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)