Plant Medicine and Personal Responsibility: What to Know Before Choosing a Retreat

June 18th, 2025

By Sergey Baranov

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

Undoubtedly, the healing and transformation available through plant medicine are immense, self-evident, and beyond all argument. Having been changed by their healing power and intelligence myself, and having helped hundreds of people over nearly two decades of ongoing healing practice, I speak from experience. However, one thing must be said with complete honesty: neither your healing nor your transformation is guaranteed. There is more to this truth than I can fully explore in a short article, but I will do my best to convey it with clarity.

Let’s begin with a fundamental truth: energy is just energy. It has no purpose, no intent of its own. This applies to all forms of energy—fire, food, and yes, plant medicine. All are simply fuel. Some fill your gas tank, others nourish your body so you can move and function. Plant medicine fuels your mind, just as food fuels your body.

But what happens if you eat and then spend the rest of the day sitting on the couch watching TV? You get lazy and fat. The energy you’ve taken in will not give you motivation if it’s not already within you. It only provides the potential to act, not the will. The desire to act comes from your mind. Your life does not change just because you eat. Energy without direction is wasted.

The same logic applies to your car. Filling the tank allows it to run, but it doesn’t determine where you’ll go. That direction also comes from your mind.

Plant medicine is no different. It provides energy to help you move toward what you truly want—but if you don’t act on your insights or your vision, the energy is squandered. No plant medicine will change your life unless you understand the need for change and carry within you a genuine desire to transform. Nothing happens on autopilot.

This is why some people work with plant medicine yet experience no increase in happiness, wisdom, or behavioral change. For them, it becomes another escape from themselves—one that masquerades as spiritual work. In reality, it’s a spiritual bypass.

Spiritual bypass is the use of spiritual ideas, practices, or beliefs to avoid confronting unresolved emotional wounds, psychological pain, or uncomfortable truths. Pretending to be healed or enlightened while avoiding honest introspection only perpetuates your problems. It creates the illusion of well-being without addressing the root of the suffering. This self-deceptive mindset becomes your enemy, not your ally. It’s like applying a band-aid to a wound that never stops bleeding—superficial, ineffective, and ultimately damaging.

The Pitfall of Spiritual Bypass and the Illusion of Change

Some people attend retreat after retreat, but never change. Why? Because deep down, they don’t want to. Change is a conscious choice, and it must be followed by action. The medicine can help you see the choice more clearly, but it cannot choose for you. It respects your free will.

Hiding and avoiding one’s problems rather than confronting them is a misuse of sacred plant medicine.

Over the years, I’ve seen people like this. Those who visit retreat centers after retreat centers, yet there is no visible change in them. It’s puzzling at first—how can different people use the same plant medicine and receive such different results?

There may be multiple answers to this, some potentially rooted in neurology. But from what I’ve seen, the reasons are largely psychological, and that’s good news. If the problem were purely neurological, healing would be limited. But if the challenge is psychosomatic, then change is possible. Neuroplasticity is real. Both Huachuma and Ayahuasca are known for their ability to help rewire the brain, opening the door to greater health and happiness.

This sacred work, however, is not a sermon. It is a dance. You must be willing to surrender to the teachings and follow the insights revealed during your ceremonies. If you reject the truth about yourself that arises in sacred space, you will not change. Insight, like all energy, is neutral. The medicine reveals aspects of yourself, but it is you who either accept or reject the teachings.

Those who take the process seriously and integrate the lessons into their daily lives grow and transform. Those who choose misery over change remain the same. It is always a personal choice. The medicine reveals—it never imposes. It is up to you to listen, to act, and to evolve.

Addiction, Healing, and the Limits of Traditional Therapy

This is also true for addiction. No plant medicine will automatically make you stop drinking or using drugs. What it can do is help reset your brain, inspire healthier choices, and provide the energetic momentum to move in a new direction. But as with all healing, it begins with acknowledging that there is a problem. If you want to heal, healing becomes possible. Otherwise, no retreat can save you—you’ll return to the same destructive patterns.

Healing is understanding. It is psycho-spiritual; the rest is physiology. Over the years, I’ve helped many alcoholics and addicts, and I’ve seen what’s possible. I understand their struggle firsthand. In my youth, I was on a dark path with hard drugs that nearly killed me. There was no one to help me but myself. I had to claw my way out of the mud on my own.

Today, there is so much support through plant medicine that remaining a miserable addict is, if you are aware of plant medicine, a choice. We know the limitations of traditional rehab: low success rates, exorbitant costs, and an overreliance on words. Words alone do not penetrate deeply enough to trigger true transformation.

The same is true of therapy. While necessary, traditional talk therapy can only take you so far. It may help you maintain a level of functionality—to hold a job, avoid suicide, and get through the week—but that’s not the same as healing. I’ve worked with many clients suffering from chronic depression. I know their pain, too.

In my second book, The Mescaline Confession: Breaking Through the Walls of Delusion, I share the story of a therapist who came to our healing center, Huachuma Wasi, in the Sacred Valley. After only a short time with us, he told me during his final ceremony at the river that one ceremony here was worth five years of office therapy. He wasn’t the first to say this, and he won’t be the last.

This isn’t said to boast, but to highlight the potency of plant medicine healing—when taken seriously, and when its lessons are applied.

The Role of the Guide and the Mystical Path of Huachuma

But healing is just the first level. Sadly, it’s often the only level most people associate with shamanic work. And even then, not every retreat is truly healing, and not every facilitator is a healer.

Here’s something important to understand: a medicine person can only guide you as far as they have gone themselves. A competent healer may help you heal, but they cannot teach you how to live wisely unless they have walked through struggle and into wisdom. True wisdom arises from the crucible of life—from having wrestled with profound questions and emerged with insight.

Plant medicine can do much, but it matters deeply who you take it with. The person is the transmitter, like a radio. If the signal is clear, you will hear divine music. If not, all you’ll hear is noise.

The concept of consciousness is not central to the ethos of traditional shamanic cultures in the Americas. This mystical dimension must be brought into the work, fueled by the power of sacred plants. When combined, this fusion can lead to profound awakening and insight.

The mystical is present in shamanic culture, but it is often subtle and not explored in the way mysticism is pursued in Eastern traditions. True awakening can occur when we combine the disciplined introspection of the East with the energetic awakening of sacred plants. This union creates an alchemical process that can unveil profound truths.

Through deep contemplation and focused work with Huachuma, one can uncover not only what they seek but much more. The limits of understanding in this life are mostly self-imposed and culturally conditioned. Deconditioning is the key. When the doors of perception open, we begin to perceive what is—we access knowledge beyond language, directly and intuitively. In this state of consciousness, we understand all languages, without saying a word.

The great Sufi mystic Rumi expressed this with simple brilliance: “Where the lips are silent, the heart has a thousand tongues.” Indeed, silence speaks all languages.

Silence speaks all languages.” Huachuma opens the door inward, where silence becomes your greatest teacher. When you learn to listen with your heart, you begin to hear the symphony of life vibrating through all things. At this point, the teaching is no longer a lesson—it becomes a way of life.

How to Find the Right Person to Do Plant Medicine With

My one piece of advice: listen to your heart. If what someone says truly resonates with you, it’s likely a good match. That resonance means you are vibrating on the same level, and such alignment is fertile ground for transformation.

You wouldn’t go on a date with someone you don’t like, so why would you take sacred medicine with someone you don’t resonate with? Working with plant medicine is far more serious than going on a date. After coffee, you can walk away. After taking the medicine, you must complete the entire journey with the people you’ve chosen to guide you. Choose carefully. You should like, trust, and resonate with them to ensure your experience is safe, meaningful, and transformative.

Join us in this video as we dive into the mysteries of mystical experiences and the sacred role of Huachuma in opening the doors to them.

Sergey Baranov founded Huachuma Wasi, a healing center in The Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru. He is the author of Path: Seeking Truth in a World of Lies, The Mescaline Confession: Breaking Through the Walls of Delusion,  The Cactus of Sanity: Huachuma in a Time of Chaos, Dancing in Hell with Eyes Wide Open: How to Survive the New World Order and UNPLUGGED: Psychedelics, Farming, and Crypto the Three Pillars of Freedom. Sergey’s passion for life on Earth and its preservation is the driving force behind his work.

All of Sergey’s books result from a lifelong spiritual search and nearly two decades of ongoing shamanic practice.

To learn more, please visit www.huachumawasi.com

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