Chris Hopkins sent us a note about the latest Evolver podcast, the fourth in a new series from the folks at Reality Sandwich.

In this episode we have discussions with two amazing individuals about their journey and transformation with Psychedelics.

First up we have Evolver co-founder Jonathan Talat Phillips interviewing Reality Sandwich contributor Adam Elenbaas about his new book, Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest. Adam discusses his journey from being a "hell-damning" fundamentalist Christian to recovering from drug addiction and healing himself and his family line through ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon. He shares his encounters with mystical beings and inter-dimensional creatures during his adventures with this shamanic brew, as well as his thoughts on why Jesus was the social activist version of the Buddha, how there is nothing to fear in the entire cosmos, and ways we might redeem modern Christianity.

Next up I interviewed Isabella Stoloff who is the Evolver Regional coordinator for Evolver Orange County. She is also a practicing Shaman and heads up the Orange County Healing Center. She tells a little about how she came to be involved with Evolver through her Shamanic work in the Amazon. In this interview she mentions a Love meditation that she did at the Evolver Long Beach Love Spore and that was actually captured on video and is up on youtube.com, you will find the link below.

Finally we have another amazing story of transformation with Jennifer Palmer interviewing Charles Shaw talking about his journey, and how he had been "paroled from hell". Charles has been a long time contributor with Reality Sandwich, he has also spoken at a number of different Evolver Spores. Currently his book "Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics & Spirituality" is being released chapter by chapter on Reality Sandwich, the most recent installation was chapter 12. Charles is also about to kick off his "Light and Shadow: Exploring Personal & Cultural Transformation" tour. The tour will be visiting over thirty cities and will feature both Charles Shaw and Michael Garfield. While on the road Charles will be shooting for his upcoming documentary project "Unheard Voices". Enjoy the interview and check out everything that Charles is up to.

From the Guardian:

Spike Walker was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's combined Royal Colleges medal for his 'outstanding contribution to photography and its application in the service of medicine'. A retired schoolteacher, Spike produces photomicrographs in his garage, which he has converted into a laboratory.

Full slide-show. The image above is a cross section of rhino horn keratin.

[Thanks Hana!]

Waveform is an environmentally-friendly, three day, 24hr psychedelic trance festival. This year the party took place in Suffolk, England and PsypressUK was there to cover the electronica blitz....

"Hanging from the middle of the roof in the Happy Hookah’s tent swung several Barbie Dolls, clad in bondage gear and embracing one another in a swing of ecstasy. Below, sat some square, low-riding tables with scatter cushions and rugs strewn across the floor. And there, in a clearing in the centre, lay Fishboy. His body was rigid, his arms locked by his sides, hands and feet flapping at the joints and his head angled up, gasping for water; a sea mammal caught in the magnificent flash-tide of Waveform Festival 2010."

The Cranbrook RCMP want to alert the public to a new trend in drug trafficking that appeared here this spring. While executing a Search Warrant under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, police located a bag of candy, which had gummie bears in it. The bag and it’s location inside the residence made the police suspicious, and a sample was sent to the Drug Lab for analysis. The gummie bear has been confirmed to be laced with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, commonly known as LSD.

LSD is a psychedelic drug, that affects the brain, often causing psychological problems that alter the thinking process. While it is not necessarily addictive, a person who is under the influence of LSD may become irrational and their behavior can be bizarre. Obviously, if a young child were to consume such a gummie bear, the effects could be very dangerous.

[Thanks Jon! Via LEAP]

Time is running an awesome slideshow about how various alcohols appear under a microscope. Answer: they appear AWESOME!

[Thanks, Kat!]

I know many of you were DEEPLY CONCERNED that you might lose OTC access to cough syrup, but allow me to assuage your fears:

Cough and cold medicines that contain dextromethorphan should remain available without prescription, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended Tuesday.

Dextromethorphan or DXM is found in many over-the-counter cough suppressant products, such as NyQuil, Robitussin and Tylenol Cold Tablets. When taken in large doses and when mixed with other drugs it can create a state of euphoria.

The Drug Enforcement Administration asked the FDA, back in 2007, to look at how the government could curb abuse of DXM, because a growing number of teenagers were using it to get high. In rare cases, death did occur.

The FDA advisory panel recognized that abuse was a concern in adolescents, but decided that dextromethorphan did not pose enough of a threat to the general public health. It voted 15 to 9 against having DXM fall under the Controlled Substance Act, which would have allowed states to consider it for prescription-only status.

OMFGWHEW!!

[Thanks, Luke!]

Artist Dan Goldman hipped us to his newest project, a rollicking tale of a psychedelic ghost-buster...

I wanted to hip all the DoseNation readers to my now-complete online graphic novel Red Light Properties. RLP is the first graphic novel in a longer tropical-horror series about a small Miami Beach real estate office that exorcises ghosts and lists the "previously-haunted homes" to foreclosure victims left homeless by the housing crash.

The firm is run by shaman-schlub Jude Tobin, whose ever-present orange fanny-pack is stuffed with a portable vaporizer and a veritable lab of entheogenic substances to help him enter the spirit world and exorcise lingering spirits... though his necessary daily intake to keep the office in the black puts undue stress on his relationship with his broker/soon-to-be-ex-wife Cecilia and the rest of the people surrounding him on all sides in the living world.

This first volume is a welcome-to-our-fucked-up-lives affair, with a slow build for the characters and the paradigm set-up before the knock-down... but it's also full of the sublime and the satirical, with some nice yiddish flourishes, DMT-riddled psychedelic disintegrations and a sweaty layer of Miami sleaze.

I have no idea what to expect from this. IMDB says:

A single church-going mother desperately tries to save her two daughters from walking down the same dark path she was once on; and a young woman fights against addiction to a mysterious party drug."

It's filmed in Seattle and it's in post-production.

If anyone finds the password to watch the trailer at the linked site, post it in the comments!

From Tom Angell at LEAP. Yesterday's pro-legalization law enforcement press conferences and sign-on letter rolled out by LEAP is garnering extensive media coverage. One of many video news segments is included below.

The story was also picked up by the AP, Los Angeles Times, and many local news outlets and blogs. Read more at the link below.

The annual Horizons conference is coming up, scheduled for September 24-26 in New York City. Here is a list of the great speakers they have lined up for this year.

• John Perry Barlow - Author, lyricist, essayist and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  
• Don Lattin - Author, Harvard Psychedelic Club and freelance journalist
  
• Torsten Passie, M.D., Ph.D. - Assistant Professor for Consciousness Studies, Hannover Medical School, Germany. "On the History and Special Sociology of Psychedelic Studies"
  
• Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and
  
• Mary P. Cosimano, MSW - Graduate Social Worker, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Using Psilocybin for Smoking Cessation"
  
• Jeffrey Guss, M.D. - Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine. Investigator and Director of Training, NYU Cancer Anxiety Psilocybin Project"The NYU Training Program in Psychedelic Psychotherapy for Cancer Related Anxiety"
  
• Clare S. Wilkins - Director, Pangea Biomedics ibogaine clinic, Tijuana, Mexico. "Four-Hundred Ibogaine Sessions: Data on Detoxification, Recidivism, and Quality of Life"
  
• Jill Harris - Managing Director, Public Policy, Drug Policy Alliance. "Challenges in Changing the Legal Status of Entheogens"
  
• Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. - psychologist and author, "Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development." "Psychedelics, Psychotherapy, and Change"
  
• Rick Strassman, M.D. - Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Author, DMT-The Spirit Molecule, co-author, Inner Paths to Outer Space, and author of the forthcoming, The Soul of Prophecy. "Old Testament Prophecy: A Western Model of the Psychedelic Experience"
  
• Erik Davis - author, Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica, TechGnosis, and The Visionary State. "Psychedelics: Between Natural and Supernatural"
  
• J.P. Harpignies - author of Political Ecosystems, Double Helix Hubris, and most recently, Delusions of Normality; editor of the collection Visionary Plant Consciousness, and associate editor of Ecological Medicine and Nature's Operating Instructions; since 1990, associate producer of the annual Bioneers eco conference. "Psychedelics, Utopianism, and Psycho-Spiritual Inflation"
  
• Annie Oak - founder of the Women's Visionary Congress and the Women's Entheogen Fund. "Women Who Work with Psychedelics: Healers, Artists, Rangers, and Priestesses"
  
• Dale Pendell - author, ethnobotanist, poet. "Psychedelics, Deep Ecology, and the Matter of Entities"