We will show you various hiking trails around the camp and you will be encouraged to get out into nature as often as possible during the retreat. Connecting with nature and the plants often enhances the ayahuasca ceremonies. Towards the end of the retreat there will also be a long hike into the reserve led by a highly knowledgeable guide who will point out numerous medicinal plants and other natural wonders along the way.
If this is your first time embarking on a sacred Ayahuasca journey, this short quiz will help you assess your level of mental, emotional, and spiritual readiness for this powerful and sensitive work. An Ayahuasca Retreat is not to be taken lightly, the work needs to be done before, during, and after the retreat.For those of you looking for a highly professionally-run retreat with a small group size (no more than 11) and a high level of attention to safety, service, and real sustained growth, Behold Retreats is a great choice. Behold does not facilitate Ayahuasca in the USA, but offers close-by legal options in breathtaking Costa Rica. We strongly urge you to consider embarking on your journey in a safe and legal country. This process is your own self-healing journey, nothing else should interfere such as legality issues.
We have only treated three patients for AIDS/HIV but each participant benefited tremendously. All three reported that their lives had been completely transformed. One was totally healed and is still HIV negative after seven years, while the other two test negatively, but continue to take medication as a precaution. It is important to note that all three had profound faith in the process and engaged very well with the treatment and medicine.
Anxiety is a condition we treat very often and always with positive results. The tradition’s combination of treatment methods is ideal for treating both depression and anxiety, as well as a number of other conditions. Our ayahuasca retreats have a 100% success rate for improvement with treatment of anxiety, but again, it is up to each person to follow through on making and maintaining lifestyle changes after the retreat.
Much more than just ayahuasca ceremonies, our healing retreats feature a multitude of additional treatments outside of the ceremonies, including plant baths, vapor baths, smoke baths, inhalants, purgatives, poultices, massage, counseling, and any internal or topical medical treatment that might be needed to heal particular illnesses or afflictions. We strive to provide the optimal care and treatment possible during a retreat.
El Sol Retreats also has been a leader in providing preparation and integration coaching for the last 10 years, helping you to feel fully prepared for your journey into a deep healing experience with mother ayahuasca. Their approach is holistic and includes ways to prepare your body, mind, and soul for the experience, tools to navigate and ground yourself during the journey, and methods to overcome challenges.
El Sol Retreats involves ayahuasca consumption (Daime tea) as part of their religious rituals. Sometimes difficult to find, you can try to find locations around the country by searching for Santo Daime USA. Another Ayahuasca church known as the Peaceful Mountain Way is a Native American Church that specializes in an Ayahuasca ritual as a spiritual sacrament.
Another Ayahuasca church known as the Peaceful Mountain Way is a Native American Church that specializes in an ayahuasca ritual as a spiritual sacrament.
Our retreats blend elements of ancient shamanic rituals with contemporary healing modalities like psychotherapy, mindfulness, art therapy etc. They aim to provide a holistic self-growth experience integrating the ayahuasca journey with various complementary practices. This holistic approach can enhance integration and therapeutic value.Selecting the ideal ayahuasca retreat for your needs requires careful contemplation of several factors:
Prices for ayahuasca retreats in the USA range widely based on length, location, amenities and services included. Typical costs range from:
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant medicine that has been used in a sacred context by indigenous and mestizo healers in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. Made from the mixture of 2 (or more) plants found in the Amazon jungle – the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi), and the chacruna leaf (Psychotria viridis), which contains the powerful psychoactive dimethyletryptamine (DMT), it is a brew capable of inducing altered states of consciousness. The word ayahuasca is based in the Quechua language and translates to “vine of the soul” or “vine of the spirits”. It goes by many different names according to region, such as oni, caapi, natema, yajé, yagé, nepe, shuri, kamalampi, kaji and others throughout the Amazon Basin1.
Traditionally, ayahuasca has been used in a variety of contexts: as a therapeutic tool to diagnose and treat illness; as a means of shamanic communication; and for the communal purposes of hunting magic, warfare, and collective ritual2. While the true origins of ayahuasca have been lost to history, with no written records prior to the 16th century Amazon invasion of Spanish conquistadors, archaeological evidence suggests its use stretches back at least two millennia. Its practice and spread since appears to be as complex and diverse as the people who use it, embodying and blending various cultural frameworks, spiritual belief systems, economic and political landscapes, and social hierarchies. Today, it is the foundation for the traditional medicine systems of over 75 different tribes in the Amazon, and has spread to various regions across the globe, offering healing for many illnesses and dis-ease where modern medicine has failed.
When we are young, Spiritual Integration – we often inherit the patterns, habits, and ways of life from our parents, relatives, or those who raised us. We are also heavily shaped by the events in our lives that happen to us at a young age. Ayahuasca can take us back to this time and revisit memories that reflect on how we perceived life, created our values, and shaped our beliefs. When negative events or emotions happened, our tendency as children was to turn away from that pain, avoid it and push it down into our subconscious. This created great energetic impacts that we carried into our adult life, manifesting in a multitude of ways and practices, including how we handle stress, our predisposition to addiction, depression and anxiety, and the way we connect with ourselves and others. In this work, we are invited to engage with our inner child, and rescue those parts which still carry pain through reflecting upon, integrating, and then releasing the associated negative emotions and their energetic hold on us. By healing the inner child, we heal all that which follows, and can return to a place of authenticity, presence, and peace.
The alchemy of transformation comes from engaging directly with our shadow selves and our emotional pain and discomfort. It is not a process that one can simply “think through” – it is one of the heart, and can only be truly dealt with through the direct experience of the emotions and traumas we’ve been avoiding. When we fully integrate our shadow self, transforming the energy from it and rather using it for life-affirming purposes, we can enter into a state of love and gratitude that can only come from walking through the fire and coming out on the other side. By bringing the subconscious blockages to light, amplifying the patterns and processes that no longer serve us, and helping us face it, ayahuasca allows us the ability to transform that darkness into the keys to our liberation.
According to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), ayahuasca's psychoactive properties are most commonly derived from Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine containing monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), and the leaves of Psychotria viridis, or other plant containing N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). It’s believed that the DMT found in ayahuasca activates the DMT naturally found in a person’s pineal gland, often considered the third eye portal amongst the spiritual set and Indigenous healers. Many healers and shamanic practitioners believe this leads to the vision quests that ensue after ingesting the brewed version of ayahuasca, and why participating in ceremony is a way to connect deeper to your truest self.
Most people from the Western world don’t consider parasites a possibility unless they have traveled to a third world country, but parasites are everywhere. They go undetected due to a lack of proper testing within the western medical industry, and are often mistreated as a digestive issue. Our ayahuasca retreats have had tremendous success treating parasites, often times when participants did not know they had them.
El Sol Retreats offers small group, private and at home ayahuasca ceremonies, as well as the option to join their membership club for participants. Their ayahuasca brew is made from scratch and the ingredients, such as the ayahuasca vine, are all individually ordered so you can be assured of what exactly is in the tea, and they are confident that their brew is safe and effective
Due to the complicated legal status of ayahuasca in the USA, there are just a few retreat centers that genuinely and legally offer ayahuasca experiences located in the USA. The expansion of ayahuasca’s popularity has led to the emergence of retreat centers and churches in the USA that offer legal ayahuasca experiences. A good ayahuasca retreat should also provide a safe, comfortable setting for navigating the deep psychedelic journey that the medicine provides.
Leaky gut is a different expression to similar roots as acid reflux. The treatment is also very similar. We have had very good success on our ayahuasca retreats with helping people who suffer from leaky gut, and many other digestive issues.Candida is a troublesome condition for western treatment because it is an intelligent living being, aware and capable of learning. Therefore, treatment with unconscious chemicals is limiting and often causes adaptation of the being rather than eradication. Treatment with plants, however, which are also intelligent living beings capable of their own learning and adaptation, significantly increases the chances of success, which we have observed on numerous occasions with the treatment methods used during our ayahuasca retreats.
Our ayahuasca retreats have had success in helping people struggling with addiction. It is certainly more challenging because the roots of addiction are so varied, although in general relate to emotional trauma and a lack of self love. With treatment for addiction, integration and a commitment to lasting lifestyle changes is essential. Turning the corner is achievable, but following the new path in life is more important. We do everything we can to assist with those processes.Acid reflux has become one of the most common afflictions of the Western world. Poor eating habits combined with increased emotional stress create systemic enzyme imbalances that are difficult to treat, and, unfortunately, present an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of a maintainable condition. Particular plant treatments and a regimented diet can provide tremendous benefit. We have had great success during our ayahuasca retreats with the treatment of acid reflux.
An Ayahuasca retreat is an opportunity to work closely with an indigenous shaman through a guided journey into another dimension. The natural healing power of ayahuasca and other medicinal plants help ayahuasca retreat participants to reconnect to nature and to their true selves.
While no two ceremonies are the same, an ayahuasca retreat will typically follow a spiritually-similar thread that’s meant to evoke the utmost calm and protection of participants. If you do feel called to take part in a ceremony, it’s important to do your own research to find the right experience for you: I’ve traveled hours into the rainforest for ceremonies and walked away without participating because it didn’t feel right. Your intuition is often your best guide when deciding whether you feel safe with a certain facilitator or not. Here, a trusted selection of healers and retreat centers to consider for your ayahuasca journey.
Located about two hours into the rainforest (by car and then boat) from downtown Iquitos, in Peru’s Amazon Basin, the Temple of the Way of Light is a healing center offering 12-day ayahuasca retreats, with six ayahuasca ceremonies over the course of the experience. In the plant’s region of origin, local Indigenous healers lead the ceremonies at this center’s rainforest setting, many of whom travel by boat from their home communities located further up the Ucayali River—a tributary of the Amazon.Operating according to Shipibo Indigenous tradition, each ceremony is held by a team of four Onanya together, the experience is meant to purge negative, heavy energies from the body, also known as mawa niwe.
To help you integrate your experiences, they also host a regular community connection and healer/integration calls for Ayahuasca guests to share from the heart and continue to learn and grow together.
Cancer is a very broad category, but treatment methods all follow similar principles. Purification of the blood, boosting the immune system, and addressing the emotional roots of the condition are the methods that make up the core of treatment for most diseases. We have only treated three ayahuasca retreat participants for cancer. While one person was healed completely and remains cancer free over seven years later, the other two people were not healed, although their cases differed greatly as well as their attitudes and engagement with the process.
Along the Ucayali River in the town of Pucallpa in the eastern bounds of Peru’s Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous Mexican healer and facilitator Daniela Riojas leads ayahuasca ceremonies in partnership with the Onanya of the region. After first participating in an ayahuasca ceremony in 2015, Riojas, an artist and musician by trade, began her extensive studies of the plant and its medicine during apprenticeships with master healers that included participating in multi-day dietas. The ceremonies she facilitates include holding space through icaros, prayers that embody the healing power of the region’s plants and animals. Each experience is held during the night in a ceremonial maloca to help facilitate each participant’s journey inward.
Our aim is to provide you with the optimum environment for you to replant your spirit. All treatments and activities are optional, so go at your own pace. Two or three weeks is a relatively short period of time in a human being’s life, and we really see this process not as a complete and final solution to your problems, but rather as a new beginning, a foundation on which to build over time, providing inspiration for your spiritual growth. We are also here to let you know that anything is possible. What we have found is this: the people who take responsibility for their own healing, put their trust and faith in the plants and in us, let go of expectations and truly commit themselves with intention to their process. These people always get what they need, unfolding into the most profound depths of inner transformation possible for them, and are then gratefully ready to continue the work of integrating their experiences for the rest of their lives.
Our retreat center is located near the bank of a river, with recreational options for hiking, swimming, fishing and plant walks with certified conservation guides. The reserve is over 120,000 acres of pristine rainforest, and the Mishana community is located right in the heart of the reserve. The retreat center is part of the Mishana community and employs several members to work in various positions for the retreats and courses.
Retreats are led by an indigenous curandero from the Shipibo culture. The curandero, don Ronor, learned from his father and grandfather, a vegtalisto and an ayahuasquero. He is the youngest of three brothers who are all experienced healers. He has a humility that brings a calm gratitude to his presence.He has extensive plant dietas with noya rao, bobinsana, marusa, chiric sanango, and chullachaqui.Don Ronor is constantly developing his own understanding and methods for healing, learning more icaros through his intimate connections to his dietas and plant spirit guides. He is also a father and his wife and children are usually with him on retreats, providing a wonderful light to the group experience. He works hard to provide the greatest level of healing, always wanting to prepare and administer as many remedies as he can during the ayahuasca retreat. All of the facilitators are so thankful for his dedication and willingness to share and teach the tradition. He is a true maestro.
All are welcome to our public gatherings. Most people with sincere spiritual intent are eligible for our sacrament retreats. If you aren’t sure if you can participate in our retreats, look at our Medical Guidelines pages on our website. Nearly 100% are medically eligible for our Magic Mushroom retreats. Certain medications and medical conditions are not compatible with Ayahuasca.
The spiritual investment varies depending on the location, maximum number of participants, and sacraments being offered. Our Ayahuasca and Mushroom retreats can range between $1000 – $2000 and our Bufo Alvarius (5meo-dmt) retreats range between $400 – $1000. To know the exact cost, please sign up for our email list where prices are announced for each retreat.
Yes! You can find more information about our private ceremonies on our retreat page.
A. With proper preparation, integration, and understanding how our Sacraments work, you will see there’s no such thing as a bad trip. Difficult and challenging experiences can be a part of the deep psychedelic journey. We all have skeletons in our psycho-spiritual closets, whether it’s fear, insecurities, our shadow, or repressed memories. Our approach isn’t to try to avoid a challenging experience, but rather to lean into them, since this is where the real productive work occurs. Can you face your demons with curiosity and love? Can you stand at your edge of your comfort zone with strength and courage? Everybody loves experiencing bliss, but by going through challenges we can develop the tools to live a more integrated and empowered life in the real world We’ve got your back, just breathe.
Our approach does not require you to convert or have faith of any kind. Faith can be an impediment to understanding. Our approach is to facilitate direct mystical experiences so that people can come to their own conclusions.
We don’t give medical advice. As evidenced by high quality research, our spiritual sacraments in the right setting can be very powerful healing tools. This is because much spiritual dis-ease manifests also as physical dis-ease. When spiritual dis-ease is discovered and addressed, many transformations happen downstream.
. A shaman is generally considered a healer or an initiate of a lineage. We are not healers or following any one particular lineage. Our philosophy is that the only healer is you, through proper integration of what you learned in your journey. We also do not follow any one particular lineage or tradition in choosing how we lead ceremony. Our ceremonies are guided by icaros, music, and prayers
Currently we’re serving a maximum of 20 people per ceremony.