Iboga Association Cape Town

IACT Blog moving soon

2010-02-05T03:01:00.000-08:00

With the new web site 80% complete: some tweaking required; I wanted to post a notice that the IACT blog will be moving to the actual web site: www.iboga.co.za
Hope to see you there. Also if there are any iboga related questions this will be the place.

Zamir's ibogaine experience...

2009-03-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Banishing addiction forever?

2009-03-18T08:56:00.001-07:00

Banishing addiction forever?
By Carolina Sanchez /
PRAGUE DAILY MONITOR / PRAGUE WANDERER /
17 March 2009

This story is part of an occasional series of articles from the Prague Wanderer, a webzine created by New York University students in Prague. Learn more about the Prague Wanderer here.

At 7 am on 7 November 2005, in the bathroom of a Swedish Airport, Michael Korn took his last hit of heroin.

Twenty-four hours later he was in a rented house 15 minutes outside of Prague, in sheer agony from withdrawal. That afternoon, Korn got into bed, closed his eyes, and embarked on a frightening journey that saved his life.

After five years of trying to get rid of his 25-year-old addiction, Korn, now 49, had discovered the "miracle". It's known to some as the drug that cures all drug addictions: Ibogaine.

Korn had tried it all: Narcotics Anonymous, therapy, substitutions, and even went to an energy touch healer, all to no avail. But the healer told him about an Ibogaine treatment provider in Prague—Patrick Venulejo.

Venulejo, who has been working with Ibogaine since the start of the millennium, is "just praying for the day" he can move Ibogaine into clinical trials so it can become a government-licensed medicine, which can be provided by any physician. However, because of the serious psychedelic effects, Ibogaine is not a prescription anywhere in the world, and has been outlawed in several countries including the United States, France, Switzerland, and Belgium.

"It was so scary!" Korn said about the visualizations he saw after he closed his eyes. "They are very strange and not like anything else you’ve ever done. They come and go so super fast it’s like a movie on high-speed; you can’t tell the difference between ten seconds and ten years."

According to Venulejo, "you still know who you are, where you are, why you’re there, and perhaps how much you paid for it," during the hallucinations.

In 1967, the drug was banned from prescription because of the upswing in hallucinogenic drug use, along with LSD and ecstasy.

But later in the early nineties, the US National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA)—impressed by research from case reports and animal studies—began examining the safety of Ibogaine and the potential of creating treatment procedures for it.

According to Dr. Frank Vocci, Director of the Division of Treatment Research & Development at NIDA, in 1995 during a review committee meeting on Ibogaine, four committee members voted for continuing human testing and nine voted against. Those against the drug cited the few known human deaths following use of the drug, brain lesions found in rats, and the poisonous effect that developed in monkeys, which occurred during treatments.

But Venulejo says the decision to ban the drug was unjustified.

"This way, indirectly, they've killed a lot of people," Venulejo said in response to NIDA’s withdrawal from further testing. His point is that addicts are dying of overdoses that Venulejo believes Ibogaine could prevent. "Do people have any idea how many people die in hospitals?" he asked, referring to drug addicts who take a lethal dose.

There have been 12 recorded deaths linked to Ibogaine, which may have been caused by underground clinics that did not file reports when treatments began going wrong. The fatality factors range from pre-existing heart conditions, using opiates while on Ibogaine or soon after, and taking Ibogaine outside of a clinical facility where one can be acutely monitored.

Unfortunately, Venulejo does not work in a clinical facility, where costs are much higher (USD 5,000-USD 15,000), but rather from hotel rooms and homes where he charges less than USD 3,000, "enough to cover the cost and have some peanuts on top".

Discovering the possible cure for all addiction

Venulejo, son of an Italian father and Czech mother, was long interested in the evolution of consciousness.

This led to his research on Shamanic rituals, which involve communication with the spiritual world. Shamanic tribes use Ibogaine in initiations and to get in touch with spirits. "It combines, elegantly, the transpersonal and therapeutic journey," Venulejo said.

Ibogaine, extracted from the roots of a Central West African shrub, Tabernanthe iboga, is administered in oral capsules. The normal dosage is around 1.2 grams, which doesn’t always cause the visualizations.

In November 1999, Venulejo went to the first conference on Ibogaine at New York University held by Kenneth Alper, a neurologist who is pro-Ibogaine. He returned to Prague and began treating addicts.

"My first intention was to treat people, show [Ibogaine’s] potential and have people acknowledge it," Venulejo said.

In the Czech Republic, Venulejo appeared on two television news programs, TV Nova's "Áčko" in 2000, and “Na Vlastni Oci” in 2001, promoting Ibogaine with the hopes of attracting physicians’ attention. But he only got responses from people who wanted treatment, not physicians.

"It drives me mad when something works and it’s not used," Venulejo said. "They're professionals and should always be looking for the best solution."

Venulejo also approached the Czech Health Ministry to try to get Ibogaine approved as a prescription medication. But according to him, the ministry claimed to be cutting down the funds of their existing projects by 10%, and then by 30% on his second visit- therefore they couldn't investigate Ibogaine.

Now Korn and Venulejo are trying to register a foundation in Sweden that will promote independent medicines such as Ibogaine. The goal is to create funds through the foundation and loosen Ibogaine's prohibition.

Venulejo is now traveling around Europe, "focusing on spreading the word" and training more physicians to become Ibogaine treatment providers. "I’m waiting for when I get enough funds to get it into clinical trials," Venulejo said. "Ibogaine can really change people." He’s treated about 200 different people.

But acquiring funds for the drug's government evaluation is a problem private clinics are facing around the world, including Canada, Mexico, Panama, and the West Indies, because of the lack of knowledge of the controversial substance.

"Ibogaine wasn’t on the agenda until now," said Viktor Mravcik, director of the government-run Drug Monitoring Centre. "And we don’t have enough information about it."

"I would like to know more [about Ibogaine]," said Ivan Douda, co-founder of the Czech Republic’s Drop In foundation, which provides help to drug addicts. "Our position is not on the level to deal with experiments, that’s up to official institutions."

Substitution treatment, the exchange of illegal drug use for legal drug use, is becoming the "standard treatment in the Czech Republic for hard drug users," according to Mravcik.

Subutex, Suboxon, and Methadone, all legal drugs, are being prescribed to drug addicts to combat use of methamphetamines, cocaine, and opiates.

Currently an estimated 3,000-4,000 people are receiving Subutex to substitute illegal drugs in the Czech Republic said Mravcik. "Substitution is perfectly fine in a treatment scene," Venulejo said. "It helps take away the drug lifestyle. It keeps people addicted but gives them a normal life."

But addiction to Methadone, which Korn referred to as a "legal heroin", is potentially a bad thing. Clare Wilkins, director of the Ibogaine Association and owner of Ibogaine Treatment House in Tijuana, was addicted to alcohol and Methadone for 15 years. She tried several ways to quit, but like Korn, she failed.

Then her sister introduced her to the "blessing" of Ibogaine. "The change [after her Ibogaine treatment] was dramatic," Wilkins, 38, said. "I became a whole being that was connected to everything around me, rather than a broken being."

"Methadone has its own cons instead of pros," Wilkins said. "It's a harm reduction tool, you cannot deny it. But it’s a long-lasting substance."

Harm Reduction and INPUD

2009-03-15T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have now opened a new account to deal with harm reduction and rights for people who use drugs. I am going to use this blog to stick to issues directly related to iboga. For the other (IHRA & INPUD) please visit http://inpud-za.blogspot.com/

Thanks

Simon Loxton
www.iboga.co.za

Statement from INPUD member at High Level Meeting of CND

2009-03-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Statement from INPUD member at High Level Meeting of CND

Mat Southwell is a member of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), an advocacy network funded by IHRA and others. Mat is participating this week in the High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs as a civil society/drug user representative on the UK delegation. Below is the text of a statement he gave yesterday during one of the thematic roundtable sessions.

'Many new and emerging challenges face the international community with regards to the world drug problem, and old challenges remain as vexing as ever, we believe that many of these will be addressed in other round tables that will take place in the course of this High Level Meeting.

From the UK’s perspective one of the clearest imperatives that face us in the area of drug policy is the need to honour our commitments to the Millenium Development Goals in preventing the spread of HIV, and to ensuring universal access to treatment, care and support by 2010.

In the 1980s a number of cities in the developed world countries realized that they had HIV rates approaching or exceeding 50% among injecting drug users. The threat to cities like Edinburgh, Dublin, Milan, and New York led to a fundamental re-think of traditional drug practice approaches. Scientific evidence shows that the introduction of needle exchange, opioid substitution therapy, and outreach services was key to curtailing these public health crises before they became national catastrophes.

Two decades later a new generation of countries and cities are facing HIV rates at or above 50% of injecting drug users. The HIV epidemic is now being driven in some countries by injecting drug user but the consequences will reach far beyond my community. While you may not care about the lives of my community, our deaths also leave our children without parents and our parents without their children. Even if this doesn’t move you, many developing world countries are storing up a public health time bomb that will wipe out swathes of their productive work forces while simultaneously placing a huge burden on fragile healthcare systems.

However, this year’s declaration is so driven by dogma that it will not even acknowledge the life saving impact of harm reduction interventions.

I would like to thank the UK government for inviting the International Network of People who Use drugs (INPUD) to join its delegation. In many countries around the world, we are recognized as partners in the dialogue around the implementation and review of drug policy and practices. However, the UN’s drug control program remains at odds with almost every other division of the UN in its engagement with civil society.

Drug use and drug policy touches the lives of many but the coordination of drug policy remains exclusive to Member States only and as such UNODC has failed to utilize the common participative systems that are deployed as safeguards within other UN processes. UNODC has lost the opportunity during the UNGASS review process to learn from people who use drugs and thereby our expertise and insights are not integrated.

Nonetheless we stand ready to engage with this process and take part and support member states in their search for effective drug policies

Public health and criminal justice approaches are not easy bed fellows. However, within the current system it is still possible to find an effective balance between the need to protect society from crime and the need to protect individual and public health. Many drug user groups are involved in practical partnership with law enforcement agencies including training for police officers, the management of anti-social behavior in local communities and policy discussions. However, when police forces and criminal justice systems follow the most extreme versions of drug policy, drug users are excluded as partners, services are made less accessible, and risk behavior increases.

The United Nations should be the guardian of human rights and all divisions of the United Nations should adhere to the inalienable rights set out United Nations Charter on Human Rights. This declaration is a beacon of hope to oppressed and marginalised peoples around the world. However, within the UN, concern is mounting about the human rights abuses against people who use drugs conducted and justified under in name of Drug Control. My community is routinely denied the human rights that this organisation was founded to defend. It is indefensible that a division of the UN does not pay sufficient attention to addressing policies that may cause breaches of human rights against people who produce, sell and buy illicit drugs. We, the International Network of People who Use Drugs, offer our hand in friendship and invite you to begin negotiations to bring to an end this failed war on drugs.'

Why the world needs an international network of activists who use drugs.

2009-03-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

We are part of the solution, not part of the problem!
And we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in other countries who often suffer great abuses of their human rights. We demand that our governments take action in our countries, but also at the international level, so that drug use is treated as a health issue first and foremost, and we are involved in decisions that affect our lives.

Please click here to down load the PDF version : http://www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/ihrd/articles_publications/publications/nothingaboutus_20080603/Int%20Nothing%20About%20Us%20%28May%202008%29.pdf

Harm Reduction Psychotherapy and Training Associates (HRPTA) is an organization offering counseling and psychotherapy to people with drug and alcohol

2009-03-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

Harm Reduction
Psychotherapy
Harm Reduction Psychotherapy (HRP)
sees substance use problems as related
to personal meaning, social forces and
biology in a way that is unique for
each person. HRP seeks to create a
safe, collaborative context in which the
specific nature of the substance use
problem and the relationship between
substance use and others aspects of the
person are clarified. Both problematic
substance use and problems in these
other areas are addressed with goals
and strategies individually tailored to
the person.

Why Harm Reduction?
Research in the substance use field has
found that it is easier for some people to
begin counseling when specific goals
are not required to enter treatment.
Harm Reduction has evolved as an
innovative approach to helping people
with substance use problems without
requiring specific goals as a condition
for beginning treatment. HR aims to
support users in reducing the harm
associated with substance use without
requiring abstinence as a goal.
Abstinence is one possible outcome,
among others. At HRPTA we try to
match the full spectrum of goals and
strategies for change to the needs of
each individual.

2009-03-07T07:51:00.000-08:00

Albany Takes Step to Repeal Rockefeller Drug Laws

2009-03-04T22:24:00.000-08:00

By JEREMY W. PETERS

ALBANY — The state legislature took pivotal steps on Wednesday toward repealing much of what remains of the state’s 1970s-era drug laws, which have tied judges hands and imposed mandatory prison terms for many nonviolent drug offenses.

The Assembly approved by a 96-46 vote legislation that would restore judges’ discretion in sentencing lower level drug offenders by removing laws that require a prosecutor’s consent before judges can send someone to a drug treatment program. Debate on the bill got underway late Wednesday afternoon.

The same bill was introduced on Wednesday in the Senate, where Democratic leaders vowed to quickly take it up. But the task now confronting legislative leaders and Gov. David A. Paterson is to reconcile the Assembly bill — which is considered the most far-reaching of the proposals on the table now — with the governor’s plan and the bill that Senate Democrats write.

Drug law reform has for years been one of the most divisive social issues debated in Albany. Bills aimed at broadly overhauling the statutes, known as the Rockefeller drug laws because former Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller championed their approval, have routinely passed the Democratic-controlled Assembly over the years, only to die in the Senate, which until this year was run by Republicans.

With Democrats now in the majority in the Senate and Mr. Paterson an avowed Rockefeller reform advocate, supporters of rewriting the drug laws see this year as their best chance to pass a plan that essentially does away with mandatory sentences for drug crimes.

“I think the stars are aligned,” Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the Assembly, said at a news conference on Wednesday morning. “It’s time has come.”

Senate Democrats were debating the issue in a closed-door conference on Wednesday night.

But before any three-way compromise is reached, several sticking points need to be resolved. Those issues include whether drug offenders who do not complete treatment would be sent to prison and whether offenders would first need to be certified as addicted before they could enter a treatment program.

The State Legislature has already eliminated the stiffest provisions of the Rockefeller laws, doing away in 2004 with life sentences for drug crimes and reducing other penalties for the most serious offenses. But supporters of the Assembly plan believe that plan is an opportunity to finish what began in 2004.

“It should not have taken this state 36 years to realize that mandatory sentences are a one-size-fits-all approach,” Mr. Silver said. “We cannot wait another year.”Drug law reform activists said that the legislation would be an opportunity for New York to catch up after falling behind other states that have greatly expanded their drug treatment programs as alternatives to prison.

“The general theme is states are making greater effort to divert people into treatment programs, and they’re start to use prison not as a first resort but a secondary or last resort,” said Gabriel Sayegh, the director of organizing and policy for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, a national drug law reform group.

“If the legislature follows through with moving toward a public health approach, New York could potentially go from having some of the worst laws in the country to having some of the best.”

But district attorneys have expressed concern that the proposals currently being considered in Albany strip them of their important function as a check against judges.

“We’ve achieved a balance where we’ve preserved public safety and reduced our prison population,” said Michael C. Green, the district attorney for Monroe County. “I look at that and say why do we want to take this system and make a seismic shift? My fear is that you’re going to disturb one of those trends.”

states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana

2009-03-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

(02-26) 20:00 PST San Francisco -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama - who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana - will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.

"What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing here in law enforcement," he said. "What he said during the campaign is now American policy."

Bill Piper, national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a marijuana advocacy group, said the statement is encouraging.

"I think it definitely signals that Obama is moving in a new direction, that it means what he said on the campaign trail that marijuana should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue," he said.

Piper said Obama has also indicated he will drop the federal government's long-standing opposition to health officials' needle-exchange programs for drug users.

During one campaign appearance, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He told an interviewer in March that it was "entirely appropriate" for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana "with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors."

After the federal Drug Enforcement Agency raided a marijuana dispensary at South Lake Tahoe on Jan. 22, two days after Obama's inauguration, and four others in the Los Angeles area on Feb. 2, White House spokesman Nick Schapiro responded to advocacy groups' protests by noting that Obama had not yet appointed his drug policy team.

"The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws" and expects his appointees to follow that policy, Schapiro said.

The federal government has fought state medicinal pot laws since Californians voted in 1996 to repeal criminal penalties for medical use of marijuana.

President Bill Clinton's administration won a Supreme Court case, originating in Oakland, that allowed federal authorities to shut down nonprofit organizations that supplied medical marijuana to their members. Clinton's Justice Department was thwarted by federal courts in an attempt to punish California doctors who recommended marijuana to their patients.

President George W. Bush's administration went further, raiding medical marijuana growers and clinics, prosecuting suppliers under federal drug laws after winning another Supreme Court case and pressuring commercial property owners to evict marijuana dispensaries by threatening legal action.

The Bush administration also blocked a University of Massachusetts researcher's attempt to grow marijuana for studies of its medical properties. Piper, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said he hopes Obama will reverse that position.

"If you removed the obstacles to research," he said, "in 10 to 15 years, marijuana will be available in pharmacies."

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Asian Parliamentarians to Discuss the Decriminalisation of Drug Use

2009-03-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

19th February 2009
Asian Parliamentarians to Discuss the Decriminalisation of Drug Use at Harm Reduction 2009

At Harm Reduction 2009, the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) – in cooperation with UNAIDS – will organise a panel of parliamentarians to examine various issues related to the decriminalisation of drug use and wider debates on this issue. The session will share the positive experiences of some European countries in terms of drug decriminalisation in the hope of influencing and informing Asian parliamentarians and governments and encouraging them to develop new policies and more tolerant and realistic approaches towards drugs.

Asia has been dealing with psychoactive substances – such as heroin and cocaine – for many years, and has long faced the problems associated with the drug trade in terms of the health and safety of its population. Today, most of the Asian governments have committed to combat this problem – with the “War on Drugs” approach becoming the normal practice among nations. This is despite the persistent record of ineffectiveness and negative consequences that this approach has. There is a wide range of evidence against this approach – not least the increasing number of drug-related incarcerations across Asia each year.

As a result of the failure of existing drug policies, numerous academics and advocates have been lobbying Asian governments to pay more attention to the decriminalisation of drug users – one of the most profound ways to eliminate drug-related harms to society. It is strongly suggested that, if Asian governments adopt these more rational approach, problems such as drug trafficking, organised crime, HIV/AIDS and the violation of human rights would be also decreased.

Drug use can leave a well documented trail of destruction and damage, not only to the drug user but also to their families and the wider community. Yet politicians are very reluctant to discuss and debate this issue. Given the widespread ignorance about drug use, it is not surprising that parliamentarians generally feel fearful of the public reaction to decriminalisation. However, in certain cases where medical approaches have been properly implemented, their public acceptance has been forthcoming – and this could be extended to selective decriminalisation efforts when the benefits are apparent and are properly explained.

EDITORS NOTE: Lets hope and welcome similar efforts in Africa especially South Africa with the elections coming up. Politicians commonly manipulate or use emotional issues such as the current methamphetamine epidemic to "win over the people" with zero tolerance policies on drugs. This comes out of total ignorance and a ruthless attempt to gain the favor and votes of the people. All it does is bring more pain and misery to the people directly affected; those profiting are far away from the drugs and those higher up on the food chain shoot back!

Hana's iboga experience

2009-03-02T05:02:00.000-08:00

i just wanted to share my process a bit around having experienced an iboga initiation recently. All i can say is that I am completely blown away by this plant spirit and the incredible container that bwiti has perfected to deliver it. It was probably the most physically and emotional intense experience of my life. Traveling the universe and playing with time and space. Meeting people " ancestors". Insight upon my life. Unlocking my fear and stuck negativity. Cleansing and awakening. What a lesson on taking control of my life and never playing the victim game. It's like an ecstatic explosion over the head. Wake the eff up it screams. no time to waste on bullshit. there is nothing like it. this plant spirit has an uncanny affinity for humans.
I am feeling the beauty and tragic nature of life so intensely. every little speck of life and human interaction makes me tear up, and smile. I can usually be kind of a bitter asshole! I have had a long hx of depression and anxiety in my life and this just snapped me right out of it. I know i have a ton of work to do, but i feel motivated and confident. The self hatred has lost its edge because the illusion of it all has been pierced. Forgiveness of myself is hard. Just act with integrity in the future and don't beat yourself up was the message. It keeps you from sharing the gifts you have with others to tear yourself apart.
And talk about a physical cleansing. the GI health it brings alone is enough for it to be revered as medicine. Also it has a power full effect on libido. I almost feel like it completely reprogrammed my HPA axis. Which might explain how it normalizes infertility perhaps. It scrubbed out my brain. A prismatic collection of alkaloids and metabolites in that sacred root. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I feel weak right now but clear and calm.
And the root bark combined with the ibogaine takes you light years beyond just ibogaine in my opinion. if you can keep it down!. I barely made it, but then i just grabbed it and off i went.
i am so grateful for this medicine.
not to mention it was a blast.

after the ecstasy the laundry.....back to daily life now. but somehow i am a different person. hopefully i can keep that juice alive.
i wish the means and opportunities to all those wanting it.

Also do it with a master like i did. don't do it alone! this experience needs to be more affordable to those who need it in my opinion. although i think it is worth every fucking penny. its too intense to be taken lightly, and bringing down the cost does do that. I see the value in maintaining it's value. those who need it most don't seem to get it though. like most things in this capitalist mess.

just wanted to wax poetic about my iboga initiation

basse!

Low dose iboga journal by Martee

2009-03-01T05:50:00.000-08:00

Jan 29:
Took 1and 1/2 tsp. I lay down and went to sleep after taking it. Although there were no visuals and just that slight buzz sensation I was able to sleep. The message I got was that I needed to get out of my own head. Too cerebral maybe. Sometimes things just are what they appear and not symbolic or representative of anything. It is possible to miss the simple things trying to look so deep.

Jan 30:
Next day, I have put a few days aside to recover from the night before. I had not felt a great impact and felt the need to do another dose. Also had this thought because I felt I was needing this booster for at least a month. Again no visuals, no intense buzz feeling. Just knew I had taken something. However, after waking up 6 hours later I heard my voice in my head as I opened my eyes. It was not my thoughts as one usually hears, it was my voice being heard in my head. What it said to me was that I had gotten exactly what I needed from this dose. When I do a booster, as a rule I don't have great expectations although I always have a question and a direction. Sometimes the revelation doesn't hit for days or more. I always go on faith that I am getting a physical healing that I need, especially in regards to keeping my liver in good health and doing a reset of sorts in my brain. The feeling I get in my head after a booster or session is like there is more of a solid feeling under my skull. It is a very grounded feeling.

Jan 31:
Took 1 and 1/2 tsp. Still feeling the need and here it is, yes, the third day in a row. Not the usual practice but I felt I was so way past due and did not get what I felt I should as of yet. Also at this point wondering about the potency, as I had had in the past some intense experiences with previous rootbark, even the stuff D gave me that he said was low grade, maybe a 2 , he said just do 3x the amount and you have a 6. Actually that was the first time I got major visions on root bark. I must have done at least a Tablespoon then. I also know that there are such big variables in a person from one experience to the next that I know it's not like taking anything else that you know you will get x response from x dose. I also know my system is tough usually as I burn through stuff fast and usually need a lot more than average. Just to let you know I am 5'10" tall and weigh over 200 lbs. So when you think of a female dose, that is not me.

So I had a big revelation and this is something I have played around with but it came to me very concrete. What a lot of people think are emotionally driven habits or behaviors, are really a combination of the physiological coupled with behavioral responses. Knowing what nutrition can do for neurotransmitters and how we are creatures of habit as far as how we respond to things, I am thinking as much as 60% of cases are this instead of purely emotional. I have to tell you a couple of clients I have brought this up to, their response was at first disbelief because having an emotional response is the excuse for the behavior to a degree. Their emotional baggage has also become a dysfunctional friend. This phase of thinking can sometimes pass in as little as 10 seconds.
Now you find out there is a man behind the curtain, and things are not as they seem. Then I believe there is a sense of relief because it means they are not as fucked up as they have labeled themselves as being. It gives them a light at the end of their very long sometimes dark tunnel. For a very long time I have been understanding that a lot of issues that appear emotional or psychological can and have been remedied through physical (particularly the right nutritional formula) changes. It is the revelation of the behavior as part of this occurrence that to me, makes real sense.
So let me know what you think of that one.

Also my intuitive and empathic skills seem to be getting sharper and more refined with each dose. I am getting physical reactions when reading people sometimes. The instant recoil as they mention something that their body hates hits me before they are done with the sentence. Also I was craving fettuccine Alfredo and it wasn't for me it was for one of my clients. She had a crisis with her mom and wasn't eating and wasn't getting enough fat or protein. She lives down the road from an organic dairy and can get raw. I encouraged her to go get some brown rice pasta, sheep cheese and raw organic cream and make some Alfredo and have it with a nice plate of greens. The next day my craving was gone and I did not eat anything other than my usual fare.
The good part is that I knew they weren't my cravings. It's all about keeping myself separate and protected from everyone's issues as I tend to get pulled in pretty easy.
As far as major progress in general goes I am pleased that the fear aspect that dominates a lot of my sessions and boosters were minimal this time. That is one of the reasons I do it late in the day or at night as a rule so I can shut everything out. I have talked to Matt Z and Mark C who tell me they do a tsp and go for a bike ride to the park and reflect and are then awake for at least 20 hours or more before they can sleep. Thankfully that is not me. I sleep. Easily. I also do not like to be around anyone at this time. I turn off the phone and the computer. I need silence and privacy.

Friday feb. 13th:
I feel like I got my ass kicked with this booster. I did a total of 3 tsps in 3 separate doses, an hour apart and I knew when I started to hear that deep pulsating didgeridoo sound I was in for it. That sound that tells you, you are in Iboga land now!! I almost feel like if I had another 1/2 tsp. it would have felt close to a full session. Strange how that works. I felt like the visions were there but not breaking through all the way. Some of them were in outlines and then faded. I did get some visions with eyes closed. I felt like I was shown my existence, my life as it is now at it's lowest common denominator of despair. If that makes sense. It included the greyness one would associate with an old Oliver Twist movie, including the big desperate empty eyes. OK can you imagine what that does to someone who has only been acknowledging the positive and forward movement and getting as much joy and happiness where ever I can? At worst I have taught myself to idle in neutral if I have to but never to go to doubt, negativity let alone despair. So this....vision...which again strangely I did not see it with my eyes open as a vision, I did not see it with my eyes closed as a vision, I saw it in my mind as a thought and the thought had this clear image. That is something I never experienced quite before with iboga. So needless to say I have been in a bit of a strange place the few days after. My take on it is that it is something deep within me that to rid myself of it I have to bring it up to get it out and get rid of it. Emotions being concrete things that reside internally, from my perspective have to be felt on the way out. Think about it......we stuff these things so we don't have to feel them.
5 days after booster:
I did some thinking on this today. Where the despair came from and what it meant. I think I didn't know despair until I started using heroin. I think despair comes from the word desperate. And even though I didn't grow up privileged and had my problems I can't pinpoint being desperate until I had a full blown habit, by age 16. The feelings I was shown in my second session as far as the original wound that caused my addiction was doom and apathy. With apathy you don't get despair. That was different.
Even though I have been clean over 4 years, I think I pretty well stopped wearing despair on my sleeve as part of my being about 10 years ago. That was when I first acknowledged a force bigger than myself and saw a bigger picture. What I think is that I did not really deal with it, in good old addict style I just stuffed it physically. Again, emotions being a concrete thing, there deep they reside.

On the physical front, as there is always a physical manifestation of an emotional issue and visa versa, this is directly tied to the yeast I have brought up out of hiding by doing a series of heavy metal detoxes. Deep hiding, 2 years or more totally asymptomatic. Yeast can make one feel depressed, foggy and sad to say the least. I had some brief cravings, and no wonder the despair coming from using, knowing that I wanted more heroin than my 16 year old brain could financially make peace with. Also you only have to be dope sick once to know you are in a desperate situation, permanently. So the cravings and heroin use and despair all go together. Funny. The realization of that helped me completely get rid of the cravings. That and I have been using my Bach Flower Rescue Remedy quite a bit this week.

I also do not feel with everything I am doing that it is at all a "search" for happiness. I feel it is getting all the crap out so the true state of being, can just be allowed to blossom. Everything I will ever need is already within me. I can enjoy external influences, but none of them will bring me true fulfillment or happiness.

I feel to get old emotions up and out you have to feel them on the way out and deal with them. It's exactly like cleaning out a closet. You have to put your hands on the stuff, look at it, acknowledge the part in played in your past and then decide without reservation to let it go. To let the thing go as well as any turmoil or hurt it caused in your life. Complete release.

Personally, I love that deep resounding ibo buzz.......It was always a comfort to me when other parts of the experience were not. On the upside I must say the last two times I have done the boosters, there was no fear aspect anymore. Other than my first session, all the rest had heavy fear as an overall theme and feeling. I see that as progress, major progress. Where I came face to face with this feeling of despair it did not dominate the entire experience. Do I need another booster to process this one, I think I already have processed it. But truthfully it hit me pretty hard before I was of the mindset to break it down and analyse it.

Just to let you know, I use a magic bullet food blender to get the root bark to a fine powder. So when I say a tsp it is very very fine powder. I got a total of approx 6 Tablespoons from my bag. I have already been through over 2 T. I did give a T. before grinding( which probably would grind to a tsp) to my naturopath who is a shaman and is the one who was making me a homeopathic remedy from a little hcl that I was using for liver and endocrine. He has done ceremonial peyote with his tribe many times and is a scientist and doing stem cell research. He knew about ibogaine when I first met him. I have learned a lot about brain chemistry from him and check my results and hypothesis on his Bio tracker Meridian assessment computer. The ibogaine helped a lot with my endocrine issues over the last few years. Needless to say I completely wacked out my endocrine from staying up for years shooting speedballs. It tested particularly strong on the hypothalamus, which is in the brain. I know you said not to give it out indiscriminately, and I felt this was something that was right to do.

I also have a sister who did a session over 3 years ago once. She stopped a 20 year habit as well, but has not had therapy and replaced her addiction with working too much at the cost of her health and her family and drinking. She has never done a booster and will probably never have the money put aside to do another full on session. I seriously think with about 5 or 6 tsps. I could reset her. When I brought it up to her she broke down crying and revealed to me that she remembers directly after her session was the first time she ever remembers having real clarity in her life. That was short lived. She was very uncomfortable with what was revealed to her in her session, so it might take some doing to get her to agree, but I feel she will die without it. She also has hep c and lives in denial. She has a young teenage son, lives in NY city.

I want to be completely honest with you. I am not looking to hand this out to anyone else. I know for me it feels life and death when I don't have it. I do not feel I will need another booster anytime in the next month.
The strange thing is that after my first session, I went a solid 2 years with so much resolve and lack of any cravings. There has been a definite shift away from that. I, being analytical as I am, have determined that these cravings are actually more behavioral. I don't know if that makes sense to you or not. I also have homeopathic remedies for serotonin and l-dopa that I do from time to time when I need them. It just seems like more of a struggle now than it was years ago. I am wondering if you see this in others or yourself.

I think it is extremely commendable what you are doing trying to gather research and have comparisons. I know I like case studies and hearing of others experiences to compare and learn about myself and consider the possibilities. For me iboga is not so much about how many people had a space ship experience or floated above the earth, it's about all the introspection and being able to shed all the ingrained, inherited bullshit that hides ones true self. By the way, no matter how much hcl I took in my sessions I never had those all inclusive deep experiences. It could be me, not being able to let go. My need to be in control all the time. Could have been the fear.

One more question, does iboga deplete the brain of serotonin and l-dopa neurotransmitters. This is something I am feeling with this last booster. I am noticing the drive and inspiration I had the week before is not as it was. And from that perspective something to consider about spacing them out and not doing them too often. That is one of the things my doctor brought up to me when I first met him years ago.

I also wrote this up from memory and from some of the emails I share with Matt Z. Again I need to write after each time as you suggested in a journal. I always feel I will remember and get around to it and I don't. Maybe next booster I will ask about procrastination and where that comes from for me.

Hope this is not too lengthy. Again if your wife wants to contact me I am sure I can offer something that will help. My theory is that until you deal with the basic nutritional needs of the body and brain, you can't heal properly. That includes how the body is going to utilize all the supplements and herbs one takes. By the way, all the Chinese herbs are not across the board for everyone. Sometimes they can do more harm than good.
With much respect,
Martee

Harm reduction and psychotherapy

2009-02-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

Recently it was brought to my attention that some one struggling with addiction was denied psychotherapy because the therapist did not believe that therapy would be affective while the person was still on drugs. I find this difficult to swallow since most people develop a tolerance and end up only taking drugs to function. Then there is also the double standard that therapy is acceptable if the patient is on anti depressants which can also impede or repress emotion; I regard them as opiates on a receptor level.

This is the kind of outdated thinking that needs to open the doors to harm reduction; anything which minimises risk to the patient.

I also think its counter productive to remove some ones coping mechanism before you have some thing to replace it with.

In a collection of case studies by Andrew Tatarsky "Harm Reduction Psychotherapy" the studies showed that once the patient began psychotherapy and started to work on the issues which lead to or surrounded addiction they were quite willing to change their destructive drug or alcohol usage without coercion.

The point I am getting to is that there is too much emphasis on the drugs instead of the behavior. For instance some one can be drug free but still exhibit the addictive behavior by compulsive shopping; over eating or even using work as a means of escape or to avoid facing the issues that need dealing with. In the end the drugs have little to do with the situation; its all about the behavior; which reminds me of the "dry-drunk" joke: I am still the same ass-hole I just have fewer dents in my car.

In my opinion there is not much point to being drug free unless you are prepared to deal with the issues that brought you to that place. I listen to endless accounts of people who are now drug free but they are not happy in their lives or their work; they have a hard time convincing themselves that everything is better since they are now "on the wagon". To me its about enjoying life without the fear of facing yourself or your baggage.

I would recommend reading anything on harm reduction as an alternative to self help groups that require you to conform to a preset standard which is non-negotiable and turns away people wanting help who do not conform to that standard.

more ibo-illuminated space imagery from my own first experience: Preston Peet

2009-02-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

more ibo-illuminated space imagery from my own first experience:

http://www.drugwar.com/pkickingdrugswithdrugs.shtm

snip-

I do, gratefully, get to experience the "movies" I have heard so much about from so many other initiates and various published and anecdotal reports. I keep looking in my mind's eye for some kind of silver screen unfolding across the horizon in front of me, hanging in the vast starscape I keep coming back to each time I drift away, but that isn't what's happening at all. I don't even realize I am experiencing the movies at first, probably for hours and hours, because that's not what they are-they are, to quote PK, "a fucking HoloDeck dood! Yur There muther fucker!"

He is right, I'm right there, but where I haven't much of an idea most of the time, unable to remember much of anything too clearly when I come somewhat to my senses from out of the visions which completely take me away. I do know at one point I'm 5000 years in the future. Again floating out in space, feeling the emptiness and knowing I am ALL ALONE, I can see a bright thin line growing across my view way off in the distance, floating thousands of miles, light years, in front me. I watch as it grows in brightness and turns on end, becoming the tip of a cathedral-like building, very futuristic with weird angles and sharps edges and tall reaching stretching points, all on the vastest of scales, like nothing we can or do manage today. I descend through the air towards an open chamber at the very top of this beautiful building which itself sits at the very highest point of this huge sprawling and towering city. I can see teeming masses of people of all shapes and colors and sizes, but not like in any Sci-Fi movie I've ever seen-this is REAL. I enter the room and see these three gods, or so I perceive them, superhuman, all three so beautiful, with shining alabaster skin, perfect form and spirit, sleeping or hibernating in these cryogenic type coffins or boxes. The woman, whose name I even know but cannot later remember, though it makes my heart ache still to think of it, is the Queen or some kind of noble, with her male consort and advisor lying at each side of her in the other boxes. I think I'm supposed to wake them, or someone is and I'm just along for the ride. The "plot" as it unfolds is that they must somehow combine together to save humanity from utter destruction, as time is ending at the final Big Crunch if they can't bring forth this strange form, this thing that I simply haven't exact words for. I spend a long time living and talking with these three (V tells me later that at one point during the night I spend about 5 minutes speaking rapid fire in some strange language she can't recognize not matter how hard she listens but that I sound completely fluent), taking part in their lives in this far future utopia. What this life-saving thing is they have to guard, to release, this force or being is actually I do not discover because it doesn't make it all the way out of it's cocoon before the end comes. A black, ugly boiling rent in space opens up above the city and its planet and destroys everything, including this beautiful cloud-like, almost fetus-looking massive being thing, gross in its seriously bizarre alien form but not at all icky. It begins to spread wings, pumping out a hot, pure white silver light, full on power and beauty-but this fucking evil darkness, this hole in space eats it all, this new being, these three human/gods, all their peoples, and me.
snip-
p, l, and lr
Preston

Iboga experience report

2009-02-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

Low dose protocols of iboga; a report...

2009-01-31T04:16:00.000-08:00

Hi Simon. I would like to express my deepest thanks to you for all the help that you have given me. It’s been three months now since I have picked up any narcotic, and this despite the fact that I attend no self-help group of any kind. All that I can say has helped me stay clean is the journey you have facilitated for me through the ancient portal of ibogaine. The current treatment plan you have recommended has worked beyond my wildest dreams, I find my days empty of the craving and uncertainty that I knew before. In fact, I think this period of my life is the first time that it could be said I am really living. In the past I used to be plagued with neurotic thought. I would constantly question myself and my environment, never pleased with the answers given by those around me. I felt superior and misunderstood, as if I was part of this world, and at the same time, part of another. I found myself irritated by the inability of people at support groups, and hated to be associated with them, their lives consumed by petty issues. It was only after I took ibogaine, that my life began to show me the answers in its complex, weaving pattern. I began to understand the meaningless of over-analysis, of ego so desperately bound to this empty shell, That we are all bound to the same cosmic energy, despite differences in cosmetic feature. Now, when I hear the buzzing of the onset of ibogaine, I feel attuned to the universe. I feel neither smaller than or larger than, but instead I feel completely part of. My sense of right and wrong has never been more perfect, for I can now disband these false preconceptions in the comfort of a universal balance, which speaks more clearly, more resolutely. Everyone should have an ibogaine experience. Thanks for your help in allowing to pass through this true spiritual portal.

Before and after,

It will be.

The resonance that binds us all,

That which stretches beyond the confines of science,

The misconception of man.

It wears no face,

Speaks with no voice,

Has no clothes,

Does not spread its message.

Ever present,

A titan above all titans,

It is in the dark,

And shines with light,

Always there,

Never part of,

Yet always guiding..

It is the coarse energy of creation,

The fundamental block,

Absolute truth seeks not to be verified,

For its existence is verification enough,

It lives in the eyes of the hunter,

In the burning stars, it plays.

TdS

image: thanks to SOFT

Javi's iboga experience

2009-01-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

Hi Simon, I am writing you because talking on the phone doesn't seem to be working out for some reason. That stuff was something else, I was pretty much out of my body the entire trip, I relieved my prior Iboga experience in San Pancho Mexico, where I thought I was for a majority of the trip. I saw that as a young kid I have always been very honest and truthful which hurt me a lot because many people took advantage of this. This created a lot of pain, fear and confusion about myself that I almost worked through during highshool but then I dropped out and things went down hill from there. during this time I broke my clavicle 3 times in a month which left me with a few scripts of vicodin. Life began feeling like a burden instead of excitement and joy until I was basically totally relying on drugs for any sort of fun.

I was really bad with cocaine for a while there too, it lost it's buzz tho so I tried shooting it which got me completely addicted to the needle, shooting MSconton, Oxyconton, fentanyl, and eventually heroin and cocaine as speedball. I thought a lot about what I was doing to my body and my future but I was trapped in addiction and a sad mindset about my life. Luckily I also got into psychedelics, mushrooms were always super confusing for me but LSD showed me the truth many times in an amazing way. I tried DMT, LSA, and Salvia D. as well which helped me on the right path.

During the Iboga trip I saw myself in a room with two grandmothers who were knitting. Their nits were these mountains, and they were connected. They were sitting across from each other and one of the nits was a mirror image of the other. I kept appearing in this room watching them nit and disappearing on a journey through the mountains (that they were knitting) and back again. I revisited a fishing village in Bara De Navi Dad, Mexico where my family and I lived when I was 3.

I spent a lot of time in the rain forest in San Pancho and Bara. I remember seeing an image of tree frogs and tadpoles sliding down pink, orange, purple, blue in moonlight, it was like a little scene in the middle of the rainforest. I also saw that the rainforest totally covered the earth n the past or I think it was future actually.

I also distinctly remember hearing this hummer with a low muffler driving around in the rain forest part of a Mexican cartel basically completely running San Pancho, loaded with guns and drugs,. I kept hearing it drive somewhere then hearing a winch ratchet as it loaded up, then it would drive off, unload, load up, all night long, 24/7. I also saw and went into heroin/cocaine dens in the middle of the jungle, I found myself eventually working for these guys...there was so much and is a lot more a lot of it is extremely hard to put into words.

I went to Costa Rica as well and relieved more experiences in the jungle. I also visited Venice Italy and saw that I was madly in love with the place.

One of the most amazing memories I have is being on the beach in San Pancho and seeing this lady and her daughter that we met down there last time we were there. When her daughter saw me she gave me a hug and said that she saw that I had definitely made it, in that moment I felt completely free of all the crappy feelings.

I also revisited some old towns that I guess I had lived in in a past life or maybe it was purely spiritual, hard to say, but I saw a run down house that I lived in with my girlfriend, we were constantly fucked up, that was life. I was madly in love with the life style too, I can feel the feeling of the place and everything and the shittiness of it was so appealing it's very strange to me now.

I've been smoking a little pot at night to help me sleep but I saw that I have a tendency to get carried away and use marijuana as an escape from reality/boredom too if I'm not careful. I have been very occupied playing drugs, guitar, tying fly's, writing, drawing, resting. I am really looking forwards to working and saving money for once in my life and spending it on the tings that are real. I have been sleeping more and more every night, slept the most tonight (6hrs) I have very little craving and I actually found some paraphernalia that was hidden in yy room, that was a paper with a tiny dot of heroin on it, it felt very dirty and unappealing. The thought of trapping myself up like that again is a nightmare. Another part of the trip
I saw myself having quit but still carrying lots of burden in the form of chains, I was a slave still and I had to drag my chains around everywhere and that was my future if I didn't really stop this time round. I saw I had one other chance after this but I would have to deal with the burden still. I really had to be ready to quit, I think my prior iboga experience didn't have much effect on me because it wasn't as good as quality, and I didn't do enough/wasn't ready to quit. I was damn ready this time though!

I can't thank you enough, you helped me get my life back, my parents and brother/family back, and vice versa. I couldn't be happier!

Much love,

Javier

Cops against prohibitian

2009-01-11T04:40:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I am retired cop and belong to LEAP. WE are against the
drug war and for legalization. I have been on this list for a year now
for I have an opiate addiction. Mine is physical not mental. I use
opiates for chronic pain. I will mention ibogaine to our
organization. We realize drug war does not work. Legalization and
education is key to this issue. I have arrested thousands for drugs
use/sales. We both have the same agenda . Ending criminalization of
drugs in USA. Visit the web site and watch the video. Cops like me who
were on front line saying drug war does not work. Currently, some
prisons are private now with lobbyists in those areas calling for
minimum sentencing on certain drug charges. Corporate America taking
over the jails and jailing drug users (last group of Niggers in USA).
Patrick is right.. Anyway I am not proud at what I did but realize
what is really going on and what can be done to help. I disagree with
the 12 step model which is used.. Currently it is only thing being
taught at rehabs for enormous sums of money.

Sincerely,
mkl

End Prohibition

2009-01-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Please join the fight against prohibition by supporting law enforcement initiatives and visiting the link above.

Every bit counts

2009-01-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

Randy is an advocate for ibogaine and he is just like anyone of us; he is not a doctor or scientist but has been involved in collecting ibogaine experiences for the benefit of others. This email just goes to show that YOU can make a difference as an individual. Your opinion matters and if you speak out it makes a difference; I hope this will inspire others to share their experiences which will lead to change and with hope stop the "war on drugs" and allow us to reacess things.

At least a third of the prison population (Quoted as a growth industry in the USA) are incarcerated for non violent drug related offenses. This leads to you; the tax payer paying to have people locked up who are not a danger to society and are vulnerable due to being placed in the same confines as other prisoners guilty of serious crimes against humanity.

MAPS is involved in psychedelic research among other things; please read on...

MAPS News: Healing Hearts and Minds in 2009 - January

Dear Randy,

Are you aware that your support of MAPS is not only helping to heal victims of sexual assault, trauma from war, and other causes of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but is also helping to heal the wounds of the war on drugs? Let me explain.

Have you heard that Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, has been selected to be the next United States' Surgeon General? Just two months ago, Dr. Gupta reported enthusiastically about the success of our US Phase 2 MDMA/PTSD pilot study. This means that the Nation's Doctor is going to be walking into his new post in charge of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps with a fresh memory of the benefits and successes of psychedelic psychotherapy. Dr. Gupta will be one of Barack Obama's go-to-people for insight into health-related issues. MAPS supporters can now hope that our research and goals will be spoken of highly to the occupant of the highest office of the United States!

MAPS as an organization has always been open to have honest dialogue with the press. This is why Dr. Gupta reported our research on CNN and why in the last few months MAPS' research has been reported in The Economist, Nature, the London Independent, ABC News Online, BBC, New Scientist, the Calgary Herald, and the Sarasota Herald Tribune, among others.

Every time someone with exaggerated fears of MDMA, psychedelics and marijuana, reads or sees one of these positive news stories, they have to reevaluate their beliefs. Due to gobs of anti-drug propaganda, most people who have never used MDMA believe that it is a very dangerous drug without medical benefits. MDMA does have its risks, as does every drug, and these risks are substantially increased in non-medical contexts. Nevertheless, in medical research, MDMA's risks are minimal and its medical benefits are remarkable. People with the false notion that MDMA is excessively dangerous are forced to rethink why this drug is illegal when they learn that people with PTSD have been cured after MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Similarly, when someone learns that marijuana can safely ease a plethora of ailments, they have to rethink why marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug (considered to have a high potential of abuse and no currently accepted medical use).

Your support of MAPS is educating and changing the minds of the public about the misconceptions used to support drug prohibition. MAPS' work in the lab is healing the hearts and minds of our subjects. Outside of the lab, your support for MAPS is healing hearts and minds warped by the war on drugs.

We at MAPS request your continued support in this New Year as we work diligently towards our goal of making a society where psychedelic psychotherapy and medical marijuana are legally available, without fear, for all those who need it. Please help MAPS by sharing this email news update with your friends who don't already receive it. If you haven't yet become a member, we invite you to do so immediately by going to maps.org/donate.html

Sincerely,

Randolph Hencken, MA
MAPS Communications and Marketing Director

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Here's a sample of what is happening this month at MAPS:
Bush Administration Last Minute Blow to Scientific Freedom
Dutch and US Marijuana Vaporizer Researchers Collaborate
Medical Marijuana Donation Leveraged in Israel
MDMA/PTSD Documents Submitted to Health Canada
MAPS' International MDMA/PTSD Research Progresses into the New Year
The Economist Magazine Profiles MAPS' MDMA/PTSD study
Ibogaine Project has Sixth Subject, Funding is Still Needed
Volunteers Wanted for On-line Survey Research Project on Effects of Recreational Drug Use
Two MAPS Published Books go to Press
MAPS President Rick Doblin PhD Podcast Available at Gnostic Media
Hofmann and Grey make the New York Times
MAPS Bulletin on Ecology and Psychedelics Seeking Submissions
* * * Dues-paying MAPS members are empowering staff, scientists, and volunteers to carry out pioneering research and educational projects. To donate, learn about the benefits of MAPS membership, or purchase books, clothes, art, and other merchandise, visit: www.maps.org/catalog * * *

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

2008-12-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-11T03:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

Ngonde Tours

2008-09-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

Ngonde Tours was a response to requests for information on experiencing Iboga in its traditional setting. Although initiation is not directly mentioned and there are other points of interest to add to the experience its all involving the same people. One of the main ideas was that the villagers benafit directly and not a single body or indervidual. So if you are interested in experiencing the tradition of iboga or would just like to visit one of the last remaining edens on earth; here is the oppertuninty. Thanks to Paul "Mikodio" Mombey-Indaki for putting this together.

Bwekaye! Aie! Basse!

An Introduction To Iboga

2008-09-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

After meeting with a group recently it was decided to take the next step and introduce Iboga in a low dose regimen. I will be posting information here if everyone is in agreement and will also in future post on upcoming events as things progress.

The first introduction is being planned to happen in Pretoria and this will be the first group session; so we will see what works and what can be added; so its a sort of pilot project.

The idea is to experience a low dose of the root bark for psycho-therapeutic purposes while Bwiti music is played in a comfortable environment.

Iboga Association Cape Town

2008-09-05T05:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome;

This is a blog which is intended to act as a means to information and also where people interested in iboga or Bwiti can come to find information; ask questions and organise group sessions or workshops.

This is where you can have your say and also give us some feedback or advice.

Thanks for your interest...