will be able to meet you personally, especially those of you we haven’t met yet.

You probably also know that gaiamedia was founded by Dieter A. Hagenbach, who made himself a present of the foundation for his fiftieth birthday, although his birthday was July 24th. He would have turned eighty this year. 23 is a special number that has fascinated writers such as William Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, or Arthur Koestler. It is a prime number, and it is said to occur disproportionately often, which gives it a mysterious aura. For Wilson and Burroughs, it was ominous, and there is also a movie about it with Jim Carey, The Number 23. In the Bible, under Numbers 23:23, one finds the phrase: “What has God done!” If you think of 23, it comes up more often, at least that’s the theory. It’s true that phenomena show up more often when you pay attention to them: when I was driving a new car, I suddenly saw my make everywhere.

As Robert Anton Wilson cunningly asked: Are you more likely to find a quarter if you look for it or if you leave it to chance? See you on the 23rd? That surely won’t be a coincidence!

Last Monday I returned from Denver, Colorado, where I attended the MAPS-sponsored Psychedelic Science Conference, which ended on June 23, clearly by no accident. It was a superlative event, with over 300 speakers and endless presentations, plenaries, panels, workshops, work groups, exhibitors, and parties. I made new contacts and revived old ones, with the Women’s Visionary Council, with the publishers Inner Traditions and Synergetic Press, and with the Psychedelic Literacy Fund. I also ran into old friends and Swiss friends and was introduced to Rick Doblin, who with his organization MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) has done more to further the therapeutic use of psychedelics than anyone, and especially for MDMA. I had met Rick years earlier at Esalen when Terence McKenna spoke and it was Sacha Shulgin’s birthday, but he didn’t remember the occasion, and I don’t blame him. He is a charming and good-natured man. I didn’t want to keep him and left him to his other fans.

The event itself was overwhelming. There were thousands of people on site, especially on Wednesday, 21 June, when the doors of the Denver Conference Center opened to the public for the first time. The day before, I had been at a Zendo Project workshop. These are the people who take care of spiritual emergencies at big festivals, and there’s a flood  of open-air events in Switzerland, including some very large ones. It’s good to have a place to go, or people who find you when things get out of hand. This could protect confused people from worse, whether young, or already older.

We are looking forward to 23/7/23, and to seeing you!

   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!

yet another poem about denver

education reconsidered              

Our education system is no longer up to date. In a society like ours, where knowledge is globally available, we require a new pedagogy that caters to individual needs. Instead of merely presenting curricula, teachers might empower our children and grandchildren to explore, analyze, and cultivate their own ideas and plans collaboratively with their peers.

Claudio Naranjo, the trailblazing Chilean American psychiatrist, spiritual teacher, and psychedelic therapist, made significant contributions to psychiatric research by introducing harmaline, an active ingredient of ayahuasca, and the Central African Tabernanthe iboga in the Sixties. In later years, he shifted his focus towards the education of children and adolescents, authoring a thought-provoking book titled Changing Education to Change the World: A New Vision of Schooling, which should be read by anyone who encounters the education system and hopes for alternatives.

Naranjo’s educational approach recognizes that action, thought, feeling, and consciousness are essential aspects of our being. Bill Gates recently suggested that robots can teach children how to read and write more effectively than human educators, due to the artificial teacher’s capacity to intelligently respond to the unique needs of each student in a measured and engaging manner. Given our limited attention span during childhood, robot teachers could be utilized in short, targeted sessions whenever a child is receptive to learning. Older children become valuable motivators due to their own reading skills. Within a mixed-age setting, children have the autonomy to choose their learning companions and collaboratively work in groups to explore specific subjects or engage in creative projects.

A small team of teachers provides guidance and supervision, while parents may participate both at home and in the learning centers. This approach promotes collaboration and growth.

   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!

a red, red, rose