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Co-organiser and senior lecturer in psychology, David Luke, described it as ¡°the world¡¯s biggest psychedelic conference¡±.

There were 65 invited speakers at the event - held on 12 to 14 July - mainly established academics in disciplines ranging from psychiatry to anthropology and law. The speakers looked at innovative treatments for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder; cross-cultural clinical work; the role of psychedelic drugs in research exploring normal states of consciousness; and the case for a more rational system of classifying drugs.

There were also around 75 submitted papers. While the organisers were keen to avoid ¡°recreational drug users who just wanted to talk about their experiences¡±, participants included alternative healers, representatives of various spiritual traditions, artists, performers and even a psychedelically inspired baker of ¡°cosmic cakes¡±.

Dr Luke paid tribute to the ¡°psychedelic trickster¡±, Steve Abrams, who helped the Rolling Stones escape a prison sentence for drugs charges, organised London¡¯s first ¡°legalise pot¡± rally and published a famous 1967 advertisement in The Times stating that ¡°the law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice¡±.

Fellow conference organiser Anna Waldstein, lecturer in medical anthropology and ethnobotany at the University of Kent, argued that pharmaceutical and biotechnological corporations now threatened the ideal of ¡°health sovereignty¡± whereby individuals get to choose the medicines they want. A third organiser, consultant psychiatrist Ben Sessa, considered how we can get drugs such as MDMA ¡°out of the night club and into the clinic¡±.

Other speakers considered the reactionary strands of ¡°sacred kingship¡± and ¡°mystical nationalism¡± which had long formed a part of the psychedelic and ¡°new age¡± movements, as well as psychedelic motifs in art from William Blake to Tibetan mandalas and Maori tattoos.

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com