Huachuma and Ayahuasca: Different Medicines, Different Approaches

We receive some enquiries from people asking whether Ayahuasca can be incorporated into one of our Huachuma retreats. Some have already worked with Ayahuasca and want to experience the two medicines within the same retreat, while others have come across programmes offering several different psychedelics and assume that combining them creates a broader or more complete experience.

I have experience working with and serving both Huachuma and Ayahuasca. My decision to focus The Huachuma Project exclusively on Huachuma, therefore, does not come from a lack of experience with Ayahuasca or a belief that one medicine is better than the other. My experiences working with the two have been different, as have my own personal experiences with them, but I would not turn those differences into rules about what somebody else should expect. Descriptions such as Ayahuasca being a strict grandmother or San Pedro a gentle grandfather may reflect how individuals understand their experiences, but they are not reliable descriptions of how either medicine will affect another person.

Ayahuasca has also become increasingly prominent outside the Amazonian cultures and traditions from which its use developed. A 2023 review describes its rapid spread within Western culture, including growing exposure through news coverage, documentaries, films, television and international retreat tourism (Ruffell et al., 2023). More recently, a 2025 study identified 298 psychedelic retreat organisations advertising online to English-speaking customers. Of those organisations, 73.8% offered Ayahuasca and 20.1% offered San Pedro, making Ayahuasca the most commonly advertised psychedelic in that sample. Almost a third offered more than one psychedelic substance (Neitzke-Spruill et al., 2025).

That growing visibility is reflected in the enquiries we receive. Ayahuasca has become the medicine through which many people first encounter psychedelic retreats, and programmes combining several substances are now easy to find. At THP, we have chosen to keep our work focused on Huachuma. That choice has developed through experience with both medicines and through years of building our screening, preparation, retreat structure and ongoing support specifically around the way we work with Huachuma.

San Pedro and Ayahuasca Are Different Substances

San Pedro and Ayahuasca are both commonly grouped within the classical serotonergic psychedelics, but their chemistry and pharmacology are quite different.

The primary psychedelic compound in San Pedro is mescaline, a phenethylamine. Controlled human research published in 2024 found that mescaline produced dose-dependent psychedelic effects that were largely mediated through the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. The onset was relatively gradual, and the average duration of acute effects ranged from approximately 6 to 14 hours, depending on the dose used in the study (Klaiber et al., 2024). A traditional San Pedro preparation contains the cactus rather than isolated pharmaceutical mescaline, so controlled mescaline studies cannot tell us exactly how every Huachuma preparation will behave. They do give us a stronger scientific basis for discussing mescaline than many of the descriptions that have developed around the medicine.

Ayahuasca works through a different combination of compounds. Common preparations combine the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with a DMT-containing plant such as Psychotria viridis. DMT is rapidly broken down when taken orally on its own, while beta-carboline alkaloids in the vine, including harmine and harmaline, inhibit monoamine oxidase A and allow the DMT to become orally active (Dos Santos & Hallak, 2024).

Ayahuasca experiences commonly last several hours, while mescaline experiences generally last considerably longer. The MAO-A inhibition involved in Ayahuasca also creates additional considerations around medication and drug interactions, so the screening requirements for the two medicines are not identical.

These differences alone make it difficult to treat them as interchangeable experiences that can be added to a retreat in the same way somebody might add another activity to an itinerary.

The Experience Is Harder to Compare Than the Chemistry

People often want a straightforward description of what each medicine feels like. The problem is that the subjective experience varies considerably.

Ayahuasca can involve substantial changes in perception, thought, emotion and sense of self, often alongside vivid closed-eye imagery and strong physical effects. Nausea and vomiting are common. Mescaline can also produce substantial changes in perception, emotion, cognition, and sense of self, and controlled research shows that its effects can intensify at higher doses.

I have experienced clear differences between Ayahuasca and Huachuma myself, but those differences belong to my experience. I have worked with people whose Huachuma ceremonies were demanding, emotionally difficult or physically uncomfortable, just as people report calm, positive or comparatively gentle experiences with Ayahuasca.

I therefore do not find descriptions such as “Ayahuasca takes you into the darkness” or “San Pedro works through the heart” particularly useful as general explanations. They may describe what somebody personally experienced, but they quickly become misleading when presented as properties of the medicine.

Dose, preparation, environment, expectations, personal history, physical condition and what is happening in somebody's life can all influence the experience. The medicine is part of the picture, but it does not determine a single predictable outcome.

Different Medicines, Different Histories

Ayahuasca and Huachuma also developed within different cultural and geographical contexts.

Ayahuasca is primarily associated with Amazonian traditions in parts of Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and surrounding regions. It later became central to Brazilian syncretic religions, including Santo Daime and União do Vegetal, before spreading much more widely through international retreat culture.

Huachuma has a different history rooted primarily in the Andes. Archaeological evidence places the cactus within ancient Peruvian cultures thousands of years ago, while later ethnographic work documents its use within northern Peruvian curanderismo.

Neither medicine belongs to a single ceremonial tradition that has remained unchanged throughout history, and modern international retreats add another layer.

A retreat in Europe that uses Huachuma does not become an ancient Andean ceremony simply because San Pedro is served, just as an international Ayahuasca retreat does not automatically represent an Indigenous Amazonian tradition. We explore the archaeological and historical evidence around Huachuma in more detail in our article Huachuma: Tracing the Ancient Roots of San Pedro.

The growth of the modern retreat industry has brought these different medicines into the same commercial and cultural space, making them appear more interchangeable than their histories or pharmacology suggest.

Why We Only Work With Huachuma

We are sometimes asked whether we could bring another facilitator into a private retreat, add an Ayahuasca ceremony or combine several medicines across a few days. We have chosen not to work that way.

The Huachuma Project has developed around Huachuma. Our screening process, preparation, retreat structure, ceremony days, group sizes, and integration support have all evolved over the years of working with this medicine and observing how people respond in the environment we provide.

I have chosen to keep our work focused on Huachuma rather than adding more medicines to the retreat. Offering additional substances would entail different pharmacology, screening considerations, cultural contexts, and a different set of responsibilities. It would also change the structure of the work we already do.

I have respect for Ayahuasca and for facilitators who work seriously with it. My decision to focus on Huachuma is not a statement that one medicine is better than another. It reflects where my experience is, how the retreat has developed, and where I want to continue to put my attention.

Years of facilitating Huachuma have changed the way I understand it, and I expect that understanding to continue to develop. Staying focused gives me the opportunity to continue learning from the same work rather than continually expanding the number of medicines we offer.

For somebody specifically looking for an Ayahuasca retreat, THP is unlikely to be the right place. For somebody considering Huachuma, the more useful question is whether the way we work with it is appropriate for them. That is part of the conversation we have before anybody joins us.

References

Dos Santos, R. G., & Hallak, J. E. C. (2024). Ayahuasca: pharmacology, safety, and therapeutic effects. CNS Spectrums. DOI: 10.1017/S109285292400213X.

Klaiber, A., Schmid, Y., Becker, A. M., et al. (2024). Acute dose-dependent effects of mescaline in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects. Translational Psychiatry, 14, 395. DOI: 10.1038/s41398-024-03116-2.

Neitzke-Spruill, L., Beit, C. S., Robinson, J. O., et al. (2025). A landscape analysis of psychedelic retreat organizations advertising online. PLOS ONE, 20(5), e0321648. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321648.

Ruffell, S. G. D., Crosland-Wood, M., Palmer, R., et al. (2023). Ayahuasca: A review of historical, pharmacological, and therapeutic aspects. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences Reports, 2(4), e146. DOI: 10.1002/pcn5.146.