Yes, generally they are extremely safe when worked with responsibly. The information below is a guide, and specific cases should be discussed with our staff before the retreats begin. This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather guidelines to help ensure your safety.
Medications that can be unsafe with ancestral and plant medicines:
Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs)
Central Nervous System (CNS) Depressants (and sleeping pills)
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)
Anti-hypertensives (blood pressure medications)
Other Antidepressants
Antibiotics
Recreational drugs:
Cannabis
Amphetamines
Cocaine
Ecstasy
Any psychedelic drugs
Other medications that should be discontinued before a retreat:
Decongestants, cold medications, allergy medications, antihistamines, sedatives, tranquilizers, amphetamines (including Adderall), some hypertensive medications, sympathomimetic amines (including pseudoephedrine and ephedrine), carbamazipine, methylphemidate (Ritalin), macromerine, phenelanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, asarone/calamus, some asthma inhalers, and diet pills.
If you suffer from any of the following psychological conditions, please discuss this with our staff before the retreat begins:
Borderline disorders
Bipolar disorders
Psychosis
Schizophrenia
Family history of mental health problems
Physiological conditions that should be discussed with staff.
Chronic high blood pressure
Heart conditions
Diabetes
An Ayahuasca retreat could be the best experience of your life, or it could leave you worse off, confused, or traumatized.
Your outcome depends upon 3 things: Your readiness, preparation, and your ability to choose a high-quality retreat.
Like most things in life, there are a broad variety of Ancestral and Plant Medicine retreat options, and a number of factors that affect the quality and cost of them.
Here are 12 recommendations to help you avoid sketchy options and choose a safe and transformational experience:
• Safety First: Unfortunately, many small retreat centers are not in a position to make meaningful investments into screening and safety. Even if you're fine, someone else on retreat might not be, which can affect the overall experience. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat provider that does in-depth conversational, medical, and psychological screening to protect your safety and well-being. We do all of these.
• Legality: Mexico deems psychedelics and magic mushrooms illegal generally, except in the case of using them for traditional or spiritual sacramental use. We work with Indigenous shamans who have the legal right to facilitate Ancestral and Plant Medicine.
• Size of the group: It's common for retreats to have 20, 50, even 100 people in ceremony, which can be chaotic to say the least. In such large groups, there's a lot of collective bucket-time in the room, and you are less likely to receive the level of attention from healers that you are probably looking for. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat with an intimate group of say, 8-15 people.
• Length of the retreat: shorter retreats feel rushed, don't support the cultivation of meaningful relationships, and there are limits to what can be achieved in a few nights. We recommend you spend at least four days for an Ancestral and Plant Medicine retreat to give your mind, body, heart, and soul the attention it deserves.
• Comfort: We recommend you choose a retreat where you are confident you will be physically comfortable and have your own private bedroom to decompress and integrate, especially if this is your first time.
• Energetic Alignment: Select a retreat that feels energetically aligned and allows your own subjective experience to unfold naturally. There's no right or wrong here, but it's worth recognizing that there are many different cosmologies (ways of seeing the universe) and having the energy of a different cosmology pushed through the ceremonial space may or may not be in your highest healing interests. This is also particularly relevant for first timers.
• Holistic approach: Work with an organization that takes a holistic approach to working with plant medicine and has options to support and guide your mental and emotional evolution alongside a retreat. If a provider implies that "medicine will solve all your problems", proceed with caution (because it won't!).
• Service: Select a retreat that you believe can meet your individual needs. Are you being treated as a human, or as participant #22 in their fourth retreat this month? Consider whether they've taken the time to get to know you and understand you, or it's more of a take it or leave it retreat center.
• Booking process: Take the time to speak with the provider before finalizing your booking. If it's all 100% online, ANYONE could be sitting next to you in ceremony. Everyone deserves to heal, but it's unlikely you want to be sitting in ceremony with a recovering addict going through their process next to you.
• Expertise: Find an organization that emphasizes healing, and you believe has the breadth and depth of expertise to guide your transformation. Look for facilitators and healers who have a lightness of being and a sparkle in their eyes. Healing work is all about the transmutation of energy, so you are looking for people who have the energy you aspire to. If they aren't able to keep their energy right, that tells you quite a bit about either where they are at and their capabilities.
• Volunteers: Please support ethical plant medicine work by selecting an organization that pays their team. Unfortunately, it is common practice for retreat centers to cycle through young, eager, and worn-out volunteers and/or not pay healers fairly. If the people supporting your retreat aren't living their best life, they're not going to be able to lead you to yours. Not the right vibe. Don't be shy to ask this question directly when you speak to prospective centers.
Who you choose to attend an Ancestral and Plant Medicine retreat with is undoubtedly one of the most important decisions in your life, especially the first time.
We encourage you to take the time and energy to do your research, follow your intuition, and to know why you are choosing a specific retreat.
If our recommendations resonate with you, and you'd like to explore a transformational journey with us, click on "Contact" below to request a complimentary Discovery Call with one of our Medicine Guides.