“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are”- (Nachmani) Our experiences, emotions and traumas are logged in the body and long past the occurrence of these events, people continue to react as if their history is a living memory, affecting their perceptions. Our consciousness is affected by our perceptions. Functioning as an active interface between mind-body-spirit, Tabernathe iboga, or, iboga, has been used for centuries by people in western central Africa. It’s root bark is the main sacrament used by people who practice Bwiti, a form of spirituality that means “School of Life”. Taking iboga and participating in Bwiti ceremony has had a profound effect on it’s initiates, offering the opportunity to heal and be healed, a change of perception, and an expansion of consciousness.

Merrian-Webster’s Dictionary defines consciousness as “the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself” Consciousness is the experiencing structure that interprets the natural state of being. Our consciousness has composed our thoughts to preinterpret observations based on what we have experienced. “You see, you give reality to things- not only to objects, but also to feelings and experiences- and thing that they are real. When you don’t translate them in terms of your accumulated knowledge, they are not things; you really don’t know what they are.” (Krishnamurti)

Iboga grows in the jungles of what is now Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo, land that might have once might have been called Eden or the cradle of mankind. It has been called “The Root of All Healing” and “les bois sacré” (the holy wood.) The name “iboga” comes from the Tsona term which sounds like “boghaga” which means “to care for.” Its biochemical function is that it contains psychoactive indole ibogaine alkaloids, which work on the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. Iboga has shown promising results in assisting those with Parkinson’s, mental health disorders, neurological and countless other physical/mental/spiritual ailments. “Bwiti members claim it sharpens their hunting skills and keeps them attentive, energetic, and dialed in during ceremonies and rituals.” (Brett, 6)   It is known to be the most powerful psychedelic in the world, and it allows a person to shift consciousness.

“According to legend, the Pygmies used iboga for centuries before they gave the secret of the plant to the neighboring Bantu tribes who kept attacking them, forcing them deeper into the jungle. The Pygmies showed their enemies how to use iboga so they would discover their place in the spirit world. The Pygmies knew that once the Bantus made that discovery, they would lose interest in waging wars. If that was the plan, it worked: Gabon remains the only peaceful country in a region of inescapable hostility, tribal conflicts, mindless genocides. The cult of Bwiti may be the reason or it’s pacifism.” (Pinchbeck, 27) In Gabon, Bwiti spirituality, iboga is given to the young and old and all in-between. Ceremonies are led by a N’ganga, or Nima, a healer and a teacher who has been fully initiated and has mastered the traditions, serving as a guide between worlds. The initiate is called the Banzie, and they may come to iboga for coming-of-age rituals, weddings, healing and initiations into Bwiti spirituality. The initiation process involves the focusing of intentions, purification, eating large amounts of iboga, confessing, and praying. The members of the Bwiti join in these ceremonies, singing, wearing elaborate regalia and performing specific gestures and dances. Two main and essential instruments to an iboga ceremony is the N’gombi, a harp, and the Mongongo, a mouthbow. “To the Mitsogho, continuous musical support from musicians playing the mouth bow and the harp, accompanying percussions and singing is essential for the initiation process. Music is the life-line that reaches from this life to the hereafter and serves as a means of locomotion in visionary space. And that is exactly our own experience, the renewed onset of musical accompaniment, after short interruptions, reactivates the faltering visions, facilitates spiritual communication and improves mental and physical well-being considerably.” (Maas) The music and the medicine have the same impact on the frequency of the brain. “We think the EEG theta-rhythm is also supported by the polyrhythmic structures of the music. To play the rattle with the frequency of the elementary impulses (including the forward and backward movements) could be a mathematical solution to endure the different rhythms. Our own experiences show that the perception of inner wave-movements (with a frequency of 6 hertz) continues even when the music stops. Time is no longer felt as a line but as a circle. The inner metrum is felt for days and continues even at night, underlined by the music, which is often also played while the person to be initiated is sleeping.” (Maas)

While this is happening, the mind will access a state that is both dreamy and hyperconscious, while the body experiences ataxia, loss of coordination and bouts of nausea. People report having visions as if the movie of their life was being shown to them, meeting their ancestors and understanding them even when they spoke different languages, being shown the moment of creation and everything that happened after, to bring the person to the current moment. “During the iboga initiation ceremony, the healers demand constant verbal communication about the observed matters and their possible meanings and request target-oriented activities in the “hereafter.” Only a remembered vision is considered successful. With that vision, new spiritual contents of the unconscious mind as well as knowledge of interior processes are opened to the conscious mind, and conditions are prepared to transfer them into long-term memory.” (Strubelt, 32)

One of the things it is best known for in the western paradigm, is how it can help individuals struggling with addiction. Websters Merrian Dictionary defines addiction as “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence: the state of being addicted.” Addiction causes well worn, reinforced pathways to form in the brain. Ibogaine is one of the key alkaloids in iboga. Many of our addictions stem from trauma. We can become addicted to trauma itself, where one carries and lives with a figment of their past experiences, obsessively, without awareness of it. “Ibogaine may work in reversing the effects of opiates on gene expression, with resulting impacts on neuroreceptors, returning them to a pre-addiction condition.” (Brackenridge, 2010). There is an opportunity within iboga and the context of how it activates the brain and the mind, to go back and clear our perceptions about the past, as well as our purpose, as the mind adjust to the neuroregeneration.

In the United States, Iboga is registered as a Schedule 1-A Controlled Substance, making it is illegal to grow, buy, possess or distribute, without a DEA license, due its cardiovascular, hallucinogenic and neurotoxic effects (lab rats being chronically administered ibogaine in massive doses showed degeneration of the Purkinje cells in the cerebellum. This was not found to be true in non-chronic, non-heroic doses.) There have been fatalities associated with iboga, which have been found to be due to pre-existing contraindications or relapse with chemical substances.  There are some countries around the world that have legalized or decriminalized iboga. This has created an opportunity for Ibogaine clinics to open and operate in places like Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica. In June 2019, the City of Oakland, California, led by the Decriminalize Nature Oakland, voted unanimously in favor of decriminalizing entheogens, including iboga.

Etincelle Diviné, a Nima in Gabon, shared this message with the world. “On the day we take the bois sacré, we sing, we dance, we put on make-up. We make ourselves beautiful, we shine all of our beauty. We sing and dance all day and night. For what? Because we are looking for something. We are looking for the key that opens doors. Doors to other dimensions. The key is found within the vibrations of the Bwiti. The key is the sound. The key is the vibration that activates the frequency. The frequency is the key that opens the door, and once we have that frequency, we have the door, and can begin the journey. The door is our heart, but joy is the key. Once we have joy, and our hearts, joy fills our hearts, and our heart opens, and when our heart is open, everything is possible. That is when everything is in the present moment. The past and future become the present. Everything is open. It is then that we understand we are everything. That we are connected to everything and that we are one. It is then that we understand that everything is here and now. And it is then that we come to understand, to know, and to have answers to questions that we never even considered. It is at that precise moment that we manage to understand everything. To speak with all the elements. Therefore, once we reach that moment, we understand that, we are immortal. That our ancestors that we pray to, that we sing to, are within us and we are them. That’s when we come to understand that everything is in union and that life is God we’re speaking about, and that God is life. Once we arrive there, we are happy. We start to understand everything. Then we can give thanks. Then we can honor the sunrise and the sunset. We can honor and be grateful for birth. And we can honor death. Death no longer exists. There is only life and we understand that we are eternal.” It is through this celebration and expression of vibration, that the heart is able to open and receive the awareness of life, speaking to us, everywhere. When we are able to listen and observe without preconceptions and prereactions, we give room for things to exist in their natural form, including ourselves. This knowing brings us peace and acceptance and allows us to reach further, with meaning and purpose, as a part of consciousness.

Word Count: 1704

Works Cited:

Nachmani ,Rabbi Shemuel ben, (55b.) R. Talmudic tractate Berakhot

“Consciousness.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness. Accessed 9 Dec. 2023.

Krishnamurti, U.G., McKenna, Jed (2011). Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment: No Oasis Situated Yonder. Wisefool Press. ISBN 0-9714-5251

Pinchbeck, Daniel (2002). Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0742-6 .

Brett, Daniel (2021). Iboga- The Root Of All Healing. Noble Sapien Press, ISBN 978-1-8384462-1-5.

Iboga contains the alkaloid ibogaine. It comes from the Central African rainforest that includes Gabon and most of the Congo.  It prefers a wet climate with shady conditions. It has green leaves, pink flowers and inedible orange fruits that look like jalapeno peppers. It’s bitter-tasting bark contains psychoactive alkaloids. It has been a keystone of an African practice known as Bwiti, long before western cultures claimed to have “discovered it.” It has healing properties known as a pharmaceutical miracle, triggering intense visions. Bwiti is looked upon as an animist/nature culture. Since the outer world’s discovery of their practices, they have been labeled a death cult due to their significance of ancestor worship, using the bones of their ancestors as talismans. Missionary Christians believed the Bwiti to be practicing cannibalism and acting as grave robbers, but it was discovered that they were retrieving the bones of their own family members and ancestors. In small quantities, iboga activates the central nervous system. This results in them being awake and energetic. When people undergo initiations, they eat large doses during healing ceremonies which last several days. After ingesting this sacrament, people would enter a dream-like state, also called an “oneirogenic” state of consciousness and experience lucid visions and witness repressed memories. They would also be revealed insights about the nature of reality, their personal and collective history, and visions of future realities. During this time they undergo a symbolic spiritual death. After these ceremonies, participants underwent radical transformations, were able to cure pathological illnesses and bring stability to family and social structures. According to legend, a hunter had discovered a porcupine that had dug up and exposed the roots of the Tabernathe iboga plant, chewing on it. The hunter brought the creature home, killed it, cooked it, and ate it and proceeded to have a visionary journey where he is able to understand things with “impossible clarity.” He shared his findings with his tribe and they returned to the plant, dug up more roots and ate them, validating his claims.

Maas, U. and Strubelt, S. (2003) Music in the Iboga initiation ceremony in Gabon: Polyrhythms supporting a pharmacotherapy. Music Therapy Today (online) Vol. IV (3) June 2003, available at http://musictherapyworld.net

Music has been used worldwide to create and accompany states of trance. Theuse of specific instruments or compositions had not yet been researched. Maas and Strubelt, recorded the traditional ceremonial music while assisting in a Bwiti iboga ceremony in Gabon. Iboga is known to induce near-death experiences and has been used as a remedy for serious mental and psychosomatic disorders. People may be initiated in these ceremonies, into adulthood, into the tribe and in urban secotrs it is used to solve serious problems or gain self-awareness.  Men’s ceremonies are called Missoko initiations and Women’s are called Mabandji initiaions. The constant basic metre, the use of incessant polyrhythms, harmonic organization, and the choice of instrument may play a part in activating the cerebellum and generating theta frequencies on the EEG. There is evidence of direct somatic changes due to the vibrations. Music serves to connect the physical and otherworldly dimensions, a “lifeline” and facilitates spiritual communication, improving the mental and spiritual well-being. Maas and Strubelt decided to get initiated and during their initiation they noticed a distinction between the music and what the iboga was invoking in their visions and emotional state. The feelings and pictures intensified as they danced to the music. Our cerebellum is able to perform complex rhythms while our conscious mind cannot. Musicians have performed polyrhythms, demonstrating the cerebellum’s “inner clock.” Dancing and playing in different rhythms require a change in brain function. This points to a separation of consciousness and cerebellar activity.  This is similar to the phenomenon known as hemi-sync, where a subject listens to two separate frequencies in each ear, allowing the hemispheres to act independently.  Neher (1962) discovered that flashing lights and rhythmic drumming of theta-frequency (4-7/sec) generate EEG waves that are the same as hallucination. Rhythms at 6 hertz originated theta-waves in the EEG. At that frequency, some people experience out-of-body experiences. Perception of inner wave-moments at a natural 6 hertz, continues even when the music stops.  Music and movement enhance the effect of Ibogaine. It is theorized that the cerebellum is responsible for the changed perception of time.  Brain processes accelerate thinking processes in moments of danger. Polyrhythmic stimulations activate the cerebellum and stimulation of the right hemisphere, inspiring creative thinking.

Strubelt, S., & Maas, U. (2008). The near-death experience: a cerebellar method to protect body and soul-lessons from the Iboga healing ceremony in Gabon. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 14(1)

“Addiction.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction. Accessed 9 Dec. 2023

Brackenridge, Peter. “Ibogaine therapy in the treatment of opiate dependency.” Drugs and Alcohol Today 10 (2010): 20-25

Diviné, Étincell ICEERS. (2021, February 15). Étincelle Divine partage sa Sagesse sur l’iboga [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my4KgkmCNF4