Dear Friends and Colleagues,

My book, Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development (Inner Traditions, 2011), is out and available everywhere (online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders; at bookstores large and small) and I want to invite you to three special events related to the release of the book.

Psychedelic Healing is a personal book about my own experiences with psychedelics and -- while I do not use psychedelics in my practice -- how those experiences shaped my personality theory and my clinical practice as a psychotherapist.  Psychedelic Healing is about psychotherapy and what I like to think of as "psycheology" - the study of the soul - as the foundation of traditional psychology.  Psychedelic Healing is also about change: how psychotherapy "works," whether psychedelic psychotherapy truly can be transformative, what the latest research is finding, and finally, Psychedelic Healing is about changing a society hurtling toward either a Great Human Dieback or the blossoming of a truly integral planet, and about how we can change that world.  (For more information, please see the attached flier, look at the thirty themes listed below, and go to the publisher's Web page for the book.)

I hope you will join me in launching Psychedelic Healing at the following three events (you will also receive more detailed invitations to each of the events, but please save the dates):

Friday, February 4th, 2011, 7PM-2AM
"Psychedelic Healing: An Evening of Light and Love"
(Sponsored by Reality Sandwich/Evolver, with MAPS and DPA)
Safe Harbor
446 Broadway, 3rd Flr., NY, NY
7:30-10:30: Readings and panel discussion on the themes of the book (see below)
Panelists:
John Perry Barlow
Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
Neal Goldsmith, Ph.D.
Julie Holland, M.D.
Ethan Nadelmann, Ph.D.
Dan Pinchbeck
11PM-2AM: Clear White Light dance
Details to follow...

Please join us at all of these fun and interesting events - a soulful workshop, an informative talk, and an incredible panel and dance party!  And please check out the Web site for the book:

Toward a psychedelic healing!

-- Neal

Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D.
www.nealgoldsmith.com
631-725-0098 office
347-743-1110 mobile

Thirty themes from Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development (Inner Traditions, 2011):
What are the tribal and shamanic lessons for contemporary psychedelic therapy?
Why are psychedelics so helpful in psychotherapy?
In exploring personal growth with psychedelics, is it ultimately necessary to deal with one's childhood "demons," or can they be transcended through blissful psychedelic experiences?
Can psychedelic therapy repair malfunctions in natural development?
Can psychedelic therapy speed up the natural developmental process?
Can psychedelic therapy trigger immediate transformative change in novel areas?
Why do psychedelics give pain relief?
Can psychedelics provide lasting change?
Can psychedelics induce real spirituality, and are they a medicine or a sacrament?
Might psychedelics actually slow growth at times, by making it easier to avoid the hard work of daily spiritual practices, or can psychedelics obviate the need for "hard work"?
Lack of love/safety results in defensive highjacking of the ego function to create personality as acquired strategy to attain love.  Personality is a strategy devised by an earlier, immature version of our adult self.
Neurosis is the natural, stepwise unfolding of human maturation. It’s not about pathology, but spiritual immaturity.
Psychology must again become the study of the soul: Psycheology.
Empathy and acceptance — love — for our parents and ourselves enables us to relax and release the knot in our psyche, to dis-identify with the defensive personality and re-identify with our original, core self — to finally complete our childhood.
The desire for change is a reflection of the problem, not of the solution. 
Simply being is not the result of an active pursuit, but rather the natural result of releasing the self from the encumbrance or distraction of an immature personality strategy.
Transformative developmental change is possible through a stepwise, dualistic dance — a combination of transcendent and cathartic therapeutic approaches.
Psychedelic therapy can be a safe and extremely effective tool in facilitating transformative developmental change by enabling us to see ourselves with love and to safely engage in catharsis. Stunted or skewed development can be gotten back on track, but psychedelics are not cognitive development — or enlightenment — in a pill.
Implementing the Psycheology perspective includes developing a Mature Love Relationship
Psychedelics can trigger insight, but behavior change takes time, and in this culture, such realignment is often harder to sustain than we acknowledge.
Why does psychedelic research require self-experimentation and, because of this need, how will we train a new generation of psychedelic researchers and therapists?
Why redo psychedelic research already conducted in the ’50s and ’60s?
Effective methods exist for changing policies and bureaucracies, and we are honor bound to bravely apply them in the pursuit of science, truth, and freedom.
How should psychedelics be rescheduled?
How regulated should the use of psychedelics become?
Will the results of the current spate of medical school–based clinical research with patients be positive enough to justify acceptance of psychedelics as having an official medical use?
If the results are positive and the outstanding issues are addressed, how will psychedelics be integrated into medicine, science, and society — and how might that change the world?
How can we create the safest and most effective environments for personal spiritual development and psychedelic-friendly events?
How can we best educate the general public about psychedelics?
How do psychedelics fit into the broader drug policy reform movement?