Yasha Shah
Founder, MahaDevi Ayahuasca Retreat · Writer on the Camsá Yagé TraditionGuiding founders, leaders, and growth-oriented people through structured ayahuasca work that produces lasting results, not just peak experiences.
About Yasha
Yasha Shah came to ayahuasca in 2017. He had spent years battling treatment-resistant depression along with seizure disorder, ADHD, and a host of other conditions. Nothing he had tried was working, so he started traveling.
His first encounter was a 21-day trip to the Peruvian Amazon with eight ceremonies. He was looking for a magical cure. The medicine gave him three months of relief. Then the depression came back, and he was back where he started.
That experience helped shape the ayahuasca retreat in Colombia at MahaDevi. Ayahuasca is not a magical cure. What he had been missing was proper preparation and integration, continuous work, and his own willingness to receive the support and help he actually needed. He had been trying to bypass all of that by just drinking the medicine.
Years later, after traveling through Nepal and India and trying different paths, he came back to the Amazon as a student. He was initiated in the Shipibo tradition, did master plant dietas, and eventually moved his practice to Colombia.
He has been drinking since 2017 and has sat in hundreds of ceremonies. Yasha stopped counting long ago.
Yasha Shah, founder of MahaDevi. Once I had reached a hundred, I stopped counting. I found it ridiculous that I was still counting. It has been years since then. Maybe three hundred. Does it matter anymore? I live in service of the medicine.
Yasha ShahThat conviction shapes how he runs MahaDevi. On MahaDevi, Yasha publishes editorial and hybrid informational writing on ayahuasca and other plant medicine. His focus is on what most psychedelic media skips: the indigenous lineages that hold the tradition, and what serious integration actually looks like in the months after a ceremony ends.
Peak experiences are not the aim. Long-lasting impact is what we strive for. To honor the medicine is to embody what we receive from the medicine.
How MahaDevi Began
Before MahaDevi was a retreat, it was a vow.
Yasha left his old life behind to travel through Nepal and India, where he became a student of tantric practitioners and developed a connection to the Divine Mother in her many forms. Sankata. Durga. Tara. Kali. Mahadevi.
On the outskirts of Kathmandu, at the temple of Dakshinkali, he made a pact with the goddess. If she helped him bring a particular vision into the world, he would build her a temple in the Amazon.
MahaDevi is that temple. The retreat in Putumayo carries the name of the goddess and the responsibility of the vow. Yasha continues his practice within the Sri Vidya tantric tradition.
The maloka at MahaDevi. 
Yasha working with caapi vine in Putumayo. Ayahuasca Lineage
Yasha's education with ayahuasca began in the Shipibo tradition of the Peruvian Amazon, where he completed master plant dietas including Noya Rao and Marusa. His ongoing work is in Putumayo, Colombia, within the 12-generation Camsá (Kamentsá) lineage of Taita Miguel Mavisoy, a tradition that prepares yagé both as cold brew and hot brew.
The cold brew preparation, known as crudo, is largely unknown outside Putumayo. It cannot travel because the medicine ferments within days. MahaDevi's newsletter, Cold Brew Aya, is named after this rare formulation.
Yasha works with both lineages and writes about what the difference between them actually is, in the body and in the brew. For the deeper treatment, see our lineage page.
Sacred fire, evening ceremony. Tantric Foundation
Yasha is a practitioner of Shakta Tantra, initiated into the Sri Vidya lineage. This tantric path shapes his emphasis on discipline, daily practice, and long-term transformation rather than peak experiences or spiritual performance.
It is rare to find an ayahuasca facilitator with formal tantric training. The combination informs his structured, integration-focused approach to working with the medicine.
Modern Training
Yasha continued his studies through the ICEERS integration course and earned a PMT certificate from the Onaya Science Psychedelic Mentorship Program.
His role is not ceremonial healer. He is a retreat organizer and integration mentor. He designs the container, ensures safety, and guides participants through a structured process before, during, and after the retreat.
While Yasha aspires to lead ceremonies one day, he sees the long apprenticeship as essential.
I am not in a rush to be a shaman. Medicine has offered me to learn, and I said yes, and I have been learning. I am not tired of being a student.
Yasha Shah
The MahaDevi team. Peruvian Amazon
Putumayo, Colombia
ICEERS Integration
Medical Screening and Safety
Medical screening is one of the most foundational parts of how MahaDevi operates. Yasha works directly with psychologists and psychiatrists to evaluate every participant before a retreat.
The position is not exclusionary by default. The intent is the opposite. Proper screening makes the medicine accessible safely, including for people other retreats might turn away without examination. MahaDevi is hard on itself about safety because it matters.
For the full screening criteria and safety framework, see our medical considerations page.
How MahaDevi Operates: Humans and Plants
MahaDevi is run by two groups: humans and plants.
That sounds simple. In practice it shapes every decision the team makes.
The plants are not metaphorical. Their will and intelligence is part of how the container is structured. Yasha's view is that without including the voice, desires, and intelligence of the plants in how the work is held, the work becomes misaligned. The consequences land on both the people partaking and the people offering.
The humans are the indigenous leaders who carry the tradition, including Taita Miguel and his family, whose insight shapes how ceremonies are held and how preparation and integration are designed. The humans also include Yasha, Ania Halama as lead facilitator and head of integration, and the rest of the MahaDevi team that keeps the system functional.
Above both, what Yasha calls the hand of God. On the ground, the work is shared between the plants and the humans, and one is not subordinate to the other.
What Yasha Has Built
Beyond the retreats, Yasha builds tools to extend the medicine's work outside the ceremony itself.
The Ayahuasca Framework
A 9-video course under 90 minutes that Yasha and Ania Halama created to explain ayahuasca to a rational audience: founders, creators, entrepreneurs. Once it was published, a lot of people outside that original demographic also found the content useful, so the team made it available as widely as possible, including through distribution partnerships with publications like Tricycle Day and DoubleBlind Magazine. Free, structured, and the entry point for most people coming into Yasha's work.
The MahaDevi Preparation Portal
A deeper offering for retreat participants, focused on the spiritual and ancestral dimensions of preparation. Where the Framework stays logical and broad, the Portal goes into the specific lineage of the Camsá tradition, the difference between psychedelic therapy and ancestral medicine, and what effective preparation looks like inside that distinction.
The Integration Portal
The companion to the Preparation Portal, designed for the months after a ceremony. Integration is where most of the real work happens, and the Portal exists because what most people need after a retreat is structure for the months that follow, not another ceremony.
Cold Brew Aya
A long-form editorial publication on the labor, lineage, and integration work behind plant medicine. Currently in development. Sign-up coming soon.
Topics Yasha Writes and Speaks About
A working list of the territory Yasha covers in essays, interviews, and speaking engagements.
Yasha's Audience
Yasha works most often with founders navigating major life transitions, leaders experiencing misalignment between external success and internal experience, and growth-oriented people seeking structured approaches to plant medicine.
Part of why this audience comes to him is what he calls being bilingual. He holds logical, rational conversations about psychology, performance, and decision-making. He also speaks credibly about the mystical and spiritual dimensions of plant medicine work. He bridges the two without diluting either, which is rare in this space and harder than it looks.
His audience values substance over spectacle, and long-term change over temporary breakthroughs.
Media and Collaboration
Yasha is available for:
- Podcast interviews
- Expert commentary and quotes
- Speaking engagements
- Collaborative editorial projects bridging traditional plant medicine and modern application
- Workshop facilitation on integration, preparation, and responsible psychedelic use
For media inquiries, use our contact form. For retreat inquiries, see our retreats page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Yasha Shah?
Yasha Shah is the founder and director of MahaDevi Ayahuasca Retreat in Putumayo, Colombia, and a writer on the Camsá yagé tradition. He has been working with ayahuasca since 2017, with formal training in both the Shipibo tradition of Peru and the Camsá lineage of Colombia.
Why is it called MahaDevi?
The name comes from a vow Yasha made at the temple of Dakshinkali on the outskirts of Kathmandu, while studying tantra in Nepal and India. He committed to building a temple for the Divine Mother in the Amazon if his vision came into the world. MahaDevi is the temple. The retreat carries her name and the responsibility of the vow.
What is Yasha's personal story with ayahuasca?
Yasha came to ayahuasca in 2017 after years of treatment-resistant depression along with seizure disorder, ADHD, and other conditions. His first encounter was a 21-day trip to the Peruvian Amazon with eight ceremonies. The medicine gave him three months of relief, then the depression came back. The lesson became MahaDevi's core philosophy: ayahuasca is not a magical cure. What had been missing was proper preparation and integration, continuous work, and his willingness to receive the support he actually needed.
What lineage does Yasha work in?
Yasha works within the 12-generation Camsá lineage of Taita Miguel Mavisoy in Putumayo, Colombia. His earlier training is in the Shipibo tradition of the Peruvian Amazon. His writing focuses particularly on the Camsá tradition because it remains poorly documented in English-language sources.
Where does Yasha run his retreats?
Retreats are held in Putumayo, Colombia, in the Amazonian foothills near Mocoa, within the traditional territory of the Camsá people.
What is cold brew or crudo yagé?
Crudo is the cold-pressed preparation of yagé practiced by the Camsá and other Putumayo lineages. Unlike cooked ayahuasca, the medicine is prepared without heat, through hours of manual pressing and extraction. Yasha writes about it extensively because it is largely unknown outside the region.
How does MahaDevi approach safety and screening?
Medical screening is one of the most foundational parts of how MahaDevi operates. Yasha works directly with psychologists and psychiatrists to evaluate every participant before a retreat. The position is not exclusionary by default. Proper screening makes the medicine accessible safely, including for people other retreats might turn away without proper examination.
How does MahaDevi make decisions?
MahaDevi is run by two groups: humans and plants. Humans include the indigenous leaders, Yasha, Ania Halama (lead facilitator and head of integration), and the rest of the team. Plants are not a metaphor. Their will and intelligence is considered part of how the container is structured. Yasha's view is that without that, the work becomes misaligned.
What training does Yasha have?
Yasha holds a PMT certificate from the Onaya Science Psychedelic Mentorship Program and integration certifications from ICEERS. He is also initiated into the Sri Vidya tantric path.
Where can I read Yasha's writing?
On MahaDevi, where Yasha publishes editorial and hybrid informational writing on ayahuasca and other plant medicine. A standalone editorial publication, Cold Brew Aya, is in development.
How can I work with Yasha?
The most direct way is to attend a retreat at MahaDevi in Putumayo. For a structured introduction to his approach, the free Ayahuasca Framework is the entry point. For editorial collaboration or media, see the Media and Collaboration section above.
Two Ways to Begin
The Framework is the entry point. The retreat is the experience. Most people start with the first.
Get the Free Ayahuasca Framework
9-video course on preparation, ceremony, and integration. Free.
Start the FrameworkNothing on this page is medical or legal advice. Yagé is not appropriate for everyone, and anyone considering ceremony should review our medical considerations page and consult a qualified clinician about their specific medical and mental-health situation before booking.