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Atmosphere and feature ratings above are based on Best Retreats research (October 2026). They will be updated if Anima Institute submits its own information.

Anima Institute: An In-Depth Review for Ayahuasca, Psilocybin and Breathwork Retreats in Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Costa Rica

Anima Institute, which trades as Anima Healing Institute, is a small, mobile operation run by Costanza Ayni, a breathwork facilitator and former lead facilitator at Synthesis, the Dutch psilocybin retreat company, with the musician Juan Tepui. It sells ayahuasca retreats in the Algarve, Portugal (€3,397 to €3,697) and in the mountains of southern Costa Rica (€1,290 to €1,590), one-day psilocybin sessions for €1,790 at the client’s own lodging in Barcelona, Ibiza, Tenerife, Amsterdam or Portugal, and breathwork sessions from €50. Bookings run through a Retreat Guru-hosted site, where it has no reviews. Its pages publish no medical screening, contraindications, medical staff or emergency plan for either medicine, name no venue or legal entity, and describe facilitators using physical touch without a consent policy. Supplying ayahuasca or psilocybin mushrooms for payment carries real criminal risk in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. We found no incidents. Our earlier profile described a psilocybin truffle program “without native ceremonial practices”; it in fact offers ayahuasca and rapé ceremonies, and our profile needs correcting on prices, group size and the founder’s background.

🎯 At a Glance

• Locations: Retreats in the Faro district of the Algarve, Portugal, and “totally off grid in the mountains in southern Costa Rica,” with no venue named for either, according to its Portugal and Costa Rica program pages. One-day psilocybin sessions take place wherever the client is staying in Barcelona, Ibiza, Tenerife, Amsterdam or Portugal, and breathwork sessions run in Amsterdam and online. Its Retreat Guru teacher page lists Barcelona as the next retreat location.
• Approach: Ayahuasca and rapé (hapé) ceremonies combined with “Anima Integrative Breathwork,” live music, yoga, meditation, somatic work and Internal Family Systems content, with preparation and integration sessions over six weeks. Separate one-to-one psilocybin sessions and breathwork with “voice liberation.”
• Suitable For: People who want a music- and breathwork-led ceremony with a small Western team and understand the legal risk. Not suited to anyone who needs medical screening, medical cover, a fixed and named venue, or a track record of reviews.
• Costs: €3,397 or €3,697 for the 2025 Portugal ayahuasca retreat, €1,290 shared or €1,590 private for the April 2026 Costa Rica retreat with all meals, €1,790 for a one-day psilocybin session, €250 to €350 for one-to-one breathwork and €50 to €175 for group breathwork. Retreat Guru described an earlier three-day Portugal psilocybin program at €1,997 to €2,297. Transfers are not mentioned.
• Overall Assessment: A small team with a verifiable record as facilitators at a formerly legal Dutch truffle retreat company and a strong music and breathwork offering, offset by paid supply of ayahuasca and psilocybin where it is illegal or legally contested, no published screening, contraindications, medical staff or emergency plan, no venue, address or legal entity, inconsistent listings, and no independent reviews. Directory evaluation: C-.

💬 What Guests Are Saying

Here is how Anima rates across review platforms in October 2026:

The positive picture. Our earlier profile described a 2025 review crediting Anima Integrative Breathwork with unlocking emotional blocks, guests praising the safe container in psilocybin sessions, voice workshops that helped them release emotion and boosted creativity, accounts thanking the facilitators for their music and presence, and 2024 Instagram posts about grounding sessions. We found none of these on any platform, and they remain unverified.

The negative feedback. No negative reviews were found, because no independent reviews were found at all.

Who is writing the reviews. With no ratings on its booking platform and no independent listings, guests have only Anima’s own descriptions to go on. Retreat Guru, which hosts Anima’s booking site and processes its payments, also mentions it in an editorial FAQ and has a commercial interest. If you have attended, we encourage you to share your experience through our submission form.

🚩 Incident Report

We searched review platforms, English, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian and Spanish-language news and forums for reports involving Anima Institute, Costanza Ayni (also listed as Costanza Di Prisco) and Juan Tepui.

• Deaths and serious injuries: None found.
• Sexual misconduct: No allegations found.
• Theft and crime: No reports found.
• Legal action: No police action or prosecutions found involving Anima or its people.

If you have experienced or witnessed an incident with Anima, please report it confidentially.

🔍 Critical Notes

Paid supply where it is illegal or contested. Portugal decriminalized personal possession of drugs in 2001, but distributing controlled substances such as DMT remains a crime under Decree-Law 15/93, as ICEERS explains; a legal opinion it published argues ayahuasca itself is not explicitly prohibited, so its status is disputed, and Portuguese prosecutors have pursued DMT import cases. In the Netherlands, the Supreme Court confirmed in 2019 that ayahuasca falls under the country’s ban on DMT and rejected a religious-freedom defence, and psilocybin mushrooms have been banned since 2008 (Staatsblad 2008, 486), while “magic truffles” remain legal to sell; Anima describes its Amsterdam psilocybin sessions as using “Magic Mushrooms,” not truffles. In Spain, DMT and psilocybin are controlled and supply can be prosecuted as a public-health offence, as ICEERS explains, and Spanish police have raided several ceremony organizers since 2022, including an 18-arrest operation in January 2024 reported by OCCRP and a retreat in Pedreguer in August 2025 reported by eNCA. Our earlier profile said the Netherlands “permits psilocybin truffles under oversight”; truffles are legal to sell, but there is no oversight regime.

No fixed venue, no company. None of Anima’s pages names a venue, address or legal entity, and the contacts are a support address on anima-institute.com and a Gmail account under an earlier name, “The Anima Experience.” The one-day psilocybin sessions take place at whatever accommodation the client books, with the facilitator travelling to them, which means there is no prepared space, no known hospital route and no second facilitator stated.

Listings that contradict each other. The Portugal retreat is called five days in its title and dates and three days in its body and pricing, and its two price tiers carry the same description. The Costa Rica ayahuasca page also mentions a “psilocybin experience.” The same Portugal event appears as an ayahuasca retreat on Anima’s booking site and as a mushroom-emoji “Ceremony” retreat on the Retreat Guru marketplace, and a Retreat Guru FAQ describes Anima’s Portugal program as psilocybin. Ask exactly which medicine you will be given.

Corrections to our earlier profile. Anima offers ayahuasca and rapé ceremonies as well as psilocybin, so it does not use psilocybin truffles only, and it does use ceremonial practices, including Shipibo techniques the founder says she learned in the Amazon. Prices are public, contrary to our earlier note. Groups are up to 12 guests with two to four facilitators, not 10, and psilocybin sessions are one-to-one. The co-facilitator is named: Juan Tepui. 2026 dates were published, including the April Costa Rica retreat. The Portugal program changed from psilocybin to ayahuasca in 2025. We found no listing for trainings in the Netherlands, only Amsterdam breathwork sessions; the founder’s bio mentions a practitioner training without dates or location. Our earlier profile’s estimate that similar European programs cost €1,500 to €3,000 was our own and is not sourced.

🆘 Screening & Mental Health Risks

Anima’s in-person breathwork session lists an “Intake,” but none of its ayahuasca or psilocybin pages describes a medical questionnaire, a contraindication policy for SSRIs, MAOIs, heart conditions or psychiatric history, medical staff or an emergency protocol. Facilitators may use “physical touch, sound healing, singing,” and no consent policy is published. The Costa Rica page tells guests, “There is no such thing as a ‘bad trip.'” Preparation includes a vegetarian, alcohol-free diet for at least a week before ayahuasca and two preparation and two integration sessions over six weeks. Neither retreat venue is named, so distance to a hospital cannot be assessed. ICEERS notes that ayahuasca’s MAOI component makes combinations with SSRIs and other serotonergic medications contraindicated, and that ayahuasca is contraindicated for people prone to psychosis. Psilocybin also carries risks for people with a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder. Never stop a psychiatric medication to qualify for a retreat without your prescriber’s guidance.

🧪 Brew Substance

Anima does not publish its ayahuasca recipe or who prepares it. Traditional ayahuasca combines the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with a DMT-containing leaf such as chacruna, as Erowid explains. The Portugal retreat included ayahuasca ceremonies, number unstated, and one rapé ceremony; the Costa Rica retreat had one “Therapeutic Healing Ceremony.” The one-day sessions use psilocybin, which Anima describes as “the main psychoactive component found in Magic Mushrooms,” at an unstated dose. No kambo, bufo or San Pedro is offered.

📍 Location, Setting & Style

• Setting: Varies by program: the Algarve’s Mediterranean coast and countryside, an off-grid mountain center in southern Costa Rica with forest walks and a waterfall, and city accommodation for one-day sessions.
• Rooms: Private rooms in Portugal (“all-inclusive”) and shared or private rooms in Costa Rica; no venue details or photos are published.
• Style: Western, therapeutic and music-led, with trademarked breathwork, live flute and other instruments, yoga and Internal Family Systems content, alongside ceremonies framed as “sacred.” Groups are up to 12 with two to four facilitators.

Practical guidance: For the Algarve, fly into Faro; for southern Costa Rica, into San José. Anima’s pages do not mention airport transfers, so confirm transport and the exact venue before booking.

Should You Book?

Anima may appeal if you want a small, music- and breathwork-led ceremony with facilitators who have worked at a well-known Dutch truffle retreat. The trade-offs: paid supply of ayahuasca and psilocybin where it is illegal or contested, no published screening, contraindications, medical staff or emergency plan, no named venue or company, inconsistent listings and no reviews. If you go, get the venue address, the medicine, the screening and medication rules, the emergency plan, the touch and consent policy and the refund terms in writing, and read our guide to verifying retreat facilitators.

The Team & Story

Costanza Ayni describes herself as the founder of Anima Healing Institute and a trauma-informed psychedelic practitioner, breathwork coach, musician and somatic therapist, with training in Bioneuroemotion, meditation, yoga and pranayama in India, a master-plant dieta with Noya Rao and Shipibo techniques; she lists no licence or degree. Her experience is given as “over 12 years” on one page and 15 years, “300+ retreats and psychedelic sessions,” on another. Her Retreat Guru teacher page address uses the name Costanza Di Prisco, and Synthesis listed a Costanza Di Prisco as lead facilitator with the same biography and the same co-facilitator, so they appear to be the same person. Synthesis pages confirm her as lead facilitator from 2023 to at least August 2025, including a 2025 Costa Rica retreat at HOLOS in Pérez Zeledón; Anima’s pages also call her its “Director of Retreats,” a title Synthesis does not use for her. Synthesis Institute’s Dutch company was declared bankrupt in March 2023, according to Lucid News; no source connects her to that. Juan Tepui, a multi-instrumentalist who says he studied bansuri flute with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, was Synthesis’s music facilitator and co-leads Anima’s retreats. We did not independently verify anyone’s credentials.

Prep & Integration Tips

Before you go: Disclose every medication and condition, talk with your own doctor, and do not rely on the retreat to screen you. Follow the pre-retreat diet. After you return: Two integration sessions are included. Arrange support from a qualified therapist at home as well. Our guide on how to research ayahuasca incidents can help you check any center.

Pros & Cons

Book Your Ceremony

Bookings run through Anima’s Retreat Guru-hosted site. Open-date psilocybin and breathwork sessions were listed in October 2026; the latest dated retreat was the April 2026 Costa Rica retreat. The only published refund policy, on the in-person breathwork page, says the deposit is “fully refundable until 1 day prior” and full payment until 30 days prior. Before paying, confirm in writing the venue, the medicine, the screening, the emergency arrangements and the refund terms. Best Retreats does not take bookings; learn more about our mission.

Last reviewed October 2026.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult a qualified medical professional.