Programme

SPEAKERS

Adèle G. van der Plas

Adèle G. van der Plas (1950) lectured in criminology and criminal law at the University of Leiden and the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law in Utrecht. She obtained her doctorate in law on the study: Revolution and criminal justice: the Cuban experiment (CEDLA, 1987). Since 1982 she has been practising as a criminal lawyer in Amsterdam and conducted the defence of several high-profile cases in the Netherlands. She also defended the Dutch Santo Daime churches in two criminal procedures and handled many so-called ‘magic mushrooms’ cases. She published on several topics related to fundamental rights in criminal procedures and the ongoing ‘war on drugs’.

Stephen Snelders

Dr. Stephen Snelders is a scientific researcher and lecturer at the Metamedical department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is currently involved with studying the role of ship surgeons in the development of tropical medicine in the 17th and 18th century. Other research interests are: the historical and social implications of the use of inheritable concepts in medicine and the public domain; the use of psychedelic compounds in medicine and the public domain; and the history of medical public promotion in the early modern and modern era.

Torsten Passie

Dr. Passie completed his training as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as his academic work at the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, in practice by Prof. Hans Carl Leuner in Göttingen and Hannover Medical School. He wrote his doctorate on existential aspects of psychiatric disorders and habilitation of altered states of consciousness. Prior to joining Oberberg, Dr. Passie was the Chief Physician of the Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, and Medical Director of the Hannover Centre of the Federal German model project for heroin assisted treatment of opiate addicts at the Medical University of Hannover.

Andrew Sewell

After graduating with a BA in Physics from Cornell University, Dr. Sewell decided to pursue his interest in entheogens by obtaining an MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1998 then completing a combined residency in Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine in 2004, where he served as Chief Resident in Neuropsychiatry. Following this, he attended a substance abuse research fellowship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he served as Managing Editor of the McLean Annals of Behavioral Neurology. He also published the first paper ever on the response of cluster headache to psilocybin and LSD, presenting the data both at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting and the International LSD Symposium in Basel in 2006.

Jordi Riba



Dr Jordi Riba received his PhD in Pharmacology in 2003, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, with a thesis on the human pharmacology of ayahuasca. He is currently Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Associate Researcher at the Drug Research Center of the Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona, where he has conducted a series of clinical studies involving the administration of ayahuasca to experienced psychedelic/entheogen users. These studies have assessed the phamacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of ayahuasca, including alkaloid disposition, subjective effects and electroencephalography and neuroimaging measures of acute ayahuasca administration.

Peter Oehen

Born in 1956 and raised in Canada and Switzerland. Medical school at University of Basel/Switzerland. Specialist degree in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 1988. Psychotherapeutic training in Guided Affective Imagery Therapy, Systemic Couple and Family Therapy and in Psycholytic Therapy. In private practice since 1988. Special interest in altered states of consciousness and psychedelic substances for more than 20 years. Board member of the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy (SAePT). Principle investigator of the Swiss phase II MDMA/PTSD pilot study (since 2006).

Jose Carlos Bouso

Jose Carlos Bouso’s studies addressed preliminary data on the safety and efficacy of different doses of MDMA administered in a psychotherapeutic setting to women with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) secondary to a sexual assault. He also has been develope neuropsychological research about long term effects of ayahuasca use in both Spanish and Brazilian communitties. He currently works in Dr Jordi Riba’s team conducting neuropharmacological research on psychedelics.

Daniel Waterman

Daniel Waterman was born London in 1962 and has lived in the Netherlands since 1972. He has a Masters Degree in Gold and Silversmithing and a BA in Fine Arts from the St. Joost Academy of Arts in Breda. An early interest in Altered States of Consciousness led to experimentation with psychedelic drugs. During the 1990s he became a member of the newly founded Santo Daime community in the Netherlands. Since the year 2001, Daniel has prepared and administered ayahuasca in hundreds of sessions. He is currently researching a book titled ‘Entheogens, Society & Law’ edited by Casey William Hardison, who is serving a twenty year sentence for challenging the UK Misuse of Drugs Act (www.freecasey.org).

Anwar Jeewa

Dr. Anwar Jeewa is the director and founder of MINDS ALIVE Treatment Centre in Durban, South Africa. He is currently conducting research in a new rehabilitation program and Ibogaine. Over the past decades the topic of Ibogaine has been one of active interest for many physiatrists, neuropsychologists, spiritualists, and especially those involved in drug rehabilitation therapies and alternative healing modalities. It is for this reason that Ibogaine usage on drug addicts compared to those seeking a psycho-spiritual experience has been initiated. Dr. Anwar Jeewa and his team are the first in the world to research the effectiveness of Ibogaine in addiction over a long term period.

Katharina Kirchner

Katharina Kirchner MSc is currently involved with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) as an assistant to Dr. P. Gasser for the study of “LSD-assisted psychotherapy in persons suffering from anxiety associated with advanced-stage life-threatening diseases”. She conducted her master thesis in “LSD-supported psychotherapy, effects on daily life and long term changes”, supervised by Dr. P. Gasser & Dr. R. Stohler. Prior she joined a research project in Harare, Zimbabwe, for two months, which concerned the social- psychological evaluation of the implementation of solar disinfected water (SODIS)-strategy, in cooperation with UZH, ETH Zürich and EAWAG.



David Luke

David Luke, PhD, is currently President of the Parapsychological Association, the international professional body for researchers in this field, and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK, where he teaches an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experiences. He is also Research Associate at the Beckley Foundation, Oxford, UK, which promotes research into the neuroscience of consciousness and its altered states, and he is a guest lecturer at the University of Northampton, UK.

Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov

Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov, PhD, investigates the relationship between human beings and chemical substances by combining the methods of pharmacology and anthropology, with special focus on Web 2.0 technologies. During his work as researcher in Russia and Germany, he studied molecular mechanism of brain function, as well as the implication of progress in pharmacology for modern society.

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