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Summary – A verdant reflection on participating in the Breaking Convention 2023 conference at Exeter University and exploring magical worlds within nature.

Introduction

I enjoyed Breaking Convention 2019, so much that I resolved to attend the next one, Breaking Convention 2023 (BC 2023). The venue shifted from the historic naval buildings of Greenwich to the more rural setting of Exeter. BC 2023 brought together researchers, therapeutic practitioners, philosophers, historians and many others interested in psychedelics and psychedelic consciousness. My interests are around shamanism/nature religion, meditation and gently disrupting my too-often sleeping consciousness.

I attended two headline talks (Graham Hancock and Paul Stamets) and three sessions. In total fifteen thought-provoking talks. I know it isn’t about quantity. My point is that there wasn’t one that I regretted attending, which is not normally the case when attending academic conferences. Every speaker spoke with enthusiasm, rather than instrumentality. I was repeatedly gently provoked to step outside my everyday consciousness and think differently.

Communitas: Psychedelic Dance Culture and Emergent Spiritualities Session. On Thursday, five papers took us from the apocalyptic poet Terence Mckenna through to a radically different vision of how to undertake a funeral. In between we learnt about raving in Welsh forests, spirituality within festivals and that Tekno definitely is not Techno. My epiphany was Giorgia Gaia referencing Genesis P.Orridge, his spirit was with us in this countercultural session.

Mind and Metaphysics Session. On Friday I was primed and ready to go deeper. Susan Blackmore asked us repeatedly and poignantly – are you conscious? I have slept-walked through too much of my life and her question had real personal meaning. The William James invocation to apply the requisite stimulus to access other worlds was highlighted during the session. All five presentations unified around the ethereal/illusionary nature of psychedelic experiences and the challenges of meaningfully studying this field. I enjoyed bathing in this fascinating ontological world these presentations conjured up, even if a few times I was out of my depth.

Psychedelic Semantics Session. On Saturday, we began preparations to return to everyday reality with three very able guides. Patricia Pisters reminded us to think about what we don’t see as much as what we see through the medium of film. Rosalind Stone encouraged us to think about how through language and metaphor consciousness is repeatedly framed and mediated in different ways and with different agendas.

Andy Letcher offered the summation of the whole convention rhetorically asking – are psychedelic experiences actually ineffable? I had enjoyed his talk at the 2019 conference warming to his blend of humility and authority, quite rare in the academic world. His differentiation of extrovertive mystical experiences from introvertive mystical experiences offered a gateway. In terms of psychedelic consciousness, it is the extrovertive, oneness with nature consciousness which particularly fascinates me. Ineffable captures it, but I will attempt to share some of the other worlds I experienced in parallel to BC 2023.

Forgotten World – A Woodland Path Less Travelled

My magical place is a path by the River Teign at Steps Bridge near Exeter. I discovered this path over thirty years ago and revisit it whenever I am in the area. On a sunny day when the river is low, the light shines through the trees and bounces on the rocks, the river changes colour with dappled reflections of trees. Birds sing and water sounds contained within the woodland canopy are amplified by way of accompaniment to this natural psychedelic show. On the Thursday morning I visited, the Teign was quite high, dampening what was still a magical walk.

Steps Bridge (nr Exeter) on a Misty Morning — Steps Bridge (nr Exeter) on a misty morning

The next bit was unscripted, the two hourly bus which would return me to Exeter was involved in an accident. It was time to go over to the other side of the B3212 until hopefully, another bus arrived. I ventured into Bridford Wood on the other side of Steps Bridge uncertain of where I was going and outside the certainty of my usual Steps Bridge walk.

As I ventured deeper into the wood, I found myself on paths far less travelled than my usual walk. I had no real route or plan, just a desire to explore. I found myself on magical paths used mainly by animals and only a few people. The photograph does not do justice to the experience but remember we are in the realms of the ineffable/illusionary. An accident had taken me into a forgotten world of less travelled footpaths.

Bridford Wood - Footpath less travelled — Bridford Wood – Footpath less travelled

Overlooked World – Garden on a Wall

The university was at the top of a hill and I was staying at a budget hotel at the bottom of the hill. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky encouraged strenuous exercise to access mystical states, but the demanding climb up the hill didn’t enable me to access these worlds. However, as I climbed the hill, I discovered an overlooked world. Slowly walking up the Howell Road I noticed a garden growing on the top of an old brick wall. There was this whole ecosystem with a diversity of plants growing along the top of the wall. This wasn’t the work of a gardener, some other universal gardener was at work.

I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us. (Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden)

Each day I would stop to photograph the garden, yet everyone else seemed to be oblivious to this garden. What they made of the bloke preoccupied with the top of an old wall I do not know, yet I was reminded of liminal worlds out there, yet often unseen.

Even more plants growing on a old brick wall

Another World – University Gardens

In my academic life, I visited many university campuses. Over the last decade, they invariably appeared to be building sites. It went like this, knockdown functional buildings and build even larger and even shinier buildings. In parallel big banners proclaimed environmental credentials without any reflexivity around their destruction/construction fetish. Celebrations of elite status and league-table successes attempted to exorcise all humility from their campuses. Higher education became transactional – would you like our student accommodation package with your qualification?

I am certain there is some envy of elite institutions and elite academics on my part, but beyond this, I cherish my recovery from academia and the adventure of exploring other worlds. I enjoyed the presentations on Saturday morning, but felt in need of some respite from the large powerful phallic buildings, before the final headline speaker. I ventured into the university gardens and it was like stepping through a portal into another world within a world.

The gardens go back to the 19^th Century. I wondered what the long established trees made of buildings being repeatedly destructed and constructed in the name of progress. These gardens are accessible to all regardless of wealth, very different to higher education today. These gardens are nurtured and cultivated by gardeners, a different world to Bridford Wood.

Walking around the gardens I was reminded of The Well Gardened Mind book. That book and these gardens offer a metaphor for another world a very different higher education. My message to University Vice Chancellors would be that it isn’t about the size of their big and shiny new buildings. It is about the students and staff in those buildings, how they grow together and how knowledge is exchanged and cultivated.

Final Reflections on the Breaking Convention 2023 Conference

I found myself empathising with those presenting as the numbers in a presentation room inevitably ebbed and flowed. I empathised with their sometimes anxious non-verbal communications just before they shared with us their enthusiasm. Equally, I empathised with the organizers and how effectively they made the magic happen. The metaphor of a swan comes to mind on such occasions, certainly from a participant’s perspective I largely perceived the serenity above the surface.

Hoffman Hall (staging celebrating the natural world)

In the university gardens, I met a fellow traveller and we happily talked for half an hour about big stuff and little stuff and our conference experiences. What you might call a two person Final Plenary orchestrated by our shared passion for nature.

For me, it was a therapeutic break from the everyday challenges of modern life. An opportunity to glimpse other worlds and imagine possible futures. I talked with some lovely people who I will never meet again, yet their warmth reminded me of the promise that awaits when you wake-up and explore other worlds. Thank you to the organizers, presenters and participants for making it such a successful conference.

Links

Breaking Convention Site

https://www.breakingconvention.co.uk/

The Well Gardened Mind Book

https://www.suestuartsmith.com/book

Exploring Nature and Psychedelic Consciousness at Breaking Convention 2023

Post in 19 words My appreciation of Breaking Convention 2019 psychedelic consciousness conference themed around five personal highlights of a fascinating three days.

My posts normally focus on organizations changing. However, I am mindful that I change and that I need to be open and attentive to internal change, as well as, external change. It is easy to shout about what is going on around me, which may be important, but it may also be a strategy to avoid what is going on inside me.

In this spirit I attended the fifth international conference on psychedelic consciousness (August 16^th to 18^th2019), aka Breaking Convention 2019 (BC 2019). I enjoyed this intentionally unorthodox conference and I want to single out five highlights; David Luke, William Blake, eco-consciousness, shamanic drumming and another world.

It was a happy accident that I discovered and attended BC 2019 this August. One of the convenors David Luke had spoken at Brighton Arts Festival about 18 months earlier. I found his talk and energy inspiring. He touched on the background to Breaking Convention and the unorthodox approach they used to encourage a greater appreciation of psychedelic consciousness. The venue is the old royal naval college which hosts the University of Greenwich, it is also close to the Meridian Line and close to the Thames. We were in a magical place even before we had begun. At the first break on Friday morning I found myself sat in one of the cloistered walkways drinking my green tea. David Luke walked by, I smiled, he came over and we chatted. It was so different from my experience of some other academic conferences, which seem driven by performance with networking more tactical than social.

My second highlight was Sam Knot’s workshop – Psychedelic innocence and experience. He themed his one-and-a-half-hour workshop around William Blake’s mystical poetry. He had a copy of his illuminated works with both the wonderful artwork and the knowing words. It was odd, but as we talked poetry and otherworldly visions, bits of my brain woke up which had been dormant for too long. The climax of the workshop was being asked to take a poem from the Songs of Innocence or the Songs of Experience pile. The postcards were face down. I selected The Lamb, Sam had hand-painted these postcards (see image). We then read each poem in our circle, it took me back to childhood when I last read a poem aloud. It was a powerfully transformative experience. At the end of the workshop Sam let us keep the postcard we had read. I have since bought the illuminated works and look forward to further exploring these mystical writings.

I enjoyed going to paper sessions and they were running five parallel streams with 100+ in each stream. The paper presentations were videoed and should be accessible via the link at the bottom of this post. On Saturday morning I went to Psychedelics, Eco-Consciousness and Ecological Crisis. There must have been 200 + in this large lecture theatre and throughout the presentations you could feel the electricity crackling around the room. Sam Gandy kicked off the session talking about the importance of our connection to self, others and nature. Sounds like a soundbite, but so profound. I have always had a strong nature connection, but attending BC 2019 was about a desire to reconnect with myself. Jay Griffiths beautifully shared her experience of returning to Oxford where she had studied, but now as a panther and how different Oxford looks from the perspective of a panther. Andy Letcher’s Ontological Anarchy and the Ecological Self sounded pretentious, but it was far from it in content and delivery. Andy or one of the other speakers noted the derivation of humility as humus meaning of the land. The interweaving of nature and humility was apparent throughout BC 2019. I wish I could have found the courage to attend the ego-death workshop.

I rose early on Sunday morning to attend a shamanic drumming workshop facilitated by William Rowlandson. We congregated in a circle on the lawns between the naval college buildings with trees nearby. After an introductory talk by William we lied on the grass in a circle, imagine the petals of a flower with William drumming in the centre, we did this for ten minutes talked some more and then did a forty-five-minute session. I studied shamanism when I was younger and again I found myself reconnecting with a part of myself I’d left behind in the rush of my performative life. I look forward to furthering my shamanic practices in the months to come.

On the final Sunday afternoon, I went to a parallel session on integration. You’d expect numbers to be dwindling, but again 100+. Somebody stands up and announces the chair and the first speaker are not attending and everyone was so chilled. I experienced for a few days another world. A world remote from busy consumerism, the constant treadmill of modern life and the related expectations we put on each other and ourselves. We have an excess of digital connections, yet such limited connections to self, others and nature. Participants wanted BC 2019 to work and it worked, thanks to the hard work of the convenors, volunteers and speakers, but also due to the goodwill of the participants. My wait was rewarded with two interesting papers on psychotherapy. I was glad I waited as I learnt about the archetypal dance of the mystic and the pragmatist. I appreciated that I needed to embrace my mystical side a little more if I was to become more integrated and I am up for that homework.

On Saturday evening I had enjoyed the premier of Journeys to the Edge of Consciousness, which raised thoughts about childhood and my journey. It was a film featuring the contributions of Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts. Director Rob Harper watched the premier with us in what was a packed and very hot cinema. He did a Q&A session afterwards and appeared genuinely humbled by the positive reception he received afterwards.

There was much more going on such as artworks, installations and stalls. In the evening bands and discos took place in the Student Union beneath the old naval college buildings. I was keen to explore as I love going underground, I think I may have been a mole in a former life. I had scheduled a visit for the Sunday evening and my mind was willing, but my tired body was unwilling. I am still amazed that another world was created for a few days.

I am looking forward to the next Breaking Convention in the meantime I am inspired to shift my consciousness and to break some conventions.

Link

Breaking Convention site here: