Painting by Pablo AmaringoGuest List
Dr. John Alexander
Dr. John Alexander has been an active Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) member for over two decades.
Victoria Alexander
Victoria Alexander has been researching the mysticism of Catholic Saints for over 20 years.
Pablo Amaringo
A severe heart illness--and the magical treatment of this via ayahuasca--led Pablo toward the life of a shaman, and he eventually became a powerful curandero.
Ananda
Ananda is an international lecturer, teacher and researcher, who is growing in the reputation of being a Visionary Scientist.
Lennon Boardman
Lennon Boardman is a healing facilitator who lives on the Central Coast of California.
Michael Caden
I have come to realise that everything is part of a shamanistic continuum, more available in special areas like Peru, but still recognisable in...
Howard Charing
Howard G. Charing is an international workshop leader on shamanism. He has organised specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest since the late 90’s.
Frank Echenhofer
Frank Echenhofer received his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University in 1985.
Peter Gorman
Mr. Gorman is a former recipient of a Blue Mountain Fellowship in investigative journalism and a grant from Conservation International to do a study of indigenous peoples on the Napo River.
Michael Caden
I have come to realise that everything is part of a shamanistic continuum, more available in special areas like Peru, but still recognisable in...
Dr. Richard Grossman
Since the age of 16, Dr. Grossman has been deeply involved in healing, growth and spiritual growth.
David Hewson
The artwork of David Hewson combines the classical painting techniques of the Old Masters with traditional methods of water gilding in gold and other precious metals.
Martina Hoffman
German-born artist, Martina Hoffmann, spent her childhood in Germany as well as Cameroon, West Africa.
Jan Kounen
Jan was a student at the Arts Décoratifs in Nice, France, (E.P.I.A.R.). He learned cinema, animation and pixillation and passed his diploma in 1988...
Leslie Kubin
Leslie currently has a practice with quantum biofeedback therapy, massage therapy and myofascial release in Central California.
Dr. Dennis Mckenna
Dennis McKenna has for the last twenty-five years pursued the interdisciplinary study of ethnopharmacology and psychointegrator plants.
Tom McKinnon
Tom McKinnon is an established visual artist who has exhibited multi-media performance works at major venues nationally and internationally.
Dr. Jorge Gonzales Ramirez
Nació en la ciudad de Cajamarca, (1944). Su Jardín de Infancia es recuerdo gigante por el amor que tuvo en su Profesora.
Ronald Rivera
Ronald is dedicated to the essential shamanism, and he is active broadcaster and promoter of Sessions and Shops with the Master Plant of Ayahuasca.
Alan Shoemaker
Alan Shoemaker left the United States fifteen years ago in order to learn Shamanic healing techniques.
Robert Venosa
New York City born, Venosa was transported into the world of fine art in the late 60's after having experimented with psychedelics and having seen the work of the Fantastic Realists.
Jimmy Weiskopf
Jimmy Weiskopf is a New York-born writer and translator who has lived in Colombia full-time since 1977 and is a leading investigator of its indigenous use of yajé (ayahuasca).
Dennis Wier
Dennis R. Wier is the Executive Director of the Trance Research Foundation.Tom McKinnon
Tom McKinnon is an established visual artist who has exhibited multi-media performance works at major venues nationally and internationally, notably at The Kitchen in New York in 1990 and at PS 1 in New York in 1992. His work explores the role of narrative structure in cognition, identity, and belief.
Tom earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Art History from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and a Master of Fine Arts in Multi Media from the University of Windsor. He has been featured and reviewed in ArtForum and Art in America. Tom has taught Fine Art at Northern College in the subarctic community of Moosonee, Multi-Media at the University of Windsor, and Sculpture at Okanagan University College in Kelowna.
Tom has recently taken up film as a narrative, artistic, and educational medium, and has a particular eye for the documentary genre. He has been the video archiver for all three previous Conferences, and this year will take the stage as a presenter.
Not surprisingly, Tom met his film partner AyasminA at a medicine gathering, and a long term friendship, partnership, and vision was instantly forged. Since 2005, AyasminA and Tom have been collaborating on various projects around Amazonian medicine, culture, and ecology. They recently completed a radio documentary with Len Cler Cunningham and produced by Kathleen Flaherty, entitled "In Search of the Divine Vegetal", which explores the nexus of Western and Indigenous cosmologies in relation to plant intelligence, and which was met with considerable interest and support when it aired worldwide in November 2007. Due to popular demand, part 1 of "In Search of the Divine Vegetal" will be re-broadcast on the CBC Radio program "Ideas" on May 16th, and part 2 on May 23rd, 2008. More information on the program and podcast is available at the cbc website.
Tom and AyasminA and are currently in the process of converting their radio documentary into a film by the same same and, to this end, have prepared a demo-length version of their video documentary, which is featured here.
This documentary, like its audio counterpart, aspires to engender a species of hybrid consciousness consisting of Western science, Indigenous technology, phytospirituality, and the Great Unknown.
At this year's Conference, Tom and AyasminA will be presenting on the making of their documentary, the process and pitfalls of eliciting and evaluating culturally-specific information, and some of the logistical, environmental, legal, political, and ethical challenges they have faced in attempting to make esoteric, Indigenous practice accessible to the Western mind.
Thomas McKinnon can be contacted at:
gods@shaw.ca
