Advice concerning Aya retreat please

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Hola Amigos. I have no choice but to post this publicly for the sake of harm reduction. I dont know any other community that I can trust with this query.

A dear friend of mine has invited me to an Aya ceremony that he has been to before multiple tiems. The monetary cost is very high but that is perhaps a subjective opinion. We are talking close to €1000 for 2 days, one aya session, one mescaline.

Organised ceremonies at this price are not something I would consider. I would participate due to a strong desire from my friend to share the experience with me.

The cost is not my concern. The red flag is the 21 page document they are asking participants to fill out. They require full name, D.O.B, address, phone number, email, medical history, sexual preferences including frequency of masturbation and relationship to pornogrpahy if applicable. They even ask if participants have children or not. What for? They ask for address of registered doctors surgery and name of your doctor. Huh?

There is a lot more on top but I will spare the details. They want all this information completed and emailed to them 8 days before the ceremony. Not given face to face, but uploaded to the internet. Red flag alarms rising massively.

The country where this ceremony is to take place has a zero tolerance policy on psychedelic consumption not even for religious exemptions. So this is an illegal event, no reason to behave like a business covering it's liability. Completely black market.


Now I'd like to make very clear, I have no reason to think there is malicious intent. It is absolutely possible that these people are working sincerely through love and light with good intentions.

The whole document is stated as being necessary 'to give the maximum ability for the organisers to help each individual as much as possible'.

But this 21 page document is like nothing I have ever seen before. I would be most appreciative to hear any intuitions or experiences that could help me understand if my red flag alarm is valid or not.

Sorry for long post.
Ciao!

 

[Back2Normal]

Don’t tell people you dont trust how many times you jerk off. Who knows you might like em and tell em anyways. Just because a question is on a form doesn’t mean you need to answer it, let alone answer it truthfully. You’ll get what you get from the experience and if it’s somehow found lacking because you withheld a couple pieces of personal information out of 21 pages, you’re the only one who will know and have to deal with it. If its doesnt effect it and you have an awesome time, then who cares.

 

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Hah! Probably about twice a week along side a healthy monogamous relationship. I dont care who knows that. Not really the point but made me laugh.

But is this level of information expected for an aya retreat? I dont do organised tripping, so I really dont know.

Why do they need my house address and doctors name if they are running a techincally illegal enterprise anyway?

 

[Varallo]

No, they do not actually need this information to do their work. But then you also have to ask what their work really is. Their job is essentially to let people trip for two days and “guide” that process. That guidance is indeed an activity where it can make sense to have some insight into people’s backgrounds. I can imagine that if they know that potential clients had a psychosis or other difficult psychiatric conditions, it would be useful to know that, and exclude them.

But all the other information is complete nonsense, for example the idea that masturbation is somehow bad or should be avoided before an ayahuasca experience. That’s simply not true, it reflects a more religious belief system.

As for asking for your doctor’s details, I don’t think that’s particularly useful either. Although I can imagine that if something were to happen during an ayahuasca session, the first response might be to contact your doctor, who would probably then not know what to do and is probably not able to share relevant information. But I’m not certain about that, it depends on the country.

In my opinion, most of these retreats mainly exist to make a lot of money from people. I know of people who run several groups a week with around ten participants and charge about a thousand euros per person. That’s essentially a cash machine. They beat a drum, ask supposedly deep spiritual questions that are actually quite superficial, spray some perfume around, burn some incense, and that’s about it. Of course, there’s lunch included and they need to rent a place to host the sessions, but compared to the total income that’s pretty minor.

So my advice would be, don’t bother filling this out and don’t go to those retreats. Just trip together with your friend and show them that you can have a fantastic and very personal experience without spending a thousand on it.