A Sacred Ceremony as a Tourist Package

When a Sacred Ceremony Comes with Dates, a Price, and a Booking Form

Twelve days, six ceremonies, and a publicly listed price of US$4,440. The website also presents a version with five additional days of integration, priced at $5,700. This is not an invented parody of spiritual tourism, but a public offer from the Peruvian center Temple of the Way of Light, as presented when reviewed on October 15, 2026. The same page lists dates, an application process, information about the ceremonies, and descriptions of accompanying activities. [1]

For a prospective customer, this transparency is useful: it gives an idea of the duration and advertised price, though not necessarily all travel costs and personal expenses. Yet a public online offer also places a tradition in the language of the tourism industry. A practice that, for particular Amazonian communities, is bound up with teachers, plants, territory, and prolonged learning has also become something that can be compared, booked, and paid for. Who gained the power to make decisions in this transition, and who remained primarily part of the sales narrative?

Ayahuasca is not the name of one identical ceremony practiced everywhere. Different places and communities have different names, uses, social rules, and interpretations; jagé, or yagé, is an important term in Colombian traditions. For a visitor searching online for an “authentic Amazonian experience,” all this may become a single category. For the people who carry these traditions, however, the distinctions are not necessarily cosmetic: they may concern who is recognized by a community as authorized to lead a ceremony, who taught that person, what obligations they have to the community, and what knowledge must not be passed on without permission. [2][3]

Commercialization, then, cannot be identified by a high price alone. What also matters is the extent to which an external market influences decisions about what will be recognizable, repeatable, and marketable to an international audience. A well-organized center with clear terms is not automatically exploitative; nor does an expensive offer by itself prove fraud. The question is what the booking form reveals and what it conceals. A price tells us what a visitor pays. It does not tell us a healer’s pay, the position of their community, the cost of safety measures, how benefits are actually distributed, or who has the final say when a dispute arises.

This is the central tension of the article: not a conflict between a “pure” ceremony and “corrupting” money, but between a community’s right to set the terms of exchange for itself and an offer in which its tradition serves primarily as a marketing draw. To judge that distinction fairly, we must first listen to those who actually carry the tradition.

Who Has the Right to Speak for the Ceremony?

In 2000, UMIYAC, an association of traditional healers in the Colombian Amazon, adopted a code of ethics related to jagé traditions. The text was developed with representatives of particular communities, not all Amazonian peoples. It is not a catalogue of tourist experiences. It addresses duties to the community, the training of new healers, the treatment of plants, relations with visitors, and the protection of knowledge. Its authors explicitly state that they speak for members of the associated Colombian jagé traditions, not for all Amazonian peoples. That limitation is precisely what gives the document weight: it is a specific voice that need not represent an entire continent. [2]

Its approach to payment is revealing. The code explains that healers’ services were historically rooted in reciprocal community care, rather than a price list. At the same time, it describes the present-day loss of territory and livelihoods: plants sometimes have to be purchased, journeys made to obtain them, preparation paid for, and working expenses covered. The code therefore allows appropriate compensation for services provided to people from outside the community, while emphasizing services without charge and voluntary contributions for members of the associated communities. In other words, criticizing the trade in a tradition is not a demand that its custodians work for free. At the same time, the code distinguishes payment for a service from trading in prepared jagé or in the tradition itself; its signatories do not endorse such trade. [2]

Across the border in Peru, ASOMASHK, an association of traditional healers from the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo tradition, has published a declaration from Yarinacocha. It warns of knowledge being lost between generations and of unequal access to prolonged training for young community members and foreigners. The association rejects the broad imported labels “shaman” and “shamanism,” preferring the term onanya, plural onanyabo. It proposes a Meraya school to pass knowledge to younger people, along with mechanisms through which foreign beneficiaries of the tradition could contribute to communities’ cultural and political autonomy. Among the possibilities it mentions is a contribution linked to foreign visitors. This is a proposal put forward by the association, not an already enacted general tourist levy. [3]

That reframes the question. Why can it be relatively straightforward for a foreign guest to pay for an experience while long-term training remains inaccessible to a young person from the community? Who pays to preserve the language, transmit knowledge, and protect the place from which an internationally marketed program emerged? Who can refuse permission for an image of their community to be used in advertising? These are not moral questions imposed from outside; the organizations themselves are raising them.

Peru's National Directorial Resolution RDN 836/INC, dated June 24, 2008, declared the knowledge and traditional uses of ayahuasca practiced by Indigenous Amazonian communities to be part of the country's cultural heritage. The wording matters. Official recognition of a tradition is not a certificate for every retreat whose website uses the word “traditional.” Nor does it substantiate the health claims of any individual organizer. [4]

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and UN guidance on understanding its framework emphasize the protection of cultural heritage and knowledge, and community participation in decisions affecting them. But invoking rights cannot replace questions about actual contracts, decision-making, and benefits. Who is the negotiating partner who can consent to cooperation—and who can say no? [5]

What Does a Visitor Pay For—and What Does the Bill Leave Out?

The listed price of a Temple of the Way of Light program does not cover ceremonies alone. It includes the organization of a multi-day stay, accommodation, food, participation by traditional healers, support for participants, and activities intended to help integrate experiences into everyday life. The provider also publishes application and medical-screening requirements. It would therefore be methodologically wrong to divide $4,440 by the number of ceremonies and call the result the “price of a sacred ritual.” Nor can we calculate the organizer’s profit from that amount. [1][6]

On its responsibility page, the center describes working with Shipibo healers and local staff and claims that, after operating and development expenses, it directs 100% of its profits toward initiatives led by Indigenous people and programs of its affiliated nonprofit, the Chaikuni Institute. These are verifiable statements by the center about its own business model, not independently audited confirmation of the sums paid out or how they are distributed. Without financial statements, contracts, or an independent assessment, we cannot turn that figure into a fact about how much any particular community actually received. [7]

The phrase “100% of profits” also requires care. Profit is not the same as revenue. A business may generate substantial revenue while facing high costs; some money goes to employees or outside contractors, some to logistics and infrastructure, and only then is any surplus calculated. Because these items cannot be reconstructed from an advertising page alone, we do not even know what share of an individual guest’s payment reaches a traditional healer directly. Limited access to information is not in itself proof of concealment. It marks the boundary of publicly available evidence—and explains why marketing statements cannot replace transparent reporting.

Shipibo Rao offers a different example: on its official website, it describes itself as a center led by traditional healer José López and his family. Its published terms specify what is included, how deposits work, and what happens in the event of cancellation. Santuario de la Dieta Shipibo presents itself as a center wholly owned by Shipibo people, while Jakon Rate describes its activities as a family-linked nonprofit initiative. These are differences in stated governance and public presentation that should not be erased under the blanket label “the ayahuasca industry.” Nevertheless, a website's self-description does not by itself establish ownership, the terms of every contract, or the distribution of benefits. [8][9][10][11]

The comparison suggests at least three distinct arrangements: an internationally marketed center describing cooperation with local healers; a center presenting itself as directly Indigenous-led; and organizations representing tradition bearers that do not sell tourist packages at all but demand a say in decisions. The first model is not automatically exploitation, the second is not automatically a guarantee of quality, and the third is not merely a symbolic backdrop to the story. Assessing the fairness of an offer also requires information about who actually leads the operation, local collaborators' working conditions, payments, complaint procedures, and community priorities. A public price list generally supplies none of this.

Donation initiatives must also be read carefully. Public reports from a campaign supporting Shipibo healers and local workers during the pandemic-related interruption of activities describe funds raised, not the ordinary profitability of any individual retreat center. A donation may offer valuable help, but it is not in itself evidence of a fair business model. [12]

What Public Sources Show—and What They Cannot Prove

Who Can Change the Rules of the Game?

A tourist offer changes more than the flow of money: it also changes the relationship between a visitor's expectations and a healer's authority. Guests often arrive with a story of their own: they have read about personal transformation, want a particular experience, and are prepared to set aside their usual routines for a few days. The organizer must coordinate travel, schedules, languages, accommodation, and safety. A traditional healer, however, works within a tradition that cannot necessarily be fitted into a pre-booked program. When these worlds meet, adjustments follow—sometimes by mutual agreement, sometimes under market pressure.

In his research on ayahuasca tourism in Peru, anthropologist Alex K. Gearin examines visitors' notions of “primordial” medicine and the tensions between their expectations and local practices. A more recent ethnographic study among the Shipibo-Konibo illuminates how tourist exchange intersects with local concerns and interpretations of power. Such field research is not a statistical portrait of all Indigenous communities. It does, however, help us understand how ritual practice may change in contact with the tourist market without making its history fictitious or every participant inauthentic. [13][14]

Promotional material foregrounds what guests are expected to take home: an extraordinary experience, a feeling of connection, a jungle photograph, or the promise of a life-changing breakthrough. Less visible are the negotiations that make the visit possible: who determines the number of participants, whether a healer can stop a ceremony, what obligations the healer has to their own community, and how much time remains for apprentices from the same tradition. When an organizer controls bookings, communication in foreign languages, payments, and brand reputation, it may gain more bargaining power than the local practitioner on whose knowledge the offer depends. This is a possible structural inequality, not a measured relationship at any of the centers named here. It is a question about the structure, not an accusation against a particular center without evidence.

Yet portraying a community as entirely powerless can itself be a colonial simplification. Tradition bearers may be initiators, entrepreneurs, teachers, critics of the tourism industry, or partners who define the terms of cooperation for themselves. Some may see visits as a source of income and an opportunity to preserve knowledge; others may see pressure or a loss of control; the same people may see both at once. As ASOMASHK makes clear, it is possible to recognize that international interest creates opportunities while demanding rights, fair pay, transmission of knowledge, and political self-determination. [3]

The distinction between fairer exchange and appropriation therefore does not lie in the origin of every tourist. It lies in whether the people whose tradition creates value can participate as genuine decision-makers. If they can take part only as staff working against the backdrop of their own culture, while others control the content, prices, and advertising, there is a serious problem. If, on the other hand, they design the program, contracts, and limits themselves and control the benefits, the story is different. To assess a particular provider conclusively, we would also need accounts from those involved and information that public websites rarely contain.

Who Bears the Risk When Something Goes Wrong?

When a center promises an extraordinary personal experience, its responsibilities do not end when payment is received. Ayahuasca can produce intense physical and psychological effects; contraindications and dangerous interactions with medicines also exist. Neither appeals to antiquity nor a modern website removes the need for a professional assessment of health risks, informed consent, and clear, workable procedures in the event of complications. [15][16]

Important evidence comes from the Global Ayahuasca Survey, published in 2022. The broader online survey involved 10,836 people, while the analysis of reported adverse physical effects is based on responses from 8,216 people. Of that subsample, 69.9% reported at least one such effect; nausea and vomiting were among the most common. The figure of 2.3% refers to 132 of the 5,775 people who answered the question about needing medical attention for physical effects. It is not a rate of medical complications established through clinical monitoring of all ceremonies. Participants entered the survey through self-selection and reported the effects themselves. [15]

Why does this precision matter? Because two false interpretations serve different interests. The first turns health warnings into a sensational claim that every ceremony is equally dangerous. The second declares every adverse effect to be a normal, or even necessary, part of “cleansing,” thereby erasing the possibility that someone may actually be at risk. The survey shows that some participants interpret unpleasant experiences within a positive spiritual framework; a subjective interpretation, however, is no substitute for medical assessment when serious symptoms occur. [15]

ICEERS publishes safety warnings concerning certain psychiatric and cardiovascular conditions and interactions with medication. Generic assurances about a “safe space” are not enough for a center to act responsibly: it needs clear risk-assessment procedures, appropriately qualified people supervising participants, a genuine option to decline, protection of personal information, and an emergency plan for accessing appropriate medical assistance. These are not instructions for taking a substance; they are criteria for evaluating an organizer's safety responsibilities. [16]

Safety is not purely medical. The Chacruna Institute has produced a guide to preventing sexual abuse in ayahuasca-related communities. Vulnerability, authority, language inequality, and altered states of consciousness can all affect the relationship between a leader and a participant. Rules about touch, privacy, complaints, and consent therefore need to be clear even when a participant is particularly vulnerable and finds it difficult to express disagreement. The existence of such guidance is not evidence that any of the centers named here has committed abuse. [17]

There is also a legal boundary: the status of particular substances, preparations, and ceremonies varies from country to country. A general document on the international control of psychoactive substances is not enough to establish the legal position of a particular Peruvian program, the transport of substances across borders, or the conduct of a visitor from Slovenia. This article therefore provides no blanket legal assurance and, above all, does not present a tourist offer as medical treatment. Informed consent is meaningful only when refusal is also a genuine choice. [18]

When a Plant and a Forest Become a Supply Chain

A tourist ceremony needs more than a venue and people. It also needs plants, time for them to grow, knowledge of harvesting, and an environment in which the tradition can survive. When demand extends beyond the local setting into international trade, those needs become part of an economic picture invisible on the booking form. An advertisement may feature a photograph of lush green forest, but the picture says nothing about how the plants were sourced or who manages the places where they grow.

Documentary source: photograph of a Banisteriopsis caapi vine in the Takiwasi botanical garden, Peru; François Delonnay / Archivo Centro Takiwasi, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph does not document wild harvesting.

One of the key species associated with ayahuasca is the climbing vine Banisteriopsis caapi. A 2023 study in the Journal of Applied Ecology compared two populations in the Peruvian Amazon subjected to different levels of harvesting. In the model, long-term population growth was positive at the less heavily harvested site and negative at the more heavily harvested one; increased clonal reproduction did not offset the effects of intensive harvesting. This is an important warning about local harvesting pressure and regeneration. It does not establish that the species is equally threatened everywhere, or that all harvesting is connected exclusively with tourist retreats. [19]

A 2025 review examines several species of psychoactive plants and animals, including B. caapi. It points to the combined pressures of overharvesting, habitat loss, climate change, and gaps in available ecological data. Without adequate population assessments, we must not claim that the entire species is officially listed as endangered under any particular classification. We can, however, quite reasonably ask whether organizers and the broader market also invest in long-term conservation and cooperation with the people who have traditionally managed these plants. [20]

A simplistic division into perpetrators and victims would be wrong here, too. Local stewardship, gardening, cultivation, and sustainable use can be part of the answer when communities develop and control them. Market growth may also increase pressure on plants without every guest understanding how much work and ecological time lie behind a visit. When an offer speaks of giving back to nature, it is legitimate to ask for documented cultivation, sourcing, habitat restoration, and monitoring practices—not just photographs of seedlings or general promises of forest protection.

The value of a tradition does not exist separately from the environment in which it is passed on. If access to land, plants, and opportunities to learn diminishes, short-term tourist income may coexist with a long-term loss of knowledge. Fair economic exchange and protecting the place are therefore connected aims, not competing ones. A visitor may purchase a stay and participation, but that cannot purchase the future of the forest and community if their right to decide remains outside the contract.

Is Fair Exchange Possible?

Someone interested in Amazonian traditions may face a seemingly impossible choice: is any payment already an act of appropriation, or is every retreat that uses a local name already a responsible partner? Neither assumption holds. UMIYAC's code recognizes healers' real material needs, while ASOMASHK does not simply call for a ban on foreign interest; it addresses the conditions under which that interest might help preserve knowledge and community autonomy. [2][3]

Fairer exchange can therefore be assessed through specific questions. Who has the right to organize and lead the activity? Do tradition bearers take part in decisions, or only in carrying them out? Are their contracts and compensation fair and understandable? Can a community decide what must not become a public performance, a tourist product, or a recording? How are complaints and safety incidents handled? Do younger local apprentices have access to the knowledge being successfully sold to foreigners? And is there a way to direct benefits toward community priorities and environmental protection as well?

The answers will differ from provider to provider. A publicly posted price list may demonstrate some transparency for buyers while still telling us nothing about the actual distribution of revenue. A claim of Indigenous leadership matters, but a rigorous comparison of ownership should also verify it beyond promotional self-descriptions. A statement about reinvesting profits may be an important commitment, but it cannot replace independent reporting. The absence of public financial statements is not in itself evidence that a center fails to honor its commitments; it is a reason not to make claims about their scale beyond what we know.

The publicly available materials do not include independently audited distributions of revenue for the centers named here or independently obtained statements from all participating healers. Public positions expressed by organizations are direct evidence of those organizations' stated demands, not proof that all communities share a single interpretation of those demands. This limits the judgments we can make about individual cases, but not our ability to raise legitimate questions about power. Nor can we declare all ceremonies lawful or unlawful in any particular country without a specific legal assessment.

The strongest criticism of the commercialization of ancient wisdom, then, is not that money always destroys tradition. The problem arises when a tradition is marketed as the indispensable guarantee of authenticity while its bearers lack comparable power to set the price, rules, limits on its use, and the future of their own knowledge. Payment can be a way to respect people's work and support a community; it can also be nothing more than the admission price to a story from which someone else takes most of the benefits. The difference is not the word “sacred” on a website, but who really decides, who bears the risks, and who can pass on more to the next generation than the memory of a tourist visit.

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