The Alembic

12/10/2025

12/08/2025

What is happening this weekend?
SATURDAY
Yoga - Soulful Flow with Anne Rene
SUNDAY
Contemplative Dance Practice: A Movement & Meditation Workshop with Nick Smith
Yoga for Psychonauts: Psychedelics, Yogic Movement & Yoga Nidra with Brenna Geehan
Kailash: An Evening of Devotional Music
Circling for BIPOC Homies with Ahran Lee

12/07/2025

12/06/2025

We have a lot of variety this week.
MONDAY
Contemplative Contact Improvisation Lab with Nick Smith
TUESDAY
Sufi Whirling Space Workshop with Anna Whirling
Office Hours with a Mage with Sam Webster
WEDNESDAY
Psychedelic Breathwork with Matt Barkin
Relatefulness with Josh Rosenberg and Daniel Ricciardelli
THURSDAY
Movement for Meditators: Roll, Play, Sound, and Release with Laura Ward
Deconstructing Yourself with Michael Taft
The Present Moment Game with Alli Magidsohn
FRIDAY
SonicTrance Gong Baths with Loriel Starr (6:30 pm and 8:30 pm)

12/05/2025

For this Chalice, our special guest is Johnny Dwork, a multimedia artist and well-regarded producer of psychedelic music and art festivals. In 1984, the legendary Merry Prankster Wavy Gravy ordained Johnny as The Rabbi of the Phurst Church of Phun, an underground society of comics and clowns that first emerged from the protest movements of the 1960s. Through a wide variety of theatrical and comedic modalities, Johnny has since helped thousands of people embrace good-hearted humor as a vehicle for health, healing, and more playful approaches to psychedelic experience. Tonight Johnny and the crew will discuss sacred foolery, mystical mirth, and the role of clowning in activism, as seen recently in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. In the second half of the evening, initiations into the Phurst Church of Phun will be on offer.

Johnny Dwork credits psychedelics for his success as a world champion athlete, award-winning author, visionary multimedia artist, and the producer of large, mythic-themed events, including the String Cheese Incidents’ legendary fetes at Hornings Hideout. Johnny is also a life coach, Universal Life Minister, and Sacred Fire Circle facilitator. After helping get the law changed in Oregon, Johnny became one of the first state-licensed psychedelic facilitators in the US, and now guides psilocybin experiences at InnerTrek in Portland, OR. Learn more here: www.mushroomilluminations.com

The Chalice is a recurring psychedelic salon held at the Berkeley Alembic the first Wednesday of every month. Instead of the mainstream focus on clinical trials, legal frameworks, and psychotherapy, the Chalice will draw from the deeper humanistic wells of history, poetry, the gods, ethnobotany, humor, and mystery. We are less interested in fetishizing psychedelic substances or psychedelic experiences than in cultivating psychedelic culture and exploring what it means to be psychedelic people.

12/05/2025

Things are getting weird online. Beyond the fractured realities of social media filter bubbles and the proliferation of fake news, our digital ether is constantly teasing out an increasingly tenuous relationship with reality: tech bros believe we live in a simulation, people debate false memories known as “Mandela effects,” young people are “reality shifting” between different dimensions, and politicos use “meme magic” to redefine reality. This is to say nothing of the uncanny oddities produced by machine learning and algorithmic divination.

In her forthcoming book, The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse, Shira Chess attributes some of that weirdness to the 1990s, when many of the same people shaping early internet culture were busy hacking reality, practicing Technopaganism and Technoshamanism, and engaging in other forms of alternative spiritualities intersecting with emerging technologies. For many, the goal was a literal upending of consensus reality. And looking around today, it appears as though they may have been successful.

To disentangle these cultural knots, Chess interviewed a hodgepodge of characters who were influential at the dawn of the commercial internet. This panel conversation will include several people interviewed for the book:
Paco Nathan (Machine Learning, AI expert and editor of FringeWare Review)
Mark Pesce (Co-inventor of VRML, futurist, and host of the podcast The Next One Billion Seconds)
R.U. Sirius (Editor of Mondo 2000, Reality Hackers, and High Frontiers)
Erik Davis (Author of Blotter, High Weirdness, and TechGnosis)

About the Author
Shira Chess is an Associate Professor of Entertainment Media Studies at the University of Georgia. Her book The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse will be published by MIT Press in February 2026. She is currently co-authoring Freaks in the Machine: Mondo 2000 in 20th Century Tech Culture with R.U. Sirius (expected release from Strange Attractor Press in 2027).

12/05/2025

Immerse yourself in the vibrant sound waves and full-spectrum harmonics of the SonicTrance Gong Bath; give your bodymind a healing journey.

DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND, THERE WILL BE TWO OFFERINGS OF THE SONICTRANCE GONG BATH (formerly called the Alchemy Gong Bath)

First Gong Bath: Lobby opens at 5:30 pm, performance doors open at 6 pm, and event starts at 6:30 pm sharp and ends at 7:30 pm

Second Gong Bath: Lobby opens at 7:30 pm, performance doors open at 8 pm, and event starts 8:30 pm sharp and ends at 9:30 pm

The SonicTrance Gong Bath produces a transportive experience of sonic trance. Gongs are ancient instruments, and their vibrant timbres and full-spectrum harmonics produce powerful, mysterious, and captivating sounds. Gongs help to release, clear, and rebalance your subtle body and nervous system, and the experiences they inspire can catalyze transformation and healing.

Your journey will begin with a brief guided form of relaxation called Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep). This will help you to relax, shift your attention inward and open yourself to the vibrational frequencies, the sonic textures, tonal qualities, and harmonic richness offered by Loriel's beautiful eight gong ensemble (with additional sonic delights)!

LORIEL STARR is one of Northern California's premier sound bath facilitators. She has performed in and produced sound bath experiences for over 12 years; from Grace Cathedral, to yoga studios, to music festivals, corporate wellness programs, private events and more. She has been part of the Sound Healing Symphony at Grace Cathedral since it's inception in 2015 and her regularly sold-out offerings of "The Sound Healing Sanctuary" , "Alchemy Gong Bath", "Holo-Sonic Breathwork" and "The SonicTrance Gong Bath” are a testament to her popularity and her respected presence in the growing field of Sound Healing.

12/04/2025

Winter Solstice Sound Ritual with Alphonsus and Stephen Kent will be at the Alembic on December 21st!

12/03/2025

A workshop uniting psychedelics, yoga & yoga nidra— providing tools for grounding, integration & inner exploration.

Psychedelics can open the door. Yoga can help you walk through it.

In this embodied workshop, we will explore the potent meeting place where Yogic wisdom, conscious movement, and expanded states of awareness intersect. Whether you're new to the psychedelic path or you've already dipped your toes into those vast inner waters, this workshop is designed to support your preparation or integration, deepen your connection to your body, and awaken the clarity of your own inner guidance. The medicines themselves will not be part of the afternoon.

This workshop is for you if:
You’re curious about psychedelics but want more grounding and guidance
You've had an overwhelming or disorienting journey and want to reset
You’ve experienced insight or healing—but can’t quite sustain the shift
You want to explore Yoga and meditation as powerful tools for integration

What to Expect:
Move with intention to prepare and purify the body
Breathe deeply to open the energy channels
Cultivate trust for strong inner energetic awakenings
Meditate on expanded states of consciousness that go beyond just stilling the mind
Share insights in a safe, open-hearted circle of fellow explorers
You’ll leave with tools, insights, and community connection to help make the healing stick—and to walk your path with more grace and embodiment.

Brenna Geehan has been a Yoga, Yoga Nidra, and Meditation educator for 20 years. In 2021, Brenna became a Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor. In 1998, she began studying with several Yoga Masters and in 2002 she was initiated into the lineage of Sri Vidya. Brenna was the Co-Director of Sri Yoga Teacher Trainings and Retreats along with luminary teacher, Jean Mazzei.

Brenna loves to get real with people because she insists on getting real with herself every day. Brenna believes that we are here to not only get through life but also to find out how to thrive. Every person's thriving will look different and Brenna encourages students to go deeper and deeper, and deeper still—until they are satisfied.