Every year, more and more people travel to the Amazon in search of something deeper. A kind of return. A spiritual initiation. The promise of transformation through dieta.
Recently, a man who had been on dieta in Pucallpa was found deceased after going missing for several days. I cannot speak to the specifics of his case, and it would be inappropriate to try. What I can say is that moments like this invite a wider conversation. Not from a place of speculation, but from observation. From years of watching how these spaces unfold and where they can begin to fracture.
There are patterns here that deserve to be named clearly.
The tendency to chase the dragon within dieta. The quiet pressure placed on healers to give more, to produce more, to intensify the experience. The instability that can exist on both sides of the exchange. The economic realities of the jungle and how they shape what is offered. The illusion of safety created by recommendations. The thin, often invisible line between devotion and obsession.
And, perhaps most importantly, how people return from these experiences—sometimes integrated, but often not.
The phrase “chasing the dragon” comes from addiction. It describes the attempt to recreate a first experience that can never truly be reached again. There is always a memory of something pure, expansive, or revelatory, and from that point on the person becomes oriented toward finding it again. This pattern does not disappear simply because the setting is spiritual.
Many people arrive at dieta already carrying this structure within them. It blends easily with a kind of spiritual consumerism: the accumulation of experiences, insights, and medicines. The belief that more will eventually resolve what has not yet settled.
In a contained and well-held lineage, this pattern would often be interrupted. A teacher would recognize it and establish a boundary. But the jungle is not filled with teachers who are positioned, resourced, or willing to do that.
When spiritual tourism began expanding into the Amazon, it brought genuine opportunity to many families who had been working with plants for generations. These are communities rooted in hospitality and often living within very limited economic conditions. When foreigners arrived asking for more—more ceremonies, more access, more intensity—the system adapted.
This is how much of the modern retreat structure was formed.
Multiple ayahuasca ceremonies per week became normalized. Additional practices were layered in: kambo, yoga, plant baths, integration sessions, and various forms of energetic work, creating a sense of fullness, value, and engagement. In some places, even the structure of dieta itself began to shift. Plants were offered in powdered form. Greater autonomy was given to participants, sometimes without the level of containment that such work requires.
The reality is that many people are not prepared for stillness.
In a traditional dieta, there may be long periods where nothing appears to happen. No visions. No revelations. No clear sense of movement. Just quiet. Just the slow and often imperceptible reorganization of the system.
For someone accustomed to constant stimulation, this can feel intolerable. The response is often to seek more. Another dieta. Another plant. A stronger experience. A different center. Something that will finally work.
And yet this is often where things begin to destabilize.
Those facilitating these spaces are navigating their own realities as well. It takes very little for a center to grow—just a handful of positive experiences shared outward and repeated. At the same time, demand can be relentless. Communication barriers add another layer. Within many pueblos, there are also unspoken agreements not to interfere with another person’s livelihood, even when concerns exist.
It is also important to say plainly that not everyone holding the role of shaman/facilitator/curandero is stable. Alcohol use is not uncommon. Histories are not always transparent. The language used to describe experiences can become distorted through translation or simplified for foreigners. A handful of safe experiences reported by others does not guarantee safety. Neither does marriage. Neither does fatherhood.
There is no valid reason for a participant to be alone in a private space with a ceremony leader. And yet these boundaries are crossed more often than people realize.
Reputation in these environments is fragile, but it is also easily constructed. A small number of positive outcomes can sustain an image for years. What happens outside those visible moments is not always spoken about, especially by people who feel uncertain, dependent, or unable to contextualize what they experienced.
Occasionally, the more extreme cases rise to the surface. Someone goes missing. Someone dies. Someone returns home in a state of psychosis.
These are the stories that capture attention. But there is another trajectory that is far more common and far less discussed. The person who appears mostly fine. Who continues to return. Who continues to spend. Who feels increasingly disconnected from their life but cannot quite name why.
I have seen people with full and stable lives gradually lose their footing this way. Not all at once, but slowly and quietly, through repetition. And I understand the pull.
People are not foolish for seeking this. They are looking for peace, aliveness, meaning, and a sense of being fully present in their own lives. For many, that is not something they have been able to access where they are. There is sincerity in that longing, which is precisely why it matters to speak about where it can go off course.
At a certain point in my own path, I was told no. My teacher made it clear that I was finished and that it was time to return home. At the time, it did not feel like completion. But she was right. Her boundary created the conditions for integration and stabilization. It allowed the work to take root rather than continue dispersing, and in many ways it helped make me the practitioner I am today.
Not everyone receives that kind of guidance.
Many people are encouraged, directly or indirectly, to continue spending money, continue dieting, and continue searching. So if you begin to notice this pattern in yourself—or in someone close to you—of repeated returns, increasing dependence on the experience, or difficulty feeling oriented without the medicine, it may be a sign to pause.
There is a way that the system organizes, and a way that it becomes dysregulated. When that structure is not recognized, the instinct is often to seek resolution through more experience.
In my work with these cases, what consistently creates change is not intensity but orientation. Understanding what is actually happening within the person. Differentiating what is primary from what is reactive. Seeing where the system has opened and where it has lost containment.
Homeopathy has been one of the most effective tools I have encountered for supporting this process. Not as a replacement for what someone experienced, but as a way of helping those experiences settle into a coherent whole. A way of bringing what was opened back into order so that it can be integrated rather than continually pursued.
The goal is not to lose what was gained. Instead it is to become more grounded, more present, and more capable of carrying the experience forward within one’s own life.
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