Breaking Convention | finding ways to make a real difference

I’m making my way from Newton Abbot to Exeter by train, not quite believing I’m heading to Europe’s largest conference of psychedelic consciousness.

This is the 6th Breaking Convention and for the first time it is being held at Exeter University. The choice for holding it here this year is to tie in with the launch of the University’s post-graduate course in psychedelic studies titled Psychedelics: Mind, medicine and culture.

As I stare at the view of the sea from my train window, I begin to think about who and what I might encounter at a psychedelic convention, completely unaware of the amazing journey that lies ahead of me.

The first thing that hits me when I arrive at Breaking Convention is the eclectic mix of people and events here – scientific lectures, cinema and art, cyberdelic V.R experiences, workshops and a market full of store holders selling the latest books, products and information about this growing field.

Some of the world’s leading researchers and academics of psychedelic studies are gathered here. The vibe is electric and exciting, and it becomes clear from the very start that there is a mutual respect between the science, art and academic communities. They are all reading from the same book, just through different lenses.

The subject of Psychedelics is VAST and eclectic, just like my time at Breaking Convention, so I will highlight several moments from my journey through this experience into individual parts to make it easier to digest.

Having got my bearings I make a B-line to the Hofmann hall heading to a series of lectures which explore Psychedelic Dance Culture. I have limited knowledge about psychedelic studies, but Dance is something I have trained in, researched and understand, so feels like a good place to start.

I listen to presentations about the UK’s Psytrance (Psychedelic Trance) culture, spiritualism and politics in festivals and the interesting journey of Rupert Callender, a raver turned undertaker who has used his experiences in psychedelic rave culture to guide him to work with an alternative and compassionate approach to the dying, the dead and in particular the bereaved.

Giorgia Gaia’s presentation ‘Kaos Kilowatt & Ketamine: Spirituality and Psychedelics in the Freetekno movement’ particularly spoke to me as a dancer with her angle of research looking at dance as activism and the dance floor as a place for human expression and connection. After her presentation I caught up with her to talk further about about her background in psychedelic dance culture and the 3 K’s.

Killowatts

Before becoming an independent researcher and anthropologist, Giorgia was A Psytrance DJ, this was in her 3 ch’s period (Chai, Charras and Changa) but after becoming disillusioned with this movement, she returned to her roots in Freetekno. Yes, Tekno with a K. As Giorgia explained all ch’s have become K’s. She is now in her 3 K’s period. And the Freetekno sound system is embraced by the Kilowatt element of the 3 K’s.

Techno is very different to Tekno. Tekno is political and anarchic, a far cry from the commercialised techno DJs that play huge venues to an adoring crowd. In Tekno, the DJ is part of the crowd, and the crowd faces away from the DJ. It is non-hierarchical. The music is the most important element of the experience, the DJ just channels the energy.

In Tekno, God is not a DJ.

Kaos

Freetekno parties are now completely illegal in Giorgia’s home country of Italy, which leads us to talk about her ancestors and kaos. Her direct relatives can be traced back to partisans, but alongside this, Giorgia believes she is connected to other ancestors, but not related, like she is part of them and they are part of her. Her soul is coming from a line of souls that are punk. Humans who have the same pattern printed within in them that she shares. She has no choice to be connected with them, this is who she is.

‘My soul is an origin and the origin is kaos.’

Giorgia doesn’t want to bring disorder, she wants freedom against forced order. To bring kaos, because kaos is generative. Kaos has potential. But to embrace chaos Giorgia believes you must be grounded, have strong roots and be strong enough to face reality.

‘If you understand the shadow, you understand more. If you are just light and happiness, this is not real.’

Ketamine

Ketamine has played a large part in her life and in the Tekno scene. She believes the drugs are medicines, the drugs are tools, and you have to decide how you are going to use them. Some people say Ketamine destroyed the Tekno scene but was it the Ketamine? Or was it the way the people use and then behave once they have taken it?

‘It is the way humans choose to interact with the drugs that makes the difference. Ketamine is the source of both healing and harm.’

I ask Giorgia, after the 3 ch’s came the 3 K’s. what comes after the K’s?

‘I don’t think there is anything after the K… at the moment’.

I am stood with a group of people waiting to take part in a tea and Butoh ritual with Li Chun Marina Lin.

I attended Marina Li Chun’s lecture yesterday where she began her presentation by projecting a photograph of her sacred Acacia Tree and then chanted to connect us with her tree. She took us through her journey with plant medicine, her Taiwanese heritage and the guidance she has received from her Acacia tree and other trees that she refers to as who’s. She is understated and genuine.

We enter the room and Li Chun is sat on the floor in a plain mustard jumper with the tea and tea cups laid out in front of her. We are asked to remove our shoes and help ourselves to a cushion and find a seat on the floor.

Before we take the tea Li Chun gives us some context and shares some of the culture of tea. We learn about Shujun, the Chinese god of agriculture who is believed to have discovered tea. In legend he has a clear stomach so he can see what plants do to his insides as he digests them, and which organs of the body the plants heal or harm. We also look at the Chinese character for tea, ‘Cha’, how the top part of the character represents the grass, the middle part the people and the bottom part the trees.

Now we understand some of the heritage we begin to take the tea.

Today we are drinking Pu Erh tea from a 1000 year old tea tree. The tea is fermented and has been aged for 10 years. It is rare and expensive. A natural treasure.

Li Chun cuts the tea from a cake, a large black solid brick of tea, with a tea knife. Small tea pots and cups are used to brew and serve the tea. Li Chun calmly and purposefully pours and brews the tea. We each take one of the small cups filled with the hot tea.

‘We are going to expand time’ she says quietly ‘using the tea.’

She asks us to connect with the tea and the 1000 year old tree it came from with all of our senses.

The tea smells earthy.

It is hot and grounding.

I begin to feel calm and warm.

After a few rounds of the tea the room seems calmer. We are now told about Butoh, also known as the dance of darkness, a recently modern Japanese tradition, born from the atrocities of war and a dance form which requires the dancer to let go of themselves and their ego, to become an empty husk to enable them to receive surrounding spirits. As Li Chun explains Butoh, a video plays in the background of a Butoh dancer in a trance-like state. Eyes glazed and empty.

Li Chun tells us we are going to use the tea we have drunk in combination with Butoh to simulate a DMT experience, living through our own death and rebirth.

‘Is everyone OK with that?’ she asks calmly.

The room is quiet in agreement and the ritual begins.

Li Chun’s quiet and reassuring voice guides us through this moving meditation. I close my eyes and let myself be taken, my body twists and contorts slowly.

To begin with I can feel other bodies moving slowly around me. Eventually they disappear.

I feel unseen energy pulling me, the feeling of bright lights warm my face and the darkest deepest holes of despair open beneath me.

We are asked to question the good and the bad in ourselves, the light and the dark, our very existence, our place amongst everything.

We are guided back into the room. As I slowly blink my eyes open I see people are wiping away tears. There were painful tears and also tears of joy.

We are re-born

I feel calm

new

dazed

yet enlivened.

everything is sloooooooooower

‘Did time expand for you?’ asks Li Chun

We all leave the room, different people to when we walked in.

I sit with Paul in the Student Bar to talk about the cinema programme at Breaking Convention, his relationship with the event and what he thinks of its location here in Exeter this year.

Paul originates from Cork and comes from a filmmaking background. He has been involved in numerous film festivals across the UK and Ireland including the BFI London film festival and it was film that bought Paul to his first Breaking Convention. Ayahuasca UK, a documentary film he made in collaboration with a psychedelic journalist which focused on a Santo Daimeic community in Devon which was screened at the convention.

The documentary and Paul’s interest in attending the convention was sparked by a friend’s journey into Ayahuasca, and he felt a calling for it and knew there would be people attending the convention that were able to conduct these ceremonies here in the UK.

Paul explains how at the time when his film was screened, there wasn’t a dedicated cinema programme at the convention, only a few bits of film here and there. He approached the organisers and offered his support and the cinema programme grew from there.

Paul approached curating this years cinema programme by asking himself the question ‘how could it compete with everything else going on? Why would some one want to come and watch a film?’

The answer to this question was to include unique, one-off experiences including Q&As with the directors after the screenings, which echoed the scientific strand of the conference, using the cinema as a forum for discussion and linking these to elements of the conference.

The highlight of these unique experiences and the Psychedelic Cinemas main event was Vincent Moons Live Cinema Performance. Paul describes the issues they were faced with transforming the lecture theatre into a ceremonial/sacred space.

‘Real candles and incense were not allowed, but we worked our way around it and managed to transform it. It was a full house and the piece was well received, he (Vincent) managed to induce a trance state with some members of the audience.’

We then approached the subject of this years location, Exeter.

‘I’ve loved waking up to see the rolling hills.’

Having worked in film festivals for over 10 years, he feels they work best in smaller towns and more remote places, where everyone comes into that one place and takes it over, creating a temporary community of like minded people. London is so vast that film festivals can gets absorbed.

Due to the message which often crops up at Breaking Convention, that humans need to spend more time connecting with each other and nature, organisers have considered taking the event outdoors. This leads to a conversation about Dartmoor, a place Paul had never visited. I tried to put into words the magic and beauty of Dartmoor and offered tips on places to go and visit.

What a place Dartmoor would be to hold Breaking Convention.

Underlying this conference is a deep truth. People here are not afraid to stare into the void and question the darkest of problems our society is faced with. Many of the people sharing their work here are bravely navigating through the darkest depths of what it is to be human in order to find ways to make a real difference. From treating mental health disorders and addiction, to dealing with the ever growing despair in our crazy world, to finding ways to create peace and care for those faced with death itself. Psychedelia isn’t all about rainbows.

But from the darkness, there always comes light. The future of psychedelic research is a bright and very exciting for Exeter, the south west and humanity as a whole. Psychedelics integrates science, culture and anthropology seamlessly, and can shift narratives, motivate people to bring real change that can have a positive effect on humans as a whole, and bring humanity back to its roots, to live life to its fullest from a place of integrity and truth.

I feel I have connected, and like the mycelium of fungi those connections are going to remain with me.

Now I have connected, I remain connected.

I have left the convention a different person. I would go as far to say this experience was life changing, and I now see a future filled with hope.

The psychedelic revolution is alive.