The Origins of Karuna Communitas

Karuna Communitas began with a shared question: how can we create compassionate, community-centred pathways to healing that are safe, ethical and accessible?

The idea took shape through conversations with fellow students on the University of Exeter Psychedelics programme. As we shared experiences and recommendations around medicine retreats, recurring concerns emerged. Legal retreats outside the UK, where such work is permitted, are often prohibitively expensive for those who may benefit from them most.

We also noticed that many retreat models focus almost exclusively on the experience itself. Preparation beforehand, integration afterwards, and meaningful community-building are often limited or absent altogether, despite being central to lasting change.

In response, we formed a group to explore a different approach. We asked what it might look like to create a not-for-profit organisation offering affordable, community-focused, legal retreats grounded in care across the full arc of the experience, where and when legally permitted.

We believe that much of the healing lies in the power of the group. Context matters deeply. Intentional preparation helps nurture mindset, trust, and shared purpose, while cultivating a sense of communitas before a retreat even begins. Integration is equally vital. After transformative experiences, people are often left to make sense of profound insights on their own. With thoughtful integration practices and ongoing support, these experiences can lead to meaningful and lasting changes in everyday life.

The name Karuna Communitas reflects this ethos. Karuna points to compassion expressed through action. Communitas speaks to the deep connection that can emerge through shared experience beyond hierarchy or status. Together, they form the foundation of our work.

Our Mission

Karuna Communitas exists to create and sustain a not-for-profit, community-led model for safe, ethical, and accessible transformative experiences.

Our mission is to reduce suffering and support ongoing wellbeing by prioritising preparation, integration, and community as essential elements of any transformative process. We aim to make these experiences more accessible, particularly for those facing financial, social, or structural barriers.

We do this by developing cooperative and reciprocal models of care, fostering long-term community connection, and supporting ethical, trauma-informed practices. Rather than offering one-off experiences, we focus on building supportive networks that help people integrate insight into their lives and relationships.

At the heart of Karuna Communitas is a commitment to compassion, inclusivity, and shared responsibility. We believe that when healing is held within community, it becomes more sustainable, more ethical and more deeply transformative.

Cultivating Responsible Psychedelic Practice Through Community and Care

At Karuna Communitas, our work is guided by a simple but profound intention: to make transformative, healing experiences more accessible, while holding safety, ethics, and community care at the centre of everything we do.

As part of this commitment, the directors of Karuna Communitas have recently begun participating in a Gathering Groups community of practice. Gathering Groups is a structured twelve-week programme designed to support psychedelic well-being through education, preparation, and integration, and it includes a carefully facilitated legal two-night medicine retreat in the Netherlands. This training represents an important step in deepening our understanding of how to responsibly and compassionately work with psychedelic experiences within a legal and ethical framework.

Why Gathering Groups?

Psychedelic experiences can be meaningful and beneficial, but they are not a standalone solution. Research and lived experience consistently highlight the importance of preparation, safe container setting, and integration for lasting positive outcomes. Gathering Groups places these principles at the heart of its approach.

The programme we are currently undertaking focuses on:

• Education around psychedelic effects, risks, and best practices

• Psychological and emotional preparation prior to ceremony

• Group-based relational support and shared reflection

• Structured integration practices following the experience

By participating as a community of practice, facilitators train not only in guiding experiences, but also in holding group process, ethical boundaries, and long-term wellbeing.

Building Capacity Before Offering Programmes

At Karuna Communitas, we believe it is essential to walk the path ourselves before offering it to others. This training is not about rushing to deliver services, but about building capacity, integrity, and embodied understanding first.

Upon completing the Gathering Groups programme, our intention is to:

• Continue refining our skills through supervised practice

• Share learned frameworks and principles with our wider community

• Develop future training opportunities rooted in cooperation and reciprocity

Only once we are confident that we can offer support responsibly, legally, and accessibly will we move toward facilitating broader programmes.

A Long-Term Vision for Access and Equity

Looking ahead, our aspiration is to help create affordable and legally compliant psilocybin programmes for those who could benefit but are often excluded due to cost, stigma, or lack of access. We recognise the complex legal landscape and remain committed to operating transparently and within the law at every stage.

This journey is about more than psychedelic experiences themselves. It is about cultivating community, restoring connection, and reducing mental, emotional, and physical suffering through careful, compassionate practice.

We are grateful to be learning alongside the Gathering Groups community and look forward to sharing more as our training progresses.

Karuna Communitas is Official!

🎉 Karuna Communitas is now officially formed as a Company Limited by Guarantee

Today marks an important step in our journey. Karuna Communitas has been formally established as a CLG, created to serve as a not for profit home for a growing community built on compassion, reciprocity and shared purpose.

Our vision is simple and heartfelt. We aim to build a responsive social network of people who want to share their time and abilities so that transformative psychedelic experiences become accessible to more individuals, especially those who would otherwise have no way to reach them.

We believe in co operative approaches to healing, in inclusivity, in a sense of belonging for all, and in the power of community held support.

Karuna Communitas exists to nurture and sustain a vibrant community that works with these medicines to ease mental, emotional and physical suffering while encouraging safe, continued growth and wellbeing.

Thank you for being here at the beginning. More updates, invitations and opportunities to get involved will follow soon. 💚