Beyond The Trip: Are Psychedelic Retreats Worth The Hype?
Peering behind the curtain of psychedelic retreats. Are they meeting expectations?
This article was originally written for another publication in early 2023. The story was recently killed, and is now shared, for the first time, here.
It’s a warm mid-December day in Little Bay, Jamaica. Outside, gentle Caribbean waves lap at a private, rocky cove beneath a cloudless sky. Inside the hotel, in a big room with all its doors and windows wide open, I lay on a flattened beach chair draped in a white sheet. Light cascades through the thin curtains on the window, but I wouldn’t know—for the last two hours, I’ve been wearing a black eye mask with my eyes tightly shut, curled up on this chair. I’ve been crying; my mascara, eyeshadow, and mucus make a kaleidoscope of colours on the ghost-coloured pillowcase. Three grams of Golden Teacher magic mushrooms in, I’m tripping hard. This is a lot for me.
I’m not alone. Five other unfolded beach chairs arranged in a semi-circle in the room surround me. Five other people are having their own experiences, their own trips. In the front of the room are three chairs. One is for our psychedelic facilitator. The other two are for the onsite registered nurse and an assistant trip sitter to watch over us.
We’re all at a psilocybin mushroom retreat at Coral Cove Wellness Resort, courtesy of Silo Wellness, a psychedelic retreat company offering psilocybin “ceremonies” in Jamaica. The retreats run for five days and four nights, with two psilocybin sessions during them.
Silo Wellness opened in 2018, the project of Oregon-based lawyer Mike Arnold. Coming from a background of complex criminal defence and commercial litigation, Arnold also has a lot of experience in Oregon’s cannabis industry. He’s defended cannabis farmers in both federal and state courts and has been involved in regulatory work such as cannabis license applications. He founded Silo Wellness the same year he tried psilocybin for the first time. During his trip, his problems seemed small and manageable. He felt wronged by the fact that he’d never known the medicinal powers of mushrooms before. As he came down, he had a thought: How do we get these into the hands of as many people as quickly and inexpensively as possible?
With the recent Goop-ification of psychedelics, psychedelic retreats have become a booming business. Though ayahuasca retreats led by Indigenous elders have been around for decades in South America, psilocybin retreats are a fairly new addition to the industry, having really only started proliferating in the last five or six years, and only in the few places where psilocybin is legal.
The Dutch group Synthesis hosted one of the more well-known psilocybin retreats, catering to a specific audience: “Not everyone who is interested in trying psychedelics wants to travel to the depths of the Amazon, lay on a mat for six days, and puke their guts up,” said founder Paul Austin in a 2018 Vice article. “Instead they want comfort, convenience, good quality food. They want a nice middle-class experience, rather than the bohemian one associated with ayahuasca.”
Synthesis offers legal retreats in Amsterdam focused on administering psilocybin truffles. Their retreat model was one of the first, and possibly a template for others: there are three group preparation online calls, two psychedelic ceremonies over five days, and three group integration calls. The accommodation can include shared bathrooms and rooms and cost ranges from 2,000-9,000 Euro.
(Writer’s note: After the initial writing of this, Synthesis Institute, which includes the Dutch retreats business and their Synthesis Institute's Psychedelic Practitioner Core Training, declared bankruptcy in March 2023, leaving students mid-training in limbo before being helped by RetreatGuru to continue the training. Read more about this here)
In Jamaica, where many psychedelics like psilocybin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, and ayahuasca remain unscheduled and therefore legal, a handful of companies compete for an ever-growing market. There’s Beckley Retreats (a winner at the 2022 Microdose Awards in Miami), MycoMeditations, Silo Wellness, Atman, Evo Retreats, Sophrodelic, Natural Mystic, and Zion, all of whom are spread out around the island. Retreat prices often soar into the thousands for getaways that range from four days to a full week. A typical offering covers shared accommodation, several meals a day, and a few extra benefits, such as a complimentary massage or, in the case of Costa Rican ayahuasca retreat Rythmia, a colonic cleanse.
New studies make headlines every day– “Magic mushrooms provide fast, long-lasting depression relief,” “Single Dose of Hallucinogen May Create Lasting Personality Change,” and so on. Still, as the psychedelic hype train gains ever more momentum, risk reduction falls to the wayside. Few articles are published about the dangers of psychedelic drugs, and the adverse effects that happen after taking them. Instead, we get headlines saying that psychedelics are “freakishly safe,” and the pursuant narrative that psychedelics are the “future of mental health treatment.”
Access to psychedelics remains legally ambiguous and often difficult for those who want to seek legitimate channels in North America, leading them to look elsewhere– namely, international psychedelic medicine retreats in countries that have not outrightly banned the substances, like Jamaica or Costa Rica. These retreats promise “miracles” and major mental benefits from psychedelics, setting attendees up with expectations– and expenses, with most running tabs of several thousands of dollars per week. Are psychedelic retreats really helpful, or do they just serve as an expensive vacation with the added bonus of some shrooms? Do people find benefit from attending just one, or is deeper, more constant work and psychedelic experimenting required to get the healing that’s advertised?
I admit, I came to Jamaica with some skepticism, but good intentions. Like the other hundreds of people who attend psychedelic retreats every year, I had my own internal demons to face, and I thought psychedelics could offer me a new way to look at them.
Leading up to the retreat, the subject line of one of Silo’s preparation emails offered a strong message: “10 days until surf, sun, and psilocybin healing.”
It’s easy to be critical of these retreats and of psychedelic tourism in general. “Psychedelic tourism can fairly be called “problematic,” wrote John Semley in a Buzzfeed News piece on a Silo-sponsored 5-MeO retreat. They can come off as dangerous, appropriative, and promising too much. It can also be risky to promote healing, especially when there’s no guarantee guests will receive it. Prior to the retreat, the facilitators and intake coordinators usually have limited time with the attendees—certainly, not always enough time to make a solid assessment of their mental state or to have a full catalogue of their trauma.
Silo claims to offer a relaxing atmosphere with mushrooms built in; a “safe and beautiful environment” where attendees can connect “nature’s most beautiful creation, human consciousness, back to itself.” The staff was careful to reiterate that mushrooms themselves are not a life-problem panacea and that Silo strives to provide the tools for people to heal on their own. “These are called ‘magic mushrooms,’ but they aren't some sort of magical cure,’” a statement on Arnold’s site reads. “We aren't selling miracles.”
Arnold says that the reviews and feedback he has received from the retreats have been “overwhelmingly positive,” and it isn’t hard to see why. For someone taking mushrooms for the first time, the emotions brought on by the trip, accompanied by the backdrop of the Caribbean, can be an incredibly striking experience.
Set and setting are the keys to a good psychedelic trip, as claimed by Western psychedelic pioneer Terence McKenna and reiterated by Michael Pollan, this generation’s main psychedelic thought leader. In Jamaica, the “setting” is easy to come by—the Coral Cove Wellness Resort, where Silo hosts its retreats, boasts a beautiful, private, and serene atmosphere. When we came out of our first psilocybin “ceremony,” we were greeted by a stunning sunset. The following morning at breakfast, we saw dolphins playing in the cove. The set—mindset, that is—is up to the attendees. We’re encouraged to enter the experience without any expectations, but this proves to be difficult, as the Silo website offers testimonials that share extreme connections to nature and internal changes that other attendees have experienced.
For between $6,000 and $7,000 CAD, Silo offers three preparation calls with their team prior to attending the retreat (that is, if you are approved for it with a screening call), and three integration calls afterward with a separate coach and the facilitator, who was at the retreat. All the calls are done in a group setting, and one-on-one time with the facilitator at the retreat is limited, as they often split their time between up to 15 participants. The constant difference and rotation between who folks talk to can can create a disjointed and awkward experience.
Our facilitator was on only the third preparation call, yet we were expected to trust her with a vulnerable state of being upon our arrival. Similarly, just minutes before we took the first dose, we were introduced to a trip sitter we had never seen before. The potential peace of the experience was disturbed by the constant coming and going of other resort guests, despite promised privacy, and the extreme vulnerability expected. Perhaps for some, this can be comforting. Some folks want to share and want to talk to people who don’t know them and don’t have any predisposed ideas about who they are. If this is the case, retreats like this can be comforting, but for people who need a bit more context before sharing their personal traumas, being asked to reveal their intention for the trip right after icebreaker introductions can be jarring.
Despite the word “ceremony” being used to describe the dosing, the moment of consumption was fairly unceremonious and abrupt. We all took our mushroom chocolates and capsules with water, awkwardly wished each other a happy journey, and went to lie down in our flattened beach chairs with our eye masks on, waiting for the trip to begin. For the majority of the group, it was their first time with psychedelics.
The day after the first ceremony, across the street from Coral Cove, I met Angela [a pseudonym], a local Jamaican woman who came inside the property sometimes to sell bracelets to the guests. I had curried her favour a day before by purchasing a couple of them and not asking for change. Now, I spoke to her frankly, asking her what she thought about the retreat, about the constant stream of (mostly white) people coming in to take the mushrooms.
Angela was critical, saying that she felt sometimes wealthy white people came in and treated the resort staff and herself poorly. She questioned how the community around the resort benefited from the program, knowing how much money people spent to attend and what that money could mean for her and her family.
Silo’s website doesn’t reveal the hiring of any local Jamaicans. In fact, the only local people seen during the retreat were staff at Coral Cove. Everyone affiliated with Silo, despite living in Jamaica, was not from the island. When asked about integrating with the community and whether Silo had worked with Coral Cove for long, Arnold said that even though he loved the staff and that the resort was aligned with plant medicine, Silo has “bounced around a lot” on the island when looking for a home, as during COVID, “it was an interesting opportunity because there was lots of available real estate,” giving them “wider selection.”
I asked Angela if she had ever taken mushrooms, and she replied she hadn’t. Mushrooms in Jamaica are too expensive, she says –—a gram is sold at $1,500J to Jamaicans, just under $10 USD.
The price of psychedelic retreats alone raises an ethical question: Should access to mushrooms that grow freely all over the world and have been used by people’s ancestors for thousands of years be locked behind an exorbitant price tag? If the healing powers of psilocybin are so valuable and incredible, and if one believes that people can and should benefit from them, how does one justify a price tag that severely limits who can attend a retreat?
“That’s a hard one,” Joel Brierre told me. He’s the founder and CEO of Kaivalya Kollectiv and Tandava Retreats, focusing on working with 5-MeO-DMT in Tepoztlan, Mexico.
“We want to lower prices, but our overhead costs are so high,” he said, acknowledging that their prices for retreats are on the higher end, starting at $4,495 USD for smaller sessions (though they do have a larger group option starting at $2,995 USD). Tandava does offer a full-ride scholarship for low-income people who want to attend a retreat, though. Interested attendees can apply—Brierre says they’ve only turned away one person.
Eric Osbourne, co-founder of MycoMeditations, believes that the cost of most retreats “is reasonable in regards to the cost of the operation.”
“It’s not cheap to run a retreat,” he told me. “It’s a business. It needs to make money.” MycoMeditations is one of the better-known retreats on the island, with a large amount of media coverage and prices starting at $4,300 USD for a double occupancy setup.
As of 2020, Osbourne is no longer with MycoMeditations, having sold his stocks, moved back to Kentucky, and started a psychedelic church called Psanctuary that’s now training and ordaining psychedelic ministers with the goal of “empower[ing] people to work with the medicine themselves.”
“A single session should cost people no more than a thousand dollars, and really no more than three or five hundred,” Osborne says.
Meanwhile, Arnold claims Silo wants to give people access to psilocybin “inexpensively” and has started sharing a “sliding scale” pricing system for some filmed retreats. Additionally, Silo offers a low-cost version of the retreat with a microdosing option instead of a full dose, which can vary anywhere from two grams up to seven or even more.
“It’s not a profitable industry for us right now,” Arnold says. “If you want to make this retreat perfect, everyone should have their own therapist. The conflict is being available to the masses, trying to find that sweet spot.”
The introduction of the microdosing retreat brings a new question: Without the experience and potential benefits of a full dose of psilocybin and the following therapy involved, why would one go all the way to Jamaica when one could just as easily do the drugs at home?
For some, the legal barrier is too strong to resist, and they prefer to consume the shrooms (and other psychedelics) in a country or jurisdiction where they won’t be in fear of the police or potential legal repercussions. For others, the retreat setting is also a huge benefit. Similarly, those who are new to their psychedelic journey might find more comfort in the guided group setting of a retreat away from home.
“I think retreats are important for people who are beginning their psychedelic medicine journey and want to explore it in a non-medicinal setting,” said Matt Zemon, psychedelic author and investor who’s attended many retreats on his own. “I think most people are pretty wise to be cautious.”
For many people, access to psilocybin can also be a huge barrier, as is the nervousness around taking psychedelics in general. A safe container to do it can ease a lot of nerves—but not all retreats are made equal.
In a poorly managed retreat, the risks can be huge. According to Brierre, psychotic breaks, destabilization, and death are possible, and all three have happened, perhaps referring to the ayahuasca-induced 2016 stabbing in Peru involving a Canadian and a Brit.
This could happen from lack of preparation, improper medicine sourcing and storing, or poor screening on behalf of the retreat, among other reasons.
Elizabeth Bast, co-founder of Costa Rica-based SoulCentro Retreats, which specializes in working with iboga, says, “Providers have a responsibility to have the highest safety screening” for attendees.
At Silo, I was approved to attend the retreat after a one-hour call with Dr. Parag Bhatt, in which he asked me a few questions about my mental health and any medications I was taking. He asked me to stop taking ashwagandha supplements as they could heighten the effects of the psilocybin, and I was good to go. I didn’t have to do any tests or provide any documents. My word was enough.
In a 2020 interview with The Gleaner, Osborne admitted that 40 percent of MycoMeditations’ retreat participants suffered “ill effects” and that a few had “neared the risk of self-harm.”
“Working with individuals who were depressed beyond words, suicidal, there have been a number of instances where those people require a very high dose to get to where they need to go,” he told me over the phone. “If they don’t get that dose, if a facilitator isn’t skilled or experienced enough to know what the attendee needs, they can leave a retreat more depressed, in more despair than when they came.”
“There have certainly been instances with people who took psychedelics for therapeutic purposes and didn’t have the experience they hoped for and they ended up committing suicide,” he continued.
Osborne believes these tragic deaths can be prevented with well-trained facilitators who are “highly experienced” with the psychedelics themselves. “It’s crucial to have a lot of experience under your belt before you start taking responsibility for other people,” he said.
Bast agrees: regardless of the psychedelic you’re working with, “extensive experience,” which can look like apprenticing and watching over more than 100 sessions, is necessary, she says.
While many facilitators certainly do have that experience, it’s also possible that the growing number of new graduates from newly established psychedelic facilitator training programs like InnerTrek have little to no experience whatsoever.
The new industry of psychedelic session facilitator trainer can be a risky one to explore—the industry is so new and therefore so unregulated that claiming that within a few weeks or months, one can graduate with a “certificate” in psychedelic session facilitation can be a bit ludicrous.
Moreover, new psychedelic facilitator courses are adding massive costs to providers – InnerTrek costs $8,500 USD and renewing a psychedelic therapist license costs $10,000 a year. While it seems like more and more people are getting trained in how to share the medicine, the rising costs are making it less and less accessible.
In other potentially risky moves, some retreats offer group sessions hosting up to 30, 60, or even 80 people, which in itself can be dangerous. A single facilitator cannot be present and realistically give the same amount of care and time to each person. Even smaller groups can suffer as facilitators strive to talk to everyone and get to know a group in a fairly short amount of time.
“When you have 24 people sitting in a ceremony, how much time do you really have with these people?” said Melissa Maz, a harm-reduction nurse in British Columbia, Canada.
Osborne also raised concerns about what happens when a retreat ends. “A major shortcoming of these retreats is that you bring 15 people from around the country, they have an incredible time, and then they go back home and don’t have any support,” he said.
Bast seconds this.
Three months after taking the medicine is a time of “sacred integration,” she says.
SoulCentro offers three months free of support materials for retreat visitors to refer back to, whether it’s literature, reading, follow-up calls, yoga classes, and more.
Nimi, a retreat visitor who prefers to go by her first name only, recalls an instance of a retreat gone wrong, where she’d left feeling frightened and unsupported.
In 2020, she visited a well-known ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, paying over $5,000 for a week. The experience proved “traumatic;” she describes a “cult-like” feeling at a “compound” surrounded by barbed wire that was marketed as a five-star resort. In addition to paying for the stay, she also had to pay $500, upon arrival, in cash, for the ayahuasca.
Nimi, a woman of colour, says that “everybody who worked there was white.”
The day of the first “ceremony,” she says the retreat owner had already given attendees a “notion of what to expect.”
After her first “deep and intense trip” on ayahuasca, she was told by the attendants, “You’re healed now.”
Back in her room, Nimi said her roommate had a psychotic break and was making “crazy sounds.” Nimi, feeling unsafe about staying in the same room as her and noting that there were “no medical people coming to help her,” stayed in her boyfriend’s room, who had been sleeping in the same room as his brother. After the staff found out she moved rooms, she was scolded.
She describes entering psychosis for a week after leaving, claiming the retreat centre hires anybody who calls themselves a “shaman” and is less concerned about healing and more about “efficacy rate.”
“I think this whole renaissance with psychedelics is dangerous,” she says.
Nimi left the retreat early in distress and didn’t get any follow-up care.
“I didn’t have the right integration. They didn’t try to make it better.”
While Silo and other companies do tend to offer some over-the-phone group aftercare in the weeks after a retreat, they aren’t always tailored or private.
In my group calls with the integration specialist after my retreat with Silo, I didn’t chat too much. Admittedly, I hadn’t done much of the integration work that was asked aside from journaling, and since nobody I knew in person had just come from a similar experience, I felt like an island, alone on my trip. The calls themselves were stifled and awkward, and I still didn’t know the people from the retreat well enough to share the details of my personal life with them. The things that I did reveal, I didn’t want to revisit.
Do I feel different after the retreat? Sure, a large dose of mushrooms will do that to you. Can I credit Silo or the facilitator with any long-lasting changes in my psyche or mood? At this stage, I have to say no.
The potential benefits of psychedelics and psychedelic therapy cannot be denied. The numbers are right there, with hundreds and thousands of people reporting less anxiety and depression after both micro and macro doses. People make real, life-changing decisions after taking psychedelics. There are studies that suggest psilocybin might help with alcohol dependency disorder, anorexia, ADHD, and more. Beyond the medical, psychedelics also just help people feel better. Moods are lifted; creativity is heightened. Artists swear by shrooms in the studio, and microdosing has become almost as common as having a glass of wine after dinner to take the edge off. That said, psychedelics are not the end all, be all, and it’s possible these retreats function only as trippy vacations for those who can afford them.
Despite the fact that the onus should be on the companies organizing the retreats to hire experienced, well-intentioned people and to create “safe containers” for internal work, the responsibility often falls on the customer and their own research.
“It’s so subjective. It’s completely unpredictable,” says Osborne, making a lot of the promises that psychedelic retreats make ones that they can’t necessarily cash in. People enter with expectations and leave disappointed, having spent thousands and not always leaving feeling any different.
The psychedelics industry is booming, and people are willing to invest in it from all sides. People want healing, alternative thinking, and something that feels more natural and real. You can find out in Jamaica, or Costa Rica, or Mexico. Wellness is available—for a fee.
Sofie Mikhaylova is a psychedelics, pop culture, and travel writer, among other things. Her writing has appeared in Vice, leafie, Psychedelic Spotlight, The Washington Post, Fodor's Travel, Double Dot Magazine, and more. Find her on Instagram, her newsletter Sofieland, her podcast Sofieland, and her website.