The Evolving Psychedelic Ecosystem

Dr. Alex Belser is a psychedelic researcher and licensed psychologist. For the last 20 years, he has been a leader in the psychedelic clinical community, having served as an investigator on a number of clinical trials of psilocybin and MDMA to treat depression, anxiety, substance use, OCD, PTSD, and end-of-life distress. He is the founding President of Nautilus Sanctuary, the first non-profit center for psychedelic medicine on the east coast. He serves as the Chief Clinical Officer of Cybin. 

Sara Reed is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Creative Executive of Mind's iHealth Solutions, a mental health technology and service company that provides science-based services for those in need. As a mental health futurist and clinical researcher, Sara examines the ways culture informs how we diagnose and treat mental illness. 

Sara's previous research work includes participation as a study therapist in psychedelic therapy research at Yale University and the University of Connecticut's Health Center. Sara was the first Black therapist to provide MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a clinical trial and continues to engage in ongoing advocacy work around health equity in psychedelic medicine. 

Sara is also an Advisor for Journey Colab and a former member of Chacruna's Racial Equity and Access Committee.

Kylea Taylor, M.S., L.M.F.T., has been thinking, writing, and teaching about ethics for almost three decades. She developed and teaches InnerEthics®, a self-reflective, self-compassionate approach to relational ethics which she now offers in psychedelic psychotherapy trainings. 

Kylea started studying with Stanislav Grof, M.D., and Christina Grof in 1984 and was certified by them as a Holotropic Breathwork® practitioner in 1990. She worked with Stanislav Grof and Tav Sparks as a Senior Trainer in the Grof Transpersonal Training throughout the 1990s, and worked for nine years in a residential substance abuse recovery program where she managed a women’s program and facilitated Holotropic Breathwork®. 

She is author of The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship with Clients, The Breathwork Experience, and Considering Holotropic Breathwork®, and is also the editor of Exploring Holotropic Breathwork®. 

Julian Vayne is a British independent scholar and author with over three decades of experience within esoteric culture. He is author and coauthor of a number of books, including Getting Higher: The Manual of Psychedelic Ceremony, and Pharmakon: Drugs and the Imagination.

A co-organizer of the psychedelic conference Breaking Convention, He is also a trustee of The Psychedelic Museum Project, a founding member of the post-prohibition think-tank Transform, and on the academic board of The Journal of Psychedelic Studies. He sees his work as part of the process to help re-imagine an earth-centered, non-dogmatic, open-source spirituality.