32: The Mirages and Risks of Ayahuasca w/Jerónimo Mazarrasa

Pascal chats with Jerónimo Mazarrasa, Director of Social Innovation at ICEERS. Together they discuss the critical risks of using Ayahuasca—both for participants and facilitators—as the practice expands rapidly beyond traditional Indigenous contexts.

Ayahuasca can offer profound healing and transformative experiences, but it’s not without significant risks. In this episode, Jerónimo reveals the biggest risks identified through ICEERS’ extensive global research and experience with harm reduction.

This episode is essential listening for anyone involved in—or considering—the use of ayahuasca, emphasizing responsibility, ethical practice, and informed, conscious participation.

Tune in, stay safe, and journey wisely.
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🌿 Interested in elevating your Ayahuasca facilitation and client safety in your practice? Sign up for ICEERS' AyaSafety course and save 15% with the code AYATARA. Open until May 1st only. The course is in its 4th cohort and it includes three Nectara guides as teachers.

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‍Episode themes

• The very real and important risks of Ayahuasca that all participants should know about.
• The critical difference between desire and vocation in facilitation.
• Why facilitators must deeply engage in personal and shadow work beyond mere technical training.
• The unique challenges of integrating traditional plant medicine practices in modern, globalized contexts.

Show Notes

Top 5 Risks for Ayahuasca Participants:

1. Lack of true consent: The primary contraindication is taking ayahuasca without fully wanting or understanding it.
2. “Runaway Participant”: Individuals who leave ceremonies prematurely, posing serious safety risks.
3. Impact on relationships: How participant’s experiences can negatively affect their families and relationships.
4. Misinterpretation of visions (“Ayahuasca told me...”): Participants mistaking insights for literal directives, leading to impulsive, harmful decisions (e.g., quitting jobs, divorce, radical life changes).
5. Overwhelming or traumatic experiences: Intense spiritual and psychological experiences that can lead to crisis.

Top 5 Risks for Ayahuasca Facilitators:

1. Power dynamics: Mismanagement of the inherent power imbalance between facilitator and participant.
2. Financial challenges: Ethical issues arising from participants’ gratitude manifesting financially in ways that can compromise boundaries.
3. Sexual energy: Increased intimacy and suggestibility creating ethical pitfalls.
4. Isolation of facilitators: Long-term facilitators risk becoming isolated without peers to provide honest feedback or accountability, leading to unchecked ego or harmful behaviors.
5. Intercultural misalignment: Misunderstandings and ethical challenges that arise when facilitators work outside their own cultural frameworks without adequate understanding.

Notable quotes

• I've come to understood thatthese plants are more like flashlights that you can use to shed light on things that were formerly sort of the shades or unknown or dark rather than levers that you can use to push and move things.
• I didn’t expect things to move so quickly, and parts of it have left me with a bittersweet feeling. What interests me most is how the introduction of psychedelics or plant medicines could positively transform our cultures and societies—not how we could reshape these practices to fit into our existing societal structures.
• Certainly, our narrow definition of prescription medicine—and perhaps even medicine more broadly—is challenged by psychedelics. Many of their greatest potentials aren’t strictly medical treatments but rather fall closer to prevention or helping navigate significant life situations.
• If you don’t have someone who plays that role—whether a mentor, therapist, supervisor, or peer—to provide honest feedback, you risk falling into isolation and self-delusion. Even highly accomplished facilitators who’ve undergone extensive training can become dangerously isolated without someone to reflect their blind spots back to them.
• It began in the Amazon, spreading gradually—from one tribe to the neighboring tribe, then to others. From tribes to jungle towns, then to cities within the country, and eventually beyond borders, reaching all the way to us today. Ayahuasca spreads organically, from person to person and group to group, because people find genuine value in it. This slow, organic growth isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, we’re dealing with som