Practical information

Detailed retreat program

Program, dates, prices, conditions.
To find out more, do not hesitate to contact us:
tobaccospirit@outlook.com

We receive an increasing number of emails from all over Europe.
If you contact us for the first time, if you have never participated in our retreats,
we therefore kindly ask you  to indicate in your mail your phone number / Whatsapp number,
we will call you back for a first exchange (this is not a paid intake).
Team, plants, protocol: this informative conversation will provide you with complementary practical
details and answer all your questions.

2024

Application is open. You can also contact us directly.

August-September 2024

RETREAT 1 (9 days)
Beginning: Saturday August 31st / End: Monday, September 9th

RETREAT 2  (9 days)
Beginning:  Thursday, September 12th / End : Saturday, September 21st

Continuing to offer retreats from one year to the next is never automatic.
Our different retreats in Europe generally take place in May and/or September.
If you interested, you can already take account of these period in your future planning.
The dates are published 9 months in advance.

Location (Southern Europe)

This type of diet originated in the Amazonian Forest and is therefore only possible in the wilderness or in an isolated, silent place.

Weather & temperatures: 25°-30°C

The retreat takes place in Europe in a large private nature reserve, of which we have exclusive use. It is a very sunny region, and during an ‘Indian Summer’ the temperature of 25°-30° C and the subtle quality of the light are particularly favorable to this energy work.

Food

The Retreat uses a mono-diet which is vegetarian / vegan and includes quinoa, whole rice, potatoes, lentils, green vegetables and seeds. It naturally respects the needs and capacities of each person. Special care is taken to as often as possible make these meals organic.

Transport to the retreat centre

A private, free optional shuttle bus is chartered from the nearest airport and takes participants directly to the Retreat Center.
The many benefits of this include: safety, saving on car rental, fuels and motorway tolls, cutting delays and avoiding the stress of public transport. You also cut out the risk of getting lost! From our point of view, itallows us to respect the rules of sustainable development.

Facilities

On the morning of your first day, the shuttle bus waits for participants as their planes arrive. At the end of the retreat, the shuttle bus will collect participants from the retreat center and drop them off at the airport in time for afternoon or evening flights.

Participants

This seminar is aimed at genuinely motivated adults seeking meaning and reality.
The organizers receive a significant number of firm registrations and the places are quickly filled. It is therefore advisable to register quickly.
The number of participants is limited. This is to ensure constant, secure and personalized support.

Desire to progress

If you are interested, we will send you a brochure and a registration dossier. We receive many registrations per week.
The participants in our retreats come from all walks of life and come from different countries. They often share the same interest in personal development, spirituality, nature, health and discovery.

Work

Resolute and committed participants accomplish great work on themselves during the retreat. The group dynamic we create carries the participants.
For participants registered for the first time: we offer an exchange via Skype, phone or face to face in order to answer any questions you might have.

A process of autonomy and inner freedom

Retreat is in an open area, taking place in a privatized space, meaning that the doors themselves are permanently open, physically and symbolically. A retreat is first and foremost a process of autonomy and inner freedom.

Languages

Although the retreats are not held in France or in Spain, the three languages of communication (simultaneous translation of all exchanges) remain French, English and Spanish.
The team can also communicate in Dutch, German and Portuguese.

Proximity

These retreats follow exactly the same content and sequence as those proposed in the Amazon, making them a little more accessible to Europeans in a nature reserve, in a sunny region, supervised by a team of 4 people and in several languages.

Distinguishing the approaches

What is a genuine retreat?

The word retreat is now widely used…
However, a retreat is not just a workshop or a seminar. It is more: it is the fact of withdrawing freely from the outside world, in an isolated, natural, silent and supportive place.

Like the mystics, hermits or shamans, a true retreat implies a solo isolation away from any form of diversion, noise, pollution. It often involves changing your diet to promote introspection and regeneration.
A retreat allows, among other things, to return to the outside world as better match with its being.

‘Traditional medicine’ and Conventional Medicine

‘Traditional medicine’ differs from Western conventional medicine but does not oppose it. Traditional Amazonian medicine comes from ancestral knowledge and is practised by ‘curanderos’.

These are healers initiated by a master healer, a member of the family. These curanderos are not doctors in conventional medicine. (However, some doctors of conventional medicine have been initiated to become curanderos.)

Body & soul

Traditional medicine is connected with nature, does not separate the body and the soul, and is rooted in ancestral culture of indigenous people. It does not promise a cure but carries out ‘healing’ (see below), it does not imply a recognized and official diagnosis, drug treatment, operations, hospitalization or reimbursement by health insurances.

The principle of healing

The principle of healing is traditional care using energy, which contributes to overall wellness. It focuses on the unseen causes of ill-being. The “healing” is different from the official notions of “treatment” reserved for the medical world. The tradition of South American healing is the product of cross-breeding and blending of traditions.

Judeo-Christian references are also present in rituals and songs. They should be seen as part of the South American healing culture and not as an attempt to convert.

A part of shamanism

The word ‘shamanism’ is widely used in the world today… It actually covers many different traditions and practices.

Amazonian Shamanism includes protection rituals for the community, diagnoses and divinations by plants as well as other knowledge. Traditional Amazonian medicine is devoted to wellbeing and is also called ‘curanderism’. It therefore constitutes a part of Amazonian shamanism but is not a religion in itself.

Madre

Amazonian shamanism uses plants. In other traditions, shamans use elements (such as fire). Plants are organized in a hierarchy. At the bottom of the pyramid are the plants treating the basic ailments (example: back pain). At the top, there are the most complex plants working on several levels: corporeal, psychological and spiritual. These few specific plants are called ‘madre’ and can only be handled by an initiated curandero (healer).

Role of purging

In the whole tradition of healing, the emphasis is on purging. In contrast to animals and plants, humans must constantly regulate their inner dimension (emotions, thoughts) and their external dimension (the environment). To regulate these two dimensions, we use free will, the ability to adapt, and the ability to adjust our inner reality to the external reality. In order to make the right decisions, to be guided, the human being needs to be well inspired. This is precisely the role that purgation / purge will play. It cleans the body, emotions and thoughts so that they are more aligned, consistent, fair and clear. Indeed, conflicts and ill-being often come from the disjunction between bodily perceptions, emotions and ideation. Thus, during a retreat, it will be a matter of aligning and adjusting these levels by ‘spiritualizing the body and embodying the mind’.

Why ‘curanderos’ use perfume to cure?

The shamans ‘perfumeros’ treat by blowing perfume on the body of the patients, by ‘blowing’ (‘soplar’ in Spanish) as it is done with the smoke of tobacco.

Reaching our consciousness

During the night sessions, the barrier of unconscious repression is relaxed by the plants: it is more difficult to repress what one feels. Thanks to the perfume, abstract or repressed feelings will be able to reach our consciousness. Perfume plays a role as a screen where the film of our bodily sensations is projected.
Just like animals at night, it allows us to locate ourselves in space and time during the night session. It also gives us the possibility to better integrate and digest the auditory and visual perceptions received.

A shield against discomfort

Participants often come to pierce emotional abscesses, so they may experience intense emotions. The perfume creates a shield against discomforts and primary anxiety. The floral water is then blown on them by the curandero. Some curanderos have no doubt that this perfume helps to lift the spirits and chase anguish and reminiscences. At times, the curandero may even drink the perfume as if washing their inside to purify themselves. It is a very effective weapon to protect against energy pollution.
In the other world of visions of the Amazonian corianders, olfaction becomes a tool of learning, as much as the vision. The olfactory feelings of the curandero are accompanied by symbols and give valuable information.
Finally, for the curandero, as for the participants, the evanescence of the light scent will make it possible to find land, to return to port, to dock on the banks, with a finally pacified spirit. This is also the essence… of these flower essences.

Spirituality

This word is used a lot…
What ‘spirituality’ can mean in the context of a retreat:

• Freely questioning the meaning of life.
• Let be surprised by a new representation of the world.

• To root his approach in a corporeal experience and a verbal accompaniment, (Spirituality is not opposed to psychotherapy or conventional medicine).
• To welcome silence, trees, nature, simplicity as auxiliaries of awareness.
• Freeing engrammed memories, conditioning to go towards an emancipation.
• Going more autonomy, fewer dependencies, less avoidance.
• Discover what animates us (work, quality of life, relationships, place of life), how our vitality is embodied the best.
• Discovering that what we believe to be separate goes in concert: the body and the mind, the feminine and the masculine, man and nature, the self and its environment, the visible and the invisible.