VISION
PENSUM
Our basic program consists of a three-year-long hybrid residential and online training with an hour intensity of 1.400 hours divided into six semesters. Each semester has a series of online modules and one residential intensive. This basic pensum can be complemented with two or three more online modules and a dissertation lead by Ubiquity University; granting a MA or PhD degree.
NON RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM
Each semester is usually divided into four or five modules, each with a duration of eight to ten weeks. The program includes work in the online learning platform, forum interactions, a weekly webinar, complimentary reading, practical exercises, and meetings with the tutors. Webinars will be interactive (with Q & A) and led live by experts in the psychedelic field, but a recording will be stored in the learning environment for a short period of time for all students who were unable to attend the live webinar or who would like to watch it again. There will also be online sitter/tutor meetings once in a while to prepare students before intensives, provide support and follow up between classes, and support with integration.
INTENSIVES
The other half of the program (700 hours) is committed to experiential work in our intensives: dietas, initiations, and pilgrimages. Half of the intensives are focused on experiential transpersonal therapy, the other half take place in indigenous territories: Cofan reservations in the Amazon, a Bwiti village in Gabon, and Wirikuta the peyote pilgrimage site in Mexico.
TRANSPERSONAL RETREATS
Half of the intensives are retreats dedicated to experiential psychotherapy where students will have the opportunity to do personal work, healing, and self-knowledge while at the same time learning first hand from expert psychotherapists while they work with amplified states of consciousness, psychedelics (respecting local laws), bodywork, gestalt, family constellations, and meditation. We have one ten-day transpersonal retreat each year for a total of three throughout the program.
In these retreats, students will have the opportunity to work on their personal journeys, descend into the dark, murky dredge of their own emotions and challenges and heal, while learning important tools and methods of transpersonal psychotherapy. By working on themselves and learning the basics of transpersonal psychology, students will have sufficient experience and knowledge to guide and accompany other people's therapeutic processes.
During these retreats, students will also have the opportunity to practice the tools and methods learned with their peers while being supervised by experienced transpersonal psychotherapists; understanding that apart from personal transformation, supervised hands-on practice is the best way to really acquire knowledge in the therapeutic field.
PILGRIMAGES
The other half of the intensives consist of pilgrimages to indigenous territories where students will begin to build relationships with authentic psychedelic communities and elders while learning from their shamanic traditions and power plants. We are usually received as locals as we have been developing relationships with these communities for many years. They have all gifted us tribal land inside their reservations where we have built small retreat houses and have held pilgrimages and retreats of this sort many times. In this training, we will have one pilgrimage per year interspersed with the transpersonal retreats. Although most of the time will be spent learning from the shamanic practitioners and journeying with them through the nights, there will also be psycho-therapy classes throughout the day.
Through years of conversation with the political leaders and spiritual elders of these communities, the intensives in these territories are carefully designed to give voice to what these traditions want to show to the world, respecting and honoring their traditional ways.
Residential
Non-Residential
Here is our planned pensum for our next cohort. You can also download a calendar view in PDF with dates here:
01
semester
Noesis -Transpersonal Retreat
10 days - Guasca, Colombia
Self-knowledge, gestalt, authentic movement, 5 rhythms, breathwork, core shamanism, and experiential dynamics around the inner healer, the triune brain, and love. First-hand experience with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and group work.
Charlie Keck, Lila Vega, and supporting teachers
Character and Neurosis - Enneagram
Within the retreat
Historical and philosophical concepts in psychedelic therapy
10 weeks - Rick Doblin, Lila Vega, Torsten Passie
Ethics and Care
10 weeks - Kylea Taylor
Psychedelic Crisis and Harm Reduction
10 weeks - Maria Carvalho & Ines Macedo
Preparation, Integration and After Care
10 weeks - Francoise Bourzat
02
semester
Dieta- Sia Theci: the song of the black jaguar
10 days - Ai-Cofan Reservation, Amazonas
This pilgrimage takes part within a Cofan reservation in the jungle where students will be able to have access to the oldest and most knowledgeable shamans of their tribe.
A'i Cofan community and elders
Defense Mechanisms and Depth Psychology
Within the retreat
Transpersonal Psychology
12 weeks - Jorge Ferrer
Psychopharmacology
8 weeks - José Carlos Bouso
Ethnopharmacognosy
8 weeks - Jonathan Ott
Neuroscience
4 weeks - Robin Carhart Harris
Entheogenic Shamanism(s)
8 weeks - Susana Bustos
03
semester
Ecstasy -Transpersonal Retreat
10 days - Guasca, Colombia
This retreat is a deep exploration around death, birth, and ecstasy. In addition to personal work, there will be space for therapeutic tools and models to be practiced. Students will begin to support supervised psychedelic sessions between each other.
Jorge Llano, Lila Vega, and supporting teachers
Systemic therapy and family constellations
Within the retreat
Psychopathology and Mental Health
10 weeks - Anya Loizaga
Transpersonal Approaches to Mental Health
10 weeks - Beatriz Vega
Psychosis, spiritual emergency, and spiritual competency
8 weeks - David Lukoff
MDMA assisted psychotherapy
12 weeks - MAPS MDMA Therapy Training (part A), Marcela Ot'alora, and Torsten Passie
04
semester
Wirikuta Pilgrimage - Following the footprints of the Deer
10 days - Wirikuta, Mexico
Wirikuta is the main pilgrimage site for the Wixaritari-Huichol people. Each year hundreds of Huichol shamans journey to Wirikuta in search of the sacred peyote. Students will quest for vision in this sacred territory and perform mitote ceremonies with Huichol and Lakota elders.
Wixaritari Huichol community and elders
Polarities in Psychotherapy
Peyote
Ayahuasca
8 weeks - Anja Loizaga
Psychedelic mushrooms and Psilocybin
8 weeks - Francoise Bourzat
LSD
6 weeks - Torsten Passie
Iboga and Ibogaine
8 weeks - Jonathan Dickinson
Ketamine
6 weeks - Raquel Bennett
New chemicals and other ethnobotanicals
6 weeks - Jose Carlos Bouso, Jonathan Ott
05
semester
Emptiness-Transpersonal Retreat
10 days - Bahia Solano, Colombia
Our third retreat explores links between psychedelic medicine, meditation practices, and oriental philosophies; especially Taoism, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta, and Dzogchen. Most of the retreat is in silent meditation, including the psychedelic sessions.
Lila Vega, and supporting teachers
Mindfulness approaches in psychedelic therapy
Within the retreat
Applied transpersonal psychotherapy
8 weeks -
Entheogenic Shamanic Practices: Principles & Tools
8 weeks - Susana Bustos
Sound and Music
8 weeks - Joel Olivé
Somatic therapies
6 weeks - Devon Christie
Legal Panoramas for psychedelic therapy, research, and activism
6 weeks - Ismail Ali
06
semester
Bwiti Initiations
15-20 days - Gabon, Africa
The Bwiti community in Micodí has a mixture of Pygmaea, Massango, and Mitsogo shamans. They will offer us three initiation ceremonies: Initiation into Mabangi (feminine path), Missoku (masculine path), and Dissoumba (forest path). Students will be able to initiate in one of the three paths that they choose and learn from the other two as apprentices and co-healers.
Pygmea, Massango, and Mitsogo community and elders
Supervision Group Work
Within the retreat
Social Practice and Supervision
Social practice is another area in which this program transcends the framework of a regular educational program, reaching into the power of cultivating an attitude of committed compassion and transpersonal activism towards health and wholeness. Students will be able to choose between projects in our partner psychedelic retreat centers and clinics, or projects conducted by the ONCA foundation or our partner non-profits. Each student will be assigned a supervisor or mentor who will support and supervise the psychedelic practice of the student performed during this time.
MA & PHD PATHWAYS
ONCA has established a partnership with Ubiquity University to offer a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Integrative Psychedelic Therapy, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Psychedelic Studies.
MASTER OF ARTS (MA) IN
INTEGRATIVE PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY
The MA Degree is composed of 126 credits. The basic program (shown above) consisting of 108 credits, is complemented by the following:
Ubiquity University Core Courses (8 credits): A set of 2 required courses
-
The Creative Journey to Dissertation: Finding your Voice, Making your Mark (Gyorgyi Szabo, PhD – UU – online)
-
Chartres Academy (UU – in-person/virtual)
Dissertation (10 credits):
At the end of your coursework, you are required to write a dissertation. Please see our Dissertation Manual for more information.
These two modules and the dissertation (18 credits total) are all led by faculty from Ubiquity University and must be paid directly to Ubiquity.
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PHD) IN
PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES
This Doctorate degree is composed of 155 credits. The basic program (shown above) consisting of 108 credits, is complemented by the following:
Ubiquity University Core Courses (11 credits): A set of 3 required courses
-
The Creative Journey to Dissertation: Finding your Voice, Making your Mark (Gyorgyi Szabo, PhD – UU – online) (4 credits)
-
Chartres Academy (UU – in-person/virtual) (4 credits)
-
Foundation in Soft Skills and UN SDGs (Shelly Alcorn, UU – online) (3 credits)
Dissertation (36 credits):
At the end of your coursework, you are required to write a dissertation. Here is a link to our Dissertation Manual.
These three modules and the dissertation (47 credits total) are all led by faculty from Ubiquity University and must be paid directly to Ubiquity.
CERTIFICATION
For many generations, lineage and supervision by the elders have been the main procedure of certification for psychedelic medicine. For this reason, we have gathered some of the main pioneers and experts in modern psychedelic therapy; and because western psychedelic therapy is very young, we have also gathered the most respected elders and social leaders of three root psychedelic traditions. We have also committed one entire semester to clinical supervision, and facilitate supervised hands-on practice since the third semester.
Additionally, upon completion of the three-year program, students will receive a certificate for 1,400 hours in Integrative Psychedelic Therapy. Students that wish to receive a Certificate for Transpersonal Psychotherapy (ECTP) accredited by EUROTAS (European Transpersonal Association) can continue their professional practice for one more year under regular supervision and will be granted a certification for 1,400 hours (4 years). Students will not have to pay the Psychedelic Therapy Training for the fourth year.
Our Master of Arts (MA) degree in Integrative Psychedelic Therapy and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Psychedelic Studies are both accredited by Ubiquity University.
Because psychedelic therapy is an emerging field, we intend to continue to stay up to speed on legal changes in different countries and jurisdictions to maximize compliance with other accrediting standards around the world as they emerge.
