Neil Markey | Integrity Over Profit: The New Rule for Psychedelic Healing

About this episode

Neil Markey discusses the challenges of scaling psychedelic healing while maintaining integrity and honoring traditions.

Neil Markey went from leading Rangers in combat to leading psychedelic retreats in Jamaica. The transition wasn't clean. Depression, PTSD, and a divorce during his MBA forced him underground, where he found psilocybin and meditation. Now as CEO of Beckley Retreats, he's wrestling with a question the entire psychedelic movement faces: how do you scale something sacred without breaking it? This conversation doesn't romanticize the work. Neil talks candidly about the 2-3% of guests who destabilize post-retreat, the ego inflation that can infect facilitators, and why he screens out severe PTSD cases even though he's a veteran himself. He's building group-based programs that cost less and reach more people, but he's also watching for the exact human tendencies that could corrupt the field as it grows. There's tension here between accessibility and integrity, between honoring indigenous traditions and adapting them for Westerners who've never touched mysticism. Neil isn't pretending he's solved it. He's just trying not to make it worse. Key Timestamps: [00:06:00] Why integrity matters more than maximizing profit in this work [00:18:00] The neuroscience of neuroplasticity and why…

People in this episode

Host: Fleet Maull

Guest: Neil Markey

Topics covered

• psychedelic healing
• integrity
• mental health
• veterans
• neuroplasticity
• indigenous traditions

Keywords

• psilocybin
• meditation
• PTSD
• depression
• ego inflation
• safety protocols
• group-based programs

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Beckley Retreats

More episodes of Radical Responsibility Podcast

• Roland Frasier | The M&A Strategist Who Saw AI Coming Before ChatGPT Launched · June 8, 2026 · 50 min
• Joseph LeDoux | Stop Calling It Fear: It’s a Survival Reflex + A Story · June 3, 2026 · 51 min
• Alex Howard | Why This Therapist Turned Down the BBC to Build His Own Platform · May 25, 2026 · 45 min
• Michael Brady | Generosity as Strategy Building Wealth That Aligns With Your Soul · May 18, 2026 · 53 min
• Tania de Jong | The Citizen Campaign That Made Australia First in Psychedelic Medicine · May 4, 2026 · 44 min
• Dr. David Perlmutter | Mitochondria, Memory, & the Choices That Determine Your Brain's Destiny · April 27, 2026 · 55 min