Journeys
What to expect from your journey
Legal, science-informed psychedelic ceremonies held within a regulated container, and walked with you through preparation, ceremony, and integration.
What is a journey
A journey is the whole arc, not a single afternoon
A psychedelic journey is a structured arc of preparation, ceremony, and integration, held within a regulated, science-informed container.
At Ceremonia, that arc spans roughly twelve weeks: two weeks of preparation calls and lifestyle changes, four to six days of in-person ceremony, then eight weeks of integration. The medicine is the doorway. The arc is what makes it transformative instead of merely interesting.
The clinical literature on psilocybin-assisted therapy, including the Johns Hopkins, Imperial College London, and MAPS-affiliated trials, shapes how we sequence preparation, set, and follow-through. We translate that research into a retreat container, not a lab visit.
- Why a journey, not a session?
- A clinical session ends when the medicine ends. A journey holds the weeks before and the months after, preparation that builds the nervous-system regulation you'll need, and integration that lets the insight settle into the way you live.
- What does 'integration' mean?
- Integration is the bridge between the experience and the way you live afterward. In peer-reviewed studies of psilocybin-assisted therapy (Griffiths, 2016; Carhart-Harris, 2021), the lasting changes show up in the months after ceremony, not during it. Integration is the work that turns insight into pattern.
- Is this a clinical trial?
- No. Ceremonia runs a regulated, legal retreat container in Colorado, with trained facilitators and a structured arc of preparation, ceremony, and integration. We are not enrolling for a trial; we are holding the science as a floor, not a ceiling.
- How is this different from a meditation retreat?
- A meditation retreat builds capacity over years of practice. A psychedelic journey opens a window, measured in hours, where the brain's pattern-locking circuits are temporarily quieter. The work is still yours; the medicine just shortens the runway.
Three pathways
Find your right next step
Open the doorway
Awaken
6 days · Colorado
Our flagship in-person retreat. Three guided psilocybin ceremonies, deep preparation, expert facilitation, and an integration arc that walks with you afterward.
Learn moreTend the deeper layers
Heal
Trauma-informed track
For those carrying trauma, grief, or long-held blocks. A trauma-informed pathway that pairs ceremony with IFS, somatic work, and integration support.
Learn moreWalk the path home
Integrate
Ongoing community
What you bring back is the work. Eight weeks of structured integration after every retreat, plus a lifelong community of alumni who keep walking with you.
Learn more
Who this is for
Three rooms, all of them yours
You don't need to fit a category to belong here, but most people who walk into a Ceremonia retreat recognize themselves in one of these three rooms before they arrive.
Leaders carrying too much
Founders, partners, executives, parents at the top of a long rope. The work works, but the cost is the version of you that walks back in the door at night.
You know the productivity stack stopped paying interest a while ago.
People who already met the medicine
You did a ceremony, a clinic visit, an underground sit. Something opened. Something else didn't close. You're looking for a container that takes the integration as seriously as the experience itself.
You know the insight was real. You also know it didn't stick on its own.
Quiet seekers, finally moving
You've read the books, watched the documentaries, listened to the podcasts. You've waited for the right time, the right place, the right people. You'd rather wait two more months than skip the preparation.
You know rushing this would be the one thing that breaks it.
What we hold
Three medicines, one container
The medicine is the doorway. The container is what determines whether the experience integrates or evaporates. We hold three medicines, each within the same arc of preparation, ceremony, and integration.
Psilocybin
Psilocybe cubensis
- Best for
- Depression, grief, creative blocks, ego inflation
- Format
- Group ceremony · 5–6 hours · Eyeshades, music, attention
Our primary medicine. Held in Colorado with trained facilitators on-site, inside a regulated, legal retreat container. The clinical literature for major depression and end-of-life distress is strongest here, which is why our container is built around it.
See the Awaken retreatAyahuasca
Banisteriopsis caapi · Psychotria viridis
- Best for
- Long-held trauma, ancestral patterns, somatic stuckness
- Format
- Multi-night ceremony · 4–6 hours each · Ceremonial lineage
Held in lineage with curanderos who have carried this medicine for decades, never freelanced, never decoupled from the tradition that created it. A different shape than psilocybin: longer arc, deeper somatic terrain, slower integration.
Read the science5-MeO-DMT
Bufo alvarius (synthetic equivalent)
- Best for
- Existential reset, identity rigidity, ego-structure work
- Format
- Single dose · 20–40 minutes · Held one-to-one
The shortest arc and the deepest. Used sparingly, screened carefully, and never as someone's first medicine. We hold it for graduates who have already done preparation and integration with another medicine first.
Read the science
The Ceremonia method
Six steps that make the work last
We didn't invent these phases, preparation, ceremony, integration is the shape of every traditional psychedelic container, and the shape every modern clinical trial echoes. We just take all six seriously, instead of compressing the arc to the chemistry.
- Prepare
Read, watch, decide
Self-paced · before booking
Two-hour onboarding library: medical screening, expectations, prep guide. You leave knowing whether this fits your life right now, or whether to come back when it does.
- Prepare
Screening with a facilitator
60 minutes · video
A trained facilitator reviews medical history, medications, and intentions. Some people are screened in. Some are screened out. Both are good outcomes.
- Prepare
Two-week preparation arc
14 days · before retreat
Lifestyle changes, intention-setting, two pre-retreat calls with your facilitator, and a brief practice arc that builds the nervous-system regulation you'll need on the day.
- Ceremony
On-land ceremony
4–6 days · Colorado
Multi-day in-person retreat at our Colorado sanctuary. Two to three guided ceremonies, integration circles between each, a trained facilitation team, and on-site clinical support throughout.
- Integrate
Eight weeks of integration
8 weeks · after retreat
Group integration calls, journaling prompts, somatic practice, and continued access to your facilitator. Designed around the 4–6 week neuroplasticity window the literature describes.
- Integrate
Lifelong alumni community
Ongoing · for life
What you bring back is the work. You graduate into a community of 400+ alumni who keep walking with you, annual reunions, peer integration circles, ongoing retreats.
What the research says
The numbers behind the work
We won't promise a transformation on a timeline, no honest container will. What we will share is the peer-reviewed evidence base our protocol is built on, and our own program data alongside it.
- 71%
- Of treatment-resistant depression participants in remission at four weeks post-psilocybin (Carhart-Harris et al., 2021).
- 2x
- Reduction in anxiety and depression sustained at six-month follow-up across two phase-2 trials (Griffiths et al., 2016).
- 400+
- Ceremonia alumni who have completed our preparation, ceremony, and integration arc.
- 0
- Serious adverse events on land in our retreat program across the lifetime of our regulated, legal Colorado container.
Imperial College London, NEJM
Johns Hopkins, JOP
Ceremonia program data, 2026
Internal safety log, 2024–2026
These figures describe published research and our own program history. They are not promises of individual outcome. Full citations and methodology live on the science page.
One story
What happened when one of us actually did the work
Most of our alumni were first-timers when they came to us. Maya is one of them, a hospice physician who came carrying the cumulative weight of a decade with the dying.
I came in expecting an experience. I left with a structure, a way to be with grief that doesn't require me to disappear into it.
Maya's first ceremony surfaced what she calls the 'glass wall', a decade of bedside practice without the integration time the work needed. The eight-week arc afterward did the harder work: weekly group calls, a daily fifteen-minute body scan, and a single conversation with her chief medical officer that she had been postponing for two years. Six months later, her standardized burnout score had dropped 62%. She still works in hospice. She just no longer goes home to a version of herself she doesn't recognize.
Voices
400+ alumni walked this path
Real stories, many on video. Tap any card with a play badge to watch.
FAQ
Common questions
Is this safe?
Every retreat happens inside a regulated, legal Colorado container. Medical and psychiatric screening, on-site clinical support, and a trained facilitation team are non-negotiable parts of every cohort.What modalities do you use?
Psilocybin is our primary medicine, held within a structure that draws on Internal Family Systems, somatic experiencing, breathwork, and trauma-informed care. The medicine opens the door; the modalities help you walk through it safely.How do I prepare?
Preparation begins weeks before ceremony: lifestyle changes, intention-setting, two pre-retreat calls with your facilitator, and a brief practice arc that builds the nervous-system regulation you'll need on the day. We send a detailed prep guide once you're enrolled.What is integration?
Integration is the bridge between insight and lived change. It's what turns a peak experience into a different way of living. We hold eight structured weeks of integration after every retreat, group calls, journaling prompts, and ongoing community access.How long until I feel results?
Many alumni report feeling shifts within the retreat itself, but the deepest changes show up in the months afterward as integration takes hold. Research suggests neuroplasticity remains elevated for 4–6 weeks after a psilocybin journey, we design our integration arc around that window.What if I'm new to psychedelics?
Most of our alumni were first-timers when they came to us. That's exactly who this container is built for. The screening, preparation, and on-site care are designed assuming you've never done this before, and the community holds you afterward whether or not you ever do it again.
Keep reading
What else to look at before you decide
You don't need every answer right now. You do need to know where the answers live.
- How we hold safety on land
Medical screening, on-site clinical support, the regulatory frame, and the conditions we screen for and out of every cohort.
- The Colorado retreat center
150 acres of forested land in the Colorado foothills. Photos, layout, what to pack, and how to get here.
- The peer-reviewed evidence base
Psilocybin in major depression, end-of-life anxiety, trauma, and addiction, full citations, methodology, and what the research does and doesn't yet show.
- Why Austin Mao founded Ceremonia
The personal story behind the container, what Austin's own journey taught him about the gap between experience and integration.
- Alumni stories, many on video
Hospice physicians, founders, therapists, parents, first-timers. Real outcomes, real timelines, no superlatives.
- Take the 5-minute readiness quiz
Nine questions, no marketing. The same questions our facilitators would ask on the first screening call.
Begin
Ready to begin?
Take the 5-minute readiness quiz to see if Ceremonia is right for you, or talk with a real human about what you're looking for.