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)

8. LJ (2014-2016)

I was with Steve Reid at a men's circle at the Purbeck New Year Happening in December 2015. During the men’s circle Steve acted incredibly strangely during an activity where we were tasked with interacting with each other and it seemed to be because of my new relationship with NB, who he worked with at the Psychedelic Society. NB talked to me subsequently about feeling an invisible sexual pressure with SR due to his status and other problematic behaviours, which NB mentions in their statement.

In the circle activity, it was SR’s turn to talk. He had to say something nice to the person next to him to his right, which was me. He started to cry and was weeping in front of everyone. He said something along the lines of ‘I’m so happy that you and NB have got together’. The emotional response from him was so large and public that it seemed that he had some deep romantic feelings for NB.

It was really odd behaviour and it was centred around my relationship with NB. It was worrisome that he would be so public about it, as if he had some claim or influence over NB’s relationship status. It felt like he was upset about us being together and he was hiding it in a very obvious fashion. It left me feeling very puzzled and unsure of what his motives were.

 LJ (2014-2016)