Sacred Activism for
Collective Healing
Creating and researching collective psychedelic practices to explore their potential for peace-building, sacred activism, collective liberation, and healing collective trauma. Currently focused on Middle East based conflicts, with the goal of developing approaches applicable to other contexts.
Ripples is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Brief History
Ripples is the continuation of seven years of research and practice: Our pilot project, launched as a research study at Imperial College London, revealed the potential of transformative practices for societal healing. Working with a cohort of Palestinian and Israeli researchers, peacemakers, and artists, we led several successful sessions for deep personal & collective healing and visionary future building.
What We Do
Ripples energizes peace and liberation movements by creating shared psychedelic programs, researching them through academic collaborations, training facilitators, educating the public, and supporting ecosystems that help communities integrate, sustain, and express their insights through art and collective action.
We are not THE solution. We do what we can with the states of mind that inspire us.
How We Do It
Collective intention and participatory rituals
Healing collective trauma through shared experience
Dialogue, storytelling, and narrative work
Experimentation and an evolving, emergent process
Political and cultural grounding
Turning insights into action
Building networks and ecologies of care
Imagination, visioning, and creative exploration
Rooted in love as a guiding principle
AYWA: Psychedelic Peace Program
Sami Awad & Leor Roseman
Sami Awad & Leor Roseman, Psychedelic Science 2023, Denver, 23rd of June 202. From personal to collective: ayahuasca as a peace-making tool among Palestinians and Israeli
In the spring of 2022, three groups of Palestinians and Israelis were invited to participate in an ayahuasca peacebuilding program. The invitation was to explore the ceremonial and healing space of ayahuasca through a collective intention: to ground the transformative spiritual practice in the political reality of conflict and oppression; to heal collective trauma and liberate from rigid narratives and ethos; to invite revelations and transform them into actions of co-resistance; to create a community of solidarity and care; and to celebrate life and good music together.
In this joint presentation, Sami Awad, a Palestinian peace activist and one of the leading facilitators (together with Armelle Lehman and Indios Brasil), presents the program – tailored for this intention - and discusses the processes the groups went through. Leor Roseman, an Israeli psychedelic researcher from the University of Exeter (previously from Imperial College London), presents quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological research findings from the program. The presentation reveals how psychedelics can be used intentionally for socio-political endeavours beyond personal healing.
Previous Research
This research explores the underground ayahuasca scene in the Holy Land, where Israelis and Palestinians shared ceremonies without an explicit peacebuilding intention, informing the ideas and practices behind our approach to psychedelic peacebuilding.
Shared Unity
Participants experienced group unity, identity dissolution, and deep intercultural connection, alongside insights into conflict that inspired action toward resolution.
Limits of Harmony
Overemphasis on oneness can reinforce the status quo, excluding Palestinian voices and histories.
Revelatory Disruption
Certain experiences can challenge dominant narratives, sparking political awakening and motivating change.
RESEARCH LIBRARY
Relational Processes in Ayahuasca Groups of Palestinians and Israelis
Roseman, L., Ron, Y., Saca, A., Ginsberg, N., Luan, L., Karkabi, N., Doblin, R., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2021).
On Revelations and Revolutions: Drinking Ayahuasca Among Palestinians Under Israeli Occupation
Roseman, L., & Karkabi, N. (2021).
The ART Collective Liberation Ritual
Documentation of manifestations arising from altered states. These reports serve as qualitative data for sensory integration.
Ripples aspires to create art projects based on shared processes, which will inspire others to seek peace and collective liberation. An exemplary project is Ripples Collective, created for Medicine Festival 2024, and performed in London, Davos, Denver, and Oxford. The collective comprises Palestinian and Israeli activists and artists who journeyed together in our project and now seek to ripple out their process.
The Collective Liberation Ritual is partly a performance and partly a process, held by musicians, facilitators, educators, and peace activists. The performance includes storytelling, facilitated processes, theatre, dance, and music – and carries the audience through grief into solidarity and empowerment. It is a journey from separation to connection, feeling the collective pains to allow them to reveal a shared vision. Sitting in Circle, alchemising, with song, word, and movement, an alternative reality - nearly lost - for the land we come from and all its people.
See the Financial Times piece about our performance
Support Ripples
Peacebuilding and reconciliation programs bringing people from opposing sides of conflict into sustained, facilitated dialogue
Collective healing retreats and long-term integration support for participants
Research and documentation to responsibly advance this work and share learnings with the field
Artistic and cultural projects that help shift narratives and strengthen movements for peace
Ripples is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Let’s Work Together
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