{"id":29558,"date":"2025-06-12T20:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T20:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29558"},"modified":"2025-06-12T21:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T21:30:07","slug":"amanda-feilding-countess-who-drilled-a-hole-in-her-head-dies-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29558","title":{"rendered":"Amanda Feilding, Countess Who Drilled a Hole in Her Head, Dies at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"
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She was ridiculed for drilling a hole in her skull to increase blood flow, but her foundation\u2019s research into the therapeutic use of counterculture drugs proved visionary.<\/p>\n

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Amanda Feilding, the Countess of Wemyss and March, who was a pivotal and eccentric figure in the movement to legitimize the study of psychedelic drugs for therapeutic purposes, died on May 22 at Beckley Park, her 16th-century estate near Oxford, England. She was 82.<\/p>\n

Her death, from liver cancer, was announced<\/a> by the Beckley Foundation, the organization she started in a cowshed on her moated property to fund scientific studies of LSD, magic mushrooms and Ecstasy, all of which she adored.<\/p>\n

Known as Lady Mindbender and the Crackpot Countess, Ms. Feilding once drilled a tiny hole in her skull to increase blood flow, a medieval practice called trepanning<\/a>. She believed that psychedelic drugs could be used to treat depression and other maladies, now a promising area of scientific study.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmanda was a bridge between the \u201960s era of psychedelics and this new therapeutic renaissance of psychedelics,\u201d Michael Pollan, the author of \u201cHow to Change Your Mind,\u201d<\/a> a 2018 best seller about the science of these drugs, said in an interview. \u201cShe was an essential motivating force in this field.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A descendant of aristocrats, Ms. Feilding grew up at Beckley Park, a 400-acre compound that her grandparents \u2014 close friends of Henry James and Aldous Huxley \u2014 bought in 1919. The property had once been the site of a hunting lodge for King Henry III\u2019s brother, and living there was a kind of fairy tale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms. Feilding grew up at Beckley Park, a 16th-century compound on 400 acres that her grandparents bought in 1919.<\/span>Richard Bloom<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Ms. Feilding in 2019. In the 1960s, she turned a cowshed on her property into the headquarters of a foundation dedicated to the scientific study of psychedelics.<\/span>Richard Bloom<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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She was ridiculed for drilling a hole in her skull to increase blood flow, but her foundation\u2019s research into the therapeutic use of counterculture drugs proved visionary.Amanda Feilding, the Countess of Wemyss and March, who was a pivotal and eccentric figure in the movement to legitimize the study of psychedelic drugs for therapeutic purposes, died on May 22 at Beckley Park, her 16th-century estate near Oxford, England. She was 82.Her death, from liver cancer, was announced by the Beckley Foundation, the organization she started in a cowshed on her moated property to fund scientific studies of LSD, magic mushrooms and Ecstasy, all of which she adored.Known as Lady Mindbender and the Crackpot Countess, Ms. Feilding once drilled a tiny hole in her skull to increase blood flow, a medieval practice called trepanning. She believed that psychedelic drugs could be used to treat depression and other maladies, now a promising area of scientific study.\u201cAmanda was a bridge between the \u201960s era of psychedelics and this new therapeutic renaissance of psychedelics,\u201d Michael Pollan, the author of \u201cHow to Change Your Mind,\u201d a 2018 best seller about the science of these drugs, said in an interview. \u201cShe was an essential motivating force in this field.\u201dA descendant of aristocrats, Ms. Feilding grew up at Beckley Park, a 400-acre compound that her grandparents \u2014 close friends of Henry James and Aldous Huxley \u2014 bought in 1919. The property had once been the site of a hunting lodge for King Henry III\u2019s brother, and living there was a kind of fairy tale.Ms. Feilding grew up at Beckley Park, a 16th-century compound on 400 acres that her grandparents bought in 1919.Richard BloomMs. Feilding in 2019. In the 1960s, she turned a cowshed on her property into the headquarters of a foundation dedicated to the scientific study of psychedelics.Richard BloomWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29560,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29561,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29558\/revisions\/29561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}