Four years of living and working in Peru gave Arash Golnam something rare. A genuinely lived encounter with plant medicine, seen through a Jungian lens.
In this course he shares that journey directly. He lets the medicine speak for itself, drawing from the indigenous traditions and lineages that carry this knowledge. He brings you inside the ceremonies, the dietas, the healers, and the plants themselves.
He also brings his training as a Jungian analyst to what he experienced. How individuation, shadow, anima/animus, and the Self showed up within these encounters. Not as abstractions, but as living realities. His journey gradually took the shape of the hero's journey. Departure, descent, fulfillment, and return. That arc structures this course.
Each session draws from field recordings, dreams, visions, and symbolic material. Arash moves between personal experience and Jungian reflection, grounded in what actually happened.
You will come away with a deeper understanding of plant medicine from within its indigenous context, a richer grasp of core Jungian concepts, and a way of reading these experiences psychologically.
As with all our programs, recordings will be available if you cannot attend live or if you would like to watch the sessions again.
Session I: Departure (Live class on June 17 at 10am PT / 1pm ET)The Call, the Container, and Archetypal Encounter
The first phase explores the beginning of Arash’s immersion into traditional plant medicine work in the Peruvian Amazon and the initial call that drew him into this path. He will examine the importance of preparation, ritual, ceremonial container, and psychological orientation in shaping encounters with ayahuasca-chacruna.
In this session Arash also reflects on a traumatic early experience in the work, why it became traumatic, and how it revealed the profound significance of guidance, structure, and symbolic orientation.
Medicines & Dieta Plants
Ayahuasca-Chacruna
Pión Colorado
Chihuahuaco
Huayruro
Tamamuri
Zapote Renaco
Jungian Themes
Archetypes
Symbolic encounter
Ritual and container
The call to transformation
Session II: Descent (Live class on June 24 at 10am PT / 1pm ET)
Tobacco, Bobinsana, and the Emergence of Self
The second phase explores a deeper psychological descent through Arash his dietas with tobacco and bobinsana. These encounters initiated profound transformations in his relationship to ceremony, the psyche, and the medicine itself. He will examine how this work deepened his connection to the Self, reconnected him with his roots, and gradually shifted his orientation away from forms of practice that felt psychologically incompatible toward approaches more aligned with his own inner structure.
This session centers on discernment: the recognition that different medicinal traditions and ritual forms resonate differently with different psychological constitutions.
Medicines & Dieta Plants
Tobacco
Bobinsana
Ayahuasca-Chacruna
Jungian Themes
The Self
Anima
Psychological compatibility
Discernment and orientation
Session III: Fulfillment (Live class on July 1 at 10am PT / 1pm ET)
Creating an Inner Container and Balancing Feminine and Masculine Forces
The third phase explores the emergence of Arash’s own relationship to the medicine and the development of a more personal form of practice. Following the tobacco dieta, he began working independently with ayahuasca-chacruna while also entering into deep exploration with sacred mushrooms and La Pastora (Salvia divinorum).
This session focuses particularly on the balancing of feminine and masculine forces within the psyche and how these dynamics manifested symbolically, psychologically, and spiritually through the medicines. He will also explore how reconnecting with his own cultural and spiritual roots brought depth, coherence, and stability to the work, allowing a more authentic inner container to emerge.
Medicines
Ayahuasca-Chacruna
Sacred Mushrooms (Hongos Sagrados)
La Pastora (Salvia divinorum)
Jungian Themes
Feminine and masculine dynamics
Inner container
Individuation
Psychological integration
Session IV: Return (Live class on July 8 at 10am PT / 1pm ET)
San Pedro, Shadow Work, and the Reintegration of the Other
The final phase explores return: the integration of what was encountered in the depths into lived consciousness and relationship. Alongside the continuation of his work with ayahuasca-chacruna and previous dieta plants, he began working extensively with San Pedro (Huachuma) in group settings. Unlike ayahuasca, San Pedro revealed itself as a day medicine — one that engages waking consciousness dynamically through movement, nature, and long mountain hikes. This opened a different relationship to the psyche and became a powerful path of shadow work and reintegration.
This session focuses on encountering abandoned and rejected aspects of the self, meeting the Other, and gradually reintegrating split-off dimensions of the psyche into conscious life.
Medicines
San Pedro (Huachuma)
Ayahuasca-Chacruna
Previous dieta plants
Jungian Themes
Shadow
The Other
Embodiment
Reintegration and return
