Why I don’t recommend Rythmia Life Advancement Center

What I am about to share is my personal perception, encounters, intuition, and (personal) truths about the Ayahuasca retreat; Rythmia Life Advancement Center and how it contributed to my disillusionment of how people are showing up as “spiritual”.

I guess I am naive. I think everything and everyone is good, until proven otherwise. I truly believed that if someone claimed to be healed, and spiritual, that they were.

It often takes time to realize the truths about a thing or a person. Especially if you have paid thousands of dollars to go somewhere (you want to believe it was a good place). Not to mention the potential hypnosis being used and black magic. It took me a year of an odd feeling of being obsessed with wanting to go back, obsessed with telling everyone about the resort, and odd sexual feelings towards people that work there that my mind and heart was saying wasn’t in alignment with my truths. These were such overwhelming feelings that I thought something was off, and a friend/seer/psychic confirmed that something was wrong…she said the resort is not working with the Divine and there was a massive mis-use of the “medicine”.

Trip #1

If you look up Rythmia you almost only see 5 star reviews. You can find multiple documentaries with celebrities talking about Rythmia. They are the only medically licensed ayahuasca retreat center. All those things sounded safe to me. The in-house medical staff was the top reason I chose this center to be my first Ayahuasca experience. When you get there they track you. They take your photo to memorize who you are for the week. There are cameras everywhere and you go straight in for a medical evaluation upon arrival.

They make you stay for a full week so you are integrated. Their program seemed top-notch with educational programs daily to prep you for the medicine. One of the first meetings there, the owner himself tells you his story. How he was an addict, an adulterer, ego-driven, money hungry sociopath (reference page 17 Shit the Moon Said, by Gerard Armond Powell). He found the medicine though, and he met the Moon. Literally he spoke to the moon, who told him he must go help others, he must open this retreat. He was also healed. He had journeys meeting his abusers as a child, and saw how he was a horrible person to his own family. For a minute he reminded me of one of my crazy ex-boyfriends who was a drunk and just awful. Something about how he moved, talked, his essence. They kinda all have “a way” about them that doesn’t seem like a bad thing at first, but ends in trickery. I shrugged it off. The owner was healed. He also mentions that he was actually healed by another “medicine”, Iboga (not Ayahuasca).

“Wait a minute, I want to meet the moon, you met the moon from Iboga? Why am I sitting here about to take Ayahuasca?” It was kind of odd, others thought so too, but he said the Iboga told him to offer Ayahuasca (he had answers all set to those questionable items). I just paid almost $4k to be here, so sure, I will believe you (owner). Plus he really seemed like a good guy now, charismatic, talks to all the guests, has a big heart and says how he wants to heal everyone with this center.

Awakening note:

What you might not know is that Rythmia started off as an Iboga center with Moughenda (Patrick Nzamba Mickala, one of his many names?), the “shaman” the owner first did medicine with.

And people died. Rythmia was first called Iboga House, and after the death(s?) they rebranded themselves and decided to carry a “safer” medicine, Ayahuasca. So here we have a rich businessman with an investment that is about to sink due to that death. It begs the question, does the owner really have a passion for healing and Ayahuasca, or did he just need to save his investment? Did the moon really tell him to use Ayahuasca? The quotes below show that the center was initially a rehab center, but in Gerry’s book Shit the Moon Said, page 92 states that the moon told him to make the resort for Lightworkers and Light Warriors. His book says Rythmia was to be a spiritual resort, not a rehab center. I am bringing this up now, because when I called to inquire about Rythmia before going I specifically asked if it was a rehab center ( I was not looking to be around junkies and addicts) and I was told it was NOT a rehab center. And maybe it wasn’t anymore, because before rebranding again, they also tried to cure the Kardashian baby daddy, Scott Disick, and it didn’t pan out.

I also dug into this Moughenda character that the owner describes as a pretty disgusting guy with awful facilities, that he false advertised as being a resort. (reference book “Shit the Moon Said” by Gerard Armond Powell) From what I can tell, he is just another fake shaman. Born in Detroit with a load of excess child support due in the states. Are we Americans fooled so easily by dark skin, face paint and “traditional shaman apparel” to give our power to just anyone?

Anyhow it seemed like the owner of Rythmia needed to ditch Moughenda fast so that his money didn’t waste away.

Back to the experience..

You arrive at the center Sunday at 8pm and by Monday at 8pm you are at your first ceremony. You can read about my first experience here. It was a nightmare. Although my intuition and mind told me that something evil had visited me that Monday night, the owner and the staff were overjoyed.

“Oh Honey… that was a clearing, your negative ego dying, that is amazing”. I sat at the end of the breakfast table with the owner reassuring me, Chris (the main breathwork facilitator) holding my hands and looking me deeply in the eyes and Dr. Jeff listening in. Well…I guess it was a good thing then, even though I felt so awful. And with their reassurance, I went onto take Ayahuasca on Tuesday, and Yage on Weds-Thurs.

I just trusted these men against my intuition. After speaking with them I then believed that Monday night was actually the best experience on Aya and that the shamans, Brad and Scott’s, medicine was the best. I gave them my power since I thought they knew better. ( I also want to note that at that point I had paid $300 cash to do the medicine for 4 nights (on top of all other fees) and I wouldn’t get my money back if I decided not to do the rest of the ceremonies)

I took it easy on Tuesday and didn’t take too much of the medicine. Then Wednesday was the first night of Yage (YAA-HEY). We each met with the main Shaman, Taita Juanito, and his crew before the ceremony. Something didn’t feel right about his “right hand man”/translator. I didn’t like his energy, but I shrugged that off too and told them about my scary Monday night. They told me not to take too much Yage and assured me they would look out for me. I thought it was wonderful that everyone had a personal consultation, and a woman from his group made sure to comfort me later that afternoon as well.

The Yage was awful.
It tasted like chunky throw up.

While the man next to me was yelling with joy as he met aliens in some heaven like place, I was curled in a ball with what felt like food poisoning. BOTH NIGHTS. They said every experience is different, each time you take it, it won’t be the same. But both nights were exactly the same. The feeling of food poisoning is your body literally rejecting poison. Why did this have no psychedelic affects on me? I just felt like shit. I even asked the Shaman why I had the same experience both nights, but he basically said that wasn’t possible and was almost offended.

You Want to be in the YES Group

Each day you hang out with the most awesome people from all over the world who are going through this with you, who love you, who comfort you. You eat the most amazing nourishing food. You sit in meetings and hear everyones stories, people got their miracle ( a huge focus at the resort is making sure everyone got their miracle). You have a feeling of almost being pushed to say YES I got a miracle too! The feeling of wanting to be a part of a group… She got her miracle, he got his.. did I get mine? Maybe, I guess my Monday night was a miracle, right?

Back to my “miracle”…There was clearly some demonic negative ego I owned that came to the surface on Monday night, so says the staff.. that it was a good thing.. but at the end of my stay I realized that I didn’t get my miracle. I blamed the Yage, I hated that medicine, and on normal weeks there are 3 days Aya and 1 night Yage, but when Taita Juanito is at the resort, there are 2 nights with Yage. So by the end of the week I was so pumped up with marketing, the owner telling everyone he wanted to heal the world, people around me getting miracles, and just the love of the Costa Rican sun, that I knew I had to come back on a week when Taita was not there. I needed more experience on the Aya.

Trip #2

I arrived back the first week of August 2018 and that week I had an uneventful Monday and Tuesday ceremony. On Wednesday interestingly enough I sat in the same spot that I had my first nightmarish experience 6 months prior. The nightmare was almost coming back again, the night was seeming pretty rough, until I told the medicine, screamed to it (in my head) that the nightmare was unacceptable. I pushed it out, and threw up a lot. A healer, Mary, came over and blew cigar medicine in my face, and that transformed the experience. I finally melted into a beautiful space and got “my miracle”. Read about it in detail here.

Weird Vibe

If you search hard enough you might find the video with myself and the owner – the “I got my miracle video”. I was the chosen one for the week. I was beckoned to the owner’s room and although we had spoken many times before and he specifically called for me, upon my arrival he had forgotten my name and asked it again. He seemed nice and calls everyone Honey. I usually hate pet names, I always thought asshole men who looked down on women called women pet names, especially if those women aren’t their significant other. But whatever, he seemed nice enough. When I entered his room, he said “don’t worry I won’t touch you” (okay.. I wasn’t thinking he was going to.. not so sure why he felt the need to say that). He then went on to tell me that he needed to sit very close to me to both be on camera ( I also never noticed others sitting that close in Miracle videos.. but hey.. that’s fine I guess..) Other than those 2 weird red flags, the video stream went okay. I am a little awkward, and although he said to be completely honest, I of course tried to seem extra happy and in love with Rythmia. Overall I liked the owner, I thought he was this amazing healed man and he really cared. He told me his concerns about the guy I came to Rythmia with, basically saying I needed to get away from him. He took my number down and said “ I could see you working here”. I was hooked.

The Narcissist Mirror

This brings me to the other element on my second stay… this time a guy I was dating had come with me (kinda of). We actually met because I was explaining Rythmia to a group of people that he was in, and he booked a trip immediately, he booked MY trip, then he wriggled and charmed his way into my life. I was really just finding out who he was 3 months later when the trip arrived and I realized he was a narcissistic, negging, sociopath. Good thing we were in separate rooms for our stay. He in fact had a background like the owner. Former (and current) drug abuse, psychotic brain, power hungry, ego driven, but now he was “cured” he was a Reiki Master and opening a spiritual rehab center of his own. He was also practicing Magick. (Gosh I am naive).

He is important to this story- although I hate to think of him, he brought in an interesting element. He knows darkness. When you partake in excessive drinking and drug abuse, you attract negative and dark entities. He often told me about the voices he heard in his head, the shadows he saw that would tell him to do things, the “people” that were after him and spying on him. Unfortunately, he tormented me all week. I ran the other way when I saw him, I couldn’t bare his presence. He was convinced that the shaman Scott wanted me, and I wanted him. The first night I had gotten a healing from Scott, and my “friend” didn’t like that so much. He went crazy and verbally attacked me and Rythmia all week.

I was in constant contact with the staff, asking for help, and apologizing for his behavior. He also made sure he went up to Scott and tried to apologize, but couldn’t. He was convinced Scott was evil and wanted me, but I didn’t see it. Because of his demeanor towards me, I didn’t listen to him when he told me:

“I see demons coming out of some of the guests, talking to me. The space isn’t cleansed properly. Scott wants you”

He went on to rant to guests all week how Rythmia is bullshit. How the medicine isn’t good, how I am naive and how this is all scam. I was so embarrassed at the time, and didn’t realize until recently how right he was. He was able to see the truth and demons that hide there because he is so familiar with the darkness.

On a side note, my good friend that I met there mentioned that she too saw demons around people during ceremony, and the staff making out at the end of her bed, which she was uncomfortable with.

Don’t Quit your day job

I, like many others, leave Rythmia feeling like you want to quit your day job and work in healing, or with the medicine. Everyone left feeling like it was their calling, and that they HAD to go back. After each visit I excessively told everyone I came in contact with about my amazing (yet at times challenging) stay at Rythmia. I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about Rythmia. It was obsessive. I wasn’t the only one. I contacted many friends I had made, and they all felt the same, especially over time, it started to weird us out. Why can’t we stop this urge to want to go back? Was black magic being used to tether us?

Come-Hither..

The owner and I spoke on Facebook messenger after my 2nd trip. He complimented my hair and my looks at times. I asked him what he meant when he said he could see me working there. I was still on a high and under hypnosis from my trips and was ready to give up my life to work there. He continued to tell me that there was job, but it didn’t pay much, and he refused to tell me anything about it through email or phone. He messaged me that I needed to fly down right away, otherwise the job would be taken by someone else. I had to say no to all that since it didn’t make any sense. It was almost like a cult vibe. You want me to give up everything and make a life changing decision for what? You aren’t even giving me details. He had little to no regard or thoughts about my life, people leaving and uprooting themselves to work for him. After that I felt it was best not to speak to him any longer.

Psychotic Breaks and Physical Harm

What I didn’t mention about my 2 stays above was that people got hurt. People had psychotic breaks. People went nutty, especially on the Yage. A woman I met, had some loving experiences, then on Yage, cut open her brow by the fire pit. She was later so entranced by the medicine, that she stayed a 2nd week in a row. She then went home for a month, quit her job, gave away her dog and went into the jungle of Columbia with Taita Juanito and his crew, weeks later she went back to Rythmia where they put her on real psych meds and had her stay there until she was well enough to leave.

I don’t know what happened next to her because I couldn’t watch it unfold anymore. She no longer responds to my text messages and her Facebook has since been deleted.

Another woman “escaped” from the grounds while on Yage, jumping the wired fence and multiple trees until the staff caught her and tied her down. The next day she said she was running from herself.

One morning while we were nearing the end of our Yage ceremony, another woman started screaming. The shaman crew went to her and performed what looked like an exorcism.

I didn’t know any better. I wasn’t sure if these things were supposed to happen or not. My intuition often pinged in, that if we are working with some loving Motherly energy within Ayahuasca, why would these things happen? But again I trusted the retreat and staff, I had to. I was in Costa Rica alone, and put my faith in these people.

Manipulation

As I mentioned earlier, when you pay a lot of money and trust that people are telling the truth, and you’re alone in a foreign country, its easy to give your power away, and they know it. It’s odd to me how my own and other’s intuition have told us one thing, yet by the end of the week we walk out like a zombie with a smile on our face spewing our love for Rythmia. After my bad experience on that first Monday, I was easily convinced it was quite possibly the best experience one could have on Ayahuasca. It reminds me of gaslighting. What I truly thought (that it was a demon) was flicked aside, and the people I put on a pedestal brushed it off and told me what my truth was.

A man that was there, tried to also escape multiple times during ceremony, in his Aya experiences he was being told that Rythmia was a cult. He even stole a bike and called his mom in the middle of a ceremony to get him away from there. Somehow by the end of the week though, he was saying how his initial thoughts about those experiences were all wrong, and his Rythmia stay was one of the most important times in his life. He had a really rough week. Was the Ayahuasca telling him the truth? After he divulged this information do you think Rythmia would want him thinking that? Of course not. They steered him in a new direction and changed his truths.

Marketing & Influencers

Something I noticed about Rythmia, was that there were “normal people” there. Upon searching before arriving in Feb. 2018 I could barely find anyone but 1-2 employees tagging and posting pictures of Rythmia. It wasn’t flooded with influencers & people taking selfies. There were a lot of people there over the age of 60 taking Aya for the 2nd or 10th time. There were smart, well to do people, there were also people who spent their life savings to get there. They warned us though, in the later meetings in the week that “we are going to be increasing our marketing strategy, you better book again now if you want a spot”. They weren’t lying.

Their marketing strategy almost seems unethical, there has to be a legal loophole that they are jumping through because in 2019 to the present all you see there are spiritual influencers (and they all “won” a free trip, like influencers told me). Or they were invited to come as a guest speaker and in my opinion (and proven in the notes below), in exchange for winning a free trip, these top name spiritual guides/influencers/podcasters talk about Rythmia on their social accounts before and after the trip, and make videos about the resort. This is also unethical on their part, they are engaging in Quid pro Quo. They are accepting a free trip, and in return do you think they are going to give an honest review of Rythmia? Of course not, why would they say anything other than positive after receiving a gift (and if you say anything less than positive you get sued, see notes below). I no longer trust any spiritual teacher that has visited the resort. In particular I saw this unfold with Shaman Durek’s. He speaks so much about what a true Shaman is, and then he starts promoting Rythmia before even going there, trying to get people to sign up to meet him there.

Rythmia tried to sue a podcast show after gifting them a trip and then getting upset that they didn’t want to lie about their experience to their listeners. Rythmia lost the lawsuit.

You also barely see any “bad reviews” on other platforms, and this is because if you do post one, the owner will write you back a lengthy note and maybe offer you a free stay (see the comments on this blog). If you take this free stay, do you think you would leave up the poor review? Probably not. They are basically buying their great reviews. How do I know this? Someone I met on my second trip was there on a free stay due to not being satisfied on his 1st trip.

The reviews are also so good because they remind you to post a review while you’re still on your “high” from the resort. The owner claims to want to heal the world, and so you need to do your part to help attract people to this healing. You want to help heal the world, don’t you?

Scared to Speak up

Between the owners aggressive responses to poor reviews, literally suing podcasters for giving honest opinions, influencers taking free $$ (trips), and staff not being able to properly put into words “something ain’t right”….no one is saying anything bad about Rythmia. And guests leave on such a (in my opinion) manipulated high, and then are confused months later when depression sets in and they don’t say word. But there are those of us trading personal messages.

There is no therapy offered when you leave/ arrive home. The medicine supposedly opens you up, makes you this new person with this possibly traumatic experience, then you just go home. I have lost a few friends since we came back. Literally they are lost, MIA. They have shut off contact with friends, even Rythmia buddies who support and love them. Their phones have been turned off, their social media goes blank. I worry that some of these people are no longer alive.

Crowded Ceremonies

I have only experienced Ayahuasca ceremonies at Rythmia, however many people I have spoken to, both employees and guests, have said that the ceremonies at Rythmia are too large, and the ratio of helpers to guests is dangerously low. When I had a tough experience my first night there, my mattress neighbor told me the next day that she was worried about me all night, and moreso because no one was helping me. She said she kept calling people over on my behalf to check on me.

Although you do go through questioning before being allowed to sign up for Rythmia, some of the guests seemed to be very troubled and were extremely disturbing during ceremonies. Many people I met there had nights that they were just tormented by other guests. Some guests seemed to be too mentally unstable to handle the medicine.

All the women are leaving

As a woman, when you witness amazing women working somewhere, and then see them almost all quit in droves, something is wrong. Could there be sexual abuse? Why else would so many women leave? I am worried.

In addition, I became close to a woman working there on my 2nd trip, and she was actually dating a man who was working there as well. A man whom she described as being overly jealous and controlling. A man she described as having similar characteristics as my narcissistic ex-boyfriend that had gone with me to the center. I was horrified that a man like him works there.

Shamans and energetic clearings
What I didn’t do before going to Rythmia was investigate their “shamans” or Medicine facilitators. What were their backgrounds? Where was the medicine from? Even if I was told the answers to these questions what would I do with them? How did they clear the space energetically? Everyone seemed to be from the states (except Taita Juanito, but his right hand man was). I cannot find information on the staff there, and I don’t trust what is on the website.

In addition my red flag also started waiving once I saw Taita Jaunito at movie premieres in LA. There just seems to be a lot of ego.

Another thing that has been brought to my attention was that I cannot recall the owner or the staff saying the word “Ayahuasca” in reference to what we were ingesting. It was always “the medicine”, the “house brew”. Were we really ingesting the purest Ayahuasca if they weren’t using that term? I now question this.

Finally when my friend basically snapped me out of the Rythmia Hypnosis, I tuned in. Something wasn’t right. I had to do some extensive clearing work to the cut cords and the snakes I felt were attached to me. I realized I gave away my power.

I have heard stories and rumors of the medicine being manipulated and sexual predators working there. Stories and rumors of porn addicts, stories of the medicine not being properly stored. Are the people that work there and own the place really healed? The intense energy that I had to clear and cut I felt from there makes me feel otherwise, along with a myriad of other “rumors” I have heard.

Seeing what my ex-boyfriend was like, it was very obvious that a drug and sex addict could claim to be healed and in their narcissistic grandiose way almost believe it themselves. Like him, they could do all the things; take Aya, go to rehab, attend shaman training, become a reiki master, buy a large plot of land and sell jungle medicine to the world and it could all be a lie.

In Conclusion

After over a year of reflection, intuition, observation and speaking to former guests and staff. I can no longer recommend Rythmia Life Advancement Center. We are being deceived. The owner seems excellent at finding celebrities and influencers and bribing them with free trips. Most of them don’t know any better, and their influence is used to deceive us to go there. To be honest, I don’t recommend using plant medicine at all unless you know the facilitator, and I mean know them, for years.

I had to experience this all.. I never knew that black magic and dark entities were really a thing. I have learned so much over the past years about how to listen to my own intuition and protect myself.

I am sad though. I am so sad to see people claiming to want to heal/help others, but may not be telling the truth, or are not yet healed themself. Maybe they are still lying to themselves, or maybe they know exactly what dangerous practices they are performing. Maybe it’s all about the money.

I am fully disillusioned with most spiritual practices now. I don’t trust any thought leader that has gone to and then later promoted Rythmia, and especially the ones who promoted it before even going. And if you look, everyone has gone. All the top names in the spiritual community. They are all frauds, if they were real seers, they would have felt the poor energy and practices and left. I actually have heard of 2 thought leaders that went and promptly left. They saw/felt that something was not right, but I am also disappointed that they are saying nothing.

I hope that people who have more evidence, and facts of dark practices start coming out and talking about it. I am sad that this is still the world we live in, where power and fear suppress us. 100 people are visiting the resort every week and are potentially leaving with dark attachments that will lead them into depression (and make them want to go back to the healing “medicine” at Rythmia).

I again need to state that this is all my intuition and thoughts and personal beliefs on this place. A lot of people have great and beautiful experiences there, a lot of what I said can be taken as an opinion and “rumors”. I ask you to use your own intuition when choosing to engage in things that involve your soul and mental health. For now I am just sad, disappointed, and disenchanted.

I have received many private messages telling me their stories. Stories of severe depression, suicidal thoughts, and even schizophrenia after returning from rythmia. People telling me they felt lost, or just not right. I am so sorry to you all, and I am here for you. Please also share your stories in the comments to help others if you feel you can.

Note: This review has been edited to remove over-capitalization; outside links; references to other platforms; and content pasted from other websites, but aside from that, has been left in its original form.