Psilocybin Retreat in Colombia
A psilocybin retreat in Colombia with Harmonica is a guided mushroom ceremony near Medellín, offered as a public group ceremony or as a private booking.
What People Report from a Mushroom Ceremony
Nobody can promise you an outcome. These are the things participants describe most often, and a report is not the same thing as a result.
Laughter That Loosens Something
Mushrooms often teach through laughter, and in a group the laughter spreads. People describe it as a lighter door into something heavy.
Emotional Release
Crying, shaking, one long exhale. Participants often describe putting down something they had been carrying for a while.
Contact with Your Inner Child
Mushrooms are called Niños Santos, the Holy Children. People describe meeting a curiosity in themselves they thought was gone.
A Different Angle on an Old Problem
Many describe seeing a situation they were stuck in from somewhere outside their usual way of thinking about it.
Material for the Homework
The comprehensions that land in ceremony only change a life if you act on them afterwards. That part is yours.
Group Ceremony or Private Booking
The Public Group Ceremony
The public group ceremony is a scheduled mushroom ceremony you join together with other participants. You book a place, you arrive with people you have not met, and you sit through the night in the same room as them.
There is a good reason to want that. Mushrooms often teach through laughter, and laughter in a group is contagious in a way it never is when you sit alone. Something loosens when the person beside you is going through their own thing at the same time. A mushroom ceremony also tends to run looser than an ayahuasca night. Conversation can happen. The music is more varied and sometimes comes through speakers rather than being sung live.
It can also be that a group is exactly wrong for you. If you are in the middle of a crisis and you know you will need somebody sitting beside you for hours, a group divides the facilitator’s attention. It can also be that you are the kind of person who performs for a room, and then you spend the night managing how you look instead of looking at yourself. And it can be that you simply do not relax around strangers. That is not a shortcoming. It is information.
So, two types of people, roughly. The one who opens up faster when others are around, and the one who closes down. You probably already know which one you are. If you do not, say that out loud on the free 30 minute consultation and we work it out together. The ayahuasca calendar is public on the upcoming ceremonies page. Mushroom dates are not on it, so ask for them on the call.
The Private Booking
Harmonica runs its ceremonies as a public group booking or a private one. A private booking means the ceremony is yours. You, or you and the people you choose to bring, and nobody else in the room.
The ice bath, the cacao ceremony, the breathwork, the chakra work and kambo run both ways too. They are all on our spiritual events in Medellin page.
People go private for different reasons. It can be that you want your partner or one close friend beside you and nobody else. It can also be that your situation is specific enough that a group schedule does not fit around it. It can also be that you are a private person about this and you do not want to sit in a circle explaining yourself to strangers. All of those are fine and none of them needs defending.
A private booking buys you attention. In a group, a facilitator is watching everybody. Privately, that is not the case. If you are somebody who freezes and goes quiet instead of asking for help, that difference matters more than it sounds on paper.
What is included and what it costs depends on what you want around the ceremony, so it gets agreed on the call instead of guessed here. Harmonica already runs bookings this way for the private ayahuasca retreat. Bring your questions to the free 30 minute consultation.
What a Psilocybin Retreat in Colombia Costs
Why the Number Comes on a Call
Harmonica does not publish a price for the psilocybin ceremony. The retreat packages and the private ayahuasca retreat both carry a number on their own pages because they have a fixed shape. A mushroom booking does not. A group place and a private booking cost different amounts, and what you put around the ceremony moves the number again.
So compare operators on what is included rather than on the headline figure. Ask how many ceremonies you get, how many nights, whether accommodation and food are in, whether preparation and integration support are in, and how many people will be in the room with you. Two retreats with the same price tag can be completely different products.
You get the real number, for your dates and your format, on the free call. Jenna Ram runs those calls at Harmonica. She is a facilitator here and she leads the integration calls. That conversation has four things it is built to cover, and one of them is whether this is right for you at this moment in your life. Bring that one to the call before you bring anything else. Book the free 30 minute consultation.
Ask Your Questions on a Free 30 Minute Call
What a Psilocybin Ceremony Is
A psilocybin ceremony is a guided session where you take mushrooms with an intention, in a prepared space, with people whose job is to hold that space while you go through it. The mushroom does its own work. The room and the people in it decide how usable that experience is afterwards.
Psilocybin is the compound in the mushrooms. Your body converts it to psilocin, which is what acts on the serotonin receptors in your brain. Long before anybody isolated a compound, mushrooms were used ceremonially in Mesoamerica. The Mazatec of Oaxaca call them Niños Santos, the Holy Children, and that name tells you something about how they behave. Playful, sometimes mischievous, and not always taking your seriousness as seriously as you take it.
A mushroom experience commonly runs four to six hours from the point it comes on, and the ceremony around it runs longer than that. Most of it happens with your eyes closed and your body still, although not all of it. Talking can happen, and sometimes talking is part of the healing. It can also become a way to avoid the exact thing you came to look at, which is why a facilitator watches the room and steps in when the chatter turns into hiding.
Psilocybin is also being studied in clinical settings, and that research is worth knowing about without reading too much into it. In 2021 the New England Journal of Medicine published a trial by Robin Carhart-Harris and colleagues that compared two doses of psilocybin against six weeks of escitalopram in 59 people with moderate to severe depression. On the trial’s primary measure the two treatments did not separate. Read the trial.
In 2022 the same journal published a phase 2 trial by Guy Goodwin and colleagues in 233 people with treatment-resistant depression, comparing single 25 mg, 10 mg and 1 mg doses alongside psychological support. The 25 mg group showed a larger drop in depression scores at three weeks than the 1 mg group, and the authors also reported adverse events including headache, nausea and suicidal ideation. Read the trial.
Both of those were supervised clinical trials with screened participants, measured doses and trained staff. They are not a description of a ceremony and they are not a promise about you.
Psilocybin and Ayahuasca Are Not the Same Medicine
Mushrooms are a fungus. Ayahuasca is a brew made from at least two plants, and it teaches in a different way. The full comparison sits on our ayahuasca vs magic mushrooms page. Four differences matter most while you are choosing.
- Ayahuasca often teaches through crying and mushrooms often teach through laughter. Both are release. They arrive through different doors.
- Purging is common with ayahuasca and much less common with mushrooms. If the vomiting is the part that puts you off, that is a real difference and not a small one.
- An ayahuasca ceremony is quiet and inward, with people mostly lying down. A mushroom ceremony is looser, and movement and conversation have more space in it.
- Ayahuasca gets described as a grandmother. Old, patient, stern when she needs to be. Mushrooms get described as children. Playful, cosmic, much less impressed by how serious you are.
Which one you do first depends on you. Starting with ayahuasca means you are inside a ceremony and held by people who have done this many times, from the very first night. Starting with mushrooms can be a gentler way to build a relationship to yourself in an altered state before you meet something stronger. Neither order is wrong. Pick the one that matches where you are right now.
Do not stack them. Two strong psychedelics in one night raises the intensity and the physical load at the same time, and careful operators keep the medicines separate.
Screening, Preparation and Integration
Screening comes before everything else, and it is the part a careless operator skips. The entry point at Harmonica is a free 30 minute call with a facilitator. An optional medical consultation before the ceremony is part of what Harmonica offers on its ayahuasca retreats. If you want one around a mushroom booking, ask on the call.
Tell the truth on that call. It sounds obvious. People still leave things out because they are afraid of being turned away, and then they sit in a ceremony with something in their history that nobody in the room knows about. Say what medication you take, all of it. Say what your psychiatric history is. Say what you drink and what you smoke and how often, because that changes things as well.
Who Should Not Do This
Some people should not sit in a mushroom ceremony, and some should not sit in one right now. Talk to a doctor before you book anything if any of these apply to you:
- A personal or close family history of schizophrenia or psychosis.
- Bipolar disorder, particularly bipolar I.
- Psychiatric medication, including SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs and lithium. Some interact, some flatten the experience, and coming off them is a decision for your doctor and not for a retreat.
- A heart condition, uncontrolled high blood pressure, or a history of seizures.
- Pregnancy.
No checklist catches everybody. Somebody in acute crisis needs a doctor or a therapist this week, not a ceremony in three months. If that is you, get the immediate help first. The ceremony will still be there afterwards, and you will be in a much better state to use it.
How to Prepare
Preparation is less about a strict diet and more about arriving with a level of calmness and a clear reason for being there. The practical part is short.
- Cut alcohol and recreational drugs for at least a few days before. A week is better.
- Eat light on the day, and follow whatever fasting instruction you are given for your specific ceremony.
- Write down your intention, and then write down what you are afraid of finding. The second one is usually the more useful piece of paper.
- Clear the two days afterwards. Not one day. Two.
And lower your expectations without lowering your seriousness. People arrive having built a whole film in their head about what the night is going to give them, and then they spend the ceremony comparing what is happening to the film. By reducing that level of expectation you create a level of calmness before you even arrive.
Integration
Ceremony without integration rarely changes a life. The comprehensions land in the days and weeks afterwards, and then you either act on them or you do not. Nobody else is responsible for that part, and neither is the mushroom.
Practically, write the same evening or the next morning, before the memory tidies itself into a nice story. Pick one change and do it inside a week, a small one you can finish. Talk it through with somebody who has done this work rather than with everybody you know. Our ayahuasca integration guide goes through this properly and it applies to a mushroom ceremony just as well.
At Harmonica, Maria Alejandra sings and plays in ceremony and also helps with integration and energy work before and after a retreat. Harmonica hosts over 30 retreats a year, so people from very different lives come through, and the facilitation happens in English or Spanish.
Two more pages worth reading before you book anything: are psilocybin retreats legal and psilocybin retreats by country. Anything specific to your own situation gets answered on the free consultation call.
Talk It Through on a Free Call
Questions About a Psilocybin Retreat in Colombia
Frequently asked questions
How much does a psilocybin retreat typically cost?
Harmonica does not publish a price for the psilocybin ceremony, and you get the number for your dates and your format on the free 30 minute call. Across the wider field, published retreat prices vary a lot and what they include varies even more, so compare on inclusions: how many ceremonies, how many nights, whether accommodation, food, preparation and integration support are part of it, and how many people are in the room.
Can I book a private psilocybin ceremony instead of joining a group?
Yes. Harmonica runs its ceremonies both as a public group ceremony and as a private booking. A private booking means the only other people in the room are the ones you bring. What is included is agreed on the consultation call.
Is a mushroom ceremony the same as an ayahuasca ceremony?
No. Ayahuasca is a brew of at least two plants and the ceremony is quiet and inward, with purging common and release often arriving through crying. A mushroom ceremony runs looser, movement and conversation have more space, and release often arrives through laughter. See our ayahuasca vs magic mushrooms comparison for the full breakdown.
Who should not do a psilocybin ceremony?
Anyone with a personal or close family history of schizophrenia or psychosis, anyone with bipolar disorder, anyone taking psychiatric medication such as SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs or lithium, anyone with a heart condition, uncontrolled high blood pressure or a history of seizures, and anyone pregnant should talk to a doctor before booking. Somebody in acute crisis needs immediate clinical help first, not a ceremony.
How long does a mushroom ceremony last?
A psilocybin experience commonly lasts four to six hours from the point it comes on, and the ceremony built around it runs longer than that. The exact schedule for a specific ceremony is confirmed when you book.
How do I prepare for a psilocybin ceremony?
Cut alcohol and recreational drugs for at least a few days beforehand, eat light on the day and follow the fasting instruction you are given, write down your intention and also what you are afraid of finding, and clear the two days after the ceremony rather than one.
What happens after the ceremony?
Integration turns the experience into a change. Write the same evening or the next morning, pick one small change and do it inside a week, and talk it through with somebody who has done this work. Our ayahuasca integration guide covers the process and applies to a mushroom ceremony as well.
Which US states allow psilocybin treatment?
Two. Oregon voters passed Measure 109 in 2020 and Oregon Psilocybin Services now licenses supervised adult use at service centres. Colorado voters passed Proposition 122 in 2022, which created state-licensed healing centres regulated by the Natural Medicine Division of the Colorado Department of Revenue and also removed criminal penalties for personal possession by adults aged 21 and over.
Are there psychedelic retreats available in the United States?
In a limited form. Oregon and Colorado license supervised psilocybin services, and ketamine-assisted therapy is offered by clinics in many states. Outside those state frameworks psilocybin remains a Schedule I controlled substance under United States federal law.
Is a psilocybin retreat in Colombia legal?
Legal questions get answered directly on the free 30 minute consultation call rather than in writing here. Book the call and ask. For general background, see our guides on whether psilocybin retreats are legal and on psilocybin retreats by country.
References
- Carhart-Harris R, et al. Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression. New England Journal of Medicine, 2021.
- Goodwin GM, et al. Single-Dose Psilocybin for a Treatment-Resistant Episode of Major Depression. New England Journal of Medicine, 2022.
- Oregon Psilocybin Services, Oregon Health Authority.
- Natural Medicine Division, Colorado Department of Revenue.
- Controlled Substances — Alphabetical Order, United States Drug Enforcement Administration, Diversion Control Division.
