Cultivating the Set and Setting of the Psychedelic Revival

Help us foster the next generation of psychedelic scientists, advocates, and explorers. 

PsySci@Berkeley is a democratic undergrad-led faculty-sponsored student organization with more than 400 members in the UC Berkeley college community. PsySci's mission is to foster a vibrant and diverse community that catalyzes understanding on how to channel the profound power of psychedelics to engender individual and social transformation so as to manifest greater well-being and flourishing in our ailing world. Our two main avenues to do so have been via education and empowerment — the DeCal,  and the community itself.

Spring 2023 Decal Cohort

 

Our credited, student-run class 'Introduction to Psychedelic Science' (DeCal) has enriched the education of more than 300 students over the past six semesters and has featured guest lectures by leading pioneers in the psychedelic field like Robin Carthart-Harris, Rick Strassman, and Dennis McKenna, as well as vocal speakers and community activists from underrepresented backgrounds like Ayize Jama-Everett and Kufikiri Imara. The first two semesters were over Zoom and many lectures are openly-accessible on our website. Money raised will be used to support DeCal activities, especially honorariums for indigenous speakers, to ensure reciprocity in our community relations.

Recorded lectures from our first two semesters on our Youtube channel

 

The second half of PsySci is our ASUC-sponsored club, which seeks to create an inclusive, safe and sacred community in the psychedelic space. We encourage and empower our members to engage in research, art, and community events in this emerging field. Past projects our community has been involved in include: Entheoscope (psychedelic magazine), a “Young Professionals in Psychedelics” Career Panel, research on Wim Hof breathing and psychedelic college experiences, and psychedelic NFTs. We have maintained a Student Fund, stewarded by our democratic Board, to help promote future exciting projects. 

Weekly Meetups at La Val's

 

Our community is committed to exploring dialogue about plant medicines without judgment and with respect to all the original explorers. Our main activities include weekly general meetings, bi-weekly journal clubs led by student-scientists, and monthly town halls. We have a tradition of equinox and solstice retreats, to celebrate a significant shift in the seasons. PsySci’s intent is to be open for all, while striving to be accessible to a diverse set of people and perspective. Additionally, our club is continually looking for opportunities to serve our surrounding community through acts of service. In the past, we have fundraised for Supernova Woman, a nonprofit empowering disenfranchised and underrepresented communities in the plant medicine space.  

Some of our horizon aspirations are - hosting an annual Psychedelic Science conference, creating a student-led psychedelic-consciousness research lab, understanding the incentives of current psychedelic scientific practices that are unfavorable open-science practices, and ultimately growing our mycelial network to extend beyond the Berkeley community.

How we intend to use your donation:

The money raised will be split between our Decal and aspiring projects. 

• Around 50% will be for the DeCal:
  • Money will especially go toward honorariums for speakers from indigenous and under-represented backgrounds to ensure non-Western centric voices remain an important perspective in our curriculum as well as building reciprocal relationships. 
• The other 50% of our funds will go toward projects such as 
  • Furthering innovative research
  • Community and artistic projects in-line with our club values
  • Community upliftment. 
• This includes providing nourishment and supplies (art, outdoors, academic, etc.) at our events to demonstrate our gratitude for our members and to ensure that no one is excluded from our community due to lack of resources. 

Contact:

email: ucbpsychedelics@gmail.com
discord: https://discord.gg/kynzkTENbf