Two entrepreneurs in British Columbia created a company that offers luxury guided retreats involving psilocybin — or "magic mushrooms" — for clients interested in experiencing what they describe as "the highest level of self-discovery and personal development."
Rob Grover and Gary Logan, who founded The Journeymen Collective in Vancouver, told FOX Business that their Journey Education & Discovery Institute — also known as the "JEDI Center" — can provide answers for the increasing number of people who are searching for healing.
"Essentially you're presented with information in different ways that you may not have context for what you have seen," Grover told FOX Business, describing the mushroom journey their retreat offers. "And so we guide you through that whole experience."
The JEDI Center focuses on four layers of being — the spiritual, the mental, emotional, and the physical — in their guided journeys.
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Grover, who developed "an insatiable desire to learn more" about the universe following what he described as "a spiritual awakening" in 2003, said each psilocybin journey is unpredictable and likened them to "a unique television program playing out before your closed eyes."
"It's sort of like seeing with your eyes wide shut, and you get to ‘know thyself,’" he said, referencing Plato.
Logan, whose background in theater focused on "[breaking] you down to build you back up to who you're supposed to be," likened the psilocybin process to "removing the mask."
"It comes down to removing those layers of masks that society has put on us: family, parents, schools, our work," he said. "And then we ask people just to see if they can leave those masks at the door and step in to discover their true self and their true purpose."
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"And when they leave, the invisible masks are left at the door, and they don't pick them up," he added. "They've created a new way of being, or their ‘true self,’ as we always say."
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that psilocybin could aid in treating afflictions such depression and smoking addiction, though Grover and Logan noted that psilocybin, which is a Schedule I drug in the U.S. and Schedule III in Canada, should not be treated lightly.
Grover and Logan said the psilocybin journeys they offer involve both a person's own mind and other dimensions, and noted that "celestial beings" sometimes appear during their clients' journeys.
British Columbia has decriminalized some hard drugs, which some experts argue could reduce stigma around psychedelics with medicinal value, according to CTV News.
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"The danger is if it's unguided, if you're doing it on your own, even if you have prepared your ceremonial space," Logan said. "If there's nobody there to assist you, you can get into what we call 'the loop,' which is a story that repeats itself over and over."
"That's when people say they didn't have a great time, and it was a 'bad trip,'" he continued, adding that they have learned a four-person guidance team for each journey is the most they should allow. He emphasized the importance of building trust before each experience.
"That's why our process is a bit longer than other facilities," Logan said. "Because we want to know these people, so they can know us and trust us, too."
Logan also noted that people who attempt to take psilocybin on their own are potentially subject to negative experiences depending on environment, sourcing and dosage.
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Grover said "guidance is imperative" to assist the client "pull on those threads of information, move them through to an understanding of who you are," and then apply that knowledge to their lives.
"So the most important part is that you're using what you have learned, and you're applying the educational and discovery process that you've been through," he said.
Both said they have witnessed a surge in the number of people spiritually searching just within the past five years.
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"Even this last year, a number of people have contacted us and said, 'We've been looking for somebody like you for a very long time,'" Logan said.
