Biography

Ayize Jama-Everett, M.Div., M.A., MFA, holds three Master’s degrees: Divinity, Psychology, and in Fine Arts, Writing. He blends these degrees in all his work, often identifying as a guerilla theologian, a community-based therapist, and an afro-futurist in the same breath. He has taught at Starr King School for the Ministry; California College of the Arts; The University of California, Riverside; Western Colorado College; and several private high schools for over twenty years. His expertise includes working with adolescents, the history of substance use in the United States, the history of Sacred Plant medicines in the Maghreb, the religious roots of political violence from Ireland to the Middle East, educational arts pedagogy, and Afrofuturism. He has published four novels (The Liminal series) and two graphic novels (Box of Bones and The Last Count of Monte Cristo). As an associate professor at Starr King, he teaches The Sacred and the Substance, a course that examines the role of conscious-altering plants in religions around the world. He also coordinates the Psychedelics and the Seminary lecture series for Starr King, which invites luminaries from the psychedelic world to discuss their orientations to faith and religion. He is the producer of a documentary about Black people and psychedelics entitled A Table of Our Own. His shorter works can be found in the LA Review of Books, The Believer, and Racebaitr. He is a Board member of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, leading their initiative to look at the role of psychedelics in the mental health of people of color and poor people. Ayize also serves as a board member to Access to Doorways, a non-profit committed to increasing the number of Queer and BIPOC people involved in psychedelics at every stage.