Amanda Feilding, A Woman Ahead of Her Time

I had the utmost pleasure of having Amanda Feilding at our home to talk about the Beckley Foundation, an organization that we are invested in. The Beckley Foundation funds psychedelic research, and the Queen of psychedelics was Amanda Feilding.

Amanda started using LSD for the first time sixty years ago, and finally, as she said two weeks before her death, “the taboo has been broken”. Her entire life, people told her she was wacky, particularly the time she drilled a hole in her head for education, science, and understanding of psychedelics. She was amazing.

She proved what we all know is true: that change wins, evolution wins, and sometimes it takes an absurd amount of time to convince the conservative, the fear-of-change people, the older-school people who prefer to live in the past. Still, eventually, those small-minded, fearful people are always on the wrong side of history. We are witnessing it at a grander scale right now.

I did podcast #172 with Amanda, which was roughly three years ago today. It feels appropriate to give it a new listen, with a different set of eyes and ears. The title was Destructing the Taboo Around Psychedelics. I am so glad that Amanda got to see the taboo finally begin to vanish before she left us.

Here is the podcast below.

Amanda Feilding is a scientist, veteran drug policy reformer, lobbyist, and the founder of the Beckley Foundation, which initiates research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and uses the results to advocate for drug policy reform. We talked about her journey advocating for drug policy reform, as she mused about the ever-evolving landscape of psychoactive substances.

You can follow the work of the Beckley Foundation.

You can also listen on Soundcloud and iTunes.