Ephraim Philip Lansky’s curiosity regarding both hypnosis and medicinal plants dates to earliest childhood, when he grew morning glories and daffodils in his family’s backyard, and learned to hypnotize toads by holding them supine and stroking their bellies.  In Junior High School, he won the Grand Prize in the School Science Fair, and First Prizes and other accolades in the City Science Fair.  He took his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1982, and while a student there, learned medical hypnosis under the esteemed Professor Martin T. Orne.  Lansky holds a Ph.D. for his work on the anticancer pharmacognosy of pomegranate (Punica granatum) from Leiden University in The Netherlands, and an M.B.A. from University of Bradford in England, both latter degrees granted in 2008.