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Imbas Forosnai - Evidence for the ancestral Irish use of psilocybin containing mushrooms
This presentation will examine the evidence of the ancestral Irish use of psilocybin mushrooms. When Ireland was colonised in the 16th century, much of what we know of the ancient, indigenous, gaelic culture was lost. However, there are glimpses through our history, language, mythology which point to the use of psychedelic mushrooms in shamanic contexts. This presentation will examine the evidence of an indigenous shamanic culture in Ireland. In ancient Ireland, there existed a ritual called Imbas Forosnai that the filídh, poets or seers, would practise to achieve visionary inspiration. The filídh were the successors of the druids, as the old gaelic tradition was an oral one, wisdom was passed down by word of mouth. In Brehon law times in Ireland, the poets were also the law givers, as the law was sung in verse. This ancient oral tradition was partially written down by the druids of Tara, and St Patrick, in the 4th century in the Senchus Mór (pictured). The brehon law of the gaelic old order survived from time immemorial in Ireland until colonisation in the 16th and 17th century. Imbas Forosnai was a ritual used to invoke altered states of consciousness, and achieve visionary inspiration, or manifestation that enlightens. One of the oldest written records of Imbas Forosnai comes from the Sanas Cormaic, written in 908 AD. At this time the old pagan and druidic ways were already being forced underground, or assimilated, by the emergence of christianity. Imbas Forosnai is also frequently mentioned in much older Fenian Mythological cycle, An Fhiannaíocht, from the 2nd century AD. Imbas Forosnai is described in Sanas Cormaic as a ritual involving eating the ‘red flesh’, thought to be a reference to the fly agaric, a consciousness-altering mushroom which grows in great abundance in Ireland. In shamanic rituals, it would have been combined with the liberty cap psilocybin mushroom to achieve altered states of consciousness. ( Please note that this is my first time submitting to speak at Breaking Convention. However, I delivered a keynote presentation in 2021 at Insight in Berlin entitled "Finding gold in the shadow, the challenges of psychedelic assisted therapy from a psychotherapeutic perspective", and I have also had a paper published in the WInter 2022 edition of the IACP Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy entitled "The promise and challenges of psychedelic-assisted therapy- an overview of the science".)
Rob is a university lecturer, has a Graduate Diploma in Counselling and Integrative Psychotherapy (Dublin City University) and is an accredited psychotherapist (MIACP) He is also a qualified Shamanic Counsellor at the Irish Centre for Shamanic and Transpersonal Studies, and has completed an 8 year training as a Transpersonal Therapist in the tradition of Dr. Stan Grof. As co-founder of Inwardbound psilocybin retreats, since 2018 he has facilitated hundreds of people through the psilocybin retreat process. Inwardbound provide legal psychedelic retreat programmes with a 5 day retreat in the Netherlands as the focal point. He passionately believes that only way to create change in the world is through inner psychological work, and his work has been around reconnecting people to themselves, to each other and to nature. In his twenties he was one of Ireland’s top whitewater kayakers, leading expeditions to most of the most remote locations on the planet, including Iran, the Himalayas and Ethiopia to name but a few. He has 20 years experience guiding people in some of the most adventurous mountain and river environments on earth. As he evolved into a leading outdoor educator, he became convinced of the healing power of nature. After several near death experiences and the trauma of losing some of his friends to the river, Rob turned to Jungian psychology, yoga and meditation to rehab his body and mind. He has been practising yoga intensively since 2008, and teaching since 2015 when he trained as a Yoga Alliance Teacher (200 RYT) on Maui, He has also completed yoga and meditation trainings in Mexico, India, Guatemala and Spain. Rob has been a student of Amazonian curanderismo for a number of years, having done several dietas with the renowned Shipibo curanderas in Peru. He co-wrote a code of ethics for plant medicine facilitators “A guideline for navigating sexual trauma and harm prevention in psychedelic ceremony space” (www.saferceremony.com), as well as helping to draft the dutch Guild of Guides Code of Ethics. Rob has a deep interest in the ancestral use of psilocybin mushrooms in Ireland and has been researching this topic in depth for a number of years (as well as having a degree in history from Trinity College, Dublin).