Words by Josh HardmanWe were pleased to once again be in attendance at Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics in New York City; and very proud to be Media Sponsors for this year’s event, along with our friends at Psychedelics Today and Lucid News.Amidst a swelling crop of for-profit psychedelics conferences and industry events, Horizons has a certain ineffable authenticity to it. This year marked the 15th annual conference, a milestone on which the organisation’s founder, Kevin Balktick, took time to reflect at a small gathering on the final night of the four-day assembly. Long-time Horizons attendees told me that early gatherings were hosted in a church, with little more than a coffee urn at the back of the room and a decidedly ‘underground’ feel.While other conferences now feel more like trade shows, Balktick has managed to maintain many elements of a more ‘psychedelic’ or academic atmosphere, while ensuring the viability of the annual conference. Keen to encourage a similar ethos at similar events, yesterday Horizons shared some key guidelines that other psychedelic conferences organisers might adhere to.In terms of the programming, this year’s conference had a varied offering once again. Thursday hosted the second Psychedelic Business Forum and a number of workshops and classes, with the remaining days tackling Psychedelics in Research, Medicine, and the World.The Great Hall at The Cooper Union once again provided the impressive venue for the majority of proceedings, while the Psychedelic Business Forum, and a number of classes and workshops, took place at the New York Academy of Medicine. Both buildings have interesting architectural and historical import (see last year’s Dispatch).One of our highlights of the conference was the manner in which many researchers chose to share both quantitative and qualitative data from their studies. All too often, researchers focus on the former when presenting their results, showing graphs depicting data such as endpoints and statistical significance. While this is of course of great importance, it can obfuscate the rich personal experiences that might hint at how these impressive therapeutic outcomes are achieved.We were especially pleased, then, to see how Michael Bogenschutz and Gabby Agin-Liebes shared both quantitative data but also qualitative patient experiences when discussing psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol-use disorder. Bogenschutz began by sharing the more quantitative findings (which we analysed in Bulletin #117), and then Agin-Liebes shared a number of powerful excerpts from patient experiences. These individual qualitative data points are also amalgamated to identify shared trajectories of healing throughout the trial, mapped onto the buckets of awareness, intrapersonal and interpersonal beliefs.Immediately after their presentation, Manish Agrawal and Paul Thambi of Sunstone Therapies took to the stage to share their work on psilocybin-assisted therapy in end-of-life and palliative care. Once again, the presentation was a compelling blend of historical and quantitative datapoints, along with excerpts from patient experience reports.There were so many presentations worth sharing at Horizons that we couldn’t possibly begin to write them up here. Thankfully, recordings will be made available in due course. At that time, we will share some of our favourite presentations in the Bulletin.
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September 30, 2024
