Brainforest Café

Lucy Walker is an Emmy-winning, twice Oscar-nominated director renowned for creating riveting character-driven nonfiction. Her films have won over 100 awards including two at Sundance and two at Berlin and include Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Of Night and Light: The Story of Ibogaine, Bring Your Own Brigade, The Lion's Mouth Opens, The Crash Reel, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, Waste Land, Countdown to Zero, Blindsight, and Devil's Playground. For Netflix she directed/executive produced How To Change Your Mind, executive produced Ram Dass, Going Home and produced Why Did You Kill Me?. She was born in London and graduated from Oxford University before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to attend NYU's Graduate Film Program, where she supported herself with a successful career as a DJ.

Steve began learning about tropical ecosystems, indigenous and local people in 1974 at the age 15 when he went to the Rio Polochic River area in Alta Verpaz, Guatemala as a volunteer paramedic with the NGO Amigos de los Americas where he supported volunteer MD’s/ Dentist and provided vaccines to youth in the nearby small mountainous villages.  A few years later he visited a village of Angotere  Secoya indigenous people in Peru who live near the Colombian and Ecuadorian border with a Spanish Jesuit Missionary Luis Uriarte. That initial visit led to Steve living with the Angotere Secoya community on the Santa Maria River for 9 months in 1978 where he lived with a family and studied the diet and medicinal plant use in this community of 35 people. Shortly after that field research he met Tim Plowman at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Tim sent him to visit Dr. Schultes at Harvard on his way back College of the College of the Atlantic where was earning his BA in Human Ecology.  After earning is degree, he spent a year traveling in Peru and Bolivia working with friends and colleagues as an Ethnobotanist for hire looking at Andean Tuber Crops, returning to visit the Secoya people and other wanderings. He was then accepted as the first Fellowship student at the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden studying with Ian Prance, Mike Balick and colleagues in the Institute of Economic Botany. He conducted field work in the Andean and Amazon regions. He did his PhD research on Andean Tubers Crop complex. He then was hired by the National Academy of Sciences as part of the Board of Agriculture Committee on Managing Global Genetic Resources. He was then hired as the Chief Botanist for Latin America at the Nature Conservancy but met Lisa Conte who invited him to help start Shaman Pharmaceuticals along with Dennis, Mike Tempest.  35 Years later he is the Chief of Sustainable Supply, Ethnobotanical Research, and IP at Jaguar Health, where he focusing on the integration of traditional ethnomedical knowledge and the development of  novel therapeutics. He has focused on reciprocity with local collaborating communities and the conservation of biocultural Diversity. Over theses 3.5 decades he dedicated himself to the sustainable harvest and management of the miraculous Croton lechleri tree, also known as the Dragon's Blood tree, found in the Amazon rain forest. Steve’s efforts have been crucial in developing Crofelemer from this tree into an innovative plant-based prescription medication, which is the first FDA-approved oral Botanical drug. He has also focused his research and collaborations with local and Indigenous communities in various regions, including Africa and South East Asia with a focus on the conservation of biocultural diversity.  Most recently he and many ethnobotanical colleagues who were scientific strategy team advisors to  Shaman, formed the Entheogen Therapeutics Initiative (ETI) that has led to the formation of Magdalena Biosciences, a joint venture between Jaguar/ETI and Filament Health in Vancouver, Canada.

Alisha Holloway is a data scientist and population geneticist with expertise in genomics and statistical analysis of big data. She held an assistant professor appointment at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, where she was the founding director of the Gladstone Institutes Bioinformatics Core Facility. She earned a PhD focused on molecular evolution at the University of Texas at Austin.

John O’Connor is from Kalamazoo, Michigan. His recent book, The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, explores the obsessive world of Bigfoot believers. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Oxford American, GQ, Creative Nonfiction’s True Story series, and elsewhere. He teaches journalism at Boston College. His upcoming book traces a historical path from Terence and Dennis´s McKenna "Experiment at La Chorrera" to our current psychedelic moment.

Mike (Schwann Cybershaman) Kawitzky was born in a post-war Apartheid South Africa and (purportedly) survived being indoctrinated by state, culture and corporate influences to emerge, years later, as a social commentator, columnist, author, (a gonzo autobiography titled: "Journey to Everywhere"), and independent filmmaker, Cognition Factor [2009], and The Terence Mckenna OmniBus 2012. Mike has been a commentator on the ascent of consciousness, via social networking, from a unique South African viewpoint since the net became available in South Africa, back in 1990. Mike's first column, The Schwann Column', was published by Intelligence Magazine (Hardcopy) in 1995. Mike has contributed media to several international conferences, plus a live performance at the LSD Symposium in Basel in 2006 on the occasion of Dr. Albert Hofmann's 100th birthday, where "True Hallucinations", a prequel of Cognition Factor was shown. In Mike's post-corporate existence he lectured college students, filmed rocket launches and observed solar eclipses for South African Astronomical Observatories, for whom he also produced educational programs. Mike was responsible for the first official international press release for South African Large Telescope's (SALT) 'first-light' images and directed and produced videography for the International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town in 2011 while also making a presentation called; "A Zeitgeist Accelerator - The Cyberspace Evolution of the Psychoactive mind", at the Khanyisa Psychedelic Plant Symposium at the University of Johannesburg with Kilindi Iyi and Graham Hancock. For the last few years Mike has been working on a six part afro-futuristic TV series called; "Xelexnia", a unique tale of the past, present and future of South Africa, somewhere he calls home, in a leafy suburb of Cape Town in an old Victorian house. Mike has a lovely wife, four children and two grandchildren and a dog called Remy. He enjoys riding his 1300cc V2 motorbike whenever he can and doesn't like aeroplanes. You can sometimes find him inside a space game called Elite Dangerous.

Daniel Cleland is CEO of Soltara Healing Center, which has gained worldwide recognition in 2019 as THE preeminent Shipibo healing center and is now regularly visited by the most prominent influencers, celebrities, and public figures. Cleland holds a Masters of Intercultural and International Communication, but he learned his hard-knock style of scaling from years of traveling, living, and hustling in the merciless Amazon jungles of South America. to. In addition to supporting the field of ayahuasca healing through Soltara, Cleland has also ventured into the music industry with his heavy metal band Savage Existence, having toured USA, Latin America and Europe with such acts as Cradle of Filth, DevilDriver, Sepultura and Cavalera brothers. In 2021, Cleland published his second book “12 Laws of the Jungle: How to Become a Lethal Entrepreneur” as a follow up to his first book “Pulse of the Jungle: Ayahuasca, Adventures and Social Enterprise in the Amazon.” Cleland resided in Costa Rica with his two beloved husky dogs, but is currently in Peru hosting an ayahuasca retreat for wellness and spirituality influencer, Aubrey Marcus.

Giuliana Furci is the founder and CEO of the Fungi Foundation. She is also an associate at Harvard University, a National Geographic Explorer, a Dame of the Order of the Star of Italy, the deputy chair of the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee, and the author of several titles, including a series of field guides to Chilean fungi. She has co-authored titles such as the 1st State of the World's Fungi (Kew, 2018), the publication that delimits the term “funga,” and the 3F Proposal - Fauna, Flora & Funga.

Caitlin Demaris McKenna is a science fiction writer whose passion for the genre stretches back to her elementary school's Scholastic book fairs. She has chronicled the faraway worlds and strange beings of her imagination ever since. When not writing, she enjoys reading, gaming, and exploring the hiking trails near her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. She grew up in the Minnesota woods, where on clear winter nights, she would look up at the stars and wonder.

As an Artist, Thomas Haferlach merges machine learning wizardry with music and multimedia art, exploring the realms of psychedelia from artistic and scientific perspectives. He founded Voodoohop, an influential art collective celebrated by São Paulo's art scene. Utilizing generative AI, Thomas crafts new musical expressions that blend high-tech in unexpected and glitchy ways. Born in Germany and ripened in the rich cultural milieu of São Paulo for over a decade, Thomas’s music fuses minimalist electronics with the chaotic rhythms of Latin America and the calculated trippiness of Krautrock. His approach is a testament to the joy of creation, focusing on innovative hybrid experiences that bridge diverse cultural and technological landscapes. Through the lens of a Business/Researcher, after studying Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University, Thomas spent 9 years in São Paulo creating an art collective, while always keeping one foot in the technology sector. Thomas conceived and implemented a variety of interactive installations, combining his passion for art, research, and technology. After settling back in Germany, he completed a project which involved researching the future trends of Artificial Intelligence for the World Government summit. Since then he spent a few years researching and working with data-driven generative audio modeling. He built the open source platform Pollinations.AI which has the aim of making generative machine learning more accessible. Currently Thomas is working as a senior machine learning specialist at the music AI company Pixelynx founded by Deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin.

By the time Annelise was seven years old, she had lived in Istanbul for five years and travelled around the world. By the age of twenty, she had lived in England and Spain, and had a passion for learning languages and experiencing diverse cultures. This contributed to her going to Brazil to study its culture and history, a time which profoundly influenced the rest of her life. Her professional careers have ranged from Runway Model, to Director of HR in a corporation, Author, and Death Doula for thirty years. “Ayahuasca, Sacred Medicine” shares these exciting, often wondrous, and sometimes awful experiences from her life. In 1977, she drank Ayahuasca for the first time with a Brazilian spiritual group, the UDV (Uniao do Vegetal). She was a member for eighteen years, and served as a primary translator. Her story of rituals, the strength of community, and the years of deepening awareness portrays a tradition of mystery with ancient roots, and also a very modern drama involving stark and honest revelation. The story shares the role of Ayahuasca in opening Annelise to dimensions beyond this realm. Those expereinces led to the healing of old wounds, a significant change in the trajectory of her life, and deeper happiness in her everyday life. The book is a great repository of factual and experiential information for understanding the science and the mystery of the many aspects of Ayahuasca. Over many years, Annelise has written articles and presented her knowledge at conferences dedicated to studying Ayahuasca. From the intimate perspective of a translator and interpreter, Annelise adventured with researchers involved in Ethnobotany and learned first hand the personal, cultural, and scientific significance of Ayahuasca in human development. Her work has contributed beautiful knowledge and personal experience to the conscious exploration of this sacred medicine. This book offers wisdom and realistic and grounded knowledge of how Ayahuasca can lead to spiritual awakening, emotional and physical healing, and the deepening of our human connection with nature.

Rebecca Lazarou’s work is an ecology of different disciplines spanning across medical science, ethnopharmacology, herbalism, holistic healthcare, cannabis and psychedelics. She is also an activist, writer, speaker and herbal formulator. She is currently a PhD candidate at Kew Gardens and UCL School of Pharmacy with a focus on ethnopharmacology and herbal medicines. She was the science and managing editor for the ESPD55 volume, is currently co-editor for education charity Herbal Reality and founded Laz The Plant Scientist to bring quality, sustainably sourced herbal medicines and education to people. She is passionate about democratizing knowledge, and rekindling ethnobotany and herbalism from being marginalised disciplines to part of common knowledge again. Ultimately her aim is to help nurture our relationship with nature through natural medicines, and support our species return back to Earth centred living. She is devoted to science to demystify these topics, but equally I am committed to rekindling the magic, awe and healing we find on our precious Earth.

Wade Davis is an ethnographer, writer, photographer and filmmaker whose work has taken him from the Amazon to Tibet, Africa to Australia, Polynesia to the Arctic. An Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013, he is currently professor of anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Author of 24 books, including One River, The Wayfinders, Into the Silence, and Magdalena, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Primarily through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among fifteen indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. A professional speaker for 30 years, Wade has spoken from the TED main stage on five occasions, delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, and lectured at 200 universities and some 250 corporations and professional associations. Davis is an Honorary Member of the Explorers Club, Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a recipient of 12 honorary degrees, and a Member of the Order of Canada, among other distinctions. In 2018, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Colombia. Named by the National Geographic Society as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” His latest book, Beneath the Surface of Things, became a national bestseller within days of its release by Greystone in April, 2024.

Lee Kaiser was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin in the 1980’s and is a wildlife ecologist who has lived in various communities throughout the Americas. He has worked on permaculture projects, natural building endeavors, hosting and organizing events and retreats, performing surveys for conservation investigations, agricultural and natural medicine initiatives, conducting artesanal essential oil distillation, taking part in music production, volunteering in educational workshops, and generally participating in cultural, scientific, and international exchanges. Lee met Dennis in 2016 when they both were in Minnesota, and their mutual interests in Amazonian and Andean ecology and ethnography have kept them in contact over the years. He currently lives with his partner in Argentina, and has primarily lived over the last decade in Colorado, Minnesota, Perú, and México. His travels and experiences in foreign lands as well as living with people from many different cultural backgrounds have allowed for him to dive deep into a broad range of fields and settings, while also staying plugged into some broader networks of connectivity and interdisciplinary explorations.

Dr. Bruce Damer is a scientist working in the field of Astrobiology with his passion being working on the mystery of the origin of life and where life might arise in the universe. Back at our ESPD conference in 2022 he 'came out of the psychedelic scientist closet' in his talk 'Its High Time for Science'. This talk, at which I was sitting in the front row, sparked a movement that has today led to a new organization: the Center for MINDS (Multidisciplinary Investigation into Novel Discoveries and Solutions). MINDS is modeled on MAPS and seeks to go beyond psychedelics in therapeutics and bring online practices and tools to use them to catalyze creativity, in science, tech, design and even leadership. McKenna Academy was there at the very beginning of MINDS and I am sure we will hear about where it is today, and a bit about its deep history back to the 1950s and 60s.

Deborah has published over 40 books through her publishing house Synergetic Press, Ltd. in global ecology, regenerative agriculture, ethnobotany, psychedelics, and social justice, since establishing it in 1984. In 1986, she was on the team that designed and built a large-scale closed ecological system, Biosphere 2, developing the publications and educational programs for the complex. In 1990, she started The Biosphere Press, an imprint of the Biosphere 2 project, producing a dozen books and a classroom curriculum for children on biospheres and biomes. While at Biosphere 2, Deborah met Richard Evans Schultes, the grandfather of contemporary ethnobotany. She went on to publish his two books of photographs he made documenting people’s use of plant medicine in the NW Colombian Amazonia. Deborah is a director and VP of the U.S. non-profit, the Institute of Ecotechnics, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Synergia Ranch. The Institute owns the RV Heraclitus, an 84-foot ferrocement Chinese Junk design that sailed 270,000 miles around Planet Ocean, with two years up the Amazon on an ethnobotanical expedition inspired by Schultes (1980-1982). Deborah currently lives at Synergia Ranch organic farm and retreat center where she lives, contributes to the farm operations when she can, and continues publishing books.

Joshua Bloom was born and raised in Hackney, London, to a Filipino mother and Jewish father. He grew up in a culturally rich area, sandwiched between Hackney's infamous ‘Murder Mile’ and Stamford Hill, home to Europe's largest ultra-Orthodox Jewish community with over 100,000 residents. Much of his early years were spent exploring the local parks and Hackney Marshes nature reserve, where he developed a deep fascination for the flora and fauna, particularly birds. This love for nature naturally led him to pursue studies in Microbiology and Genetics, driven by a desire to comprehend the inner workings of organisms at a fundamental level. Following his university education and a stint in a genetics lab, Joshua embarked on a significant chapter in his life. For two years, he dedicated himself to working at a drug and alcohol rehab clinic in Camden, an area known for its struggles with substance abuse. Reflecting on this period, he often describes it as a "PhD in real life." The experience exposed him to individuals born into tragic circumstances, with little hope for a way out. It also shed light on the shortcomings of mainstream medical approaches to helping the less fortunate, sparking his interest in the potential of psychedelics for treating addiction and PTSD. In the subsequent years, Joshua explored the world extensively, immersing himself in different cultures. He transitioned into freelance photography, focusing mainly on capturing the beauty of nature and landscapes. It was during this time that his curiosity about consciousness deepened, fueled by a couple of near-death experiences and altered states of mind. This journey culminated in the completion of a master's degree in neuroscience and psychology, although he firmly believes that firsthand experience surpasses all. Twelve years ago, Joshua made a significant life change by moving to Switzerland to pursue a career in IT. Although this choice was made for practical reasons, to pursue a career in IT. He also collaborated with charities and NGOs that share a vision for a better future in harmony with nature. Today, he is the creator of "Reality in Bloom," a website and podcast that explores topics ranging from nature and consciousness to reality and psychedelics. In recent years, Joshua has taken up marathon running for its health benefits and stress management. This newfound passion (or mid life crisis as his wife would call it!!) has now brought him to the starting line of one of the "Toughest footrace on earth": The Marathon Des Sables, a grueling 250km race through the Sahara Desert. He eagerly anticipates this mammoth challenge as he prepares to embark on this extraordinary journey later this week.

Michael Coe, PhD, is an applied ecologist and ethnobiology research fellow at the French National Institute for Research and Development (IRD) and Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE) in Marseille, France.  Michael is working to help promote the revitalization of ethnobiology at academic institutions in the United States, to help provide a global synthesis on the sustainability and   of non-timber forest products, and to help Indigenous-led efforts aiming to facilitate sustainable ayahuasca management in the Peruvian Amazon.

Erik F. Storlie, PhD, entered graduate school at Berkeley in 1962 intending to become a medievalist. Experience with cannabis, peyote, mushrooms, and LSD prompted an interest in Zen and the synergies between meditation and psychedelic medicine. He is retired from teaching meditation and mindfulness at The University of Minnesota and has published two memoirs that speak to sixty years of meditation and psychedelic exploration: Nothing on my Mind: Berkeley, LSD, Two Zen Masters; and Go Deep and Take Plenty of Root.

Tom (Tomás) Pinkson has been walking the Warrior Wisdom path far longer than most of the readers of this book have been walking. In it, he shares the wisdom distilled from a lifetime of seeking to understand himself and his place in the realm of shamanic and indigenous practices. In the course of his long life, he has learned from the great medicine teachers, including LSD, ayahuasca, peyote and magic mushrooms, and those who have been the keepers and stewards of this psychedelic gnosis, ranging from indigenous elders to spiritual leaders in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, psychotherapists, and fellow seekers such as Ralph Metzner, Huston Smith, Ram Dass and others. Tomás has been a beacon of hope and a compassionate guide for others seeking to follow the path of Warrior Wisdom, helping them to find their own way in their personal quests. While he has pointed the way for many to find their way, he shows up always as a humble learner; not a leader, but a fellow traveler, ever open to the marvelous mystery of being.Brother Tomás has traveled far on the road to Warrior Wisdom. Here, he shares the experiences gleaned from that long journey. He has much to teach us, and we all have much to learn.