Mushrooms and music: The exploration of psychedelic gigs
At East Forest’s ceremonial concerts, listeners are given the space to lie down on mats to take in the music. You could be looking at a yoga class; a dimly lit room filled with bodies sprawled savasana-style, aromatherapy oils wafting in the air.
It certainly doesn’t sound like a typical music gig.
The US electro-acoustic artist has long been pairing music with psychedelics, leading his first small magic mushroom ceremonies more than 15 years ago. While the use of drugs at his shows is not actively encouraged – in most places around the world this would be illegal – those who enjoy his work are aware they might experience the night differently should they choose to partake beforehand.
This fusion of music and psychedelics is not new, with scientific studies on the combined effects dating back to the 1950s and ’60s – and high-profile artists throughout time, from The Beatles to Miley Cyrus, having spoken about their use of mind-altering substances.
But the therapeutic benefits, rather than the hedonistic element, is something a growing number of artists and DJs have started exploring in recent years.
At the same time, more and more scientists – and even Prince Harry – are arguing the physical and mental health benefits, and laws in some countries are relaxing; Australia became the first country to legalise medical psychedelics earlier this year, Oregon and some US cities have done the same, and there are MPs in the UK also calling for reclassification.
For East Forest, whose real name is Trevor Oswalt, his shows and music are a chance to “give people more openings and options, to say, maybe you can be a little more vulnerable or you can go a little deeper”, whether they have taken anything beforehand or not.
US artist East Forest. Pic: George Evan
“I want it to feel inclusive… It’s not like we’re pushing in one direction or another and whatever entry point you come into it, it should work for you. If you want it to just be a concert, you sit or stand like any concert – great. And if you want to go a little deeper, that doorway is there for you, too.”
He adds: “For many people we see, they don’t do that at all and they have their own equally powerful experience.”
Magic mushrooms are currently a Class A drug in the UK, with the maximum penalty for possession being up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. The maximum penalty for supply or production is life in prison.
Some experts say more research is needed into the benefits of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms. The NHS lists it among the drugs that can potentially trigger psychotic episodes, while anti-drug advisory service FRANK warns of the risks of losing “complete control” and that a “bad trip” can potentially make mental health problems worse.
In October, a US court heard that an off-duty pilot who allegedly tried to shut down a plane’s engines during a flight told police after his arrest he had taken psychedelic mushrooms for the first time.
Pic: Cdigi
But many studies have shown it can have a positive impact on those with mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, anorexia and alcohol abuse. Other studies have shown that psilocybin can affect the way the brain reacts to music, enhancing the emotional response.
Oswalt has just released his latest album, Music For The Deck Of The Titanic, which follows previous works including Music For Mushrooms, IN: A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner Vol II, and a collaborative album with spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author Ram Dass. He is set to release a documentary, also titled Music For Mushrooms, in 2024.
He is not the only musician who believes in the power of psychedelics. Electronic star Jon Hopkins, who is also known for producing for acts including Coldplay and Brian Eno and has collaborated with East Forest, released the album Music For Psychedelic Therapy in 2021; his almost namesake the Johns Hopkins University has a centre dedicated to psychedelic and consciousness research in Baltimore, Maryland, and has put together one of several psychedelic therapy playlists on Spotify.
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Oswalt says legalisation is “inevitable” and “should happen – because no one should be in jail for a non-violent crime that involves a substance, especially one that’s naturally growing – potentially in your backyard”.
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Now, more thought needs to be put into access, he says. “Some have a lot more support… anything from having the resources to go to another country or see therapists or [pay] thousands of dollars for [legal treatment] centres. What about the people who don’t?
“My interest is in people having positive, safe experiences and I really believe that music is one of the most effective ways to help and guide people and democratise that. Because I can put a five-hour album called Music For Mushrooms on Spotify and it’s out there and people are going to it, just because of a title, they might decide to use that on a journey.”
However, he is aware psychedelics may not work for everyone. “It can be traumatic. These substances are not a panacea to solve any problem. It’s a tool. And it can also cause harm. And so I’m sort of a harm-reduction approach by bringing a tool like music into that space.”
At his shows, his partner, Marisa Radha Weppner, a trained psychedelic therapist in the US, plays a part in the experience to make it “more four-dimensional and immersive”, spraying scents and adding to the soundscape with bells and shakers. But she is also there to offer support if needed. “And maybe we have people in the room who are kind of like sitters, like psychedelic air marshals,” says Oswalt. “They’re kind of quiet, not obvious, but they’re there.”
But problems are extremely rare, he says, and heavy drinking is more likely to lead to difficulties at music gigs.
Plus, he points out, people are taking drugs of all kinds at gigs, festivals and on nights out all the time. “It’s not like this is unusual, right? I think the difference is we’re giving more care and support.”
In October 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint – with jewellery worth millions of dollars stolen during the audacious heist in Paris.
It was the biggest robbery of an individual in France for more than 20 years – and made front pages around the world.
Now, almost a decade on, the case is finally coming to court.
Why has it taken so long? Will Kardashian give evidence? And who exactly are the “grandpa robbers” facing trial?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What happened?
Two years after Kardashian and rapper Kanye West tied the knot in an ostentatious week-long celebration spanning Paris and Florence, the Kardashian-West clan were back in the French capital for Paris Fashion Week.
Her then husband had returned to the US to pick up his Saint Pablo tour – but Kardashian, along with her sister Kourtney and various members of their entourage, remained in Paris, staying in an exclusive set of apartments so discreet they’ve been dubbed the No Address Hotel.
Nestled on Tronchet Street, just a stone’s throw from Place de l’Opéra, and close to the fashionable Avenue Montaigne, the Hotel de Pourtalès is popular with A-list stars staying in the French capital.
A stay in the Sky Penthouse, the suite occupied by Kardashian, will currently set you back about £13,000 a night.
Kardashian was staying at the Hotel de Pourtales
On the evening of 3 October, after attending a fashion show with her sister, Kardashian remained in the apartment alone while the rest of her convoy – including her bodyguard Pascal Duvier – went out for the night.
At about 2.30am, three armed men wearing ski masks and dressed as police forced their way into the apartment block – and according to investigators, they threatened the concierge at gunpoint.
Two of them are alleged to have forced the concierge to lead them to Kardashian’s suite. He later told police they yelled at him: “Where’s the rapper’s wife?”
Kardashian said she had been “dozing” on her bed when the men then entered her room.
She has said she believes her social media posts provided the alleged robbers with “a window of opportunity”.
“I was Snapchatting that I was home, and that everyone was going out,” she said in the months after the incident.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star vividly described the attack in a police report, as reported in the French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“They grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They tied me up with plastic cables and taped my hands, then they put tape over my mouth and my legs.”
She said they pointed a gun at her, asking specifically for her ring and also for money.
Police guard the entrance to the Hotel de Pourtalès the day after the robbery
Kardashian says they carried her into the bathroom and put her in the bathtub. She said she was wearing only a bathrobe at the time.
She had initially thought the robbers “were terrorists who had come to kidnap me”, according to a French police report taken in New York three months after the robbery.
Kardashian told officers: “I thought I was going to die.”
According to police, the robbers – who left the room after grabbing their haul, escaped on bicycles with items estimated to be worth about $10m (£7.5m), including a $4m (£3m) 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring from West.
After they had left, Kardashian said she escaped her restraints and went to find help. After speaking to detectives, she immediately returned to the US on a private jet and later hired a completely new security team.
Kardashian shows off her $4m ring on Instagram
What was stolen?
As well as her engagement ring, Kardashian said the thieves took her large Louis Vuitton jewellery box, which she said contained “everything I owned”.
In police reports given to the French authorities at about 4.30am on the night of the alleged robbery, Kardashian listed these items as having been stolen:
• Two diamond Cartier bracelets
• A gold and diamond Jacob necklace
• Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz
• Yanina earrings
• Three gold Jacob necklaces
• Little bracelets, jewels and rings
• A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace
• A necklace with six little diamonds
• A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds
• A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross
• A yellow gold Rolex watch
• Two yellow gold rings
• An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry
Police recovered only the diamond-encrusted cross that was dropped by the robbers while leaving.
It’s likely the gold in the haul was melted down and resold, while the diamond engagement ring that is now so associated with the robbery would be far too recognisable to sell on the open market.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What will happen in court?
The hearing will begin at the Court of Appeal of Paris – the largest appeals court in France – on 28 April and is scheduled to last a month.
It will consist of a presiding judge, two professional assessors, and six main jurors.
The hearing involves more than 2,000 documents and there are four civil parties.
Kardashian at the Balenciaga show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Who is being tried?
There were initially 12 defendants in the case, but one person has died and another has a medical condition that prevents their involvement. This means 10 people – nine men and one woman – are standing trial.
Five of them, who were all aged between 60 and 72 at the time of the incident, face armed robbery and kidnapping charges. They are:
• Yunice Abbas
• Aomar Ait Khedache
• Harminv Ait Khedache
• Didier Dubreucq
• Marc-Alexandre Boyer
Abbas, 72, has admitted his participation in the robbery. In 2021, he published a book about the robbery, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian. In 2021, a court ruled he would not benefit financially from the book.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known to French crime reporters as “Old Omar”, has also admitted participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The remaining five defendants are charged with complicity in the heist or the unauthorised possession of a weapon. They are:
• Florus Heroui
• Gary Mader
• Christiane Glotin
• François Delaporte
• Marc Boyer
Among those, Mader was a VIP greeter who worked for the car company Kardashian used in Paris, and Heroui was a bar manager who allegedly passed on information about Kardashian’s movements.
With many of the accused now ageing and with various serious health conditions, and some having spent time in jail following their arrest, all are currently free under judicial supervision.
If found guilty, those accused of the more serious crimes could face 10 years to life imprisonment.
Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Will Kardashian give evidence?
Yes.
Lawyer Michael Rhodes said Kardashian has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and “wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case”.
A trainee lawyer herself, Kardashian has become a high-profile criminal justice advocate in the US in recent years.
(R-L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner in the front row three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Why has it taken so long to come to court?
There was initially a manhunt after the robbery, with French police under pressure to prove that Paris’s security was not in question.
Just the year before in 2015, the capital had been shaken by terrorist attacks by Islamic militants, in which 130 people were killed, including 90 at a music event at the Bataclan theatre.
French police initially arrested 17 people in the Kardashian case in January 2017 – three months after the robbery – assisted by DNA traces found on plastic bands used to tie her wrists. Twelve people were later charged.
It was ordered to be sent to trial in 2021 – at a time when limited court proceedings were happening due to multiple COVID lockdowns, and France was holding its largest ever criminal trial over the November 2015 terror attacks.
Kardashian at the Givenchy show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What has Kardashian said about the incident?
Kardashian has described the robbery as a “life-changing” moment. She took three weeks away from filming her reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and took a three-month break from social media.
In a March 2017 episode titled Paris, Kardashian first spoke publicly about her ordeal.
She described first hearing a noise in her apartment, and calling out, thinking it was her sister and assistant: “At that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense. Like, you know, your stomach just kind of like, knots up and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She went on: “They asked for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money’. They dragged me out to the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun, clear as day. I was looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs. I was like, I have a split second in my mind to make this quick decision.
“Either they’re going to shoot me in the back or if I make it [down the stairs] and the elevator does not open in time or the stairs are locked, there’s no way out.”
Three months later, she told a Forbes Power Women’s Summit she had changed her approach to posting on social media: “They had followed my moves on social media, and they knew my every move and what I had.”
She added: “It was definitely a huge, huge, huge lesson for me to not show off some of the things that I have. It was a huge lesson to me to not show off where I go.
“It’s just changed my whole life, but I think for the better.”
West and Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
In October 2020, Kardashian told US interviewer David Letterman she feared she would be raped and murdered during the heist, and that her sister had been at the forefront of her mind during the incident.
Speaking on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Kardashian said: “I kept on thinking about Kourtney, I kept on thinking she’s going to come home and I’m going to be dead in the room and she’s going to be traumatised for the rest of her life if she sees me… I thought that was my fate.”
When speaking to French police about the impact the robbery had had on her three months after it, Kardashian said: “I think that my perception of jewellery now is that I am not as attached to it as I used to be. I don’t have the same feeling about it. In fact, I even think that it has become a bit of a burden to have the responsibility of such expensive jewels.
“There is nothing of sentimental value to compare with the act of going home and finding one’s children and one’s family.”
She went on to describe Paris as “not the right place” for her, and didn’t return to the French capital for two years following the robbery.
Kardashian has since said in a 2023 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that she did not purchase any jewellery in the seven years following the robbery, kept no jewellery at her home and only wore items that are either borrowed or fake.
She said the realisation that material items don’t matter has made her “a completely different person in the best way”.
Entertainment
The Magic Circle’s first female member fooled them into believing she was a man – how did she do it?
How did one woman fool the most famous magic society on the planet?
Back in 1991, Sophie Lloyd pulled off the ultimate illusion, tricking the Magic Circle into thinking she was a man.
But over 30 years after being unceremoniously kicked out, the Circle has tracked down the former actress to apologise and reinstate her membership.
She told Sky News how returning feels like the society has “made good on something that was wrong”.
Sophie Lloyd, who tricked the Magic Circle into believing she was a man
How did she infiltrate that exclusive group that nowadays counts the likes of David Copperfield and Dynamo as members?
In March of that year, she took her entry exam posing as a teenage boy, creating an alter-ego called Raymond Lloyd.
“I’d played a boy before,” she explained, but “it took months of preparation” to secretly infiltrate the Circle’s ranks half a year before it would officially vote to let women in.
“Really, going back 30 years, men’s clubs were like, you know, just something you accepted.”
The men-only rule had been in place since the Circle was formed in 1905. The thinking behind it being that women just couldn’t keep secrets.
Aware of the frustration of female magicians at the time, Lloyd felt she was up for the challenge of proving women could be as good at magic as the men.
The idea was, in fact, born out of a double act, thought up by a successful magician called Jenny Winstanley who’d wanted to join herself but wasn’t allowed.
She recognised the hoax would probably only work with a much younger woman posing as a teenage boy, and met Lloyd through an acting class.
Sophie Lloyd as teenage magician Raymond Lloyd. Pic: Sophie Lloyd
Lloyd said: “We had to have a wig made… the main thing was my face, I had plumpers made on a brace to bring his jawline down.”
To hide her feminine hands, she did the magic in gloves, which she says “was so hard to do, especially sleight of hand.”
The biggest test came when she was invited for a drink with her examiner, where she had to fake having laryngitis.
“After the exam, which was 20 minutes, he invited Jenny and I – she played my manager – and I sat there for one hour and three quarters and had to say ‘sorry, I’ve got a bad voice’.”
Raymond Lloyd passed the test, and his membership certificate was sent through to Sophie.
Then, in October of the same year, when whispers started circulating that the society was going to open its membership to both sexes, she and Jenny decided to reveal all. It didn’t go down well.
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Rather than praise her performance, members were incandescent about the deception and, somewhat ironically, Raymond Lloyd was kicked out just before women members were let in.
Lloyd said: “We got a letter… Jenny was hurt… she was snubbed by people she actually knew, that was hurtful. However, things have really changed now…”
Three decades later the Magic Circle put out a nationwide appeal stating they wanted to apologise and Lloyd was recently tracked down in Spain.
While Jenny Winstanley died 20 years ago in a car crash, as well as Sophie receiving her certificate on Thursday, her mentor’s contribution to magic is being recognised at the special show that’s being held in both their honour at the Magic Circle.
Lloyd says: “Jenny was a wonderful, passionate person. She would have loved to be here. It’s for her really.”
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