EGA Garden States 2022
Entheogenesis Australis (EGA) runs Australia’s premiere psychedelic and plant-medicine conferences. So, when I was offered a ticket in exchange for helping copyedit & proofread the conference journal for EGA Garden States 2022, I leapt at the chance. For the three days of this conference I ran myself ragged, packing in talks, workshops, volunteering for the Australian Psychedelic Society, networking, and multiple years' worth of socializing. It’s one thing to read all the research that is coming out, but my work as both a psychedelic content writer and nonprofit leader benefit enormously from connecting with the rest of the community here.
Was it a great event? Absolutely. Was having to sleep for two days straight to recover worth it? 100%!
Here's a snapshot of what went down, in no particular order, from my biased and occasionally sleep-deprived perspective:
Under/Above Ground Ethics
While the hype train of psychedelics gathers speed, there are increasing calls for everyone involved, whether CEOs or members of underground communities, to be mindful of ethical issues and take steps to address them.
Meredith Hartley, who (amongst her many other achievements) was president of the psychedelic society when I was VP, gave the conference’s opening presentation. In it, she highlighted the historical and continuing exclusion and marginalization of women and POC, as well as issues around abuse in both legal and underground psychedelic settings. In psychedelics, we may think we’re above or beyond structural inequality, racism, sexism, and gendered violence. But we are not, something that many people and communities have not acknowledged.
The solutions, Hartley argued, involve changes that we’ve so far neglected. Necessary steps include publicly funded inclusive & participatory research, organizational cooperation on dismantling mutually reinforcing oppressive structures, and enacting legal reform. Above all, we must actively participate in care and accountability at the grassroots level. People from disadvantaged groups won’t gain access to psychedelic therapies if we use the same approach that marginalized them in the first place.
As with so many other talks and workshops I saw, it would take a whole series of articles to do justice to everything this presentation covered.
Pixie Miller, the founder of the Psychedelically Aware Talking Circle Hub (PATCH), led one of the conference’s highlights for me. She skillfully facilitated an inclusive and community-driven conversation around safety and ethics that handled sensitive topics with care and diligence. It was a real privilege to contribute a little to this even if this was mainly to introduce myself and talk briefly about the work of the psychedelic society and EPIC. It was great to see how many people were interested enough to attend. We were timetabled at the same time as David Holmgren, so I didn’t expect anyone to turn up, and definitely not the 50+ we got.
Dave Nickles, of Psymposia fame (or, depending on who you ask, infamy), gave a scholarly and well-researched presentation highlighting the need to question dominant narratives around psychedelics.
In the first of many great panels, Dr. Prash Puspanathan facilitated a fascinating discussion around the intersection of psychedelics and capitalism. This conversation, which included panelists with a whole spectrum of attitudes towards capitalism & business, set an exceptionally high standard for constructive interactions, even where participants fundamentally disagreed.
(Side note: despite the participation of Dave Nickles and Lily Kay Ross, no disruption occurred, and I’m reasonably sure no significant amount of money was harmed.)
Again, this barely scratches the surface of what people presented and discussed.
Psychedelic Science & Clinical Research
So much science! Honestly, there was more research than you could poke a stick at (or more than I could attend, at least.) Here’s a taste of what was on offer:
How hard has it been to get the first Australian MDMA trial off the ground? As Dr. Stephen Bright recounted, it’s been a long and winding road, with numerous regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles (and that was before COVID!)
Dr. Stephen Bright, speaking at EGA 2022.
We had Dr. Vince Polito of Macquarie University looking at the state of microdosing research, including reporting on his ongoing microdosing investigations. This included a great review of recent research and that claims expectancy explains everything about microdosing may be overblown. If you are in Sydney, Australia, and interested in participating in microdosing research, he needs more people for his neuroimaging study - details can be found at https://www.microdosingstudy.com/
Dr Marg Ross gave an amazing talk based on her experiences running the St Vincent’s Melbourne psilocybin-palliative care trial.
In yet another presentation that I missed, Sam Bannister from Psylo spoke on where psychedelic drug development might be headed. Luckily, Garden States was run as a hybrid & accessible event. So pretty much everything other than the workshops was recorded, and ticket holders have ongoing access to the presentations. (As a bonus, this included a talk with Dennis McKenna, who was supposed to attend in person, but circumstances got in the way.) On that note, you can still buy tickets that give access to the recorded session at this link.
Entheogenic Experience & Culture, and Connection to Earth
It wasn’t all about science and people seeking knowledge in labs and clinical settings though. A huge amount of the talks and discussions revolved around the experience of psychedelics and plant medicines, how they intersected and continue to intersect with digital culture, and how we connect to each other and the universe at large. (OK, so I know this is a large category, but many, if not most, of the best presentations were inherently category-defying.)
Seed SistAs, Kazz and Fiona, gave a fantastic and informative online talk on taboo plants, specifically the witching herbs of the Nightshade family; how they’ve been used historically, and how they might fit into contemporary entheogenic practice. This talk was a big hit with some of my psychedelic society colleagues.
Rich Haridy facilitated an amazing conversation with Douglas Rushkoff. This is another of those talks that is impossible to adequately summarize in a mere paragraph. But I loved his characterization of the internet as a psychedelic substrate, and the extractive surveillance economy as its set and setting: “..no wonder, we as a civilization are having such a bad trip.”
The theme of blurring the lines between technological and psychedelic experience was strong throughout the conference, with contributions from Mark Pesce, Lynette Wallworth, and Melissa Warner that all, in their own ways, sought to show how these worlds overlap. (This shouldn’t be a surprise. Broadly construed, psychedelics are a set of technologies themselves, albeit relatively old compared to our modern artifacts.)
Anthropology got a look-in too, with Jef Baker (Sydney Chapter Lead and national committee member for the Australian Psychedelic Society) discussing how the psychedelic experiences of ecological self might bring about a richer awareness of being in the world.
Underscoring the ethos of connection to nature that EGA has at its core, many of the headline lectures revolved around this very theme. David Holmgren, one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept, spoke of the use of storytelling and narratives to bring the principles and practice of permaculture to life. John Seed, founder of the Rainforest information Centre and proponent of Deep Ecology, gave us a glimpse of what it’s like to have a lifetime of going from belief to action, in his defense of the natural world.
Getting Hands-on!
It’s worth mentioning that the program included multiple practical workshops. I missed almost all of these, but that’s OK. I would have liked to attended the mushroom culture without a lab sessions. I’m already familiar with most techniques, and if I get stuck I can always ask the facilitators, the inimitable Caine Barlow and enigmatic Darklight, as I’ve know both of them for many years. Dr. Liam Engel’s class on cactus propagation and grafting was full to overflowing by the time I got there, but, again, I’ve been there and done that (though not as well as a true cactus specialist - I’m only mildly obsessed in comparison.)
I’m not surprised these workshops were so well-attended. Community demand for practical knowledge around fungi, plants, and techniques of trip-sitting and integration is extremely high in Australia.
People, Connection & Community
In the end, EGA was, for me, about the people. I got to reconnect with friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen since before COVID. This included some stalwart members of the Shaman-Australis forum, with whom I’ve shared a passion for plant medicines and psychedelics that’s lasted my entire adult life. I’m not going to name them due to the pseudo-anonymous nature of that place, but they know who they are and that we should not wait till the next EGA to catch up again.
Part of what was significant was having most of the Australian Psychedelic Society national committee together. For many of us, geography and circumstance have meant we’ve never been in the same room together. As insane as it sounds, I’d never physically met our VP, Secretary, Treasurer, and most of our current chapter leads before this conference. What’s really wild is that when we were all together, we functioned just as well as a team as we do online. (That, and we all got along remarkably well.) You’d think these people had worked their whole lives shoulder-to-shoulder.
Most of the Australian Psychedelic Society volunteers who were at EGA 2022. I’m the guy at the back who’s barely visible due to being in the shade.
Solidifying online connections with physical presence is sometimes rare, given the costs of traveling across Australia. It’s absolutely worthwhile, even though I’m taller than expected and don’t look like my profile pictures. (To whichever one of my friends told everyone to say that to me when we met: vengeance will be mine!)
I do my best to lead a remote team of remarkable people. But having the opportunity to look a colleague, who’s recently stepped up into a new role, in the eye and say, “You’ve got this,” was priceless.
It was also great to make new connections: Adrian, who had the stall next to ours and helped us in our Sisyphean struggle with our new electronic payment system for the merch. Fellow philosopher Dr. Chris Letheby, who listened to my musings around ethics over lunch and with whom I have the most civilized disagreement. The random person I got talking to after a cactus-grating workshop who regaled me with stories of taking LSD and cycling around Rome’s historical sites. Peer-support drug worker, advocate, and new(ish) volunteer Baden Hicks, who won his ticket through his mastery of psychedelic trivia. (And many, many more.)
But there are always more conversations than time allows. So, I’ve got a list of follow-ups to do with friends and new contacts: Sam Bannister, whom I really wanted to meet but only ran into as I was leaving the after-party. Snu Voogelbreinder, with whom I should take a road trip to investigate that mystery plant. SSDP Australia president, Nick Kent, so we can continue our grand plans for nationwide drug law reform (and possible world domination.)
Overall, EGA 2022 was a fantastic experience, and there isn’t much I’d change (that anyone has any control over, at least.) The whole EGA team deserves huge thanks and congratulations for what they’ve achieved. I can’t wait to do it all again!
For now though, it’s time to get back to work.
Photos copyright Psychedelic Overground, 2022.
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