The Acid Countess and the Art of Consciousness
Life is a Festival #54: Amanda Feilding (Beckley Foundation)
Remember a few years ago when LSD brain imaging went viral on social media? Those images were taken at Imperial College London in an fMRI study conducted with the Beckley/Imperial Research Programme.
Today on Life is a Festival, I’m speaking to psychedelic royalty… literally. Who better to discuss the magical molecule lysergic acid diethylamide, than the Countess of Wemyss and March, and the founder of the Beckley Foundation, Amanda Feilding.
I ask the sphinx of psychedelia all my favorite acid questions, like whether medicalization is the best path to legalization and how to avoid unnecessary emotional downturns (sugar it turns out). We dive deep into her research, the nature of the ego, and the jealousy between different psychedelic compounds.
Amanda has toiled tirelessly in drug policy reform and now in her late seventies, she isn’t stopping. So tune in and drop in with the Acid Countess and learn all about a life of psychedelic research.
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TIMESTAMPS
:09 - The great loss and the great win in discussing psychedelics
:12 - Will the medicalization of psychedelics defang the dark fruits of its subversive nature?
:21 - Amanda’s ideas about the ego and how LSD can both dissolve and aggrandize
:26 - Amanda’s theories about blood sugar and how time-released vitamin C allows you to maintain coherency through the psychedelic experience.
:40 - How Amanda started experimenting with fMRI scans to understand the effect of acid in the brain
:47 - Amanda and I look at fMRI scans of individuals under the influence of LSD and talk about how the default mode network, ie the ego, is like the government of the brain
:53 - Amanda’s experience with ayahuasca and how there’s a certain jealousy between the goddesses of the different compounds.
:57 - Trepanation, the shamanic drilling a hole in the head
1:12 - Where the Beckley foundation is going now in terms of research?
1:17 - What about the hippies from the 60s who were burnt out?
1:22 - What research is Amanda most excited about now?
1:28 - Issues with the medicalization of psychedelics
Graphics Designed by Andy McErlean
Theme song ““Peculiar Colors” [Manjumasi]“ by dj atish