Our event starts at 11 am on the 2nd floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue)
Broadly defined, experiences that could be categorized as “mystical” have been described across millennia of human history and by virtually all religious traditions. Mystical states of consciousness, specifically a personal spiritual experience of union with an aspect of “Divine reality” has long fascinated interest and frustratingly resisted inquiry. Recently published studies on the fringes of contemporary neuroscience has shown that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and LSD, given under supportive conditions, can reliably occasion experiences that are phenomenologically similar to those experienced spontaneously by the mystics of history. In combination with cutting edge brain imaging technologies (such as MEG and functional MRI) and along with advances in biochemistry and receptor pharmacology this research has opened mysticism to rigorous scientific investigations into the causes and consequences of mystical states, and may allow for a future understanding that naturalizes mysticism.
This Sunday Brandon Cirella will be our featured speaker. Brandon is an avid psychonaut, amateur (natural) philosopher and aspiring neuroscientist. He graduated with a BSc. Neuroscience and Mental Health, Carleton University. His research interests include psychoactive plants and chemicals and their effects on the brain and mind, their emerging usage as a form of psychotechnology, and the computational basis underlying neural information processing and the phenomenology of conscious experience. He is most intrigued by the mind-problem and the application of novel psychotechnologies to its solution. He is currently reading Process and Reality, a process-relational metaphysics by philosopher/mathematican Alfred North Whitehead. Most of his thinking is done to a classical soundtrack; Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, and Chopin are frequently featured.
This Sunday we will to be returning to our regular format and having some live music in addition to having a speaker! Our featured musician will be Abigail Lapell. Check out a sampling of her music at https://www.abigaillapell.com/. It’s awesome! Abigail Lapell is a Toronto folk noir songwriter who draws from roots, indie and punk rock traditions. Hailed as an artist to watch by NOW Magazine, she’s toured across North America and Europe, performing on vocals, piano, harmonica and finger style guitar. Closer to home, she’s completed tours by bicycle, canoe and train. Lapell won the 2017 Canadian Folk Music Award for Contemporary Album of the Year and the 2016 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award from the Ontario Arts Council. Her new album, Hide Nor Hair, is out now on Coax Records.
To RSVP to this event please visit our Meetup page.