Jim Fadiman is a prominent figure in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology. He has a B.A. in Social Relations from Harvard and both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. He has been involved in teaching and facilitating creative problem-solving with and without psychedelics for more than three decades.

His experience ranges from early experimentation with Ram Dass and Tim Leary at Harvard to government-sanctioned legal research with Myron Stolaroff and Willis Harman at Stanford. He was a Research Associate with the International Foundation for Advanced Study in the late 1960s and later served as president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. In 1975 with Robert Frager, he co-founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He has recently written a guidebook, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys.