Exploring the rich history and culture of psychedelics in Africa through research and lived experiences. Followed by Q&A.

Fresh from his latest journeys across Africa, Darren Le Baron returns to share new discoveries and reflections. Following three months traveling through Southern Africa living among San Bushmen, Zulu, and Himba communities, before continuing on to Egypt, he revisits his acclaimed series, Psychedelics in Africa: The Untold Story, with fresh insight from the field. This session explores the deep history, mythology, and scientific research surrounding Africa’s psychoactive plants and fungi. For millennia, these potent natural allies have been central to spiritual practice, healing, and community cohesion among the continent’s earliest cultures, traditions that remain largely underrepresented in mainstream scholarship.

Across Africa, many communities continue to engage these sacred substances in rites of passage, initiation ceremonies, spiritual communication, healing practices, and everyday ritual life. Bridging African and Diasporic perspectives, the presentation draws on academic sources alongside oral traditions, highlighting resonances in symbolism, cosmology, and language that reveal profound cultural continuities and thought-provoking insights.

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7.30pm - come down early to grab a good seat!