believed that a MycoMeditations retreat is a suitable alternative to conventional mental health treatments
The five-day programme at Beckley includes two psilocybin ceremonies: six-hour inner journeys bookended by shamanic rituals of protection, gratitude and sharing. The first is the intricate kaleidoscope that purges a combination of detritus from the farthest reaches of my brain – the can-can dancing foxes – and old family hurts.
All our retreats include complimentary private secure transportation to and from the airport or local hotel/airbnb. Once you send us your travel information we send the info to our driver and he reaches out to you to coordinate the pickup. If you’re flying into PVR he will be there waiting with a sign with your name. Then he’ll bring you straight to our private gated facility where you’ll meet the team and begin your transformation!
The ceremonies were treated as sacred. They were serious yet playful. They were enhanced and guided with beautiful music and facilitation and provided such an opening to go deep inside, all the while being protected by our fully committed, loving facilitators. The space was SO safe on all levels.
I can’t say enough about the gentle, caring staff at Psilocybin Retreat Sanctum. Jorge and the staff are knowledgeable, honest, funny, and reverent in their approach to healing with psilocybin. They are the real thing. If you are on the fence, go for it. You will never regret your decision, and probably will want to return again and again. Thank you all so much for helping me regain my belief in me.
After decades in the wilderness, psychedelics are decidedly back, and their renaissance is well charted in Michael Pollan’s How to Change your Mind, now also a successful Netflix series. A new generation of scientists is aware of their “potential to heal mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, trauma, and addiction”, he writes. It’s heady stuff, but there’s just one problem: mushrooms are still illegal in most countries, except Jamaica, Nepal, Samoa, Brazil, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands and certain parts of North America. Retreats also happen openly in Mexico and Costa Rica where they enjoy a more ambiguous status. Under-the-radar sessions are popping up all over the UK and elsewhere, but most spas and retreat centres are, understandably, waiting for the legal green light.
Since 2018, many of our guests have contributed to the Ceremony Study conducted by the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. The study set out to measure how long participants reported positive impact from their psilocybin experience and broke new ground by including non-clinical providers in their research.
Mission Statement: At our organization, our aim is to introduce sacred psychedelics and ceremony into the wellness space. Additionally, we promote and provide a platform for many women healers working in this area by emphasizing Mexican spiritual traditions as well as modern applications of these plant medicines. We are well known for our lighthearted yet compassionate approach to serious, deep healing. In an atmosphere of support, we believe we can release deep traumas and bring joy back into life. Our retreats provide classes in mindfulness meditation and, when appropriate, utilize sacred teacher plants such as Ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, San Pedro cactus and cannabis as sacred teacher plants. Each retreat group consists of three guests for every leader ensuring an intimate experience that combines the sacred with the modern; traditional ways with fresh insights; divine with everyday living.
At Psilocybin Retreat Sanctum Method, our goal is to assist you in transitioning from feeling disconnected, anxious, and self-loathing into feeling empowered, present, and completely in love with yourself. You have all of the tools within yourself to change your life permanently; sometimes just a bit of love and support can go a long way towards real change.
Details of the Program
Psychedelic Integration is the process of exploring challenges and sharing insights gained during your ceremony. Any feelings, sensations or insights brought up during your retreat can be important in aiding healing; true healing takes place when we accept all our ideas and emotions fully while feeling safe to do so. Professional assistance during this phase can increase chances for long-lasting change; by taking part in integration we create new stories and patterns within ourselves that go well beyond just one ceremony itself.
As with any psychedelic drug, individual experiences will vary when psilocybin is administered. The higher the dose, the higher the chance of the experience feeling mystical. Should you have such an experience, these experiences tend to be filled with euphoria, transcending into a timeless, dream-like state, connecting to something greater, and more. Improved psychological outcomes are also related to the occurence of a mystical experience.
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Flowers, trees, birds, bees, animals are everywhere. Landscapes and sunsets of special magnificence appear. You breathe in the silence. Here you can just BE. You can hear the mountain speak to you in various ways… if only you are willing to listen.
“I didn’t experience much. But what I did get out of it was a feeling of community. I’d always felt like a black sheep in Canada. It’s not a normal conversation to want to explore the depth of your consciousness,” she said.
"You need to come here. People who have spent a lifetime in therapy or on various forms of antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds, please don’t give up and come to Myco. Life. Changing. Experience."
A macro dose of psilocybin is a profound experience that takes weeks to integrate. It becomes counterproductive to offer them back to back. Psilocybin creates an instant tolerance as well where your tolerance can double after a single experience. To create the best experience for our participants we offer 2x micro doses and 1x macro dose sessions. After this the focus is on integration of the transformational experience.
In our pursuit of a gold-standard retreat model, we have reviewed and adapted the best practices for psychedelic-assisted therapy from prestigious research institutes such as Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London. Combining this with beautiful natural environments, we offer a way to explore legal psilocybin-assisted therapy that is evidence-based and highly effective.
Researchers emphasize set and setting as crucial to the process; nothing prepared me for the astonishingly beautiful setting (which is undersold), loving hands, and thoroughly professional caring hearts provided by Jorge and her practitioners. I was at first skeptical about group ceremony instead of individual session protocols, but remaining open proved the right choice, as the medical and scientific effortlessly reconciled with the magical and spiritual. The resulting depth of emotional release is difficult to describe. I’ll settle for a quote from Alan Ball’s American Beauty: “…it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes, I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much – My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain.”
We’re eased in gently with early-morning yoga and meditation sessions. Walks in the surrounding forest are encouraged and the food is so light and bright you can almost feel your cells sing. “Set and setting” is a vital concept. The mindset you bring to the ceremony and the environment in which it takes place are carefully choreographed to minimise the possibility of a “bad” trip: we are looked after like kittens.
Daily guided meditation classes encourage the practice of present moment awareness and contribute to nervous system regulation.
The 8-day and 4-day retreats have the same outcome, an incredible, safe and profound transformation. We structured the 4-day retreat because many busy executives, lawyers, doctors, and business owners wanted to come to a retreat but didn’t have time in their schedule for an 8-day experience. If you look at our testimonials on the main page about half of them came to a 4-day retreat!ption
were satisfied with the support from MycoMeditations facilitators before, during, and after mushroom sessions
6 out of 5 stars. I originally wanted mainly to drag my husband with a number of issues and simply understand myself better coming into retirement after a very successful public career. The experience was transformational. For the first time I understood my life, my behavior and decisions and what I could let go of. I am facing the death of several loved ones with peace now. Not at all what I thought I was coming for. I sleep and function better. Although he might never admit it, my husband’s depression appears gone. The integration and processing of the experience incorporated into the retreat and after is critical to sustaining the transformational changes. There was an incredible amount of planning and thought into the retreat. Jorge is truly a shaman and the facilitators were deeply involved in the experience. I learned about this retreat from a family member and will be bringing other family members in future.
After being tipped off by a friend, Ms. Cohen, 62, traveled from her home in Milwaukee to Chicago to drink ayahuasca — a sludgy, psychoactive brew from the Amazon that ignites hallucinations while also inducing nausea. She arrived, carrying her own pillow and blanket, at a private house, where she was greeted by a shaman. In the living room, she curled up on a sleeping mat, and over the course of that one very intense night, went on a journey that mostly involved lying still.
The preparation, the accommodations, the food, the staff, the ceremonies (e.g. ‘trips’) is nothing short of stellar! The attention to detail, the extremely caring and attentive staff, the delicious food, the beautiful accommodations, and the group work we did in between the ceremonies all add up to something much greater than the sum of the parts.
Psilocybin-assisted therapy can provide an accelerated path to deep healing, new perspectives, connectedness, and feelings of well-being. 91% of our retreat guests consider their experience with us “positively life-changing.”
We use sacred psilocybin mushrooms to heal past traumas, unveil creativity and inspire gratitude. Live medicine music, sound bowl vibrations, calming meditations, and a judgement-free community surround our work. Take a safe, secure adventure into the most mystical area of the universe: your inner self.
Proponents of psychedelic retreats describe them as places of life-changing transformations, where the drugs are incorporated into day- or weeklong programs that involve preparation, the psychedelic experience itself, and then an integration process that can be applied for weeks and months after. Some retreat attendees recall moments of terror, pain and searing clarity. But for many, there is a common refrain: the drugs, for whatever reason, can kick-start real change in behavior or mental outlook after months or years of stagnation.
Bundled in blankets, I sip my cup of truffles crushed in hot water that smells and tastes like mushroom soup, pull down my blindfold and lie prone on my mattress. About 15 minutes later, intricate mosaic-like patterns start playing against my eyelids. A kaleidoscopic roller coaster follows, slaloming through time and space, interspersed with comic interludes: can-can dancing foxes and ancient Egyptian beagles. Old family hurts arise for healing and tears pour down my face.
As part of the Beckley ecosystem, Beckley Retreats is proud to build on the work of its co-founder, Amanda Feilding. Dubbed the “Queen of Psychedelics” by Forbes, Amanda founded the Beckley Foundation in 1998—a think tank and NGO dedicated to furthering psychedelic research and advocating for policy reform. At Retreats, we’re bridging the latest scientific research with ancient wisdom traditions in order to create the richest possible experience for participants.
Far away from your day-to-day in a beautiful place with wonderful people, the retreat is a powerful time for growth. We do two psilocybin ceremonies, breathwork, meditation and other transformational practices for an optimal experience.
"For over 30 years I have tried every available treatment to alleviate anxiety and depression. These past treatments were only bandaids as the inherent problems never really went away. Psilocybin got to the root cause. But what makes MycoMeditations work is the extraordinary group of support staff and the gorgeous natural environment."
“The amount of lives that I feel this has saved, and changed in a drastic, meaningful way, made me feel able to take that risk,” Ms. Schendel said. “The people who came in 2020 all felt like, ‘Yes, I know there’s a pandemic and I’m risking my life, but what I have been suffering from is so severe that I’m willing to take that chance.’”
This journey includes a visit to the enigmatic town San José del Pacífico, mainly renowned for one thing – the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe mexicana. This makes San José quite a popular travelers’ stop en route between Oaxaca city and the coast. Mushrooms or no mushrooms, San José has a touch of magic anyway and is a beautiful place.
“The entire cultural conversation around psychedelics has changed,” said Roland Griffiths, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. “And that’s a concern to me, because I think we’re underestimating the risks involved,” he said. “The retreat center question is, buyer beware.”
That sense of community was so stirring that Ms. Bromley is now living in Costa Rica as a digital nomad and attending multiple psychedelic ceremonies a month, where she takes a variety of substances, including psilocybin and kambo, a toxin secreted by tropical frogs.
Psilocybin, the psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms around the world, temporarily stands down the critical, judgmental, highly defended parts of the ego brain. Under this armistice, old memories surface and the mind expands beyond the confines of the body and into a wider, let’s say it, cosmic consciousness. The brain can liberate itself from the stranglehold of negativ- ity and new neural pathways are formed, a process known as neuroplasticity.
Rational words fail me for much of this serene, joyful healing experience. I spent about a year studying the psychedelic therapy renaissance, and it seemed too good to be true. My inner life was defined by decades of chronic, futile struggles – I could never seem to help myself or family, try as I might, or silence the unrelenting inner critic. This retreat experience has given me peace, and clarity on how to help others find their path, for the first time in my life.
Outdoor activities carry risks, and you may be exposed to dangerous situations as part of this experience. Make sure you can participate safely given your abilities and the conditions (such as location, weather, and equipment).
You will receive lifetime access to our alumni community as part of your retreat commitment. This ever-evolving community offers access to professional support and networking as you continue the process of your own psychedelic journey and personal development.
While further scientific studies are needed, the preliminary results reported by MycoMeditations guests are promising.
Our integration program includes group sessions, short daily practices, and science-backed techniques to help you sustain and integrate your retreat experience. Participants appreciate fostering an ongoing connection with their retreat group.
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Healthy, nutrient-dense meals allow the body to be nourished, cleansed, and fortified, supporting our experience with psilocybin.
“Psilo” is a shorthand for “psilocybin”, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms, also known as “magic mushrooms”. At Eleusinia Retreat, guests can participate in a psilocybin or “psilo” retreat ceremony where they consume psilocybin-containing mushrooms as part of their experience. This all-inclusive wellness retreat is designed to offer a safe and supportive environment for individuals to learn, understand and explore the potential benefits and limitations of psilocybin use with the guidance of experienced professionals.
To understand how the Sanctum is different, it is important to note that our program is different. We Prioritize the science and neurological benefits behind psychedelics, Psilocybin Retreat Sanctum distinguishes itself from other retreats which exclusively focus on potential spiritual or religious enlightenment. While the Sanctum recognizes the spiritual and religious enlightenment experienced by its clients, the Sanctum’s program also focuses on neuroplasticity, brain health, pain management, and personal growth. Along with teaching techniques and approaches for managing a psychedelic trip itself, the program also empowers guests to incorporate psychedelics into their wellness routine with independence and self-sufficiency. The community atmosphere promotes learning, growth, shared discussion, and general reflection while encouraging spiritual experiences. The program’s support extends well beyond the retreat itself, providing guests with a dedicated private network for communication, questions and discussion beyond the days of the retreat itself, along with updated articles, online classes, research links, and cultivation course videos. The Sanctums’s mission is to equip guests with the confidence, independence, and tools needed to manage their condition and goals independently, while continuing to receive support from doctors and family back home.
Psilocybin is the active ingredient in more than 200 species of magic mushrooms and truffles. Psilocybin-containing fungi grow in environments such as tropical and subtropical humid forests. They are also cultivated indoors by professional and amateur mycologists.
Although psilocybin and the fungi that contain it are still illegal in many parts of the world, the stigma surrounding their use is fading quickly due to the recent surge of positive research studies, anecdotal accounts, and companies championing the use of psychedelics.
Human beings have used psilocybin throughout history for spiritual and personal growth purposes. Ancient rock art in Algeria and Spain depicting mushroom use is estimated to be thousands of years old.
According to the “Stoned Ape Theory” originated by Terence McKenna, an American ethnobotanist and psychedelics advocate, the discovery of magic mushrooms about 200,000 years ago was responsible for birthing language, strengthening community, and the doubling in size of the human brain.
Psilocybin is widely regarded as a safe substance. In a 2010 study that ranked the safety of various drugs based on measurements of how a drug harms the individual and others, psilocybin was shown to be the safest out of 20 substances. It was a full 12x safer than alcohol and more than 4x safer than tobacco. Simple factors such as having a guide present and being in a quiet indoor or secluded outdoor area can ensure safety.
Many suffering from depression and anxiety have benefitted from using psilocybin in a safe setting with proper mental and emotional support. Those who commit to sitting with and developing curiosity about difficult emotions may enjoy tremendous growth and healing with the help of psilocybin. We have worked with countless journeyers whose mental health has improved after incorporating mushrooms into their lives.
Committing to a regular microdosing schedule for a few weeks or months can be a safe and effective start toward establishing long-lasting change. For some, positive results can manifest almost overnight. In contrast, for others, several days, weeks, or months are necessary for the benefits to become apparent. Developing one’s capacity to practice faith, fortitude, and patience amid difficulties is essential to the work.
We recommend taking a holistic approach when working through depression and anxiety, seeking to understand and work with these conditions rather than attempting to rid yourself of them. Along with taking mushrooms, developing a solid support network, establishing healthy routines, and practicing gratitude and generosity is vital.
We use mass spectrometry to test our items. We are happy to share lab reports and strain information upon request.
We prides itself on being a welcoming space for all, and not just those with certain medical conditions. While the program may have been originally designed to cater to individuals with chronic pain conditions, we believe this fact only adds to the level of care and attention we offer to our guests. Catering to individuals with medical conditions means that our Retreat places a premium on providing a safe, secure, and accessible environment to explore the benefits of psilocybin. Whether you’re looking to address a specific medical condition or simply seeking to enhance your overall wellness, Our Retreat offers a welcoming and supportive environment to help you achieve your goals.
At the Sanctum, we know the science behind the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties of psilocybin and can coach our visitors on how to leverage them for better health as part of a long term plan.