We are in active service to the birth of a new societal paradigm.
We are the Center for Consciousness Medicine.
We train psychedelic guides.
We are committed to a future that centers balance within each person, interconnectedness amongst all beings, and harmony with the earth.
Healing from suffering is a basic human right.
It is everyone's birthright to know one’s goodness, to love oneself and be loved, and to live in overall safety and peace.
Our contribution to this vision is expertise in training and treatment that is founded on 3 decades of experience combining psychedelics, contemporary psychotherapeutic knowledge and respectful engagement with Indigenous wisdom traditions.
The Center for Consciousness Medicine is rooted in a long-standing relationship with a lineage of healers from the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico who have kept the Mazatec tradition of ceremonial use of Teonanacatl (psilocybin-containing mushrooms) alive for thousands of years in the face of colonialism and industrialization. With their permission, blessing, and with great humility, we have integrated these practices with contemporary therapeutic modalities to create a holistic model of healing.
Our Lineage
The primary thread of the CCM lineage stems from a longstanding and ongoing relationship with a Mazatec family in Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico. With their permission and blessing, their practices and traditions have been integrated with emergent psychotherapeutic modalities to create a holistic model for healing.
Click on image icons for specific information about each lineage member.
Maria Sabina Estrada
Dates lived: 1894- November 1985
Bio: lived in Huautla de Jiménez, a small town in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountain range in the Oaxaca state of Mexico. She grew up in poverty and was first introduced to the sacred mushroom when she, out of hunger, ate some growing wild in the hills of Huautla. She began working with them for healing some years later in her life. She said: “at {the} bottom I knew that I was a doctor woman. I knew what my destiny was. I felt it deep within me. I felt that I had a great power, a power that awakened in me in the vigils”. She is best known as the indigenous healer who introduced the psilocybin mushroom to the West, via the ethnomycologist Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina. Wasson’s publication of his experience in LIFE magazine in 1957, despite Maria Sabina’s request that he not do so, brought many foreigners to the mall town seeing a “trip”.
She was faulted for the town’s misfortune, ostracized and condemned. She died in poverty, bitter about having endured many hardships. Following her death she was memorialized and has become a famed figure associated with sacred mushroom work.
Lineage: Lineage connection to Maria Sabina Estrada is through Salvador Roquet who was a good friend of hers and who studied with her which significantly informed his methods. She was also a friend of Regina Carrera and Julieta Casimiro- they spent much time together in Huaultla before Maria’s death.
Salvador RoquetSalvador Roquet
Dates lived: – 1994
Bio: Dr. Salvador Roquet was a Mexican pioneer in psychedelic psychotherapy. He began his medical career in the field of public health and later became a psychiatrist; he started to use mind-altering substances as an adjunct to psychotherapy in 1967. He trained psychedelic therapists in his approach and worked with thousands of patients through his method of conducting multiple day “convivials”, with and without the use of psychedelics, employing techniques of increasing sensory stimulation, Gestalt Therapy, psychodrama, expressive art, bioenergetics, Reichian psychotherapy, and other processes. He worked both in Mexico and the US.
Lineage: Salvador was a friend and student of Maria Sabina. He would come to Huautla as a doctor and bring medicines and treatments to help the towns people. They formed a many year relationship. Salvador trained Pablo Sanchez in the late 1970’s. Francoise and Aharon also assisted Salvador in his “convivials” and learned many skills and approaches from assisting and organizing his work.
Pablo SanchezPablo Sanchez
Dates lived: – 1996
Bio: He was Mexican and Native American of Pueblo ancestry. During WWII he was in the photographic corp and documented the concentration camps following liberation. What he experienced along with his work on first nations reservations, emphasized his commitment to healing. He became a psychotherapist, social worker, and teacher of Jungian psychology at San Jose State University. He was a political activist in opening access to education for Latinx students, who at the time were segregated at the university.
Lineage: He studied closely with and worked with Salvador Roquet, and evolved his own approaches. In the mid 1980’s Aharon and soon after Francoise began to work with him and later became his apprentices. Later in his life he became visually impaired after a tumor removal and Aharon and Francoise helped him carry out his work with clients. He was Aharon and Francoise’s main teacher for many years.
Aharon GrossbardAharon Grossbard
Dates lived: 1949- present
Bio: Israeli born psychologist, explorer and lover of life and consciousness. He has been trained as a clinical psychologist (CIIS) and medicine healer and has been working with clients, teaching, and training nationally and internationally for over 50 years in a holistic approach to healing and growth, integrating western psychology, body awareness, spiritual traditions from the east and west, together with shamanic wisdom and tools.
Lineage: Aharon began the relationship with Pablo in 1984 which set Francoise and him on their life trajectories. He apprenticed and studied directly with Salvador, Pablo, Ralph and Julieta. He continues to teach what he’s learned through his time with these masters to students interested in healing and growth through expanded states of consciousness.
Francoise BourzatFrancoise Bourzat
Dates lived: 1956- present
Bio: is a French born consciousness guide and counselor. She has a master’s degree in Somatic Psychology from New College of California and trained at the Hakomi Institute. She draws from years of close apprenticeship with her Mazatec teacher, as well as training in other indigenous traditions, providing an approach that bridges Western and indigenous modalities for healing and growth. She trains therapists and facilitators, has been an adjunct teacher at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), lectures internationally and has been in private practice for the last 30 years.
Lineage: Francoise studied directly from Salvador, Pablo, Ralph, and Julieta. She now collaborates with Eugenia on healing work with mushrooms in Mexico and has trained practitioners on the art of facilitating healing through expanded states of consciousness.
Ralph MetznerRalph Metzner
Dates lived: 1936 – March 14, 2019
Bio: German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later named Ram Dass). Metzner was a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he was formerly the Academic Dean and Academic Vice-president. He was a prolific author on the subjects of consciousness.
Lineage: Ralph was Aharon’s dissertation chairman from 1984-88 while Aharon defended, at the time, a controversial dissertation on the benefits of Pablo Sanchez’s psychedelic and shamanic approaches on the psychotherapeutic experience. Ralph, Aharon and Francoise maintained a friendship through the years until his death. They learned from him his unique approach to healing with expanded states of consciousness. During the last years of his life, he was a mentor and advisor to Francoise as she wrote her inaugural book- Consciousness Medicine.
Eugenia Pineda CasimiroEugenia Pineda Casimiro
Dates lived: 1972- present
Bio: An indigenous Mazatec healer, Eugenia is the 5th daughter of Julieta and Lucio. All her life she was raised around her mothers work as a curandera. At some point she began a formal apprenticeship with her mother and has been conducting her own ceremonial work in Huautla for many years now.
Lineage: She is the CCM lineages main living connection to the indigenous root of guided work with the sacred mushroom. Her strength of work, depth of integrity and clarity of words about her tradition and personal approach, it’s importance, and it’s indigenous framework continues to inform and inspire the lineage going forward.
Julia Julieta Casimiro EstradaJulia Julieta Casimiro Estrada
Dates lived: 1936- 7/2018
Bio: Doña Julia Julieta Casimiro, an indigenous Mazatec healer, was born in the town of Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca. She started on the path to becoming a wise woman when her husband, Don Lucio Isaías Pineda Carrera’s, mother, Doña Regina Carrera Calvo, began to teach her the traditional ways. Julieta became well known in the town as a healer and during controversial times provided a safe harbor for the seekers who were visiting Huautla and were often misguided. She was a part of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council from 2004- 2017 traveling around to world, and sharing her wisdom as a keeper of the traditional healing way of the “ninos santos”, the mushrooms.
Lineage: Julieta learned her healing work form her mother in law Regina Carrera Calvo. She also spent time with MariaSabina in the context of friendship. Of her 10 children, 3 have carried on in the lineage of healers. Eugenia, one of her younger daughters has been closely apprenticing with her mother for the last decade before Julieta passed. Julieta also passed on her wisdom to Francoise over the last 20 years of Francoise visiting her, bringing clients to work with Julieta and herself in Mexico, and also traveling internationally with Julieta. Julieta’s influence on Aharon and Francoise’s work and the development of the CCM approach was substantial.
Regina Carrera CalvoRegina Carrera Calvo
Dates lived:
Bio: She was an herbalist, midwife and mushrooms ceremonialist from a family who for many generations, have carried the wisdom and practice of healing. Genealogically and culturally they have been powerful shamans, guides, curanderos, and prophets, known throughout the region.
Lineage: She taught Julieta, her daughter in law, the way of the mushrooms and how to help people heal. She was also a good friend of Maria Sabina and maintained this friendship and support of Maria Sabina through Maria’s most difficult times.
Lineage unknownLineage unknown
(before Regina and Maria Sabina)
These curanderas and curanderos have kept the thousand-year-old Mazatec tradition of ceremonial use of Teonanaclt (psilocybin containing mushrooms) alive. The center of this tradition is around the town of Huautla de Jimenez, in the northern mountains of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. This tradition is one of a small number of indigenous cultures that has kept their plant medicine traditions alive in the face of colonialism and industrialization.
Maria Sabina Estrada
Dates lived: 1894- November 1985
Bio: lived in Huautla de Jiménez, a small town in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountain range in the Oaxaca state of Mexico. She grew up in poverty and was first introduced to the sacred mushroom when she, out of hunger, ate some growing wild in the hills of Huautla. She began working with them for healing some years later in her life. She said: “at {the} bottom I knew that I was a doctor woman. I knew what my destiny was. I felt it deep within me. I felt that I had a great power, a power that awakened in me in the vigils”. She is best known as the indigenous healer who introduced the psilocybin mushroom to the West, via the ethnomycologist Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina. Wasson’s publication of his experience in LIFE magazine in 1957, despite Maria Sabina’s request that he not do so, brought many foreigners to the mall town seeing a “trip”.
She was faulted for the town’s misfortune, ostracized and condemned. She died in poverty, bitter about having endured many hardships. Following her death she was memorialized and has become a famed figure associated with sacred mushroom work.
Lineage: Lineage connection to Maria Sabina Estrada is through Salvador Roquet who was a good friend of hers and who studied with her which significantly informed his methods. She was also a friend of Regina Carrera and Julieta Casimiro- they spent much time together in Huaultla before Maria’s death.
Salvador RoquetSalvador Roquet
Dates lived: – 1994
Bio: Dr. Salvador Roquet was a Mexican pioneer in psychedelic psychotherapy. He began his medical career in the field of public health and later became a psychiatrist; he started to use mind-altering substances as an adjunct to psychotherapy in 1967. He trained psychedelic therapists in his approach and worked with thousands of patients through his method of conducting multiple day “convivials”, with and without the use of psychedelics, employing techniques of increasing sensory stimulation, Gestalt Therapy, psychodrama, expressive art, bioenergetics, Reichian psychotherapy, and other processes. He worked both in Mexico and the US.
Lineage: Salvador was a friend and student of Maria Sabina. He would come to Huautla as a doctor and bring medicines and treatments to help the towns people. They formed a many year relationship. Salvador trained Pablo Sanchez in the late 1970’s. Francoise and Aharon also assisted Salvador in his “convivials” and learned many skills and approaches from assisting and organizing his work.
Pablo SanchezPablo Sanchez
Dates lived: – 1996
Bio: He was Mexican and Native American of Pueblo ancestry. During WWII he was in the photographic corp and documented the concentration camps following liberation. What he experienced along with his work on first nations reservations, emphasized his commitment to healing. He became a psychotherapist, social worker, and teacher of Jungian psychology at San Jose State University. He was a political activist in opening access to education for Latinx students, who at the time were segregated at the university.
Lineage: He studied closely with and worked with Salvador Roquet, and evolved his own approaches. In the mid 1980’s Aharon and soon after Francoise began to work with him and later became his apprentices. Later in his life he became visually impaired after a tumor removal and Aharon and Francoise helped him carry out his work with clients. He was Aharon and Francoise’s main teacher for many years.
Aharon GrossbardAharon Grossbard
Dates lived: 1949- present
Bio: Israeli born psychologist, explorer and lover of life and consciousness. He has been trained as a clinical psychologist (CIIS) and medicine healer and has been working with clients, teaching, and training nationally and internationally for over 50 years in a holistic approach to healing and growth, integrating western psychology, body awareness, spiritual traditions from the east and west, together with shamanic wisdom and tools.
Lineage: Aharon began the relationship with Pablo in 1984 which set Francoise and him on their life trajectories. He apprenticed and studied directly with Salvador, Pablo, Ralph and Julieta. He continues to teach what he’s learned through his time with these masters to students interested in healing and growth through expanded states of consciousness.
Francoise BourzatFrancoise Bourzat
Dates lived: 1956- present
Bio: is a French born consciousness guide and counselor. She has a master’s degree in Somatic Psychology from New College of California and trained at the Hakomi Institute. She draws from years of close apprenticeship with her Mazatec teacher, as well as training in other indigenous traditions, providing an approach that bridges Western and indigenous modalities for healing and growth. She trains therapists and facilitators, has been an adjunct teacher at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), lectures internationally and has been in private practice for the last 30 years.
Lineage: Francoise studied directly from Salvador, Pablo, Ralph, and Julieta. She now collaborates with Eugenia on healing work with mushrooms in Mexico and has trained practitioners on the art of facilitating healing through expanded states of consciousness.
Ralph MetznerRalph Metzner
Dates lived: 1936 – March 14, 2019
Bio: German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later named Ram Dass). Metzner was a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he was formerly the Academic Dean and Academic Vice-president. He was a prolific author on the subjects of consciousness.
Lineage: Ralph was Aharon’s dissertation chairman from 1984-88 while Aharon defended, at the time, a controversial dissertation on the benefits of Pablo Sanchez’s psychedelic and shamanic approaches on the psychotherapeutic experience. Ralph, Aharon and Francoise maintained a friendship through the years until his death. They learned from him his unique approach to healing with expanded states of consciousness. During the last years of his life, he was a mentor and advisor to Francoise as she wrote her inaugural book- Consciousness Medicine.
Eugenia Pineda CasimiroEugenia Pineda Casimiro
Dates lived: 1972- present
Bio: An indigenous Mazatec healer, Eugenia is the 5th daughter of Julieta and Lucio. All her life she was raised around her mothers work as a curandera. At some point she began a formal apprenticeship with her mother and has been conducting her own ceremonial work in Huautla for many years now.
Lineage: She is the CCM lineages main living connection to the indigenous root of guided work with the sacred mushroom. Her strength of work, depth of integrity and clarity of words about her tradition and personal approach, it’s importance, and it’s indigenous framework continues to inform and inspire the lineage going forward.
Julia Julieta Casimiro EstradaJulia Julieta Casimiro Estrada
Dates lived: 1936- 7/2018
Bio: Doña Julia Julieta Casimiro, an indigenous Mazatec healer, was born in the town of Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca. She started on the path to becoming a wise woman when her husband, Don Lucio Isaías Pineda Carrera’s, mother, Doña Regina Carrera Calvo, began to teach her the traditional ways. Julieta became well known in the town as a healer and during controversial times provided a safe harbor for the seekers who were visiting Huautla and were often misguided. She was a part of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council from 2004- 2017 traveling around to world, and sharing her wisdom as a keeper of the traditional healing way of the “ninos santos”, the mushrooms.
Lineage: Julieta learned her healing work form her mother in law Regina Carrera Calvo. She also spent time with MariaSabina in the context of friendship. Of her 10 children, 3 have carried on in the lineage of healers. Eugenia, one of her younger daughters has been closely apprenticing with her mother for the last decade before Julieta passed. Julieta also passed on her wisdom to Francoise over the last 20 years of Francoise visiting her, bringing clients to work with Julieta and herself in Mexico, and also traveling internationally with Julieta. Julieta’s influence on Aharon and Francoise’s work and the development of the CCM approach was substantial.
Regina Carrera CalvoRegina Carrera Calvo
Dates lived:
Bio: She was an herbalist, midwife and mushrooms ceremonialist from a family who for many generations, have carried the wisdom and practice of healing. Genealogically and culturally they have been powerful shamans, guides, curanderos, and prophets, known throughout the region.
Lineage: She taught Julieta, her daughter in law, the way of the mushrooms and how to help people heal. She was also a good friend of Maria Sabina and maintained this friendship and support of Maria Sabina through Maria’s most difficult times.
Lineage unknownLineage unknown
(before Regina and Maria Sabina)
These curanderas and curanderos have kept the thousand-year-old Mazatec tradition of ceremonial use of Teonanaclt (psilocybin containing mushrooms) alive. The center of this tradition is around the town of Huautla de Jimenez, in the northern mountains of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. This tradition is one of a small number of indigenous cultures that has kept their plant medicine traditions alive in the face of colonialism and industrialization.
Our Founders
Aharon Grossbard
Aharon is an Israeli born psychologist, explorer and lover of life and consciousness. He has been trained as a clinical psychologist (CIIS) and medicine healer and has been working with clients, teaching, and training nationally and internationally for over 50 years in a holistic approach to healing and growth, integrating western psychology, body awareness, spiritual traditions from the east and west, together with shamanic wisdom and tools.
Francoise Bourzat
Françoise Bourzat holds a MA in Somatic Psychology from New College of California (San Francisco, 1990) and trained at the Hakomi Institute (1991). She is an adjunct faculty in the East West Psychology Program at CIIS. Since 1987, Françoise has apprenticed with shamans and healers in the U.S. and Mexico. In the last 20 years, she has traveled with groups to Mexico, incorporating her counseling practice experience with her knowledge of expanded states of consciousness where she partners with Mazatec healers in Sacred Mushrooms ceremonies. Françoise also leads workshops in the U.S, France, Lebanon and Israel. You can reach Francoise at: www.francoisebourzat.com
Naama Grossbard
Naama is a guide, teacher, mother, food grower, and artist. She has apprenticed in expanded states of consciousness work most of her life with her parents, Aharon and Francoise, and trained in the Consciousness Medicine approach formally in 2015. She has her BFA with a focus in conceptual art and abstract painting. In recent years she has turned her creativity towards creating containers for experiences in the service of personal growth and systemic change towards balance. Naama is the founder and Executive Director of education at The Center for Consciousness Medicine. She teaches and co-creates programs and curriculums. She lives in Nevada City in the Sierra foothills with her two young sons and partner.
Weaving Worlds: Indigenous Traditions & Western Psychotherapy
Cross-cultural conversation, comparing Mazatec healing traditions and Western psychotherapy.
Featuring: Eugenia Casimiro- Mazatec healer and Françoise Bourzat, guide & author In conversation w/ Ismail Ali of MAPS
Our Team
Lauren Van Ham
TEACHING FACULTY
Kabir Cooppan – Boyd
Research, Market Analysis, & Inquiry Processing
Susan Weiss
Post Graduate Affairs
Yecenia Justine Miranda
ADMISSIONS & STUDENT RESOURCES SUPPORT
Ty Blair
STUDENT & PROGRAM RESOURCES
Lisa Winston
OPERATIONS
Jennifer Collotta
Operations
Makenzie Darling
Communications & PR
Our Diversity and Inclusion Council at CCM
The Center for Consciousness Medicine is leading the charge in creating safe, effective, accessible and inclusive practices for the legal use of entheogenic substances for healing and transformation. Our collective work aims to center and amplify the Indigenous lineage at the heart of this work. From our collective perspective, centering the traditional wisdom keepers of this lineage is the only way for this work to have a meaningful impact in our diverse modern world.
To support this effort, CCM has established a team of six (6) BIPOC community leaders, therapists, coaches and abolitionists who are working diligently to steer the organization and the field toward a more equitable and accessible future. This unique constellation of six BIPOC leaders allows for CCM to interrogate internalized assumptions and develop ways of working, both organizationally and within the emerging field, that decenter whiteness and uplift the experiences of BIPOC patients and practitioners.
By redistributing the intense labor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work among a council of six, CCM is creating the environment needed for rapid internal and external transformation toward justice.
As CCM continues to grow and evolve inside of the emergent field, the innovative work of our DEI council will continue to set us apart from others. We hope to guide the way toward a psychedelic future that is radical in its inclusion, representative of the populations we seek to serve, and equitable every step of the way.
Check back often for updates on what The DEI Council is up to!