- Psychedelics and Attachment: Fundamentals, Implications, and New Frontiers - May 16, 2025
- Development Outreach Internship (OPEN) - May 6, 2025
- Social Media and Content Production Internship (OPEN) - May 6, 2025
Wednesday, May 28th, 2025 from 12:00-1:30pm PT
Register for this event here.
This community forum will explore the evolving ecosystem of psychedelic publishing and the critical role media plays in shaping public discourse, ethical frameworks, and cultural narratives around psychedelics. As interest in psychedelics rapidly expands, the need for thoughtful, responsible, and financially sustainable platforms – across books, journalism, and academic journals – has never been more urgent. Together, our speakers will reflect on the challenges of peer review, the ethics of mainstreaming, and the tensions between credibility, accessibility, and market pressures. We will explore questions such as: How has the publishing landscape responded to the resurgence of psychedelics after decades of prohibition? What are the ongoing challenges with censorship on social media? How do we balance financial sustainability with editorial integrity? What is still missing in the psychedelic publishing space, and who remains underserved? Join us in conversation with Deborah Parrish Snyder, co-owner and publisher of Synergetic Press, and publishing partner of MAPS; Attila Szabo, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Psychedelic Studies and Research Fellow at the University of Oslo; and Shelby Hartman, Co-Founder and CEO of DoubleBlind, whose work sits at the intersection of investigative journalism, psychedelics, and cultural critique. Please join us!
Deborah Parrish Snyder, co-owner, publisher of Synergetic Press (www.synergeticpress.com), has published over 40 books in global ecology, regenerative ag, consciousness studies, psychedelics, social and ecological justice since establishing it in 1984. In 1990, she started The Biosphere Press, an imprint of the Biosphere 2 project where she was part of the design team. She produced a dozen books and classroom curriculum for children on biospheres and biomes and helped launch the first peer-reviewed journal in closed ecological systems, Life Support and Biosphere Science. In 2021 Deborah formed a copublishing partnership with Transform Press, bringing out key books in plant chemistry and medicine. In 2022, she became a publishing partner and distributor of the MAPS imprint. Deborah is President of Global Ecotechnics Corporation, a sustainable land care development and management company associated with the Institute of Ecotechnics www.ecotechnics.edu based at Synergia Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Attila Szabo is a Research Fellow at the Institue of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. He holds two master’s degrees in biochemistry (MSc) and in philosophy (MA). He holds a PhD in medicine with a focus on cellular and molecular immunology, and a second PhD degree in modern philosophy with a focus on phenomenology and psychoanalysis. His research interests involve psychoneuroimmunology, biological psychiatry and psychedelic medicine. His current academic research interests include immune-brain interactions in severe mental disorders, as well as the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in both somatic and mental illness. He has published over 85 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics. He has given lectures at conferences and workshops that emphasize the growing medical importance of psychedelics as promising therapeutic agents. In addition to academia, Attila has co-founded the Norwegian Society for Psychedelic Studies (NPV), a non-profit organization that aims to educate the general public, researchers, and mental health professionals in Norway about psychedelic drugs. He has served as Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Psychedelic Studies since 2017.
Shelby Hartman is Co-Founder and CEO of DoubleBlind, a media company at the forefront of the psychedelic movement. Her work has appeared in VICE, Playboy, Quartz, LA Weekly, the Huffington Post, Thrillist, and Rolling Stone, among others. Shelby worked in broadcast news production for CBS News, covering presidential elections, protests, natural disasters, and other breaking news. Spurred by a passion for print, she transitioned to magazine writing, working as an editor at Pasadena Magazine and receiving her Master’s Degree in long-form journalism from Columbia University in 2015. Since then, Shelby has worked as a columnist at LA Weekly and reported extensive features on post-traumatic stress disorder in the veteran community, the cannabis industry, psychedelics and mysticism, and the psychedelic research boom. Shelby has spoken and written on topics like psychedelics in the media, the ethics of mainstreaming psychedelics, and others at SXSW, Horizons: Perspectives in Psychedelics, Harvard Law School, and more. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Business Insider, and Bustle, among others. In 2020, she was named by Forbes as a female leader in cannabis and psychedelics.
This talk will be recorded and immediately available for rewatch for all attendees.
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