Luc Sala reports from the World Psychedelic Forum

Dear Friends,

The tribe has met again, the tribe of those who know that our normal view of reality isn’t all there is, and that there are ways and means to get in touch with the otherworlds without and within. As I have done before I will give my personal and sometimes critical comments here, based on what I experienced and the obviously limited number of sessions I attended. Please understand this is not meant to be an attack on the organisation, I think they did a great job and with 1500 participants they can be proud of establishing the WPF as a real global and important forum. But leaving it at that, they and we would not really learn anything to improve the WPF, stimulate the wider psychedelic community or those involved in similar events.

It was, for me and I believe for many, another meeting of great minds and of hearts, this Psychedelic World Forum. Ambitious name, as a moniker more future-proof than the LSD conference two years ago, but then that was Albert’s event. He wasn’t there, in Basel, to my disappointment, as he was and is such an inspiration. In fact it was a little inconsiderate of those speakers and luminaries to rush off to Rittimatte in Burg in the days before the conference, it was too much for him. He is 102 years old now and his wife passed away recently. I hope the group energy that Nana Nauwald and Alex Grey focussed on his behalf helped him, to do whatever. He is, for me, an example of where humans can go, if they accept, embrace and integrate their inner child. I don’t know if it was the LSD that helped him, or that it came to him because he was already there, but the man is a role model, a signpost of what humans can be; more than that, he appears in my dreams with great lessons.

The conference, organisationally, was Swiss and “gründlich”, a bit stiff and efficient, clear, but I admit I kept my badgeholder, it’s probably very ecological and penny-wise to ask those back, but what about a little memento? Dieter looked tired, Lucius a bit stressed, but they did a good job. May they take what follows as positive feedback. I like the setup with panorama sessions, this allows an overview of what the various speakers are going to present, it’s an efficient way to help attendees to pick and choose from among the parallel sessions.

More research

One of the positive developments in the psychedelic world is that there is, here and there, a little bit more room for research, a little bit more academic freedom. It’s too early to talk about a revival of academic respectability, but the signs are positive with projects underway in Europe (Beckley Foundation, Swiss research) and overseas. One could speculate why this (long overdue) legitimation is happening, was the LSD conference in 2006 a watershed event, has the energetic work of MAPS made a difference or is this freedom related to the increasing number of traumatized ex-soldiers (PTSD) (Vietnam/Iraq). Whatever the reason, it’s a good development and as the organisation stressed the important point that we need “new” research by inviting a host of “rising” researcher, let’s hope for more and elucidating research. Although it’s nice to hear they redid the Pahnke Good Friday experiment of 1962 at John Hopkins, and no doubt with modern technology and more scientific rigidity, for me there is nothing new there, the stuff works! And it’s also good and legally smart that the scholars and scientists at the conference fairly consistently refer to “the substances” as medicine, but at the same time that’s limiting. Albert, in 2006, spoke of “Sakrale Drogen”. I personally appreciate the sacred, the magical, the miracle potion aspect. On the second day this was the central theme, with shamanic use as the focus, and people like Dale Pendell, Kate Harrison and Nana Nauwald made that point, with Baba Rampuri as a colourful aside, but it could have been a little wider, for my taste. Let’s call this the magic side of things, the mind over matter issue, now it sounds too much like the Shamans are a kind of proto-psychotherapists and non-western doctors. They are also sorcerers and magii, and although we all know the work of Albert and Wasson about the Eleusis Mysteries, I would like to know more about the use, the rituals, the inspiration in the Western traditions. Psychedelics as a factor in the Human Evolution, people like Peter Webster and of course Terence McKenna have made that point. And why use the term religion only as a kind of legal path to obtain permission for using substances? In my view most of the shamanic work is utterly religious, in that it follows strict rules and practices. We like to call it spiritual, but a young Indian kid might feel it as very dogmatic.

There are now too many anecdotal and personal stories, documentaries, books, usually about how someone worked through “Western” trauma and blockages with the help of “non-western” sacred plants and rituals. Of course there are people like Stan Grof, who have charted and expanded our Western mind map; his work around the birth matrix and holotropic breath-work I missed at the LSD-conference two years ago, is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Copyrights

One of the undercurrents at this conference was the issue of copyrights, and I think that is important. Too many camera-teams, too many videos with unacknowledged material, too many claims and limited understanding of what the law (the Berner Convention) requires. In short, and apart from personality, musical, portrait and other rights, the copyright of events like this belongs to the producers, the organisers - here the Gaia Foundation. For news purposes one can use limited clips, quotes etc. for 29 days (the concept of free news gathering) but then the rights of all events go back to the producer. They might give that away, making it public domain, or sell it, farm it out any way they want, etc. If the speakers or presenters have made prior arrangements about the rights with the producer, the whole thing gets even more complicated. People registering the event, as far as the programmed speeches etc. go, have in fact no rights at all (after that 29 days, but how many real press people were there?). Now this is not new, so all those people claiming copyrights because it was their camera, their crew that recorded this or that conference or event in the past, they actually have NO or very limited artistic rights. And to sharpen the point, videoing or recording a ritual in an obscure jungle location is therefore illegal, if no deal is made with those who produce the ritual or event. Bad news for all those camera crews out there, but something that obviously also isn’t recognized by all those folks with cameras in the audience at events like these.

It’s another thing to do private interviews with the speakers, and there were quite a few crews around doing that. Some of them made my toes curl because of the shots they made, out-of-focus, backlit, with strange angles and framing, I hope they all will become great cineasts one day or have editing talents and tools beyond my dreams. Most were not press, but making more or less commercial documentaries, in fact using the presence of all those speakers, the public etc. in a commercial production. The organisation allowed that and I admit, I did film too. But then I handed out more than 250 DVD’s of my “Homage to Albert” video for free. It was something I made two years ago as a present for our hero, and I made sure that all those who were in that video received a copy too.

It made me wonder, how many more video/documentaries can we stomach about the psychedelic (r)evolution, all with interviews with Grof, Grey, Harrison, MG Garcia, Narby, Pinchbeck, Horowitz, Metzner etc. Yes, the documentaries that were shown at the conference were interesting, but how many more egodocuments spiced up with these clip will find a market out there? Yeah, some are impressive, I had to throw up seeing the ayahuasca film by Jan Kounen, the memories of the terrible taste of that sacred brew are very physical for me, but was there much news, anything I could not have learned from the Yahe Letters or Terence’s books? OK, the visual age is here, the internet can handle some more terabytes of psychedelic information, have a look at my archive material but how much is enough?

Which brings me to what I think the real purpose of the WPF is and that is to elevate psychedelics beyond the cult level, make it respectable. Now they tried, but at the same time accommodating the scientists (who do need a respectable platform, I agree), the alternative (freak/cult/culture/tribe) and all those who have a vested (often financial) interest in the whole circus is not an easy thing. Maybe the span of the WPF is a bit too wide, maybe more focus and a smaller scale would work better. But I can also understand the reply: what about the money, the media attention, the scale?

New wave

There were many younger attendees and that is great, we need the new generation. Usually they were experienced trippers, I had great conversations with them, some had very good insight in recognising whom of the speakers was “real” and who not. Encouraging, and one could feel that a new wave might be at hand. I was particularly touched by Rick Doblin kind of vocalising a Boom Festival presence in the hotel lobby with an young crowd around him. But there was much more, mothers talking about their young kids tasting (by accident but obviously some kids get attracted to the substances) LSD or mushrooms. I had fun talking to the young kids, hearing their stories, how they dealt with the legality, the dangers, etc.

I hope the new generation will use all this wisely, the warnings by some shamans about inappropriate use of Ayahuasca were clear, the use of recorded songs is inappropriate because those songs are unique, channelled, time-bound. I totally agree with that warning, many of the self appointed and often self-initiated “western shamans” are dangerously unaware of what is at stake, the spirit world has its dangers and I see that recreational use of cannabis etc. does carry risks.

I actually doubt if western shamans can safely guide such rituals at all, my experience with many many sessions at the Myster center in Amsterdam are not positive. They usually ignore or are unaware of the dark and magical side of it, only recognising the healing part, the mystical state, but don’t deal with the more voodoo part. If we accept that those rituals do help our inner balance, can heal and help, one also has to accept the other side, the danger, the spells, the manifestations of hatred, racism etc. Most of us touch that sphere in our trips, but few are willing to engage that shadow part head on. We might go on a vision quest, but few of us are willing to really face death and pain in a real sense.

It sounds great if Kat Harrison tells the attendees we are, because we were there, all healers, that we can access the band of magic over our head, that we can touch the unseen, but what does that mean? Too many believe that after a few sessions or rituals they can do it themselves, that their glimpse of the other realities made them gurus or at least holy, and they set up a little business. But how does one measure up against the really initiated? There was a demonstration of how modern brain scan techniques can differentiate between mind states, how about a quality-test for aspiring shamans? We know that the legislators are looking for the accidents, the crisis situations, the suicides as an excuse to limit psychedelic use and research, as is now happening in the Netherlands with psilocybin.

The mix

I thought it was great to see that there actually was a nun attending the conference (and a few less recognizable pastors etc.), seeing her talk with the shamans, the hindu folks in orange, the hippie kids. We need to honour that tradition too, monasteries, mass, the sacraments, they are the western way of dealing with the unseen. Of course there was inquisition, holy wars, etc, but do we really think that those Amazonian Indians lived only the holy life? Holy Mass is celebrating a mystery, and even if Jesus wasn’t using Ergot, consecration does mean charging material stuff with unmaterial energy. Priests are shamans, just by another name, and usually well trained. Should freemasons, exorcists, rosicrusians and the craft and druids be part of a forum about entering the otherworld?

The speakers

What makes you eligible to get a gig at the WPF? It looks like writing a popular book, making a documentary, having been there “always” or being “in” with the crowd is important, but most of the recent books contain little new insight, they are professionally crafted and often very commercial productions, rehashing what is already known; in other words, we have a lot of me-too stuff. Yes, Benny Shanon in recent years did some good work with his Ayahuasca study and Narby’s snake/LSD connection is interesting, but is speculating that Mozes, Jesus, or whomever was psychedelically inspired really more than ego-promoting hype? Ok, let’s throw in some 2012, a bit more Iboga, some conspiracy, but it’s all so boring. The Good Friday experiment has been redone, but she/he who has met and connected with Huston Smith (who was one of the participants then) has “felt” how that worked out.

What was missing, although I appreciate the attempts to bring it into the program, was the magic. It is of course important to see what those substances do, what they meant for individual artists, writers, researchers, but how have they influenced our reality? The mystical is ok, that LSD opened inner worlds granted, but can we use this “technology” to solve real problems? Who talks about how Ayahuasca was used in warfare, kept the white invaders away, about the real dark use of substances? Narby does interesting work, trying to help find cures for tuberculosis, but there could be much more. What about climate change, what about deep physics, what about cancer, radiation or dealing with internet-addiction. And sex, too obvious absent at this WPF, like humour, psychedelic can be very funny. I appreciated the fact that “natural” or non-induced altered states were taken seriously in many sessions, and that many spoke of the inner child being an altered state, maybe even the original state. Manuel Schoch quoted the Bible there; “If we do not become like children, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven”.

Art is great, pychedelic art is better, psychedelic music a great inspiration, but I am very happy to see the Grey’s going beyond the 2 dimensional (paintings) into threedimensional (their Chapel and the new place upstate) and fourdimensional work; Alex referred to Jospeh Beuys “social sculpture” ideas. They take the inspiration into the world, actively and in ever wider circles, making the psychedelic experience real, in meeting, connecting and changing our world. We are in a crisis, financially, emotionally, ethically; trying to prove (again) that this or that substance is an effective way to kick this or that habit is old hat, scientifically interesting but not enough. We need new ways of dealing with what’s out there, with climate change, terror, fascism, big brother. Get out there, like in the sixties and make waves, shake them up, go for the magic, even if it makes no sense. Mountain Girl Garcia, one of Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, was one of the most enthousiastic speakers at the Forum, bringing fresh energy, vigor, life to it. And Manuel Schoch was another great and energetic speaker.

I was lucky (or was it synchronicity?) to meet a Heilpraktiker, with little or no experience with the subject, who told me she tried to charge water with LSD information in her hotel. For her that was quite logical, she uses charged water a lot in her healing work. The charging of water (there is even a scale for it called Bovis) is similar to homeopathy, but without dilution, no material exchange happens. Now this is what I have been doing for some time, and it works, but nobody at the WPF believes such “magic”. Stan Grof comes closest as he indicated it might be strong hypnotic induction or placebo effect. But if it works, who cares?

Suggestions

Now criticising the choice of speakers etc. is easy, but may I make some suggestions? Get more eloquent and authorative speakers to keynote. Stan Grof is a lovable man with deep insight, Metzner a sensitive and engaging hero, but I miss the (sometimes demagogic) rants of Leary, of Terence? What about people like John Perry Barlow, Biosphere2 John Allen or Brother David Steindl-Rast? Outsiders, in a way, but they would broaden the scope and they have been around the block too! In fact, there were many people at the conference I would have loved to see on stage, John Gilmore of the EFF among them, and young Finn McKenna, so much his father, let’s encourage him to finish some of Terence’s projects.

When I am honest, I have been to too many of these conferences already, I know the people, I know their “rap”, it’s old hat. So in some lectures I followed I nearly fell asleep, going there because the speakers were famous or my friends, but I have heard it before, the stories, the discourses, I know them. For me it’s meeting old friends, the tribal energy, the openness, the one-on-one contacts, talking about yesteryear and how great it was, the new friends I made.
But obviously there were, beside the insiders, also newcomers, youngsters, people who have not had this opportunity. So there was a kind of a split, a dichotomy. If this were called the World Psychedelic University, geared towards newcomers, new initiates, then having all these old sages telling their stories would have been more appropriate. Then the Daniel Pinchbeck's journalistic but slightly uninspired approach would have been informative for them, the enthousiastic MAPS activist/historian/organiser Rick Doblin could have even better spread the word as an evangelist, they could have had their rave (not at Das Schiff, bitte) and I would have stayed home.

I myself was looking for the inspired, the initiated, the holy and of course there were those inspiring young researchers, writers, psychedelicious spirits of all ages, but why not have a comedian, a live musician, for my part a slight of hand magician with a psychedelic inclination like Jeff McBride make us “feel” what is at stake. The “sacred” moment when the attendees energy was asked to support Albert at the closing ceremony was the highpoint of the WPF for many, is this a lesson?

One last remark, I was glad that the people in prison because of the war on drugs were mentioned in connection with John Beresford, their champion, and that this issue of illegality therefore was part of this event.

Luc Sala, Amsterdam, March 26, 2008