Testimony of a participant in the Retreat/Dieta

Dear friends, we share a testimony about the experience with the dieta of teacher plants made by Eduardo, psychologist, sketcher and photographer, who participated in his first plants dieta in Takiwasi six years ago. Becoming aware and abandoning a dependence on alcohol and marijuana, healing different aspects related to childhood, reconnecting with his artistic side and healing the male lineage are some of the benefits obtained by Eduardo through the work with teacher plants and the psychological accompaniment.

The dates of our Retreats/Dietas for the next few months are the following:

15 - 24 October
12 - 21 November
10 - 19 December

New research article on the use
of purgahuasca at Takiwasi

A new research article on the use of purgahuasca at the Takiwasi Center has just been published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.

The ritual ceremony of purgahuasca is one of the therapeutic procedures of the Awajún traditional medicine that was included within the therapeutic protocol of Takiwasi thanks to the teachings received by the master healer Walter Cuñachi. Purgahuasca is a non-concentrated preparation of the ayahuasca vine alone that is ingested as in a purge session and mainly has a great emetic effect, with minor visionary or teaching effects. In the Awajún tradition, purgahuasca constitutes an initiation ritual, so that through this medicine young people can discover their vocation and know the way to follow in their adult lives.

“Traditional use of Banisteriopsis caapi alone and its application in a context of drug addiction therapy”. Authors: Matteo Politi, Fabio Friso, Gary Saucedo, Jaime Torres. Published in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 27 September 2020.

Scientific evidence on spirituality and health

Intervention by Dr. Harold G. Koening in the "II Simposium of Dialogues between Medicines: the spiritual approach to addictions" that took place on September 26, in Barcelona, Spain, and was organized by the association GASS and the Takiwasi Center.

Dr. Harold G. Koening is a psychiatrist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, USA. He has published hundreds of articles and scientific studies on the effects of spiritual practice on health.

Summary of the intervention
Science has moved away from spirituality, but scientific evidence shows how, through its practice, health benefits increase. Thousands of scientific studies support this claim. Particularly in the case of addiction, due to their nature and the personality structure of the people who suffer from it, the positive impact of this practice on the resolution of the disease is surprising.

The Ayahuasca Conversations
and other e-books for sale

The e-book The Ayahuasca Conversations collects some encounters and interviews around the therapeutical use of Ayahuasca.

Historically, when native plants such as tobacco, coca – or even cocoa – traveled to the West, they would lose their traditions of use on their way to us. These traditions are sets of norms that maximized the plant’s benefits, and minimized their risks. Instead of leveraging this knowledge, the West arrogantly tried to find their own ways to use these ancient plants, extracting their compounds and commercializing them as products – often misusing the plants as badly as indigenous populations had sometimes misused our liquor. With ayahuasca, however, something different was happening. For the first time in history, an Amerindian sacred plant was expanding to the West, taking with it some of its traditional context and methods of use. It was as if the West was finally waking up to the idea that the people who had been using the plant the longest, were probably in the best position to teach us how it should be done.

The incomes generated from the sale of books and other products are entirely destined to support Takiwasi in the treatment and rehabilitation of people with limited economic resources who suffer from drug addiction.

Adopt an Ayahuasca

If you wish to support the activities of the Takiwasi Center, there are several ways to do it.

You can choose to give your contribution to the protection and conservation of Amazonian teacher plants through the project Adopt an Ayahuasca, by adopting an Ayahuasca vine or another teacher plant that we have been planting and caring for in our Botanical Reserve, a protected area of 54 hectares located inside the Cordillera Escalera conservation area, on the outskirts of the city of Tarapoto.

Other ways to support us are by contributing to cover for the cost of the treatment and rehabilitation of our drug addict patients with limited economic resources, to finance the groundbreaking research project ATOP - Ayahuasca Treatment Outcome Project, or to support other social projects such as the CIANAH orphanage for indigenous children located in the remote native community of Yutupis.

Centro Takiwasi Prolongación Alerta 466, Tarapoto, Peru Tel: +51 (0)42 522818 / +51 (0)42 525479 www.takiwasi.com takiwasi@takiwasi.com

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