Conference Review

I'm not sure what to say about the 2010 Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference just ended. As the onsite coordinator I worked a lot more than I listened, which meant I missed many of the papers or heard them from "just outside the door." In addition, much of my interaction with presenters was from a practical point of view, dealing with last minute presentation requests, reasonable and otherwise. As with any group, there is always a prima donna or three and I tend to find them tedious. Within this group those demanding individuals also stand in stark contrast to the equanimity of the community as a whole, which makes them even more annoying to me.

My role as site coordinator also meant that I missed spending quality time with some olde friends and colleagues, which is generally seen my most as the high point of the conference. And a bit of a cold & fever also meant I was harboring my energy by sleeping rather than engaging in late night conversations.

I guess I haven't fully processed my own feelings to this year's conference. I do know that next year Jeff will be running the event in Portland and I am already planning to head up to Oregon, but as an conference participant only. No side duties, maybe not even a paper to present. I do know that I missed the play time this year. I won't do that again.

Oh, in response to several emails. Yes, those were the real titles of the conference presentations I posted over the past four days.. And yes, it is true that academics love to use colons in the titles for their projects, but really those were the papers. You can't judge quality nor content by the length of the labels and big words do not intelligence make.

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photo credit: friendsofirony.org

Saturday Conference Schedule

Saturday, March 20

Faculty Club UC Berkeley Campus

9:00 – 11:45 Perspectives on Ayahuasca Healing, Part 1 Chair: Evgenia Fotiou

9:00 – 9:15 Ayahuasca and the Construction of a Healing Tradition. Erik Davis

9:15 – 9:30 Ethnomedical Tourism in the Amazon: More than Drugs and Desperation? Francis Jervis

9:30 – 9:45 Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals. Evgenia Fotiou

9:45 – 10:00 Intimacy in the Healing Function of Ayahuasca Icaros. Susana Bustos

9:45 – 10:00 Q & A, Discussion

10:00 – 11:15 Part 2: Therapeutic Potential of Ayahuasca in a Global Environment

10:00 – 10:15 Healing With Plant Intelligence: A Report from Ayahuasca. Richard Doyle

10:15 – 10:30 Out of the Jungle and Onto the Couch: Integrating Ayahuasca into Psychoanalytic Treatment. Stephen Trichter

10:30 – 10:45 The Translation of Ayahuasca into a Depression and Anxiety Therapy. Brian Anderson

10:45 – 11:15 The Dynamics of Healing and Creativity during Ayahuasca Shamanic Journeys: Toward A Neuroscience – Human Sciences Model. Frank Echenhofer

11:15 – 11:30 Q & A, Discussion Discussants: Stephen Beyer & Frank Echenhofer

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 1:00 SAC Open Business Meeting

1:00 – 1:15 Break

1:15 – 3:00 Stories of Healing and Transformation Chair: Alison Easter

1:15 – 1:30 The Origins of Carlos Castaneda’s 'Anthropology': Evidence from Personal Letters and a Memoir. Robert Cripe

1:30 – 1:45 Modern-Day Sacred Initiation into the Ancient Western Mystery Tradition in the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Ron Bugaj

1:45 – 2:00 The Ancient Bard as Shaman. Robert Tindall

2:00 – 2:15 Break

2:15 – 2:30 Healing, Meaning, and Efficacy. Jong Hwan Park

2:30 – 2:45 The Experience of Healing in Sri Lanka: An Investigation Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Alison Easter

2:45 – 3:00 Q & A, Discussion

3:00 – 3:15 Break

3:15 – 6:00 Language, Healing, and Consciousness Chair: Matthew C. Bronson

3:15 – 3:30 From Shaman to Messiah – Take Two – Healing? Mira Z. Amiras

3:30 – 3:45 Time and the Evolution of Consciousness. Glenn Parry

3:45 – 4:00 “We Ain’t Got No Wildlife in Marin City”: The Use of Epistemological Story in Teaching Ecoliteracy. Tina R. Fields

4:00 – 4:15 Pulling the Plug on Grandma: Language and Framing in the Health Care Debates. Matthew C. Bronson

4:15 – 4:30 Q & A, Discussion

4:30 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 5:00 Dangerous Labels: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse by Shifting the Lexicon of Sexual Violence. Chimine Arfuso

5:00 – 5:15 The Language of Mental Health in America. Leslie Gray

5:15 – 5:30 Re-Languaging a Life. Tim Lavalli

5:30 – 5:45 From James to Jaynes, or, The Mind Turned Itself On(line). Roberto Gonzalez-Plaza

5:45 – 6:00 Q & A, Discussion. Discussant: Jeff MacDonald

6:00 – 7:15 Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 Enchantment – Employing Song to Shift Consciousness. Tina Fields (Experiential Workshop)

Friday Conference Schedule

Friday, March 19

Location: Faculty Club - UC Berkeley Campus

8:30 – 11:45 Models and Traditions of Healing Chair: Steven Glazier

8:30-8:45 The Gift of Life: Death as a Teacher. Rochelle Suri

8:45 – 9:00 They’re Baaack: Return of Life-After-Death Accounts in the Age of Neurobiology. Meg Jordan

9:00 – 9:15 Cultural Diversity as a Resource in Schizophrenia: An Example from Cross-Cultural Communal Psychiatry for the Mapuche People in Chile. Markus Wiencke

9:15 – 9:25 Q & A, Discussion

9:25 – 9:35 Break

9:35 – 9:50 The Effects of Sufi Healing Ripple Outward. Cheryl Ritenbaugh

9:50 – 10:05 Path of the Heart: Integrating the Wisdom of Classical Sufism into Modern Psychology. Rahima Schmall

10:05 – 10:20 Retrocausality and Real Life Miraculous Reality Shift Healing Stories. Cynthia Sue Larson

10:20 – 10:30 Q & A, Discussion

10:30 – 10:45 Break

10:45 – 11:00 A Health Event: A Journey through Illness, Treatment, and Recovery. M. Diane Hardgrave

11:00 – 11:15 CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) Going Mainstream. Claudia Weiner

11:15 – 11:30 ‘Cryptic Potency’: Divination and Healing in Trinidad. Stephen Glazier

11:30 – 11:45 Q & A, Discussion

11:45 – 1:00 Lunch (SAC Board Meeting)

1:00 – 3:45 Ecological Healing: How to Practice as if the Earth Mattered.

Leslie Gray (Experiential Workshop, $25/$15)

3:45 – 4:00 Break

4:00 – 5:00 Invited Keynote Address: Edith L.B. Turner Communitas and Merging with Another: What is Happening in Healing?

5:00 – 6:30 “So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World In Crisis” Book Launch, and SAC’s 30th Anniversary Party

6:30 – 7:30 Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 Experiential Workshop: Healing through the Heart: The Sufi Path of Love. Cheryl Ritenbaugh ($25/10)

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photo: jacket cover of new SAC published book

Thursday Conference Schedule

Thursday, March 18

Location: International House, 2299 Piedmont Avenue

9:30 – 11:30 Culturally Responsive Healing

9:30 – 9:45 Indigenous Ethics, Consciousness-Based Healing, and U.S. Health Care Reform. Lurleen Brinkman

9:45 – 10:00 Afro-Brazilian Religions and the Re-Configuring of Public Health in Brazil. Anna Pagano

10:00 – 10:15 Q & A, Discussion

10:30 – 10:45 Globalization and the Transmission of Mystical Philosophies and Practices into Eastern Europe. George Hristovitch

10:45 – 11:00 A New Architecture. Marc Goodwin

11:00 – 11:15 Aboriginal Theory of Mind and Western Cognitive Science Ross R. Maxwell

11:15 – 11:30 Q & A, Discussion

11:30 – 12:45 Lunch

12:45 – 2:45 Healing States

12:45 – 1:00 Neurofeedback-Enhanced Gamma Brainwaves from the Prefrontal Cortex and Associated Subjective Experiences. Beverly Rubik

1:00 – 1:15 Open-Ended Guided Visualization as a Tool for Emotional Healing and Expansion of Consciousness. Eva Ruland

1:15 – 1:30 Health and Well-Being – Cultivating States of Health in the Physical, Psychological, Spiritual Dimensions. Darlene Viggiano

1:30 – 1:45 Q & A, Discussion

1:45 – 2:00 Break

2:00 – 2:45 Mental Imagery as an Adaptive Healing Mechanism. Gail Kelly

2:15 – 2:30 The Antithetical Role of Fear in Healing from the Ayurvedic Perspective. David “Atibala” Thorp

2:30 – 2:45 Q & A, Discussion

2:45 – 3:00 Break

3:00 – 5:30 “Tuning-In”: Therapeutic Dimensions of Musical Improvisation. Andreas Georg Stascheit (CANCELED)

5:45 – 7:00 Dinner

7:00 – 9:30 Intent, Emotion and the Memory of Water. Beverly Rubik (Experiential Workshop, $25/ $15)

Wednesday Conference Schedule

Wednesday, March 17

Location: Faculty Club UC Berkeley campus

12:00 Registration opens. Welcome!

2:00-2:45 Opening Ceremony, Introductions, Orientation

2:45 – 3:45 Theories of Embodied Mind and Healing

2:45 – 3:00 Neoliberal Epistemologies of Energetic Healing: The Universe and the Inter-subjective/Co-subjective Body. Ted Biggs

3:00 – 3:15 On Kinaesthetic Consciousness: Embodiment and Subjectivity. Andreas Georg Stascheit

3:15 – 3:30 “Decontrol, or Anarcho-Mysticism in Psycho-Sexuality”: Methods and Theory of a Psycho-Sexual Individual Deprogramming for Elimination of the Effects of Power Structures on a Microcosmic Level. Isis Nijinsky Pfifferling

3:30 – 3:45 Q & A, Discussion

3:45 – 4:00 Break

4:00 – 6:00 Invited Opening Session and Dialogue: Awakening the Healing Power of Language & Mind. Ashok Gangadean

6:00 – 7:30 Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 Meditation Workshop with Wooden Pyramids. Harry Jabs (Experiential Workshop, $10/5)

Conference Announcement

Beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday, I will be completely occupied with the annual Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference nearby on the UC Berkeley campus. I have been going to these events since the early 90s, but this year I will be a bit more involved. Besides presenting a paper, I am the nominal Site Coordinator, which means less hanging out with olde academic buddies and more managing the student volunteers to get people registered, coffee urns refilled and chairs moved.

Also it probably means, no new blogs until Sunday. I will do a review of the conference hi-lites and if you happen to be in the Bay Area here is a PDF link to the entire program, consider dropping by for a couple of sessions or workshops. Students with ID get a reduced rate every day and a special $5 all-day pass on Saturday.

Here is a particularly interesting panel for anyone locally tempted:

Saturday 3:15 – 6:00 Language, Healing, and Consciousness

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3:15 – 3:30 From Shaman to Messiah – Take Two – Healing? Mira Z. Amiras

3:30 – 3:45 Time and the Evolution of Consciousness. Glenn Parry

3:45 – 4:00 “We Ain’t Got No Wildlife in Marin City”: The Use of Epistemological Story in Teaching Ecoliteracy. Tina R. Fields

4:00 – 4:15 Pulling the Plug on Grandma: Language and Framing in the Health Care Debates. Matthew C. Bronson

4:15 – 4:30 Q & A, Discussion

4:30 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 5:00 Dangerous Labels: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse by Shifting the Lexicon of Sexual Violence. Chimine Arfuso

5:00 – 5:15 The Language of Mental Health in America. Leslie Gray

5:15 – 5:30 Re-Languaging a Life. Tim Lavalli*

5:30 – 5:45 From James to Jaynes, or, The Mind Turned Itself On(line). Roberto Gonzalez-Plaza

5:45 – 6:00 Q & A, Discussion. Discussant: Jeff MacDonald

*guaranteed to be the only poker related content on the program

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art credit: Tina Fields