About ACF

Spirit of The Vine.

Ancestral Traditions

"World's Best Ayahuasca Retreats in 2024,"-retreat.guru

Ayahuasca Community Fellowship:

Mission Statement: The mission of Ayahuasca Community Fellowship is to foster spiritual growth and community healing while honoring ancestral wisdom through the sacred practice of Ayahuasca ceremonies. We are committed to providing a safe, reverent environment where individuals can engage in this ancient Amazonian tradition as a pathway to personal transformation and wellness. Through our deep respect for the Ayahuasca sacrament as a divine gift and adherence to time-honored practices, we guide each participant toward a deeper connection with community and spirit.

Vision Statement: We envision ACF as a global community movement fostering healing and integration in every corner of the world. In our future, we see a network of Ayahuasca integration sanctuaries where anyone seeking renewal can find guidance, friendship, and the life-changing wisdom of this sacred plant. Through these community sanctuaries, individuals rebuild their lives and become part of a growing family that heals together, creating ripples of positive change in their communities and helping to heal our planet.

Theological Formulation for Sacred Ayahuasca Traditions;

Ayahuasca Community Fellowship (ACF) presents ayahuasca ceremony as a sacred religious sacrament rooted in ancient traditions. In ACF’s doctrine, Ayahuasca (also called Yagé) is regarded as a “Master Plant Teacher” and a medium for spiritual ascension, rebirth, and purification​. The fellowship is explicitly syncretic (inspired by Unitarian Universalism) and non-denominational, meaning it embraces multiple tribal Amazonian spiritual traditions under one faith community​. ACF’s purpose is to provide ceremonial practice of ancestral plant medicine in a church/fellowship setting, as a “spiritually cathartic entheogenic communion” for its members​.

This theological framework emphasizes that drinking the ayahuasca brew in ceremony is a sacred rite of passage – a profound experience of ego dissolution and renewal. ACF literature describes the Ayahuasca ceremony as a “spiritually profound sacred purgation process” and “truly a native spiritual rite of passage” originating from the holy ancestral plant medicine traditions of Amazonian tribes​. In line with this, the fellowship views the intense purgative and visionary effects (sometimes called “ego death”) as central to personal transformation and spiritual growth. Indeed, ego death – the dissolving of one’s sense of self – is often understood as a gateway to spiritual awakening across many traditions​. ACF embraces this concept as part of its theology: the temporary “death” of the ego during ceremony allows a spiritual rebirth and deeper connection to the divine.

Crucially, ACF’s theology affirms that ayahuasca is used strictly as a sacred communion, not a recreational drug. All ceremonies are conducted with reverence to the plant spirit and in a ritual context led by experienced facilitators. Borrowing from indigenous wisdom, the fellowship believes the “intelligence and wisdom of the plants” guide the healing; facilitators (healers) are merely helpers in this process​. The fellowship’s motto, “Healing People to Heal the Planet,” reflects a core belief that individual healing through the ayahuasca sacrament contributes to broader spiritual and ecological healing in the world​. Overall, the theological formulation is coherent and sincere: ACF is a legally organized church that venerates ayahuasca as a sacrament given in communion to its members for the purpose of spiritual healing, self-knowledge, and connection with the divine​. This clear articulation of belief and practice establishes ACF as a bona fide religious organization rather than a mere retreat center.

Compliance Consideration: ACF’s theology has been deliberately framed to meet legal standards for religious use of ayahuasca. By highlighting the long history of sacred use (“practices with entheogenic plants have long existed and have been considered sacred to human cultures…for thousands of years”) and by formally adopting ayahuasca ceremony as a central religious rite, ACF underscores that its activities are an exercise of religion. The focus on sacramentality, community fellowship, and spiritual outcomes aligns with criteria under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) for what constitutes a “sincere religious exercise” burdened by the Controlled Substances Act​. In sum, the Fellowship’s theological narrative – a syncretic, nature-centric faith centered on the sacramental use of ayahuasca – is both coherent and consciously structured to support legal compliance and religious exemption claims.

ACF Incorporation Documents

Tribal Leaders & Ayahuasqueros

 

Ceremonial Events & Locations

  

Tony Westbrook

ACF Founder Linkedin Profile

Artistic Profile

Photography