2. K (2010-2018)

I first met Steve in June 2010 at the Transition Towns Network conference in Devon. We quickly became friends. Steve encouraged me to quit my job (which I didn’t like) and leave my house-share (which I didn’t like) and offered me a space to stay. About a month later I quit my job and house-share and moved temporarily in with Steve. These changes were pivotal in the direction of my life. I felt thankful for encountering Steve and was inspired by his intellect and pragmatism. 

Over the next few years I counted Steve as a close friend and lived with him in three different houses in London. I got involved in UK Uncut alongside Steve. I also introduced him to my line manager at the New Economic Foundation (NEF) where I had been doing an internship. Following this introduction Steve went on to work at NEF, where he helped set up NEON. I was the main character witness for Steve when he faced trial for aggravated trespass as part of a UK Uncut protest in 2011. I write the following statement from a place of care for Steve and all those who have been, or are influenced by him. I also write from the experience of living and socialising with Steve for more than half a decade, between 2010-2016. 

My concerns about Steve and the communities built around his informal and formal leadership began to surface around 2015/2016 whilst I was living with him. During this time, Steve was expanding the Psychedelic Society, and my concerns grew about whether he was acting with integrity, accountability and compassion.

Whilst at the pilot Psychedelic Experience weekend in the Netherlands I heard that Steve, who was facilitating the weekend, had sex with one of the participants directly after she had tripped. Whilst I understood that the sex was consensual, it struck me that for a facilitator to sleep with a participant who had just gone through a very vulnerable experience, was crossing a line. 

With regard to psychedelic drugs, I observed Steve giving out psychedelics frequently in our shared house and at parties. It seemed to me that he liked to draw others into his explorations of intense psychedelic experiences. Over the years of 2015 and 2016 I observed several people who had taken drugs from him experience traumatic trips. On these occasions I observed that Steve showed little care or concern for their safety. (4, 5)

At numerous large weekend house parties (approximately 150 people at each) that Steve informally led on organising (e.g. Jurassica, Purbeck), I observed a lack of understanding of privilege and abuses of power. I observed that the desires of a few privileged people (Steve included) were prioritised over the needs and wellbeing of many others at these parties.

I had many conversations with a variety of people within these spaces over the years of 2015-2017. A lot of people felt that the subculture of these parties could be oppressive, with a lot of peer pressure to take drugs and appear sexually liberated. Some people had tried to raise their concerns and felt they had not been listened to by informal leaders such as Steve. Overall I observed that there was little acknowledgment, compassion or action taken by Steve and the inner circle of mostly white Oxbridge educated men around him, about the concerns raised. The contrast between the stated principles of these spaces and the behaviour within them felt deeply hypocritical. 

Over a period of months, I tried to have conversations about these issues with Steve, who founded the FTO community and was instrumental in making the parties happen. I raised questions about the integrity of his behaviour and leadership and its impact on himself and the wider community. I know that others were also raising concerns with him. For example, I was one of a group of six of Steve’s housemates who met to discuss an intervention with Steve. Two housemates from this group went on to meet with Steve to talk with him about their concerns over his wellbeing, his behaviour and its effect on others. Steve left the house shortly after this. (4, 5) 

It struck me that Steve seemed indifferent to the concerns raised. It appeared he didn’t want to give them time. I felt no real concern from him about what I and others had shared. Steve’s apparent lack of responsibility or care for the wellbeing of others who were struggling, deeply unsettled me. 

In late 2016 Steve and a couple of others organised another big party of about 100 people in Cornwall [The Treguddick Rites]. This was the first gathering that Steve had led on organising, that I had not been invited to. I suspected that I had been left out because I had started to challenge his behaviour and leadership. I reached out to Steve to ask for an invitation and was rebuffed with the explanation that there wasn’t space for me, and that the event in question was not “officially” an FTO event. I found this reasoning to be disingenuous and lacked accountability for his own part in it, and communicated this to him. I raised my suspicion that I had been deliberately left out, because I had raised concerns over his behaviour and leadership. Steve was initially dismissive, but we eventually agreed to a mediation. During our online communications setting it up, Steve pressured me to meet him alone and sort out our issues privately. I felt unsafe to do this. It appeared to me to be a manipulative step. One that I recognised from previous behaviour. I decided I needed to set boundaries for myself and decided only to meet and communicate with Steve with others present. The mediation took place in December 2016, with a neutral facilitator and 3 witnesses present. (13)

I came away from the mediation feeling shocked, angry and sad. It was clear to me that my trust in Steve was broken. I chose to distance myself from him and the circles around him, and have rarely seen him since. 

From 2010-2016 I counted Steve as one of my good friends and shared many formative experiences with him. In many ways I found him an inspiring person to be around. However when I look back on that time I also recognise that he didn’t show much care for me or others when we were feeling at our weakest or most vulnerable. I realise that I often felt insecure around him. I also observed that a lot of others also reported feeling a pressure to impress him in some way. I observed that Steve can come across as a very intellectually intelligent person, and is capable of drawing people close to him quickly. 

Over the six years I was in similar circles with Steve in London, I observed that he can quickly drop relationships with people who challenge him, or no longer offer him something he wants. Similarly I have observed Steve leave groups or networks where his leadership is being challenged e.g. UK Uncut or Find The Others. In this pattern of removal and avoidance, I infer that Steve evades taking responsibility for his behaviour and its impact on people. 

Through continually setting up new projects, new people that Steve works and socialises with don’t get the history of his previous patterns. It strikes me that there is a ‘tyranny of structurelessness’ around Steve that lacks accountability. It ends up favouring himself and those with privilege and social, economic and intellectual capital, and freezing out those who challenge its oppressive nature. 

From experience I can share that challenging Steve and the informal inner circles around him can be a very upsetting, disorientating and isolating experience. My heart goes out to anyone who is/has gone through this. You are not alone. We are connected in a bigger pattern of abuses of power. 

I am writing this from a place of vulnerability, sadness, anger, compassion and hope. I see hope in people who have been hurt by oppressive behaviour breaking the silence, expressing themselves, and feeling solidarity with others. I see hope in building more transparency and more accountability. I see hope in Steve reading this, working through the feelings and thoughts that come up and taking responsible action that benefits those who are vulnerable around him, as well as himself. I know that myself and others have tried to engage with Steve on these issues directly. In the time that I was involved in this in 2015/2016, it didn’t appear that Steve was serious about taking ongoing responsibility for the consequences of his behaviour on others. Instead it seemed that Steve kept following the pattern of leaving relationships/groups/communities that challenged him. 

I am sharing this publicly, so that we can all learn and grow. I think it is in everyone’s interests, including Steve’s, to deal with this information and work towards treating all humans with compassion, and harm reduction. I believe that all humans are capable of doing good as well as harm. I believe that accountability helps to raise our individual and collective standards of human behaviour.

K (2010-2018)

7. NB (2014-2016)

I met Steve in 2014 at a ‘Femtheogens’ evening event which looked at the so-called ‘feminine' side of psychedelic work. We spoke about our seemingly shared interest in positively changing people's lives through feminism and psychedelics, and he invited me to be the Co-Founder of the Psychedelic Society with him there and then. My first impressions of him were positive and, on reflection, naive. He constantly asked questions about me and was complimentary which fuelled my total lack of self-confidence. He was enthusiastic and inspiring. As an autistic person, I struggle to understand people’s intentions and at the time I was very vulnerable and impressionable. I told him about past experiences where I had been abused by my friends, as well as my family, and he promised me that this was a new chapter.

During the time that I worked with Steve, I started to notice oppressive and damaging behaviours emerging, some of which I have documented below. I regularly addressed these issues with him, in line with my own feelings and work at PS in diversity, and he would do a mixture of denying things, gaslighting me, acknowledging them but never changing them. Sometimes work was done but it was minimal. The more I was outspoken and challenged the damaging parts of his authority, decisions, and behaviours, the more I was ostracised and treated like a problem. Although he had invited me to be the co-founder, this was implicitly retracted as time went on. Steve made me feel like the issues I had were all in my head, and that it was ‘just me’ imagining it. Unfortunately, I believed this for some time.

In total we worked together for about two years, with him essentially acting as my manager in PS. I believe that during this time Steve had some feelings towards me. I had assumed our relationship was platonic, due to us working together and him seemingly being higher up the chain than me, and thought he approached me because of my skill set, rather than a romantic interest, which I no longer feel to be the case. As others have mentioned, I felt an invisible and sometimes explicit sexual pressure with Steve because of his status. There were moments that confused me such as a time I went to kiss him on the cheek and he moved so it was on his mouth. At the time I put it down to a mistake but this and other similar instances left me feeling very confused.

When we had a meeting to speak in-depth about these issues, at the start of the meeting he told me he had decided that ‘it was going to be resolved’. It felt like he was telling me what to think and feel about it all.

As soon as I entered a monogamous relationship, his behaviour towards me completely changed and he demoted me within the Psychedelic Society. At one of the gatherings, Steve had a big emotional response to my partner and I getting together, which was expressed publicly. He was visibly upset but he said that he was ‘happy that you’re with NB’ to my partner. It seemed to be a confusing response. (8)

In the Psychedelic Society, Steve replaced me with someone he had been sleeping with (who I will refer to as F.) and treated me like I no longer had any capital or use. It felt like I was being punished for having a boyfriend and not responding to his sexual advances. It was many years later at a work training on sexual harassment that I realised that this type of behaviour can come under that definition, ‘punishment for not responding to sexual advances’.

Steve started to freeze me out of the society's activities, including the Psychedelic Experience Weekends which he told me I wasn't the 'right energy' for. He started to organise these with F. and other members instead. I was already struggling with my self image and worth seemingly being only related to my sexual capital and this incident compounded those struggles.

I had a traumatic time trying to leave the Psychedelic Society as it felt like I was extracting myself from a cult. Once I left, I asked Steve to stop contacting me. After a while he and F began to message my friends and my partner asking about me and saying that I was ‘acting really weird’. This felt very upsetting when I had made it clear that I didn’t want anything to do with him and had explicitly asked him to leave me alone. It felt like harassment.

In 2017, I was invited to speak at Breaking Convention. Out of the blue, Steve messaged me to say he had reflected on what happened with F, and that he thought I was right about it. He then offered me £500. The offer really confused and frightened me as I had made it very clear I didn’t want to hear from him and it didn’t make much sense to me. There was some work I had done at the Psychedelic Society that he never paid me for so in the end I accepted the money, but it felt to me like ‘hush money’ and that I was now obliged to remain in contact with him. I accepted on the basis that I would make sure it wouldn’t change my behaviour.

At the convention itself I felt very stressed at the prospect of seeing Steve. He did indeed attend my talk on oppression in the psychedelic community despite knowing I didn’t want him near me. He seemed intoxicated and was making strange faces at me as I spoke. It also felt intimidating, like he was making sure I didn’t speak about him. He approached me afterwards and tried to speak to me and I turned away from him. He then approached me later and introduced me to someone else and I had to explicitly ask to be left alone.

I believe what I experienced at the Psychedelic Society to be psychological violence and sexual harassment. After I left, I didn’t feel anyone else would understand or support what I’d experienced. I had people who I considered good friends completely ignore what was happening to me, many of whom I haven't heard from to this day. Later when people tried to raise similar issues, I supported them in the background and considered submitting my own experiences, but then saw them verbally attacked for coming forward, being told they were ‘terrible friends’ towards Steve, as if they had betrayed him. It was clear people were just prioritising the privileged and protecting their interests, rather than prioritising survivors as I believe should be the case. 

One person from the community told me after I confided in him that he ‘didn't care’ about the ‘accusations’ as the parties are fun. It was only many months after I had left did I realise that others felt similarly to me, and how common my experiences were.

Other examples of damaging behaviour

• Asking me to promote a diverse image of the institution whilst at the same time offering a co-director job to his white Oxford-educated friend.

• Approaching, prioritising, and rewarding sexually available 'conventionally pretty' and younger women/assigned female/male at birth people to work with him.

• Trying to insist on explicit queer sexual imagery on promotional materials for an event I organised when I objected.

• Encouraging me to publicly talk about my experiences of sexual harm at events. Understanding the context more, I now feel that this was exploitative, tokenistic and parading my trauma around in a context that was not very safe.

There was also a lack of specialised and trained support in psychologically dangerous spaces. At the first Psychedelic Experience Weekend in the Netherlands, myself, Steve, and a colleague were supporting 16 trippers. I raised concerns before the event that we needed mental health training, psychedelic support training, but we had none prior to the event. I felt so unsupported personally that I struggled with my mental health over the weekend. We were understaffed and underqualified. Subsequently I had very basic training with pastoral care for psychedelic trips.

Finally, I was sexually assaulted at the Purbeck gathering by a man who Steve was looking to work with at the time. Shortly after Purbeck, this man invited Steve and other men involved in PS to his home. I insisted on coming too as I didn’t trust him due to what had happened to me and because he only wanted men there. That evening he expressed troubling anti-feminist and pro-rape sentiments to me. I explained this all to Steve and the man was uninvited from future events. It seems to me now that there are inconsistencies with how Steve deals with violence at events/parties which has led me to feel that his response in this instance was linked to his own feelings for me and/or my privilege being an organiser rather than a blanket policy applied to everyone equally.

All of above indicates what I believe to be a co-option of feminism for anti-feminist means. I feel this is deceiving, misadvertisement, and therefore threatening to people. This narrative that PS and Steve Reid were 'feminist' is what got me involved in the first place, and why I joined. Afterwards I felt tricked by this 'marketing' approach that Steve used and likely still uses in his networks and communities.

NB (2014-2016)

9. LB (2016-2018)

I was brought into Find The Others by a friend for the September 2016 party ‘The Rewydling’. I had an amazing time, I absolutely loved it all. Before the event, there seemed to me – a newbie – a LOT of hype about this guy Steve, he seemed like a pretty big deal. I generally felt excited about the event and also to meet him. 

At The Rewylding, we met pretty early on in the gathering, in the ‘playroom’ (room designated for sexual activity) as participants in a consent workshop. I felt a lot of flirtatious energy from Steve. I knew he had eyes on me, and we circled each other and talked and flirted during the workshop. I was excited by the whole experience, the people, the exuberance, the nakedness, the dancing, the music, the hedonism, the idea of the freedom we all created in these spaces together. I grew up in a tiny, working class Northern town and this all felt fantastical and new and precious.

After that Steve started inviting me to lots of things, cool events, spaces, and always made me feel special when I showed up. In mid October, he invited me to Grow Hackney, it was some sort of arty night, there were a lot of the Find the Others folks hanging out. There was clay and tools laid out on the tables, and he spent the majority of the evening with me, and he sculpted my teeth, going on about how gorgeous I was. He was very flirty, and I joined in. Soon after, around early November he called me up and we went on what I interpreted as a date. We went to the V&A – he bought my ticket for the show as it seemed clear to us both I was broke (I was sofa-surfing homeless at the time and had been for several months) and he was minted. In the gift shop, he stole me some tarot cards because I mentioned I liked them. 

At the time, I told friends that I thought we were getting together – we hadn’t been specifically intimate, but we’d speak frequently, he’d invite me to events and spend time with me at them, and he’d lend me books like Tao te Ching. Around the same time he invited me to speak at a Psychedelic Society ‘supper’ event that would be the following February. I really appreciated this platform, and this was a continuation of him being very generous. Though we hadn’t kissed/had sexual contact, I felt very romanced. As a survivor of a previous awful relationship with a man who was emotional and sexually abusive, I also felt grateful for him – as I perceived – ‘going slow’. I can’t remember if I told him this. At this time I told a close, older friend that I’d thought we were seeing each other, that he was going to be my partner. I said I knew he was poly. She later told me she had bad vibes about him from what I’d said, which had a lot to do with the tantra connection/sex party context in which we’d met – he organised these parties, they always had sex playrooms, and culturally, sexual activity was encouraged. I didn’t see Steve for a while because I went away in November for over a month. When I got back I was also in the planning stages for a political action. I was fairly regularly taking psychedelics and partying. 

New Years’ eve, end of 2016. The party was The Treguddick Rites, one that Steve, Paul and Camille had invited me onto the ‘team’ for. I’d been brought in quite late, it felt a bit tokenistic but I did feel flattered, and very aware I had not done much work to make it happen, so also felt a bit indebted to Steve and the others. That feeling was magnified at the event because Steve was being distant with me. On the second night of the gathering, I was sitting in a communal living room with lots of other people, including Steve. I was high, coming down from a psychedelic trip. I can’t remember who had given me the psychedelics. I had recently changed into more comfy clothes. I was feeling sleepy, soft, cosy, and quiet, kind of inside myself, and there wasn’t much going on in my head anymore. I hadn’t moved from my spot on the settee in the corner of the room for a while because I wasn’t mentally able to be making such decisions at that time. 

Steve caught my eye from across the room and he beckoned me. I’d been expecting for us to get together at some point, but then he had been distant with me. I didn’t want to leave my little nest spot, but I felt a sense of obligation to him, from not having done enough as a co-organiser. And he’d given me so much, lavished all that care and attention on me, opened the door to me to meet all these wonderful people and go to these cool parties.

He took me upstairs to a large room with a double bed. As we entered the room I started to dissociate. I knew he wanted to have sex with me, that I didn’t want to have sex, and that it was going to happen anyway. My body went on autopilot. I let him take my clothes off, and lay me down on the bed. I am quite sure that I hadn’t said anything to him up to this point, and I can’t remember him saying anything either. I physically froze. 

He was going down on me and I was trying to convince myself that I was feeling pleasure and I wanted this to happen. I was a free sexual woman right, happy to go topless and enjoyed sex, right? Then he was on top of me and penetrated me. There was no arousal in me at all. It didn’t feel good, it was a very strong sensation, but I wasn’t ‘there’, present, but I knew that somewhere he was pounding into me. It felt familiar, and I have wondered if that’s why he picked me – among probably others – to groom and use, because I have been used and abused by someone who said they cared for me before, maybe he could sense it, or I’d told him at some point. 

He carried on pounding into me as I lay there frozen, until he finished. I don’t know if he used a condom or not (I remember afterwards thinking I am glad I have the implant). We didn’t have that conversation. I went back into autopilot, as if to pretend everything was fine, put on a brave face for him. I remember a kind of dirty, ashamed feeling as I found my clothes and put them back on. We didn’t speak and he then ignored me for the rest of the gathering.

I went for a walk in the night alone, not being able to sleep, walking into the mist and feeling bleak as hell. I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t feeling good, he was supposed to be someone I wanted to be seeing. Later, I was so confused why he wasn’t seeking me out or speaking to me. I was dropped, discarded, chucked out, ignored, invisible. It was a shock, after all the signs and signals I thought I had read. 

I thought, well he never promised to be with me or said he wanted to, but I wanted to maintain some friendship with this man who I had literally just had a sexual encounter with. I blamed myself for not being ‘more strong’ and not telling him I didn’t want to. I had felt like I had to.  A period of depression settled into me for a long time.

A friend of mine, IQ, who I was with at the party said that I spoke to her after it happened, and what I said created for her ‘a feeling that there was something not quite right… you expressed a sort of uncomfortable feeling, something about him not respecting you, something happened, something sexual.’ (10)

Steve stopped inviting me to things and messaging. I felt like I wasn’t his shiny new thing anymore. He still had a hat and scarf he borrowed from me. I contacted him to ask for their return several times, as I was broke and they were the only ones I had, but he didn’t reply. 

I remember seeing him three times after that - once soon after, in January 2017, at the Skip Garden in Kings Cross. My friend worked there and I was visiting her. I felt unease with him suddenly being there. We said a quick hello, he insisted he took a picture of me in the sunshine, and he disappeared soon after. In the summer I bumped into him in North London and we said hello. I felt very jolted and surprised in a bad way to see him, but couldn’t put my finger on why. I also honoured my speaking engagement at the February Psychedelic Supper. Steve avoided me the whole evening, and later sent feedback through a middle-person that what I had said “hadn’t been exactly what he had wanted”. 

In September 2018 I was in a loving, supportive relationship. My trial for taking part in a political action was two months away, and I wanted to tie up loose ends in case I went to prison. Being with a loving and supportive partner had brought up loads of stuff about horrible interactions I have had with men. I’d spent the past year and a bit thinking that this shame I felt about Steve and this sexual interaction was because I hadn’t fancied him, that I found him quite repulsive. The processes of being triggered whilst having sex with my partner, and us processing it and my processing it in therapy, taught me that the repulsion and shame I felt was because I had blamed myself for ‘letting myself’ be taken advantage by him, used by him when I didn’t want to have sex. I started to fully understand and acknowledge that it hadn’t been consensual. That it had felt like sexual assault, like rape. 

My partner supported me to ask Steve to meet me to talk. We agreed to meet in a public place I knew well. Steve turned up twenty minutes late. I asked him firstly why he thought this was ok, then about what had happened at NYE. I said that it was – to me now – clearly non-consensual sex, that he must have seen I was frozen underneath him. I asked why he chose to carry on, why had he not noticed, and then stopped, just paused, and asked me if I was ok? I asked him why he had stopped speaking to me afterwards. After his initial rude lateness, Steve was the image of the repentant, self-reflective man. He didn’t deny wrongdoing. He seemed ready to sit there and take a telling off. He used all the right words. He said sorry. He talked about consent and how his understanding of consent had evolved more since that time. He said he didn’t know that’s how I had felt or experienced it. He said he’d think long and hard about what I had said, that he was really listening to me. I thought he was remorseful – but I am a very trusting person. I left this meeting feeling like it was all done, and I felt closure. I was ready to forgive him.   

However, in October 2019 I was planning on attending Apple Land, an event run by some friends, a kind of mini festival that would happen after a small group of us went apple picking in the cider harvest. I heard a couple weeks before the gathering that Steve was planning to go, and the knowledge sent cortisol and fear through my body. I emailed him to ask him not to come, explaining that I was still not ready to be in the same space as him given everything that had happened. After the chats we had had, how he had responded, I expected that he would understand and this would be fine with him.

He responded by telling me that through working with a self-described tantric shaman he had realised that “we shared responsibility for what had happened”, and he suggested “mediation”. I was shocked and stunned by this. It seemed that he was going back on everything he said before, and was trying to shift responsibility for what had happened and ignore its effects on me.

Suggesting mediation felt manipulative as it would force me to see him, crossing a boundary I was trying to set. I had heard from others that previous attempts to work with Steve in this way had failed (2, 13). He still refused to keep within my wishes, and was insisting he would come. I told him that if he came to Apple Land, I wouldn’t keep silent about what had happened. At this, he decided not to attend. He also told me that he – without my consent – had shared our emails and spoken about his history with women with a ‘close female friend’ of his. He didn’t share the outcome of this conversation with me, or tell me who the friend was, which left me feeling paranoid wondering who of his friends he’d been talking to, and what exactly he’d been saying about me. Him telling me this felt more like him letting me know that he and his friends were watching me, and I felt that the implication was that no one would believe me.

I thought Steve was out of my life when he moved to Devon. His being there gives me a bit of reluctance to visit friends who live there, and I am sorry to know he’s in this new scene with loads of new people – young people, women. 

Out of the blue in April 2021, I got a letter from Steve, after hearing nothing from him in the 1.5 years since the Apple Land emails ended on 14th October 2019. I believe this letter came as he had got wind that I and others were about to go public about his problematic behaviour.  The letter opened with ‘This is a letter of apology’, and was a list of sentences starting with ‘I am sorry for’. The apologies in the letter matched exactly the structure of my testimonial I had shared in a private and confidential Facebook group. His timing coincided with our planned release date. I believe it was an attempt to cover his back and stop us from going public, rather than because he genuinely reflected and felt remorse. It caused me a lot of anxiety to be contacted by him, and I had to arrange various logistics to get it to me via two middle-people so that he didn’t have my address. There wasn’t much feeling to the letter. He said he had donated £5000 to a consent charity and a women’s charity, which felt really odd. If he’d wanted to make amends in that way, which I hadn’t asked for and didn’t really want or need, I’d have rather he’d asked me where I thought the money should have gone, that would have felt more genuinely reparative. The unsolicited offering of money also echoes NB’s experience. (7)

I believe that what Steve did to me was lovebombing, rape, and then gaslighting. I am grateful to my friends and to my partner for holding me through the furies and tears I have had over feeling so used and abused. These experiences have also triggered past traumas. I have spoken with my therapist about this, and she has led me on processes that have helped me to be able to write this.

LB (2016-2018)

10. IQ (2015-2016)

I was at the party [The Treguddick Rites; December 2016] where LB was with Stephen. We are friends, and she/they spoke to me after they had been with him at the party. I don't remember the exact words of what LB said to me about their meeting with Stephen, it was more of a feeling I remember: that something wasn't right, that he had crossed a boundary, that he had disrespected LB’s boundaries. (9)

IQ (2015-2016)

12. JM (2016)

I was invited to The Rewylding event in 2016 by a close friend. My first encounter with Steve was almost as soon as I arrived. He approached me and asked "Are you [JM]?" I was struck by how the approach didn't feel friendly, it had a strong networking vibe to it and knowing what I know now I see that my assessment of the moment was probably correct. My close relationship with the friend who invited me had marked me as someone who was potentially useful. It also felt like a power move, letting me know he knows who everyone is. My experience of that weekend was mixed although overall positive. I had several conversations with people who felt pressured by the environment to push themselves beyond their boundaries, take strong drugs they were unfamiliar with and be sexually available. I also met a lot of incredible people, most of whom have since walked away from Steve and FTO due to issues with his behaviour and the culture he has created.

I also attended the Treguddick NYE gathering. I felt Steve continuing to court me over this weekend and much of his behaviour left me feeling that I didn’t trust him. I later learned that he had sexually assaulted a friend during the gathering (9, 10).  After Treguddick concerns were raised about the cliquey, borderline cultish community culture and the way in which the events are organised. As part of the response to this, myself and two others put together a safer spaces policy to be potentially used at future events. The response from the wider community was unreceptive and at times hostile. At one point Steve tried to replace our draft policy with something of his own creation. Another friend told me that Steve had messaged them questioning the power and privilege workshop they were planning for an upcoming event, ultimately scheduling a more “fun” workshop of his own at the same time.

Steve's response to concerns about the invitation process and who gets to come and who doesn’t was to make an app that in my opinion was a popularity contest where you had to pitch yourself as a worthy member of the group and then have the pre-existing clique vote for you. I was astonished that he could present this as a solution to the issues being raised with a straight face and was very critical of the app. I was also quite vocal about how badly and unethically he handled a conflict surrounding someone being blocked from attending an event, after which several people no longer felt safe to attend. After this I found myself out of the loop and slowly realised that I was no longer being invited to FTO events.

I've had several people disclose to me unpleasant experiences with Steve, his inner circle, and had countless conversations about how suspect the community culture of FTO is. While I personally have not experienced anything particularly damaging in these spaces, many close to me have, and I have witnessed enough to believe everyone’s stories.

JM (2016)

13. SF (2013-2017)

I first met Steve in 2013 at a social for the New Economy Organiser’s Network (NEON), who employed him. I admired him as a dynamic political organiser and talented coder. When he established the Psychedelic Society in 2014 I went to the launch and was impressed by his vision, which matched my own dream of a society that values connection, co-operation, and wonder. At the end of 2015 I was excited when he invited me to an extended New Year’s Burner-style party in Dorset, the Purbeck New Year Happening, as it seemed to be a gathering where those values could be lived out. I was unsure about whether it would be a welcoming environment for my friends, though, due to the emphasis on taking psychedelics. I felt honoured when Steve met up with me to talk about it, reassuring me that we would have nothing to fear.

I had an exceptional time at Purbeck, and on the final night I felt huge love for everyone at the event, the co-creation ethos, and Steve, for making it happen. In the morning, however, one of my friends, A. – who has given his blessing for me to share this account – was shaking, distressed, and inconsolable. High on psychedelics, he and a friend had tried to go to bed, but found that the beds were occupied. After staying up all night, A. was experiencing paranoid hallucinations. He repeatedly apologised for ruining the event for everyone, and ruining it for Steve. My partner went to get Steve to reassure him. Steve came and seemed calm, but after a few minutes he excused himself to take part in the closing circle outside. I actually felt guilty for keeping him ‘away from’ his spectacular event, and given A.’s state of mind, I am sure he did too. With hindsight it was completely bizarre. Steve did not show concern for my friend’s wellbeing, then or at any point. 

There was no recourse to any mental health expertise at the event, and none was offered. I thought I could help my friend by hugging him, reassuring him and changing our setting. I took him to join the closing circle, though he could barely stand for shivering. I remember thinking it VERY IMPORTANT that we be there. I now feel that I was normalising what was clearly a traumatic psychological episode for my friend, who tried to apologise to the circle of 120 people for ruining the event. When the circle closed there was a group photo. After that, my partner and I couldn’t find A. anywhere. I feared he was suicidal, and that he’d gone to harm himself. We found him, but things felt that bad. A. went home with a friend, and we were relieved he was not alone. However, the next day his housemate called my partner to say that A. had been experiencing paranoid hallucinations since returning, and was still highly disturbed. (14)

Weeks later I was told by a friend that a man had raped a woman at Purbeck. This was a shattering thing to learn and put my own experiences at the event in a harsh new light. The incident was later described by the victim to have been a sexual assault. Either way, despite information about consent circulated via email before the event, when a major incident did occur, no attendee heard anything about it from the organisers. 

Immediately after the serious assault, it had been unclear who committed it. Steve called A. the day after Purbeck to question him about whether he raped someone. A. was still experiencing hallucinations and paranoia, but was clear with Steve about not being involved. When the actual perpetrator was identified, they were quietly banned from future events. Nothing was said to attendees via the event channels, for the sake of the survivor - though I now feel it also suited Steve to avoid accountability around the boundary-pushing approach to consent, intoxicants, and mental wellbeing at events he instigated, co-organised, and provided infrastructure for. Steve’s call was his sole contact with A. after the event; he did not update him about what happened after that, or check in with him to see how he was doing. A. did not return to FTO spaces.

I remained close with friends involved in FTO, and listened to their accounts of incidents at Anderida and the 2016 Nowhere festival. I began to feel that worrying patterns were emerging in the community. I then felt that I was being too much a critic, and decided to be constructive. I went to the next event, The Rewylding, and, among other things, co-delivered a power and privilege workshop which explored intersections of sexism, racism, class and ableism. Steve was supportive of the workshop in the run up to the gathering. On the morning it was due to take place, I went into the communal kitchen and found Steve and one of the co-facilitators kissing. She had had an on-off relationship with Steve, and had become critical of the power and gender dynamics of his events, so this surprised me a little and I wondered if he had launched a charm offensive with her. It was only a small thing, but I remembered it when similar situations began to crop up later on.

The workshop was well-attended, but I noticed a divide between people who had experienced oppression in Burner communities and elsewhere, and those who were aggrieved when this was discussed. I observed that the few people of colour there were invited to take visible roles, but their contributions were in some cases deprioritised or criticised. At the event more generally, the culturally appropriative decor and clothing felt very heightened given that we were all taking psychedelics and the majority of participants were white and ambivalent about the presence and influence of actual people of colour. I left the gathering feeling unhappy and frustrated about the racial dynamics of the community. (14, 15)

In December Steve proposed a mediation with my friend K (2) to address her concerns about exclusion and sexism at gatherings. On December 19 I went as her support. Steve's behaviour at the mediation struck me as manipulative: he stated his adherence to Buddhist principles of benevolence and goodwill, then smilingly insulted K’s character. When she spoke she began to cry, and he dropped to his knees to kiss her hand and press it to his face, which seemed strange given the very analytical and cruel things he had just said about her. His behaviour throughout was performative in a way that caused me to lose faith in him. When I raised concerns about my friend’s experience at Purbeck, his response was to assure me that in future there would be an application process to filter out people with mental health issues. He did not seem phased by the incident of sexual assault, which I also raised. 

Since speaking with LB, I have realised that Steve’s behaviour at the Treguddick party happened just two weeks after this mediation. I find this fact deeply disturbing. (9, 10)

Steve’s long-term response to the exclusivity issue was to code an app where potential party-goers had to pitch themselves, and win votes, in order to go. After the mediation, I suggested to him that seeking therapy may give him space to work through his own experiences, and his response was to apply to a psychotherapy qualification course at the University of East London. This suggested to me that he preferred to work towards being in a position of authority over others. (The UEL application did not come to fruition, but he has continued to seek psychotherapeutic qualifications. According to his website he took a psychotherapy training course at the Karuna Institute in 2020.)

Notes from the mediation were shared with some FTO members after the meeting via a private Facebook group. One well-received post from an influential FTO member variously described the concerns that K and I raised as ‘a bitter shade’, ‘a nasty guest’ and ‘parasitic energy’. When I spoke to other influential FTO people in person, they lacked curiosity about why many women have issues with Steve and his events, and implied that unless I could throw parties as spectacular as Steve’s, I should leave things alone. Only loving, compassionate feelings appeared to be valid. This struck me as repressive and ultimately dishonest.

The final FTO gathering I went to was not co-organised by Steve, but the person who used the above ‘parasite’ phrasing. Looking back, I think I was hoping to prove to myself and others that I was none of the things quoted above. The event, Howling Earth, happened in January 2017. Though I felt tense there, my friends and I had a nice, gentle time. On the last morning I learnt that someone with a history of fragile mental health had gone missing overnight after having an adverse reaction to hallucinogens. The missing woman was thankfully found, but had to be sectioned for her own safety. Later that day another participant who’d been showing signs of severe mental deterioration became threatening to others. She was sectioned too. 

In February 2017 three ex-FTO friends and I drafted a detailed Safer Spaces policy for future events, but it drew little support from key event organisers. I began to feel that FTO was dangerous and culty, and withdrew from those still involved. The groupthink, gaslighting and minimisation of harm was affecting my mental health. I was second-guessing my perceptions, identity and instincts. This continued even after I stepped away, and sometimes still affects me, despite having had therapy.

I did know I was not alone in being disturbed by this culture. Over time I met many women and nonbinary people who attended the gatherings and struggled with how men treated them there. I know of women experiencing unwanted caresses, being pressured into sex, being pressured into unprotected sex, experiencing a traumatic orgy scenario, and sexual assault. When #MeToo happened, several posts on my Facebook timeline related to men involved in FTO. 

In 2019, LB joined my workplace, and I recognised her/them from FTO. We spoke of it, cautiously at first. When we did share more openly, we were both relieved to find we agreed there was something very wrong going on. That was when LB told me what they have disclosed in their testimony, which is that Steve initiated non-consensual sex with them at the aforementioned 2016 NYE gathering, the Treguddick Rites, and that they have physically dreaded encountering him ever since. (9, 10)

When people discuss abuses of any kind within FTO, they are accused of lacking compassion or being repressive; pressured into deleting social media posts; or manipulated into private mediations that protect the person who requests them. Harms done are deemed to have been consensual, even though the whisper network and various workshops, online discussions, safety policies, and mediations suggest otherwise.

My hope is that this testimony and others can eventually prompt new connections, new understandings, and new opportunities to heal, for everyone involved.

 SF (2013-2017)

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)

15. XA (2016)

I got involved in the Find The Others and the Psychedelic Society in 2016. I met Stephen Reid for the first time at a residential gathering called Anderida. I was in a vulnerable place having just moved back to the UK from the USA, where I had been married and planning to live for the foreseeable future. I was heartbroken, disoriented and seeking community in England – FTO provided that for a time.

Stephen seemed to quickly take a liking to me or see me as someone who could be useful. I was showered with interest, work opportunities and connections to powerful people in his network. He also seemed keen for me to invite my friends into the community and to take more of a leadership role over future gatherings and the development of the Psychedelic Society.

Steve is charismatic and able to achieve a lot with the resources at his disposal. I felt flattered to be receiving so much attention from him but also slightly suspicious. I wondered why he was so interested in me and suspected that I might be being groomed for some unknown purpose or at the very least, manipulated.

I noticed that a select group of people were also receiving the same treatment by Steve – work, power and opportunities – but when these people stopped behaving in the ways he wanted, they were often cut off and excluded from the community without explanation. (7) Despite my reservations, I decided to stay involved and proceed with caution. The gatherings were a source of joy for me at the time and I was meeting some wonderful people. 

About a year into my involvement, it was clear I was being used as a token person of colour, to make the community seem more progressive. This took shape in many ways but the most obvious was being asked to be a director of the Psychedelic Society ‘in principle’, in order to access some funding that could only be allocated to POC-run projects. At various gatherings, interventions around power and privilege were introduced by other participants but these were shut down or rarely engaged with in a meaningful way. (13, 14)

It became clear that there was a desire to present the space as aware and safe, but in practice little work was done to make this happen, or even adhere to policies that had been agreed upon. Many men were able to transgress boundaries without consequence, due to their power or status within the community. 

When incidents or concerns about Stephen’s behaviour arose, accountability processes were shut down and the people who instigated them were often demonised or pressured into having private mediated sessions rather than public transparency. Speaking out was often met with gaslighting and the insistence that the community is a ‘safe space’, or the people naming concerns had personal vendettas rather than legitimate concerns. (2, 13)

I started removing myself from the gatherings when I witnessed harmful behaviour taking place and the deep lack of care in response to this. I witnessed moments of unconsensual sexual touch and heard of others from trusted sources. 

When I realised that some of my friends had entered the community due to my presence there, and been harmed, I realised that I could no longer associate myself with the community. I stopped going to gatherings and I severed relationships with most people I had met in the space. There are a lot of lovely people but the community can be characterised by a deep complacency over harmful behaviour because ‘most people are so nice’.

I noticed that it took years to fully extricate myself because there is a deep groupthink in the community and dynamics that could be described as cult-like. Most of the harm that has taken place has been shared along a whisper network, which demonstrates the difficulty in achieving accountability and the fear that many people experience when considering speaking out. I feel I am a fairly strong-willed person so I am aware that others who may be in a more vulnerable place, may not be able to advocate for themselves.

I want to be clear that this is much bigger than one person. Stephen may be in a leadership role but there are many other people that have enabled harmful dynamics to reproduce in that space over the years. To me it is a group culture that needs to be addressed, rather than one person alone. 

Despite all this, my relationship with Stephen has been tinged with hopefulness at times. Hope that he really does care about others, that he does want to create positive change, that he may actually care about addressing oppression... This is what kept me in limited communication with him over the years, since pulling away. However, my hope does not prevent me from seeing the harm that has taken place and the need to address it in a transparent way which promotes healing for those involved, and prevents more from falling prey to these dynamics. 

X.A (2016)