2019 Portland Psychedelic Conference

James Fadiman

Microdosing, the Next Psychedelic Frontier

James Fadiman and Robert Frager co-founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now known as Sofia University) in 1975. Fadiman was a president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. He was also a director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences from 1975–77. James has been associated with psychedelics since the early 1960’s when introduced to them by Richard Alpert (Ram Das) in Paris, in 1962. A selection of James’ published books include: The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys Paperback (2011) Be Love Now (with Rameshwar Das) (2010) Personality and Personal Growth (7th Edition) (with Robert Frager) (2012) The Other Side of Haight: A Novel (2004) Essential Sufism (1998)

Rachel Harris, PhD

Psychologist Rachel Harris, PhD is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD and Anxiety. She was in private practice for thirty-five years working with people interested in psychospiritual development. During a decade working in research, Rachel received a National Institutes of Health New Investigator’s Award and published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals. She has also consulted to Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. Rachel was in the 1968 Esalen Residential Program, Big Sur, CA. This intensive six-month program focused on meditation and body work. In the early seventies, Rachel studied with Dorothy Nolte in the movement system, Structural Awareness, based on Dr. Ida Rolf’s Structural Integration (Rolfing). Rachel also co-edited the Journal of the American Dance Therapy Association for three years. Awareness of how people live and move in their bodies has always been an aspect of Rachel’s approach to psychotherapy.

Kilindi Iyi

Psilocybin Spores: An Organic Artificial Intelligence

At the dawn of modern humanities relationship with AI we must look to the past and to our entheogenic technologies to glimpse the future of what will usher us out of the human and into the unimaginable. Infra particle intelligence older than time lead us to access points in quantum space that will deliver humans a hyper-dimensional knowledge and a more mature understandings of reality. Psilocybin mushrooms gives us the tools to answer these questions of our very near future and beyond. Kilindi’s lecture pushed the envelope of how we can attain the wisdom to make it through these difficult times of doubt and fear ushered in by the acceleration of these these new technologies through the ingestion of high dose mushrooms. Kilindi Iyi shared his experiences in these realms in this very important lecture.

Angela Ward, RNC Ob/EFM CPRT

Ketamine and other Non-Ordinary States – A Nurse’s Perspective

As the psychedelic pathway continues to open up, there are more and varied lenses to examine the ways in which we offer care for those going through these healing processes. Angela Ward, RNC Ob/EFM CPRT, will share her perspective caring for patients in more than 300 individual and group ketamine-assisted therapy sessions, and will discuss how Registered Nurses bring a unique skill set to psychedelic-assisted therapy. Angela has spent the majority of her nursing career as a Labor and Delivery nurse, helping women through the transformative process of birthing their babies into the world. Her practice philosophy was shaped by her time at Seattle University, where the Jesuit values of social justice and education instilled in her a deep belief that all people deserve the highest quality of care no matter what their means and resources.

Fred Sly PhD

Healing, Music, The 60s, and Set and Setting: The Primacy of Music as an Effector of Psychological Change

Psychedelic-assisted therapy has been repeatedly and undeniably found to be highly effective at resolving many existential conditions including treatment-resistant PTSD. The standard therapeutic protocol includes music, however, until recently, the contribution of music to the observed therapeutic outcomes has not been measured even though it’s been informally acknowledged.

Dr. April Bolding, PT, CCE, CD

Dr. April Bolding is co-author of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn, is a Women’s Health physical therapist in Seattle. She holds a doctorate in physical therapy, is a Maya abdominal therapy practitioner, childbirth educator, birth doula, author and speaker. She is the creator of the Phoenix Heart ARISE™ Healing Program, a holistic healing kit that helps people prepare for and heal from childbirth, heal from pelvic pain, surgery, trauma to ultimately restore more optimal pelvic floor function.

Merrill Ward possesses the rare gift of exquisitely articulating deep esoteric wisdom as well as transmitting this wisdom to those who work with him through imagery, mythology, ontology, noetic experiences and profound metaphor. He is deeply involved is studying and teaching the esoteric wisdom of the Western Mystery School tradition and comparative world religions and has done so over 20 years. His work acts as a transformative catalyst for individuals and groups to gain a richer and deeper understanding of their power, creativity and innate magical abilities aligning them with their true mission and purpose in life.

Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine. Dr. Bossis is director of palliative care research, co-principal investigator, session guide, and co-author on the 2016 clinical trial and publication demonstrating a significant reduction in psychological distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer. He is also the lead investigator for a clinical trial evaluating psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders. He is on the faculty of The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies and co-editor (with Charles Grob, MD) of a Special Series on Psychedelics for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Dr. Bossis is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder and former co-director of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in NYC.

Dr. Grob’s clinical interests include mood and anxiety disorders, as well as the self-medication hypothesis of substance abuse as it applies to substance abuse. His research has included the first FDA approved Phase 1 study of the physiological and psychological effects of MDMA (3,4-methlyenedioxymethamphetamine), a multi-national, collaborative study of the Amazonian plant hallucinogen decoction, ayahuasca, in Brazil and a pilot investigation of the safety and efficacy of psilocybin in the treatment of anxiety in adult patients with advanced-stage cancer. His most recent research has examined the safety and efficacy of an MDMA treatment model with adult autistics with severe social anxiety.