Aya advisor
I offer my review to add a bit of balance and perhaps a bit deeper look into the Temple of the Way of Light. I offer my perspective as someone who has experience with many of the Temple’s offerings (the 12 day retreat, monthlong, three week, and integration coaching) and as someone who is trained as a psychotherapist utilizing modalities such as somatic psychotherapy (often used in the treatment of trauma), depth psychology (Jung), mindfulness, the Work of Byron Katie, and numerous other east / west practices.I also offer my perspective as someone who has experienced other retreat centers, who has sat in more than 50 ayahuasca ceremonies, and who has worked and dieted plants (aka isolation plant dietas) with respected Ayahuasqueros in the Shipibo tradition and a Tobaquero.

What I can share about the Temple:
From a medicine and healing perspective, the Temple does a good job of maintaining a safe healing environment and highly skillful healers for deep healing experiences. This said, although I have not personally experienced this, I have heard from two other guests who now work at other centers in Peru and an apprenticing medicine healer that they experienced the dark side of the shamanic world while at the Temple.

There is an underculture to shamanic work that is not apparent to the layman but that people who spend time in the medicine world come to know of — a world where shamans psychically attack other shamans out of jealousy or other dark motives. I have heard that there were incidences of this at the Temple yet I haven’t personally experienced this there. On a whole, I believe the Temple does a good job of maintaining a safe environment and the balance of masculine and feminine healers is somewhat unique to the Temple.

As for the accommodations and food, I will leave that for others to comment on. My primary concern is the safety and well-being of guests and to me the safety of the healing environment and the healers, and the knowledge, training, and experience of the facilitators and staff is most important.

I will say that in my several years of attending the Temple and communicating with the integration team and founder, Matthew, I did have some experiences that brought concern and warrant noting.

Ayahuasca and integration coaching are yet unregulated fields. I.e. in the field of psychotherapy and coaching there are ethics that form the basis of the work. For example, all therapists and many coaches undergo training on the ethics of confidentiality. They understand that confidentiality is the foundation of building relationships founded on trust and they understand that a breech in client confidentiality is not only serious grounds for disciplinary action but also potentially harmful to the wellbeing of a client and certainly harmful to the client / therapist or coach relationship. That said, during my relationship with the Temple, they breeched confidentiality.

None of the facilitators in the duration that I had a relationship with the temple had therapy backgrounds, and indeed the head of Integration Dr, Tanya Mate (daughter in law to Dr. Gabor Mate) is not a therapist and has no formal therapeutic background nor do the founders.

Nevertheless, it seemed that within the organization they speak of confidentiality but were not actually aware of what that means. Indeed, on two separate visits to the temple one facilitator spoke ill of a prior high profile guest thereby breaking the prior guest’s confidentiality.

I too had a personal experience in which the Temple breeched my confidentiality and I brought this and other concerns to their attention. This is an important point as with healthcare there are HIPAA guidelines around how information must be held and stored and in the therapy realm there are ethical guidelines around how information is held and shared.

Yet, at the Temple there seems to be a lack of understanding of what confidentiality entails and the practice of confidentiality. This is likely true of most retreat centers which have been established and staffed by unlicensed individuals who have had no formal training in the practice of holding confidentiality and the ramifications of what that means.

Yet, I share this information because the Temple speaks of confidentiality and has guests agree to uphold confidentiality yet has in my experience failed to do so themselves and failed in my opinion to fully grasp the gravity of such an error.

I too would say that in my communications with the Temple, I have found what others have noted that the founder, Matthew, is a businessman and that he and the communication of the Temple hasn’t always been transparent and forthright. At an extreme, I might say it has bordered on false advertising and dishonesty.

For example, the temple promoted a “new” two week program and marketed it on their website as such. In reality, guests including myself arrived to discover that they were merely joining a monthlong program half way through that the Temple was not able to fully sell out. There was no actual difference in program between the month and the two week only in duration. There were many complaints from the participants as the joining half way through created a disjointed experience for both the monthlong and two week participants.

Lastly, I will add that while it is easy while influenced by medicine to put the Temple staff on a pedestal (or conversely to project negatively onto them), they are indeed human beings capable of the same fallibility of all human beings — no better. No worse. Just human. To expect otherwise or to expect that the Temple will be above any unintentional hurt or pain in your journey may be a set up for disappointment. As, I believe that the Temple does their best yet at times that means they have and do too unintentionally harm as all humans do until they no longer do.

P.s. this post has been reposted as it seems that the Temple responded to my initial post with lies claiming that the website information about the program states that the 13 day program joins the Monthlong program. Now it states that. However, originally the website did not state that. The Temple claims that they are dedicated to learning from their mistakes and they are.

Unfortunately, they aren’t actually accountable (as they state) to the people who they hurt in the process and who led to them learning those mistakes AND if they consider being dismissive, totally nonempathic, showing no regard for or understanding of the impact to the people harmed through their negligence, and refusing to even respond to communication around breaches of trust and confidentiality then yes, they have been accountable. Otherwise, no, I’d deem their actions professionally irresponsible, lacking in integrity, hurtful, and the acts of unconsciousness despite what they claim publicly to repair their reputation.

The first of many rules at Gaia Sagrada is to not say anything negative about Gaia Sagrada, and to not leave a negative review. If you’re wondering why there’s very little honest reviews about the place, it is because everyone is under a gag order to not express themselves if they disagree with what happens there.It is a beautiful place with great facilities, comfortable beds, hot showers, beautiful animals, awesome people, breathtaking landscapes….but it also has its downside. It is run with a top-down authoritarian approach with a lot of rules that can make it feel a lot like a strict school.

The people in charge posit themselves as “all-knowing” experts and if you disagree with them then you are doing something wrong or do not understand their superior knowledge. If you are looking for somewhere to heal yourself and want to be in charge of your healing, then this is probably not the place for you.

During the san pedro ceremonies they offer a pseudo-psychological therapy session for everyone involved that all participants must sit through whether you like it or not. If you were hoping to commune with the universe and the natural world during your san pedro experience you are out of luck because you must sit in the one position for over 20 hours and listen to the traumatic experiences of over 30 people at the retreat and the sometimes questionable advice that is doled out in a slow and often condescending manner.

If you are tempted to leave the ceremony and appreciate the natural world, then this is some kind of demon leading you astray or you are considered to be someone who is not supportive of the rest of the participants. This is one of the many cultish control mechanisms that they employ to get you to do as they want.

If you leave the ceremony early, they threaten to kick you out of the retreat and not return your money. The ayahuasca is watery and not very strong, and the majority of people were not having the experiences that they had hoped for. This again was blamed on the participants either having too high expectations or that they were resisting the medicine.

Christine is a well meaning person but can get carried away with controlling the ceremonies and it is clear that this can cause frustrations with the shamans. She makes it clear that she enjoys extremely long ceremonies and spends hours repeating the same prayers in a slow and drawn out manner. There are people who haven’t eaten for long periods, are tired or in physical pain, but she wants to be there so everyone has to stay.

It wasn’t all together a terrible experience and some people really appreciate the way that it is run and gain a lot out of being there. If you are someone who wants to take some autonomy over their own healing and believes that they can make the best decisions about what they need, then this isn’t the place for you.

I attended a weekend retreat here at soulquest. It was very unprofessional. No shaman, no live icaros, the one’s doing the ceremony do not even take the medicine. The first night me and my wife attended the ayahaucca ceremony. We knew it wasn’t right but discussed it and agreed we had already paid so decided to go forward.Chris the owner said he tries to give people an aya experience without all the dogma. Which is fine if you just want to party but I would not advise to disrespect mother ayahaucca in that manner. Without the proper guidance ayahaucca and other shamanic medicines can be very very dangerous. I’m not going to go into detail what happened to me during my stay but I was up for 5 nights and almost ended up in the hospital.

Although Chris and the staff are very nice people and might have good intentions. This in not a drug and should not be played with. I’ve spent over a month in Ecuador with very skilled and respectful people to the medicines and participants. [Gaia sagrada ] and spent a small time with teachers from the shipibo tribe in Peru. This happened to me with experience, it can happen to anyone.

Please, I advise to be very careful. Especially if this is your first time. Just because something is cheaper and more covenant, doesn’t mean it’s better. Do your research. Make sure the people know what they are doing so you leave with the healing and love you went there for. Aho

These guys showed up for 3 days at a center I was spending two weeks at…. Not people I would ever associate personally – they brought down the entire center with their presence and the group was completely disrespectful regarding the medicine and other peoples healing.The tour leader also started making out with a girl in his group mid Aya ceremony, and then bragged about it to everyone else the next morning while people were trying to tell the shaman about their ceremony night before…. Seemed very unethical to me.

No one in his group was there for healing, knew Aya could heal, or thought this was an important ceremony for other participants – they just talked and laughed half the ceremony, started ohming, and acted like it was a hippy party in the maloka. The staff at the Aya center kept trying to calm them down and asked them to be respectful, but they just didnt get it at all.

When they left the center, they rode off on mototaxis still altered from the Ayahuasca because they ended ceremony early to leave – sounds so irresponsible and dangerous to drive 2 hours through muddy roads at night while altered from Ayahuasca still.

In my opinion, this guy and the people he brings are exactly what is wrong with the spiritual tourism industry.

I left a review on this place after my trip in December and while talking about some things I didn’t like.. I ultimately left it 5 stars because the Shaman was unbelievable and I didn’t have it in me to knock the business of some truly great people there.As someone who spent a boat load of money to go do Ayahuasca for my first time.. I feel like I along with other reviewers and participants have a major responsibility to those researching about making the same leap that I did. Not picking the right retreat is truly a disaster. Some won’t have the opportunity to do it a next time.

Taking the time to re write this review is not being done out of spite. It’s being done out of that responsibility. I don’t want to mislead someone into the wrong retreat for them based on a 5 star review that I don’t believe in. I also see just an overwhelming amount of 5 star reviews on here and I feel its very misleading. It’s what got me to commit to this retreat. It’s not easy to come back and leave a mediocre review unless you truly had a horrific experience. I believe if you polled every single person thats been through here this is far from a 5 star retreat.. and that needs to be talked about here.

The Shaman that I worked with is no longer there. He is the result of many of the rave reviews on here. The new one could be amazing too.. That I don’t know. I do know without Diego there.. that in itself would completely change my review of this place.

When traveling to South America the most important thing is safety. This place is extremely safe. Meals are good.. you’ll be comfortable. The average person that wants to go drink Ayahuasca and expand their consciousness could be fine here.

For someone that has issues to work out I believe you can do much better. I have terrible anxiety. I wanted to be listened to. I wanted opportunities to talk to the Shaman one on one. I wanted to feel like a priority and have the opportunity to really work through that stuff. I didn’t get that.

It was advertised as a smaller group retreat and it was overbooked. This retreat to me felt like a business. I was nothing but a number. Questions were answered in BS robotic scripted responses. The first night there someone that had been to a previous Aya retreat asked about getting time with the Shaman and honestly the response he got was extremely rude IMO. When you hear “dont do a retreat” I believe this type of place is exactly what they are talking about. You are going to get quality Ayahuasca in a safe environment but you are nothing but another number before the next group comes in.

In saying that.. I’m changing my review to 3 stars. You could do much worse. If you have the means to travel around and do this as much as you want.. by all means.. you might enjoy this place. If you don’t have the money to make a mistake and are struggling with anxiety or some kind of a traumatic past.. you are the people I am leaving this review for. Anxiety is a nightmare that ruins so many lives. Ayahuasca is DEFINITELY something you should look into. Don’t put your hopes into this place if it’s the only chance you’ve got. Research, research, and research some more and find the perfect place that will make you feel like you matter and that will get you through what you are searching for.

Edit: I posted this review earlier today. Copying my review word for word.. my review was still 3 stars.. which I would rate as average. Nothing wrong at all with someone wanting to leave an honest 3 star average review for their experience. I was immediately bombarded on Facebook messenger by Chandra.. the woman mostly in charge of things.. with 15 messages full of drama. In this above review.. I held back. I did not want to be blunt.

Now I will be. I am changing my review from 3 stars to 1. Why is this place rated so high? Because people with negative opinions are uncomfortable saying something.. and pressured to rate so highly. Chandra was my number 1 complaint with this place. She did not listen to myself, or others concerns while there. She bombarded me with messages about an instance that had nothing to do with my review.. and was actually something I agreed with her on (someone leaving the temple during ceremony).

My review above about her being rude to someone was actually someone who handled himself very well and was very low maintenance. Small things matter.. and she was rude to him over a question I felt similar about. Take a look in the mirror Chandra and listen to people and their intentions more.

You are in a place to where you can make a massive difference in peoples lives. The fact that I was bombarded over a 3 star review is ridiculous. Earn your 5 stars and I will respond in such. Harass people about 3 star reviews and that is exactly what is wrong with this system. Misleading great reviews that lead people to waste their money. If someone else feels you don’t deserve 5 stars don’t harass them. Leave them alone and be better. I did not have it in me to poorly review this place but now I do. This is my only experience with Ayahuasca but I whole heartedly believe you can do much better and I will look to do so next time.