Reality Sandwich has published a good number of articles about transformational festivals and conscious conferences by some of the scene’s most knowledgeable observers. Here is a selection of our favorites, along with a short list of recommended resources.
REALITY SANDWICH FEATURES
Myth, Ritual, and Revelry: A Talk with Damian Lazarus
By ST Frequency
Damian Lazarus, head of the influential Crosstown Rebels record label, is transforming the clichéd image of house music. In this interview, Lazarus talks about Burning Man and Day Zero, his upcoming 24-hour dance party synchronized to the end of the Mayan Calendar. 11/30/12
Global Tribe
By Graham St. John
I’m on one of the most expansive and impressive outdoor dance floors on the planet. An eight-day event, Boom is the premiere production in world psychedelic trance (psytrance) and visionary arts culture, with its Temple attracting near 25,000 people holding passports from approximately seventy countries. 10/22/12
A Report from Psychedemia, 2012: Integrating Psychedelics and Academics
By VerDarLuz
I was fortunate to attend Psychedemia in Philadelphia and felt blessed to participate in the highest expression of the current Uranus-Pluto square, the transit defining the 2010‘s. 10/18/12
Cosmic Threshold: Eclipse 2012 Festival
By Graham St John
A total solar eclipse is expected near Cairns, Far North Queensland, on 14th November 2012. A week long festival will be held to celebrate the cosmic event. 8-10,000 people from Australia and overseas will attend the Eclipse2012 Music, Arts & Healing Festival along with an impressive global lineup of sonic and visual artists as well as guest speakers and workshops. 10/12/12
Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics
by Ne?e Devenot
Over the weekend of October 14-16, 2012, “Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics” — the longest-running psychedelics conference in the United States — will convene in New York City for its sixth year. In anticipation of this reunion of intellects, I sat down for a conversation with Neal Goldsmith, the conference’s emcee and speaker curator. 10/10/12
A Letter from Australia: EGA, Lost Tribes and The Origins of Consciousness
by Doron Francis
Australia has a hugely vibrant psychedelic community. This island continent is steeped in shamanic tradition; it’s the spiritual home of the Dreamtime and the timeless dances practised by indigenous Australians to tell ancient stories, invoke spirits or send off a loved one. 10/4/12
Understanding Entheos: Spirituality in the Wake of Trauma
By Stephen Hershey
At the 6th Annual Entheos Summer Solstice Festival in Vancouver, Bradley Ross was found murdered in his tent. The tragedy was discovered on the final day of a gathering that marked the countdown to the “2012 shift.” In this interview, Reality Sandwich contributor and Entheos organizer Sobey Wing discusses the event. 8/22/12
Incendiary Person in the Desert Carnival Realm (A Burning Man Story)
By Jonathan Zap
I had come to the High Desert Carnival Realm with a magical agenda: to ritualize the experience by associating the Incendiary Person with aspects of myself that I wanted to transform, aspects I linked to Thanatos, the death drive, so that the burning would parallel my intention to transcend. 8/20/12
Where the Wild Things (Still) Are
By James Scott Linville
With the Spanish banks creaking, and Greece eyeing the Eurozone exit, the Eurocrat vision of a rational paradise is in some doubt. Meanwhile, ancient pagan festivals go on. This is no New Age revival — from France to Finland, from Sardinia to Slovenia, the “hirsute and horny” happenings were there all along. 6/19/12
Dancing in the Cosmic Sweet Spot: Total Solar Eclipse Gatherings
By Graham St John
The union of the Sun and the Moon is recurrent in philosophies and myths world-wide. Realms of consciousness hidden to us in our daily lives are perfectly represented by the corona of the Sun in union with the Moon. A total solar eclipse signifies an alchemical exchange of phases of consciousness, a peak psychocultural experience, while a whole new social event has come into being as a highly specialised traveller phenomenon. 6/18/12
Electronic Healing: An Interview with Nadis Warriors’ Jason Hahn
By Faye Sakellaridis
Jason Hahn, the visionary behind the production company Re:Evolution Media and member of the electronica band Nadis Warriors, is dedicated to uniting members of the spiritual community through the celebration of our creative capacity. In this interview, Hahn discusses the “psychedelic explosion” in electronica, performing alongside visionary artist Alex Grey, and Nadis Warriors’ approach to healing through art. 5/12/12
I Am … We Are … It Is
By Larry Harvey
Burning Man is this wild party on the one hand, and the most public-spirited city in America on the other. The essential cause of this is the giving of gifts. A gift economy is founded on principles that are diametrically opposed to those that dominate our consumer culture. 8/22/11
Psychedelics and Human Destiny: Notes from the Horizons Conference
By Jedi Mind Traveler
The realization of a utopian paradise will come when the general populace starts to embrace the psychedelic experience, which many of the researchers at the Horizons Conference in New York help to promote and legitimize. They have found a great proponent in the conference organizer and psychologist Neal Goldsmith, who points the way forward to a neo-tribal society, where we will return to our underlying wholeness and unity with nature and the kosmos.
Sampling Paradise: Goa Trance
by Erik Davis
As we hurtle into the twenty-first century, refugees from the First World have poached the info tech that’s speeding up the march of progress and made an abrupt about-face towards the archaic. They drag it to the rocks and jungles. Technology loves connection, so they sync it with the ancient wheel of the heavens. 11/4/10
Boom Festival 2010: Divine Mothership of Trance
By Graham St John
We are at Portugal’s Boom Festival. Founded in 1997, the biannual festival has evolved into a sacred site for enthusiasts of psychedelic music, art and culture who have descended upon this lakeside location from around the globe. 9/24/10
Ganesh Chaturthi: Recovering the Ecological Roots of an Ancient Festival
By Thomas Crowley
Ganesh Chaturthi is one of the biggest religious festivals in Maharashtra. This ten-day festival to celebrate the birthday of the much-beloved elephant-headed god is a fascinating combination of piety and partying, consecration and consumerism. 9/13/10
Tribal Revival
By Erik Davis
Every summer, tens of thousands of participants descend upon dozens of festivals and gatherings, great and small, that occur on the West Coast of North America: Shambhala, oracle, Moontribe, Lightning in a Bottle. The first thing you learn about the festival is: to get there, you must leave here. You must cross a threshold. 11/9/09
RESOURCES
Sol Purpose
Transformational Festivals