A psychedelic retreat proves a healing trip

Exploring the therapeutic benefits of magic mushrooms at a ceremony in Amsterdam

I'm at a weekend retreat in a converted church near Amsterdam. There is soft, celestial music playing and I'm sipping fresh herbal tea while discussing my hopes and fears for tomorrow's "ceremony", which is retreat parlance for a psychedelic trip. Consuming the truffle parts of magic mushrooms is permitted in the Netherlands and my nine fellow guests and I will be eating a variety called Dragon's Dynamite. We're not taking recreational drugs, but rather using psychedelics as self-exploratory and therapeutic "plant medicine". Welcome to the age of the psychedelic retreat.

Synthesis opened its doors in April 2018. It was co-founded by Martijn Schirp, a former poker player who found salvation through psychedelics. "I had my first mushroom trip nine years ago and that changed my life," he says. "I was walking through this forest and it was so peaceful, it was like a fairy tale. I felt this huge self-critical voice lift off me." He believes he'd still be estranged from his father if it wasn't for the perspective psychedelics have given him. His entrepreneurial mind saw that what was missing was a retreat with "medical supervision, private one-to-one coaching and professional standards in a modern context".