Celebrating the release of Birth of a Psychedelic Culture – Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties, by Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner, with Gary Bravo. Foreword by John Perry Barlow (Synergetic Press)

An afternoon of spirited discussion exploring Ralph Metzner's newly released conversational memoir. Birth of a Psychedelic Culture is an in-depth examination of the legacy of the 1960s by the two surviving facilitators of the mind-altering Harvard experiments, Professor Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and Ralph Metzner, who, working with Professor Timothy Leary, touched off a revolution in psychology. Professor Metzner will also be discussing his recently released book MindSpace and TimeStream.

Ralph Metzner, PhD, part of the famed triad of psychologists who became world famous as pioneers of psychedelics in the 1960s, continues to practice psychotherapy and to teach workshops nationally and internationally. Editor of the Psychedelic Review and The Ecstatic Adventure, he wrote Maps of Consciousness, Know Your Type, The Unfolding Self (1986), The Well of Remembrance (1994), and Green Psychology (1999). He has published edited collections on the science and phenomenology of MDMA (Through the Gateway of the Heart, 1985); ayahuasca (Sacred Vine of Spirits, 2006); and psilocybin mushrooms(Sacred Mushroom of Visions, 2005). He served as Academic Dean at the California Institute of Integral Studies during the 1980s, where he is now Professor Emeritus. Metzner is founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation. Most recently, he has begun writing and publishing a new series of seven short books, with the general title “The Ecology of Consciousness.”

Peggy Hitchcock, the Mellon family heiress who participated in the early psychedelic experiments with the team and is one of the fifteen other contributors to the book, remained levelheaded throughout Leary’s difficulties, keeping to the researchers’ original intent of positive mind expansion through “set and setting.” She introduced Leary to Rosemary Woodruff who became his devoted partner and wife and maintained her friendship with Leary until his death.