Time & Leisure
Press
i newspaper
I took magic mushrooms for the menopause – they restored my joy
It’s a Tuesday afternoon in a Utrecht forest. I’m lying on a mattress in a sun-dappled studio, part of a group about to embark on a journey where our bodies remain stationary, but our minds travel to other places, other times. Soon, some of us are thrashing around, reliving the trauma of childbirth. Some are screaming on behalf of their oppressed female ancestors. One is muttering ‘f**king men’. All of us are crying. Sobbing. Howling, in fact. And yet some of us are also laughing. Life-affirming, uncontrollable hysterics. Every human emotion is being felt in this group of nine brave women. Read more >
Hip and Healthy
The Best Wellness Retreats
Retreats could well be the highest form of self-care. How often do you dedicate time solely to yourself? Between juggling work-life chaos, one of the only ways to truly unwind is by stepping off the hamster wheel and hitting the reset. As our lifestyles demand more and more from us, the retreat industry has evolved. What was once a relatively small market has come on leaps and bounds in the past 5 years, with every retreat option imaginable coming to fruition. Read more >
Evening Standard
The Beckley Retreat: a trip of a lifetime?
I’m sitting under tent canvas, eye-mask on, swaddled like a newborn in a linen blanket. There is a woman singing a Jamaican folk song somewhere in the distance and the air is perfumed with sage and incense. Time and space are abstract concepts and I’m overwhelmed by a deep feeling of surrender. I think I might be sobbing. Welcome to Jamaica’s Good Hope Estate, a 200-acre former plantation which is now also the home to the Beckley Retreats. Read more >
Financial Times
Amanda Feilding – The First Lady of LSD
A low mist is hovering above the fens on either side of the mile-long track to Beckley Park. This patchwork of marshland is said to have inspired Lewis Carroll’s mind-bending chessboard in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and on this eerie morning such strangeness tilts the perspective. The feeling is heightened by the knowledge that at the end of the path is a house not only steeped in intrigue dating back to King Alfred, but one whose current châtelaine, Amanda Feilding, has for almost 60 years been a passionate agitator in “The Psychedelic Renaissance." Read more >
The Times UK
How ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Helped Me to Face My Grief
I’m sitting in a room on a converted farm in the Dutch countryside 25 miles from Amsterdam with 15 people I have only just met when I am handed a cup of psychedelic truffles. I’d been curious about the mental health benefits of psilocybin — the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms and (some) truffles — for years, and had dabbled with microdosing. It had had a positive impact on my mental health, making me feel a bit lighter. Read more >
Vogue
Are Psychedelic Retreats the Future of Wellness Travel?
Statistics show incredible opportunity at the intersection of psychedelics and tourism, especially in the form of retreats. But why are people drawn to them in the first place? When looking at the data, the answer seems to be mental health. Read more >
Psychedelics Today
Combining Modern Science, Tradition, and Holistic Wellness
Interview with Co-Founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats, Neil Markey. Markey describes Beckley Retreats as comprehensive well-being programs, and talks about the importance of holistic wellness. He breaks down the details of the retreats and what they look for in facilitators, and tells a few success stories that really highlight how trauma, opposing ideas, and an infatuation with material objects and amassing wealth can all get in the way of real relationships and meaning. Read more >
Condé Nast Traveler
Psychedelic Travel Experiences Are More Popular Than Ever
Psychedelic retreats are becoming increasingly popular. Why now? Because a growing body of research into the therapeutic benefits of long-illegal psychedelic compounds is becoming widely available, making their therapeutic use less stigmatized for the first time. Read more >
Business Insider
100 People Transforming Business
The psychedelics industry is experiencing a renaissance, but Feilding is no stranger to the potential that compounds like psilocybin and LSD have for consciousness and mental health. Over the past 50 years, Feilding has helped to design and fund study after study through Beckley Foundation to better understand how psychedelic compounds work in the brain and how they can be used as medicines. Read more >
Well Intelligence
Whether leading or being led, get to know yourself
The first half of last year was overwhelm central. Later, a few things took shape that I hadn’t specifically planned for but knew without hesitation, they were gifted opportunities. I embarked on an eleven week psychedelic programme with Beckley Retreats followed immediately by a 42 day Mandala (a space for transformation) in India. Read more >
European Spa Magazine
Psychedelic Retreats: A Wellbeing Frontier
Psychedelic Medicine is heralded by some as the next mental health frontier. As our understanding of the possibilities around expanded consciousness grows, could this mark a shift change for the wellness industry? Read more >
Double Blind Magazine
Psychedelic Legend Amanda Feilding is Turning 80—And Her Retreats are Open for Business
Major players such as Beckley Retreats, co-founded by Amanda Feilding, are now offering psychedelic healing retreats in progressive locations like the Netherlands and Jamaica—countries that have swiftly, and officially in the latter case, unshackled hallucinogens ahead of the majority of the west. Read more >
Condé Nast Traveller
The rise of psychedelic retreats: the most intrepid, life-changing trip
So far, four weeks post-retreat, I feel calmer and clearer, my mood noticeably lighter – it’s as if a surgeon has excised a swamp from my brain. Life-changing? Very probably. Read more >
Country & Town House
Tripping with Truffles: Beckley Retreats
My ambition was to break my scarcity mindset around money. I liked the idea of busting my financial block without effort – thinking my way out of this conundrum had not been yielding results. So I signed up to Beckley Retreats, a sister organisation to the Beckley Foundation. Read more >
The Dales Report
Does Beckley Retreats Offer The World’s Best?
Today we take you through a transformative journey as we meet with Neil Markey, co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats. Beckley Retreats promises ‘a transformative journey that meets you where you are’ using psilocybin ceremonies in a supportive retreats setting. It’s considered one of the best psychedelic retreats in the world. Read more >
Trip On This Podcast
Army Ranger Veteran to Mushroom Retreats
Neil Markey is the CEO & Co-Founder of the Beckley Retreats in Jamaica. As an Army Ranger Veteran, Neil takes us through his time in the military, moving into the corporate world and how he ultimately met Amanda Fielding to co-create the Beckley Retreats. Read more >
Benzinga
Psychedelics 2024: Veterans Blessing, Mental Health Paradigm Shift, Providers Training, Ketamine-MDMA Bonds & More
Neil Markey, co-founder of Jamaica and Netherlands-based Beckley Retreats, sees psychedelics' use will likely evolve into "the betterment of the well.” Read more >
fDi Insights
Beckley Retreats’s mindful psychedelic pitch
There has been a surge of interest in the use of psychedelics as a tool to treat mental health disorders and for self improvement. Several retreats offering psilocybin ceremonies have sprung up in recent years to meet demand. Among them is Beckley Retreats, which runs programs in the Netherlands and Jamaica. Read more >
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