I’m pleased to disclose that an impressive number of representatives from ayahuasca retreat centers around Iquitos, including Melissa, Ian, Tatyana and myself from our own Pulse Tours and Ayahuasca Adventure Center, met on Saturday, February 6, 2016 to discuss how we can work together to create the safest and most secure shamanic healing environment for our collective guests.

There were a total of 23 attendants representing 14 different ayahuasca retreat centers from the Iquitos vicinity. Indeed there were only a few local ayahuasca retreat centers I could think of who were not in attendance, potentially because their representatives were out of country or otherwise not available. Regardless, I’m confident that once the members from today’s summit begin to distill and crystallize some of the most important safety and security standards from our continued discussion, most of the remaining ayahuasca retreat centers will join the group.

Some of the most important issues we made progress on were basic things like ensuring there are enough supervisory staff during ayahuasca ceremonies, ensuring enough of those staff are certified in CPR and wilderness first-aid, and ensuring that en route and onsite (armed) security personnel are in place to prevent criminal incidents. Other discussion points got a little more in depth such as the value vs. risk breakdown of using powerful yet potentially toxic plants such as tobacco and toe, techniques for pre screening clients to better understand potentially latent or undisclosed medical or psychological conflicts, medical emergency preparedness and evacuation plans. Some arguments were not quite as conclusive such as whether or not people should be sitting or laying down during ayahuasca ceremonies, whether or not brujeria (sorcery) is real and/or a risk to ayahuasca practitioners, or whether onsite defibrillators should or should not be considered a minimum safety standard.

The discourse was varied as there are a myriad of individual methods and styles for these healing practices but ultimately we share a common goal and are now working together toward achieving it. That goal is having all our guests leaving our collective ayahuasca retreat centers in better condition than when they arrive, first and foremost returning home to their families alive and well. This work can be tremendously beneficial to our guests if done properly and treated with respect but we as owners, operators and healers must be cautious and proactive to reduce the potential for error or incident.

Some tangible steps we’re taking to continue working as a unified collective are to initiate an online forum of discussion between ayahuasca retreat centers so we can communicate potential difficulties and risks with each other and offer helpful suggestions, again with the ultimate goal of improving overall safety and security for our guests. We’re also going to form an official confederation of ayahuasca retreat centers in Peru using our mutually agreed upon minimum safety and security standards as a guidepost. The website we create will be available to the public and will include important safety information about ayahuasca and other shamanic plant medicines, in addition to a list of ayahuasca retreat centers who’ve agreed to uphold this minimum set of safety and security standards. This should offer at least some peace of mind to those travelers and their families who are concerned about their loved ones journeying to the center of the Amazon to work with these powerful yet potentially risky shamanic plant medicines, in beautiful yet potentially risky environments.

There will be further updates posted on pulsetours.com as our confederation of ayahuasca retreat centers and healers progresses.

I noted representatives present at the summit from the following ayahuasca retreat centers, though I may have unintentionally missed one or two people who came late or were not formally introduced: