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2004 tentative schedule and
description of presentations

A tentative schedule for Mind States Oaxaca is presented below. Please realize that this schedule is subject to change. The introductory session is one that most people will find helpful, providing details related to Mexican culture and what there is to see in Oaxaca City. This presentation will take place at 12:00 pm (noon) on September 15. We encourage everyone to arrive by 11:00 am at the latest, in order to get checked into your rooms with plenty of time before the first session.

Wednesday, September 15:

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm: Jon Hanna on “An Introduction to Mexico:” Hanna will kick off the Mind States Oaxaca conference with some important information about the local culture and scene.

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm: Lunch break

3:00 pm to 7:00 pm: Attendee introductions

7:00 pm to 8:30 pm: Dinner break

8:30 pm to 10:30 pm: Attendee introductions

Thursday, September 16:

10:00 am to 11:30 am: Allan Snyder on “Turning on Savant-like Skills by Turning off Part of the Brain with Magnetic Pulses:” The astonishing skills of autistic savants like those of Dustin Hoffman’s character in the film Rainman, have been suggested to be latent in everyone. I discuss how magnetic stimulation of the frontal lobes in healthy, normal individuals leads to significant stylistic changes in drawing.

11:30 am to 3:00 pm: Lunch break. Also, the first 20­25 seminar attendees travel to Arrazola for Manuel Jiménez’ talk (tentative) on “My Life and Art:” Jiménez will discuss his life as a poor farmer, and the voyage out of poverty that he and his entire village took, when his style of woodcarvings caught on and was appropriated by others in his village. He will also answer questions about his spiritual work as a faith healer.

3:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Deirdre Barrett on “The Committee of Sleep I—Creative Dreams Through History:” Each night before retiring, the French Surrealist poet St. Paul Roux hung a sign on his bedroom door that read ‘Poet at work.’ Creative dreams have produced two Nobel prizes and innumerable paintings and novels. Music from classic masterpieces to pop chartbusters, designs for boats, telescopes, and even weapons have been dreamed. This talk will review the most dramatic examples through slides & narrative and explore how dreams achieve these results.

4:00 pm to 5:00 pm: Bruce Damer on “A Universal Mind State:” The number of distinct pathways inside your brain outnumber the number of particles in the universe. So we might speculate that perhaps the human mind is capable of containing a simulacrum of the entire universe. How might a vision of the whole cosmos manifest itself inside the human mind? Do altered states of consciousness give us a glimpse of a fantastic universe that lurks just beyond our myopic daily view of reality? What did the mystics say? What have you experienced? Perhaps humanity is beginning to sense that the universe evolved our world and our minds to create a camera on itself. Does this sense give our individual and shared existence new meaning? Damer will take us on a journey from Cosmology to Astrobiology and onward into the realms of Tripology.

5:00 pm to 6:00 pm: Daniel Siebert on “Las hojas de la Pastora—An Overview in Two Parts:” Salvia divinorum is an extraordinary vision-inducing herb that is used by Mazatec shamans in divinatory and curing ceremonies. It was unknown to the outside world until relatively recently. Interest in the herb has increased tremendously over the last decade, as has its availability. Today, it is most often used as a tool for self-directed exploration of consciousness and philosophical inquiry. Recently its primary psychoactive constituent, salvinorin A, was identified as a potent and highly selective kappa-opioid receptor agonist. This discovery has generated a great deal of interest amongst pharmacologists, some of whom are now investigating the medicinal potentials of this compound and its derivatives. Part One: The botany of S. divinorum, its history, traditional uses, and methods of ingestion.

6:00 pm to 8:30 pm: Dinner break.

8:30 pm to 9:30 pm: Allyson Grey on “Sacred Geometry, Chaos, and Secret Language in Art:” Allyson presents powerful images and a discussion of the various directions that her artistic path has taken over the years.

9:30 pm to 10:30 pm: Alex Grey on “Visionary Art—Historical Perspectives, Current Directions:” In this breathtaking slide presentation, Alex will present images from the vast catalog of visionary art throughout different cultures and time periods, and discuss how these have influenced his own work.

Friday, September 17:

10:00 am to 11:00 am: Bruce Damer on “A Gigantic Unplanned ExperimentÉ On You!:” Brain researcher Antonio Damasio has brought forth the understanding that the brain operates at two speeds: cognitive (very fast processor) and emotional (slower to record, slower to retrieve). One result of his research is that modern life driven by constant cognitive stimuli (phone, e-mail, texting, and other interrupts) creates a “wired” state of hyper-driven cognition but over time separates a person from the slower wave emotional states. Eventually, Damasio has shown, people become “emotionally neutral” and gradually lose access to both the tools of healthy social interaction and their intuitive and even artistic senses. One might ask if we inhabitants of an increasingly cognitively-driven world are actually part of a giant unplanned experiment: the unintended mass-scale rewiring of our cognitive processes and emotional lives. Where do psychedelics fit in this gradually emerging brave new mental world? Can they help to “reboot” a person back to a state of more balance within the two-speed brain?

11:00 am to 12:00 pm: Zena Grey on “What A Kid Wants." Following this short presentation, Alex, Allyson, and Zena Grey on “Psychedelic Family Values:” The Greys discuss their experiences as a family in the “just say no” environment of anti-drug propaganda.

12:00 pm to 2:30 pm: Lunch break. Also, the second 20­25 seminar attendees travel to Arrazola for Manuel Jiménez’ talk (tentative).

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm: Ann Shulgin on “The Spiral:” From the time I was an infant, through age 25, I underwent a 12-minute psychic stretching exercise which consisted of an initial Alpha-Omega experience, followed by images of opposites, ending with a loving, laughing exchange of greetings between myself and what I thought of as my Friend. As I grew to adulthood, I understood that others called this consciousness, this Friend, “God.” Since this 12-minute experience, which I call the Spiral, has been the foundation of my life, and since I believe it to be built into every human being’s unconscious, I’ll present the description of it that I wrote in the book PIHKAL, and talk about what it has taught me.

3:30 pm to 4:30 pm: Sasha Shulgin on “Trichocereus lobivioides:” There are many bumps and diversions to be found on the path from a report of a cactus being active to a possible explanation as to why it is active. A guided tour of this path will be presented.

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm: Martha Toledo on “Photographing Mexico:” Toledo will share slides of her photography and tell stories about the Matriarchal culture where she grew up, in Juchitan, Mexico.

6:30 pm to 7:30 pm: Erik Davis on “Special Effects in Mind and Media:” From computer games to Hollywood blockbusters to the latest Macintosh screensavers, the often psychedelic style of special effects in our hypermediated culture is only growing more intense. What does this development tell us about the state of our culture, and how does it relate to the mindful exploration of altered states of consciousness?

7:30 pm to 9:00 pm: Dinner break

9:00 pm to 10:00 pm: “Psychopticon Animatris:” Presents Jon Hanna’s continuing documentation of psychedelic and drug related content and inspiration in pop-culture animation and film.

Saturday, September 18:

10:00 am to 10:30 am: Quick meeting outlining the day’s plans and explaining the move from the first hotel to the second hotel. Then we take a day trip to Monte Alban ruins. The evening following the trip to the ruins is free time.

Sunday, September 19:

10:30 am to 11:30 am: Jonathan Ott on “From Octli/Pulque and Xochioctli to Mezcal and «Vino de Mezcal Tequila»:” Ethnopharmacognosy of inebriating pre-Columbian potions based on octli or pulque, wine of various species of Agave, with special reference to numerous inebriating additives. Traditional foods and beverages made from «mezcal» Agaves. Colonial development of distilled mezcal from fermented, cooked mezcal Agaves. Finally, more recent development of «Vino de Mezcal Tequila» or Tequila, a regional type of mezcal brandy, from cooked hearts of Agave tequillense or blue agave.

11:30 am to 2:30 pm: Lunch break. Also, the third 20­25 seminar attendees travel to Arrazola for Manuel Jiménez’ talk (tentative).

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm: Erik Davis on “The Altered State: California’s Cultures of Consciousness:” Explore the history and dynamics of California’s influential “consciousness culture,” its multi-faceted century-long embrace of alternative spirituality, mind-expansion, and bohemian experimentation. At the core of this culture lies the desire to integrate non-ordinary domains of consciousness into a rootless modern world at the literal edge of the west.

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm: “Ask the Shulgins:” A 60-minute question and answer session, where Sasha and Ann answer everything you wanted to know about anything.

5:30 pm onward: Evening free.

Monday, September 20:

10:30 am to 11:30 am: Deirdre Barrett on “The Committee of Sleep II—Creative Dreams in Everyday Life:” “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” — John Steinbeck What are dreams and what do they have to offer your waking self? Dreams are essentially our brains thinking in another biochemical state—and therefore they’re likely to solve some problems on which our waking minds have become stuck. This talk will take inspiration from great historical dreams and modern lab research in presenting techniques to increase the likelihood that you will have breakthrough dreams—and recall and act on them.

11:30 am to 2:30 pm: Lunch break. Also, the fourth 20­25 seminar attendees travel to Arrazola for Manuel Jiménez’ talk (tentative).

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm: Daniel Siebert on “Las hojas de la Pastora—An Overview in Two Parts:” Part Two: The chemistry, pharmacology, effects, and practical applications of Salvia divinorum.

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm: Jonathan Ott on “The Cacáhuatl Eater—Ruminations of an Unabashed Chocolate Addict:” Cacao more as drug than as aliment, cacáhuatl of the Aztecs, the drug more valuable than gold. Curious linguistic and ethnobotanicals correspondences between Meso- and South America with regard to cacao and other entheogens.

5:30 pm onward: Evening free.

Tuesday, September 21:

9:30 am to 10:30 am: Final group wrap up session and good-byes. Check out of rooms by 11:00 am.