“The introduction of LSD and psychedelics into the culture produced a transformation of the entire culture, the consciousness of the culture.
“Due to a complex variety of social and historical reasons, a core feature of the Euro-American psyche is a dissociative split between spirit and nature.
“We are living in a very interesting time. Civilization that we call Western- techno-western civilization- is simultaneously becoming global and collapsing.”
– Ralph Metzner
As I’ve written about in the past, Ralph Metzner was a friend and teacher for over 50 years. I am honored to be speaking at a tribute event organized by his wife, Cathy Coleman. The event will be live and streamed for folks in and outside the Bay Area. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ralph-metzners-life-and-legacy-of-consciousness-exploration-tickets-1545615259849.
Ralph Metzner:
Intrepid Explorer
An afternoon of reflections on the life and work of pioneering visionary, psychologist, writer, and psychedelics researcher
Saturday, September 20, 2025, 1-5 p.m.
The Alembic – 2820 Seventh St, Berkeley, CA
Sponsored by City Lights Book Store, The Alembic, CIIS’ Center for Psychedelic-assisted Therapy, and the Green Earth Foundation.
1:00 pm: Opening
Cathy Coleman, author of Ralph Metzner, Explorer of Consciousness: The Life and Legacy of a Psychedelic Pioneer
Introduction by Peter Maravelis (City Lights)
1:15 pm: Session One:
Ralph Metzner: A Man to Remember: Ralph as scholar, author, teacher, alchemist, healer, artist, friend
Alan Levin: 50 Years with Ralph as Teacher, Guide, and Friend
Gail Colombo: Ralph as Reverend, Therapist, and Mentor
Uwe Doerken: A Man to Remember
Charles Grob: Travels with Ralph
Cathy Coleman: The Sacred Hoop of Partnership
2:30 pm: Session Two: Ralph’s Cosmology
Roger Marsden: East-West Psychology
Alan Levin: Ralph’s ideas on Agni Yoga, Shamanism, and Alchemy
Michael Ziegler: Ralph’s Bardo: The Skillful Means of Sacralizing Psychedelics in Sessions
Mark Kasprow: Ralph’s Wisdom about When to not Say Anything: The Skillful Non-use of Cosmology
Silvia Nakkach: The Ideas at the Core
3:45 pm: Session Three: Ralph’s Legacy and Impact on the Future
Robin Carhart-Harris: Tribute to Ralph’s Legacy
Janis Phelps: Potentials for Psychedelic-Assisted Connections to the Nature, Death, and One Another: The Profound Legacies of Ralph Metzner
Valeria McCarroll, PhD: Ralph’s Legacy of Psychedelic Mysticism
Gary Bravo: Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties
Jamy Faust: The Cave of the Heart
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Gary Bravo, MD, is a psychiatrist in Sonoma County with a long-standing interest in psychedelics, meditation, and altered states. He is co-author, along with Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass, of Birth of a Psychedelic Culture.
Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, is a British-born psychopharmacologist who is Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Previously, he founded and was Head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, London. Noted for brain imaging studies of psychedelic and psychoactive drugs and their therapeutic use, in 2020 The Times named him one of the world’s top 31 medical scientists.
Cathy Coleman, PhD, was Ralph Metzner’s wife of 31 years. She is a certified consulting astrologer, and works for the CIIS psychedelic certificate program. She served as a senior administrator and former dean of students at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), president of Kepler College, and director IONS’ EarthRise Retreat Center.
Gail Colombo is a practitioner of Metzner Alchemical Divination, produces Flower Essences, and works with frequencies.
Uwe Doerken is a business executive, management consultant, and entrepreneur, who lives part-time mostly in Germany and Greece. He served as chairman and CEO of DHL Worldwide Express and on the board of Green Earth Foundation.
Jamy Faust, MA, is a practitioner and teacher of Metzner Alchemical Divination methods, psychotherapist, family constellation facilitator, energy healer, and author located in Boston. She is currently completing Becoming Shamanka: Walking the Path of Psychedelic Medicine, a book co-authored with her husband, Peter Faust, on Ralph’s alchemical divination methods and processes.
Charles Grob, MD is a Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. He has conducted clinical research over the last three decades with psilocybin, ayahuasca and MDMA and has published widely in the professional literature on psychedelics and edited three books, Hallucinogens: A Reader (2002, Tarcher/Putnam), Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics (2005, with Roger Walsh Suny Press), and Medical Hallucinogens (2021, with Jim Grigsby, Guilford Press).
Mark Kasprow, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Santa Cruz. His work is anchored in the understanding that for each of us, our true guide in life is our consciousness. He is presently working on a book about his journey with psychedelics and the role they played in recovering from a brain injury.
Alan Levin, LMFT, is a psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and author in the Lower Hudson Valley, New York. Alan joined Ralph in the study and practice of Agni Yoga with the School of Actualism, and assisted in many of Ralph’s ceremonial retreats.
Peter Maravelis is the Event Director at City Lights Booksellers and Publishers. For over two decades he has curated events bringing about the intersection of the literary world with that of the arts, philosophy, and the sciences. He has produced special programming that explores the cutting edge of ideas, opening discussion between leaders in different fields and the public. He is editor of both San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics.
Roger Marsden, PHD, earned his doctorate at CIIS, with Ralph being a major professor and mentor. He is a retired mental health clinician.
Valeria McCarroll, PhD, LMFT, is a psychedelic educator, writer, and speaker. Formally trained as a guide in expanded states of consciousness, she teaches critical courses on psychedelic humanities to students at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Valeria’s background includes licensure as a marriage and family therapist, a doctorate in psychology, a certificate in psychedelic therapies and research, as well as thousands of hours of study and practice in a variety of therapeutic and spiritual traditions. She has a forthcoming book on the seat of the psychedelic guide. Her interests lie at the intersection of nondual wisdom traditions, somatics, psychedelics, and social and transformative justice. She lives in Northern California.
Silvia Nakkach Knapp, MA, MMT, is a Grammy-nominated composer, interdisciplinary vocal artist, educator, and founding director of the International Vox Mundi School of Sound and originator of the Yoga of the Voice training certificate. With a background as a clinical psychologist, she integrates her expertise as an author, Hindustani raga musician, and immersive soundscape designer. She serves on the faculty of CIIS, contributing to East West Psychology, Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies (ACTS), and mentors trainees at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research. For many years, Silvia worked at Claudio Naranjo’s Sat Institute and collaborated with Ralph, combining teaching and innovative musical projects. www.voxmundiproject.com.
Janis Phelps, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. In the role of the Center’s founder and with influences from Dr. Ralph Metzner as friend, colleague, and teacher, Janis developed and launched the first university accredited training program for psychedelic therapy and research. As a board member of the Heffter Research Institute and the Holos Institute, Janis is passionate about supporting humans in the need for rapid growth of their capacity for embodied compassion and altruism for each other and all species on our planet. Climate change and the imperative of sustainability and biodiversity keep her life goals aligned and alert.
Michael Ziegler was ordained in the Jewish Neo-Chasidic lineage by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. He has been a pioneer in the development of spiritual and somatic programs. Michael has worked with the Green Earth Foundation in support of Ralph Metzner’s legacy. He created a master class for psychedelic guides at theguidingpresence.com, which includes many recordings of Ralph in sessions discussing psychedelic use.
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Ralph Metzner, PhD was a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He attended The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA in philosophy and psychology. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University and held a post-doctoral NIMH fellowship in pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics in the 1960s, co-authored The Psychedelic Experience and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He was a psychotherapist in private practice in the SF Bay Area and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he taught for 30 years. Author of over 100 scientific papers and scholarly essays, he was the editor of and contributor to two collections of essays on the pharmacology, anthropology and phenomenology of ayahuasca (The Ayahuasca Experience, 2006) and of psilocybin mushrooms (Sacred Mushroom of Visions, 2004). His conversational memoir of the Harvard projects in the early 1960s, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture with Ram Dass and Gary Bravo, was published in 2010. He compiled and edited a collection of essays and experiences with the empathogen MDMA, entitled Through the Gateway of the Heart (1985, 2012).
His books on the psychology and philosophy of transformation include Maps of Consciousness (1971), The Unfolding Self (1998), The Well of Remembrance (1994) and Green Psychology (1999). He was president and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to healing and harmonizing the relations between humanity and the Earth (www.greenearthfound.org). The Green Earth Foundation has published his writings devoted to psychoactive/psychedelic drugs: The Toad and the Jaguar – A Field Report of Underground Research on a Visionary Medicine (2013), and Allies for Awakening – Guidelines for productive and safe experiences with entheogens (2015). His most recent books, published in 2017 are Ecology of Consciousness – The Alchemy of Personal, Collective and Planetary Transformation (Reveal Press, 2017), and Overtones and Undercurrents – Spirituality, Reincarnation and Ancestor Influence in Entheogenic Psychotherapy (Park Street Press, 2017). Alchemical Musings was published posthumously in 2020.