Wednesday, July 20th, 2022 from 12:00-1:30pm PST

Join this conversation between Rev Dr. Jessica Rochester, who is the Madrinha of a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) church, Céu do Montréal, for 25 years, an ordained Inter-Faith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity and a transpersonal counselor, and Dr. Marc Blainey, who is a cultural anthropologist, psychotherapist, and multi-faith chaplain currently working at Homewood Health Centre. They will address the power of spiritual experiences frequently generated by sacred plants and some guidelines for understanding what some might call mediumship or psychic openings. The spiritual dimension is a central element to the traditional use of sacred plants across the Americas. Currently, world-wide, sacred plants and psychedelics are being explored in research for clinical use, for end-of-life treatments and to treat a variety of mental health conditions. While this research is most encouraging, the tendency of modern science has been to compartmentalize body, mind, feelings, and spirit for diagnoses and treatment. There seems to be very little conversation concerning the spiritual dimension experiences engendered by the use of sacred plants in the context of plant medicine ceremonies or in psychedelic therapy. Come join us in this conversation about advancing frameworks how to conceptualize and integrate spirituality into plant medicine ceremonial circles and in medical treatment protocols. How can we integrate into our cultural frameworks the understanding that these substances can reveal the intrinsic interconnectedness that is the essence of the human experience?

Rev Dr Jessica Rochester is an ordained Inter-Faith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity. A transpersonal counsellor, she trained in the work of the psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli MD and trained with Stanislav Grof MD. She is an educator who lectures on subjects such as non-ordinary states of consciousness, spiritual development and well-being. Dr. Rochester is the Madrinha of Céu do Montréal, the Santo Daime church she founded in 1997. She worked with Health Canada from 2001 until 2017 to achieve the legal right to import and serve the Santo Daime Sacrament, also known as Ayahuasca.

Marc Blainey earned his PhD at Tulane University in New Orleans, USA, is a cultural anthropologist, psychotherapist, and multi-faith chaplain currently working at Homewood Health Centre, a psychiatric hospital in Ontario, Canada. In addition, he is part of a team of therapists helping run a psilocybin-for-depression clinical trial in Toronto. His research background includes numerous articles and the recent release of a book about spiritual healing in the Ayahuasca church of Santo Daime, published with SUNY Press’ series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology: “Christ Returns from the Jungle: Ayahuasca Religion as Mystical Healing”.

This talk will be recorded and immediately available for rewatch for all attendees.

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