Program Overview

The Changemakers Program guides participants in preparing for, participating in, and integrating the deep healing and transformational potentials offered by traditional Amazonian medicine combined with ontological inquiry. The program is delivered through three formats; virtual (via zoom), by-distance (remote energy healing), and in-person (at the Temple), to reach into significantly deeper realms than is possible solely through an ayahuasca retreat while also limiting your time away in the Amazon.

Our intention is that you will:

• Experience and learn from the powerful healing / wisdom traditions of the Shipibo. Enabling a reconnection and remembrance of your intimate relationship with the natural kingdom. Shifting from ego-centric tendencies that we have all inherited in the West to eco-centric ways that harness the wisdom of nature to inspire who you are Being, and subsequently, what you bring forth in service to the World.
• Discover and create your Calling as the North Star from/ to which you will align your life. You will complete aspects of your past that need to be completed in order for a new future to emerge that is authentically sourced from your Calling. You will put the intention of your Calling into practice by inventing an initiative that develops and integrates new ways of being consistent with your Calling.

Preparation and Groundwork

• October – Individual Preparation Calls (on Zoom): a 1-hour session with a Temple facilitator to support your preparation process, help to get clear about and set intentions, and answer questions.
• October – Group Call (on Zoom): a 1.5 hour session for the group to connect with each other, meet Matthew, Richard and the program staff, and lay basic building blocks for the ontological inquiry process.

Ayahuasca and Ontological Program in the Amazon

• October 23rd: Arrival & Welcome – Arrive at the Temple around 11am, followed by lunch, welcome activities and an orientation to the Temple grounds, team, and logistics for the onsite retreat.
• October 24th: Ontological & Shamanic Foundations Dialogue – Two 3-hour daytime dialogues which prepare the ontological groundwork for the healing process that lies ahead.
• October 24th to October 31st: Deep Amazonian Healing & Supporting Practices – The focus of these 8 days will be engaging in 6 evening ceremonies guided by four Shipibo shamanic healers and one Shipibo herbalist. Six ayahuasca ceremonies will be complemented by daily traditional healing practices, including plant and vapor baths, plant remedies, and energetic massages. The night time shamanic ceremony will be supported by daytime Ceremony of the Word and various embodiment modalities such as breath work and Yin Yoga. Our approach to dialogue in this phase will allow the healers and plants to work with you with a minimum of spoken intervention. These dialogues will support you with witnessing and reflecting that may clarify and deepen what gets revealed and released throughout the process, and allow you to bookmark certain experiences and insights to return to after completion of the shamanic work.
• November 1st & 2nd : Ontological Integration Dialogues – You will be further supported in bringing aspects of your past that came up over the ceremonies to greater awareness and completion. Completing past eras creates freedom and a bigger opening for your aligned Future to emerge unencumbered by the weight of the past. We will introduce you to a number of fundamental ontological distinctions that empower you in creating alignment in any relationship. You will open a pathway for connecting your Calling to an important initiative you are declaring for yourself as fundamental to the emerging future you are beginning to envision.
• The program unites two different worlds of transformational practices – shamanic and ontological. The ontological work will take place before and after the ayahuasca ceremonies and shamanic treatments.

Integration and Alignment

• Mid November 2023 to Mid February 2024: Ontological Support (via Zoom) – The work continues and often deepens in the weeks and months following the retreat. To support ongoing integration, the program includes three monthly group calls continuing and deepening ontological inquiry with Richard, as well as six individual zoom calls to support integration, subject to your needs following the retreat.
• Mid November 2023 to Mid February 2024: Shamanic Support (by-distance) – Distance healing and energetic alignment continues until the end of the program. Participants are supported by the four Shipibo healers through ongoing ceremonies in the Amazon specifically focused, by-distance, on Changemakers participants.

Optional Surrogate Dieta

• September 21st to October 21st – 1-month Surrogate Dieta (by-distance): The Surrogate Dieta is an uncommon and extraordinary traditional distance healing technique where a healer in the Amazon is working on your energetic body remotely to clean and clear patterns of personal and ancestral trauma. The surrogate essentially assumes your energetic imprint and consumes a specific master plant on your behalf while receiving ikaros from Maestro José in ayahuasca ceremonies. This work reaches into personal and ancestral traumas and clears many layers of dense energies that prepares you for work with ayahuasca at a deeper level when attending the retreat. Two individual calls with a Temple facilitator are included; one before the dieta and one at the end of the dieta. Your selection to participate in a surrogate dieta as part of your program must be made at the time of application and the cost is an additional $2,500. Limited to 11 participants

Community and Connection

• A new circle of close friends and allies will be forged through sharing profound healing experiences in the Amazon Rainforest. From experience, we know many of these relationships are often destined and last a lifetime. We will establish an online group considering personal preferences for ongoing communications, arrange regular virtual catch-ups, and encourage in-person meet-ups in the US, Europe, and elsewhere. While this program offers a longer format than others, for many it is still the beginning of a soul’s path into what we have found to be the most powerful system of healing and awakening available in Amazonian curanderismo (healing).
• This process and its magic unfolds over months and years, and can be cultivated as a deep spiritual practice and path of self-discovery. We are committed to supporting you as you further engage in either or both of these paths of Amazonian medicine and ontological inquiry to deepen your healing journey, awaken to higher levels of consciousness, and elevate your service and impact in the world.

Review from Dr. Gabor Maté

Gabor came to the Temple in 2019 to experience the healing work of the Shipibo Onanyabo and to facilitate daytime workshops with Matthew and Richard. In this video, Gabor candidly shares his personal healing experience and how ontological inquiry also significantly supported his own process.

Shipibo Plant-Spirit Curanderismo

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel… humble”  – Albert Einstein

We deeply honor and respect the indigenous healing traditions of the Amazon that have evolved over hundreds, maybe even thousands of years and offer the most effective ayahuasca healing experiences possible. We work with some of the most respected, kind-hearted and powerful healers from the Shipibo tribe, who are highly skilled in ayahuasca healing and plant-spirit curanderismo (shamanism) of the Amazon.

Our team of Onanyabo (healers, in Shipibo) have been carefully selected over many years to work at the Temple. They bring a rich healing legacy, time-honored rituals, intricate practices, an expansive cosmology, and a far-reaching ancestral lineage to the healing process. Coming to an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon, the birthplace and source of the medicine, being supported by the energies, elements, forces, and spirits of the jungle, and guided by the indigenous wisdom keepers of powerful ethnomedical traditions, is the most effective and deepest way to work with ayahuasca.

The Onanyabo’s encyclopedic knowledge of medicinal plants (rao, in Shipibo) of the Amazon Rainforest allows them to heal a huge range of psycho-spiritual, emotional, and physical conditions. Their healing process is focused on cleansing and purifying the energetic field that surrounds us. They identify the source of turmoil, disorder, and disease as stemming from heavy energies (mahua niwe) that are trapped due to personal and ancestral traumas (rate) or toxic energies picked up in our environments.

Traditional Amazonian plant-spirit healing offers an ancient perspective on the modern epidemic of depression, anxiety, and stress; encouraging a revolution in our healthcare systems, and in the way society addresses mental health and the source of disease. We recognize unresolved personal and trans-generational trauma, in all its different manifestations, to be the energetic taproot of all disorder and turmoil, individually and collectively, across the planet. The resolution of trauma leads to completion, wholeness, and connection, and is the most significant mechanism for individual, social, and global transformation.

Although this process is far beyond our understanding of modern healthcare and sits firmly outside the widespread materialistic understanding of reality, the Shipibo’s perspectives on optimal health are radically different. The key to the success of the shamanic healing they provide lies in their experience of working in the inner, non-physical, non-local realms of being. This causal approach challenges the underlying assumptions of the modern biomedical paradigm. As well as focusing on physical and psychological symptoms, they address the non-physical, energetic sources of disorder and disease, moving beyond the assertions of contemporary science and reaching into the realms of the quantum.

The Shipibo are able to achieve such profound spiritual healing by focusing on the following four intentions:

See the disconnect: They open up our energetic systems, look into the biography of our life and that of our ancestors, and diagnose the issues, emotions, thoughts, patterns, and energies that are trapped inside of us. The words of their songs speak to what they see.

Clean and clear: Directed by the spirits of the plants that they have trained with, they clear and clean all that has been trapped in our bodies (from our energetic system, nervous system, endocrine system, hormonal system, bones, blood, muscles, organs, etc.), minds, hearts, and souls. The ikaros and ayahuasca work to disconnect, untangle, liberate, and free us from the pains of the past.

Align: They then restore alignment between our body, mind, heart, and soul, repairing our energetic architecture and restoring the flow of positive energy from our body to our soul.

Reconnecting & Awakening: The final songs work to reconnect us with nature itself, to our True Nature and to Ani Neté – the Universe / Great Mind / Source of Being, which existed before the traumas disconnected us from the truth of Being.

Preparation and Groundwork – October, 2023:

• An individual preparation call that includes intention setting, coaching, and laying the groundwork (via Zoom)
• A group call with the Changemakers Program team and participants (via Zoom)
• Opportunity to include a 1-month surrogate dieta as part of your program for an additional $2,500 (by-distance)
• Required 1 month of dietary restrictions for all participants

Ayahuasca Healing at the Temple – Oct 23rd to Nov 3rd, 2023:

• A high ratio of healers to guests – 4 healers per retreat
• Group size limited to 22 people
• 6 ayahuasca ceremonies over the 12-day retreat
• Intensive focus on alignment, processing, and integration by an experienced team of facilitators
• Group meetings to share and process your experiences
• A cleansing steam bath on the first day of the retreat
• Jain Póiti (flower baths) for cleansing, purifying, and strengthening
• All food and drink – a deliciously simple diet suitable for working with medicinal plants & ayahuasca
• Explore the jungle and see medicinal plants in their natural environment
• Accommodation in comfortable tambos spread out throughout the Temple grounds (fully protected with mosquito netting, eco-friendly flush toilets and waste systems, running water, and hammocks)
• Laundry service
• Translation from Shipibo and Spanish into English
• All workshops facilitated in English
• Porters to carry your luggage in and out of the Temple from the pickup location
• All transportation to and from the Temple

Ontological Inquiry at the Temple:

• Sharing powerful ontological distinctions and inquiry, before and after shamanic treatment / ayahuasca ceremonies, to support your ongoing healing and integration process , as well as then focusing individually and, as a cohort, collectively to support you to ‘create the emerging future’.

Integration Support – Mid Nov 2023 to Mid Feb, 2024:

• Six individual calls with a Temple facilitator, highly experienced in supporting integration, subject to your needs (via Zoom)

Ongoing Ontological Inquiry and Development of Life Blueprint – Mid Nov 2023 to Mid Feb 2024:

• Three monthly group calls continuing and deepening ontological inquiry with Richard (via Zoom)

Ongoing Shamanic Support – Mid Nov 2023 to Mid Feb 2024:

• Energetic alignment, when necessary, from Maestro Jose (by-distance)

• Airfares (International and National)
• Airport transportation
• Travel insurance
• Accommodation in Iquitos
• Peruvian Visa costs for non EEC or USA nationals
• Personal expenses (meals and drinks in Iquitos, etc.)

Optional Program add-on: A Distance Healing Surrogate Dieta

To deepen your healing experience, we are offering participants of this program the opportunity to take part in a surrogate dieta with Maestro Jose and his healing team for an additional $2,500. This option is limited to 11 participants. 

The challenges presented by 2020 have opened a unique opportunity to restore a foundational aspect of ancestral Shipibo healing. This method of healing is in essence a reclamation of ancient Shipibo ways where high-level healers would work on their patients through surrogates before working with them directly.

This is a practice that master healers can develop over many decades of communion with plants and guidance from their own teachers. It requires a considerable amount of training, concentration, and commitment, both from the healer and the surrogate who is carrying out the dieta on behalf of the patient.

Traditionally, in the Shipibo rainforest communities, the patients did not drink ayahuasca initially when they were receiving treatment from a healer. The healer would drink ayahuasca in order to be able to identify the issues that were presented in the patient, enabling the healer to identify and clear trapped energies, blocked emotions, energetic imbalances and misalignments, and imprints from ancestral traumas.

The Shipibo healing system moves significantly outside of the box of the western, biomedical understanding of healthcare, as Shipibo healers work in the non-physical realms and focus on energetic issues. Surrogate dietas offer an opportunity for deep and powerful healing on mental, emotional, energetic, and soul levels. They also offer you the advantage of continuing to attend to your day to day life responsibilities and receive the work of the maestro while staying at home.

During a surrogate dieta, the surrogate essentially assumes your energetic imprint and consumes a specific master plant on your behalf, while receiving ikaros from Maestro José in regular ayahuasca ceremonies. When in-person ayahuasca ceremonies and plant dietas are carried out, heavy energies are released, which are experienced physically, emotionally and psychologically by the participant. However, during a surrogate dieta, the vast majority of this processing takes place on your behalf by the surrogate.

Clearing the heavier energies and some of the personal and ancestral traumas that we all carry before working with ayahuasca can elevate your experience, open your vision, and enhance your ability to focus on finer and lighter frequencies.

The Ancestral Art of Distance Healing

The surrogate dedicates their attention and energies to being a vessel for healing for the person they are representing. During the surrogate dieta, the surrogate experiences the pruebas (tests/challenges) that come with dietas on your behalf. These challenges often come in the form of physical pains, negative emotions (sadness, anger, anxiety), and mental challenges (overthinking, doubts, distrust, apathy).

Due to their training and many years of experience working within shamanic plant-spirit healing, the surrogate allows these experiences to pass through their system and as they are expressed and experienced, they are then subsequently released from your own system.

For some people, this level of deep healing is too challenging to personally process in the initial stages. Therefore, a surrogate dieta is a unique way to receive profound energetic healing without having to travel to the Amazon yourself and endure too many challenges during this critical first phase of cleaning heavy energies. This process is a powerful preparation ahead of attending an ayahuasca retreat at the Temple.

Cost

Note: Upon application, you will have the opportunity to include a surrogate dieta as part of your program. The additional cost of the surrogate dieta is $2,500 USD. The two-week surrogate dieta will take place remotely (while you are home) and before your Temple retreat.

A portion of the income from our programs funds projects on environmental justice, sustainable development, and intercultural education run by our Peruvian NGO, The Chaikuni Institute, partnering with Indigenous people in the Amazon.

Payment Terms

We require a minimum 50% deposit of your program cost to confirm your space. If you prefer, you may pay in full upon approval into the program.

Important Terms and Advice

• All payments are non-refundable.
• We will send you a link to pay via credit card after you have been approved to attend the program. A deposit or full payment must be made within 24 hours of approval to attend the program in order to confirm your space, or your space will be released.
• Your balance must be paid in full at least 6 weeks prior to the start of the program to guarantee your space. Your credit card will be charged automatically for the outstanding balance 6 weeks prior to the start of the program.
• If we are forced to cancel any programs as a result of the pandemic situation or international travel restrictions, all payments will be either transferred to personal credit to be used for a future program at a later date (with no expiration date), or you may move to a different program at that time.
• We strongly recommend all guests purchase flight and travel insurance to cover all contingencies and nonrefundable deposits and expenses.
• For cancelations more than 8 weeks prior to the start of a program, you may transfer to a different program or transfer your payment to personal credit to be used for a future program in the next 2 years.
• For cancelations within 8 weeks of the start of a program, you may only transfer to a different program or transfer your payment to personal credit to be used for a future program in the next 2 years if we can fill your place in the program. We almost always have waiting lists and will try our best to do so, however it may be difficult to find someone to replace your space if it is close to the start of the program.