How to Choose a Safe Ayahuasca
Retreat in 2026

Authentic training in an Amazonian lineage provides something very important: accumulated knowledge passed down through generations.

These traditions developed over thousands of years. Each generation of healers refined their methods for working with plants and guiding ceremonies.

This accumulated knowledge helps ensure that ceremonies are conducted with care, safety, and deep respect for the plants and participants.

When choosing a retreat, it is therefore important to ask questions about the facilitator’s background:

• Who trained them?
• How long did they study?
• Which tradition do they belong to?
• Did they complete plant dietas with experienced masters?

Clear answers to these questions can help you understand whether a retreat is rooted in real tradition or simply based on personal experimentation.
Also one of the most important tools used by Amazonian healers during ceremonies is icaros, sacred healing songs.

In the Shipibo tradition, these songs are not simply learned like ordinary music.
They are received through long periods of Master plant dietas.

A dieta is a strict spiritual training in which the apprentice isolates themselves and works deeply with a specific medicinal plant. Through this process, the spirit of the plant may reveal teachings, visions, sometimes songs.

These songs are considered gifts from the spirit of the plant.
During ceremonies, the shaman sings these icaros to:

• guide the experience
• support healing processes
• cleanse difficult energies
• protect participants
• restore energetic balance

Each icaro carries its own unique energetic quality and purpose.
This is why properly trained healers may spend many years developing their repertoire of healing songs.

In most Amazonian traditions, becoming a ceremonial leader requires several years of intensive training with plants.

A good rule of thumb is that the facilitator should have at least five years of training within a traditional lineage.
During this time, the apprentice learns directly from an experienced master. This training often involves:

• long periods of isolation in the jungle
• strict plant dietas
• learning sacred songs
• studying healing techniques
• assisting in ceremonies

This process gradually develops the sensitivity and skill needed to guide others safely.

Without this kind of training, it is extremely difficult for someone to hold the energetic and psychological intensity that ayahuasca ceremonies can create.
One of the biggest red flags is when the person leading the ceremony has no training in any Amazonian tradition.
In many cases this is part of what is often called neo-shamanism.
The most important factor in any ayahuasca retreat is the experience and training of the person leading the ceremony.
Ayahuasca ceremonies open a powerful spiritual and psychological space. The person guiding this process must have the knowledge, experience, sensitivity and empathy toward others spiritual discipline necessary to hold that space safely.

In traditional Amazonian understanding, the shaman is not simply someone who serves a drink.
The shaman acts as a guide between worlds.
During an ayahuasca ceremony, participants may enter altered states of consciousness where deep emotional, psychological, spiritual processes unfold.

The role of the shaman is to:

• guide the experience
• maintain energetic balance
• protect the ceremonial space
• help participants navigate difficult moments

In many traditions, the shaman is also responsible for protecting the ceremony from disruptive energies that may arise from within participants or from outside influences.

Many Amazonian cultures work with Ayahuasca, each with their own ceremonial styles and knowledge systems.
Some of the traditions most widely known for their deep work with Ayahuasca include:

• Shipibo-Conibo
• Asháninka
• Yawanawá
• Huni Kuin (Kahinawa)

Among these, the Shipibo tradition is often considered one of the most developed ceremonial systems for working with ayahuasca and healing songs.
Shipibo healers are particularly known for their sophisticated use of icaros and their detailed understanding of Master plant dietas, learned more then 5 years as a classic profession.

When choosing a Retreat, experience matters not only in terms of knowledge about plants, but also in terms of working with people.

Ayahuasca ceremonies can bring up & started to work, to explore this king of things:

• deep emotional releases
• past trauma
• fear
• confusion
• powerful visions

An experienced facilitator understands how to support participants through these processes without creating panic or instability.
They know when to intervene, when to sing, when to allow the process to unfold naturally.

This kind of sensitivity can only be developed through many years of working with both plants and people. A retreat with a beautiful website but inexperienced facilitators may not provide a safe or authentic experience.

On the other hand, a retreat guided by someone with deep training in an authentic Amazonian tradition can create a powerful space for healing, transformation, personal growth.

Ayahuasca can be safe when conducted in a properly guided ceremonial space with experienced facilitators, curanderos and proper screening for medical contraindications.
Ayahuasca is safe, non-toxic, non-addictive.
Studies confirm its effectiveness in treating depression beyond standard antidepressants.
Key findings by neuroscientist Dráulio Barros de Araújo (Brain Institute, Brazil):
The scientist has conducted numerous studies and clinical trials of Ayahuasca, funded by the Brazilian government. During these studies, he confirmed the safety of the substance and its therapeutic potential in the treatment of a variety of disorders.
Conclusions:
- Ayahuasca does not cause organic or brain toxicity.
- Does not change the heart rate.
- Does not reduce immunity;
- Does not damage the liver;
- Vomiting when taking Ayahuasca is not a side effect or result of intoxication, but performs a cleansing function;
- Ayahuasca does not activate areas of the brain that are addictive (like methamphetamine, cocaine, alcohol, etc.)
On the contrary, it is effective in treating various forms of physical dependence;
- An overdose of Ayahuasca is impossible for two reasons. First, the lethal dose is 20 times the serving at the ceremony. It is extremely difficult to drink such a volume of decoction, and it is physically impossible to keep enough time for intoxication. Secondly, Ayahuasca does not cause tolerance, so there is no need to increase the dose to get an effect;
- Ayahuasca does not cause side effects, and the transcendent state is given not by medicine itself, but by the pineal gland secretion, the work of which is activated by the plant, as during the birth and death of a person.

Read more in our BLOG.
These findings are supported by global research and expert studies.

Look the documentary film
DMT: The Spirit Molecule / 2010