22. Psilocybin and Healing w/ Neil Markey

Army Ranger turned psychedelic retreat CEO.

Neil Markey is the CEO of Beckley Retreats, a company that uses psilocybin to help heal people. Their program includes a 4-week virtual preparation phase, a 5-night on-location retreat in Jamaica or the Netherlands, and a 6-week integration phase. I actually participated in their inaugural offering in late 2021. If you want to hear about my personal experience there, you can listen to Episode 9 of the RARE SENSE Podcast with Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider. I thought the program was exceptionally well-designed and executed, and I spoke more about my reflections in this interview.

Neil was a Captain in the US Army Special Operations 2nd Ranger Battalion who deployed once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. After his time in the military, he suffered from depression and PTSD while studying at Columbia University. This led him to explore mindfulness and meditation practices that marked the start of a profound healing journey involving the use of psychedelics. After graduate school, Neil worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., co-leading the internal mindfulness program and was the Chief Growth Officer for a $450M private equity portfolio company.

He credits meditation and psilocybin with saving his life and ultimately found his true calling when he joined forces with Amanda Feilding of the Beckley Foundation, which is dedicated to furthering psychedelic research and advocating for policy reform. Together, they founded Beckley Retreats, combining the latest science in plant medicine with ancient wisdom and traditions to create a unique healing experience for attendees.

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