This text is about the esoteric eros in the psychedelic space. It is also potentially an invitation once you have read and understood the entire text and feel called to this journey. But first things first, I write this from the perspective of a consent advocating facilitator ten years down a professional full-time career. I’ve encouraged thousands of people to learn the balancing act of safety and bravery—while surrendering, letting go of control, and submitting one’s will to another’s desires—while remaining fully in contact with one’s own boundaries and needs. I know the juxtapositions and paradoxes. And how much practice it takes to maintain a sense of intellectual, embodied and spiritual agency over one’s own experience—while lovingly caring for others. And I know those whose nervous system is too banged up to successfully do this or who get too wrecked every time they fail. I do this work about two hundred days a year. And it is important to me.

However, I want to propose something different. For one night, I want to offer you the chance to put your consent in the hands of another—a guardian, a proxy, or an elder if you like—and step into a different space—outside this reality, where the future and past don’t exist—that you can not control. In one way, I think this already happens in one-on-one therapy, when a client without functional boundaries approaches a professional therapist to relearn. Or in a workshop on a bat-shit-crazy dangerous activity, like breath play, where the participants want to explore under the watchful eye of a teacher. Or when joining a more guru-heavy spiritual movement with the longing that someone knows better than me. I think this desire is profoundly human, but also where we get hurt. So, the go-to solution is practising personal, enthusiastic, empowered consent, especially in events related to eros and intimacy.

Simultaneously, there is the plant medicine and psychedelic movement—the shortcut to surrender—that forces you to let go, whether you are ready or not. To make it safer, the participants agree to a ceremonial structure, where they are asked to cut any energetic connections or emotional bounds both before and after. And, most of the experience is individual—it’s often done alone with a blindfold on. I’m no shaman, but I think this is done to avoid projections between the participants. But somehow, something in this is missing. The eros is life energy; it is and will always be around. So, entering such a profound space and leaving it behind seems impossible or acting in denial. I dream about something different than medicine and therapy as an attempt to challenge the status quo.

In this dream, you are invited into a psychedelic shared space of the esoteric eros. The working title is The Garden of the Serpent and the Rose. Here, you’ll receive a guardian who will interview you beforehand about your intentions for joining, your background, and your boundaries. During the experiment, they’ll keep a watchful eye on you and remove you from any interaction they judge as potentially harmful to you or simply outside of your reasons for joining. It’s a little bit like having the loving parents we all deserve, but just like with even the best of parents, they will sometimes fail. But it’s safer than diving into a psychedelic shared experience of the eros without anyone watching your back.

Inside the garden, in addition to interacting with other participants, you’ll have the chance to encounter some archetypes of the eros—enacted by the same guardians of the space—that may invite you to a play. Some archetypes could be the loving mother, the dangerous seductress, the strict dominatrix, and the innocent trickster. While having these initiation-like experiences while on a psychedelic journey could potentially be dangerous, it is safer going down that road less travelled with a professional in a shared witnessed space. The ultimate option is always to observe in meditation by yourself. So, in a way, our promise to you is a highly curated event, with maybe six professionals from the field of eros with a solid background in psychedelics. And with a maximum of two-three participants per guardian. In a way, this is a laboratory with a format that is new to both plant medicine and working with the eros. It’s also close to a non-profit or minimal-profit event because if we paid all the professionals involved a proper salary, then this event would only be for a handful of spiritual tech bros, which is not what we want.

This also means that we have high expectations of you if you read this as an invitation. Obviously, you must already be well-versed in the psychedelic experience, but what might be different this time is that instead of dropping inwards towards yourself, you’ll be encouraged to reach out toward a shared experience. Often, when presenting this idea, people say that for them, the psychedelic space isn’t about the eros—that they usually feel vulnerable, surrendered, and with God—and not in the flesh. Indeed, the lowest form of eros is bodily pleasures. But beyond that, when balancing between safety and bravery, is the opportunity to meet others beyond the flesh. Here resides all the complicated feelings—fear, shame, and selfishness, but also love, devotion, and surrender. Ultimately, they are all the same, or maybe, in other words, they don’t really matter when you move beyond—to something bigger. Also, as a participant, you must have experience of sex-positive spaces and your boundaries and desires in them. This (hopefully) results in an understanding of your sexual persona, how your nervous system operates, and what past experiences made you who you are today—hence, you are probably middle-aged and somewhat settled in yourself.

Finally, you must share our definition of a ceremonial space—which is ultimately a lonely place—and enter it to discover something about yourself. Inside the ceremonial space, you’ll encounter many things—in the form of beings, like guardians, archetypes, and other participants. And in the form of modalities like dance, touch, and bondage. And in the form of spirits like the psychedelic experience in itself. But also in the form of projections like your judgements and dreams about yourself and others. In a way, everything that happens inside the ceremony is a reflection of yourself—in its current, past, and future form. Understanding this is painful but also empowering. This is not a joyful trip with a lover, nor a place to meet your true soulmate or make friends for life. If you, as a participant, don’t understand this or can’t deal with it. Then, you are likely to come out either disappointed or hurt.

However, if you can imagine yourself on the outskirts of Amsterdam—sitting in a circle of others with similar intentions and experiences—waiting for your journey to begin—knowing that a guardian is watching over you to keep you as safe as possible—knowing that on this journey you might encounter the archetypes of the esoteric eros—may be in the form of a professional ready to initiate you, or as another participant who is willing to innocently play—or maybe you’ll be too busy with your own inner demons or in communion with God—and you deep down carry the knowledge that everything is exactly just as it should be—because you have already been here before. Maybe, then you are ready to join us on this journey into The Garden of the Serpent and the Rose.