An Advance in Retreat Tech

I was waiting in line at the Burning Man box office at the beginning of build week last year when I received an intriguing message from a true love of of mine. He wanted to know if I would be interested in joining him at an all expenses paid “fully immersive” 5-MeO-DMT summit in Canada. Like, right away.

Apparently around a dozen incredibly intelligent and interesting people from all over the world were at that very moment converging upon a stunningly beautiful Canadian retreat center to participate in an experimental noetic conclave.

The idea was to really dig in to the 5-MeO-DMT thing from as many angles as possible. It was time for everybody to put all of their puzzle pieces on the table and to potentially make some actual progress on the psychedelic cartographers quixotic quest to make a map of the Mystery. Or something like that.

Everyone would be forbidden to speak publicly about about it for the nonce, and there were NDA’s to sign, but the ultimate intention was oriented towards eventually sharing whatever novel insights might serendipitously emerge with the community at large. They would be getting rolling during Burn Week, but I could fly in just as soon as it was over and only miss the beginning.

My friend was really sorry about the short notice, but there had been some cancellations and my name had come up on their group chat as a possible alternate. Mostly on account of Mapping the Source, which apparently some of these folks knew by heart. So, could I make it? Pretty please? It would be a chance for us to spend some time together, and I really really really shouldn’t miss this! It was going to be everything that I love. Plus he thought that I’d add a valuable perspective to the conversation and also help to bring some balance, since I would be the only woman in attendance.

As I picked up my ticket I realized that I would have to think fast, because the only signal that I could be sure of was at the gate there. This kind of did sound like it was right up my alley, and in any event decompressing by the lakeside in the company of super intelligent and psychedelically sophisticated gentlemen, many of whom were apparently fans of my output, sounded better than helping to unload the box truck in Eugene.

I decided to roll with the dream logic.

A week and a half later, I was on a plane to Canada wondering exactly what it was that I had gotten myself into. The Burn had been an orgy of rather unseemly psychedelic excess for me. The highs had been the very highest, but by the time that it was over I was fresh out of all of my favorite endogenous brain chemicals, and the deliriously satisfying psychedelic love affair that I had cherished in Black Rock City had apparently suffered a sharp and at that time wholly inexplicable reversal just before I’d had to run to the airport. My heart was extremely tender, and all of my clothes were rather dusty.

My friend had arrived there before me, and he had filled me in en route. This multidisciplinary convocation would be bringing together a broad variety of researchers into the nature of qualia and the various processes that give rise to it. These would include some really accomplished 4th Path meditators, a mathematical wizard, a quantum physicist, a semiotician, philosophers of various stripes, visual and auditory artists, flow artists, one of the people at the forefront of figuring out how freaking smell works, a dance teacher, some seriously big wave surfer psychonauts, consciousness researchers, brain scientists and software engineers. All thrown in together for weeks, and tasked with effing the ineffable.

The cynical part of my mind suspected that an extended conversation between self-professed experts in wildly disparate fields about a subjective experience that was broadly considered to be rationally inapprehensible to begin with might very well devolve into an incoherent argument between people with ultimately incompatible world models and mutually exclusive pet theories. I kind of wished I’d brought some popcorn with me. It might be fun to watch, at least. And maybe heckle.

Darkly, I started to wonder how this neurognostic symposium was going to be structured. Who was the “shaman” going to turn out to be? I hadn’t even thought to ask.

I’d been on a crusade against the shitty way that 5-MeO-DMT is often slung, and in fact I wrote and presented a somewhat snarkier sequel to Mapping the Source called Carrying The Light, which threw shade on some the traveling facilitators who blow into town for a few nights and set up a temporary “temple” to which they invited a group of seekers who had made contact with them and are who often total strangers to one another.

For sometimes exorbitant fees, these eager postulants are then typically offered a short introductory and instructional lecture, and then they are blasted off one at a time while the rest of the random cohort waits in silence. If the voyager is lucky. Everyone in attendance is a witness to one another’s most intimate unfolding, and anxiety can mount when the nervous virgins still on deck are exposed to some of the occasionally intense outward expressions of the Immersants that precede them, which can often seem to indicate distress to an uninitiated observer (these are oftentimes actual freakouts, in fact, especially when the facilitator gets a little bit sloppy with the dosage).

Then when it’s your turn, this is It. It’s now or never. So ready or not, off you go into the Great and Only! Sometimes with the “shaman” character getting all up in your face and making themselves a big part of it. After only a short detumescence in the spotlight, you are then shuffled back onto your pillow – potentially godshattered and/or wondering how paleolithically you may have just comported yourself as the focus shifts onto the next guy on the launchpad and you are left to wonder what the fuck had just happened to you without being able to process much about it until the entire group is finished getting cycled through.

I’d always said that if the Teafaerie ever ran a 5 retreat (although of course I’d rather call it an “advance”), I would like to try a different method. I’d have the folks all stay at some nice place together for several days at the minimum, so they’d have time to relax and get to know one another. There would be yoga sessions and good food and some lovely walks in nature. Everybody would be issued a light dosing vape pen that they could experiment with on their own, so they could get a sense for what the initial expansion feels like and try to suss out whether or not 5 is their ally before irrevocably committing themselves to its ecstatic embrace for a timeless eternity.

Most importantly, there would never be any pressure to dive in just because it was apparently “your turn”. Whenever anyone felt ready they could initiate the process of their own volition and invite whoever they wished to be present. A facilitator would then stay with them until they were no longer needed, no matter how long that process takes. It seems to me like that would be a much better way to do things.

The QRI event in Canada took a far more radically experimental approach to access and facilitation than I had ever even considered. It blew my vision right out of the water. It was bold, it was unique, and I think that it may well be revolutionary.

The Teafaerie’s Way is ultimately just a softer and more extended take on the initiation circle, and it is one that would almost certainly result in better outcomes on the whole for clients who simply want to experience a single full release 5-MeO-DMT trip for their own personal reasons. It is my considered opinion, however, that the QRI protocols which provide for free and unlimited access to the medicine and which allow for spontaneous peer-supported excursions around the clock did in fact (at least in this particular case) create the very best possible container for the fostering of open ended exploration, group bonding, collaboration, and a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas amongst a diverse group of curious and responsible psychedelic sophisticates, and it should be held up as a shining model for any such endeavors in the future.

Of course it might be hard to replicate the Sentinel, which was intentionally designed with psychedelic communitas in mind. The serene beauty of the alpine lake reflecting majestic snow capped mountains and the scent of the surrounding sunny woodlands in the crisp September air were absolutely sublime. It really felt like a dream. Perhaps especially to me, as I’d come in straight from the harsh and barren Black Rock Desert playa.

My friend had come to pick me up at the airport along with a very charming older gentleman who I took to be some sort of a professor, and upon arrival he introduced me to a couple of the other participants who happened to be at leisure and who seemed to be genuinely delighted to meet me. (Apparently Mapping the Source had shared been to the collective group chat, and those who were not already familiar with it had all read it in advance of my arrival.)

A friendly staff person signed me in and acquainted me with the rules about taking the boats out on the lake and so forth, and then they took me on a tour of the facility, starting with the cozy well appointed communal sitting rooms and the dining room where I was soon to learn that three delicious gourmet meals would be served up every day, and where there were cupboards full of healthy snacks that could be raided at any time. And here was the patio, and another smaller conversation den. And there was a lovely hot tub and a sauna. Oh and yes, they would most gladly wash my totally playafied laundry!

But first I had to see the grand maloca, which turned out to be the largest and most beautiful ceremonial space that I have ever seen, with one side almost wholly made of glass that looked out over the lake, and a very comfortable looking central lauchpad. A wide variety of both magical and practical implements were arrayed within arms reach of the target zone, and there were also an abundance of pillows and musical instruments scattered around the room. I was told that they had an excellent sound system, as well, if we wanted to plug our own music in.

Next I was escorted to my very own bedroom, which was in the same building as the magnificent (and effectively soundproofed) maloca, and which had a private bathroom attached to it complete with a fancy free standing bathtub that was the very picture of requiescence. I was invited to take my ease and rest up from my travels until dinnertime, and such was the magic of that place that I felt like I had nearly totally recovered from the Burn after only a single long delicious soak and a very short and refreshing catnap.

It would also be hard to replicate the people. The QRI symposium was a very well cast thing indeed. It was well cast in the way a spell is cast, and the way that a die is cast, and in the way that a mold is cast – but most of all it was well cast in the way that a play is cast. What worked smoothly with a clearly hand selected group of extraordinary individuals might well have gone very much awry if the participants had been even a wee bit more reckless, or if there had been even a single asshole in the mix. Perhaps there was even a bit of psychedelic synchronicity at play, considering how well we all connected and the improbable ways that we informed each other’s process.

At dinner I met the rest of our cohort. As expected there were like a dozen people from 9 different countries in attendance, representing a wide variety of specialties, interests, and general fields of expertise. We all could speak excellent English, though, so there wasn’t a language barrier. We all seemed to share a genuinely open spirit of curiosity and a willingness to try on foreign models and attempt to think in novel ways, which was obviously key. Also everyone was friendly and in high spirits. It was clear that a happy comradery had already coalesced in the week or so before my arrival, and they all welcomed me into it with open arms.

At least a part of what really catalyzed the fruitful synergy between us potentially could be broadly replicated, though. Starting with the open bar. At the very beginning all of the participants were carefully instructed on how to weigh out a precisely calibrated dose (and briefed on the the dosage levels at which most people can reliably expect to have a light, medium, and fully immersive experience). They had all learned how the clever and convenient little integrated torch pipes were cleaned and loaded. And then I gather that everyone was offered the opportunity to sample a small dose of the medicine for themselves if they were so inclined. Which maked for a nice little team bonding ritual. Later there would be an intermediate offering, and after that all present would be rated to self-serve, so long as they vowed to mark up all of their dosetimes on the chalkboard, and promised to always have a wingman if they decided to go larger than the intermediate dose that they already knew that they could navigate without potentially losing situational awareness. (I am loathe to say “without losing consciousness”, because someone who falls out on 5 is often more conscious on the inside than they have ever been. If you even maybe might not be able monitor your body you need a buddy to watch over you, though. Always.)

The absence of a gatekeeper has several noticeable effects on group dynamics. For one thing it establishes that everyone present is a trusted adult, who is presumed to be responsible and self-aware enough to freely choose their own adventures. Importantly, it also establishes a sort of egalatarian peership amongst all who are assembled. When none amongst you dares to claim some special priesthood, you can route around at least a few of the more pedestrian entrapments of the ego. Better to stand together in humble solidarity before the Mystery, maybe. One equal temper of heroic hearts and all that. Also you don’t have to go wake up the facilitator if your toast should happen to pop in the middle of the night and you are ready. You just have to find a buddy.

There was never any lack of volunteers to serve as a wingman. I personally really enjoy getting to witness another human’s peak experiences. Its always an honor to be asked, and people tapped me in quite often. I got tapped for integration work throughout the session as well, which I also enjoy, and which I like to imagine that I have a talent for.

There was also a really experienced professional facilitator on hand who lives on the property and who was available by appointment if someone preferred more active guidance with a shamanic flair. He was really unassuming and didn’t try to push his bit on anybody who didn’t actively seek his council, though. All the reports that I heard from those who chose to avail themselves of his services were generally positive.

I feel like there was just the right amount of structure to bring us all together to cross-pollinate, which after all was the intention. We all had breakfast together in the morning, at least if we had not stayed up all night. Then at 10 AM there was a group meditation exercise in the maloca, led by one of our meditation experts. This mostly focused on really subtle perceptual shifts that come from the redirecting of attention, and on the delicate interface through which one can choose where to direct it. We’d do some breathing exercises, and maybe chant a little bit. We’d fill our hearts with compassion. Sometimes we’d be treated to a little inner lore and theory, and then we’d get to ask them some questions.

Then if it was a “medicine day”, some people would book time in the maloca. Often participants were just trying to feel into the nature of the experience, but we were also encouraged to devise experiments and to try to perform them. I myself only really managed to perform one actual formal experiment, but it was a pretty cool one!

My friend and I hypothesized that we might telepathically synch up if we did a simultaneous launch. In order to test this theory, we decided sit facing one another with our eyes closed and our hands out in front of us. My fingertips were gently touching one another to begin with, and we would both slowly move our hands farther apart, then bring them back into contact at various intervals, with the goal being to try to match our partners movements.

First we did a 5 minute control round, which we recorded. Then we did a medicine round which of course we also timed and recorded. After that we cuddled up and watched the videos, and I have to admit that we were kind of impressed by the results! It didn’t come anywhere close to proving anything at all, of course, but the second time around it did seem to be appreciably more coherent, and there were parts that made us gasp aloud together, like when we both spontaneously raised our arms and shook our hands out and then they came back together simultaneously.

Days that were not officially medicine days were called “work days”, when we were supposed to work on relevant projects. One guy spent time programming little visual experiments with elements that could only be seen under the influence of various drugs. Some people journaled or did research that had been inspired by their experiences, or by conversations that they’d been having with other participants. Some people designed elaborate mathematical models of consciousness. Others engaged in sometimes lively debates with one another which could occasionally get intense, though they never really seemed to devolve into hostility. Like maybe a committed Simulationist might get into it with somebody who insists that we are all just an illusion in the mind of God. Then somebody else might chime in about how those are actually perfectly compatible positions, which would then proceed to set both of them off against him. And of course we’d all tell our best psychedelic trainwreck stories to try to make each other laugh.

In the afternoon we’d all come together again for lunch, and every third day we took a field trip to get a little change of scenery. We went to the local hot springs in one instance, and we went on some long hikes through the woods. We took the boats out on the lake. We spun our flowtoys on the hill. One time we got to sit in on a Zoom call with the Abbot of a Zen Monastery. Another time a polymathic genius who is also a friend of mine zoomed in to talk about vector field topology and how it may relate to one of the QRI guys’ topological segmentation theory and EM field theories of consciousness. At least I think that’s what he was talking about. There were some pretty heady downloads.

In the evenings after dinner we had presentation time. Each of us was required to do a skill share or demonstration or give a talk about a topic that might inform the conversation. There was an contact dance workshop and demonstrations of various computer programs that could do really psychedelic things. We got to smell a lot of little vials and hear about the fantastic system that turns the shapes and vibrations of various molecules into an experience that can conjure up a memory from our deep past. We learned about meditation techniques and what the GHZ state in physics can teach us about the meaning of contextually. Which is a total mindfuck.

When it was my turn, I was really rather nervous because all of these people were brilliant and I didn’t want to sound all woo woo and ungrounded to them. I had been instructed to lay my best puzzle piece down though, so I told them all about how I came to believe that I can use 5-MeO-DMT to chart a path through the multiverse. Or maybe it doesn’t work that way at all. In any event whatever I concentrate hard on at the event horizon tends to later somehow manifest in what we cheerfully refer to as the real world. I told them about how the potential seems to fall off asymptotically from the center, but of course if you fall in you forget what you even wanted in the first place, so you kinda have to try to slingshot around the singularity with your intention intact.

And then I told a super crazy story off the record which I did not expect to be believed. They all listened thoughtfully though. Then I told em how super scary it had actually been to be having my wishes come true, and I spoke openly about all of my darkest doubts and my brightest hopes and how I kinda scared myself out of trying to do it at all because I can no longer trust myself not to imagine blue elephants.

To my surprise, nobody mocked me.

Several of my new friends even asked exactly the right kinds of questions. Apparently both some versions of physics and the beliefs of some contemplative traditions are not incompatible with the way that I model my experience. Other people chimed in with psychedelic manifestation stories. The block universe contingent then went on to say that it had never been a truly free choice in the naive sense, as I was always going to wish for what was always going to happen. And then the conversation branched all over the place from there. Maybe or maybe not the way that the Cosmos does.

That is how it unusually went down. One person would be assigned get the ball rolling, and we would all end up in a raucous conversation that spanned the distances between us.

And in between and all night long we were Immersing. A conversation in the hot tub often lead to an impromptu visit to the maloca, more and more often with several people in attendance, all with the intention to partake. There were several simultaneous launches at the medium level, and individuals were starting to go for the gold. We sang and danced and we played together and we celebrated one another’s breakthroughs and we soothed the ones who found the whole thing confronting. It was as if the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey had just appeared in the maloca and we all spent some time with it. We contemplated it for hours. We reached out and touched it. We took a whole lot of notes.

I spent one of my work days writing a letter to my superteammie who still wasn’t speaking to me, and I sent it to her email. It was a really good letter. And I snuggled with my loving friend and I told him about the Burn, and why my heart was hurting. And maybe we did some experiments… but they were all off the record. I had been playing at the edge and I wanted to dive deeper, but I had some heart work to do first. So I tucked in and did it. Then I was ready to set all of that down and to be totally present within the awesome. And not a moment too soon.

In the last week or so we kind of lost the distinction between medicine days and work days. And every night was medicine night! People were getting braver. I think one guy recorded almost 100 jumps. Not all of them were full release, of course. The point that I am trying to make is that we were deeply immersed. Focused. Really trying our damndest to grok the ungrokkable. Sharing our insights. Weeping with gratitude. Being utterly confounded. And exalted. And profoundly humbled. Many people felt that they’d been changed. Possibly healed. That they had been washed in love and grace. It was such an honor to be a member of this noble company, courageously addressing the Absolute, and trying to bring back the Secret Fire to light all of our ways.

Too soon it started to draw to an end, though, and we knew that it was time to pull it together so that we would be fit to travel home. At dinner one night I noticed that one guy who I’d had a really great connection with was clearly still dilated wide open. He was assuming unusual body postures and his eyes were windows into something quite unfathomable. When I attempted to engaged him in conversation he seemed preoccupied with the idea that he was caught up in the attractor of an act of radical transcendence that was in the near future on some timelines. Which would be nominal enough if he was still high. But he hadn’t smoked in hours, and he swore to me that he had taken nothing else. Upon further inquiry it developed that he had been smoking quite a bit of 5-MeO-DMT over the previous couple of days, though. Mostly just little pop-ups by himself. He had been marking them up on the blackboard. It was all within the protocol. Concern began to spread a bit on the following day, though.

As our departure began to loom, there was a general sense of concern. We were to disperse in a few days, and leaving him to fend for himself at the international airport terminal in Vancouver in such a visibly wide open state didn’t feel like the right thing to do. What if this was the beginning of a psychotic break?

As it turned out, it really wasn’t. He informed me that he was actually quite familiar with his current headspace and that he was not at all distressed. He’d spent months in that mode at various times and he was quite comfortable and functional. He acknowledged that it sometimes alarmed people who did not know him well. His suggested plan of action involved doing one more full release dose, which he identified as the approaching attractor. He had felt its pull before and he was going to surrender to it eventually. So why not here? He was pretty sure that he’d come out on the other side renewed and with an elevated awareness. Which seemed plausible enough. He was a psychedelic superhero. I was a mother hen though, and I was worried about somebody who already seemed rather elevated going into something as intense as the transformative attractor that he was describing when we were so close to wrapping up. It might have been the perfect ending for him and he could have leveled up mightily. It was not a certain bet, though, and I felt that if I agreed to be his wingman I’d be risking both his sanity and the reputation of our collective enterprise.

In the end I spent a long beautiful night out on the lawn with my new friendie doing a few pop-ups and some really powerful integration work, and once he finally decided to let go of the pull of the attractor for the time being, which he had apparently stepped back from on a number of previous occasions, he began to normalize rather quickly. By morning it was clear to all that he was well, and after that he only did some tiny pop-ups while he was doing math and yoga and drinking tea and he seemed like the same happy and brilliant madman that he was when I arrived.

I feel that it would be irresponsible for me to fail to include this story in my rave reviews of this experimental modality because it surely could have been a far worse situation. 5-MeO-DMT really has the potential to blow a person wide open, and not everybody knows how to button themselves back up again the way that this guy did. It’s sometimes rather difficukt to determine from the outside what is part of someone’s necessary process and what is a sign of impending psychosis.

Future iterations really need to develop a contingency plan for when let’s say 3 of the other participants feel like somebody needs to be cut off. Or just maybe timed out for a couple of days. We also need a clear mental heath emergency plan, and we need to get some more folks involved who are really great at integration. Folks who know that it’s their job to pay attention, so that nobody can just drift off without it raising an alert.

I did appreciate that there were a few zoom calls and check ins after we got home to make sure that everyone was stable and to talk through our process and the stuff that was coming up for us as we were getting back to our lives. And the group chat has never ended. I’ve always felt like I had a way to reach out if I was in need of support. But if somebody had cracked, far away from their homes in a foreign country, I really don’t know what would have happened.

On another note I also think that the process could benefit from an even marginally more balanced yin/yang ratio. Trying to math out the fractal geometries to discover whether or not consciousness is classically computable or whatever is all very well and good, but if we really want to grab this thing with both hands, it may be that more feeling toned and intuitive perspectives could be of value. And women have a different vessel and we may experience things differently. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy being the only girl in a hot tub full of extremely nerdy-talking psychedelic fellows every night, you understand. I was living my best life.

I think that QRI is truly at the forefront of the quest to actually Map the fucking Source. Which is not to say that we’ve got the Mystery pinned to the mat, by any means.

How is it possible that human beings are capable of experiencing such an astonishing thing? That we can have, as I have written, “the subjective apperception of a place thats not a place / that can seem just for a moment to transcend both time and space / where all that you have known has been transformed without a trace / into an infinite non-dual pure perfected state of grace” and that it can somehow feel a gazillion times more blazingly real and more fundamentally primary than anything else does? Is the sense of conviction itself just a artifact of our brain structure? Like it just gooses those feels? Can awe and wonder and conviction and the sense that the whole grand scheme if things entire is all really just one big thing, and that it doesn’t truly even exist in the normal way that we think about it, but it is infinite and it’s eternal and that it is ourselves just be some kind of a brain glitch? What (if anything) does it say about what the universe must be? What (if anything) does it suggest about the nature of our minds, and/or the nature of our spirits? Is it the mind of the Cosmos? Can the the brain scientists explain it away? Can it be modeled with mathematics? Is it some kind of state that has a Sanskrit name, and possibly proof that the modalities of consciousness that are described in some of the contemplative traditions are (surprise surprise) not merely verbal chimeras after all, but actual Easter egg states that are attainable through practice? Does it make us more enlightened? Does it make us kinder? More attuned? Can we actually use it to work miracles?

I still don’t know who paid to fly a dozen people from 9 countries out to Canada, and to put us all up that really first rate retreat center. (I happened to see how much just my own room and board cost per night and it made me do a comical double take.) Several of us were trying to figure it out, and I don’t think that it was anyone who was there… It was being led by the QRI guys, who did an excellent job, but I don’t think that they’re that rich. So that means that somebody who didn’t even get to come out and share the magic with us must have spent a small fortune on the extremely long shot possibility that if you give enough really smart people with diverse perspectives the time and space to just immerse themselves in the Mystery and if they could maybe be coaxed into a state of telepathic gestalt so that they all sort of absorbed one another’s insights and perspectives, then perhaps some meaningful progress could be made along the path to understanding. What a fucking awesome thing to do!

I think that some of us did make some interdisciplinary breakthroughs that may ultimately turn out to be steps along the path, but I’m afraid that I can’t tell you what they are. I don’t know if we actually came to any startlingly original conclusions, but If we did they’ll probably be up here on this website somewhere. I’m looking forward to perusing it. Perhaps we are not the ones to make a judgement on the matter. We certainly didn’t definitively answer any of the Really Big Questions, but in this pyrrhic defeat we are at least in very excellent company.

Whoever you are, our noble benefactor, I hope that you can feel satisfied with the fruits of your investment. Glorious Victory is truly ours, I think, because we very well may have made some actual meaningful progress in the devising and field testing of the method of inquiry through which the major revelations of the future are most likely to come forth. And that is really something worthwhile. It’s a big step in the right direction. I blow the Teahorn in your honor. Bows, Salutes, blows Teahorn 📯