Paranormal Ethnographies of Ketamine - Giorgia Gaia - Zoom

Paranormal Ethnographies of Ketamine

Investigating the vast realm of paranormal experiences induced by the use of psychoactive substances, Ketamine journeys appear to be of a central relevance. A very paradoxical substance, Ketamine is hell and heaven enclosed in a unique molecule - where its psychedelic potentials are often shaded by its addictive qualities. However narrations of K's breakthrough experiences are particularly interesting in the light of paranormal investigation. Ketamine enables users to navigate through the mysteries, deconstructing and reconstructing conceptions of real and unreal, time and space.

This lecture aims to explore the 'magical' sides of Ketamine, capable to give access to an hyperdimensional space – which holds similarities with other psychedelics, being very unique at the same time. Ketamine is gaining growing popularity in an underground 'occulture' of psychonauts - interested in the esoteric potentials of psychedelic substances - and in the broader community of psychedelia. This ethnographies are a collection of interviews, weird phenomena and manifestations of alter(n)ate realities - as reported by intrepid psychonauts encountered in various set & settings.

Speaker Bio

Giorgia Gaia is an independent researcher, with MA degrees in Cultural and Social Anthropology and in History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. Since her early twenties she has been involved in the underground scene of rave culture, as a DJ and cultural producer. Her academic research has focused on countercultures, esoteric communities, occultism and psychonautic. Being herself continuously involved in the creation of alter(n)ate realities and magickal experimentations, since 2013 she is co-curator of Ozora Festival’s cultural area. In 2018 she founded Occulture Conference, a Berlin based festival exploring occultism and esoteric arts.

https://occultureconference.com

Curated and hosted by

Maya Bracknell Watson is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, retired cult leader and psychedelic researcher.

Her background is in psychedelic parapsychology research with Greenwich University, specialising in exceptional human experience and entity encounters on psychedelics, and as an artist. She has studied shamanism for 10 years, working closely with Amerindian indigenous shamanic cultures of Mexico and Peru and western neoshamanic groups, focusing on the introduction and integration of indiginous and animistic knowledge and perspectives to westerners and western ontologies.

She publicly lectures on the subjects of psychedelics and shamanism, and produces art on the subjects informed by her research and experience, including films, performances, writing and immersive worlds. She has performed and exhibited at the Tate Britain and Breaking Convention and is the creator and host of Psychedelicacies, an online lecture series.

Walking between the worlds of art, psychedelic science and shamanism she works to bridge them and uses each as investigatory tools to inform and articulate each other.

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