Legal Psilocybin Retreat in the Netherlands: 3-Day Psychedelic Ceremony with Yoga, Breathwork and Integration

The retreat runs Friday to Sunday in a group, at one of two locations the organisation uses — Athanor and Samaya — both described as being in the middle of nature. You get guiding questions, best-practice notes and a simple optional diet to follow beforehand. If you are flying in from outside Europe, the advice is to arrive a day or two early to adjust to the time zone and Dutch weather before the retreat starts.

Day one is deliberately low-key. You turn up in the afternoon, meet the facilitators and the other participants, ask whatever you need to ask, and get familiar with the grounds. At 4pm the group sits down together to talk about intention, set and setting. Dinner is at 7pm and at 8pm there is an explanation of the ceremony and final preparation. That evening is about getting your head in the right place rather than doing much.

Day two is the long one. There is a morning practice — yoga and/or a body or breathwork session — at 8am so you can ground yourself in your body before anything else happens, then breakfast at 9am and a dedicated bodywork and breathwork session at 10am. The truffle ceremony begins at noon and the Essence Xperience Ceremony runs from 1pm, with the psilocybin session itself typically lasting around six hours. Facilitators are on hand the whole time at a ratio of one to five, all of them experienced with psychedelics themselves. Dinner is served at 8pm. Phones and outside contact are not part of this day — the point is to stay with your own experience.

Day three is integration, and the team treats it as the start of a process that continues for weeks or months rather than something you finish before you leave. Morning practice and breakfast at 8am, then a formal integration session at 10am where you work through what came up, lunch at 1pm, and goodbye at 2pm. Afterwards you are given a set of reflective questions and a journal, and strongly advised not to make major life decisions in the first few weeks. Most participants take around six months to fully integrate what came out of the ceremony.

What you actually get for the money is the facilitated ceremony itself with a high-dose psilocybin truffle dose, three days at the nature accommodation, vegan food throughout, the bodywork, yoga, meditation and transformational breathing sessions, preparation material before you arrive and integration guidance after, plus a Mindfold, a personal integration journal and a notebook. VAT is included. Travel to and from the venue is not.

The organisation has been running these since 2019 and says it has hosted over 2,250 participants from more than 30 countries. Reviews repeatedly name Karin and Willem, and also Sanne, Derk, Leslie and Marko, as the facilitators people remember. It is legal because it uses truffles (sclerotia) rather than magic mushrooms, which are illegal in the Netherlands; truffles can be bought and consumed legally there.

What's included

- 3-day stay at accommodation in the middle of nature - Facilitated psilocybin truffles ceremony with experienced facilitators - High-dose psilocybin truffles - Bodywork, yoga, meditation and transformational breathing session - Very healthy vegan meals throughout - Preparation guidance before the retreat - Integration guidelines and session after the ceremony - Mindfold - Personal integration journal and notebook - 21% VAT

What's not included

- Travel to and from the venue - Travel insurance - Any additional personal expenses