Supper with the Psychedelic Society – tales of therapy, poetry and ayahuasca

Speakers at an event in north London describe their positive experiences of drugs such as psilocybin and LSD, part of a wider resurgence

Amid an abundance of food and drink, flickering candles and a heady air of altered states,100 or so people in north London's New Unity church watched John, a mop-haired Irishman in his late 20s, tell the story of how he learned to love through therapy, poetry and ayahuasca.

"I arrived at Cuzco and, sure God, how do you find an ayahuasca ceremony?" he said from a stage adorned with a creeping, twisting vine of fairy lights. "Well you Google it obviously, and you go on to TripAdvisor." That bizarre mix of the hi-tech and the traditional, the western world and the south, sums up the Psychedelic Society, which held its first "psychedelic supper" on Sunday.