About Johnny Dwork
In early 1973, shortly after my traditional religious coming-of-age ceremony, I had my first visionary plant medicine experience, which blew the frame off my then very limited world-view and triggered a passionate pursuit of self-actualization.
Shortly thereafter, during a series of life-changing Psilocybin journeys, I received visionary downloads that empowered me to co-create the sport/art form of “Flying Disc Freestyle,” and then become a world champion in that form. Further empowered by Psilocybin’s visionary insights, I went on to earn the world’s only Bachelor of Arts degree in “Flying Disc Studies.”
This psychedelically informed path, from uninspired student to ever-curious, visionary outlier at the top of my field, became the norm for me as I embarked on a series of unusual, challenging, highly rewarding careers in widely disparate professions that afforded me the ability to consistently show up as the Hero archetype in the journey of my life. As this life path eventually led me to be of service to others, I began life-coaching and presenting workshops on how we can live our dreams.
I facilitated my first group visionary experience in early 1979. This led to the creation of a wide variety of immersive “experiences” with leading visionary musicians, artists and facilitators of the time. In 1982, I began hosting all-night-long visionquest retreats, synergizing live and recorded music, a mythic-theme-based multimedia light show, and participatory theater games and art experiences. Over a 17-year span 800 people safely took part in those life-changing journeys.
In 1984 I attended a psychology conference where a world-class assemblage of cultural visionaries including Ram Dass and Dr. Timothy Leary talked about the interwoven fields of spirituality and the psychedelic sciences. They discussed how psychologists nationwide were observing extraordinarily beneficial effects their clients experienced with the use of entheogenic substances in a controlled setting. Deeply inspired by what I learned at that conference and wanting to learn more from these visionary giants, I co-founded a company that recorded lectures at leading learning centers and conferences including the Omega Institute, The Open Center, the Association of Humanistic Psychology, The Association of Transpersonal Psychology and the New York Academy of Sciences. This put me at the feet of innovative thought leaders including Joseph Campbell, The Dalai Lama, Ram Dass, Dr. Tim Leary, Stan and Christina Grof, Sasha and Anne Shulgin, Terence McKenna, Ralph Metzner, Tony Robbins, Andrew Weil and Michael Harner. I eventually went on to collaborate with Dr. Leary, combining my visionary multimedia show with his lectures.
I then moved west to found Peak Experience Productions in order to produce impeccably managed, large-scale, mythic-themed, multi-day-long music and performance-art festivals. These events were designed for audiences who sought safe, life-changing, visionary peak experiences in a community setting. Through these events, thousands of participants each year came to see their life journeys in a mythic/heroic context.
Starting in 2003 I began producing and co-facilitating Sacred Fire Circle retreats. These sober visionquest retreats take place in remote natural settings. Participants tend a sacred all-night fire for three continuous nights with live trance-inducing acoustic drumming, group singing, contemplative introspection, and speaking ones’ truths to the fire in the witness of community. It is commonplace for participants to enter the same profoundly transformative non-ordinary states of consciousness as are experienced in sacred medicine journeys.
All along this path I have served as an ordained Minister in the Universal Life Church, providing my communities with a wide variety of non-denominational spiritual support mechanisms, rituals, and ceremonies including weddings, memorials, and private consultations.
In 2019 I began working in support of Oregon’s Measure 109 campaign, also known as the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act. This ballot measure passed in 2020. I then completed the first-ever Psilocybin Services Facilitator training program with InnerTrek. In the summer of 2023 I became one of the first state government-licensed Psilocybin Facilitators.