The market
Weekend certifications, ten-day retreats, online courses, festival ceremony and wellness-brand partnerships form a substantial global industry with no licensing, no complaints body and strong financial incentives.
Warning signs
Recurring red flags across documented cases of harm:
- Guaranteed outcomes or claims to cure serious disease
- Discouraging medical care or medication
- Pressure to escalate payment, secrecy about money
- Sexual contact framed as part of healing — never legitimate
- Invented lineage or an unverifiable Indigenous credential
- No screening for medical or psychiatric contraindications
Deaths and abuse
The 2009 Sedona sweat-lodge deaths under a non-Indigenous facilitator, and repeated documented sexual abuse at ayahuasca centres, are the reference cases for what unregulated commercial practice can produce.