About us
A trustworthy guide to a serious subject.
Ayahuasca.help is an editorial-first, reader-supported publication with a verified retreat directory underneath it. Our job is to help people understand, decide, prepare, choose, and integrate an Ayahuasca experience, safely, honestly, and without commercial bias.
Our manifesto
Ayahuasca sits at the intersection of medicine, psychology, law, and living indigenous tradition. Most of what people find online is either sales copy or scare stories. We think the people considering this deserve better: careful, cited, honest information that filters people in to good decisions rather than gatekeeping them out.
We take the risks seriously, medical, psychological, and legal, and we say so plainly. We are harm-reduction, not facilitation: you will not find recipes, sourcing, or dosing here.
Editorial independence & how we’re funded
We are reader-supported. Our income comes from memberships and donations, never from retreats. We charge no listing fees and accept no payment for listing, ranking, or coverage, because the moment a retreat can pay us, our reviews and recommendations stop being worth anything. Think Consumer Reports or ProPublica, not Yelp or TripAdvisor.
We publish our editorial standards and our vetting criteria openly, and we’ll publish an annual transparency report on our funding and our directory activity.
The two sections
The publication, the science, safety, and how-to-choose guides, is the default, evidence-based front door and sets the tone for everything that matters for your safety. A separate companion site, Mother Ayahuasca, holds more reverential, tradition-facing writing. The two never blur where health and safety are concerned.
Who we are
Every article carries a named author; health and safety content also carries a named medical reviewer.
Dr James Okafor
Medical reviewer · MBBS, MRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist
Dr Okafor is a consultant psychiatrist with an interest in the safety of psychedelics and the interaction between serotonergic medications and serotonergic compounds. He reviews Mother Ayahuasca's health and safety content for medical accuracy. His review confirms that content fairly represents current evidence; it is not personalised medical advice for any reader.
Dr Priya Nair
Contributing researcher · PhD, Ethnobotany
Priya is an ethnobotanist whose work examines Amazonian plant traditions and the ethics of access, reciprocity and commercialisation. She writes for Ayahuasca.help on the cultural and historical context of Ayahuasca, foregrounding indigenous knowledge-holders and the communities from whom the traditions originate.
Elena Marsh
Editor · Science & health journalist
Elena is the founding editor of Ayahuasca.help. She has spent more than a decade reporting on drug policy, mental health and the science of psychedelics, with a focus on translating complex research into careful, honest journalism. She commissions and edits across the publication and is responsible for upholding its editorial standards.
Team profiles shown here are illustrative placeholders for this build.
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