Psychedelia is an American documentary film from Hard Rain Films, that has been released in a revised and updated version in 2021. The film discusses the history of psychedelic drugs and their ability to produce mystical experiences. The therapeutic role of such drugs is considered, and controlled research studies conducted before the 1960s, at a time when such drugs were considered to be some of the most promising discoveries in the field of psychiatry, are discussed. Several study participant users are interviewed. [1] [2] [3] [4] The film was a winner for best documentary film at the New Jersey International Film Festival, and was an official selection at the Southern Utah International Documentary Film Festival (DOCUTAH) and the Orlando Film Festival. [1]
The documentary film is narrated by Stephanie Willing, and includes the following participants (alphabetized by last name):
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private, independent health sciences center in Houston, Texas within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; the School of Health Professions, and the National School of Tropical Medicine.
Arthur L. Caplan, is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine and the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics.
NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of Medicine. NYU Grossman School of Medicine is part of NYU Langone Health, named after Kenneth Langone, the investment banker and financial backer of The Home Depot.
Ed Guerrero is an American film historian and associate professor of cinema studies and Africana studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His writings explore black cinema, culture, and critical discourse. He has written extensively on black cinema, its movies, politics and culture for anthologies and journals such as Sight & Sound, FilmQuartely, Cineaste, Journal of Popular Film & Television, and Discourse. Guerrero has served on editorial and professional boards including The Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board.
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a medical school of Rutgers University. It is one of the two graduate medical schools of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, together with New Jersey Medical School, and is closely aligned with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school's principal affiliate.
Bill Bowers is an American mime artist and actor based in New York City. As an actor, mime and educator, Bill has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. He is a Movement for Actors Instructor at NYU Tisch School for the Arts and also teaches at the William Esper Studio and the Stella Adler Studio in NYC.
Walter Norman Pahnke was a minister, physician, and psychiatrist most famous for the "Good Friday Experiment", also referred to as the Marsh Chapel Experiment or the "Miracle of Marsh Chapel".
Irvin David Yalom is an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.
Nora Volkow is a Mexican-American psychiatrist. She is currently the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Harold Samuel Koplewicz is a nationally known child and adolescent psychiatrist. He is the founder and president of the nonprofit Child Mind Institute and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology.
Perry N. Halkitis is an American of Greek ancestry public health psychologist and applied statistician known for his research on the health of LGBT populations with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS, substance use, and mental health. Perry is Dean and Professor of Biostatistics, Health Education, and Behavioral Science at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Between 1998 and 2017, Perry was faculty at New York University, serving in a variety of capacities, the last of which was Senior Association Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the College of Global Public Health and Professor of Global Public Health, Applied Psychology, and Medicine. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) at New York University, a bio-behavioral funded research site funded that also serves as a training site for public health, psychology, medical and student scholars working in the arena of LGBT health disparities informed by a theory of syndemics.
Diane "Dee" Mosbacher, MD, Ph.D., is an American filmmaker, lesbian feminist activist, and practicing psychiatrist. In 1993, she founded Woman Vision, a nonprofit organization to promote equal treatment of all people through the production and use of educational media, including video.
Robert Lawrence Barchi is an American academic, physician, and scientist. He was the 20th president of Rutgers University, holding the position from September 1, 2012, to June 30, 2020. Barchi was appointed to the position on April 11, 2012, to succeed Richard L. McCormick. Previously, Barchi was president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, prior to which he was provost of the University of Pennsylvania.
James Patrick Allison is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
John Kuo Wei Tchen, also known as Jack, is a historian of Chinese American history and the Inaugural Clement A. Price Chair in Public History and Humanities at Rutgers University.
Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno are husband-and-wife filmmakers based in Newark, New Jersey, USA. Marylou is a producer, director and screenwriter who received her MFA from the graduate film program at New York University. Jerome is a cinematographer, editor, animator and screenwriter.
Anna Lembke is an American psychiatrist who is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. She is a specialist in the opioid epidemic in the United States, and the author of Drug Dealer, MD, How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop. Her latest book, a New York Times bestseller, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, was released in August 2021.
Una D. McCann is a board certified psychiatrist and researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. She is also the Director of the Anxiety Disorders Program, and Co-Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Sleep Medicine and Research, and Associate Program Director at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. McCann is considered to be an expert in anxiety and stress disorders and her primary areas research revolves around amphetamine-induced monoamine neurotoxicity and neurobiology of anxiety disorders.
Holly Hagan is an American infectious disease epidemiologist and nurse. She is a full professor in the College of Global Public Health at New York University and director of the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research.