14. AP (2015-2017)

I became involved in Find The Others through the Purbeck NYE gathering in 2016. That gathering and others since have brought me much joy and lasting memories and I must acknowledge those. It began for me as a search for an alternate approach to community and society. Initially I was heartened to discover an open and supportive community allowing me to experiment with psychedelics and experience the joy of communal gatherings and share liberal political discussion. I was treated to some eye opening workshops, great parties and incredible performances/cabarets. 

However I retreated from being actively present within the group in 2017, having been left with a distinct feeling of emptiness at the lack of care and solidarity by the groups leaders and a lack of belief in the groups ultimate goals.

My own personal experiences and reasons for this are as follows (in no order of severity or chronology).

• After Purbeck, a close friend who suffered a psychedelic-induced psychotic episode was left without any aftercare or support. They were then made into a scapegoat / potential culprit for a sexual assault that had also taken place at that gathering. This was done without any real methodical process other than they had suffered an episode and people seemed to want someone to blame in order to preserve the “utopian dream”. I learned of these events long after they happened and it left me feeling very let down. I then witnessed this lack of pastoral care for people having a bad time on drugs continue at other gatherings and fringe events like Howling Wolf. (13)

• As a person of colour within the group I have felt repeatedly singled out or ‘approached’ for my value as a commodity when it came to guest lists and participation and discussion. (13, 15)

• I have also had to have multiple discussions with members about a flagrant disregard for Eastern ideologies and appropriation of Eastern religious practices and symbology that seems to benefit the inherent spiritual whiteness of the group but doesn’t take into consideration its effect on the cultures these have been appropriated from. (13)

• I find the group’s systemic silencing through inaction of POC, women and other minorities dangerous and deeply disturbing in that it seems to be in the defence of white middle class hedonism rather than in an effort to create a “better world”.

Furthermore, although I have never experienced any sexual assault or persecution by the groups leaders (primarily Stephen Reid) I have experienced other “behaviours” by these leaders and been made aware of other issues by my friends and my partner and stand in solidarity with those who it has affected.

I’ve had lots of negative experiences with some of these leaders and in the case of Stephen Reid, I find his behaviour disturbing and dangerous as he has an uncanny ability to create a cult of personality and then leave much destruction in his wake. I feel there are psychopathic elements to his personality. I use this word in a clinical sense to explain very specific calculated behaviour towards those he views as a threat and a lack of empathy towards those he claims to be “leading”.

I worry about what his influence is capable of when unchecked and unchallenged and I worry about who else might become a victim of his behaviours, namely younger women and those suffering from depression or feeling a sense of loss, who might be exploited by the seemingly “free of rules” culture he and his colleagues in FTO and other affiliated groups perpetuates.

 AP (2015-2017)