16/10/2026
Coming to Mount Maunganui 💗
Cacao, Psychedelics & Neuroplasticity: Ancient Rituals Meet Modern Science.
📆Wednesday 28th October · 6:00–8:00pm
📍Soul Boul
Mt Maunganui
Dr Corin Storkey (PhD Med Chem) is bringing this workshop to the Mount — a clear, science-led look at how ceremonial cacao has been used for thousands of years, and what modern research now says about how it works in the gut and brain.
What’s the evening about?
Cacao is not a psychedelic. In Andean and Amazonian traditions it has long sat alongside visionary plants, including San Pedro (huachuma) at sites such as Montegrande and Chavín de Huántar, Peru, going back more than 7,000 years. Shamans used cacao to detoxify, cleanse, open the heart, steady the body, and support connection with the divine and spiritual re-birth.
Corin maps that lineage onto current neuroscience: neurotransmitter pathways, neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire), emotional processing, and how cacao can support integration after altered-state work and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT).
You’ll also hear about Cacao Personality Maps — personalised profiles developed through biochemical work with the University of Otago — and the launch of Shansho, Seleno Health’s raw, unfermented ancestral cacao, made through direct trade with Peruvian communities and high in polyphenols, theobromine, PEA and other bioactives.
Who it’s for?
Cacao facilitators, people curious about plant medicines and the healing power of cacao, anyone doing inner work or integration, and anyone who wants the why behind ceremony of cacao — not just the ritual.
Presenter
Dr Corin Storkey holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry (University of Melbourne), has 20+ years researching how plant compounds interact with the body, leads NZ-based Andean/Amazonian plant medicine research, and is trained in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies (CPAT, Mind Medicine Australia).
☕Ceremonial cacao elixir included
🌿Discount on Seleno Health - The Maca and Cacao Experts products on the night
Facebook event + tickets: https://www.facebook.com/events/1422177430005766
A grounded evening of tradition + evidence, right on Maunganui Road. See you at Soul Boul 🤎
