Ralph and myself (Zach Leary) sat down at the MAPS Psychedelic Science '17 conference in Oakland, CA on April 23rd to embark on a wide reaching conversation that focussed on the early days of his research at Harvard, the culture of the 60's and how much has changed in the last 50 years. Of course, we also talked about the time he spent with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, the nature of consciousness itself and a new way of thinking about "ecology" as a concept. His new book "Ecology of Consciousness: The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation" is out now wherever books are sold. Ralph is truly one of the great inspirational elder statements of the modern psychedelic movement and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Ralph Metzner PhD (born May 18, 1936, in Germany) is an American psychologist, writer and researcher, born in Germany, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later named Ram Dass). Metzner is 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.

Metzner has been involved in consciousness research, including psychedelics, yoga, meditation and shamanism for over 45 years. He is a co-founder and President of the Green Earth Foundation, a non-profit educational organization devoted to healing and harmonizing the relationship between humans and the Earth, and a signatory to the 9/11 Truth Statement. Metzner was featured in the 2006 film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.