John Robertson psychedelics

Hello, I’m John Robertson, the creator behind Maps of the Mind.

I’m a psychedelic educator and facilitator with experience in the fields of mindfulness, meditation and personal growth.

I have been facilitating psychedelic sessions privately and on retreat since 2017 and founded one of the first legal psychedelic retreats in the world. I offer workshops and coaching, and have experience as a meditation guide.

My work is founded on the belief that intentional psychedelic experiences are the most potent catalyst for individual transformation. My work centres around the themes of access, empowerment, and community.

You can read more on my personal journey in the posts My Psychedelic Story 1, 2 & 3 and my motivations in Why Psychedelics?

Key Influences and Experience

Psychedelic Experience

  • Psychedelic facilitator for 1-1 experiences (2019 – present)
  • Experience with intentional use of:
    LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and truffles, San Pedro, peyote, MDMA, ketamine, 2C-B, NN-DMT, 5MeO-DMT, aMT, salvia divonorum, changa, nitrous oxide. (2011 – present)
  • Self organised psilocybin truffle ceremonies as research and preparation for New Moon Retreats (2019)
  • Self directed John Hopkins psilocybin study replica: 15 week course with three sessions (Mar – Jun 2020)

Psychedelic Workshops

  • Tripsitting with Mark Aixalà (Sep 2017)
  • Integrating Psychedelic Experiences – MAPS webinar with Mark Aixalà (Jun 2019)
  • Psychedelic Integration Therapy in Clinical Practice – MAPS webinar with Ingmar Gorman (Jun 2019)
  • Psychotherapeutic Methods for Psychedelic Integration with Ingmar Gorman (Sep 2019)
  • Safety and Ethics – Jerónimo Mazarrasa (Mar 2020)
  • Music as/for Psychedelic Therapy with Mendel Kaelen (Dec 2020)
  • Meditation & Entheogenic Plant Work with Galia Tanay, Ido Hartogsohn (May 2019)
  • Sonic Arts Practice and Psychedelia with Sam Dunscombe (Sep 2021)

Conferences

Music Projects

  • Solo performer, Acoustic guitar & vocals (2023 – present)
  • Aberdeen Harbour, Vocals, guitar, bass. Post punk / indie (2011 – 2012)
  • Acrobats of Crete, Bassist. Hard rock (2010 – 2011)
  • Escape Clause, Guitar and vocals. Punk (c. 2003-2006)
john robertson music

Psychedelic Retreats

  • Founder and lead facilitator, New Moon Retreats (2018-2020)
  • Attendee and documentary participant, Psychedelic Society Experience Retreat, Netherlands (Sep 2018)
  • Media and facilitator for group psilocybin sessions, Myco Meditations, Jamaica (Dec 2017, Mar – May 2018)
  • Spaceholder for group psilocybin sessions, Truffles Therapy, Netherlands (Oct 2019)
  • Participant, ayahuasca ceremonies at Casa Buen Retiro, Bolivia (c. April 2016)
  • Participant, Plant Spirit Wisdom 10 day retreat w/ ayahuasca, salvia and san pedro ceremonies, Spain (c. Jun 2014)
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Meditation & Mindfulness

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Travel and Overseas

  • 13 month travel across Latin America (2016-2017)
  • English teacher in Shanghai, China (2012-2013)
  • Berlin, Germany (2017-2022)
  • Teacher in Busan, South Korea (2014-2015)
  • Hitchhiking in Japan (c. Aug 2015)
  • Teacher in Zaragoza, Spain (2014)
  • 1 month Inter-rail around Europe (2012)

Other

Maps of the Mind Mission

  • To increase access to safe and beneficial psychedelic experiences. To offer services directly related to the development of these practices such as private sessions, retreats, and coaching.
  • To educate and inform people about psychedelics, mindfulness and personal development.
  • To encourage careful and responsible use of psychedelics that maximises benefit and positive outcomes and reduces harm. To provide practical resources.
  • To create a world where everyone has access to psychedelic experiences.
  • To change the cultural and public perception of psychedelics. To help move towards a world in which psychedelics are accepted and integrated as powerful tools for insight and growth.
  • To share mindfulness practices. To help create a world in which an education and training in awareness practices, such as how to observe and process thoughts and feelings, how to feel, express, and deal with different emotional states, and how to manage mental health, is a fundamental part of society.

I hope you enjoy your stay and are able to find something that can offer you support on your journey.

John’s Blog

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Still reading? Here’s my old about page:

DISCOVERING PSYCHEDELICS

My first psychedelic experience was with LSD and MDMA in 2011. Combined with marijuana and nitrous oxide, it blew the lid off everything I thought I knew. The experience was a massive revelation and had a huge impact on me, opening me up to new understandings of perception, awareness and how they can shape reality. The trip was an awesome journey and a fantastic mystery and afterwards I felt more curious, creative, and alive than ever. With fascination and awe, I set out on a personal exploration of the psyche, from psychology to spirituality.

Since then, using psychedelics as tools for exploration, transformation and growth has been a central focus of my life. I have explored psychedelic substances first hand in a wide range of contexts; from shamanic use in the Americas to modern retreats in Europe and the Caribbean, from healing spaces to casual group settings and solo journeys in nature.

I see this class of substances as powerful tools that if used judiciously, can catalyse accelerated growth and help people reach their potential. For this reason I’m a psychedelic advocate and I support the movement for their legalisation. Due to their illegality and the way they’ve been portrayed in our society they have been stigmatised and misunderstood. I want to be an active part of changing the conversation around psychedelics, and that is something I participate in by way of public projects such as workshops, films, public speaking, podcasts and conferences.

FINDING INSPIRATION

Psychedelics sparked something inside that gave me the courage to follow my dreams, and the patient diligence to make them happen; to pack up and leave my home country and embark on a life of exploration and adventure. Following my first experiences, I travelled Europe by train and went on to live as an expat in China, Spain and Korea, and have hitchhiking and couch surfing adventures in countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Egypt. My travel lifestyle culminated in an 13 month sojourn across Latin America, learning Spanish, visiting 12 countries, and exploring psychedelic plants in a continent rich with psychedelic culture and history, notably; ayahuasca in the Amazon, San Pedro in the Andes, peyote in the Mexican desert, and mushrooms in the Mexican mountains of Oaxaca.

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UNCOVERING MINDFULNESS

Through the awe and mystery of my experiences, psychedelics birthed in me a great curiosity of the psyche; the mind, the soul, the spirit. They showed me how magical awareness is and how the mind can shape reality on various levels.  

I felt like I’d taken a magic wisdom and creativity pill after my first experiences but was at a loss to understand what I’d actually experienced. After some investigation I came to understand it to be a change in my consciousness. This lead me to meditation, what I discovered to be another method of changing awareness, and one that, with some patience and practice, can support and sustain the type of awareness I’d experienced. It was whilst living in China in 2012 that I first seriously began learning and practicing meditation and mindfulness. I learned with 2 teachers, read many books on the subject and began a daily practice. I noticed benefits within a month and went on my first silent retreat the following year. I began to share mindfulness with friends and acquaintances around that time and over the years mindfulness practices have remained a foundational part of my life. They have helped me to understand myself better, and to develop focus, patience, and my ability to relax. After moving to Berlin in 2018, I began to share practices with groups, guiding group sessions weekly.

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