When I ask Neil Markey, a former US army vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and now heads up the retreats branch of Beckley, what kind of people I should expect to meet on my retreat, his answer is remarkably simple: seekers. Only when I arrive, they are anything but the dreadlocked, flip-flopped stereotype I have in mind. Some are academics and psychotherapists, who want to integrate psilocybin trips into their own practice, but there are also classical music prodigies, novelists, painters. That the group isn’t hugely diverse isn’t a surprise: the retreats are costly and there is still an element of social taboo around group therapy in certain cultures.