Quick notes on Breaking Convention
My first time at this conference yielding knowledge and inspiration on a wide range of philosophical, psychological, and social approaches to psychedelic consciousness.
Three days of Breaking Convention, a conference on Psychedelic Consciousness I found simultaneously exhausting and incredibly nourishing. Being on my own in a crowd in a place I don’t know was a challenge, especially when it came to seats shuffling in a tight space. I don’t want to dive deeper into the difficulties right now, suffice to say I still feel mentally tired. But feel it was definitely worth it.
I was taking the train to Exeter in the morning and returning in the evening which is why I missed some of the morning talks I wanted to catch, and didn’t end up experiencing any of the VR installations or cinema events, but I really enjoyed all the talks I watched. I feel I’m still in somewhat hazy tired state of mind so my reflections will be brief. I knew some work by some of the speakers, while others were completely new to me, so I feel grateful for finding out about their work and I’m excited to dig deeper on many of the topics and projects, while also feeling inspired in my own explorations.
I only caught a half of the morning talk by Patricia Pisters about perception and Deleuzian reflections on cinema and psychedelic experience, which although perhaps was the most related to my field in the whole conference it didn’t give me as much food for thought I would expect, likely due to my arriving midway through and trying to settle on the stairs while catching glimpses of sentences, so I’m looking forward to looking into her projects more. I especially enjoyed the panel on mind and metaphysics, including Susan Blackmore, Chris Letheby, and Jussi Jylkkä, some of which looked at ideas I was familiar with (like Anil Seth’s controlled hallucination theory), and talked about physicalism, illusionism, and ontology and epistemology of psychedelic mysticism, almost all speakers finishing with “I don’t know”. It was great listening to intellectually dense and fascinating discussion on philosophical theories, and then hearing the same sentence at which I always eventually arrive with these considerations. There is such a joy in the act of getting lost in the labyrinths of knowledge, only to realise the not-knowing, the uncertainty, and the value of direct knowledge as a necessary partner of intellectual understanding. If these philosophers and researchers did not have important revelatory direct experiences, why would they be interested in finding the words and theories to describe them? I suppose that goes for humans in general. Outside of this panel there was also a talk by Alberto Cavallarin, who seemed joyously confident in his proposal that only mystical experiences are truly real, arguing from the standpoint that in the duration of the mystical experience there is no subject/object division, therefore there is nothing to be doubted and nothing to disagree with. I think that’s very interesting, but I would venture that doubt and disagreement are also quite important ingredients of our perceived and directly experienced “reality”.
I listened to Greg de Hoedt’s talk on UK Cannabis Social Clubs and his story as a medical marijuana patient and founder of the grassroots organisation that focuses on education, harm reduction and decriminalisation, changing the stigma around this plant. In talks on identity and healing I watched Catherine Bird talk about the approaches to diversity and equality in clinical trials, and then the wonderful Camille Barton who argued against psychedelic exceptionalism, presenting research data that shows drug criminalisation and disparities between different treatment of different substances used by the governments as tools for social control with inherently racist approaches.
On a series on dance culture I loved Chiara Baldini’s presentation on the history of psytrance festivals, rooted in Dionysian cults and hippie revival for collective liberation, and, at the end of the day, Rupert Callender’s funny and moving talk on his experience as a radical undertaker, arguing for the healing power of raves - dance and community, for anyone working with trauma. “Transcendence and healing don’t need religion.”
Of course the conference held a lot of space for the topic of clinical trials and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Researches from the Imperial College London talked about the clinical setting and process for psilocybin-assisted therapy tests, while Carl Hayden Smith offered the view of the other side as a participant in DMT trials. I also really liked his reflections on hyperhumanism in relationship to technology and perception. The power of words was considered by the intense and flowing lecture by Rosalind Stone, and approaches to ineffability by Andy Letcher. The talks on anti-hype (Nese Devenot) and challenging experiences (David Luke), as well as on the importance of well trained facilitators (Daan Keiman) and involvement of depth psychology in therapy (Maria Papaspyrou) were all incredibly important views on the responsible approaches to psychedelics. It was great to see the famous mycologist Paul Stamets talk about neurogenesis hypothesis for a combination of fungi species and niacin. The last talk I watched was Darren LeBarron’s presentation on how the psychedelic technology can heal the hood, diving into his work with young Black people in London, and the indigenous healing psychology and the traditions of Kalahari Kung.
My notebook is full of new pages, new connections between ideas, books to read and names to search to find out more and more about this fascinating field of exploration of consciousness and nature of reality.