Join our crowd funding campaign by making a donation to create an international psychedelic veteran retreat.
We are asking your help to sponsor a veteran research retreat with psilocybin truffles. Results will be researched and published in a documentary made about this international psychedelic veteran event.
Help a veteran, we need EUR 50K to make it a reality.
We are organising another veteran retreat in The Netherlands for 20 veterans from from participating organisations and study the results. The results from the previous 2021 event can be accessed here.
Note: this was without therapy! Due to political reasons we want to show the truffle with EU food safety certification is safe, non toxic, not addictive and you cannot overdose or die from it.
Support our mission
and sponsor us at our
GoFundMe page here!
Heroic Hearts Project UK facilitates opportunities for healing by connecting military and emergency services veterans struggling with mental trauma to progressive therapy retreats around the world.
The Heroic Hearts US mission is to build a healing community that helps veterans suffering from military trauma recover and thrive by providing them with safe, supervised access to psychedelic treatments, professional coaching, and ongoing peer support.
Psychedelic Insights provides the psychological guidance of psychedelic experiences and had many veterans as clients. Luc, the CEO is a royal Netherlands marine corps veteran himself and with other veterans as trained psychedelic trip facilitators they created a safe space for all participating veterans to feel at home and safe.
Hans CEO from Fresh Mushrooms sponsored the 2021 retreat together with Psychedelic Insights. They also supplied the truffles as a donation for the research event.
Below is an impression of the 2021 veteran retreat that we want to improve scientifically, document it on video and increase the scale and quality. We hope you will support our troops and help us create a life changing event for those veterans who can come in the summer of 2023. Please help us change lives.
Private & corporate sponsorships are welcome to help veterans, research and more awareness through veteran testimonials and conclusions of the research.
This is the 40 minute documentary about our 2021 veteran research retreat; Which was screened at the inspector general of the Netherlands armed forces with the heads of the mental -/ health departments, head of personnel, army, navy and air force medical doctors, psychiatrists and social services. It was the first time in history, legal and EU food safety certified, psychedelic magic psilocybin truffels and plant medicines were discussed and veterans could share their experiences safely with experts.
Enjoy the documentary:
Corporate or other sponsors of the veteran retreat will receive special media packages for the next documentary about this international veteran event.
Contact us to exchange ideas about the media options for different sponsor packages to raise awareness around the mission of the veteran organisations below:
In collaboration with…
HEROIC HEARTS UK
Heroic Hearts Project UK facilitates opportunities for healing by connecting military and emergency services veterans struggling with mental trauma to progressive therapy retreats around the world.
These veterans typically have tried all the available resources and other veterans charities with limited success, leaving them with very few options.
We open the door to other viable opportunities not only to veterans but to emergency services workers as well.
Our mission is to facilitate opportunities for healing for military and emergency services veterans that have been left hopeless by the current system. We seek to spread awareness in the veterans communities of powerful therapies, and end the excessive dependence on pharmaceuticals to treat mental traumas.
In January 2020 @HeroicHeartsProject organized a special event involving a small group of special operations veterans, professional NHL athletes, and civilians. They traveled to Peru in pursuit of healing and self-discovery, where they participated in traditional ayahuasca ceremonies. Although from very different walks of life, everyone in the group bonded and found community through this life-defining experience. These are their stories.
Filming and production credit to @blbfilms and special thanks to @drbronner who helped support the filming. Our heartfelt respect and appreciation go out to all the tribes and indigenous elders who have preserved this knowledge and continue to work with us to help military veterans from around the world find healing.
For more information on how you can help veterans in need please visit Heroic Hearts Project (www.HeroicHeartsProject.org)
Heroic Hearts Project is a 501(c)(3) that helps veterans suffering from military trauma recover and thrive by providing them with safe, supervised access to psychedelic treatments, professional coaching, and ongoing peer support.
Film and production credit – Brandon Boulay and Chris Savage (http://www.brandonboulay.com/)
Special Thanks to Dr. Bronner’s for helping to fund the film (https://www.drbronner.com)
HEROIC HEART US
Our mission is to build a healing community that helps veterans suffering from military trauma recover and thrive by providing them with safe, supervised access to psychedelic treatments, professional coaching, and ongoing peer support.
Heroic Hearts envisions a new veteran ecosystem where veterans not only have access to safe and effective treatment options including psychedelics but are also empowered to help and mentor others in the community. We strongly believe that Community has the power to solve many of the mental health challenges facing this nation’s veterans.
About the 2021 Veteran Retreat
In September 2021 a diverse group of veterans from The Netherlands participated in a psychedelic nature retreat organised by Psychedelic Insights, called Psychedelic Warriors.
Why the retreat?
Specifically for veterans and other first responders; One woman and 8 men joined the retreat in a remote forest area. It was a shared dream made real by Hans Grootewal CEO of Fresh Mushrooms who sponsored the retreat and Luc van Poelje the founder of PsychedelicInsights.com. Hans felt there was a lack of efficient help for veterans and Luc saw the effects of his work with psilocybin truffles with his clients. As a veteran himself he knew this could help many old military colleagues. Globally there is a psychedelic renaissance with many studies into the effects of these promising compounds. A lot of research studies illegal substances like MDMA and pure psilocybin. With the political “War on Drugs”, it is left to scientists to show their safe benefits and counter the decades of intentional disinformation. Psilocybin truffles however, are legal (“food”) and available in The Netherlands.
The logical question: “Why are we not doing what we can to help veterans, now”?
The intention setting The preparation of psychedelic experiences for personal development include the so-called “intention setting”. There is a lot of research by many companies, aiming at specific issues ranging from PTSD to eating disorders, depression, anxiety and many others. Psychedelic Insights therapists conduct these deep psychological talks to get clarity about people’s deeper motivation for the psychedelic experience; “What are you hoping to gain? What do you want to leave behind? What is it you want more clarity on?”… These intentions are then placed more “top of mind” when entering the psychedelic experience. These are the crossroads of the “possibilities” that a psychedelic experience could provide insights to.
Many tears were shed already in this phase, sober and the day before the first psychedelic session. Strong men left vulnerable by the scars of life explaining their reasons for participating.
Concerns
One reason why there are some concerns regarding using veterans is experiential avoidance (EA). Experiential avoidance is the phenomenon that occurs when a person attempts to avoid emotions, thoughts, memories, and bodily sensations. This is a coping style that may maintain problems or produce new ones because you do not deal with the problems but avoid-suppress them. Feingold and Zerach (2020) found that experiential avoidance may be a factor for the association between mental health problems and war veterans. [12] This EA can cause the emotional suppression during the treatment with psilocybin. Materials and Methods 9 individuals participated in this observational study to measure the protocols used by a psychedelic retreat “psychedelic insights”.
Participants were measured on quality of life and resilience following 2 doses of Psilocybin (truffles). All participants: 8 of whom male and 1 female, were Dutch military veterans with moderate PTSD symptoms participating on a path towards self-development or spirituality.
The 9 individuals were screened based on mental and physical health measures. Exclusion criteria that rendered participants unsuitable for the study were psychiatric disorders, previous psychotic or manic events, and other underlying health conditions. The study took place at a wooden house in a forest surrounded by nature, which intended to create a safe, relaxed base for trust. Rapport was established by having a team work closely with the participants who themselves had had extensive experience with various psychedelics. The overall aim was to create an atmosphere of union, openness, and comfort.
Before, during, and after the study participants answered several clinical study questionnaires from which a data set was created. Analysis of this data set was performed for this research project. At a baseline level, 2 days before receiving the first dose, the baseline application form assessing mental health, intentions, and personal information was answered.
The questionnaires included: – PTSD questionnaire – Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) – The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) – Relationships Questionnaire – IOS Questionnaire – Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) – The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISK)