El Faro: A guiding light for those navigating plant medicines.
Professional support to navigate challenging experiences. We provide orientation to enhance safety and reduce risks on your journey with indigenous plant medicines.
How We Can Help You
Support and Integration
Integration is the process of making sense of what emerges after experiences with ayahuasca, mushrooms, iboga, or other traditional plants. If you’ve had an experience you don’t fully understand or haven’t felt well since your last ceremony…
Medical Questions
Can people with diabetes take ayahuasca? Can psilocybin mushrooms be combined with thyroid medications? Our team of experts is here to answer your questions.
Other Questions
If you are wondering about other aspects of safety, well-being, or best practices with traditional plant medicines, we are here to help. Our team provides guidance on a wide range of topics to support your journey.
We Are Here to Listen
Fernando Caudevilla
El Faro Support Center
A Guiding Light for Navigators
Psychoactive plant, fungal, and animal medicines have been part of traditional cultures for many generations. However, for societies in the Global North, many of these practices and the experiences involving them are relatively new and unfamiliar.
El Faro Support Center is a support service staffed by professionals who assist individuals in navigating these new environments. We offer guidance to those who have questions or encounter challenges when integrating experiences related to traditional Indigenous medicines. Our goal is to help them gain clarity about their current situation, make informed decisions for their next steps, make necessary adjustments, enhance safety, and minimize risks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Before the session, we answer questions about interactions between pharmaceutical treatments and psychoactive species or substances.
After the session, we provide support to help individuals integrate experiences lived in altered states of consciousness, particularly those related to the use of traditional indigenous medicines.
These services are funded by donations. Our team of experts offers knowledge in integration, medicine, pharmacology, and psychology. This work requires significant time, resources, and dedication. While we ask for donations to continue offering our services, no one is ever turned away due to a lack of resources.
No. While our team includes experienced psychology professionals, we do not provide psychotherapy. What we offer is emotional support to help individuals better understand their experiences with traditional Indigenous medicines.
Our mission is to empower people to make informed decisions about their health. In this way, our services can complement medical, psychological, or psychiatric care but never replace it.
In case of suicidal ideation or risk of self-harm, please contact a specialized service.
Spain:
• Emergencies: 112
• Suicide prevention helpline: 024
Other international services: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/
“Ethnobotany” is the science that studies the relationship between human cultures and plants, or the knowledge that different cultures have acquired over time about the properties of various plants. In addition, we call “ethnobotanicals” the psychoactive plant species that have a deep-rooted relationship with different cultures.
About half of modern medicines — from aspirin to the first anesthesia — originate from traditionally used medicinal plants. In fact, many of today’s pharmaceuticals are compounds based on natural products with which humans have interacted for centuries or millennia. Although science has only recently begun to take an interest in plants such as iboga or ayahuasca, their long-standing relationship with humanity corroborates the essential fact that when humans have worked with plants for centuries, it is generally because they consider them “effective.”
If you are looking for evidence-based information on psychoactive plants, the Basic Information section is dedicated to fostering a greater understanding of their cultural and historical background, current contexts of use, pharmacology, psychological effects, and legality.
In addition, Erowid has an extensive collection of first-hand reports and testimonials.
If you want to test the composition of a substance, you can contact We Are The Loop.
We cannot. ICEERS never endorses or recommends any center or facilitator of ethnobotanicals. We do not offer experiences with psychoactive plants, nor do we recommend centers or professionals who provide retreats or sessions. This is clearly stated on our contact page.
As a risk reduction strategy, we provide a free good practice guide with advice for people who are going to participate in ceremonies, as well as information pages, so that people can form their own criteria when choosing and knowing how to avoid risks.
There are associations of people who meet regularly to share their interest in the exploration of psychoactive plants and psychedelics. These associations can be a first meeting place where you can get information.
This directory lists the various psychedelic societies around the world.
It is important to have a good prior knowledge about the characteristics of the people who will facilitate the retreat or ceremony, as well as the space where it will take place and the structure of the process.
Here you can find some resources of interest:
- The best practices guide on ayahuasca use, available in 11 languages, includes risk reduction tips for people who are going to participate in sessions.
- The ICEERS website contains specific information pages on types of plants, contraindications, and other issues to promote good preparation and risk reduction.
- The Manual for Awareness on Sexual Abuse in the Ayahuasca Community prepared by the Chacruna Institute.
From the Ayahuasca Defend Fund (ADF) program of ICEERS, we offer a set of useful resources to provide greater legal clarity and protection to both individuals and professionals who need to know the legal status of different plants and psychoactive compounds.
Some resources to consult are the Legal status map, or IDPC’s interactive map on the status of decriminalization in different parts of the world.
ICEERS cannot endorse or recommend any training program, other than to point out that facilitation is an enormously complex job, and that all complex jobs require very long processes of training and practice. You cannot learn to be a surgeon or a simultaneous translator in weeks or months, nor can you learn to safely accompany people through plant experiences.
ICEERS offers training for health professionals (medicine, psychology, etc.) to develop specific knowledge and skills to support people who have undergone altered consciousness experiences. The ICEERS Integration course is offered in Spanish and English. You can find more information here.
El Faro Support Center is not a suicide hotline.
If you are in a time of crisis or if you or anyone else may be in danger or experiencing a mental health emergency, or in case of suicidal ideation or risk of suicidal behavior contact your local emergency services immediately:
Spain:
Emergencies — Phone: 112
Suicidal behavior hotline — Phone: 024
Other international:
Suicide prevention hotline
Samaritans
There are other international services dedicated to risk reduction, integration and emotional support in the context of traditional indigenous medicines and other psychedelic substances.
Fireside Project
Psychedelic Support Line provides emotional support during and after psychedelic experiences.
Spiritual Crisis Network
Promoting understanding and support of those going through profound personal transformation.
Shine Collective
Survivors of psychedelic harm deserve support.
Nectara
Psychedelic integration support and training resources.
MovAya
Legal and psychological support against abuse in ayahuasca settings.