Dont jump without a buddy: Iboga shoud be administered by a experienced professional

This blog has so far been dedicated to ibogaine experiences; taken for a number of reasons and mostly the results have spoken volumes in terms of personal progress.

I recently received an email which prompted me to write a little on the topic of taking ibogaine. Most people who have had a psychedelic experience are quick to drop iboga into a similar category and think that it is some thing that can be done solo without complications. I dont want to scare people and possibly there are quite a few who have managed to self medicate successfully.

There are however many things that can go wrong if not properly planned and prepared where you would need assistance due to the side effects; also to get the dose right for your purposes.

Below is an excerpt from an email of someone who went ahead despite advice to the contrary:

you may not remember me but last spring I was trying to find a clinic I could afford using ibogaine, and in the end decided to drive to toronto canada and purchase iboga root and just administer it myself. You advised not.

I did anyway. The buzzing roar in the head at the beginning was unbelievable, completely takes you over, resistance is futile. That said, shortly after that it just stopped and I felt like I had ingested half a hit of blotter or tail end of psilocybin experience.

Two days later i just went cold turkey, dropped from 120mg of methadone a day to nothing. Then I showed up at a treatment center in full blown withdrawal and they admitted me. Anyhow, it has been five months now and I am still clean but the first 70 days were the worst thing I have ever been through physically and mentally. I made it through by maintaining my meditation practice even in the midst of agony.

Thanks for your assistance at that time. It did help. It steeled my resolve to kick this once and for all.

Although in this case things turned out for the better; most people dont have the mettle to see some thing as devastating as methadone withdrawal through to the end cold turkey.
Most people I have treated for opiate withdrawal have even found the side effects of the ibogaine a little difficult.

You need to be prepared; you need to have the right dose and a protocol that suits your specific needs or goals. I cant say this enough times. Ibogaine is not like LSD or Mushrooms; its not some thing you take for a light show and a kick; its serious business.

Even though I have had several experiences taking iboga or ibogaine it does not become easier; I still cant tolerate the bitter taste and cant say I really look forward to the experience its self all that much. Its the after effects that make it all worth the ordeal; for me at least.

Everyone is different and everyone reacts a little differently. Its valuable to have some one on board who can give you advice on taking iboga and it should be taken with assistance.

This is just a short note; I will add a screening process which will determine if you would be a suitable candidate for treatment or not. I hope this has been of some use. thanks and all the best for the coming new year.

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

INCLUSION CRITERIA
1. Subject participation must be voluntary and not coerced.
2. Subject must sign an Informed Consent that indicates and understanding of the risks and benefits of ibogaine administration.
3. Subject must undergo a general medical evaluation by a doctor who will provide a report.
4. Subject must supply a copy of their medical history questionnaire (generally required upon the intake visit to a physician) and a copy of the questionnaire provided by us.
5. Subject must respond to a Beck Depression Inventory questionnaire.
6. Subject must obtain an ECG and report.
7. Subject must sign a form stating that they have not taken any narcotic analgesics, cocaine, amphetamines or alcohol for the last 12 hours before arriving and that they have none of these substances in their possession.
8. Blood tests including:
* albumin: 3.9 to 5.0 mg/dl
* alkaline phosphatase: 44 to 147 IU/L
* ALT (SGPT): 6 to 59 IU/L
* AST (SGOT): 10 to 34 IU/L
* BUN: 7 to 20 mg/dl
* calcium - serum: 8.5 to 10.9 mg/dl
* serum chloride: 101 to 111 mmol/L
* CO2: 20 to 29 mmol/L
* creatinine: 0.8 to 1.4 mg/dl
* direct bilirubin: 0.0 to 0.3 mg/dl
* gamma-GT: 0 to 51 IU/L
* glucose test: 64 to 128 mg/dl
* phosphorus - serum: 2.4 to 4.1 mg/dl
* potassium test: 3.7 to 5.2 mEq/L
* serum sodium: 136 to 144 mEq/L
* total bilirubin: 0.2 to 1.9 mg/dl
* total protein: 6.3 to 7.9 g/dl
* uric acid: 4.1 to 8.8 mg/dl
* RBC (varies with altitude): (male: 4.7 to 6.1 million cells/mcl) (female: 4.2 to 5.4 million cells/mcl)
* WBC 4,500 to 10,000 cells/mcl
* hematocrit (varies with altitude): (male: 40.7 to 50.3 %) (female: 36.1 to 44.3 %)
* hemoglobin (varies with altitude): (male: 13.8 to 17.2 gm/dl) (female: 12.1 to 15.1 gm/dl)
9. Upon subject meeting all other inclusion criteria and not being excluded by exclusion criteria, subject will be administered a 100 mg (total) test dose of ibogaine. Should the subject not have an adverse or atypical response, a full therapeutic dose of ibogaine may be considered. See exclusion criteria #4.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA
In order to begin to address the safety of persons being treated with ibogaine, the following indications should exclude treatment with ibogaine.
1. Patients with a history of active neurological or psychiatric disorders, such as cerebellar dysfunction, psychosis, bipolar illness, major depression, organic brain disease or dementia that requires treatment.
2. Patients who have a Beck Depression Inventory score greater than or equal to twenty-four.
3. Patients requiring concomitant medications that may cause adverse ibogaine/other drug interactions (e.g., anti-epileptic drugs, antidepressants, neuroleptics, etc.)
4. Patients with a history of sensitivity or adverse reactions to the treatment medication.
5. Patients with a history of significant heart disease or a history of myocardial infarction.
6. Patients with blood pressure above 170 mm Hg systolic/105 mm Hg diastolic or below 80 mm Hg systolic/60 mm Hg diastolic or a pulse greater than 120 beats per minute or less than 50 beats per minute.
7. Patients who have a history of hypertension uncontrolled by conventional medical therapy.
8. Patients who have received any drug known to have a well-defined potential for toxicity to a major organ system within the month prior to entering the study.
9. Patients who have clinically significant laboratory values outside the limits thus specified by normal laboratory parameters.
10. Patients who have any disease of the gastrointestinal system, liver or kidneys, or abnormal condition which compromises a function of these systems and could result in a possibility of altered metabolism or excretion of ibogaine will be excluded. As it is not possible to enumerate the many conditions that might impair absorption, metabolism or excretion, the provider should be guided by evidence such as:
A. History of major gastrointestinal tract surgery (e.g., gastrectomy, gastrostomy, bowel resections, etc.) or a history or diagnosis of an active peptic ulcer or chronic disease of the gastrointestinal tract, (e.g. ulcerative )

Michael's ibogaine experience

I. Introduction

I slept this morning. It was a sleep full of uncontrolled dreams. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I said was “I Slept!”, it was that much of an accomplishment for me. I am hungry, haven’t eaten much in five days. And the vertigo. I can still feel the effects of the ibogaine: a sound at the tip of my unconscious, the clear taste in my mouth, the persistent vertigo, as if my energy field were not keeping up with my body movements. (Typing is a bit of a chore.) I smell like onions and need a bath. It is Monday morning; I took ibogaine Saturday afternoon.

This has been quite a trip. It started decades ago, when I first learned of eboga, the plant form, as part of an African rite of passage to adulthood in an Anthropology course. At the time I thought that this is something I needed to do, that is to undergo some initiation ritual to become an adult. I didn’t pursue it then. Ibogaine has since become known in the underground heroin world for its remarkable ability to interrupt the addictive response. This is where I learned most of my information about it. It has been summarily declared illegal by a decades-old corrupt lying drug-smuggling hypocritical United States governmental crime regime, though thankfully it is perfectly legal in most other countries. Ironically, the criteria the US has for illegalizing ibogaine are that it has no medical or intrinsic value, is addictive, and is dangerous. Only the last criterion is true. It has also shown effect on long-term psychological blocks. That was my excuse for pursuing ibogaine.

I am an avowed spiritual tourist and occasional psychonaut, though not a very practiced one. I had heard that ibogaine is the trip of a lifetime, and I wanted to give it a whirl. I thought I was desperate. After experiencing ibogaine I can promise you that it is no toy, not at all. I went into this experience with the intention for life-review and self-directed change. Instead, much more happened. I don’t know how to place the experience; it will take some more time to digest.

II. Pre-experience trials

After the decision was made to take ibogaine, it was a bit of a torturous path to procure it. I made the decision, decided it was now or never, sold some investment gold, and joined an ibogaine group email thingy. The people on the list were generally very patient with me. I contacted a church in Slovenia, the Sacrament of transition; who helped me acquire what was needed.

By all accounts I was in need of a sitter, someone to watch over me during the experience. About a month later I finally convinced my wife to take on this role. As a clinical psychologist, she was skeptical of its psychological effects, and concerned about safety, mostly. I had to figure out how to take it. It came in the form of dusty light-weight white powder, almost ephemeral, 98% pure ibogaine hydrochloride. I bought a mechanical scale that can measure to thousandths of a gram, and when that wasn’t accurate enough, an electronic one of similar caliper. I decided to take it as a suppository in two doses, .97g and .375g. Making a proper suppository can be quite a chore. I finally mixed the ibogaine hydrochloride powder into frozen coconut oil, and then stuffed this into some gel capsules. My wife watched with some amusement as I spent an evening trying various ways to prepare it.

(The vertigo is still pretty disruptive; I feel as if I am floating out of my body again, so lightly do I float. I focused on the ceiling with my eyes closed, looking at the patterns in the stucco, and then opened my eyes and saw the ceiling as eight feet above from my head. It is disconcerting to write in this state.)

At about the same time I ceased my one addiction, Dr. Pepper. I wanted to go into this experience with pure intention, and I felt that caffeine addiction would be a hamperence. I started taking a vitamin horse pill, eating abit less, and going for somewhat strenuous walks, subsequently losing about eight pounds. Another month or so went by. Then a few days before the experience I started fasting in earnest, drinking a cleansing admixture several times daily that proved effective enough.

Impromptu cleansing drink recipe
2 cups carrot juice
1+ tablespoon powdered green drink
2-4 grams MSM
1-2 grams oral calcium EDTA
2-5 grams of L-glutamine
2 grams of powdered milk thistle seed

I also made a one-time saltwater concoction from some dried herbs lying around the kitchen that almost caused me to purge. Thankfully, I survived that.

Do Not Try This At Home
saltwater
a judicious handful of basil
some echinacea augustifolia
a handful of nettles
some ginkgo biloba
a palms worth of chaparral
triphala powder
and a bunch of lavender flowers and catnip for fun

Additionally I started drinking up to 5 grams of straight ascorbic acid in water to flush out my system, and in conjunction took enemas until my stool was relatively clear water.

Suffice it to say that by the time it came time for the experience, I was already in an altered state of being. However, the weekend slated for this experience just never quite manifested. Things came up, dinner parties, shopping; there just wasn’t time for a life-altering experience. I decided that this wasn’t the appropriate way to approach ibogaine, and put it away, perhaps to keep as a trophy of sorts - never tried, but always available to me. The empty residual ibogaine packaging sat on my desk as a constant reminder of what I wanted to do. About a month later I approached my wife with the idea again, and we scheduled a weekend. I think she was ready just to get my silly obsession done and over with. I prepared myself in the same manner as before. I ate half an avocado for strength the day before taking it.

III. The initial experience

Saturday afternoon, about 5 p.m. I downed a couple of Dramamine for nausea, then waited an hour. At 6:15 I pulled the gel capsules out of the freezer. I was somewhat hesitant, toying with the idea of backing out at this late hour, but pushed through that. I removed the make-shift suppositories from their gel caps and stuffed .97g up my arse, a mildly messy proposition, and laid down on my ceremonial bed and waited remarkably patiently. I had converted our home-office into a meditation chamber. Three layers of blankets were hung over the windows in order to get the room dark enough, and towels covered light gaps in the main doorway. Furniture was moved around for safety, and a large crawlway leading to the adjacent bathroom was kept free of clutter. I had a large stainless-steel barf-bowl handy, my water bottle, a hand mirror, and a small red lava lamp all arranged within easy reach on the floor. I also had music available, but it seemed to be antithetical to my truly self-inquiring spiritual yearnings.

I think the first effect of the ibogaine was a simple reflection. Lying on my bed, trying not to move about for fear of nausea, I decided my arrangement of floor articles would make an appropriate painting: “Still Life with Ibogaine”. After about two hours of lying like that I became concerned that I was feeling the full effects of the drug already, and it simply was not having much of an effect, reasoning that because of my fast perhaps my colon had ceased to absorb things very quickly leading me to metabolize the ibogaine into nor-ibogaine before it really affected me. I got up and walked downstairs to discuss this with my wife. There was some slight vertigo and no nausea present. So I pulled my remaining .375g gel caps out of the freezer, swallowed them and waited some more.

About 9:30 p.m. it started to kick in. My goodness, the buzz was a clear feeling, very clear. I could hear a sound, similar to my ever-present tinnitus but at a different pitch, kind of an electric buzzing, but not unpleasant. The effects came on so slowly and smoothly, not like other spiritual drugs I have tried. The predictability of the effect was a huge relief. Occasional nausea was only minimal, usually related to movement. My wife came into the room and asked if I was bored, and we struck up a heartfelt conversation for about three hours, myself doing most of the talking. I described to her the effects of my experience, and decided to lighten up and just say openly and honestly whatever came across my mind. The nearest feeling I had previously experienced in college was not with LSD, sacred Peyote, or shrooms, but with a really good sativa high, only about a thousand times stronger and more clear. There was zero diminution in my cognitive faculties, and I was insightful, although I did have a hard time articulating at times.

(Most of Monday has passed with me documenting this experience, and yet, now almost 48 hours since I first took it, I can feel its pleasant buzz coming back to me, not as a memory, but here and now. Writing is a challenge.)

It seemed to me as I talked with my wife, she mostly listening, that she was previously unaware of my inner workings, how I thought about things that I thought were obvious. I talked about mostly positive things, oddly enough. I had expected this to be a life review clearing out all the negative things that had happened to me, but instead I found that with ibogaine I emphasized the positive. In fact that was one of the aphorisms I deduced: “Emphasize the positive!”, this being something I decided I needed to do in my life.

I talked about my fear of being publicly recognized as respectable, wise, or knowledgeable, which had happened on some occasions: my reluctant messiah complex. I was presented with two pictures of myself in adjacent frames. On one side was me, underneath was written ‘Michael’, while the other frame presented an older me, a white haired man, underneath was written ‘Our Savior’. This latter picture was about half-way covered up by something. I am still trying to figure out the purpose behind that image. I thought I could use this time to update my own self-created Religion of Love, which I started to write publicly about almost a decade ago, but stopped when I was threatened with physical harm (our tax dollars at work.)

I talked of good friends and good times, again not what I was expecting, but I was going with the flow of the experience. I tried peering into my hand mirror, but found no immediate insights there. Now, having almost completely metabolized the ibogaine, I think the mirror is an interesting tool. I reached out to my wife alot, holding her hand or just touching her. I could feel the love we shared, and it helped our time together just simply talking. A couple of times she gently rubbed my body, which felt really, really nice. I so appreciated her presence.

At one point I was talking about who I was, and what past lives I might have had. I asked within myself how many lives I had lived on earth, and received a visual answer. I saw a lineup of three adult lives, one child life, and two or three short or aborted lives as babies. The adults were all handsome males, strong looking, each with its own strong personality. They were from several different races: the first one looked Italian, the second looked Indian, and the most recent one looked German. I opened my eyes and excitedly exclaimed “I am a new soul!” When my wife looked at me skeptically, I added, “Or at least new to this Earth.” I was so happy to finally know this about myself.

I was thirsty at times, but drank only sips. My body was nervous most of the time. At one point my whole being shook uncontrollably for several seconds as energy patterns shifted around. It felt similar to some previous meditation-derived kundalini experiences. The red light from the lava lamp was a quiet distraction in conversational lulls. As the experience progressed I started explaining my insights in terms of thoughtfields, drifting into and back out of my much anticipated proverbial ‘dream-like state’. By 12:30 the ibogaine was going pretty much full force, and my wife turned off the lava lamp and crawled into my bed beside me. I could somehow see her intention field around her in the darkness. I spoke at about fifteen minutes intervals with some new piece of information about myself or some interesting thought, and she sometimes responded.

IV. Going within

I was going deep within, meditating, searching for the root of my block in life, the one prevents me from doing the things that I want to do. At one point I felt overwhelmed with the ibogaine, feeling that it could potentially kill me. I mentally appealed to Jesus and Sathya Sai Baba, my gurus, for guidance. I heard Baba/myself’s voice in my head quite clearly say “You are on your own path now”. I understood the meaning to be two-fold:
1.) that I am adult now who is self-directed and self-responsible, and
2.) that Sai Baba’s reality line was somewhat different from the one that I was currently experiencing.
The upshot of this was that I determined to maneuver my way through this realm carefully. I took my own mantra to heart (Love is the way) and followed my sense of divine love as my inner guide. The presence of my wife beside me only slightly impacted this sense. Mostly I was using a meditative sense honed with many years of soul searching, mantras, chanting, etc.

As I went deeper into myself I found myself in another completely different realm. I lost the use of my five senses, and felt the need to somehow orient myself spatially. Through me, a disembodied voice uttered “Use your sense of imagination to see”. In thoughtful reflection, my wife repeated the command, which I then heard and repeated. It was an awesome insight for me. I could see around me by peering into my sense of imagination. Initially I saw residual images from my waking life, but slowly these dissipated as I peered into the haze of my own imagination. I saw disembodied spirit balls, and thought of Michael Newton’s books, and this, no doubt, influenced how I perceived. I was floating as a light ball in heaven. I had had an NDE as teenager, but this was different: my vision was neither as clear nor as accurate, and I was intent upon staying clear, seeing things as they were presented to me, with little influence from my own mind.

I saw myself as a small ball of light drunkenly rolling around a hazy heavenly landscape. There were large spirits, seen as balls of light, all around me doing various things. They were perhaps 20 or 30 times as tall as I was. They seemed to be tolerant of me, kindly thinking of me as child playing at their feet, as someone to watch over. They seemed to be powerful and wise beyond measure. I was embarrassed at how I drunkenly navigated my way about the landscape, thinking that this was a pretty poor presentation of myself in heaven, but no one else seemed to give my embarrassment much attention.

But I was determined that this would not just be a pleasure cruise. I focused myself again, looking into the heart of myself for the root of my own internal blocks. Some spirits got in my face and shouted at me, saying to the effect of “Pay attention!” and “Watch out!” I looked about myself and realized that I was in front of the gates of heaven, beyond which there was no return. I resolved not to go through the gate, and then returned to self-inquiry looking for the root of my block, when again some spirits jolted me out of my meditational trespass. My body was sweating profusely at this time, and my wife soaked a towel just drying me off.

Using my imaginative sense, I was amused by how I perceived heaven’s gate. It was a well worn dirt path through a rickety wooden gate. The associated fence line was made of rusted old wire. There was an oak tree just on the other side of the gate, and the landscape reminded me of both the Edwards Plateau in Texas, and the Tuscany region of Italy. There were a couple of hand-painted signs on wooden shingles with malleable words written on to the effect of “Michael, stop, you can’t go past this gate or you will die”. I decided that it was thoughtful of these spirits to produce a sign for me. One spirit sat on an old wooden stool at the entrance to this deeper level of heaven, peacefully watching me. Although I felt free to move deeper into heaven if I chose, I decided I was not yet ready to die. I had been deeply suicidal since my mid-twenties, but no longer do I follow this intention, and now that I have faced this choice so directly in this experience, I feel more at peace with myself.

Anyway, onward through the fog: with the gate of heaven in front of me, I turned right and lazily floated down the fence line. I passed another couple of gates, and always they were attractive to me. Oh, the heaven-scent loving vibe was so very attractive. Spirits were posted at these junctures who warned me away. I was intent upon looking for the source of my own internal block. It feels like a dark spike in my energy field, immovable and deeply rooted, and I imagined it as a tall black column of stone hundreds of feet high jutting out in a beautiful valley surrounded by a range of majestic mountains, somewhere beyond this fence line I could not cross. Again I was faced with a decision, to address this aspect of myself and risk that the heavenly fence line was an imagining of my own making, or to respect the imaginary reflection of what I saw and act more prudently. I exclaimed to myself “I do not want to die”, and let go of my endeavor to face myself so deeply.

After this I was mostly a heavenly tourist, pleasantly but somewhat drunkenly lollygagging around in a directionless manner. At one point I was confronted with another spirit, a serious one, who asked me if I really wanted to change. I thought about it, and for just an instant vacillated. Immediately the experience of heaven ceased.

V. Post-heavenly meanderings

After this heavenly experience, everything else seemed extraneous. I decided that I had taken an unnecessary amount of ibogaine; ibo overkill. The drug is only a potentiator. It is neither bad nor good, but an extremely clear psychic tool to be used in any direction. I had gravitated towards the spiritual realms because that was where my sense of divine love and selfdom led me. In total, the full dosage I took was approximately 1.3g. Were I to take it again, I would take perhaps half or two-thirds of what I did, and still expect to meditate myself to death if I so chose. Anyway, I had dropped out of the heavenly realm somehow, and although I contemplated trying to get back into it, I decided that I had had enough for now. Still however, the ibogaine buzz was strongly ringing, I was seeing a raging storm of images, and I knew I had many hours of this to go.

By the time my heavenly experience was over it was about 2 a.m. and my wife was solidly asleep. When I looked with my eyes I could see the room clearly enough, then I would open my eyelids and realize that the room was completely dark. This happened many times and always was fascinating. I kept seeing reflections of light around the room, and when I would look for the source of the light, invariably I found it in my own heart: the heart area of my chest seemed to be glowing, at times rather brightly. This sense of vision has stayed with me even today. I don’t know if I will be able to perceive in this manner as I go back to sleep tonight.

I thought about various things that had bothered me in my life, trying to clear them from my personality. A woman I fell in love with in college was in the recesses of my mind, and I still sensed the ties that we share. I attempted to cut those ties, but sensed that she would be hurt by this, so I let it be. We will meet again somewhere, no doubt, and figure out how to mend our hearts then. Various other personages and happenings were examined, and for the most part dealt with. I spent a fair amount of time attempting to rewrite my personality to some degree.

However, I could only do so much. I grew weary, and wanted to sleep. I imagined an opaque blue screen that came down in front of my eyes to block the persistent wild visions of all sorts of things. It had such a calming effect that I was able to catch a series of cat-naps each about fifteen minutes long, with part of my mind maintaining this screen. I slept like this until perhaps 6 a.m.

VI. Sunday morning

Yesterday morning is only vaguely recollected. I was pretty tired. When I awoke for the last time, and shifted gears into a more waking state, I was surprised that I retained some of the visual capabilities of the previous night. It was still completely dark in the room, yet I could still see with my eyes through my eyelids. I still saw reflections from the glowing light in my chest quite clearly, which brought me amazement and a slightly cocky joy. It was as if I had proof that I knew how to emanate true divine love.

At another point I grew curious about the limits of the reality I was experiencing, I absentmindedly dug a hole in it with mind and found myself looking back into heaven. I decided not to go thru my hole and back in, for I didn’t know if I would expire from crossing barrier. While I was looking into this hole, someone came and filled it with a mirror, reflecting back at me my own face peering into this hole into heaven. At about that time my wife started waking up, so I again shifted gears to better relate to her.

My wife slowly woke up with the dawn barely glowing through the window. I had to pee, so once she had showered and what-not, we got me to crawl towards the bathroom. I asked her to turn on the lights to help bring me back to the consensual world. Moving my body created occasional nausea, but nothing more than a few small gastric burps. The whole process of movement was almost a new thing for me. In some ways I felt I had to relearn how to move. The vertigo seemed to result from my energetic body moving more fluidly than my physical body. I found it interesting to try to keep my body and my energies aligned. I think it took about two minutes to crawl twenty feet and prop myself up on the toilet. I was too outa wack to be embarrassed by the need for help. The slow flow of my piddle took about a minute, indicating to me that my kidneys were impacted somehow, hopefully not overly stressed.

Once back in my bed I rested for awhile, calming my stomach back down, and falling back into occasional trance. I spent about half the day lying in my ceremonial bed drifting in and out of dreams, and cogitating on improving myself. I didn’t understand why I had vacillated when asked if I really wanted to change. I attempted to recreate the situation at a less deep level, and to offer myself openly to the being, saying “search me, and see where I may not want to change, that I can address this”.

At another point I noticed some colored lights, and followed them into a tunnel. I followed then tunnel for awhile, traversing great distance at high speed. At the end of the tunnel was a completely new and open-ended universe, free of any stars. I drifted from the tunnel’s edge into the darkness, expanding my awareness and feeling no limits. When I turned around to find my way back the tunnels entrance, and return myself to this world, the tunnel was starting to disappear. I opened eyes then, and was back in the room.

I also went to other places. I felt no fear in my travels, but I attempted to be cautious.

VII. End of the main experience

Around noon my wife invited me downstairs to hang out in the living room. The offer was tempting. I craved new experiences, and felt that I had worked through my inner psyche as much as I was gonna. So she helped me to stand up. I was still having a hard time figuring out which way whence gravity, so I put myself in a supra-conscious state and navigated my body quickly and easily around displaced furniture, through several rooms, down a flight of stairs and plopped myself on the couch. I relaxed my control of my consciousness as I fell onto the couch which resulted in a rather strange feeling of falling with a soft landing. It was like several of my bodies were falling at the same time, connected but not necessarily in sync.

I spent much of yesterday attempting to release my ties to the various events of the past. I would develop a visualization of them, and then release them in appropriate ways. I lay on the couch until the evening. I talked more with my wife, who was still patiently interested in what I had to say. Mostly I talked about my life. She took some notes - she is good about that sorta thing. By the evening I was able to sit up and then to slowly walk upstairs, back to bed. I hoped that I would sleep. I think I fell asleep after midnight or so.

VIII. Post experience musings

Circuitously, this leads me back to the point of documenting my ibo experience in this letter. Typing it has taken me all day. I have not included everything I remember, and much more happened than I remember. It about 11:30 Monday evening now. I am tired of typing and would like to eat something more than just another avocado, but I do relish the clear taste in my mouth, my saliva tastes something like distilled water to me, and I want to get this documented before I forget anymore.

Snippets of what I experienced have come back to me yesterday and today. For instance, I woke this morning deeply impressed with what I had experienced, and how close I had come to death. Ibogaine is no toy, not at all. If you are just a spiritual tourist, don’t consider using higher doses of ibogaine. It is a strong medicine, and it should be used with a strong sense of purpose. There are other less dangerous medicines that can be used to explore the spiritual landscape, for instance, mescaline is a wonderful and gentle plant teacher, well understood by the NAC. Additionally, the internal knowledge gained from many years of meditation was fundamental in guiding me. Although I can clearly describe the things I experienced, it would have served me naught had I not had a strong reason to use the experience. As it was, my reason was not strong and focused enough. That said, I feel I gained genuine gifts from the experience, if I can put the things I learned into practice. Another for instance, sometime early in the experience, perhaps drifting in and out of heaven, Someone was helping me remove some unnecessary armoring, which has helped my demeanor, methinks.

I learned many things from this experience.

1.) I learned that I needed to do things, not to just think about doing them. I seem to have come from a place where it is easy to manifest things just by thinking about them. The process of developing things is abit more difficult for me, but it is something upon which I should focus.
2.) I learned again not to lie. Never misrepresent the truth, not even in jest. It confuses the thoughtfields, making our understanding of reality that much less clear, serving no one.
3.) I learned of the effect of self-criticism, and the importance of staying positive.
4.) I learned that I need to be easier with myself, more self-forgiving.
5.) I was again impressed with the importance of self-discipline, self-responsibility, self-reliability.
6.) I learned that I truly love my wife.

Finally, one last comment that I have been holding out until the end of this document. At some point early on in this experience, when was still holding audience with my wife, I realized that I have a fastidious soul purposefully coupled to a lacksidasical personality. I blurted this out to her, and then reflected that the descriptors were provided by my soul. After much contemplation yesterday, I made the association between my energy field’s dark spike, immovable, critical, and unforgiving, and the fastidiousness of my soul. Perhaps this ibogaine experience wasn’t so fruitless after all.

IX. Epilogue

Well, it is almost time for bed now, so I am gonna close this doc out. Finis. I hope that this has provided you with some insight into the power of ibogaine. I went into the experience expecting something completely different from what I got. I had read extensively about what other people had experienced, and expected something similar. Instead I learned the inclinations of my own soul.

Even now, when I turn my head, vertigo. Maybe it’ll wear off by the morning… So, there it is, then.

Group therapy

We did have a group type situation recently with regard to a low dose protocol of iboga.I wanted to continue with the presentation I gave in Cape Town and allow people to experience iboga in a safe way. The group consisted of just over ten people and took place in Pretoria in an informal private setting.

There were several people who had some quite in depth and profound experiences but the general outcome was that I feel its better to deal with people on a one to one basis when it comes to therapy. The reason for this is so that the person can be met on the level they are willing to work on and can be assisted in achieving their own personal goals without conforming to a pre-set standard. This goes hand in hand with the concept that there is no one size fits all policy and that everything should be dealt with on a personal and individual level.

In future I think we will reserve groups for information purposes only and then from there the individual can choose if and how they wish to proceed.

So although I do believe there is always benefit from a low dose protocol of iboga; it still needs to be done with the individual in mind and so limit groups to helping people to understand iboga and how it may apply to them.

While on the topic; if there are any interested parties in attending or organising a presentation and Q&A to do with iboga please feel free to email me. I will then let you know of upcoming events or other areas of interest. Alternately if there are people interested in organising a small group of plus minus 10 people I would be happy to share what I can and wont charge for this as long as my expenses are seen to.

Thanking those with continued interest and support;

Simon Loxton
treatment@iboga.co.za

Iboga and psychothearpy: An account

Pre Treatment Application
I am seeking detoxification of alcohol and the cocktail of drugs that happen to be around me when I am intoxicated. Alcohol is the catalyst for all of the foul play that takes place in the story of my life. I wouldn’t say that I am an alcoholic but once I start, it is difficult to stop. You could call me a binge drinker, I guess. I feel that the constant preoccupation with alcohol is stopping me from doing the things that I truly need to be doing. I feel like I have bigger fish to fry and I want to grow myself better.
My Ibogaine Experience

I took the 17 mg/kg of Ibogaine HCL in a series of 4 doses, half an hour apart. By the third dose, I felt as if I was getting high from ecstasy. My speech was slower and my voice went up an octave. I was also super light on my wobbly feet. By the fourth dose, I was trailing off with my conversations and was confused with what I was talking about as I began to speak. At this point, the nurse advised me to go to my room and lie down. As I lay in the bed, my hearing became magnified. When I touched anything, tin-like sounds echoed. The sounds were reminiscent of racquetballs in a racquetball court. I could also hear my pulse pounding through my head and body. It was like musical beats rummaging around the room. The sound of the fridge’s motor was bassy and provided an interesting eerie backdrop to the pulsating beats in my head. I looked up toward the ceiling and a light stared down into my eyes. Suddenly golden snowflakes started falling down on me. I felt them cool on cheeks. This was pretty cool but strange. I looked around the room to align myself with reality and was confirmed with my whereabouts. And then the spirits started to show up. A wolf dog approached me. The detail was amazing. I could see right into his eyes and his breathing was as if he was alive and well out of breath. To the right of him was a small square tunnel opening which led to open space. Like NASA space. The lights were green instead of white. I went into the tunnel and started moving very fast through the tunnel. It was almost as if I was in a space ship. I started going faster and faster and it got to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore and then suddenly I landed in a very trippy but detailed scene. I was with my girlfriend and we were so happy and laughing and having a gay old time until my point of view stretched out a bit. Suddenly, we transformed into femo (brightly coloured clay) and began mimicking our real life actions. We were exact replicas of ourselves. The objects in our lives were all replicas made of super detailed femo. As I drew further back, I noticed that we were in a smaller part of a larger picture that was in a larger village of a bigger picture. The details were so cool. I then opened a door in one of the rooms and ended up with my eyes open and staring at the wall in my room. There was a shadow that resembled a film strip and pictures started moving down the wall like a film strip on a reel. There were so many pictures of faces and scenes. I watched them roll down the wall until I realized that I could stop on any of the pictures and either pull them out toward me or I could transfer myself into that particular picture. It was pretty weird. I saw a few scary faces with mean eyes along with smoke and fire around them. I also saw some non detailed rape scenes. I simply blinked them away and they would disappear. They almost seemed like they were the stereotypical fears that you would think of when you thought of fear. It was scary faces with fire and horrible things happening to innocent people.

When I had my eyes open, I looked to my right and I saw my girlfriend’s face. It was as if she was sleeping right next to me. I was so happy to see her as a spirit. She smiled and asked me if I was okay and that she was going to be there the entire time. So anytime throughout my experience I could look to my right on a specific angle, and Amy would be there. My mom was also just a little behind her to watch over me as well. A few times my dad began presenting himself as a spirit but I did not want to see or deal with him. My dad and I are such opposites and we often butt heads. I don’t really like him very much. I blinked him away every chance I got. Toward the end of the treatment, I let him remain as a spirit and he appeared right in front of my face. I barked at him and then he skittishly retreated to a set of steps behind him. He held his baby finger and began whining and weeping like a little child. It was weird. I had always known him to be childish and immature but I actually saw him fully grown but as a child. I felt kind of sorry for him and thought of him as kind of sad and pathetic. And then he was gone and never returned.

The weirdest part was opening and closing my eyes. When my eyes were open, I could see spirits of faces in and out of my life. When I would shut my eyes, they would open again but my eyes were still shut. It was when my eyes were shut; I went to different imaginary worlds. At one point I was in an old rickety boat with a Philipino man and he was telling me stories without speaking to me. He was teaching me about things that I am unsure of. I was getting so much out of our journey at the time but now looking back I have no idea what it was all about. It was like spiritual lessons that can’t be explained or quantified or even made sense of. At one point, he opened up his picnic basket and I went into the basket and transformed into a whole new different world. It was so neat. At one point I was in what seemed like old Paris. There were such vivid and lovely detail of cobble stone streets and random old city life. It was like a Tim Burton movie but 100 times better. There was more than just detail. There were feelings and emotions and heavy nostalgia. I couldn’t get enough of it. And then at a certain point, the visions and scenes would transform into the previous vision and then to the vision before that and then the one before that and so on. They would attach themselves to the vision prior and then flush down some subway-like tunnel and off and away from me. The next night, I realized that this flushing away scenario was caused by the cars driving on the highway throughout the night. Anytime a car would drive by, my visions connected themselves with the previous visions and then they would take off on some tunnel. In retrospect, this was kind of annoying because I could have probably spent much more time in my weird little worlds instead of them getting flushed away. Such is life, I guess.

My favourite part was when I saw myself in terms of what I could be. I have always been pretty hard on myself. I have been pretty deprecating when I look at myself in the mirror. I used to get irritated with all of my random thoughts as well. Anyhow, at one point I was looking at the wall and noticed a heater by the bed and a guy walked in wearing soccer cleats, shin pads and shorts with no top on. He had a nice athletic body and was wearing a t shirt on his head because he had just been playing soccer in sun. I looked at him and smiled and he smiled back. I remember thinking to myself about how he was such a nice looking fellow and overall cute guy. And that is when I realized that he was me. He was me if I was healthy and happy and being completely me. It was so neat. He smiled and pointed at me and then left. I got tears in my eyes at that point. Later on in the treatment, a spirit of myself came toward my face and it was not a normal mirror reflection of myself, it was me staring at me. I put my hand near my spirit face and smiled and it smiled back at me. It was quite a nice moment.

When my eyes were closed I had almost a dashboard viewing station of my brain. I had a few tunnel openings that led to different parts and aspects of images and scenes. I also had a gauge that showed new formulas on a conveyor belt going into my brain and old formulas coming out.

I could also create objects in my head. They would appear in full weight accompanied with their overall tangible properties. At one point I was holding a pink vase and I was unsure how it got in my hand. I thought that the nurse put it in there. I was looking somewhere else and when I went to look back at it, the vase had disappeared. After that I thought of an orchid and suddenly an orchid appeared to the top right of me. I picked it up and swayed it back in forth in my hand. I could even bend the stem. It was fucked. I then chucked it to the corner and it floated away.

By the end of my journey I was super tired and asked the nurse to give me some Gravols to allow me to go to sleep. Oh and in the middle of the treatment, I puked twice. It wasn’t so bad at all.

When I woke up the next day and after a bunch of thought, I realized a few things that had occurred the night before. For starters, my brain was pretty sore. It felt like it had been heavily worked out. I could feel it throbbing but in a good healthy way. For my entire trip, it was as if there was some presence that was supporting me throughout. I was always in complete and utter control but there was a sense of presence that guided me through my head. I felt really thankful and excited after. I felt like Iboga was trying to show me that if I was my true genuine self, the opportunities of the world would be completely endless. As long as I can be myself and not numb my thoughts and ideas with drugs and alcohol and anything else that takes me out of my present moment, I will be happy. I can live a life so full of imagination and trippy alternate universes and anything else my mind will allow. The Iboga taught me the things that I desired to learn via the most interesting medium possible. The neatest part of the experience is the fact that all of the imagery and beautiful settings and everlasting emotion were all concocted in my head.

Since the treatment, I have not had a desire to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Usually if someone is drinking or smoking around me, I will want to indulge but as of yet, I have not a drop of desire. I don’t want to make a sweeping statement and swear off drugs and alcohol because I would hate to set myself up for failure. I just feel like I deserve to give myself a chance. And I feel happy.

ZK

Plants as teachers; an ibogaine report

Ibogaine Report

The first time I found out about ibogaine was during initiations of ayahuasca, san pedro, salvia and marijuana. I took part in these initiations for spiritual enrichment as I had been suffering from an eating disorder for many years and could not get to the bottom of the problem and I knew if I did not get to the bottom of it it will be very hard to stop the destructive patterns which did not only manifest in this way but in many other ways. With my first experience of the medicine plants I knew that the knowledge and information contained within these plants can definitely help me.

My experience of addiction was a tough one as I am sure most people’s are. It closed my heart chakra and through the continuous stress, anxiety, hopelessness, fear and self torture a part of me died. I could not feel anymore, my heart had closed. I was very far gone. When I look back now I see that I have come a far way from the hell that I was in for many years. I know that if I was not guided to the medicine plants that was created by our Creator, I would not have the insights and understanding that I have now because part of the cause was lack of information and understanding which I could not find and did not have access to.

For me the medicine plants are not an escape or magic pill but a very special and sacred tool given to us. In my search for a “cure” for my illness I tried many different things, psychologists, anti-depressants, the 12-step program, meditation, yoga, hypnosis and many other healing therapies. Yes these did help me to a certain extent but because I was so deep into this vicious cycle it was not strong enough to lift me out of that space for long enough and it gave me certain insights but never deep enough to stand against my addiction and confused mental state.

I have found that my problems started from the day one when I entered Earth. I was born into a society that had lost very important teachings and knowledge about Life and about our purpose here and in my family many of the right principles that was set out by our Creator was not respected or even understood properly and thus the wisdom and teachings lost. My life without the right teachings and principles created uncertainty and fear on a sub-conscious level and this only became clear when the problems started taking form. Then came all the traumas…my parents got divorced and so the emotional wounds multiplied and never got resolved because the way in which the world I lived in dealt with emotional and spiritual issues was so far from reality. I lived in a crazy world…it was a complete delusions and confusion and my mind was being programmed with something that was not the Truth and would lead me to a very dark place…hell.

When I look back at my life I still see myself blessed in many ways because I was brought up on a farm and my Mother and Father still had many understandings of the truth which they lived by and taught me. For this I am forever grateful as it kept hope alive in me to keep searching and never to give up until I find my way back.

Unfortunately because it was only part of the truth mixed with unrighteousness and lies it sent me straight into confusion. This is why it is so important that the right teachings are established on this Earth. My heart goes out to other children and people who have even less than I had…I can only imagine where they must be.

This is where the plants came in, it contains teachings and information and contains the Truth about Life…even marijuana which I worked with intensely for 1.5 years taught me so much. Marijuana I find is a very tough plant to work with as it shows you yourself clearly, with all your faults. For me it was a tough experience as I have not used ibogaine and was extremely hard and judgmental towards myself and others. Now that I have been initiated into ibogaine my heart chakra has opened again and I have more compassion towards myself and others. This is very important.

I think that it is impossible to face your shadow and heal your past if you do not have compassion and love reinstated into your life.

One of the teachings which I received through the ibogaine was that there is a certain Order in the Universe, which is Love and it must be respected and understood. We are suppose to be shown and taught this from our Parents but if they do not understand it or live by it then we as children will not understand it…let alone know how to live by it. I have found that without the understanding of the Order of the Universe I did not know how to deal with my own emotions in a healthy way and I did not feel safe in the world. This caused me to hold on to emotions which caused extreme anxiety and ultimately influenced my relationship with others. I felt cut off from the world around me and this again caused great sadness in me. The most important part of being human is to have a relationship with the world around us and to feel connected and as One.

So there was a void in me because my heart was blocked and at a very young age I started to try and fill it with other actions and things which made me feel better…unfortunately these things that I used was destructive habits and turned into full blown addictions. The actions and things I used were not good and it made me feel guilty and I was too full of pride and shame to speak about it. It is such a vicious and destructive cycle because the false programming was being reinforced in my brain, i.e. I am a bad person, the world is unsafe, I am not good enough, nobody likes or loves me, I can’t trust anyone etc. Of course this was not true but I started to believe it and accepted it. I nearly killed myself believing these lies.

When I took ibogaine for the first time in small dosages I cried a lot, my anxiety levels lowered and it helped me to stand up for myself in an abusive relationship which I was not able to do for 1.5 years. It also showed me that the Spirit of the Most High and of the Universe from which I was feeling cut off was in me too and that I was not separate from it. This was a big experience for me as I felt it very clearly. So I developed more love and compassion towards myself and I understood for the first time what my friends were telling me about the fact that I had to get out of this relationship. I was holding on to this relationship with all my might because I connected it with the love of my Father. When I took the ibogaine it showed me this clearly and enabled me to feel the sadness and hurt that I suppressed for so long. This is when I accepted that I must let go and I did even after believing for a long time I would never be able to! I knew then that this was a very special plant.

My next session was a much larger dose of the root bark and the first teaching was where I saw myself at a young age and I saw my Mother and Father and I was shown how important they are to me and that they loved me no matter what they did. I thought that my Father did not love me because of all the hurtful things he did to our family. Now I know my Parents do love me and that their Love can never fade. I started to feel safe again and started to open up and trust people again. It was an amazing journey and worked a lot on fear and anxiety that was based on false belief systems. It basically showed me the Truth in a very real and fantastic way so that when I came out of the journey I knew the Truth and could start fighting the false beliefs and thoughts.

My destructive habit patterns decreased significantly and my relationships started healing. I felt a deep connection with the world around me that I had not felt in years. It was amazing…as if I stepped out of hell for the first time. Now I was given the Truth as a tool to use but I wanted things to be and stay right and perfect and started to stress again thinking it did not work. I opened up to my family for the first time about what was going on in my life and this in itself was extraordinary as I was very much full of pride and shame and could never do this. So it did work! I just could not see it.

My next session was where I took the hydrochloride extract which was a higher dose but much lighter on my body. I thought that the same issues would come up because I still had problems. I was very surprised that the issues from the previous journey did not come up and I saw and understood that it was dealt with and I can let go. This in itself was a big revelation. This session was more focused on the fact that I had a choice of how I want to conduct my life and that I am not powerless as I thought I was. It taught me that I had to put in effort to heal and I had to fight for my Life, but now that I knew the Truth about many things and had gained deep understandings and insights on Life and I could make different choices, but I have to treat myself with love and respect otherwise I will make it very difficult.

After this experience I found that the deeper and more profound insights came once I returned to my life. Now it is as if my whole life has become a teaching and journey and I do not feel the same person. My brain has been reprogrammed and it is as if darkness has been removed from me. Ibogaine was not a once off experience for me, it is part of my life now and even though all my problems are not gone I have accepted where I am at now, without being afraid of it and I can recognize the false patterns in my mind and challenge it. So it is in my hands and power to change my Life. I also understand that it will take time and patience and determination and faith in the Almighty’s guidance to heal completely. The thing is now I know how and what to do and I can do it with joy and hope.

I have also learned to have respect for other cultures and realized that the our Creator has made the indigenous people the keepers of the wisdom plants so it is important that we are humble and learn from each other.

Sarita

A survivors account: Ibogaine; the healing sacrament

survivors

Background

Looking back I realized that I was being prepared for the Ibogaine experience a few months prior to the actually time. I had images of tribal people and felt they had wisdom about the inner world that the western world lost. With their presence in my life I bought music with the ridgeadoo instrument and added that to my therapy and things started to intensify.

In August I thought I am nearing the end of the abuse. I have integrated my father in June; in July I realized the truth about my mother and the sexual part of the abuse did not affect me anymore. I felt positive and excited and knew good things were on its way.

Instead things got worse. A repetitive thought that said when it can’t get worse it does get worse kept going through my mind. At first I laughed it off and thought, well the worse that can happen was death and I am not scared of death. And anyway I have been through the worse, so what else could there be.

My life started to get out of control when I was overwhelmed by fear. It was a cycle of chills that went through my body, perspiring and then fearful thoughts. This cycle was intense and repeated itself for 3 days. The thought when it can’t get worse it does get worse intensified. And then another realization, I cannot die. Over and over in my head it went: “When things can’t get worse it does get worse and I cannot die.” This brought a lot of anxiety.

All of a sudden I realized that I am in love for the first time in my life. I fell in love with a man that I could not understand why, because in my mind he was the last man I would go for. When I am with him I fell apart inside. This triggered my sexuality, which was like an explosion. I experienced feelings in my body and erotic fantasies I never had before. It was obsessive every moment of the day and I was convinced I lost my mind.

As if things can’t get any worse I made a very disturbing discovery. I suspected someone of being a pedophile. It became a big frustration in my life because it was a worry that kept nagging me. For the first time in my life I was not able to solve a problem by myself but had to be reliant on other people for help which provided many stumbling blocks. This triggered incredible rage and the rage I felt was towards God and I seriously questioned his identity.

From all directions there were pressure in my life; it felt like I was on fire, perspiring continuously. The heat was unbearable and it felt like I was running flat out wanting to rip of my clothes to cool down.

I read about Ibogaine by mere chance and it jumped out at me. I instinctively knew I must do this and that is how you met me for the first time.

Expectation

From what I read and what you told me about Ibogaine I expected it to be a mental process. I started to prepare and console myself that I will not feel any pain but will only see my childhood experiences and be able integrate this. It will be ok, I thought.

My Blindspot

The first image I got was a glimpse of the man I love, a house and me. It was like we were married. The next was an image of a big wave and within this wave, a big, black, wiry insect that looked like a robot. It was as if this wave was about to break, and destroy everything and if something survived, the insect would trampled it to death.

It changed and showed me my present situation – you, Sophie and Anette. Both incidents replayed the way I experienced it that morning. I could not understand why I had to go through that again and was irritated because I thought it was a waste of time. However it confirmed a creepy feeling I had when I told Anette I wouldn’t be able to make our next appointment because I discovered another therapy. It showed me how she was stabbing me in the eye with a needle, when in reality she was being affectionate towards me.

My whole life flashed passed me with all these experiences I had with people. I was overwhelmed by the hurt and loneliness I felt in these situations. I realized how difficult my life was. I was never allowed to speak my truth. My truth was a secret and that secret was that I was an orphan because I was abused horrible by my parents and family. My grandmother taught me self-control so that my behavior won’t reveal the secret. I would continue this by always finding fault with myself and therefore not feel the hurt of injustices done to me. I blamed myself believing I had a negative effect on people making them do and say horrible things. I always tried to change myself to be acceptable. This image was a warning of the karma I was going to pay back to myself for not feeling my hurt all these years. A month after the Ibogaine experience my heart got broken and I went through a very difficult time.

The choices

Then it stopped. It felt like there was a cloud over my head and I hear a man’s voice asking me, are you sure you want to know? I see a room with rows and rows of shelves and in these shelves was brown cards and these cards represented my experiences with my parents. I said: “Yes, I need to know everything. It is the only way I will heal.” Again the voice asked, are you sure? The tone in the voice alarmed me of danger and I started to doubt myself. From all the years of therapy I learnt that my parents were very cruel and after I integrated these memories I always felt disgust and disappointment in them. If these cards represented new memories I knew there was a 50/50 chance that I could go insane. I only hear this buzzing noise, waiting for my decision. I can’t make up my mind because both choices would be futile.

I felt very disappointed in Ibogaine because I did not expect to be confronted with such difficult choices and it was my last hope of ending the hell I am in. It felt like nothing is going to change and only get worse. I was in absolute despair.

Confronting my reality

Gabieba gave me Valerian drops and then the cloud broke. The voice came again reassuring me that he will never be cruel to me and pointed out that I always expect cruelty. His voice was warm, gentle and kind and I felt safe.

He showed me the future and all the virtues waiting for me as rewards for the hard work I did the past 39 months. He complimented me and said I was courageous. I stood up for my truth, fought back and claimed my space. He praised me because it was very difficult as I received a lot of opposition, but the truth in me grew and became a force that could not be controlled.

He presented me with the following image to demonstrate the world I lived in and had to transgress. I am running as fast as I can, and from all directions skeletons were running after me. The background is grey and gloomy.

Because I had no self-acceptance and self-love I strived to be normal, doing things that normal people do. I had all these duties that burdened me. I became discontented when I realized how empty my world felt and the routine became suffocating. That was when I decided to seek my truth and this process started 36 months ago. It was a very difficult time in my life because it was confrontation upon confrontation in both my inner and outer world. I became very sick and was in and out of breakdowns. But as the truth in me grew I became stronger and started to stand up for myself. This is still an ongoing process and most probably will be for a long time.

Gabieba

Then Gabieba appeared before me. I saw her warm eyes and smile and knew she had a heart of gold. I felt we connected and I enjoyed the experience I had with her earlier. I became eager to see her and impatient because her next shift was only due in 2 hours.

I became aware of a deep longing in me of wanting to connect with people truthfully and felt how rewarding it would be for me.

Mother

Next was my mother and time was spent showing me what she really was all about. Scenes of the abuse that I was familiar with flashed passed me focusing on the expression of enjoyment on her face when she watched my father raping and sodomizing me. She was not only an accomplice but an instigator most of the time. She controlled my father and everyone to hate me. I also saw how cruel she was to other people like my father, brothers, sister, etc. She lived in hate and only knows hate. She is an evil person who made that choice, and there were no excuses for her.

The next moment I saw all these arrows flying through a dark empty space right into her body. I saw this a few times and knew the universe was telling me that they would take care of her.

My imbalance

I then saw myself and the voice instructed me to bow at myself for living an honorable life. He said that my heart is kind and real and that I am a wealthy person on the inside. However I do have an imbalance and the following image was given to me.

I am standing underneath a fruit tree, picking the fruit at the bottom of the tree. I am picking these because they are closest to me. What I don’t realize, is that these fruits are not ripe and as nice as the one’s higher up. They don’t get the sun as the fruit higher up the tree. I pick these because I believe I cannot reach higher.

Then it showed me the latest Golf model in black. The car that I always wanted to drive was a black Cobra. But as time went by I let go of this dream because I believed it was out of my reach. It showed me that the Cobra represents the fruit higher up and they usually ripen before the bottom ones. If they don’t get picked they fall to the ground and then rot. This is what happened to my Cobra dream.

The voice said to me that all I needed to do was to reach higher. It demonstrated this over and over. I saw myself standing below the fruit tree reaching for the fruit higher up. It felt very easy to do that. The voice said, “Keep on reaching and take it that is all you need to do”. At the end I saw myself, my arms stretched out reaching for the sky. He said: “Keep reaching, stretch and take it that is all you need to do.” It is so simple and I felt in the end how simple it was.

My Father

The following old memory kept repeating itself to emphasize the fact that I grew up with no rights. My father is raping me and the blood is running down my legs. I feel I can’t anymore I had enough, but I can’t tell him to stop because he will only stop when he is done.

The following I actually experienced. I am a baby crawling on the floor. The next moment there is a foot standing on my left hand. I tried to look up to see who it is, but I can’t because the foot is keeping me down. I recognize the shoe belonging to my father because it is the type of shoes he always used to wear. I realized in that moment that he is a dangerous man and I that must be careful of him because he can kill me if he wanted to.

I had treatments done on my left arm and hand because it was badly damaged. I knew it was related to the abuse but never knew how.

New mother memory

I am about 18 months old. We had a Bull Mastiff called Oubaas who was my mother’s dog. He is eating a bone and my mother orders me to bring the bone to her. I go towards him to take the bone. He growls at me and I instinctively know that he will bite me. I ran back to my mother who is angry and shouts at me to take the bone. I try again and the same thing happens. I go back to her crying because I am scared. She has the duster in her hand and is threatening me. I go back to take the bone thinking she does not believe me and if I take the bone she will see that I am telling the truth. I take the bone and everything goes black.

My brothers and sister

My father and I are in the car in our driveway. My brothers are playing on the lawn not far away. I know they are aware of what is happening but is shutting it out because they are scared. My father is lying in the seat while I have to do all the work. I can feel how pleased he is with himself. He feels like a king and I am his slave whose duty is to give him all the pleasure he demands. I feel how he wallows in the enjoyment of this power. The next moment the car door opens and he throws me out by the hair because I did something wrong. In front of my brothers he zips up his pants and as he does that he puts his other hand in front as to say “this is secret, don’t tell anyone”.

This memory resolved my brothers who I used to make excuses for. I realized that they are still blaming me for what my father did and the person he was.

Next were more realizations of what happened to my sister when I left for Cape Town 18 years ago. I realized that my mother took my sister into their bedroom to get my sister to hate me. My mother either made my sister feel that she is punished because I went to Cape Town or that she must compete with me. This confirmed her hostility towards me since I been in Cape Town.

My mother and father

I see my mother and father standing together and I experienced them as very tragic human beings.

The final image

I saw the man I was in love with standing and in his hands holding a severely damaged bird and he is saying to the bird: “You poor thing you are hurt.”

Voyage to other realms of consciousness: An ibogaine experience

THE INITIATION

Voyage to other realms of consciousness

1- My early years, a journey through so much abuses, vision facilitated
by a spirit friend
more abuses = Interaction with the local priesthood when a choir
boy and church servant
Boarding school = what really happened
Revelation about brothers betrayal, money owed to me.
Revelation of black magic (shape shifting) used to abuse me during
my stays in
Tanzania; it started during my adolescence in Geneva by the same
person.
2- Making sense = understanding the reason for all that karma from my
past life
3- Voyage to the realm of the dead = helping the stranded
4- A place of freedom in sexuality = understanding and enjoying the
magic of interaction
5- Travelling to higher realms = beauty & light
6- Having a feeling of my true magnificent nature, my total self as a
being of light
7- The veil open to reveal light beings so magnificent, beyond words
8- Vision of the future = the war of the lords of war from beyond
planet earth manifesting all
overt he earth / 100 years of darkness / planets alignment with
worlds beyond our
galaxy / new luminous earth / 1000 year of bliss / shamballa,
luminous cities, human
return as luminous beings

In few words a resume of my journey.
Can you relate to it ?
Love to hear from you

With Gratitude

Jean-Nicolas

Beings of light: An account by JN Hermann

Dear Simon,

Well, after leaving the soul retrieval plane, I was taken to a plane
where I started to become aware of another part of me, the luminous
part witch stays on that level when we enter the earth's level. That
other part of me was very beautiful, they did not allow me to get a
full feeling of my true nature as it seems the time was not
appropriate; all I know it is so wonderful, I also understood that all
of us are very magnificent, we just have forgotten it.
Then I move to another level where I was witnessing lost of beautiful
beings traveling up and down, they look very involved with a wonderful
feeling of joy to be of service to planet earth.
And again we seen to travel to another level where the luminous beings
seem more brilliant, the quality of their lights had more feeling of a
finer sensation.
Then a veil open, just enough for me to see the most wonderful light
energy, just a very small movement of a wing, even so, so incredible
majestic, that it was all I needed to experience to feel my heart for
many years to come. Like you, I wish to remember it for ever.
It was time to gently return to earth level, fueled with wonder and
magic, happy to be me and journey on.
The message was clear, we are not alone, they are watching over us,
assisting us when we ask and preparing us for the journey thru darkness
so we will not forget who we truly are even so it will be very dark on
this plane for a very long time.
I hope this will make sense as using words is limiting in such a
wonderful experience of what is just behind a very fine veil.

With Gratitude
JN

ibogaine iboga

Ibogaine Treatment Cape Town is changing to Iboga association cape Town; the web address remains www.iboga.co.za. Part of the reason for this is that the main focus of the use of iboga in the western world has been on its anti addictive properties or as an addiction interrupter. This is only one aspect of ibogaine's abillity to heal and I would prefer to put more focus on ibogaine's ability to release repressed trauma.

In most cases I have found that repressed trauma had an influence in forming addictive behaviour patterns or destructive behaviour patterns; whatever they may be. Getting to the underlying issues is key to working on and repairing the present condition; this is where I think many can benefit from the therapeutic use of Iboga as we all carry a certain amount of baggage that has an influence on our lives on a daily basis.

It needs to be clear that you dont need to be considered to be an addict of any sort to get the beafits iboga has to offer.

Iboga not only gives us a better understanding of ourselves but also reconnects us with the people and world around us which leads to a healthier lifestyle in general.

The idea is to host a pilot project consisting of workshops where groups can benafit and we can gather feedback in order to tailor its application to groups with a low dose protocol in mind. In addition we will be including other forms of therapy like massage to compliment the process.

There are two groups we are focusing on; one in the Johannesburg area and the other in Cape Town which should take place within the next month when the wether warms up; I will keep a notice of upcoming events as they unfold.

Thanks to all of those who have offered support.

Simon Loxton THCP 33/08

Low dose experiences of iboga root bark by Matt Zielinski

Iboga for persistent cravings after a successful ibogaine detoxification

After a painless detoxification from heroin dependence I felt exhilarated and ecstatic. The manacles of physical addiction have been shattered to pieces, and completely obliterated in the magical transformative experience. With the help of ibogaine I began to notice the benefits of a healthy body and the possibility of leading a happy life without the use of drugs. The visions experienced on ibogaine create a new platform for a deep reflection of life’s purpose and meaning.

For the first few weeks I didn’t exhibit any signs of cravings. The thoughts of using were insignificant and didn’t possess any power. As time moved forward, the ibogaine metabolite slowly disintegrated into the beautiful void, and I was confronted with the old patterns of thinking. Cravings began to creep up.

We have to realize that cravings are a natural part of the healing process and will be a part of the recovery process for some time. We have to come to grips that we will never control when they arise. However, we have full control over what to do with them once they do arise. We have to be mindful of the process and not rush in. Many people experiment with different alternatives in dealing with cravings. Therapy, meditation, clean diet, physical exercise and countless other ways help to create a new life style and establish new habits. Yet these activities are often not enough to keep the patient on the clean tract.

The old habituated ways of thinking and acting are deeply rooted and need to be approached from a different vantage point. Since we create our reality with our beliefs, emotions and expectations it is crucial to examine these matters in a clear, concise objective manner. Since the brain’s neurotransmitters are all out balance, the patient is liable to make bad choices while being fully conscious of the negative consequences. Ibogaine seems to act on multiple neurotransmitters and seems to reset the brains chemistry back to the clean state. Small ibogaine boosters taken at regular intervals are an amazing way to keep the clean track going.

For me the best way to deal with cravings is definitely taking small amounts of Iboga root bark. The cravings disappear as quickly as they appear and I am left with a sense of peace and optimism. Since strong cravings can have a significant impact on the quality of your day it is important to find the easiest and greatest method to deal with them.

Small doses of Iboga put me back into the non physical state of being. My thoughts and actions become in tuned with my deeper self, which causes me to think rationally, optimistically and very objectively. A small booster dose puts me back to the original state of mind which I experienced right after the flood dose. I completely enjoy each moment as it gradually unfolds into the next . I become fully conscious of my creative powers and tear down all illusionary barriers, fears and old negative patterns of thinking. The cravings loose their meaning and power because the awareness of the consequences of using become crystal clear again. After each dose I am aligned with the source and feel and believe in my self worth and my ability to be happy without the use of drugs.

Ibogaine Experiences

Eyewitness account of Benny Alberts:

What I saw and experienced meeting recovering hard drug addicts who had taken Ibogaine and taking Ibogaine myself.

I approached Simon Loxton while I was trying to put together a freelance magazine feature on Ibogaine and Ibogaine treatment. I am not a full time journalist and have no formal training in social work, psychology or any other medical field. At present I work full time as an electrician.

My interest in substance abuse issues stem mainly from the simple fact that I have, unfortunately, had a large number of friends and acquaintances that have been, or are, addicted to drugs in some form. The friends in question and I come from perfectly “respectable” middle-middle class backgrounds, mainly the southern suburbs and the deep south of the peninsula.

Growing up, I have been in the position of a young guy in his late teens and early twenties who watches helplessly as close childhood friends lose themselves to heroin, alcohol, and crack. I watched as they struggled through various forms of rehab, spend time in jail, commit crimes, poison themselves and in an extreme example, live rough on the streets while commiting burglary to support their habit.

By blind luck, some element in my upbringing or simply due to all the fantastic bad examples on offer I managed to avoid falling into the drug trap myself. I have yet to compare the prevalence of drug abuse in my peer group to some official benchmark but, plainly 40-50% of white teens in Cape Town do not have a hard drug problem. It should be safe to assume my experience in this regard is a statistical anomaly.

Unfortunate as the situation has been I have had an excellent opportunity to intimately know many drug addicts, witness the effects of their illness and the various means by which they managed to get themselves on a path to recovery.

Recently I started writing commercial features for the Cape Times and as I found that enjoyable, I was looking around for a story I could use to break into full time investigative journalism. One of my recovering addict friends mentioned Ibogaine and its reported effects and I was intrigued. When my friend mentioned that the principal Ibogaine practitioner in Cape Town was Simon Loxton whom we both knew from our early teens growing up in Simon’s Town, I took that as a sign and contacted him to arrange an interview.

I had never known Simon very well and couldn’t remember much about him from 10-15 years previously, but it was immediately obvious to me that Simon was no longer a heroin addict. If you get to know enough people with drug problems you start to recognise certain things like poor complexion, lethargic thinking, poor personal grooming, and untidy living spaces littered with drug paraphernalia and so on. Simon was completely the opposite.

With Simon I arranged an interview with two of his former clients. I met the three of them in the couple’s Claremont flat. Again, there were not even the slightest indication that either of them had any kind substance abuse problem besides tobacco. Superficially they seemed like any young, average couple working office jobs and leading normal lives. They were tidy, neat, clear headed and pleasantly charming.

What struck me most however was their pragmatic approach to life and a refreshing outlook on society and spirituality.

I have fortunately never become physically addicted to drugs myself so I have never had to experience the mental processes and struggles that the addict has to in order to break free of substance addiction. Recovery does seem to require fundamental shifts in thinking and the learning of mental habits that are not normally required to function in society.

By talking to them over a number of years however, I noticed that the addicts in recovery that tend to fare the best, are the ones that have come to accept themselves and the decisions that led themselves to that situation in the first place. Acceptance of oneself and others, “self-forgiveness” and honesty with oneself are pillars in any lasting recovery. Most importantly, there seems to be an acceptance of personal responsibility for oneself and all of ones actions. The concept is expressed in various ways by various people, but without it relapse is usually just a matter of time.

I mention these because these are a few of the traits exhibited by those addicts I know that seem to have fared the best in their recovery efforts. The best examples known to me personally have been clients of intensive rehab processes lasting six months or more. Those treatments involved military style discipline, continuous group therapy and intense religious study and orientation (mainly Christian). Some of these rehab options would easily fit the classification of voluntary brainwashing. So, to see the same attitudes expressed sincerely, with conviction and without any leading questions on my part, after a 36 hour treatment and outpatient counselling was quite remarkable to me.

Afterwards, Simon gave me what he called a “booster” dose of Iboga root bark (about a teaspoon), a small dose normally administered a few times after or before the therapeutic dose just to give me an idea of what it felt like. His advice was to wait until I had eight hours or so to be by myself uninterrupted. I ignored it.

I arrived home after the interview at about 11pm. I knew I had plenty of work to do the next day and that it would be best to postpone the whole thing till the next weekend. Instead I swallowed it immediately and lay down on my bed with the lights dimmed. It was an impulsive and wasteful thing to do as I would discover later.

It had been more than a decade since I had emerged from the drug taking circles that had seen my friends become addicts and I had steadfastly avoided hard drugs and hallucinogenic substances of any kind. Despite the assurances that the tiny dose should be quite safe I felt a little nervous. Of course, I had read extensively about Ibogaine as part of my research for the article and was familiar with the reported pattern of subjective experiences the compound seemed to produce in users. There can admittedly then be some chance of “pre-suggestion” but the specifics seem too consistent to me to be the product of a random “filling in the blanks” by some unconscious mental process.

In the first phase I experienced little of the visual distortions reported by users and only a mild stimulant effect and unmistakable symptoms of photosensitivity. I did also, very distinctly and clearly, hear the often reported “buzzing” or “static” sound effects that seem to be found in any detailed account of the experience.

A few hours after first taking the dose, I entered what is referred to as the “waking REM” state. If I closed my eyes I had the impression I was wandering through a series of endless corridors amid vague humanoid shapes who failed to respond to anything I did. The “vision” in this case was very indistinct and after an hour or so I was feeling quite bored actually and wished I could sleep it off, but the Ibogaine simply wouldn’t let me.

As time past, the visuals gradually grew more detailed and gained depth. There were packs of black dogs or wolves that circled me, geometric shapes, strange topographies that swirled around me like the relief lines of a computer generated map. These were all vaguely pleasant to experience but I hadn’t taken the Ibogaine to watch pretty lights inside my eyelids.

Again I started to grow impatient, at which point I was confronted by what seemed to be an enormous black dog. It’s a bit hard to convey the unsettling feeling I was experiencing but the animal seemed to look directly into me. It felt as if the dog was presenting me with a mind image of how others perceive me in a vision of extreme clarity. There were some personal details but in essence the dog showed me that I was a nerd, a reasonably nice guy who masked his social inadequacies behind various forms of pop culture fandom like comics and sci-fi.

I realise the above might seem somewhat trivial but to me it was startling. I had never actually thought of myself in such a way and the vision had the weight of intense authenticity about it and simply couldn’t be argued away by any means. It was like looking in a mirror.

Shortly after that I had a crystal clear vision of what I “knew” to be a strand of DNA in my lung tissue. The helix was looking ragged and worn and I watched as it started to unravel. I have a twenty cigarette a day nicotine habit, so this was unpleasant to watch.

The dog then went on to reprimand me for my irresponsible behaviour in taking the Ibogaine in the circumstances I had. Over and over again it made me realise that I had acted impulsively and foolishly, occasionally pointing out some other fine examples from other areas in my life. Thankfully, this lesson slowly reduced in intensity.

The mild stimulant effect persisted for some time as did some even milder visuals but the dog and the DNA were obviously the peak of the experience and shortly after that I fell asleep.

Apart from the predicted disruption of my sleep pattern there is very little change in my life that I can attribute with certainty to the Ibogaine. I did immediately discontinue taking a course of SSRI type anti-depressants I had started some two weeks before. Though doctors always recommend a tapering reduction in these kinds of medication I experienced no ill-effects and no return of depression symptoms. I still smoke around a pack day.

I stress again, I am not involved in substance abuse treatment or organisations in any formal way. I am merely a person who happens to know a lot of addicts and have developed an interest in the issues affecting the people around me.

In my non-expert opinion, the individuals I met are effectively more drug free than the bulk of the population who mask their own drug use under various guises such as “social drinking”. The Ibogaine experience itself followed the general pattern as described in many other accounts. I can easily accept claims of profoundly life changing subjective effects at therapeutic doses.

In the absence of any objective measure of treatment failure and success rates