“Before taking the course I believed I had many more tools, and that an online course could hardly add anything to my hands-on, experiential work. But today, as I finish, I recognize and incorporate a long list of fundamental recommendations to deliver a safer experience.” The sentiment, expressed in different words, appears in many testimonials from those who have completed AyaSafety, the ICEERS Academy course on how to enhance safety in ayahuasca sessions. What this six-month program offers is not a collection of warnings, but something far more valuable: the tools, the principles, and the community that allow those who facilitate ceremonies to carry out their work with greater safety, confidence, and capacity to respond to whatever may arise.
Smoother retreats, more decisive actions
One of the most experienced facilitators in the program put it this way: “I just ran our latest retreat 2 weeks ago, toward the final month of this course, and it was by far the best, smoothest, and most powerful process we had ever run with people before. I credit the work here as a large part of that. Knowing that we had everything together, that we knew how to conduct ourselves at the highest levels, gave us a foundation and confidence to do brilliant work with people.”
This combination of solid foundation and acquired confidence emerges as one of the most consistent returns of the program. Another participant put it differently: “I found the course highly valuable. The content was clear and insightful, and the teachers were excellent. It provided me with practical tools and frameworks to enhance my practice significantly. I would recommend this course to anyone involved in psychedelic therapy, particularly for its emphasis on safety and ethics.”
A facilitator with twelve years of experience added: “This course was a deepening, a ripening, a maturation and a very special arena in which to integrate 12 years of facilitation experiences. (…) It has made me feel very happy and validated to recognize how much of what is recommended in the course, we already have in place. More importantly, much like medicine experiences, the course skillfully exposes deeper layers —all the way to the back of the closet — to clean, to illuminate, and to inspire greater presence with safety and integrity.”
Practical tools
Those who have completed AyaSafety mention, almost unanimously, the downloadable resources as one of the program’s greatest assets. One participant described them, literally, as “gold”: detailed health forms, pre-screening interviews, personal and legal agreements, emergency protocols, integration guides, referral criteria. Material developed over years by specialists in medicine, psychology, and bioethics, ready to incorporate into one’s own work. And alongside that material, a network of external support to turn to when doubt arises: the El Faro support service, legal support, consultations on pharmacological interactions, and the ICEERS Community Circles.
Another facilitator put it this clearly: “The resources offered are truly impressive in their various components—the health questionnaire, preliminary interview, personal and legal agreement, emergency protocol… I would absolutely recommend the course. (…) Overall, this course has exceeded my expectations, providing a solid framework and essential resources that will enrich my work as a guide. Thank you for this valuable contribution!”
An ayahuasca safety course with world-class instructors
A recurring theme in the testimonials highlights the quality of the teaching team. A retreat facilitator and ceremonial assistant put it bluntly: “Jerónimo, David, and the rest of the instructors are world-class in their knowledge of these topics and the intersection of traditional plant practices and Western healing contexts.”
Another participant highlighted something different yet complementary: “For me, besides the content, what impacted me the most was the presence of those providing the instruction. You are all a credit to this work. Calm, reasoned, precise, thoughtful, contemplative when needed. And also inspirational.”
Decades of fieldwork in traditional and contemporary contexts, thousands of people served through the ICEERS Support Center, rigorous scientific and bioethical approaches. All of this is embodied in a teaching team that participants describe, time and again, with a mix of respect and affection.
A community of practice
Work with ayahuasca in non-native contexts often takes place in relative isolation. There are no peers with whom to discuss decisions or spaces to review what happened in the last ceremony.
AyaSafety addresses this gap on multiple levels. On the one hand, there are the live discussions, which participants describe as one of the most enriching aspects of the program: a space to share, explore, and listen to the stories and insights of colleagues from different regions and traditions. On the other hand, the 2026 edition incorporates three Co-Vision Circles facilitated by David Londoño: peer-to-peer group work spaces, using real-life cases, in a horizontal format. This is not clinical supervision, nor is it a lecture, but rather something harder to find outside the program: a meeting space where participants’ questions find answers and companionship in the experiences of others.
As one of the facilitators from previous editions put it, “the work of each facilitator does not exist in isolation, but contributes to a larger network of practitioners and professionals.” That perspective adds an additional layer of meaning and shared responsibility to risk prevention.
Clarity where it is needed
Hay un testimonio que merece transcribirse casi entero. Una participante atravesó, durante el curso, una experiencia disociativa intensa. «De no haber realizado el programa», escribió, «la experiencia habría resultado aterradora». Pero, conforme recuperaba conciencia de la realidad consensuada, pudo recordar las lecciones del curso y sostener la certeza de que aquello pasaría con tiempo suficiente. Sabía qué hacer para descender. Sabía cómo integrar la experiencia en los días siguientes. Incluso en ese estado de profunda desestabilización pudo tranquilizar a su marido, que la acompañaba, asegurándole que estaría bien.
Poder actuar desde el conocimiento durante un momento de vulnerabilidad —propia o ajena— constituye quizás la medida más honesta de lo que una formación puede ofrecer.
Greater humanity
One of the program’s less expected but most frequently reported effects has to do with the facilitator’s own life. With their place in the world beyond the ceremonial role.
A participant with eight years of practice described it this way: “I was so much engrossed in the medicine world drinking medicine every month that I had forgotten to live a life outside of it. I was in the medicine bubble and life outside of it felt alien. (…) Thanks to this course it made me realize this things how important it was to mix with other people and start doing other things and be in our full humanness and not pretend as somebody perfect.”
Another facilitator framed it from the angle of confidence: after the course, she feels more secure as a guide on this terrain. And yet another, with an image worth preserving, spoke of her renewed commitments — to walk with greater joy and greater capacity alongside the plants, her teachers and her lineage, the Indigenous communities who hold these medicines, and the global community. The vast majority of students leave the course strengthened and enriched by the decades of wisdom and practice the program distills.
What those who have taken the ayahuasca safety course say
We want to close with the voices of the participants themselves, because they capture better than any institutional description what the program delivers:
“Not only would I recommend it, I would require it for anyone who plans to offer this work to the public.”
“Next year, in the center where I work, we are going to require that all the assistants take it.”
“I would wholeheartedly recommend the course to anyone involved in any form of plant medicine facilitation in a non-traditional context.”
“The course fills an important space, offering what traditional masters often cannot transmit to us due to cultural or contextual differences. The fusion of science and spirituality represents a fundamental step toward a more complete and conscious model.”
“Thanks to this course, my personal and professional relationship with yagé, with ancestrality, with the work team, with patients, and especially with my own process, has matured and continues in an active state of improvement.”
The 2026 edition
Registration for the 2026 edition closes on May 25. The course begins in June and runs through November, requiring approximately two hours per week. It combines video lessons, live sessions with the teaching team, downloadable protocols ready for practical implementation, and the three new Co-Vision Circles we’re launching this year.
For those who already facilitate ceremonies and wish to elevate their practice to the highest standard available today — and for those just starting out on this path who prefer to do so with the strongest possible foundation — AyaSafety has established itself as the leading course focused on ayahuasca safety, although most of its content is also applicable to working with other traditional medicines.