Panel: Sacred Medicines, Creativity, Evolution & the Paradigm Shift

The regulatory landscape and social attitudes surrounding visionary plants and psychedelic compounds are in rapid and dramatic flux. A great deal of new scientific research has been revealing exciting potential medical uses for these substances, while dynamic, ever growing subcultures explore their use. But with this explosion in new interest come challenges. Will profit-focused investors seek to corner the legal use of psychedelics and monopolize the resulting profits, further marginalizing the Indigenous cultures who discovered these plants millennia ago and developed powerful healing methodologies with them? Will the underground subcultures that explored their use starting in the mid 20th Century also be thrown under the bus by people in suits? Does this marketing and medicalization risk the “de-souling” of the use of sacred substances? Three longtime leading experts on sacred plant use will wrestle with these and other questions. With: Paul Stamets, one of the world’s leading mycologists and the foremost expert on psilocybin mushrooms; Katsi Cook, a groundbreaking figure in the revitalization of Indigenous midwifery and a longtime participant in peyote ceremonies; Françoise Bourzat, a leading expert on psychedelics as healing agents who did 35+ years’ field work with the Mazatec in Mexico. Moderated by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer.

December 5th | 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm

Panelists


Paul Stamets
Mycologist and Author
Katsi Cook
Director
The Spirit Aligned Leadership Program
Francoise Bourzat
Professor
California Institute of Integral Studies
J.P. Harpignies
Senior Producer
Bioneers
Bioneers 2019 Conference - Seeding the Field: Growing Transformative Movements
Bioneers 2020 Conference - Beyond the Great Unraveling: Weaving the World Anew
Bioneers 2020 Conference - Beyond the Great Unraveling: Weaving the World Anew