Red Flags: How to Tell a Safe Ceremony From an Unsafe One
Updated: Oct 14
Almost nothing in this field is regulated. There is no licensing body, no inspection, no register of facilitators. Which means the only quality control that exists is the one you apply yourself, before you send the deposit.
After nine years of running retreats and hearing what happened to people at other people's, these are the signals that actually predict trouble.
1. No screening, or screening as a formality
Covered at length elsewhere, but it belongs at the top of any list. If you can book by filling in a form and paying, nobody is checking whether you should be there.
Sharper version of the test: ask them what would make them turn someone away, and roughly how many people they declined last year. A centre that has never said no has no threshold.
2. Guarantees of outcome
"Heal your trauma in one weekend." "Cure your depression." "You will meet your purpose."
Nobody can promise what the medicine will do, and anyone who does is either inexperienced or selling. The most experienced facilitators I know are noticeably more careful in how they talk about outcomes, not less.
Related: watch for centres that never mention difficulty. Ceremonies are frequently hard. A description that contains only light is a marketing document.
3. Group size that does not add up
Ask two questions: how many participants, and how many facilitators are awake and working through the night.
Thirty people and two facilitators is not a ceremony, it is a crowd. Somebody will need help at 3am — to reach the bathroom, to be sat with through fear, to be watched because their heart rate is climbing — and if the ratio is wrong, that person waits.
Our groups are capped at twelve to sixteen with a full team present. The specific numbers matter less than whether the centre can answer the question at all without hesitating.
4. No named lineage, or a lineage that dissolves under questions
"Working with indigenous wisdom" means nothing. Ask which tradition, which community, which taita or maestro, and since when.
Then ask the harder question: what flows back? A centre with a genuine relationship can tell you concretely. A centre using the vocabulary decoratively will change the subject to their integration programme.
This is not purism. Lineage is a proxy for accountability — it means someone outside the business can withdraw their name.
5. Vagueness about what is in the brew
You should be able to find out which plants are in the medicine you are drinking, who prepared it, and where. Colombian yagé, Peruvian ayahuasca, and brews with additional admixtures are not interchangeable, and some admixtures carry their own risks.
"It's traditional medicine" is not an answer to "what is in it."
6. Pressure, urgency, and love-bombing
Two spots left. Price rises tomorrow. The medicine called you. You were meant to find us.
Standard high-pressure sales technique wearing spiritual clothing. This work asks you to make a considered decision about your nervous system. Anyone compressing your decision time is prioritising the sale.
A related flag: a facilitator who positions themselves as the source of your healing rather than as someone holding a space. That dependency does not stay in the ceremony room.
7. No integration, or integration sold separately as an upsell
If the relationship ends when the retreat does, the model is transactional. Ask what happens in week two and week six, and whether it is included.
Integration is where the change either holds or evaporates. A centre that treats it as optional is telling you where their attention stops.
8. No answer on medical emergencies
Ask directly: what happens if someone has a cardiac event, a seizure, or a psychotic episode in ceremony? Where is the nearest hospital, how long does it take, who drives, and does anyone on the team have medical or mental-health training?
You are not being difficult. You are asking whether they have thought about it. The hesitation before the answer tells you more than the answer.
9. Sexual boundary issues — the one that ends the conversation
Any account of a facilitator initiating physical or sexual contact with participants, any private "individual healing sessions" arranged during or immediately after ceremony, any culture where boundaries blur when people are at their most defenceless: leave.
This is the most serious and most under-reported harm in this field. Participants in ceremony are profoundly suggestible and physically vulnerable. Search the facilitator's name alongside terms like "abuse" and "allegation" before you book, and take what you find seriously even when it is unproven. Where there is a pattern of accounts, there is usually a pattern.
10. Nobody will tell you anything difficult
The final one is a feel rather than a fact. In a well-run centre, someone will at some point tell you something you did not want to hear — that you should wait, that your medication timeline does not work, that this is not the right retreat for you.
If every conversation is agreement, you are being sold to.
The best sign of a safe centre is that they are visibly willing to lose your booking.
Note. Educational content, not medical or legal advice. Ayahuasca is prohibited in many jurisdictions; check the law where you are travelling.
Apply every one of these to us before you book. If you want to start with the questions rather than the calendar, that is exactly what a health evaluation call is for.
Ritshi Zenati, Speaker & Life Coach
Founder at Holistika Center.
Holistika Center holds plant medicine retreats across Barcelona, Málaga, Mallorca, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Colombia and Mexico.
Also, different programs like Microdosing, Life and Spiritual Guidance, etc.
Visit Holistika Center to explore upcoming programs.
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