Program Notes
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Guest speakers: Levi Barker and Gary Cook
Date this lecture was recorded: July 1, 2019
Today’s podcast features a recording from last week’s live Monday night salon. Our guests were Levi Barker and Gary Cook who called in from the Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica. Levi Barker is a trained Iboga Provider in the Missoka Bwiti tradition and was trained to serve the
medicine by Tenth Generation Bwiti Shaman Moughenda Mikala. The Iboga Wellness Center was founded by Gary Cook, and it is the longest-running shamanic Iboga retreat center in the Western Hemisphere. One of the topics we discuss concerns the different ways in which the plant iboga is used in healing compared with ways in which ibogaine, one of eleven active alkaloids in iboga, is used to heal opoid and other addictions.
Levi Barker website
Iboga Retreat In Costa Rica
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.
00:00:19 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
00:00:23 ►
Today I’m going to play a recording
00:00:26 ►
that I made last week during our live Monday night salon and our guests were Levi Barker
00:00:32 ►
and Gary West who called in from the Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica. Now Levi Barker
00:00:38 ►
is a trained Iboga provider in the Misoka Bwiti tradition and was trained to serve the medicine by a tenth
00:00:45 ►
generation Bwiti shaman. While the Iboga Wellness Center was founded by Gary West
00:00:51 ►
and it is the longest-running shamanic Iboga retreat center in the Western
00:00:55 ►
Hemisphere. One of the topics that we discussed concerned the different ways
00:01:00 ►
in which the plant Iboga is used in spiritual healing when compared with ways in
00:01:05 ►
which Ibogaine, which is one of 11 active alkaloids in Iboga, ways in which it is used to heal opioid
00:01:13 ►
and other addictions. Now, while you most likely knew this already, well, for me this was the first
00:01:19 ►
time that I clearly understood the difference between the uses of the iboga plant itself and ibogaine.
00:01:26 ►
But rather than have me tell you some more about our conversation,
00:01:30 ►
why don’t I just begin playing it?
00:01:34 ►
Tonight, as everybody knows, we’ve got Gary Cook and Levi Barker here with us.
00:01:40 ►
And they are here coming to us from the Ibog the Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica.
00:01:49 ►
And I’ll tell you the truth.
00:01:52 ►
I know not too much about the Wellness Center other than what I’ve been able to read on the web.
00:01:57 ►
And so I was going to start out with maybe Levi and Gary telling us a little bit about how they came to be living in Costa Rica at Iboga Wellness Center.
00:02:11 ►
And I don’t mean to, you know, what I want you guys to know is I try to keep it kind of lighthearted here, too.
00:02:17 ►
We talk about heavy topics, but I’m always kind of lighthearted.
00:02:21 ►
And so this is in the form of a joke.
00:02:24 ►
I don’t mean to insult you.
00:02:25 ►
But I noticed from the two of you,
00:02:27 ►
don’t look like either of you were born in Gabon.
00:02:31 ►
And the reason I mention that is I’ve been getting a lot of people,
00:02:37 ►
we’ve been getting a lot of flack from women lately that there are,
00:02:40 ►
everybody speaking are old white men.
00:02:43 ►
And so actually I decided to retire.
00:02:45 ►
I’m not going to go to festivals or conferences anymore.
00:02:48 ►
But I’m wondering, how are you all, before we get into how you got there,
00:02:52 ►
how are you all received by the Buiti people in Gabon as far as the work that you’re doing?
00:02:59 ►
Go ahead, Levi.
00:03:01 ►
You want to go ahead, Gar?
00:03:03 ►
Go, Levi.
00:03:04 ►
Okay.
00:03:10 ►
No. Yeah. ahead Levi you want to go ahead and go go Levi okay no uh yeah accepted very very well you know in in the tradition in the Bwiti tradition at least our part of it which is called Masoko Bwiti
00:03:16 ►
um you know they really we really look at everybody just as brothers and sisters and
00:03:22 ►
uh no separation on your skin color. The only requirement
00:03:27 ►
is, you know, you’re coming for the love of Iboga and to use it as a tool to improve your life. So
00:03:35 ►
now there, whenever we go to Gabon, we can hardly even lift a finger. They really value us as guests and just appreciate us coming and think it’s really
00:03:48 ►
cool that we’re there and we want to do the same thing that they do. And so, yeah, no,
00:03:55 ►
yeah, we love them and they love us. That’s really wonderful to hear and gladdens my heart,
00:04:01 ►
actually. In fact, you know that reading a little bit of very brief bios that you have on your website, it seems like the both of you kind of come from the same backgrounds that we all are coming from.
00:04:15 ►
We were all seeking something and some of us have had difficult lives up till now and off and on.
00:04:24 ►
lives up till now and off and on. And it sounds like that’s kind of what happened to the two of you. So why don’t you kind of take turns in telling us how you got down to Costa Rica doing
00:04:31 ►
the work that you’re doing? Gary started it. You go for it, Gary. Go ahead, Gary. Yeah. Well,
00:04:40 ►
for a number of years, I’ve been interested in spirituality and who I am, why I’m here, things like that.
00:04:49 ►
And I was interested in shamanism as well and started experimenting with ayahuasca and San Pedro.
00:05:01 ►
How long ago was this, Gary?
00:05:04 ►
That’s about 10 years ago.
00:05:05 ►
Okay.
00:05:06 ►
Okay.
00:05:07 ►
And I assume you were living in the United States then?
00:05:10 ►
Yes.
00:05:11 ►
Okay.
00:05:11 ►
In Massachusetts.
00:05:12 ►
Okay.
00:05:15 ►
So anyway, I have two sons, wonderful men.
00:05:20 ►
But my older son kind of in his late teens took a dark path and ended up an opiate addict.
00:05:32 ►
So about 15 years into it he came to my wife and I explaining just how worried he was and
00:05:40 ►
you know that he was not doing well and didn’t know what to do. So because of my background in shamanism and wanting to see healing occur both physically and spiritually,
00:05:53 ►
we chose to come here to Costa Rica to a place called Iboga House.
00:05:57 ►
Now, this is before you had even tried Iboga yourself?
00:06:02 ►
That’s correct, yes.
00:06:02 ►
Okay.
00:06:04 ►
But you had used ayahuasca yes i had used
00:06:07 ►
ayahuasca like five times and san pedro three times um so you know i came with my son to support him
00:06:16 ►
through the process but i also came for myself you know i’m a seeker as well and never really could get it satisfied that seeking within me until I found
00:06:29 ►
a boga and then all the all my answers came and it was really quite remarkable to have that happen
00:06:37 ►
for me and also to watch my son transform in like a week from a serious accident. That rapidly? Yeah.
00:06:45 ►
Oh, yeah.
00:06:48 ►
And this is like after 15 years of an addiction?
00:06:49 ►
Yes, it is.
00:06:50 ►
Wow.
00:06:52 ►
Right.
00:06:57 ►
But we think, you know, the magic ingredient is actually the will.
00:06:58 ►
You know, how much do you want it?
00:07:01 ►
You know, and you put that together with a boga,
00:07:04 ►
and you’ve got success, basically.
00:07:08 ►
But it won’t go against someone’s will.
00:07:10 ►
If you don’t want it, it’s not going to do anything.
00:07:15 ►
You know, Gary, I’m really, really pleased that you brought that out because I’ve had some experiences myself with various people that I was close to
00:07:20 ►
that I really wanted to help, but they were not ready,
00:07:23 ►
at least not ready to listen to anything I really wanted to help, but they were not ready and at least not ready to listen to
00:07:25 ►
anything I had to say. And so I understand what you’re saying that while this can be a pathway
00:07:33 ►
or a doorway to better mental health, you’ve got to ask for it first. Correct. Correct. And,
00:07:42 ►
you know, ask for it and sincerely want to change.
00:07:46 ►
Right.
00:07:47 ►
Sincerely. You know, listen to what the medicine has to show you about how you can change, but then acting on it.
00:07:53 ►
Well, tell us a little bit about your first time down there with your son.
00:07:58 ►
What took place? How long were you there and how many ceremonies, if any, did you have, et cetera?
00:08:05 ►
Okay.
00:08:08 ►
We were there for 11 days.
00:08:15 ►
So immediately when my son arrived, like he had taken his last dope,
00:08:21 ►
like about as we got on the plane in Atlanta, come down to Costa Rica.
00:08:24 ►
And so by the time we got there, he was starting to go into withdrawal.
00:08:32 ►
And so my teacher Magenda, who was the shaman working there, you know, immediately gave him some aboga. And it took about five days of constantly feeding him aboga to get him through
00:08:38 ►
it. And then another couple of days, just kind of wind down, integrate a little bit. But yeah,
00:08:43 ►
is just kind of wind down, integrate a little bit.
00:08:47 ►
But yeah, and I was just so impressed.
00:08:51 ►
My teacher, he stayed up with my son for five nights in a row.
00:08:56 ►
And so your son actually consumed Iboga for five days in a row.
00:08:57 ►
Yeah.
00:08:57 ►
Wow.
00:09:02 ►
Yeah, because what I’ve seen with working with opiate addiction and things is that it’s almost like an acid and base reaction.
00:09:07 ►
You know, they both have potential, but you mix them together and they neutralize each other.
00:09:12 ►
So what we see with iboga is someone comes in with opiates in their system,
00:09:18 ►
the iboga will start to work on that and it’ll, you know uh dissolve some of that from inside and we give them some more
00:09:26 ►
aboga dissolves more solves more and eventually the withdrawals are gone and the physical aspect
00:09:33 ►
of the healing is is pretty much complete how did you find this shaman in the first place
00:09:39 ►
uh online i’m just searching around and looking for all of our options you know we
00:09:47 ►
were first looking at ibogaine places uh but uh that didn’t appeal to me because i didn’t
00:09:53 ►
see the spiritual healing part you know and this would be a good good place to uh explain
00:09:59 ►
the difference between iboga and ibogaine treatments? Yeah, well, you know, iboga is a
00:10:08 ►
plant that naturally grows over in the countries of Gabon, Cameroon, the Congo, and
00:10:16 ►
it goes there, and the people, the people there have been, you know, working with it for a long
00:10:23 ►
time, and they discovered, you know, the wonderful properties of it and really created a whole culture around it.
00:10:33 ►
They’re more recently willing to share that with outsiders.
00:10:38 ►
Is it mainly the Buiti tribe in Gabon, or do other people in Gabon participate with iboga ceremonies?
00:10:48 ►
Yeah, it’s probably not understood, or probably best understood not to think of it so much as a
00:10:52 ►
tribe, but in approach to life, you know, to myself, I’ve been over there and met a lot of
00:11:01 ►
Bwiti. And it basically means someone that’s willing to use a Boga to find answers
00:11:09 ►
to study life.
00:11:11 ►
So it’s not like an individual tribe or community in the moon, it’s spread diverse
00:11:19 ►
throughout the country.
00:11:20 ►
Yes, and there’s various sects and people do their ceremonies a little bit different
00:11:28 ►
whatever but you know the group that we’re with are called the Masoko Witi and are primarily
00:11:35 ►
focused on healing now now do they when you say they focus on healing what uh in in their society are they uh you know victims of
00:11:48 ►
stress and and some of the same things that we have here in in north america or or do they have
00:11:54 ►
different kinds of uh say mental anguish that they go through um i didn’t didn’t see a lot of
00:12:02 ►
stress when i was there i’ve been over there there three times, and people are pretty relaxed and get along well.
00:12:11 ►
I guess my question is the healing that they were doing.
00:12:14 ►
What type of healing, what reasons for the healing were they using Iboga?
00:12:22 ►
Well, from what I understand, um you know a lot of physical healing
00:12:28 ►
ah emotional healing spiritual healing ancestral healing so so really very similar to uh the work
00:12:36 ►
that iowa scaros do in south america yeah i think so ah and and now now the the center uh where you are now is that the place that you
00:12:50 ►
and your son went uh no oh okay so we went there a little over seven years ago and uh we both were
00:12:58 ►
just blown away by the whole experience and decided to train to become providers. And we both studied with the shaman there.
00:13:08 ►
And it was in the beginning of 2014 that I started at Boga Wellness Center.
00:13:13 ►
Ah, okay.
00:13:15 ►
Now, is your son still involved with you?
00:13:18 ►
Well, not as much as I’d like.
00:13:21 ►
You know, he’s been six years clean off heroin now, and, you know, it’s…
00:13:27 ►
That’s really the main question I wanted to ask.
00:13:30 ►
Okay, yeah, no, he won’t go near it.
00:13:33 ►
And I’m not worried that he ever would.
00:13:37 ►
He about, well, actually, while he was still an addict,
00:13:42 ►
he got bit by a tick and got Lyme disease. And it didn’t show
00:13:48 ►
up in his life until three or four years later. Wow. So he like, you know, he got clean off heroin,
00:13:54 ►
he trained to be a provider, he was like, really had a daughter and just life couldn’t have been
00:14:01 ►
better for him. And then the Lyme disease hit him, and it just hit him hard.
00:14:09 ►
It was crushing to watch, but he’s coming around.
00:14:14 ►
Yeah, that’s a real hard thing to deal with.
00:14:16 ►
I’ve had several relatives involved in it, too.
00:14:22 ►
Well, listen, hey, Levi, we haven’t had a chance to hear from you, and you’re the one that kicked this whole thing off. So do you want to step in here now a little bit?
00:14:27 ►
Sure.
00:14:29 ►
Go ahead.
00:14:31 ►
Sure.
00:14:32 ►
Oh, with, yeah, okay, yeah, where I got into Iboga.
00:14:37 ►
So like so many people, you know, I was also one to find Iboga from opiates.
00:14:43 ►
You know, I was also one to find Iboga from opiates.
00:14:51 ►
So it’s been close to 11 years ago now that I was, you know, some points in my life I was okay in managing.
00:14:58 ►
Other times I was at absolute rock bottom and just using any opiates I could get.
00:15:02 ►
And, you know, tried the methadone, maintenance, suboxone, tried it all.
00:15:06 ►
And at one point I asked a friend who’s really in the plant medicine and really knows a lot uh probably the person that i know that knows most
00:15:13 ►
about plants i asked him if there was anything that would help from it for for opiate and um
00:15:19 ►
he said yeah iboga and i remember the first time i heard that word that uh i was like wow that sounds
00:15:28 ►
sounds very serious and i knew knew there was something there and so he actually said and i
00:15:34 ►
have some and i’ll send it to you and so he did um i was living in nicaragua at the time
00:15:41 ►
and um and so i just or not just I was in the first year of my relationship
00:15:48 ►
with my, my now wife, who’s Costa Rican and Nicaraguan. And at the time, the Spanish wasn’t
00:15:54 ►
so good. I used to carry around a little handheld translator down there. And so I explained a bit
00:16:01 ►
of what was going on. So she could, she got, she got an okay idea, but still wasn’t quite sure.
00:16:07 ►
You just don’t see opiate problems much in Latin America.
00:16:11 ►
Maybe, maybe in, you know, Mexico or Colombia, there’s some of that in the cities.
00:16:18 ►
But in, in, in at least in Central America there, you just don’t see problems with opiates.
00:16:24 ►
And so let her know that,
00:16:26 ►
you know, I would be going through this experience. It’ll probably take a couple nights.
00:16:30 ►
And, you know, I may need help to the bathroom. And so, you know, looking back, I was pretty
00:16:37 ►
brave, but I was at the point where I was willing to do whatever it took to, you know, stop abusing myself.
00:16:46 ►
And so I asked my friend, so what do I do?
00:16:51 ►
And he had sent me quite a bit of Iboga.
00:16:54 ►
He said just down it and then lay down and try not to move your head.
00:16:58 ►
So that was my only instructions.
00:17:01 ►
And so I did that.
00:17:03 ►
Do you know how much you had?
00:17:10 ►
No, I do. Yeah, I did. and so uh and you didn’t do that so how much you had um no i do i yeah i did i did i can say i did didn’t make my way my my the whole way through it that’s for sure there was plenty left over
00:17:15 ►
and um anyways so i you know i i did that and it took it was a pretty grueling three nights like
00:17:24 ►
gary was saying you know his son went about five nights without sleeping.
00:17:27 ►
I went three nights and that’s pretty typical for people with, you know, withdrawing like that.
00:17:33 ►
And it worked.
00:17:35 ►
It got me physically clean where I felt good afterwards and was, you know, didn’t feel the need to go back. But at the same time, you know, as opiate addicts,
00:17:50 ►
you know, we really mask a lot of our emotions. So all of a sudden, I’m having these emotions that,
00:17:54 ►
you know, I was running from for all those years. And so that’s, you know, got past the big wall,
00:18:00 ►
but the work really started there. And about a year and a half later that same
00:18:07 ►
friend went to to the spot called the iboga house where gary was talking about where we
00:18:11 ►
met our teacher he went there and um and uh they were magenda our teacher was just serving
00:18:20 ►
a root park at the time and my my friend who’s also a chemist, said, hey, you know, it
00:18:25 ►
would be good for some of these people, especially people that are withdrawing, to make a total
00:18:31 ►
alkaloid extract just using vinegar. And so, again, it was into the idea. And I was living
00:18:36 ►
in Nicaragua. So my friend went back down to show him how to do it and invited me down just to help out. So I was there, you know, grinding, grinding herbs all day
00:18:47 ►
and stirring stuff and just helping them out. And so I got to know our teacher and then started
00:18:54 ►
coming down to, to do some ceremonies with him. And I got through a few of those and I was doing
00:19:02 ►
internet marketing at the time. So I started doing some marketing for the site. He was just getting rolling. It wasn’t real big for him yet. And
00:19:11 ►
so, you know, in about a year after that, after getting a bit of marketing,
00:19:17 ►
the spot certainly did get popular. And I heard about him training some different people.
00:19:26 ►
And when I heard that,
00:19:30 ►
I had known from the first time I had had the medicine that, like Gary was saying, it was just so magical that I wanted to work with it. And so when I heard about the training, I asked him,
00:19:37 ►
and surprisingly at the time where I was in my life, he said yes. And so I went and trained with him over several years you know for three weeks at a time
00:19:49 ►
here or there I was still running a business so I wasn’t all the way in and then about four years
00:19:57 ►
ago I had known for all these last ten and a half years or so that I wanted to work with the medicine,
00:20:06 ►
but it just wasn’t right or ready. And about four years ago, I got a very clear call where
00:20:11 ►
my whole life started shifting in that direction without me even consciously happening. I was just
00:20:20 ►
getting pushed in that direction. And so I had known Gary we had become friends from from uh
00:20:25 ►
from the Iboga house and uh got in touch with him and uh you know he was he was just getting
00:20:32 ►
getting the wellness center was just starting to uh do well and they needed some extra help and I
00:20:39 ►
was fortunate enough to get in at the right time and start doing more ceremonies with them and uh and you know that’s
00:20:47 ►
when gary son’s jeff was there and uh yeah just uh beautiful beautiful work and uh that’s been
00:20:56 ►
the best decision i’ve ever made in my life and really helping you eventually you eventually did
00:21:01 ►
go to gabon to train too, is that right?
00:21:06 ►
Yeah, definitely.
00:21:09 ►
Definitely went to Gabon a couple times now.
00:21:13 ►
And, yeah, it was really cool to see our teacher in action. You know, the system that we use was developed by him,
00:21:17 ►
which works really well for Westerners.
00:21:21 ►
And it’s a melding of, you know, the Bwiti tradition
00:21:24 ►
and some shamanic aspects of that, but then also,
00:21:28 ►
you know,
00:21:30 ►
helping people get through the Western problems that we,
00:21:33 ►
that we have to deal with. Like you were mentioning, you know,
00:21:35 ►
we’re just more stressed, more anxiety, probably a lot harder on ourselves.
00:21:41 ►
And so he developed that, that system and, and yep, definitely, you know, when you go over there
00:21:49 ►
and you’re, you know, training or a provider at the time, yeah, it’s pretty intense, and he’s
00:21:56 ►
showing you a lot of really valuable stuff. You know, Levi, and you may don’t want to answer this,
00:22:04 ►
but the reason I’m asking is a good significant portion of our listeners here in the salon are under 35.
00:22:11 ►
But there are some old guys like myself.
00:22:15 ►
And one of the questions I have, because I know how it could happen to me, but how difficult or how easy is it to slip into an opioid addiction? How does
00:22:27 ►
that take place? You know, if some of the parents and grandparents listening right now,
00:22:33 ►
what do they need to be aware of that? Why, how or why someone would start slipping into a serious
00:22:39 ►
addiction? Yeah. Oh man. It’s, yeah, it’s so rampant these days and i kind of caught it right when you know
00:22:48 ►
the first wave of all these opiate addictions came up and like so many people i had broke my
00:22:54 ►
wrist snowboarding and i had to have a bit of surgery on it and got prescribed lortab
00:23:00 ►
and you know started taking that and started enjoying the feeling to where I was,
00:23:06 ►
you know, physically good with my wrist, but still wanted to have that feeling.
00:23:10 ►
And so, yeah, really the prescriptions are a big culprit in a lot of it.
00:23:17 ►
Hardly anybody I know would go straight to heroin.
00:23:20 ►
So many people come through the prescription drugs and, you know, then they, they can’t get
00:23:25 ►
them or, you know, their doctor cuts them off. And that’s when you turn to, you know, the street
00:23:31 ►
opiates. And I, I would imagine, you know, a very large portion of people start that way. So,
00:23:40 ►
you know, if somebody is having a major surgery where they’re like really, really in pain, which which I was, you know, maybe you use them for, you know, two, three, four days, you know, but then I would really watch any any further use of the painkillers.
00:23:57 ►
And then just, you know, once you’re through that point, I would dump them out and and yeah, get get, get them, get them out of the, get them out of
00:24:07 ►
the house. That’s for sure. But what happens is people, you know, going through something physical
00:24:13 ►
where they, they need that and it gives them relief, but then they also start noticing like,
00:24:18 ►
you know, the emotions from the surgery are dulled down, you know, you know, maybe you’re not being
00:24:24 ►
as, maybe you’re, you’re not as as, uh, maybe you’re, you’re
00:24:26 ►
not as stressed as you thought you would be because you’re out of work and out of commission
00:24:30 ►
and people start, um, realizing that there’s a, an escape there.
00:24:35 ►
And so, um, you know, it, it doesn’t take long to, to learn to, to use that as a mask
00:24:42 ►
for other things going on in your life.
00:24:44 ►
to learn to, to use that as a mask for other things going on in your life.
00:24:47 ►
So yeah, yeah.
00:24:50 ►
It’s definitely something to be really, really careful for.
00:24:52 ►
You know, I, I can see how that would have,
00:24:56 ►
could have easily happened to me because I’m one of those people who,
00:24:59 ►
you know, if I’m taking something and I say it makes me feel good,
00:25:02 ►
I want to keep doing it. But, you know, over the years I’ve, I’ve learned to temper myself somewhat, you know, back when in the 60s, when I was in the Navy, I ruptured, my appendix ruptured, and it was quite painful. And the surgery was long, and they didn’t even stitch me up. You know, there’s a lot of complications.
00:25:24 ►
got any pain medicine other than what came through an IV drip. They never gave me any pills or anything. And two days after I got out of the hospital, they put me on a plane and flew
00:25:29 ►
me to Vietnam to catch my ship. So I didn’t have the luxury of getting addicted to something, but
00:25:35 ►
I’ll tell you what, I know enough about myself that if I had been given opioids, which they
00:25:41 ►
weren’t really given back then, I can see how easily I could get
00:25:45 ►
sucked into something like that. You know, it’s not just addictive personalities. Those things
00:25:52 ►
are very, you know, seductive. And I’ve been fortunate in that I never liked opium. You know,
00:25:57 ►
I’ve smoked opium and various forms of it and all, never heroin but the opioids never attracted me like psychedelics do
00:26:06 ►
so I was fortunate in that regard but that said I can see also how it’d be really easy for somebody
00:26:12 ►
like me to slip into that habit yep yep and one thing for for the listeners to to understand is
00:26:22 ►
you know iboga or abogaine really know, got its name off of being the
00:26:27 ►
only thing in the world that can help people get through opiate withdrawal, you know, in a
00:26:32 ►
painless fashion or not painless, but, you know, it really does cut out at least 90, 95% of what
00:26:39 ►
somebody’s going through. But this medicine is really for anything we’re struggling with in life or the direction we’re
00:26:47 ►
looking for. Like currently at Iboga Wellness, we’re just not set up for it. And especially
00:26:53 ►
with the synthetic opiates, we don’t actually treat people going through a detox anymore.
00:26:57 ►
What we do recommend is them going to an Ibogaine clinic and then coming to CS.
00:27:03 ►
So everybody that we get currently is,
00:27:06 ►
is clean from drugs. So we certainly get some people that have, you know, two weeks, a month
00:27:11 ►
clean, but most people are really coming, you know, for depression and anxiety, PTSD, you know,
00:27:19 ►
past abuse of some sort. A lot of like, a lot of people that are just really hard on themselves and can’t
00:27:27 ►
break that cycle, people looking for their next direction in life.
00:27:31 ►
This medicine is really for everybody.
00:27:35 ►
If you’re feeling stuck and looking for some directions, what we tell people is those answers
00:27:43 ►
are already inside of us.
00:27:45 ►
you know and what we tell people is those those answers are already inside of us you know they’re there but through different experiences you know we start creating this filter on top of connecting
00:27:51 ►
with ourselves and um you know the medicine is able to break through that just really connect
00:27:57 ►
yourself with yourself again and and bring to light like you know how life is going for
00:28:03 ►
for oneself and so yeah it’s really it really
00:28:06 ►
is for everybody you know this this would be a good point to once more uh explain the difference
00:28:12 ►
between uh iboga and ibogaine because like many many people until recently the last year or so
00:28:18 ►
and learning more about uh the two substances i i confuse the two and I use the term wrong. And you’re talking about
00:28:28 ►
Ibogaine clinics to help people get off a particularly heroin addiction. And I know
00:28:34 ►
several people who have successfully done that with Ibogaine. But you are an Iboga center,
00:28:38 ►
which is more to me seems spiritual and psychological. Do you want to distinguish between the two a little bit
00:28:45 ►
more? Sure, sure. So I can definitely understand why the Ibogaine clinics use Ibogaine.
00:28:54 ►
And explain what Ibogaine, the difference between Iboga and Ibogaine.
00:28:59 ►
Yes, so Iboga, I think, has 13 alkaloids and Ibogaine being one of them.
00:29:08 ►
And so, you know, I think a French pharmacologist was able to extract it, you know, in the early 1900s or late 1800s and didn’t get much attention until Howard Lotsoff. And so with the Ibogaine, it works really,
00:29:26 ►
really well for opiate detox and even other drug detoxes. But it is just the one alkaloid. I think
00:29:36 ►
it moves through an addict’s system easier physically. Whereas with Ib iboga i feel you get a deeper deeper physical cleanse with with
00:29:49 ►
the other alkaloids doing their work and i will say i’ve never had ibogaine um so i i’m you know
00:29:56 ►
speaking on what i feel and what i what i do know about ibogaine and with ibogaine they can they can
00:30:03 ►
get a lot more exact on the dosing that they’re giving a person so at ibogaine and with ibogaine they can they can get a lot more exact on the dosing that
00:30:06 ►
they’re giving a person so at ibogaine clinic you know you’ll people will be dosed based on their
00:30:11 ►
so many milligrams of ibogaine per kilogram of body weight and so here we know that everybody
00:30:19 ►
has a different tolerance to the medicine so everybody gets a bit different uh dose depending on how
00:30:26 ►
they’re reacting to the medicine and we can connect with them and see where they’re at after a certain
00:30:31 ►
amount of time so um and the thing is the iboga is a plant and so in our tradition or many traditions
00:30:39 ►
we know that that plants they have a spirit to them and they have um codes inside of them codes
00:30:46 ►
to nature and and um you know obviously nature has a really high intelligence that we so high
00:30:55 ►
that we can’t explain everything and so um with the full-time iboga i feel like you’re accessing
00:31:00 ►
that on a deeper level and um and then one then one with the tradition, you know, iboga is the medicine
00:31:11 ►
of the bleeding. And that’s, you know, besides my first time doing a detox, that’s really all I’ve
00:31:16 ►
ever known about this medicine. So really the iboga and the bleeding for me really go hand in
00:31:23 ►
hand. I can’t really see them being separated
00:31:25 ►
um now that’s not to say that you know a person can get everything they need for
00:31:31 ►
from from ibogaine i’m sure they could it’s just a different path to get there
00:31:35 ►
you know that that of course i’m i’m a big believer in the complete plant for medicine
00:31:42 ►
and i think that that just even on a purely scientific
00:31:46 ►
basis, the synergy of those 11 alkaloids, there’s certainly got to be some effects that the
00:31:52 ►
synergistic effects that they have as well. So I’m a real believer in the full plant. Although I do
00:31:59 ►
appreciate the fact that I’ve known a number of people who have had a serious heroin addiction
00:32:06 ►
that have been essentially, I don’t know if you want to say cured, but they haven’t used heroin
00:32:11 ►
in a decade. So, you know, I can see the benefit of it more than just, say, pure THC taking out
00:32:20 ►
of cannabis, because I think the synergistic effect of the cannabis plant, not to mention the
00:32:25 ►
spirit of the cannabis plant, has a great deal of benefit. But this is really fascinating to
00:32:33 ►
see that here is a medicine that’s being used in two different ways, healing two different really
00:32:40 ►
kind of aspects. And it’s one of the first times I’ve seen where the pharmaceutical and,
00:32:46 ►
you know,
00:32:46 ►
the extraction of a single alkaloid has really been as beneficial as this
00:32:51 ►
has.
00:32:53 ►
Absolutely.
00:32:55 ►
And that’s a great analogy with the cannabis and THC as well.
00:32:59 ►
So do, do any of our other fellow gatherers here,
00:33:04 ►
there’s a few dozen of us here. would anybody want to raise their hand and join in?
00:33:09 ►
Lorenzo, based on just something that you just said, what are your thoughts on LSD?
00:33:15 ►
Because that’s just an isolated molecule.
00:33:17 ►
Do you feel that there’s a spirit in there?
00:33:18 ►
I think you’ve used LSD a number of times, correct?
00:33:22 ►
Yeah, I was microdosing in the 90s, actually, and I’ve
00:33:26 ►
used LSD hundreds of times. I have to tell you that from my experience, I’ve only had
00:33:33 ►
one experience out of hundreds of LSD experiences that I would say were spiritual. Most of mine,
00:33:40 ►
I would relate more as mechanical. I used it want to writing code and writing books, but from a spiritual aspect,
00:33:46 ►
I didn’t receive that from LSD,
00:33:48 ►
but now to be fair,
00:33:50 ►
I never looked for it from LSD because I always had,
00:33:53 ►
had mushrooms and ayahuasca for my spiritual medicine.
00:33:58 ►
So I used,
00:33:59 ►
I actually used LSD for as a tool,
00:34:04 ►
you know,
00:34:04 ►
to help my work.
00:34:05 ►
So it, it I never approached it from a spiritual aspect.
00:34:09 ►
So I’m probably Matthew, I’m probably not the best guy to ask about that.
00:34:13 ►
Well, thank you for the insight though.
00:34:15 ►
So anybody else want to chime in here while we’re available?
00:34:20 ►
No, I would like to chime in.
00:34:22 ►
Here we go.
00:34:23 ►
Here, here, here, just Gary levi don’t have uh the benefit of
00:34:27 ►
video so uh houston coming in now is also on the road so we have two people driving right now and
00:34:32 ►
go ahead houston i just parked so thank goodness but uh so uh thank you guys for doing what you do
00:34:39 ►
i think that’s really awesome i also was first exposed to the Aboga House online many, many years ago when it
00:34:46 ►
first started. And I was watching their YouTube testimonies. It was really awesome. So I
00:34:51 ►
unfortunately have not had the chance to try it. And I’m probably going to come check you guys out
00:34:57 ►
in the near future or maybe in the next year or so. But that being said said my question is uh do you guys educate yourself on the pharmacology
00:35:07 ►
and the pathophysiology of the drug and the brain and so forth to help those people who are there
00:35:15 ►
for a psycho-spiritual journey um maybe to like um like have a a deeper structure or a framework of understanding what’s going on.
00:35:28 ►
That would be my question.
00:35:31 ►
Yeah.
00:35:31 ►
Thank you.
00:35:32 ►
Thank you.
00:35:33 ►
That would love to see you one day.
00:35:36 ►
Um, for myself, no, really, really, we, we don’t, I mean, I know some of the basics from
00:35:43 ►
what I’ve read online from a lot of
00:35:45 ►
the the bigger abigail groups and ice years and the abigail alliance you know i’ve taken in that
00:35:51 ►
information um but our our you know our work with this medicine really comes from from uh the
00:36:00 ►
traditional place and and really accessing it more to ask questions about life and,
00:36:06 ►
and direction in life and why things are the way they are. And, um,
00:36:11 ►
so yeah, no, I, I don’t, Gary, maybe might have some input on that.
00:36:19 ►
Nothing’s coming to mind right now.
00:36:20 ►
Let me, let me follow that up then with a quick question.
00:36:24 ►
So what about
00:36:26 ►
a scenario of if gary is doing his thing right and he’s talking to people who are there and they’re
00:36:33 ►
on board with all of your philosophy levi or like the way you’re putting it and dealing with emotions
00:36:39 ►
and stuff like that but then you go well yeah this is going to help you in the drug detox situation so you get one
00:36:46 ►
of those people that’s two weeks out right and they ask you that question how is that helping
00:36:52 ►
me physically like i would i would definitely incorporate that knowledge because i would like
00:37:00 ►
make you even more effective as a practitioner or like whatever you’re doing you know
00:37:04 ►
would like make you even more effective as a practitioner or like whatever you’re doing you know yeah yeah we definitely explain to them that it is gonna gonna reset the brain chemistry and
00:37:13 ►
with the medicine you can definitely feel that happening especially for the people that have
00:37:18 ►
that have recently detoxed um you can you know a lot of people describe it as filling the medicine in their brain just
00:37:26 ►
scrubbing it clean and and scrubbing throughout their body almost on a cellular cellular level
00:37:31 ►
so we do definitely let them know like hey you know you know we i should say yeah we do let
00:37:38 ►
them know that part like physiologically you know things are going to be repaired and synapses you
00:37:43 ►
know your serotonin your your adrenal glands all those things are going to get it get a kickstart and that’s really one
00:37:50 ►
of the reasons um people don’t stay clean for a long period of time is they just never get quite
00:37:56 ►
fully back to feeling better so we definitely um you know guide them with letting them know that, you know, you’re going to feel good after this.
00:38:06 ►
And, and yeah, let it, yeah, let them, and then they, they, they do feel that after they get
00:38:14 ►
through, you know, for, for, for people that have recently detox, you know, like Gary was saying
00:38:20 ►
earlier, the medicine needs to go in and cleanse them physically first. So typically, especially
00:38:26 ►
for those people that have recently detoxed the medicine, the first time they have it is going to
00:38:31 ►
be a really physical experience. There could be more purging, their recovery time will probably
00:38:36 ►
be longer. But then once they come out of that, they’ve had that first cleanse with Iboga,
00:38:43 ►
typically they recover a lot quicker that second
00:38:46 ►
time. And that’s generally true for everybody. You know, the first time that the medicine goes
00:38:52 ►
through you, the recovery time is a bit longer. Whereas now that things have been cleared out of
00:38:58 ►
the way, it doesn’t have to clear out the same things that it did the first time, it can dig in a bit deeper.
00:39:06 ►
And, you know, for some people, for so many that they live a clean life and they’re, you
00:39:13 ►
know, they’ve been working on themselves, sometimes that physical detox may just be,
00:39:17 ►
you know, three or four hours or five hours.
00:39:20 ►
You know, other times it can be the whole, you know, the whole journey, which typically people fill the medicine to some extent, you know, it’s going through them for a good 24 hours.
00:39:32 ►
Yeah, I hope that helps.
00:39:34 ►
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:36 ►
Go ahead, Houston.
00:39:38 ►
No, that’s good.
00:39:39 ►
That’s really good.
00:39:40 ►
I was just thinking about also like dosages.
00:39:42 ►
Do you guys weigh stuff out for people?
00:39:47 ►
Do you give everybody the same amount?
00:39:56 ►
Yes. So we have, we serve just the ground up root part. Like it came right from the plant.
00:40:04 ►
You know, so we serve that off of the spoon. So serving the medicine a lot, you can get a good idea of, you know, we actually go by,
00:40:07 ►
you know, half spoon, three quarter, full spoon, just knowing how it affects different people.
00:40:13 ►
But then for the TA, we make our own organic total alkaloid extract using only Heinz 57 white
00:40:21 ►
vinegar, which is also natural vinegar. And so we do weigh out the total alkaloid extract capsules.
00:40:29 ►
So really, you know, you can get it.
00:40:33 ►
You can get a good idea on some of these tolerance to the medicine, spending some time with them, talking with them, seeing, you know, how strong their mind is, how set they are and what, you know,
00:40:46 ►
whatever they’re working on.
00:40:48 ►
And so, but we start everybody off with a dose that they can handle.
00:40:52 ►
And typically that first dose will be the root bark.
00:40:56 ►
And once the medicine’s been in them for about an hour, we can get a really good idea of
00:41:01 ►
like where they’re at and also getting their input.
00:41:04 ►
You know, we definitely trust people that they know themselves better than we do and so you know we get information
00:41:10 ►
from them we can you know you can feel their arm and and if it’s getting really hot you know the
00:41:16 ►
medicine is still coming up quite a bit um you know that your people’s balance can get off so
00:41:22 ►
depending on you know we may help them up and see
00:41:25 ►
how their balance is and depending on how how their balance is we can get a good idea so then we
00:41:32 ►
for the people that need it continue dosing throughout the next several hours for some
00:41:38 ►
people that first spoon of root bark may be all they need to go in and get the work they need done. Other people could need several
00:41:45 ►
more doses. So then once we, you know, once we’ve been through that first ceremony and we know
00:41:52 ►
everybody’s tolerance, that second ceremony, we can get a really good idea on just how much to give
00:41:58 ►
them all at once rather than kind of staggering the doses over several hours.
00:42:10 ►
And that can a lot of times give them a little more lift off.
00:42:12 ►
And then also because you’re not staggering the doses,
00:42:15 ►
the recovery time can definitely be quicker.
00:42:16 ►
Yeah.
00:42:21 ►
Now, as I understand, Levi, you also, these are small groups,
00:42:22 ►
two to five people, is that right?
00:42:25 ►
Typically five to seven.
00:42:29 ►
Oh, okay. So there’s a small enough group that you have,
00:42:33 ►
you can give some individual time to the participants.
00:42:39 ►
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that’s it. That’s important for us. Yeah. There’s, you know, the, the, the medicine lasts so long,
00:42:44 ►
the care that’s needed the next day all through the night.
00:42:47 ►
Yeah, it’s just not fit for large groups.
00:42:51 ►
And so, yeah, yeah, that’s we want everybody to get plenty of attention and plenty of time to, you know, work with the medicine, work with us.
00:43:00 ►
You know, we’ve been through a lot of the same things that many of the guests have been through between, you know, Gary and myself and the rest of the staff. So there’s a lot of things we
00:43:09 ►
can relate to that we’ve been through ourselves and guide them on, you know, how we’ve learned
00:43:14 ►
from the medicine. So yeah, no, it’s important for us to have smaller groups. You know, I’ve heard
00:43:21 ►
you mentioned this or Gary, and I’ve heard this from a lot of people that are involved or have used Iboga.
00:43:27 ►
And you talk about a 24 hour trip.
00:43:30 ►
How what are we really talking about as far as intensity and what what do you mean by a 24 hour trip?
00:43:38 ►
So, so when you when you first take the medicine, you know, there’s going to be several hours of a ramp up time, similar, you know, to other, to other plant medicines, you know, there’s the, there’s the ramp up and, you know, a graph going up and it goes up relatively quick.
00:44:05 ►
And then that, that taper downward goes very, very slow.
00:44:10 ►
So typically by the morning time,
00:44:13 ►
so we, we have everybody in the ceremony area until sunrise the next day.
00:44:18 ►
And when we get them up to go to their room, typically people,
00:44:23 ►
it’s not as intense as it was you know three or four hours
00:44:27 ►
ago or so definitely still feeling the medicine quite a bit and they you know just want to spend
00:44:34 ►
some time alone um and and have some introspective time and so but they’ll you know some people will
00:44:41 ►
have visions throughout that next morning and um or insights coming to them still and really feel the medicine strongly.
00:44:49 ►
Other people bounce back a bit quicker and get up and have lunch and take a swim in the pool.
00:44:56 ►
So yeah, it’s really, really individual.
00:44:57 ►
And what we tell people is really the medicine is going to work on you until it’s done.
00:45:04 ►
And then once it’s done, that’s when you’ll go to sleep
00:45:07 ►
and so once a person gets some sleep um once they get you know three four hours of sleep
00:45:13 ►
they they wake up the next day feeling really fresh just really clear um like whatever you know
00:45:21 ►
things that were being carried carried around have been released and so um you know, things that were being carried around have been released. And so,
00:45:26 ►
you know, people probably get tired of us asking here at the center, did you sleep? How’d you
00:45:30 ►
sleep? How many hours did you get? You know, we’re very, very interested in people’s sleep because
00:45:35 ►
we know once they do get some of that sleep that, you know, things are going to start looking really
00:45:40 ►
good for them soon. And, you know, so the medicine, you know, whatever we’re dealing with,
00:45:47 ►
you know, if a person comes in dealing with anger or they’re really anxious or really hard on
00:45:52 ►
themselves, you know, that next day, you know, that can really come up. So, you know, we constantly
00:45:58 ►
remind people that, you know, if people are feeling a bit sad or anxious or, you know, angry,
00:46:04 ►
whatever they’re dealing with, typically that amplifies those emotions in them.
00:46:09 ►
So we constantly remind them that that’s the healing happening and that’s just how it works.
00:46:15 ►
You know, like Gary will say, you know, whatever we let in, whatever we’re dealing with came through the front door and has to leave through the front door as well.
00:46:22 ►
whatever we’re dealing with came through the front door and has to leave through the front door as well. And so, you know, there can be,
00:46:27 ►
there can be a period of, of some really it can be,
00:46:32 ►
it can be difficult, you know,
00:46:34 ►
it’s definitely a sacrifice to do this work, but you know, the,
00:46:38 ►
the gains and what people get out of it are just this life changing.
00:46:43 ►
And I, you know, I, I I can I can really see that
00:46:46 ►
and like I say I’ve had friends who it has changed their lives but the question
00:46:51 ►
I have is and this is probably beyond the reach and available scope of what
00:46:56 ►
you guys can do but Mike my question is I know I’ve had a few ayahuasca
00:47:02 ►
experiences that that a week two weeks several weeks later
00:47:07 ►
I really was still having some problems with it and so I could call somebody else from my
00:47:12 ►
my group that you know we’ve been together for years and so and talk about it these people when
00:47:18 ►
they they’re there for a week 10 days they have a couple intense experiences but when they go back
00:47:22 ►
home is there any way for them to get any kind of support?
00:47:26 ►
Should they need some reinforcement later on?
00:47:30 ►
Yeah.
00:47:31 ►
Yep.
00:47:31 ►
Absolutely.
00:47:32 ►
Absolutely.
00:47:32 ►
So there’s, you know, we’re available.
00:47:36 ►
Once we’ve had this medicine with a group, this really connects you on a deep level,
00:47:41 ►
even though it is only a week long that we’re together.
00:47:44 ►
But there’s a connection there. connects you on a deep level, even though it is only a week long that we’re together,
00:47:49 ►
but there’s a connection there from there. So they know they can get in touch with us whenever we want. Of course, you know, if, if, you know, all of them did that,
00:47:55 ►
it would be tough to manage everybody, but people, people, you know, do reach out.
00:48:00 ►
And we also have bi-monthly integration calls for any past clients that have been here to Evogel Wellness.
00:48:08 ►
So they’re able to jump on those calls.
00:48:11 ►
Peter, who’s our house manager and has done a lot of work on himself, including coaching in the past, leads those calls and you know it’s just an open forum for people to express what they’re dealing
00:48:25 ►
with and you know reconnect back with us and and and you know the the lessons they got from the
00:48:31 ►
medicine and then we also work with a couple specific groups and people um one is one of the
00:48:39 ►
more talented uh coaches i’ve i’ve ever come across from Australia.
00:48:47 ►
And he’s been here so people can work with him.
00:48:51 ►
We work with a place called Being True to You,
00:48:56 ►
which deals specifically with people integrating and preparing for plant medicine.
00:49:00 ►
Another one called Afterplant.
00:49:07 ►
Another client of ours recently started something called iBoCoach to help people.
00:49:17 ►
So we definitely have a good four or five resources for people if they need some intense one-on-one integration help.
00:49:25 ►
And, yeah, we definitely stress that because after Iboga, you know, things are going to gonna be released but life’s still happening and so you know that’s the time to really integrate the changes and it’s you know this
00:49:31 ►
first month two three six months what we tell people is to really make this the year of them
00:49:38 ►
and and really focus on them for this one year and, you know, look back and just see how their life has changed.
00:49:45 ►
And so those first months are extremely important.
00:49:49 ►
So we definitely, you know, pushed them in the right direction
00:49:53 ►
with working with some of those coaches
00:49:55 ►
and getting on our own bi-monthly integration calls.
00:50:00 ►
Well, that’s really wonderful.
00:50:01 ►
I mean, your answer blows me away because it’s so much more than I’d expected. And, you know, you don’t find that kind of care in every place you go. And so I really admire you guys for the work that you’re doing. And you obviously care about the results because, you know, it’s when you’re working with people’s lives, everyone is equally important. And, and the fact that you recognize that and deal with them, I, I applaud.
00:50:29 ►
Thank you. Thank you.
00:50:31 ►
Hey Levi, I do have one question. I hear it’s taxing on your heart or is it,
00:50:37 ►
is it,
00:50:37 ►
is there any issues with people who have high blood pressure with taking it?
00:50:42 ►
So, yeah, that’s, that’s uh you know good point everybody um needs to get an ekg done
00:50:50 ►
um either before they come or um or with a doctor here in costa rica um and so yeah we definitely
00:51:00 ►
don’t want anybody coming that has some heart issue that they’re not aware of. But with that said, no, unless it,
00:51:07 ►
unless it’s really high blood pressure, they’re most likely fine.
00:51:12 ►
If it was a borderline case, we would definitely get with a doctor on it.
00:51:16 ►
But, you know,
00:51:17 ►
through all the years that we’ve been doing this less than a handful of
00:51:23 ►
people have not been able to
00:51:25 ►
come due to some sort of heart issue. And so, yeah,
00:51:29 ►
we do do the EKGs and you know, we’ve had,
00:51:34 ►
we’ve had some younger people come with,
00:51:38 ►
with their parents that were struggling with depression and we’ve had,
00:51:41 ►
I think, you know, we’ve had a 77 or so year old come so it’s um
00:51:48 ►
the medicine is very safe if somebody hasn’t been abusing their body with drugs for
00:51:54 ►
a real long time um and so yeah with with with the ekg and know, they do a medical questionnaire, then, you know,
00:52:09 ►
we, yeah, feel very confident administering the medicine.
00:52:13 ►
You know, if it was, we did feel it was dangerous at all, you know,
00:52:17 ►
definitely wouldn’t do this work and definitely would let somebody know,
00:52:19 ►
like, hey, I don’t think this is the right thing for you.
00:52:26 ►
Is there any legal issues with the Costa Rican government and you doing this work down there so it’s um it’s it’s you know it’s an unclassified thing there’s other
00:52:33 ►
um costa rica coming no unknown spot for different plant medicines so um no i we from
00:52:41 ►
from our viewpoint they definitely they they like costa r like Costa Rica being known as a healing spot where people can go get in touch with themselves and nature.
00:52:51 ►
And so, no, they’re very accommodating.
00:52:55 ►
What about people who are taking other prescription medicines beforehand?
00:53:00 ►
I know in our ayahuasca circle we always uh required that they they stopped taking
00:53:05 ►
uh ssris things like that for two weeks ahead of time or so uh what’s what’s the situation with
00:53:10 ►
iboga and uh prescription medicines that people may be taking already yeah yeah good good question
00:53:18 ►
that’s an important one yeah same same with iboga yeah people have to be off any SSRIs for at least a couple weeks before coming.
00:53:27 ►
And surprisingly, probably about, you know, anywhere from 40, 50 percent of the people that come have recently stopped some sort of prescription medication.
00:53:42 ►
Definitely no SSRIs.
00:53:46 ►
And what else? We don’t accept people that are on benzodiazepines as well.
00:53:53 ►
That’s one of the things that Iboga won’t help a person with is benzodiazepines.
00:53:59 ►
So if people come, we confirm that they’re not doing those.
00:54:03 ►
Now, some of the Ibogaine clinics may accept them, but we just know that, you know, the Iboga is going to strip the benzos out of their system, but it’s not going to help with the withdrawal.
00:54:14 ►
And so when people, you know, benzo withdrawal can be dangerous, and that’s a very long process.
00:54:22 ►
I mean, like months long to fully get it out of your system so yeah yeah um those
00:54:28 ►
those are two big ones um and uh you know definitely people that are getting off any ssris
00:54:37 ►
definitely have you know some light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to because um you know like like we mentioned uh
00:54:46 ►
you know they’re gonna physically feel good without having to have any any prescription
00:54:51 ►
medication in their in their body mentally physically and um you know and those things
00:54:57 ►
can can do a number on the on the receptors as well for them so um yeah people people you know they finally make the decision
00:55:06 ►
like hey i’m gonna stop this and then use this tool and um that’s what’s great about iboga is
00:55:12 ►
once it works through and and gets that you know bring brings their their brain chemistry back to
00:55:18 ►
baseline can be the first time they really felt good and you, you know, years for a lot of them.
00:55:26 ►
I just have a real quick question.
00:55:30 ►
So I have a friend who’s been struggling with opiates for quite a few years. You know, and one thing that they have asked about the Ibogaine and the Iboga is,
00:55:37 ►
is it true that it really, comparatively to a cold turkey opiate withdrawal that there really is some uh
00:55:48 ►
help with that i mean comparatively to a cold turkey withdrawal i mean how how uh hard is the
00:55:56 ►
withdrawal going to be for someone who’s been quite a few years yeah Yeah. You know, the time that they’ve been doing the opiates can extend
00:56:07 ►
the detox time, but yeah, no, it’s night and day, man. You know, at least 80% of the withdrawal
00:56:16 ►
symptoms are going to get away. For a lot of people, it’ll be 90 or even 95%, depending on
00:56:21 ►
what they are, you know, withdrawing from. A lot of the, you know,
00:56:26 ►
maintenance drugs like Suboxone and Methadone can really be tough ones to get out of the system,
00:56:31 ►
which are surprisingly the hardest ones to stop somebody from using. Whereas if somebody, say,
00:56:38 ►
is using heroin, that gets out a lot quicker and leaves a lot more freely. But yeah, no, that’s the scariest thing for an addict is the withdrawal process.
00:56:50 ►
It’s just, if you’ve never been through it, you can’t really imagine how horrible it is.
00:56:55 ►
And so it’s, yeah, it really does work.
00:57:01 ►
And it is the only thing on the planet that works with the physical withdrawal symptoms
00:57:05 ►
you know they’re still not going to sleep for a while um that one’s there but at least they’re
00:57:10 ►
not there writhing in bed and shaking and you know sneezing and you know pooping and what you
00:57:17 ►
know all the other symptoms that come with that but yeah i know it does does really work
00:57:21 ►
right on thank you um one other question is something that was mentioned earlier.
00:57:27 ►
You guys talked about potential of ancestral healing.
00:57:32 ►
Do you guys have people that come for that?
00:57:36 ►
And what does that look like?
00:57:38 ►
And I guess, what would they be healing on an ancestral level with a boga?
00:57:45 ►
Yeah. You want to take with a boga? Yeah.
00:57:46 ►
You want to take that one, Gary?
00:57:48 ►
Yeah, I’ll take that one.
00:57:50 ►
Good question.
00:57:52 ►
Well, the way I’ve come to understand is that our families pass on from one generation to the other,
00:58:09 ►
you know, a lot of what’s going on in their own experience.
00:58:14 ►
And sometimes during a lifetime, someone can make some mistakes
00:58:20 ►
and those things get passed on to the next generation. You know,
00:58:28 ►
I’ve seen evidence myself that’s convinced me anyway, that,
00:58:33 ►
that that healing does go back.
00:58:39 ►
And it is possible to, you know,
00:58:42 ►
make some headway for your ancestors by resolving some of the things that they didn’t.
00:58:51 ►
It’s hard to really quantify it too much because it’s so individual, but a lot of sexual abuse.
00:59:01 ►
You know, there’s one of the things that really struck me when I started doing this work
00:59:06 ►
is just how much sexual abuse goes on. And that’s the kind of thing that can affect our ancestors
00:59:15 ►
as well. You know, if there was some, you know, sexual abuse in the past, you know, that wasn’t
00:59:27 ►
there was some sexual abuse in the past that wasn’t really resolved before the person passed on,
00:59:32 ►
then there is a possibility for their ancestors, their children,
00:59:36 ►
their grandchildren to address those things and create healing.
00:59:41 ►
It actually happened to me, myself. And I guess that kind of got me aware of
00:59:51 ►
that that kind of thing was going on. In my own case, I was sexually abused at a very young age,
01:00:00 ►
but I didn’t know about it. I didn’t know what happened. I just knew something happened and I
01:00:05 ►
really couldn’t understand it. During my iboga journey, I was able to connect with my
01:00:16 ►
grandmother, my mother’s mother. And when I first saw her, she was quite unhappy.
01:00:23 ►
And I, because I had just talked with my mother, and my mother was ecstatic.
01:00:27 ►
I talked to my grandmother, and she was not happy.
01:00:32 ►
I asked her what was wrong, and she said,
01:00:35 ►
because of the abuse that went on with my second husband and you.
01:00:41 ►
It was really very revealing to me,
01:00:47 ►
and I could see how that had really affected me,
01:00:51 ►
and I just wasn’t aware of it at all.
01:00:55 ►
But then later on as we were talking,
01:00:59 ►
she was definitely happier that she got to tell me about it. And I got to understand what had
01:01:07 ►
happened to me. And, you know, I remember I, I asked her, Grandma, why, why did that have to
01:01:15 ►
happen to me? Why did I have to be abused? And what she told me was that I wouldn’t be who I am without it. Wow, that’s fascinating. You know, it’s really interesting,
01:01:28 ►
the story you just told to, it really clarifies some things for me about dealing with ancestors
01:01:35 ►
and how the healing can come forward. And it also, that story also reveals to me why it’s important for people like all of you at your center to honor the tradition of Bwiti shamanism and their healing practices. Traditional Western medicine that just uses Ibogaine would be very difficult to tease out something like you were just talking about.
01:02:08 ►
But with the traditional ceremonies, like I’m familiar with, with the ayahuasca, I can definitely see how that’s quite important.
01:02:18 ►
So, Gary and Levi, we’re about out of time here.
01:02:21 ►
But if one of you would kind of tell us so because i’m going to put
01:02:28 ►
this in a podcast if somebody is interested in beginning a conversation with uh either of you
01:02:34 ►
or somebody at your center and and explore the possibility of them coming down there how do they
01:02:39 ►
get this whole process started so yeah they would just submit a we have an 800 number on our site for usa and canada
01:02:47 ►
if they’re you know in another country they can submit a contact form and we we can call them at
01:02:53 ►
their on their mobile phone in whatever country or info at iboga wellness.com and yeah we send
01:03:02 ►
you know a complete retreat overview with all the details of what’s going on.
01:03:07 ►
And there’s a medical questionnaire in there that would be the first thing to start to start the process.
01:03:14 ►
And, yeah, you know, we want to make sure people are also ready for this medicine.
01:03:20 ►
You know, that’s our key.
01:03:22 ►
We want to work with people that really want to work on themselves.
01:03:45 ►
And so, you know, that’s our key. We want to work with people that really want to work on themselves. And so, you know, we definitely, definitely look for that. Um, you know, I would say, you know, the, like, uh, Gary was saying with the, with the will of, of wanting better things for yourself, you know, you’ve definitely had through the years, a couple of people come through that, you know, more psychedelic pioneers looking to try the next the next thing and um yeah the medicine doesn’t seem to get along with that too
01:03:52 ►
well um it uh you know it really wants it wants your uh you know it wants you to do your part um
01:04:01 ►
and so those those people have had a really rough time,
01:04:05 ►
but if you are looking for guidance and, you know,
01:04:08 ►
you’re willing to do the work just you know,
01:04:11 ►
I haven’t found a more valuable tool, but yeah,
01:04:14 ►
you can call or email or on our, on our website and yeah, no,
01:04:19 ►
no pressure, no stress. And yeah,
01:04:22 ►
we’re happy to talk with anybody that’s interested in Iboga.
01:04:25 ►
Well, I want to, I want to compliment all of you for that, in particular. I’ve talked to quite a few people
01:04:33 ►
who have different kinds of healing centers, and the internet is sort of hands-off, and it’s hard
01:04:39 ►
to get a hold of real people sometimes. By putting an 800 number up there and actually talking to prospects.
01:04:45 ►
I applaud that.
01:04:46 ►
I think that is fantastic.
01:04:48 ►
And it certainly should give your potential participants a good feeling that they can
01:04:53 ►
talk to a real human and explain their situation and get some feedback other than just through
01:04:58 ►
email.
01:05:00 ►
Absolutely.
01:05:00 ►
Absolutely.
01:05:01 ►
Yeah, no, that’s definitely what we find.
01:05:04 ►
Well, listen, I again, I appreciate your time for being with us tonight.
01:05:09 ►
This will be out in our podcast next Monday.
01:05:11 ►
And I hope that it will find some people who can really use your help because I think you guys are doing important work.
01:05:19 ►
And I really want to do what I can to help.
01:05:23 ►
So thank you for being here tonight.
01:05:25 ►
And the same with the rest of our fellow salonners here.
01:05:28 ►
Thank you for being here.
01:05:29 ►
And until next week, keep the old faith and stay high.
01:05:34 ►
Good night, everyone.
01:05:35 ►
Thanks, everyone.
01:05:36 ►
Thanks, everyone.
01:05:37 ►
Have a good night.
01:05:37 ►
Thanks, Lorenzo.
01:05:38 ►
Bye-bye.
01:05:40 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,
01:05:42 ►
where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
01:05:47 ►
I hope that this conversation was as enlightening for you as it was for me.
01:05:52 ►
Now, if you’ve been with us here in the salon for a while, you already know that I don’t have any personal experience with Iboga or with Ibogaine,
01:06:00 ►
unlike most of the other psychoactives that we talk about here in the salon.
01:06:04 ►
unlike most of the other psychoactives that we talk about here in the salon.
01:06:06 ►
So much of this information is new to me,
01:06:10 ►
and hopefully it’s also something that you’re interested in learning more about,
01:06:16 ►
because I plan on inviting more iboga practitioners to join our conversations in the future.
01:06:20 ►
In fact, in a few weeks, the producer of the new movie Dosed will also be joining us for a live Monday night salon.
01:06:24 ►
And speaking of future live
01:06:26 ►
salons, tonight our guest will be Dr. Mike Sapiro, who I’m told is a former Buddhist monk turned
01:06:33 ►
meditation teacher and psychedelic coach. And if all goes according to plan, a recording of
01:06:38 ►
tonight’s conversation with Dr. Mike will be next week’s podcast from here in the salon.
01:06:44 ►
And a week from tonight, my guest will
01:06:46 ►
be Daniel McQueen, who will talk to us about his new protocol for extending a DMT experience
01:06:52 ►
significantly longer than what is experienced by smoking it. And the following week on July 22nd,
01:06:59 ►
our guest will be author and longtime friend of the salon, Eric Davis, and I’m in the process of lining up other
01:07:06 ►
interesting guests for our future live salons as well, and hopefully I’ll see you there one night,
01:07:12 ►
but for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space. Be well, my friends. Thank you.