Pioneering psychedelic researcher and spiritual teacher Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, passed away on Sunday, December 22, 2019.
MAPS Founder Rick Doblin, Ph.D., reflects on Ram Dass’ life, stating, “Ram Dass was a great inspiration to thousands/millions of people including me. I first interacted with him directly in 1986 when I interviewed him for my long-term follow-up to the Good Friday experiment in which he was a part of the experimental team. Ram Dass and Laura Huxley reading from Laura’s book, This Timeless Moment, with Ram Dass taking the part of Aldous Huxley, was an emotional highlight of a 1990 benefit event for MAPS at which Ram Dass, Ralph Metzner and Tim Leary, and others, spoke. Ram Dass was a model of personal accountability and was willing to address with courage and honesty the mistakes he made along the way, as well as acknowledge his profound accomplishments with humility. I was hoping Ram Dass would live to see FDA approval of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy but take comfort that he was fully aware of the renaissance in psychedelic research and that his pioneering work in psychedelics and in mindfulness had taken deep root in Western culture, even though it took about half a century.”
Watch Ram Dass speak at the Psychedelics in the 1990’s conference hosted by MAPS:
Watch Laura Huxley and Ram Dass read from This Timeless Moment at the Psychedelics in the 1990’s conference hosted by MAPS:
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