The Pillars of Our Work

The cornerstone of the Temple’s work is our vision for the incredible mastery of indigenous healers to be respected, legitimized, and honored in the modern world.

We aim to cultivate a richer understanding in the West of the Shipibo system of shamanic healthcare and substantiate the efficacy of their complex ethno-medical traditions.

Indigenous wisdom celebrates a spiritual dimension and interconnection between all life on Earth. We recognize this dimension as vital to restoring harmony and balance, individually and collectively.

The Temple is blessed to be located in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, the birthplace and source of ayahuasca.

Coming to an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon, being supported by the energies, elements, forces, and spirits of the jungle, and guided by the indigenous wisdom keepers of these powerful ethno-medical traditions, is the most effective and deepest way to work with ayahuasca.

 

From the inception of the Temple in 2007, our core philosophy has always been to provide an atmosphere of deep care and compassion.

Over many years, we have become well-known for the sensitive and attentive style of our retreat facilitation and the wholehearted level of support and personal attention offered by our entire team; Shipibo healers, western facilitators, and local staff.

We firmly believe that a compassionate environment is an essential component of the overall healing process. We ensure that our guests are able to feel safe, vulnerable, tender, open, and authentic, without fear of judgment or criticism while undergoing such a powerful healing process.

A unique focus on working with Shipibo Onanyabo (wisdom keepers / shamanic healers) within the rich and complex medical tradition of the Shipibo-Conibo people.

Their rigorously cultivated healing skills, arising from an unbroken tradition of countless generations practicing plant-spirit healing in the Amazon, are shared with kindness and generosity.

We are committed to providing genuine, deep, and lasting healing. We would not be able to fulfill this commitment in any less than 6 ayahuasca ceremonies led by the Onanyabo over 12 days.

It is not possible to effectively and safely provide deep, root-level healing for 24 participants in an ayahuasca ceremony without having a large team of healers. Each healer has a different skill set and a variety of different healing specialities. By bringing a team of four healers together, the healing provided is ‘more than the sum of its parts’ and enables us to reach the depths that the Temple has become well-known for. 

Our ayahuasca retreats are unique in the Amazon (and beyond) through offering this many true / master healers all aligned with a single intention – the deepest and safest healing possible for our guests.

We honor the union of masculine and feminine, aligned with the principles of balance that are contained within ayahuasca, and always have a combination of two male and two female healers on each retreat.

Your safety is our priority. We are deeply committed to guiding our guests safely through deep personal healing, both in and out of ceremony. We apply rigorous health and safety protocols that include comprehensive pre-retreat medical screening.

On retreat in the Amazon itself, our safety provisions encompass staff trained in first aid, fully equipped first-aid kits, emergency protocols, permanent communications on and off-site (cell and radio), 24-hour transport to Iquitos, a contracted medical clinic in Iquitos, and five staff working in each ceremony (three facilitators, a door person, and a toilet assistant). We also have an extensive support staff of 50+ local people throughout the Temple grounds.

The standards and level of quality that the Temple has established over the last 16 years are unparalleled in the ayahuasca scene.

Aside from the provision of quality ayahuasca, experienced healers, stringent safety protocols, and a compassionate environment, integration is the single most important predictor for a successful outcome when working with ayahuasca.

The Temple is committed not only to effecting profound healing in the Amazon, but also to supporting your process of integration when you return home after retreat.

We provide comprehensive guidance, reassurance, advice, exercises, techniques, meditations, and an overall pathway that will significantly aid your integration process, and help you to navigate through the challenges that can arise following deep energetic healing.

According to indigenous Amazonian wisdom, sharing is the key to maintaining a healthy, balanced life for all. Indigenous people consider the protection and preservation of the rainforest as sacred duties.

Yet with the great increase in popularity of ayahuasca shamanism, we are concerned that the spirit of sharing and protection is being lost.

We promote and foster ways to honor and protect the world’s most biodiverse ecosystem, it’s people, and their traditions through our sister non-profit organization, the Chaikuni Institute.

Since 2009 we have been implementing a comprehensive permaculture program on nearly 300 hectares of Temple grounds and in our local village as a means of incorporating the principles of self-sufficiency, regeneration, and social responsibility.

Our program includes a wide range of projects: sustainable ayahuasca production, food forests, perennial vegetable production, staple crops, medicinal plants, organic fish and chicken farms, renewable energy systems, rainwater harvesting, natural spring-water systems, aquaculture systems, sustainable buildings, and reforestation.

The Temple adheres to a rigorous set of ethics and professional standards. We employ 70 people, mostly from the surrounding area, and contribute to the economic welfare and infrastructure of our local village, Tres Unidos.

We are dedicated to fostering a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship with our staff that improves the quality of their lives and creates an exemplary working culture.

We provide the high wages to our healers and local staff, comprehensive social benefits, substantial financial support to local communities, an inspirational environment for our staff’s personal healing and development, and outreach programs supporting indigenous people locally and throughout the Amazon.

The Temple is a mission-inspired, socially and environmentally responsible organization that puts people and the planet before profit. The cornerstone of our work is operating with integrity, with a central focus on reciprocating to the people and land around us in the Amazon.

In the face of destructive extractive industries and the widespread use of slash-and-burn monoculture models in the Amazon Rainforest, we seek to inspire and support local people to (re)discover regenerative ways of living based on permaculture and regenerative agriculture, reclaiming ancestral and cultural knowledge, and preserving the Amazonian eco-system.

We support programs in regenerative agriculture, intercultural education, and human & nature rights through our nonprofit sister organization, the Chaikuni Institute.