In this episode Aaron Doughty shares a vivid account of his recent spiritual retreat in Costa Rica, where he and his friend Victor Odo hosted 23 YouTube subscribers for a multi‑day ceremony featuring ayahuasca and Huachuma (San Pedro cactus). He describes the sacred setting—a mountain‑top maloca with altar, sacred geometry, fire, and crystals—and the careful structure of the ceremonies (two night ayahuasca sessions followed by a 16‑hour daytime Huachuma ceremony). Throughout, he reflects on the purpose‑centric philosophy that “if everything has a purpose, you have a purpose,” arguing that feelings of unworthiness are a denial of creation itself. During the Huachuma ceremony the shaman introduced the “5 Laws of Creation,” beginning with the first law, “I am,” which asserts the fundamental existence of the self. Aaron interweaves personal anecdotes about his first plant‑medicine experience in 2017, his deep connection to Peru and past‑life resonance with Huachuma, and the heart‑opening, inner‑child‑nurturing qualities of the San Pedro medicine. The narrative blends logistical details of the retreat, spiritual teachings, and Aaron’s enthusiastic endorsement of the transformative potential of these plant medicines.
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If everything has a purpose, that means that you have a purpose. And everything, if it has a purpose, then there's a reason it is here. There's a reason for it. And if we are saying that we are not worthy, we're literally arguing with creation itself. And I'm excited to do this episode because I'm gonna be sharing with you kind of a cool story about what happened when in Costa Rica. And also a little bit about what are called the 5, or a lot, I mean, that's the topic of this episode, the 5 laws of creation, which synchronistically was something that we were taught during what is called a Huachuma ceremony. Now Huachuma is the San Pedro, San Pedro cactus. It is a beautiful plant medicine. Now, when I talk about plant medicine, I always like to give it the undertones of understanding how sacred it is and how it's not meant to be something, you know, I'm not saying everyone go do this. I'm not saying everyone should seek this out. All I'm saying is that it's a very beautiful plant medicine. It's a cactus and it's, it's considered similar. It's in a similar family when it comes to ayahuasca, as far as it's something that is used to really connect deeper to your own self and it reflects certain things back to you. And while in Costa Rica, for those of you that don't know, I was there with my best friend Victor Odo and his wife, Patty, and what we did is we had a ceremony where we brought in some of the most badass shaman that we knew of, people that have been sitting with medicine, plant medicine like ayahuasca, which is a brew that some people take in very safe settings where it brings up a lot of things that maybe no longer serve, sometimes subconscious stuff that's in the subconscious. It can be very transformative, not always the most pleasurable, but the effects of it are that you break out of like years of, maybe years of pain or you're able to understand things at a deeper level. It's not legal in the United States. However, when we do it, we normally go to Costa Rica and it could be very magical, very powerful. The first time I ever did plant medicine was, In 2017, I went to a place in Costa Rica where I got to do it for free in exchange for doing YouTube videos and talking about it. And at the time I didn't even think I was gonna do the ayahuasca. I thought it was like something way outside of something I'd be comfortable doing, but I wanted to go. It was like when I was first growing on YouTube. So I wanted like a cool free trip. So I ended up going and I went, I got my buddy Victor Otto to come with because I got him on the same like influencer deal that I had. And what ended up happening is I ended up doing it 4 nights in a row because that's how it was done. It was like a certain theme every night and it was ayahuasca. And it was so life transforming. And I ended up in a way enjoying aspects of it. It can be very enjoyable too, but you have to do it in a very safe setting with people that have been like working with the medicine for like years. Long time or just very much committed to it. So anyways, did that. I ended up going back there 3 years in a row. So I sat with ayahuasca 12 times, 4 times a year for 3 years in a row. And then this last year, what we did is we connected to some of the— I have a connection to one of the shamans in Costa Rica who has connections to a whole community of people people that have been sitting with the medicine for many, many decades, very connected and very, they consider it very sacred and I feel very safe with them. And what we did is my buddy Victor Otto and I, we facilitated an experience where we invited 23 subscribers out there to this amazing life transfer, like to this amazing retreat center that accommodated everything, food, everything. And what we did is we brought in these shamans. There were 2 nights of ayahuasca and then there was 1 day of wachuma. And wachuma is something that's done during the day. Ayahuasca is normally done at night. And ayahuasca normally will be about 5, 6 hours ceremony normally. There's normally 1 cup served in the beginning and then another cup a couple hours in. And man, the people that came had very, very transformative nights. It was so magical. And by the third, okay, so those are the first two nights. The third day is the Huachuma day, Huachuma San Pedro. It is the, Huachuma is kind of like the name, like San Pedro is the name of the cactus, but Huachuma is the name of like the spirit. It's almost like, you know, I have a whole bunch of hapey over here. Hapey is, or rapey, is that of ceremonial tobacco that's mixed with ash that then goes up the nose actually. I know it sounds intense. But it's like something a lot of people do to ground and tobacco, the spirit of tobacco is Mapacho. And they say that tobacco is one of the first plant medicines and that Mapacho is what told the shaman how to mix these other brews, how to mix the vine with chacruna and all this stuff to make ayahuasca and to make different plants, different brews that we use as plant medicine. The third day though is Huachuma. Now I've done San Pedro a few times, maybe 5 to 8 times. And this was the most magical experience of my life. The guy that was facilitating it has been working with Huachuma for like 20 years. He went to Peru and learned all about the cactus and how to connect to it. And this guy, I always say, anytime I talk about him, he's like a living walking cactus. That's it, he just, he like embodies the cactus so well. And I just felt, I felt such a connection to him. And I also realized I have such a deep connection to Huachuma. I feel like in past lives, I worked with Huachuma a lot. It's funny, I have a picture in my master bedroom of Peru, of Machu Picchu. I've never actually been there yet, but I've always felt such a deep connection to Peru. And I know that I have a very strong past life connection to it. And when we were, When I met this guy who's the huachumero, who's the guy that facilitates the huachuma ceremony or San Pedro, he talked about how he went to Peru for like 10, 15 years to study it. And I realized in the connection when I was on huachuma, I realized that I have such a strong connection to Peru and I also have such a strong connection to huachuma. So it's a medicine that is like, it's heart medicine, opens up the heart and it makes the inner child come out. And I think maybe in this life, maybe because I went through a lot of pain early on in life, or with, you know, the ex-stepmom thing. And I didn't really allow my nurture, my inner child to be nurtured. I think that because of that, I love Wachuma so much 'cause it really puts you into your inner child. They say that when you have a belly of Wachuma, it's so easy and clear. It's so easy to have unconditional love. You feel so connected to everything and everyone. And it's a very social thing. You normally do Wachuma in a social environment when you're talking to other people. And it's like this, yeah, it's just a, it's a very magical experience and very special. But the wachuma ceremony this time with somebody that has been facilitating it for 20 years, it was such a different level of mastery that he has, 'cause that's his one medicine is wachuma. And in it, what he did is very special. First off, he had some of our, the people that were there that, we came, people that we brought from our YouTube audience. He had like 5 people help him make sacred geometry in this altar space. And this maloca, by the way, was amazing. It was, if you guys saw it on Instagram, then you know, it's literally this maloca that's on this huge mountain that's overlooking one of the most epic views I've ever seen in my life. It's like when you're in Hawaii and you go to like, what is it called? Diamond Point or something like that. Like you'll spend half an hour hiking up to this beautiful point. To have this amazing view. This same, that similar view is at the top of this mountain in Costa Rica. And you're staying there, like you're staying in a place and then you go up to the maloca, which is where all the ceremony space was. It's where each night the ayahuasca was, it's like an indoor-outdoor thing, but the view is insane, it is incredible. So imagine being on this wooden maloca with this big awning that's over it, 'cause it did rain sometimes, but we were protected from the rain. And then there's like this altar space where you, there's these rocks that are beautiful, like perfectly laid out. And a big square and you're not allowed to cross into the altar. And then there's different like plants and like leaves and roses that are in the middle of it. And then there's crystals that are put in a certain formation. And then there's the sacred geometry that took, you know, people like a couple hours or something like that to do and they made it together. So there are people that, you know, were staying there and that were gonna be in the ceremony space. And then there was a fire at the very end of it. And that fire was lit all day long. And the wachuma lasts like 14 to 16 hours. And you have to take it very early in the morning because 16 hours later, you still won't be able to sleep. You'll just feel so amazing. You won't even really wanna sleep. But anyways, there's a fire at the end of it. And what he does is there's like cushions all the way around. So we're all kind of gathered around there. And when you start it, what happens is Every now and then it comes back. He has this like little whistle. And 'cause you're allowed to also have some free time. I mean, it's a 16-hour ceremony, but what happens is you take this medicine, it's a powder, it's mixed with a couple other plants to help with digestion and you open up ceremony. And what happened is there were 6 or 7 times that we would break and then go do stuff and then be able to talk to people and be able to do different inner work. And then we'd come back once he blew the whistle to the altar and he would do a little teaching. And there were like 5 or 6 teachings that he'd have. And they were like powerful teachings that we would then meditate on and we'd connect to. Now, when you first take it, it takes about an hour, an hour and a half for it to kick in. So what we did is we all took the medicine, we all took the huachuma and he like mixed it, we drink it. And then we all sat, we had to pick a certain space to sit in. Anywhere like on the property, kind of like within distance of hearing this whistle. But we had 2 hours to sit there and do nothing. So the first 2 hours is specifically meditation. And that was beautiful. I've never really done that before. Normally you take it and then you get kind of do like social stuff, but 2 hours of pure meditation within yourself. I laid in the sun for a little bit and just sat down and like you start to feel it come on and it's like this buzzing feeling in your heart and you just feel, you start feeling so connected. It's not like a crazy thing where you go away. And you're like deep in your subconscious and you're like not there, like you're really there, you're really present. And then what happened is we are 2 hours later, we then come for the first altar. And during the altar, there's a teaching. He talks about kind of what we're gonna be doing. And he says that there's 5 laws of creation and that these 5 laws of creation are laws. These are not theories. These are not beliefs. You know, beliefs create our reality, but many of our beliefs will change from person to person. But these are 5 laws of creation. These are the only 5 laws. And if you understand these 5 laws, your life will be much more enriched. You'll feel like you understand people at a deeper level. You understand yourself at a deeper level. You understand the way the world and the universe works at a deeper level. And that's what I wanna share with you in this episode. I'm literally gonna take you on that journey of that Wachuma ceremony. And share with you the different insights that I had along the way. And first off, we sit down and he explains to us that the first law of creation is that I am. I am, which also means I exist, which means you exist. You exist. This is the first law of creation. You exist, period.
