SACRED SPORES: A day with Darren le Baron

SACRED SPORES: A Day with Darren le Baron

We welcome you to a rich day of connection and learning, with Darren back again in Cape town! Tickets are available for the Full day, or for just the Talk, or just the Shroomshop. All attendees to either workshop are welcome for the Community Bring-and-Share lunch from 1-2pm!

11-1pm: Entheogenic Solstice Mysteries Talk

As we gather during the summer solstice season, a time of maximum light, outward expansion, and solar culmination, the archetypal themes of death and rebirth remain universal. Whether marking the sun's descent into darkness or its peak of radiant power, the solstices are mirror reflections of the same cosmic cycle. Both are gateways to transformation.

Esoterically, the solstices represent the eternal dance between light and darkness, death and rebirth, descent and ascent. The winter solstice embodies the inward journey—into darkness, introspection, and the underworld. The summer solstice celebrates outward expansion, abundance, and manifestation. Both moments were traditionally accompanied by ceremonial use of psychoactive plants, allowing practitioners to align with cosmic rhythms and experience direct communion with the divine.

In this timely presentation, Darren Le Baron explores the lesser known connections between Christmas, solstice traditions, and psychedelic practices.

What if these traditions have roots in Ancient Africa, with a clear psychedelic history that later inspired European customs? What if the sacred mysteries performed at the solstices contained encoded wisdom about consciousness, death, and transformation?

Drawing from extensive research, Darren delves into ancient myths, folklore, shamanic traditions, and alternative practices. Whether you're encountering these ideas for the first time or already familiar with them, this presentation promises to educate, entertain, and potentially transform how you see the festive period and the eternal cycle of the seasons.

Come with an open mind—you might leave with a new perspective on the most magical time of the year.

1-2pm: Bring & Share Lunch

Bring something to eat and to share with the community! Spend some time connecting and sharing

2-5pm: Shroomshop: Mushroom Cultivation for Beginners

Learn how to grow edible, nootropic and magically medicinal mushrooms at home from expert cultivator Darren Le Baron.

Mushrooms have been growing wild since prehistoric times. Their therapeutic value has been prized in indigenous cultures, for thousands of years. They play a critical role in medicinal practice and were noted in some of the first books on herbal medicine written thousands of years ago

In the past few decades, mushrooms have become more popular for their therapeutic qualities in the west as a result of an expanding body of scientific research supporting their numerous health benefits.

Come and learn the basics of mushroom cultivation, explore various techniques for growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms such as Oyster, Reishi, Lions Mane and many other magical varieties of mushrooms.

This will be a hands on experience we will cover everything you need to know to get you started.

What you will learn...

- What are Mushrooms?

- How do Mushrooms grow?

- How to cultivate Mushrooms at home!

- How to make your very own grain spawn!

- Making a mushroom fruiting tub!

- Mushroom Aftercare!

- Where to get everything?

Each participant will leave with an inoculated mushroom kit and access to digital notes.

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ABOUT DARREN

Darren Le Baron is a diverse educator specialising in mycology and psychedelic research, and is based between the UK and the Caribbean. 

He is a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker who is passionate about sharing his research and findings on ethnomycology, ancient African plant medicines and their uses, as well as esoteric understandings of ancient culture and psychedelics. Famous for his Shroomshops, empowering people from all walks of life to grow their own fungi at home.

He is a member and presenter at the London Psychedelic Society, a chair and Breaking Convention committee member. He is also a regular presenter at the Detroit Psychedelic Conference, Ozora, Noisily and Lightning in a Bottle Festivals, as well as numerous gatherings around the world sharing his extensive research on psychedelics and how they can help support humanity in the here and now.

Collectively his work aims to inform and empower individuals from diverse backgrounds to cope with social challenges and contribute to community development as well as self-improvement in an innovative, creative, culturally-aware style.