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)

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)