Mariavittoria Mangini, known to many as Maria, is a nurse-midwife, scholar, psychedelic historian, and longtime advocate for the preservation of underground psychedelic knowledge. Maria’s life intersects with several crucial streams of modern psychedelic history: early LSD culture in the Bay Area and at Millbrook, the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, Esalen in the 1970s, the work of Stanislav Grof, the emergence of midwifery and nursing as practices of care, and the long, complicated passage from psychedelic prohibition into the current renaissance.
In this conversation, we explore:
- Maria’s first encounter with LSD as a teenager.
- The strange mixture of recklessness and reverence that shaped early psychedelic exploration.
- Her years at Esalen and her encounters with figures such as Stanislav Grof, Gregory Bateson, Leo Zeff, and others.
- The relationship between birth, death and psychedelic experience.
- Her doctoral work, Yes, Mom Took Acid, and what long-term psychedelic users told her about social responsibility, and care for the larger world.
- Her work in medical cannabis, and what today’s psychedelic movement might learn from the successes and failures of cannabis legalization.
- The founding of the Women’s Visionary Council.
- Her relationship with Ann and Sasha Shulgin, whose partnership helped shape the modern psychedelic imagination.