A Wave of Being: An Exploration of Music, Psychedelics and the Future of Therapy

w/ Dr. Mendel Kaelen in conversation with River Baldwin

Our explorations into the power of music and psychedelics continue on July 1st with Dr. Mendel Kaelen, Ph.D. Mendel will present on his research and insights on the functions of music in psychedelic therapy, and the implications for the development of psychedelic therapies and the future of mental health care.

This presentation will be followed by a conversation with Matt "River" Baldwin, including a Q&A with the audience. We will then conclude with a special shared virtual listening experience, guided by Wavepaths' generative music engine "AI Shaman"!

Mendel Kaelen is the founder and CEO of Wavepaths. Prior to this, he worked as a PhD and postdoctoral neuroscientist at Imperial College London, where his research was the first to demonstrate music’s central role in psychedelic therapies.  By providing evidence that client-centred adaptation of music is essential, he opened a new avenue of research and a new level of understanding of the mechanisms underlying psychedelic therapy. From there he developed the vision of Wavepaths, a vision of a future of care with experience as the foundation for improvements in mental health and well-being: Experience as Medicine. Since 2014, Mendel has published 30+ academic papers and has been cited in 1400+ peer-reviewed papers.  He is a thought leader on the therapeutic use of music, speaks frequently on this topic, and has been featured in Nature News, San Francisco Chronicles, Vice, Vice Motherboard, Rolling Stone, TEDx, Evening Standard, GQ, the Sydney Morning Herald, a.o. Mendel lives and works in London (UK).

Matt “River” Baldwin, MFT, is a musician and psychotherapist living in San Francisco. He is a 2017 alumnus of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapies and Research Program. He has produced 9 albums of music under his own name, collaborated with a variety of artists, and has toured widely as a performer. He specializes in the use of music in psychedelic psychotherapy, having designed playlists for a MAPS Phase 3 MDMA trial and a variety of other applications. River holds a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from The University of California at Berkeley and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from John F. Kennedy University. He is the Director of the Psychedelic Music Therapy Forum for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. Most recently he has been collaborating with Nico Georis on plant-generated music.