Amanda Feilding
| Amanda Feilding | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 January 1943 |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Lady Neidpath |
| Occupation | Drug policy reformer, neuroscience researcher |
| Known for | Beckley Foundation |
| Notable work | Heartbeat in the Brain |
Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, is an English drug policy reformer. In 1998, she founded the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust that promotes a rational, evidence-based approach to global drug policies and initiates, directs and supports pioneering neuroscientific and clinical research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and cognition. The central aim of her research is to investigate new avenues of treatment for such mental illnesses as depression, anxiety and addiction, as well as to explore methods of enhancing well-being and creativity.
Feilding is the youngest child of Basil Feilding, great-grandson of the 7th Earl of Denbigh and the Marquess of Bath, and his wife and cousin, Margaret Feilding. The Feilding family is descended from the House of Habsburg and came to England in the 14th Century. (Despite almost certainly being of Warwickshire origin, in the middle of the seventeenth century following their elevation to the aristocracy, the Feilding family began to claim descent from the Habsburgs through the counts of Laufenburg and Rheinfelden. The claim, though widely accepted at one time, including by the historian Edward Gibbon, was also the subject of ridicule. It was comprehensively debunked at the start of the twentieth century. (J H Round (1901). Studies in Peerage and Family History. p. 216.)) Since then the family intermarried into the British aristocracy and is directly descended from two illegitimate</ref> children of Charles II of England and his mistresses Barbara Villiers and Moll Davis. She grew up at Beckley Park, a Tudor hunting lodge with three towers and three moats situated on the edge of a fen outside Oxford.
From an early age, Feilding was interested in states of consciousness and mysticism. She studied Comparative Religions and Mysticism with Prof. R.C. Zaehner, Classical Arabic with Prof. Albert Hourani and sculpture.citation needed She concentrated later on learning about altered states of consciousness, psychology, physiology and, later, neuroscience.
...
Wikipedia