I can’t speak to other’s negative experiences, especially since ayahuasca ceremonies can be extremely difficult and I can see how it could be easy to project your experience onto the group and its hosts. Or mistakes could have been made? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. That being said, beyond just my personal experience and journey, which I will not share, I felt the preparation, execution, and integration of the ceremony was top notch, particularly the emphasis on providing people in distress the assistance they needed in the moment, virtually immediately. I have been in 2 previous ceremonies with another group and, while I always felt safe, spiritually and physically, I would not necessarily say I felt supported. I don’t believe this to be out of a lack of care, but rather because they had a different philosophy on how a ceremony was suppose to operate. Not good or bad, just different. I believe both have their place.

While the ceremony may be a bit non-traditional in its nature, I cannot question the organizers intent of creating a loving, understanding space with an emphasis on group healing and creating community. The effort Gervais and Kathy put into after care through their hourly active Facebook messenger groups goes so far beyond any integration services offered else where. Mind you, that component is completely free and even more vital to healing than the ceremony itself. That should not be overlooked.

I plan on volunteering and participating in ceremony indefinitely and will certainly be more aware of the concerns brought up in some of the less reactive sounding reviews, but would encourage folks who have a problem in the moment to be honest with their feelings and pose that to Kathy or Gervais privately, as opposed to blowing them up on a review site and making assumptions about they’re intentions without even bringing this issues up to them first to give them a chance to explain themselves.