Metzner, Ralph

Metzner, Ralph – Internationally known psychologist and one of the pioneers of LSD research at Harvard University in the 1960s before academic research on the subject was halted. Metzner coauthored The Psychedelic Experience (1964) with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, which used the Tibetan Book of the Dead to guide LSD and other entheogenic experiences, including instructions for how to approach a psychedelic session. Metzner was academic dean (1979–88) and academic vice president (1988–89) of the California Institute of Integral Studies and teaches there on altered states of consciousness, psychotherapy, and eco-psychology. His volume The Well of Remembrance (1994) explored Northern European mythology and “shamanism” from a psychological perspective. He is also cofounder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, “an educational organization devoted to the healing and harmonizing of the relations between humanity and the earth.” Most recently, Metzner authored Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness and the Spirit of Nature (1999) and Sacred Mushroom of Visions: Teonanacatl (2005), and he has been on the Board of Advisers for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics since 2000.

SOURCE:

Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007

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