The Pillars of Our Work
Working with Predominantly Female Healers
A unique focus on working with Onanya Ainbobo – indigenous women healers working within the rich and complex medical tradition of the Shipibo people. The women healers are complemented by Shipibo male healers who provide a vital balance to the healing work.
Drawing on over 250 years of experience practicing ayahuasca shamanism, this remarkable group has provided a safe environment and the most effective healing experience for our guests over many years. Their rigorously cultivated healing skills, arising from an unbroken tradition of plant-spirit healing in the Amazon, are exercised with characteristic kindness and generosity.
Compassionate Environment
From the inception of the Temple in 2007, our core philosophy was to provide an atmosphere of genuine care and compassion. Over the subsequent years, we have become known for the sensitive and attentive style of our retreat facilitation and the wholehearted level of support offered by our entire team.
We firmly believe that a compassionate environment is an essential component of the overall healing process. This allows guests to be vulnerable, tender, open, honest, and authentic, without fear of judgment or criticism while undergoing deep healing.
High Number of Ceremonies
We include a high number of ceremonies in our retreats to ensure that our healers have sufficient time to reach into the roots of the issues presented by our guests.
We are passionate about our work and deeply committed to facilitating lasting healing and integration. Our retreats are intense and challenging experiences that initiate a much longer-term healing journey that unfolds for months and even years after visiting the Temple.
High Ratio of Healers to Guests
Our Living in Alignment: Ayahuasca Healing Retreats are run by two female healers and two male healers, with the group size limited to 23 people. These numbers ensure that each guest is given close, personalized attention in every ceremony and throughout their healing process.
Stringent Health and Safety Standards
Your well-being is our priority and the Temple is deeply committed to guiding guests safely through deep personal healing and growth, both in and out of ceremony. We apply rigorous health and safety protocols that include pre-retreat medical screening, and personality and psychopathology screening.
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 3-4 staff supervising each ceremony (2 facilitators, a door person, and a toilet assistant). These standards are complemented by an extensive support staff of 60 people throughout the Temple grounds.
Comprehensive Aftercare and Integration Support
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 you after your return to day-to-day life through the provision of our Continuing Care Program. This program is currently in development (with some aspects already available). It is support system that offers community, guidance, reassurance, advice, exercises, techniques, meditations, and an overall pathway that will significantly aid your integration, and help you reclaim present awareness and to live a healthy, whole, and balanced life.
Respecting Indigenous Traditions
Underpinning 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 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 across the planet, individually and collectively.
Reciprocity to the Amazon
According to indigenous Amazonian wisdom, sharing is the key to maintaining a healthy, balanced life for all. Indigenous people consider protection and preservation of the rainforest 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.
Community and Permaculture
Since 2009 we have been implementing a comprehensive permaculture program on the 175 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, renewable energy systems, rainwater harvesting, natural spring-water systems, aquaculture systems, sustainable buildings, and reforestation.
Focusing on Social Benefit
The Temple is a purpose-driven, socially responsible, and conscious business that puts people and the planet before profit. The cornerstone of our work is operating with authenticity, integrity, and impeccability, with a central focus on reciprocating to the people and land around us in the Amazon through our nonprofit sister organization, the Chaikuni Institute.
As a flagship ayahuasca center, we operate with total social responsibility; providing the highest wages to 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.
Ethics and Professionalism
Since our inception at the beginning of 2007, the Temple has adhered to a rigorous set of ethics and professional standards to manage our growth sustainably and give back to the people and land around us in the Amazon. The Temple employs over 100 people, mostly from the surrounding area, and contributes to the economic welfare and infrastructure maintenance of the local village, Tres Unidos.
We are deeply dedicated to fostering a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship with our staff that improves the quality of their lives and creates an exemplary working culture. Our professional protocols set a high minimum standard for safety and experience to ensure our guests are well cared for physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
