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@ gaiamedia lounge
The Psychedelic Salon Basel
Iris Andres: Psychedelic Integration
Iris has spoken about her work both in Basel and in Zürich Here, participants will learn the practical aspects of integration. Psychonauts as well as meditators and people involved in other spiritual disciplines will profit from this work. By applicaition only.
Basel | gaiamedia lounge | Thursday,11. April | Hochstrasse 70 | 6-9 p.m. | CHF 15/10

@ Cabaret Voltaire
The Psychedelic Salon Zürich
Dr. David Andel: Experimenting with Ourselves: How to Prepare and Experience Safe Journeys into Consciousness
David Andel M.D. specialised in Psychopathology and Brain Imaging. David studied Medicine at the Universities of Basel and Prague, and Neurobiology, Mathematics and Information Technology in Zürich.
Zürich | Cabaret Voltaire | Spiegelgasse 1 | Thursday,18 April | 6-9 pm | CHF 15/10

Related
IFS-Based Psychedelic Integration
with Valentina Manini
Zürich |  Tuesday, 23 April 22 | 18.30 – 21 h (by application only)

Ayahuasca Healing, Science and Indigenous Knowledge
Organized by the Chacruna Institute
Online Course  | 1 April – 8 July 2024

Exhibition The Culture
Explores the deep impact of Hip Hop on contemporary culture
Frankfurt | Schirn Kunsthalle | until 26 May 2024

The Science of Consciousness
30th Annual Conference of the Center of Consciousness Studies of the Uni Arizona
Tucson, AZ | Loews Ventana Canyon Resort | 22 – 27 April 2024

Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics
New York City | Academy of Medicine | 8-11 May 2024

good to see

good to hear

Cosmo Sheldrake
I Did and I Do and I Don’t
Cosmo Sheldrake is an English musician, composer, and producer. He is the son of biologist Rupert Sheldrake and voice teacher Jill Purce, and the brother of biologist Merlin Sheldrake. He released his first single, “The Moss”/”Solar”, in 2014 and followed it up with the Pelicans We EP in 2015. This is a gentle little love sung by one of today’s most original musicians. Cosmo’s music is rife with nature citations, representing the leading edge in what music can become. Also, he’s begun to sing and has a very relatable voice. This man is on the way to becoming a star! .
Transgressive

Nduduzo Makhatini
Izibingelelo (Greetings) live at the Centre for Jazz Studies at UKZN
“The art of the South African jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini transcends borders. In his music, he not only combines the sound of South Africa with that of the global North. For him, improvising is a way of accessing spirituality, both for the musician and for the audience. For more than ten years, the charismatic pianist has been impressing audiences on all continents and at many a performance.” (Moods, Zurich)
Blue Note

Aya Nakamura
Hypé
Aya Danioko (born 10 May 1995) in Bamako, Mali, known professionally as Aya Nakamura, is a French singer. She comes from a family of griot, West African storytellers, praise singers, and poets of oral traditions. Throughout her career, Nakamura accumulated five number-one songs and a number-one album in France. We may look forward to enjoying her art at the opening of the Olympics In Pais this summer. “Right-wing critics say Ms. Nakamura’s music does not represent France, and the prospect of her performing has led to a barrage of racist insults online against her. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.” (Wikipedia and The New York Times)
Warner Brothers

Mdou Moctar
Imouhar
Mahamadou Souleymane (born around 16 August 1984), known professionally as Mdou Moctar (also M.dou Mouktar), is a Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. (Wikipedia) He is known for his political activism. Mdou Moctar is its current iteration is first and foremost a band. It started out peforming at traditional weddings. Of the recent political coup in Niger Mdou says: I never liked France I my country. I don’t hate France or the French people, I don’t hate American people either, but I don’t supprt their manipulative politics, what they do in Africa. In 2024, we want to be free, we need to smile, you understand?” I do and love the raw power of his music. (SGS)
Matador

Cami Layé Okún
Afro Cuban Funky Grooves
“Since the release of her 2015 debut album Nueva Era, Cuban singer Daymé Arocena has established herself as one of her country’s most expressive voices. Encompassing everything from nimble jazz scatting to luscious orchestrations and breathy phrases that soar over bata drums and Santería folk rhythms, Arocena’s four albums have explored the joyous range of Afro Cuban music.” (Ammar Kahlia, The Guardian) She grew up Havana, with a family immersed in rumba folklore. She entered the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory at age 10.
NTS Radio. La Habana, Cuba

goodnews editorial

bicycle day

Eighty-one years ago, on April 19 1943, Albert Hofmann and his laboratory assistant Susi Ramstein – the first woman to take LSD – cycled from Sandoz headquarters in the Basel Wettstein district to Bottmingen, the suburb where the chemist lived with his family. Hofmann had intentionally taken LSD for the first time about an hour earlier.

Since 2018, the Gaia Media Foundation has been inviting people to retrace the approximately four kilometer route he took with the help of young Susi, while recalling Albert Hofmann’s many spiritual adventures and Susi Ramstein’s courage as the first tripsitter.

We’ll meet on Friday, April 19 at the gaiamedia lounge from 4 p.m. onward, in the back yard of Hochstrasse 70 (see below). Leaving at 5 p.m. sharp for the Novartis Campus whence we’ll cycle to Bottmingen to see the house where Albert Hofmann lived, albeit only from the outside. From there, we return to the lounge around 6 p.m. for a Happy Hour with psychedelic music from the Sixties and Seventies as well as some snacks.

Non-locals can rent a bicycle here or here.

Those wishing to participate in the program of our partner, the Swiss Psychedelic Society – Eleusis – has organized for the occasion at OstQuai, in the former cargo port of Basel, near the German border, will leave the lounge around 7 p.m. The party includes a collective experience, a talking circle, and, from 8.30 p.m- onward, ecstatic dance as well as a concert. Everyone is welcome. Tickets can be purchased here.

We are counting on as many of you as possible. Please let us know if you’ll come along for the ride and for our Happy Hour so we know how many participants to count with. The Happy Hour finishes around 9 p.m. or when the last attendants will have left.

We are looking forward to being with you

Marion Neumann                                                                                  Susanne G. Seiler
Member of the Board                                                                            Editor
Gaia Media Foundation & Eleusis Society                                           gaiamedia goodnews

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

good to read

Ernesto Londoño – Trippy. The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics

Londoño’s account introduces readers to an array of psychedelic enthusiasts who are upending our understanding of trauma and healing. From Indigenous elders who regard psychedelics as portals to the spirit world to religious leaders using mind-bending substances as sacraments, as well as war veterans who credit psychedelics with alleviating their PTSD, and clinicians trying to resurrect a promising field of medicine hastily abandoned in when the War on Drugs was announced in the 1970s.
Celadon Books

Peter A. Levine – An Autobiography of Trauma. A Healing Journey

Levine describes the violence of his childhood juxtaposed with specific happy memories and how being guided through Somatic Experiencing (SE) allowed him to illuminate and untangle his traumatic wounds. The man who changed the way psychologists, doctors, and healers understand and treat the wounds of trauma and abuse shares his personal journey to heal his own severe childhood trauma and offers profound insights into the evolution of his innovative healing method.
Park Street Press

Peter Coyote – Zen in the Vernacular. Things As It Is

Award-winning actor, narrator, and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Coyote reveals the fundamental teachings of the Buddha and show how they can be applied to contemporary daily life. The  majority of Western Buddhists are secular and many don’t meditate, wear robes, shave their heads, or believe in reincarnation. Zen offers a creative problem-solving mechanism and moral guide ideal for the stresses and problems of everyday life.
Bear Company

Zipora Klein Jakob – The Forbidden Daughter. The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor

In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida. To increase their child’s chance of survival, the Friedmans smuggle the baby out of the ghetto and into the arms of a non-Jewish farm family when Elida is only three months old. It is the beginning of a life marked by constant upheaval.
Harper Paperbacks

Nona Fernández – The Twilight Zone (Audiobook)

It is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and finds a reporter, who records his testimony. The narrator of Nona Fernández’s mesmerizing and terrifying novel The Twilight Zone is a child when she first sees this man’s face on the magazine’s cover with the words “I Tortured People”.
HighLight Bridge

good to discover

good to know

Runners High
psychoactive | British Psychological Society / 1 March
Does cannabis before exercise promote fitness?

Ibogaine
psychoactive | New York Times | 5 March
An effective treatment for opioid addiction

Climate-friendly
eco | Los Angeles Times | 5 March
Voters approve measure to make room on LA streets for bikes and busses

Finally!
psychoactive |  Medscape | 8 March
LSD-based medication receives FDA breakthrough status for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Ego tripping
psychoactive | Salon | 8 March
Psychedelics work with what there is – transformation not guaranteed

Ukraine
psychoactive | Time | 10 March
On the role of psychedelics in helping soldiers overcome trauma

Nature’s best
psychoactive | Neuroscience News | 12 March
Mushroom extract outperform synthetic psilocybin in psychiatric herapy

Vitamin K
psychoactive | Double Blind | 13 March
Ketamine can be quite dangerous

Recognition
culture | The Guardian | 15 March
Berlin’s techno scene added to World Cultural Heritag list

Counterintuitive
psychoactive | Vox | 16 March
Oregon: psychedelics targetted on account of the opioid crisis

Cannabis
psychoactive | CannabisHealth | 20 March
Switzerland starts 7th adult-use pilot with up to 7500 participants and randomized control

Henbane
culture |  New York Times | 21 March
Roman pouch contained powerful halucinogic seeds

Legalisation
psychoactive | Business of Cannabis | 22 March
German Bundesrat passes landmark bill: cannabis legal as of 1 April

Spin
science | Smithsonian Magazine | 29 March
Earth’s rotation is slowing. Don’t adjust your watches, yet.

Psychology
psychoactive |  Psyche | 30 March
William James about our inner world

good to meet

Plants of the Gods
Part 1 — Ayahuasca and Tobacco Shamanism: an Interview with Ethnobotanist Dr. Glenn Shepard

Transform Drug Policy Foundation
An independent, UK-based charity working nationally and internationally towards a just and effective system of legal regulation for all drugs.

DanceWize
Harm reduction and help for psychedelic, and/or spiritual emergencies at festivals and other peer meetings are a necessity wherever people get together in large numbers.

partner


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