79 true stories of hope, healing and breakthrough from veterans, celebrities, CEOs and everyday seekers who journeyed with plant medicine
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESS Newswire / September 29, 2026 / Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and author of The Success Principles, will release Ayahuasca for the Soul on October 1, 2026. The book gathers 79 first-person stories, including four of Canfield's own, from people who sat in plant medicine ceremonies around the world, most of them at Rythmia Life Advancement Center in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, the world's only medically licensed plant medicine retreat.
Canfield built the best-selling book series in publishing history on the same premise, that one person's true story can change a stranger's life. Chicken Soup for the Soul has sold more than 600 million copies in 51 languages and produced more than 40 New York Times bestsellers. He is now applying that format to plant medicine. Canfield has spent more than five decades studying personal transformation, from Arica training and Zen to neuro-linguistic programming, EFT tapping and psychosynthesis, and he says nothing in those five decades compared to what he experienced during his ayahuasca ceremonies.
"Of everything I've ever done that accelerated self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-love and higher consciousness, ayahuasca was by far the most powerful," said Canfield. "People still hold it in this 1960s and '70s psychedelic image. I think it should be much more mainstream than that when it's done correctly, curated, medically supervised, with the right preparation and the right integration work."
The contributors in this book span an unlikely range of lives. Military veterans with treatment-resistant PTSD share pages with Cesar Millan, Iyanla Vanzant, business leaders, parents and first-time journeyers working through trauma, addiction, grief, money and family wounds. Each story follows the arc of hope, experience and breakthrough. The book also includes a chapter on the Rythmia model of medical screening and safety, and a closing chapter on the neurobiology of ayahuasca and how it affects the brain.
"I want people to read a story and go, that's my problem," Canfield said. "I've been to therapy, I've tried things that never worked, maybe I should give this a shot. There is an alternative way to go faster and further than you thought was possible."
Canfield, who now serves on Rythmia's board of directors, says safety was the reason he wrote the book. "I wanted to be a voice for sanity in this world," he said. "If you're thinking of doing this, do it somewhere safe."
The release comes weeks after Rythmia hosted its first veterans-only week, a private retreat closed to the public, held in partnership with The Coming Home Project and documented by Pulitzer Prize-winning Getty Images photographer John Moore. The three veteran stories in Ayahuasca for the Soul come from earlier retreats and describe breakthroughs that traced wartime trauma back to early childhood.
Ayahuasca for the Soul features a foreword by Michael Bernard Beckwith and endorsements from New York Times best-selling authors Anita Moorjani, Dave Asprey and John Gray. The book will be available on Amazon on October 1, 2026, with wider retail availability to follow.
Canfield will mark the launch as a keynote speaker at Asprey's BEYOND Wonderland Conference, a two-day event dedicated to psychedelic science and consciousness technology, held October 13 and 14, 2026 at the Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa in Austin, Texas.
Canfield recently sat down with SPIN to talk about his ayahuasca journey and the stories behind the book. The full conversation is available: Ayahuasca for the Soul Is Chicken Soup for the Psychedelic Age
Canfield is available for interviews now. To schedule, please contact: press@rythmia.com
About Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield, is the author and coauthor of more than two hundred books, including the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which includes 40 New York Times bestsellers and has sold more than 600 million copies in 51 languages around the world.
About Rythmia Life Advancement Center
Rythmia Life Advancement Center is a medically licensed plant medicine retreat located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Since opening in 2016, Rythmia has welcomed more than 24,000 guests from around the world to its all-inclusive seven-day program, which combines ayahuasca ceremonies, medical supervision, breathwork, yoga, integration, and The Answer Is You classes. Learn more at www.rythmia.com.
Media Contact
Jennifer Sodini
Director of PR and Communications, MSV Inc.
press@rythmia.com
SOURCE: Rythmia Life Advancement Center
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/healthcare-and-pharmaceutical/chicken-soup-for-the-soul-co-author-publishes-ayahuasca-for-the-soul-1228512
