Stories & Facts
Retreat stories, team profiles, legal context, and real-world psilocybin facts from Retraite Eveil in the Netherlands.
Psychedelic churches and religious exemptions in the United States
Psychedelic churches in the United States sit at the intersection of religious liberty doctrine and controlled-substance law. This article stays with documented history and…
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Ethics of psychedelic media: filming participants and informed consent
Psychedelic media often films people at their most vulnerable and calls it storytelling. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather than sales…
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The Netherlands coffeeshop era and psychedelic tolerance: parallel histories
Dutch coffeeshop tolerance and psychedelic sclerotia retail are parallel histories, not the same legal story. This article stays with documented history and public sources…
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Women in psychedelic history: researchers, facilitators, and advocates
Public psychedelic history still over-credits charismatic men and under-credits women who did the work. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather…
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Cultural appropriation in psychedelic branding: a checklist for readers
Psychedelic branding often harvests Indigenous aesthetics while discarding Indigenous authority. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather than sales…
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Indigenous data sovereignty and psychedelic commercialization
Psychedelic commercialization increasingly treats Indigenous knowledge and biological materials as raw inputs. This article stays with documented history and public sources…
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Decriminalize Nature and local US reforms: map of city and state changes
U.S. city and state reforms around psychedelic plants and fungi are real, uneven, and widely misquoted. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather…
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The 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances and psilocybin scheduling
The 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances locked psilocybin into a global control architecture that still shapes national law. This article stays with documented…
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Timothy Leary, Harvard, and the split between research and counterculture
Timothy Leary became shorthand for both psychedelic possibility and scientific collapse. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather than sales…
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R Gordon Wasson's 1957 Life magazine article and its consequences
Wasson's 1957 Life essay made Mazatec mushrooms a mass-media event with a long blast radius. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather than sales…
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Mazatec traditions and psilocybin: what outsiders often get wrong
Outsiders often treat Mazatec mushroom practice as a generic shamanic template ready for export. This article stays with documented history and public sources rather than sales…
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Maria Sabina and the West: history, misrepresentation, and respect
Maria Sabina is often flattened into a Western psychedelic mascot rather than read as a Mazatec practitioner with a specific history. This article stays with documented history…
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Truffles and the 2008 Dutch mushroom ban: why sclerotia remained legal
In December 2008 the Netherlands criminalized fresh psilocybin mushrooms while leaving psilocybin-containing sclerotia on the commercial market. Parliament did not publish a pharma...
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Historical use of teonanacatl and sclerotia in Mesoamerican cultures
Teonanacatl is a Nahuatl term often translated as flesh of the gods. Spanish chroniclers and twentieth century ethnomycologists used it when describing psychoactive mushrooms in Me...
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Richard Ohebshalom: From Eastern Wisdom and the Phoenix Rebirth to Founder of Foundation
Richard Ohebshalom is a powerful example of how spiritual exploration, inner transformation, and daily choice of resilience can fuel exceptional business success and a lasting visi...
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Seasonality: Why Do a Psychedelic Retreat in Spring or Summer?
Nature follows precise cycles, and our body and mind naturally align with them. In spring, everything is reborn. In summer, energy reaches its peak. These two seasons offer a parti...
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The Legislation of Magic Truffles in the Netherlands: Everything You Need to Know
Magic truffles, also known as psilocybin sclerotia, occupy a unique place in the European legal landscape. In the Netherlands, they remain perfectly legal for cultivation, sale, an...
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The Phases of a Psilocybin Journey: Come-Up, Plateau, and Descent
A psilocybin journey, whether with magic truffles or magic mushrooms, generally follows a predictable progression through three main phases: the come-up, the plateau, and the desce...
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