Annie Oak, co-founder of Take 3 Presents and the Women’s Visionary Council, brings together a thoughtful panel about what makes a psychedelic community resilient. Designing social systems for sustainability requires planning for effective management, conflict resolution, harm reduction, participant engagement and succession. This panel will explore why these strategies are important and how they have been put into action by different communities.

This year, we were on the hunt for great stories. We found a common thread between these 3 private labs – Psilera, Tactogen, and ASRI – who journeyed in 3 extraordinary places, looking for novel compounds that might change the world. Don’t miss this exciting Featured Sessions, hosted by Matias Serebrinski, found of the Business Trip podcast.

Discovery Sessions’ Policy Advisor and resident mycologist James McConchie kicks off our entrepreneurship track with a concise panel on how to start your empire in the psychedelic marketplace. Hear from four experts who know what it takes to be a successful psychedelics entrepreneur.

Dr. David Pepper is a Bay Area physician working to help people face dying with dignity and grace. Join this fascinating panel with 4 unique individuals to learn how psychedelic therapy can help those facing this most difficult passage. What methods are being employed? How are different medicines used? And how can this help the families as well as the patient? Bring your questions and come hear compelling ideas in this profound session.

A roundtable discussion centering the voices of indigenous women medicine carriers. Learn the meaning of rematriation and why the psychedelic community needs to know it. We present the vision of indigenous women as inextricably tied to the success of the “psychedelic renaissance” and the preservation of life on earth.

Clinicians and guides working in psychotherapy today are fielding a surge in inquiries into psychedelic healing. Therapists (licensed or unlicensed) wondering how to receive legitimate training without risking their practice will benefit from this introductory panel. Leaning into the vast resources of the Bay Area, we have put together a solid primer on getting started in psychedelic treatment.

Meet some of the spiritual leaders from the Bay Area in this exploration of how psychedelics can help us navigate our inner journey. Maya Jaguar moderates this panel featuring some of the regions favorite psychedelic clergy.

Join Psychedelics Today’s Joe Moore in a discussion with Boris Heifets on the latest developments in the studies of LSD and psilocybin as powerful treatment for pain.

Maria Mangini leads our panelists on an illuminating exploration of the family ties that build (and bind) generations around psychedelics in the modern era.

What will the future look like for equity and access on the frontier of psychedelic therapy? How can we ensure that marginalized communities will have access to the latest advances in treatment for addiction and depression? And who’s going to pay for it all?

The re-emergence of entheogens and psychedelics is rapidly approaching a planet-wide movement. As ancient and new medicines evolve and spread across the globe, our modern culture stands at the brink of a pivotal moment. An reawakening of spirituality and wisdom are critical for us to successfully reach the next stage of our evolution. This Featured Session will introduce an extraordinary international panel of spiritual leaders, celebrated indigenous researchers, and medicinal healers, who will present a critical framework for the integration of ancestral wisdom into the profound experiences we have with psychedelics and sacred plants. Carlos Plazola, co-founder of Decriminalize Nature, in collaboration with Discovery Sessions, has invited a remarkable spiritual envoy to travel to the United States and hold a summit on this important and timely subject. Born in Brazil, Ana Paula Soares (LPC, CCTP) is a mental health clinician and a medicine woman. As someone who moves between the clinical training of the West and the ancient ways, she will contextualize this discussion, to help us understand how we have come to where we are. She’ll present a framework for the audience to get connected and become involved in a broader movement that is providing restorative ways to reconnect with ancestral tradition in a sustainable, respectful, and balanced way. Traveling from the Santa Marta region of Colombia, Mamo Lorenzo Izquierdo Arroyo is a lead representative for the elders of the Sierra Nevada. The Mamo are spiritual priests chosen at birth, and Mamo Lorenzo is a leader among his people. They are direct descendants of the Tairona culture which predated the Inca and Mayan Cultures. After extensive training under the guidance of fourteen scholars of the Arhuaco Original People, Mamo Lorenzo lived a 90-day trance that helped him bring back the memory of his being and nature, an experience that came with a mission: travel the world to unify all people, and help remember the foundations and principles of creation. Alejandro Cerda Alvar, knowledge-keeper of the Andean and Maya-Toltec traditions, will help us access the ancestral wisdom, and build the bridge from the Western world to the ancient one. Alejandro is the co-founder and co-director of the intercultural initiative Despertar del Camino Sagrado (Reawakening the Sacred Ways) and is a member of the Nahualli Toltec Research Institute. This panel is an incredibly rare invitation to dive deep into the ancestral wisdom that is very much present and alive in the world of entheogenic medicine, which has existed and evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and teaches us how to live and coexist with the energies of the natural world and higher cosmic order. Creating a deeper dialogue with these ancient ways is crucial to the deep healing needed to reconnect with our world, and with one another. There will be a Spanish to English interpreter for this session.

Policy is tough to advance without meaningful data, but reliable data is notoriously hard to acquire in a black market. Self-reporting on websites like Reddit and Erowid are helpful, but generally incomplete. So where can research and policy turn when data on emerging trends are needed? Discovery Sessions sets out to crack the case on this with a little help from some noted luminaries.

Ready to grow your small business into something more? Entrepreneurs from successful startups will explore the challenges and opportunities they’ve encountered in the ecosystem of psychedelic business and finance. Bring your questions and thoughts to share on navigating the present landscape.

Join us for a lighthearted exploration with 3 experts on the history and relevance of psychedelic cults (good and bad). From the ancient Greek mystery cults to modern events like Burning Man, we’ll cover everything you need to know, from “how to hide your goodies from the Romans” (hint: hollow canes) to harm reduction within an ‘elevated’ community. Add a dash of some key takeaways like how to take down a cult gone south, to building safeguards and community in your own modern cult. Hosted by our resident comedian Adam Strauss. With Greek Scholar Eleana Baskouta, Lucid News Co-Founder Ann Harrison, and a special guest.

Peter Vitale (Shulgin Foundation) leads a multi-generational investigation of what it means to be a wisdom keeper, exploring the transmission of lore to a new generation of psychedelic luminaries. Vince Kadlubek (Meow Wolf), Mikaela delaMyco (@mamadelamyco), and Ismail Ali (MAPS) join this inspiring session.