Videos

This talk will describe several lines of research with psilocybin conducted by our laboratory at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, USA). Completed study results to be presented include: the effects of different psilocybin doses on mystical experience and challenging effects (“bad trips”); the effects of psilocybin in altering personality (increased [...]

This talk will describe recently completed fMRI and MEG research with psilocybin and MDMA. I will describe the methods and main results of these studies and discuss their potential implications, both for understanding how the drugs work in the brain and how their effects may be relevant to [...]

This presentation analyzes from an anthropological perspective some of the ways that ayahuasca’s curative potentials have been portrayed in conventional psychiatry from the 1950s until today. Through considering seldom-cited and difficult-to-access publications and other forms of academic psychiatric productions, it is shown how different cultures within psychiatry have [...]

The Shipibo-Konibo people from the Peruvian Amazon are part of the Pano ethnolinguistic family. Distributed within more than one hundred villages, the inhabitants live along the Ucayali River and its tributaries, on both sides of Pucallpa city. The Shipibo women are recognized for their handicrafts (especially pottery and [...]

The presentation starts with an overview of the research on the psychotherapeutic effects of ayahuasca and presents in details an investigation into the integration process of ayahuasca experiences. Eleven individuals participating in a series of ayahuasca rituals were followed for the period of one year in a study [...]

The often used term ‘healing ritual’ for nearly all kinds of ayahuasca rituals (Santo Daime rituals, neo-shamanistic rituals and even do-it-yourself-rituals) attracts people searching for an alternative method for treatment. In this study, fifteen people with first-hand experience with ayahuasca 'therapy' for a special disease (like chronic pain, [...]

Deficits in attentional functions are counted among the core cognitive symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Pharmacologic challenges with hallucinogens have been used as models for psychosis. In this talk I give an overview of our studies on the pharmacological modulation of DMT and ketamine on different aspects of attentional [...]

"Molecules of mysticism” are chemical substances that are able to induce mystical experience, increasing the feeling of closeness to the god (entheogens) or to other people (empathogens). It is quite likely, that every mystical experience is mediated chemically, either by some substances of external origin, or by endogenous [...]