Ayahuasca Retreats – The good, the bad, and the ugly
I’ve heard some folks referring to Ayahuasca retreats as ‘the wild west’ of plant medicine, and describe horror stories of people who had attended shady ‘retreat centers’ (if you can even call them that).
I know there are people in every aspect of society that are up to no good and can harm you in various ways, but the most extreme example I’ve ever come across in terms of things getting crazy in an Ayahuasca ceremony resulted in a slap to the face, some torn socks, and a whole bunch of frayed nerves.
It was ironically my very first ceremony as a helper at an Ayahuasca retreat center – watching diligently in the dim light of a crackling fire, to help people get up and navigate their way up a path to the restrooms, as well as bringing tissues and fresh puke buckets (and yes, I helped clean out the puke buckets too).🤢
This particular guest – who will obviously remain nameless, as will the retreat center – had an experience where he was seeing entities that were beckoning him to go with them, and he was trying to fight them off (in the spirit world).
But in our reality, that equated to him throwing slaps and kicks, and at least one of those slaps landed squarely on my face! In all honesty, it wasn’t particularly painful, just shocking.
It took me and at least 2 other helpers to eventually carry the guy out of the maloca, in an effort to at least minimize the amount of trauma he was broadcasting all over his fellow retreat participants.
Mind you, I’m not casting blame for the ruckus, and to this day, I sympathize with the guy. But at the same time, we as helpers needed to try to protect the other guests as well, and sometimes, the best that can be done is to take a person further away from the maloca where they can get one-on-one attention from the shaman – the person he tried to kick in the balls, as a matter of fact.
During all of this, there were multiple times where he seemed to calm down, and we relaxed our guard around him, and then he would try to run off into the woods; once even running squarely into a wood support beam that was holding up the roof above the small patio area by the bathrooms.
It was about at that point that that we had realized that we had to protect him from himself, especially because he was kicking and flailing so much that he has torn the ends of his socks wide open on nearby gravel, though his feet somehow remained unscathed, at least from what I could tell in the moonlight.
So we laid him down, put blankets over him, and held the edges of the blankets down so that even with all his flailing, he couldn’t hurt himself, and eventually, the storm passed.
The next day, he was deeply apologetic about the whole ordeal, which was when he explained his side of the story about seeing these entities he described as ghosts or specters beckoning him, and him fighting them off. I assured him that I understood he wasn’t in his normal state of mind, that I didn’t take offense to him slapping me by accident, and that all was forgiven.
(I think I also advised him to consider going with the beckoning entities if he saw them again, which is generally the rule of thumb – just go with it.)
I think the experience was enough to scare off at least one of the other retreat participants though, who left the next morning, mid-retreat.
Anyway, all of that is to say that the experience is the worst that has ever happened in my limited experience helping roughly 300 or so guests who crossed my path during my time as a volunteer, and it really wasn’t that bad.
And to be sure, there are a small number of guests that just didn’t jive well with one medicine or the other, for whatever reason.
That is, I can vaguely remember various examples of people who after a particular uncomfortable or scary experience with either Ayahuasca or San Pedro decided to focus on only the other medicine of the two for the rest of their retreat.
I myself once had an experience where I was firmly convinced I was dying, and even though it’s one that I hope I don’t have to repeat and felt rather angry about for a while, Ayahuasca told me that it was necessary in order for me to realize the things that really mattered – the people I thought of when I thought I was on my death bed.
(My own little lesson was do NOT accept a spontaneous invitation by a shaman to a special ceremony after just having a cacao snack bar, the resulting aching of which no doubt put a negative spin on my experience.)
And an even smaller number of people yet – maybe 1% or so(?) – prematurely left their various retreats. So to be sure, this medicine isn’t for everyone. Or rather, they might not be in the right place for it. (It’s from the Earth, which is where we all come from too, so it’s ‘for’ anyone in that sense.)
But for every 1 of those people, there were roughly 99 more who had downright miraculous transformations! And that was one of the best rewards I received for my volunteer work there – being able to get to know these people from all walks of life, from all different corners of the Earth, and to see them literally transform before my eyes over the course of just 12 days. It was truly an honor and a blessing to be part of that, even in some small supporting role like washing dishes or mopping the floor.
One example of ‘the good’ that stands out in my mind is one young lady who said she asked for and was granted the ability to “see through the eyes of God”, and she explained that it was like she could see anyone, anywhere on Earth, and all she had to do was think of them, and she could not only see them and talk to them, but also hear their thoughts!
Another example is something incredible that I’ve heard at least 2 or 3 independent accounts of (they all had the same story without hearing or knowing each other), which is that during their experiences, they saw what seemed to be the actual fabric of reality – a sort of grid or, dare I say it, matrix that was at the base of reality as far down as you could look, below even atoms.
Honestly, it’s been long enough that I don’t remember the details of how they interacted with these cosmic strings of reality, but it just seemed like an amazing experience to have. And in fact, part of my own process with all of this was to avoid feeling envious of these amazing experiences, and to be appreciative of the ones I have had (that other people were sometimes envious of).
More to the point, it is absolutely crucial that one attend a reputable retreat center, even at the risk of excluding small up-and-comers. For those places, it’s probably more appropriate for them to build a reputation by first welcoming friends and loved ones to participate, to establish a base reputation for other people to benefit from, and to get the ball rolling.
And of course that’s why AyaAdvisors exists! To provide an independent place for people to leave honest reviews about Ayahuasca retreats (as well as other plant medicines) so that others who come after them can benefit from their perspective – good and bad.
If you peruse the site, you’ll see that reviews tend to lean WAY positive, which is likely because of all the amazing experiences that people have, and those experiences probably outshine any small incidental negatives about their room or the property, which likely pale in comparison. Though I do feel that the reviews that don’t just gush but also helpfully point out room for improvement are actually quite beneficial.
Here’s the breakdown for the whole site, currently…
(3198)
Much to the chagrin of a handful of retreat centers over the years, once a listing has reviews, the listing can never be removed. Otherwise, what good is a review system where they could just delete their listing and remove all traces of the bad experiences?
Even though the retreat centers obviously can’t delete specific reviews either – which again would defeat the whole point of a review system – the reviewers themselves do have the ability to delete their own reviews, which does happen on occasion for whatever reason. (I don’t feel it’s my place to ask ‘why’.)
Anyway, the site is free to use, so there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.
So please, use this resource and stay safe out there! There are dangerous Ayahuasca retreats out there, and they are to be avoided at all costs!
If you need help choosing the right one, just drop us a line, let us know what your criteria are, and I or someone else will give you some options to choose from.
Cheers,
Tim G.
