Palenque Norte is a Burning Man theme camp and lecture series inspired by the talks given by entheogen researcher Terence McKenna at the Palenque Entheobotany Seminars in January 1999. The camp provides space for discussions about entheobotany and entheogenic compounds. Lecturers are given on topics similar to those that were presented around the pool at the Hotel Chan-Kah Ruinas, where the original Palenque talks were held.
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Palenque Norte 2003–2007
Palenque Norte was created in 2003 by Lorenzo Hagerty, host of the popular Psychedelic Salon podcast. Audio content from past Palenque Norte lectures was recorded and can be accessed at the Psychedelic Salon website. Palenque Norte was held five years consecutively at the Burning Man festival. Then, after taking a five-year hiatus from the playa, the lecture series returned in 2012.
From 2003 through 2007, Palenque Norte produced lectures by pioneering psychedelic explorers Sasha and Ann Shulgin; authors Erik Davis, Jon Hanna, and Daniel Pinchbeck; visionary artists Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Roberto Venosa, and Martina Hoffmann; origins of life researcher Dr. Bruce Damer; clinical researcher Alicia Danforth; Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies president Rick Doblin; MDMA researchers Michael and Annie Mithoefer, and many others.
Palenque Norte 2012-2014
With guidance from the original founder, a team led by Christopher Pezza orchestrated the return of Palenque Norte to Burning Man in 2012. The new organizers have expressed that they plan to create other Palenque Norte events beginning in 2013, which will mark the first time Palenque Norte will host events outside of the Burning Man festival.
The 2012 lineup included visionary artist Amanda Sage; researcher Dr. Bruce Damer; mycologist Paul Stamets; visionary artists Alex Grey and Allyson Grey; Biosphere 2 creator John P. Allen; author Daniel Pinchbeck; EFF co-founder John Gilmore; MAPS president Rick Doblin; Full Circle Teahouse founder Annie Oak; filmmaker and author Charles Shaw activist Troy Dayton; social psychologist Dr. Steve Bearman; Blue Morpho Ayahuasca center owner and master ayahuasquero Hamilton Souther; feminist scholar Dr. Maddy Corbin; researcher Dr. Brian Hewlett; filmmaker Ken Adams; chocolatier Brian Wallace, and others.
In 2013 Palenque Norte returned to the Burning Man festival, and was hosted at Camp Soft Landing. New additions to the speaker lineup included the self-proclaimed fake guru Kumaré, Johns Hopkins University Psilocybin Researcher Roland Griffiths PhD, chemist Paul Daley PhD, Psychedelic Society of San Francisco founder Daniel Jabbour, writer and poet The Teafaerie, artist and philosopher Michael Garfield, author and Burning Man staffer Jon Mitchell, among many other new and returning speakers.
In addition to attending the Burning Man festival, Palenque Norte also co-hosted an event called "Exploring Psychonautics" with the Psychedelic Society of San Francisco at Freespace, a San Francisco-based art space. The main speaker was Xenolinguist Diana Slattery PhD.
In 2014 Palenque Norte planned to return as a part of Camp Soft Landing to the Burning Man Festival. Speaker recruitment was underway until June.
Palenque Entheobotany Seminars
The Palenque Entheobotany Seminars or Botanical Preservation Corps (BPC) Seminar on Ethnobotany and Chemistry of Psychoactive Plants were a series of talks given near the ruins of Palenque, in Mexico at the Chan-Kah Hotel.
Operated as a partnership between author Jonathan Ott, botanist Rob Montgomery, businessman Ken Symington, and author Terence McKenna, the series brought together some of the most noted experts in entheogenic research, including Dr. Alexander and Ann Shulgin, Bret Blosser, Dr. Deborah Mash, Manuel and Donna Torres, Giorgio Samorini, Christian Rätsch, Dr. Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Dale Pendell, and others. The spirit of the lectures is carried on at the Burning Man theme camp, Palenque Norte.