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Chacruna Institute

Chacruna promotes reciprocity in the psychedelic community, and supports the protection of sacred plants and cultural traditions. We advance psychedelic justice through curating critical conversations and uplifting the voices of women, queer people, Indigenous peoples, people of color, and the Global South in the field of psychedelic science.

Latest posts by Chacruna Institute (see all)

• Course: Critical Perspectives on Knowledge Production in Psychedelic Science 2025 - November 20, 2024
• Indigenous Shamanic Knowledge Systems, Art and Creative Processes - November 14, 2024
• Course: Diversity, Culture and Social Justice in Psychedelics 2025 - November 7, 2024

April 1st – July 8th 2024, 10:30am-12pm PST/1:30pm-3pm EST

REGISTER HERE

Price $950

Price $480 for CE credits
CE Credits Offered: 24 total

Scholarship Application

This course will be taught by leading experts in the field of ayahuasca research and renowned Indigenous leaders. The goal of the course is to address the current challenges and new perspectives on the use of ayahuasca in a global context, not only from an academic standpoint but also drawing from Indigenous voices and their experience with ayahuasca. Students will be introduced to current issues on the internationalization of ayahuasca and its impacts. The course will address Amazonian traditional healing modalities; ayahuasca and Western psychotherapy, the commodification of ayahuasca;​​therapeutic and clinical research; conservation, environmental legislation and the legal framework of ayahuasca worldwide. This course will also be dedicated to honor the voices and experiences of Brazilian Indigenous leaders, addressing issues that are most dear to Indigenous communities that consecrate ayahuasca. Our Indigenous professors will explore the dilemmas posed by western civilization, such as exploitative extractivism, cultural appropriation, and the discredit of ancestral knowledge. They will also talk about ayahuasca shamanism and its role for the political, spiritual and cultural resistance of Indigenous Peoples. This innovative course will bridge the gap between academic and traditional knowledge, connecting the ceremonial use of sacred plants and psychedelic science. Following Chacruna’s tradition, this course will unite a community of kindred people to get together and exchange notes around the most complete and up-to-date debates on ayahuasca and its challenges in current times.

Student Learning Objectives

At the end of the program, participants will be better able to…

• Critique some of the assumptions, narratives, orientations and stories commonly underlying plant medicine scenes as they intersect with healing culture
• Analyze common commercial/popular discourses on ayahuasca. Where do the different elements originate from and what are their theoretical and ideological sources?
• Discuss the impacts and dilemmas of psychedelic capitalism and the commodification of ayahuasca on traditional practices and local communities in the Global South

• Analyze critically the international expansion of ayahuasca and the relationships established between interest groups and stakeholders within this field
• Demonstrate an understanding of the shortcomings of both observational and controlled-laboratory research into ayahuasca

• Discuss the future of ayahuasca, both in terms of research and therapeutic application, and consider the ethical issues associated with these
• Analyze different regulation processes of the religious use of ayahuasca and its controversies.
• Compare the regulation of ayahuasca in Brazil and the United States
• Explain possible ways in which plant teachers may contribute to a psychotherapy process
• Create ways to respectfully integrate different ritual contexts of plant medicines to a psychotherapy process
• Compare Western and Indigenous perspectives on the environment and the importance of preserving Amazonian forests and territories
• Demonstrate the relationship between territory, sacred plants, health, and shamanism among Indigenous peoples
• Describe the basics of biology and ecology of ayahuasca vine
• Critically analyze conservation aspects of ayahuasca vine
• List plants used in the preparation of ayahuasca
• Explain the chemical properties of plants used in the preparation of ayahuasca
• Analyze the harmful impacts of colonization on the ritual practices of indigenous people who are guardians of sacred plants
• Discuss the importance of the cosmologies, philosophies and political struggles of indigenous peoples for the preservation of ayahuasca and other sacred plants and their associated knowledge
• Discuss some of the diverse ways that indigenous people have contributed to the history of psychedelics in different settings
• Critically analyze how Shamanic approaches are being incorporated into the psychedelic renaissance

Information on Continuing Education Credits for Health Professionals

• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content. 
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association. 
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association. 
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes. 
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact [email protected] 
• For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at [email protected]. 

CE Credit Requirements

• Student must be in attendance with their camera on for the entirety of the class session 
• Student must be actively participating in the class session (asking questions, contributing to discussion, etc.) 
• Student must fill out an evaluation and assessment form at the end of the course, which will be provided by Chacruna 
• Collective CE credits will be awarded at the end of the course given that all of the above requirements are met 

*please note that you must purchase a ticket for CE credits on Eventbrite in order to receive CE credits 

*please note that if you miss a class, you will not be awarded any CE credits and you cannot be refunded for CE credits

*please note that the first and last class do not count towards CE credits

Chacruna Certificate Requirements

At the end of the course, students will have the option to receive a certificate from Chacruna for the completion of this course. In order to receive this certificate, students must complete one of the following options: 

A. Submit a final individual paper of 1,800 to 2,000 words, following Chacruna’s Chronicles Guidelines (the best papers will be selected to be published on the Chacruna site) *please note that the 2,000 word count should include footnotes and references; papers that go beyond 2,000 total words will not be accepted.

B. Submit a final group paper consisting of 2,000 words per person (i.e. if there are two people writing the paper, it should be a total of 4,000 words; if there are three people writing the paper, it should be a total of 6,000 words) *please note that the 2,000 word count per person should include footnotes and references; papers that go beyond 2,000 total words will not be accepted.

C. Submit a paper with internal reflection of what you have learned throughout this course 

D. Pitch another specific proposal to submit (i.e. mini-documentary, video lecture, creation of a podcast.) 

E. Students will have the option to do an art project related to the contents of the course 

F. Students will have the option to conduct a “Family History.” This would consist of the student interviewing their family members to contextualize their life and experience, to understand their roots, and also talk about their local community/ lands/ social environment where they came from and/or are located 

*Students will also have the option to opt out of receiving the certificate.

* The project submitted must be unique and created specifically for the course; you cannot submit a project that you created previously or submitted elsewhere.

Class Recordings and Lecture Slides Policy

Recordings of the lectures will be sent to the students a week before the class is scheduled to take place.

Lecture slides from the classes may be provided to the students at each professor’s discretion. We encourage everyone to come to each class in-person and on time as we cannot guarantee providing these resources in all circumstances.

You can find more information to Frequently Asked Questions here.

Course Structure

• Students will watch the lecture on their own time
• There will be a live 1.5 hour discussion on Zoom with the professor the following week

Refund Policy click here

Classes

Click on the class to read the description

Professors

Adam Aronovich is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology and Communications at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Catalonia, focusing on Medical Anthropology and Cultural Psychiatry. He is an active member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) and has spent close to 5 years living and working in the Peruvian Amazon, conducting extensive fieldwork and qualitative research in collaboration with ICEERS, the Beckley Foundation, and, more recently, the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College. Beyond research, Adam has facilitated healing retreats and workshops in the Peruvian Amazon and, currently in Mexico. He is also a process facilitator and provides preparation and integration support in private practice and the co-founder and COO of Hidden Hand Media, a creative agency in the space of transformation and technology. Additionally, Adam is Media Associate for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

Dr. Glauber Loures de Assis is Associate Director of Chacruna Latinoamérica in Brazil. He has a Ph.D in sociology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and is Research Associate at the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil. His main interests include the ayahuasca religions, new religious movements, the internationalization of the Brazilian religions, drug use in contemporary society, and psychedelic parenthood. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and the co-editor of the book Women and Psychedelics: Uncovering Invisible Voices (Synergetic Press/Chacruna Institute, in press). Glauber is also an ayahuasca practitioner with 15 years of experience. He has built this practice in dialogue with his local Brazilian ayahuasca community and with the blessings of Indigenous elders and activists in Brazil. He is also the leader of Jornadas de Kura, a plant medicine center in Brazil that promotes a bridge between the ceremonial use of sacred plants and psychedelic science. He is father to 3 children and lives with his wife Jacqueline Rodrigues in Santa Luzia, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Simon Ruffel studied medicine before specialising in psychiatry. He completed his core psychiatric training at The Maudsley Hospital in London and worked at King’s College London as a Senior Research Associate investigating the use of psilocybin for treatment resistant depression. Since 2016 he has conducted research into the traditional psychedelic brew ayahuasca and co-founded the not-for-profit research organisation Onaya Science. Simon completed his PhD entitled Amazonian Ayahuasca and Mental Health Outcomes at Goldsmiths, University of London. He now works for the Psychae Institute, University of Melbourne as Senior Research Fellow and Chief Medical Officer, running randomised controlled trials investigating the potential therapeutic application of botanical ayahuasca analogues as well as acting as Chief Medical Officer for Heroic Hearts UK, a charity supporting veterans with psychedelic plant medicine. In his spare time Simon volunteers for the charity Psycare, which offers support to individuals undergoing challenging drug experiences at music festivals.

Dr. Henrique Fernandes Antunes has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of São Paulo (2019), with a research internship as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre d’Étude des Mouvements Sociaux (CEMS) of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), at the Department of Classics and Religious Studies of the University of Ottawa, and at the International Postdoctoral Program of the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP). He holds a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of São Paulo (2012), and a bachelor in social sciences (2006) and anthropology (2008) from the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP-FFC). He is a member of the research group Religion in the Contemporary World at the CEBRAP. He is also a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP). Dr. Antunes specializes in the fields of urban anthropology, anthropology of religion, anthropology of secularism, and sociology of public problems. He is Ayahuasca Community Committee Coordinator at the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

Bruno Ramos Gomes is a Brazilian psychologist, with a Master’s degree in Public Health at the School of Public Health-USP, and a PhD in Public Health at University of Campinas, Brazil. In his masters, he researched the use of ayahuasca in the recovery of homeless people and drug users. In his PhD, he did a 12 month qualitative follow-up of patients treating drug dependence and depression. He has been helping patients integrate ibogaine and ayahuasca in their therapeutic processes for the last 12 years. He is a member of the ICARO (Interdisciplinary Cooperation for Ayahuasca Research and Outreach)-UNICAMP and Chacruna’s Ayahuasca Community Committee.

Francisco Apurinã Ywmuniry holds a master’s degree in sustainable development (University of Brasilia), and a PhD in social anthropology (University of Brasil). He is also an environmental educator and president of the Pupykary Institute, an entity made up only of indigenous professionals from the Apurinã people.

Anna (Anya) Ermakova has a motley background and broad research interests combining nature conservation, ethnobotany, neuroscience and psychiatry, interweaving and connecting these diverse paths through psychedelic science. Anya worked at the forefront of psychedelic research as a science officer at the Beckley Foundation, and has provided psychedelic welfare and harm reduction services with PsycareUK and Zendo. Deep love for nature and wildlife has motivated Anya to study biology at the University of Edinburgh, while a quest to understand altered states of consciousness has prompted her to specialize in neuroscience and later continued during her PhD in psychiatry at Cambridge, where she investigated the origins of psychosis. She then worked for the NHS, developing and trialing a new psychosocial intervention for psychosis. After a brief stint as a clinical trial manager, she had decided to pursue her passion for nature, by studying Conservation Science at Imperial College London, where she researched peyote ecology in Texas, USA. Anya is working as a research consultant in London, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, and member of Chacruna’s Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants. She is also a board member of the Cactus Conservation Institute.

Justin Williams is a botanist and evolutionary biologist with particular interest in systematics, conservation, and ethnobotany. His research questions are largely driven by and inspired through fieldwork and enhanced by museum collections. He graduated with distinction in 2015 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his undergraduate thesis focused on the lost history of Banisteriopsis caapi (Malpighiaceae). Immediately after, Justin was awarded an internship at the National Tropical Botanic Gardens on Kauai where he expanded his interests in ethnobotany investigating ‘Awa, or Piper methysticum (Piperaceae). In 2020, Justin received a MSc from the Department of Botany at CU Boulder’s Natural History Museum under the guidance of Dr. Erin Tripp, working on molecular systematics of Hawaii’s endemic Lamiaceae. He has been fortunate enough to conduct botanical fieldwork in beautiful and remote tropical locals around the world, including Hawaii, Peru, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador in collaboration with institutions such as the New York Botanic Garden, Paris Museum of National History, Bishop Museum, and the USAID program. In addition to plants, organic agriculture, and traveling, he is passionate about teaching, and while at CU assisted teaching Plants and Society, Colorado Field Botany, The Lichen Biome, and Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies, and was selected as a lead instructor to teach Plant Systematics in Spanish at Universidad ISA in the Dominican Republic. Currently, Justin is a PhD student at Harvard University in the lab of Dr. Charles Davis, applying genomics in effort to elucidate the evolutionary history of Banisteriopsis caapi. 

Doéthiro Tukano, baptized as Alvaro Fernandes Sampaio, was born in 1953. He was educated in traditional knowledge by his grandfather Erëmiri. When he was twelve he was taken by his father Ahkïto to study in the boarding school of Pari Cachoeira. Following the intellectual lineage of his family, he became a teacher and was later even invited to be a seminarian. He completed his military service working as a hospital assistant, where he witnessed firsthand the violence suffered by the region’s Indigenous population, which led him to consider a career in medicine. Leaving the Rio Negro region, he understood that genocide of Indigenous people was a reality throughout the Amazon, and Brazil as a whole. He became a militant defender of Indigenous rights. In 1980 at the Russel Tribunal, otherwise known as the International War Crimes Tribunal, he officially denounced the Catholic Church and the Salesian Mission for crimes of genocide and cultural ethnocide of the people of the upper Rio Negro. Doéthiro’s condemnation of the human rights violations of Indigenous peoples led to great political conflicts in Rio Negro, including attacks on Doethiro’s family, who were persecuted by the priests, who even prevented his uncles from pursuing their studies. Doethiro had founded the village Balaio in 1975, to forge a new beginning and revalorize the traditions under attack by the missionaries. Doéthiro dedicated himself to consolidating the formation of the Brazilian Indigenous movement, being one of the first presidents of the Union of Indigenous Nations, and coordinating, along with leaders of other peoples, the ratification of Indigenous rights promulgated by the 1988 Constituent Assembly.  Doéthiro also fought for the demarcation of Balaio Indigenous territory, which was finally approved in 2009. Today he continues to powerfully represent the resistance of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil.

Evgenia Fotiou is a cultural anthropologist researching Indigenous Knowledge Systems, which often encompass both medical and religious knowledge. Specifically, she looks at how these systems get appropriated and reimagined as they become globalized. She has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and Latin American studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed doctoral research on Ayahuasca shamanism in Peru and its transformation through globalization and the formation of transnational tourist networks. Dr. Fotiou is an expert in medical anthropology, anthropology of religion, shamanism, Amazonian cultures, and gender and has taught courses on these subjects at UW-Madison, Luther College, and Kent State University. Her current work urges scholars of all disciplines to reexamine assumptions about Indigenous Knowledge Systems and to engage meaningfully with non-Western epistemologies

Dr. Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Bia Labate) is a queer Brazilian anthropologist based in San Francisco. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of plant medicines, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, religion, and social justice. She is Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and serves as Public Education and Culture Specialist at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). She is also Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Additionally, she is Advisor for the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition and the Soltara Healing Center. Dr. Labate is a co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil and editor of its site. She is author, co-author, and co-editor of twenty-eight books, two special-edition journals, and several peer-reviewed articles (https://bialabate.net).

Adana Omágua Kambeba (Portuguese name Danielle Soprano Pereira) belongs to the Kambeba people, also known as the Omágua people, which translates as the “People of the Waters”. The Omágua people are present in the Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian Amazon. Adana comes from the Brazilian state of Amazonas. She was born and raised between two worlds; the Indigenous and non-indigenous. She graduated in medicine from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). As far as she is aware, she is the first Indigenous woman of her people to graduate in medicine in her country, in addition to being the first doctor to overturn convention and obtain authorization to register both her names, her Portuguese and Indigenous, with the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM). She currently works in the city of Belo Horizonte at the Sofia Feldman Hospital, a benchmark hospital in humanized childbirth and women’s health care, at the Novo Aarão Reis Health Center in Family and Community Medicine. She also works as a prescriber of medical cannabis. In addition to her practice as a doctor, she is a researcher and is dedicated to the study of the cultural identity of her people. Additionally, she is an educator, speaker, and actress who has appeared in films and miniseries. She is currently in the process of training as a pajé (Indigenous medicine person) to be able to act both as a doctor and pajé in the Amazon region in the future. Adana sits on the Advisory Board of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

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Psychonautic Judaism: The Psychedelic Renaissance and the Future of Judaism

Chacruna Institute - May 25, 2021

Wednesday, June 9th, 2021 from 12-1:30pm PST REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT HERE There is growing enthusiasm in Jewish communities about possible ancient use and modern applications of plant medicine in Jewish spiritual development.  Psychedelic Judaism introduce new potential modes of  healing...

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