Amanda Feilding

Amanda Feilding, Lady Neidpath (born 30 January 1943) is a British artist and scientific director. She founded and directs a charitable trust, the Beckley Foundation, which does research in the field of human consciousness. The Foundation also organises seminars of world leading experts into the regulation of psychoactive substances on a global basis.

She studied Comparative Religions and Mysticism with Prof. R.C. Zaehner at Oxford University and later did extensive research into Psychology and altered states of consciousness. She gained notoriety in the early 1970s when she performed trepanation on herself, about which she made a short cult art film entitled 'Heartbeat in the Brain', shown only to invited audiences. During the 70s and 80s she painted, and produced conceptual artworks to do with consciousness, which were exhibited at PS1 in New York and other galleries in the US.

Feilding is the youngest child of Basil Feilding (himself a great-grandson of the 7th Earl of Denbigh) and his wife, Margaret. She grew up at Beckley Park outside Oxford. Since the late 60s she lived with Joseph Mellen with whom she had two sons, Rock Basil Hugo Feilding Mellen (b. 1979) and Cosmo Birdie Feilding Mellen (b. 1985). She and Mellen separated in the early 90s and on 29 January 1995, she married James Charteris, Lord Neidpath, son of David Charteris, 12th Earl of Wemyss and hence heir to the Earldom of Wemyss.

Feilding has always had a great interest in the exploration of different ways of modulating consciousness in order better to understand how these techniques can be used for the benefit of the individual and society.

Feilding and other advocates believe that trepanation allows greater blood flow to the brain by altering cranial fluid dynamics, thus revitalising brain metabolism to its more youthful level, present prior to the fusion of the cranial bones.Fact|date=April 2008

Feilding ran for British Parliament twice, on the platform 'Trepanation for the National Health' with the intention of drawing attention to the fact that its potential benefits should be scientifically investigated. 35 years later this research is taking place at the Sechenov Institute for Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, St. Petersburg.

Feilding is also the founder of the [http://www.trepanation.org/ Trepanation Trust] .

External links

* [http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/aboutus/amanda.html Biography of Amanda Feilding at Beckley Foundation website] .