Inner Mastery, sometimes known as Ayahuasca International, markets itself through social media. At least 50 Facebook pages, with more than 600,000 followers, link back to websites run by the company or its founder, Alberto José Varela — an Argentinian businessman who says he wants to create “a worldwide movement of amplified states of consciousness” and says he spent 14 months in prison in Spain after being arrested in possession of ayahuasca. Established in Spain less than six years ago, Inner Mastery now claims to operate in 30 countries and offers more than 10 different substances. In a recent blog post, Varela called for applicants to assist the company with a “worldwide expansion”: “We are carrying out a ‘hit’ on consciousness, a great awakening for which we need specialised people,” he wrote. A recruitment weekend for people interested in joining the organization as retreat facilitators was held in Ireland at the end of June.

In the days after the Inner Mastery conference I attended in London, I reflected on what I’d observed. Arron had spoken with conviction about the transformation hallucinogenic substances can offer. He’d spoken about iboga, a Central African rainforest shrub with psychedelic effects. “It’s especially effective with all addictions but heroin, in particular,” he said. Describing the benefits of kambo, a poison secreted by tree frogs in the Amazon, he said: “Kambo is very, very effective for cancer. The peptides in the kambo target the cancer cells and breakdown tumors.”

When I researched these claims, I found studies that may have informed Arron’s claims. A research paper published in 2017 examined iboga’s potential to treat opioid addiction. It reported promising results, but was far from definitive, stating only that iboga “may provide a useful prototype” for developing treatments. A 2012 study reported similarly nonconclusive findings around kambo’s potential for use in development of anti-cancer drugs.

As I dug deeper into Inner Mastery, I found that in 2015, Varela faced accusations that he had falsely claimed approval from the Cofán indigenous people of southern Colombia, who use ayahuasca as a traditional medicine. The Cofán accused Varela of running a “lucrative business which contradicts and breaks the principles and values of the Cofán people,” endangering their traditions, “as well as the lives and health of those who attend such events.” In an open letter, a group of 100 academics subsequently criticized Inner Mastery’s “aggressive marketing tactics” and warned potential customers that “participating in sessions run by this organization could result in grave risks to mental and physical well-being.”

I came across a YouTube video posted by an account named Adeptus Psychonautica, offering an account of an Inner Mastery retreat. A man addressed the camera: “I’m going to say straight off the bat that I do not recommend this organization.” The man in the video was Rob Bateman, who attended an Inner Mastery retreat in 2016. In the video, Bateman describes the retreat facilitators as “fairly young, not particularly experienced, and in some cases slightly delusional.” Bateman connected me with others who had contacted him to discuss similar experiences after seeing his review.

I also spoke to one woman from Sweden — who asked not to be named for privacy reasons — who attended two school (aka. training) cycles with Inner Mastery while working for the company as an administrator and assisting at retreats. She said she’d been disappointed by the training and told me the school cycles were very similar to the company’s other retreats, just with additional workshops focused on personal development. “I thought it would be, you know, going to an actual course,” she said. I asked if she had received training in how to help clients having bad experiences. “No,” she said. “None at all.”

Some people have suffered serious health consequences. One, a woman in her mid-fifties with prior experience taking ayahuasca, suffered a breakdown after attending an Inner Mastery retreat in Ireland. She was subsequently prescribed anti-anxiety medication and had to take four months off work. Looking back, she told me she believed more experienced facilitators could have helped. Instead, she said: “They are basically brought up on these training weekends, given a bit of psychobabble, and let loose to heal the world.”

“I get a lot of people contacting me saying they want to be psychedelic therapists, and when I ask them why, they say, ‘because I love LSD!’” says Dr. Ben Sessa, a U.K.-based psychiatrist who is researching MDMA-assisted treatment for alcoholism. “That is not good enough. You should do this work because you have years of experience working with traumatized people, families, children, in multiple settings. Simply enjoying taking psychedelics does not mean you will be a good therapist.”

Inner Mastery did not respond to questions from Elemental about its work. In a message posted beneath Bateman’s YouTube review, an account named Retiros Inner Mastery stated that the company has worked with more than 30,000 people: “Unfortunately not every single one has been happy, for myriad reasons — but all are safe, healthy, and the main reason for their discontent was that they were looking for, or expecting, a specific kind of work (mainly shamanic) which we do not offer.”

“It worries me that a series of high profile serious adverse events in unregulated settings… risks a repeat of the political and regulatory backlash against psychedelics that happened in the late 1960s.”

Matthew Johnson, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University where he conducts research into psilocybin-assisted therapy, says he has a number of concerns about companies offering psychedelic retreats, among them the potential lack of adequate screening to identify existing risk factors — pre-existing conditions which might preclude a patient from psychedelic-assisted treatment — poor accreditation practices among providers, and the need for post-ritual screening to ensure people are doing alright afterward. “Often these sessions are run by people who don’t have professional backgrounds and that comes with a whole range of risks,” he says.

Researchers also express fears that poor commercial practices could fuel negative perceptions of their own work. “It worries me that a series of high profile serious adverse events in unregulated settings, particularly if there is any hint of a lack of transparency, risks a repeat of the political and regulatory backlash against psychedelics that happened in the late 1960s,” says Dr. James Rucker, the head of the psychedelic trials group at King’s College London. “After that happened, almost all scientific research stopped for nearly 40 years. We don’t want that to happen again.”