The Telepathy Tapes - S2E41: Ibogaine Inquiries Part III: The Sacred Roots of Iboga

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Long before ibogaine entered Western clinics and laboratories, the plant it comes from held a sacred place in Gabonese life. In Part III of Ibogaine Inquiries, we travel to Gabon to explore Bwiti, the spiritual tradition in which iboga is understood as a teacher, guide, and living presence.Gabonese practitioners and Bwiti initiates describe the preparation, community, music, mentorship, and lifelong practice that surround the medicine. They explain why Iboga cannot be separated from the larger body of knowledge developed around it. As Western interest continues to grow, this episode asks what may be lost when a sacred plant and its active compound are removed from the people, traditions, and relationships that have safeguarded them for generations.A note to listeners: This series is intended to inform, not encourage the use of ibogaine. Ibogaine is a powerful psychoactive substance with serious medical risks and should never be used without thorough medical evaluation and appropriate supervision. As you'll hear throughout this series, increasing global demand has also had profound consequences for the Indigenous communities in Gabon who have safeguarded Iboga and its traditions for generations. We encourage you to listen to the full series before drawing conclusions or seeking out treatment._______To support the indigenous peoples of Gabon, Africa and help protect the sacred Iboga plant, please visit https://blessingsoftheforest.org/ where you can learn about those who use this medicine ceremoniously, have for thousands of years, and whose access is in grave danger._______Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community.This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we begin, a brief disclaimer. Ibogaine is a powerful psychoactive substance. It is not legal in the United States. Can be dangerous when administered improperly and is not appropriate for everyone. This series is not intended as medical advice or an endorsement of treatment. The experience is described by guests reflect their personal accounts. And listeners should conduct extensive research and consult qualified medical professionals before making any decisions related to Ibogaine or other psychedelic substances.

Hi, everyone. This is Kai Dickens. And welcome to the Ibegain Inquiry. a mini-series from TTT Media, exploring one of the most promising, controversial, and misunderstood substances in the world of mental health and addiction recovery. This is episode 3. In our last episode, we discussed the science behind Ibogaine, how it works in the brain and body, the mystery of its intelligence, as well as the unexplainable experiences people have

while under its influence. The call into question our current paradigm and understanding of consciousness. Is this plant a conscious being that wants to teach us? us and help us? Does it want to heal us? And what would it look like if that healing and help was spread across the world? We've noted that there are serious consequences in Africa to the already rapid increase in demand for ibegain. There, the plant iboga, from which ibegain is derived, is absolutely essential to community and everyday life. It's a teacher, a guide, a living entity that has been used in sacred ceremony for thousands of years. It plays a central role in

culture and individual identity. Today, we're going to focus on the roots of Ibogaine, and what those who've been studying it and working with it for hundreds, even thousands of years, know to be true about its mystery. We'll also look at the powerful rituals developed around it. And to do that, we head to the west coast of Africa to the country of Gabon. Caban sits right on the equator with a population of a little over 2 million people. It's a small country with a massive history.

For Gabonis, Iboga is sexual. It's the most sacred medicine of Africa, for them, of Gabon. It's a spirit. It's a living entity. It's the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil. For them, it's the master tree. It's the best thing with God. This is Jan Guinyan.

He runs an organization called Blessings of the Forest. Its goal is to conserve and sustain the cultural heritage of the indigenous people of Gabon. And a lot of that work is focused on the preservation of Iboga. Jan is also a member of the Buiti tradition, which is a practice of spiritual beliefs native to Gabon, under which Iboga has been used for millennia. A vital part of the spiritual practice of Bwiti involves something called initiation, in which the aboga plant is consumed in the company of community. Our producer Catherine spoke with Jan more about this,

and most notably the way the plant is never taken for granted. It's revered, so I'll let them take it from here. It's the best medicine plant. It's very sacred. So the way they care of it, the way they talk about it, the way they harvest it, it's a whole process. The way they plant it, it's a world process. The place we plant it, it's a science. And the way they transform it, the way they use it, it's a world science.

It's a world preparation. It's very important. I mean, it's the most important initiation for Gabonis people. Every single detail of this whole process he describes is important. This knowledge has developed over such a long period of time, and the consumption of the medicine doesn't only apply to the spiritual realm, but also to their sense of community, physical health, and even their education. It's the way they find their place in the society.

It's the way they heal their traumas. It's the way they get connected to their ancestors. It's the way they understand who they are. It's the way they understand the environment around them. is the way they learn life. It's their biggest university. The very intimate process of initiation involves being connected to community members

who help guide you through your experience with this incredibly powerful medicine. It's not something you can do randomly or on a whim. It's a long and considered process. The relationship to the person who gives it to you even matters. The master gives you this medicine in Gabon become as important as your father. Throughout this episode,

when you hear someone referred to medicine, They're talking about a bogus. Masters are experts in the tradition. You call him daddy, right? Or mommy, if it's a woman who initiates you. Because as important as your father, it takes a huge responsibility on you, like a godfather, you know,

like a godfather and Christians. It's in charge of your education, sometimes more than your own father or mother. He has a responsibility to teach you life, the nature, everything's so, Yeah, it's very sacred. To really understand the depth of the importance of this plant, we need to learn more about the Bedi tradition.

Buiti is practiced by at least half of the population in Gabon and has been around an extremely long time, potentially dating back to ancient Egypt. It has certainly existed well before Gabon was an independent nation. My name is Apollon. I'm coming from Gabon. I'm living in Gabon in Central Africa. And we were colonized by the French people.

so we speak French, but we have more than 40, something like 50 different languages, local languages. I was put in touch with Apelon because he has been studying the Buii tradition for many years. He knows the history of the tradition, as well as the Iboga plant, and is very involved in the Buii community. First about Iboga, Iboga, Ibura, Mabura. All the words, there's a different way to talk about Iboga.

words. It means the same in most of the languages of the south of Gabon. Healing. This is what does it mean? Healing. Appalon's current understanding of Buiti is now extensive, but his exposure to the tradition didn't come until his teenage years. The French colonization of Gabon played a massive role in Buiti becoming less mainstream and even suppressed in Gabon than it had been for centuries prior. Apelon actually initially identified as Catholic. When I was a teenager, I started to ask to myself why we have this tradition. Where it's come from? And then I heard about slavery, colonization and things like that.

I said, wow, why people do you have to practice a religion who came with, I mean, force, like they imposed the religion. The reason why in Africa they practice Muslim or Christianity is because the colonization. Apollon started to question his beliefs after realizing that the only reason he was exposed to them was due to French colonization, the religion that was imposed upon those who came before him. The people in the area Apollon was raised didn't have much exposure to people practicing Buiti.

In me, I'm not coming from a region who practice the Bouti. In the sad haste of Gabon, we don't have the Bouti. We have, of course, different culture, rituals, but we don't have the Bouti. During the colonization, they tried to stop the tradition. And especially the Bouti, for example, the strong tradition, the colonization, they try to stop and they kill a lot of people who practice the tradition.

So not only was new religious practice introduced during this time, but the native Buiti tradition was seen as evil and primitive by colonial powers. French colonization even extended to what languages the French allowed people to speak. People were punished for speaking their mother tongue. They want to force people to speak French. And if you talk your language, for example, they put bones of animal like a necklace. People in the village, when you speak your mother language, the mother tongue, they put a necklace with the bone. Sometimes the bone of the head of an animal like monkey. And with the tradition, they say, you don't practice.

tradition is not good. Will you have the Bible? God is inside the Bible. This is why after 100 years, people practice more Christianity. It's not because they want. Because many years ago, people say,

Buii is bad, Iboga is bad, you have to go to church. So during this time, the centuries-old practice of Buiti was largely banned and vilified. It was forbidden, and as you heard, people were shamed and sometimes even

killed. This is how Buiti became marginalized in the Gabonese culture. But after independence in 1960, things began to change. I realized that before the colonization, we have our own tradition. And then I start my quest to understand what is my tradition, what is my culture, is about what, and things like that. And slowly, slowly, I start to talk with people and I was in touch. with people who practiced with different tradition here in Gabon. And then I start to get initiated to several different ritual and tradition of Gabon. So Apelon was able to get in touch with those in Gabon who practiced Buiti, and he immediately felt an inherent connection to the tradition.

And when I participated for the first time, Catherine, really, it was as an African as Japanese. It was a wow. It was wow. Abelon was blown away by that first initiation. As we mentioned, initiation in Buiti involves chopping up and ingesting the root of the Iboga plant. The ritual requires time, preparation, community, and trust-building in order to access the plant's healing effects. And this is the part that diverges completely from how Ibogaine is used in the West. Many of the people you've heard from so far in this series have taken eye.

Ibegain with strangers in medical settings. But as Jan from earlier explains, in the Buiti tradition, things take time. They require intimate connections. And the rituals used to guide someone through the psychedelic are tailored to the specific needs of the person being initiated. You can't get the medicine easily. It's not like you go to a shop in Gabon and you say, oh, I want one gram of Iboga. And they give you into a plastic bag.

It's not about that if you want the medicine, right? You need to have a consultation. You need to find a village. Most of the time it's a village from your own tribe, your own community. But it doesn't have to be your family. So you need to find your proper village and you have to find someone who comes with you. You need to be introduced. You need to be confident.

You make a consultation. Then you're observed by the community. Once first before giving you the medicine to analyze who you are and maybe to make some treatment on you, because maybe they will see that you have some problems to treat before giving you the medicine. Sometimes you have some witchcraft on you, sometimes what we call in the West, like transgenerational traumas or carmas, you know, that we have to heal. Sometimes they will see that you have some health problems to heal first before taking the medicine.

They can see that, for example, that you are weak, your stomach is weak, or your heart is weak. So sometimes you need to make some treatments before. Some needs to give your medicine to drink, to clean your levers, to clean your stomach, to clean your synthesis. Do you have a better experience with the medicine and also for you to be confident with the place you're going to do it? Because it's very important for you to be confident with the people who give you the medicine. Going through the process of an Iboga trip isn't something to be taken lightly. He underscores the importance of trust in those around you during the ceremony. It's not just as simple as taking a pill.

When you will be high in the medicine, you'll be to be very confident with people around you with the place around you. So you go through that and then there were the whole process around, the whole ritual around. So there's some step to go through the medicine in Gabon. We're going to hear some incredible accounts of people's experiences going through these steps and being initiated, but it's really important to point out that the specifics of these rituals are secret. They're protected knowledge. So you'll hear about the effects these rituals had on the initiates, but not a step-by-step process for how they happened. Part of this is to protect these sacred traditions, and the other part is because the experiences may be tailored to the individual needs of each person.

In addition to that, there are several different bwee-tie traditions that use Iboga, but their rituals vary. So let's quickly pause here for a moment. Catherine, you spoke to lots of people who've, you know, experienced buti rituals associated with aboga. And even though, as you described, a lot of the process is protected knowledge, right, and secret, can you break down some of the common themes that aren't secret? Definitely. So like Yon is saying, most people need to find a community willing to and interested in initiating

you. There are many communities in Gabon practicing bwiti and several facets of witi itself. During the initiation, there are series of songs, dances, and other physical traditions that accompany taking Iboga. It truly is a science, down to the colors you're shown during the experience. This took centuries to perfect, and it's all very critical. Okay, how so? Well, from what has been explained to me, Iboga is really powerful. You need to be guided and supported, and many people believe that these traditions are vital to supporting that journey,

that the initiate is going on while under Iboga's influence. In fact, people in the West are starting to realize this, and even, returning to Gabel and asking for advice. Every village, every community has their own version of it, so there's not one single bouti practice. That's Dr. Martine Polanco again. He's a psychologist who offers Ibogaine treatment at a clinic in Mexico, who you heard from in earlier episodes.

But he's also received the medicine of Iboga in a more traditional witty ceremony, so he has an understanding of what occurs during this sacred practice and how it differs from his own usage in the West. They take it as a rite of passage. It could be the passage from childhood to adulthood. It could be, you know, menopause. It can be processing the loss of a loved one. Sometimes it's taken for healing.

Like people address physical injuries and diseases with it. Every village or every community has their own version of it. So there's not one single booty practice. But generally, it involves the ingestion of the root bark in pretty large amounts over a period of several days. It's a communal experience. It's not individual. So the community comes around. They play instruments.

They hold space for the individual. They do it many times in their life. It's not kind of a one-time thing. What was so fascinating in learning about different people's experience with Iboga is how very they are and how personalized their initiation ceremonies were. When we come back, we'll hear from Apollon again about his experience taking a boga and the ways it connected him more to himself, as well as a greater understanding of the universe. More on that in a minute. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for because I want lighter fabrics, pieces that feel good the second you put them on, and things that can go from work to dinner without feeling overdone. That's why I love quince.

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If you remember from earlier in the episode, Apelon, a Gabonese-Buiti-I-T-Initiate, who explored the tradition after growing up Catholic, has quite a powerful description of his journeys, describing his initiation ceremony as almost like being an effect. film. When I did my initiation, it was like being inside a movie. Not only watch, I used to watching movies, TV. Yes, but during the initiation, you are inside your movie, the movie of your life. And in many dimensions of things like that, you are inside. I say, wow. It was more wow, when I participated the first time to a ceremony of beauty. And wow, a big, big, big, wow, when I did the initiation for the first time.

It was like you have million questions and then you have access to the answers. You just have to ask for me. It was like that. Maybe it's not the same for everyone. I mean, we are all different and the experience is can be different from me, from you. It can be different. But for me, it was like, if I have a question about something in the life, it was like inside the book.

Someone turned the page like that and I can. and reads to answer to my question. Many people have described the medicine in this way, that you're able to ask direct questions and some greater entity gives you the exact answer. It certainly goes beyond our understanding. And this was just his first experience. He also underscores the fact that these amazing and unexplained experiences

while under the influence is not necessarily the end goal. He sees its effects as more like a launching pad, accelerating your life to a new place, encouraging growth in all areas. It's not like that, but it was just a beginning because I used to say to people that for me, all is like a process. And when you do an initiation, it's just the beginning of like a new chapter, but a new process to change something not only inside of you, but also outside and with people.

And this is the most important things. It's not to receive Iboga, for example, or something in the medicine and say, oh, I see many things, oh, it's so wonderful. This is the first level. For people who want to use Iboga, the effect of Iboga is just a level. After the initiation, you receive the knowledge and you start to practice because for me, it is practice. When you start to practice, you understand many things. So it's not just about going somewhere, taking Iboga, then leaving and expecting everything to be changed. It's a process that requires intentional practice. after the experience. That's the beauty of it all. It still requires your effort and life action

based on what the medicine has revealed to you. And like a puzzle, you start to put things on the right place to see the picture. So, okay. And it's slowly, slowly you get to receive more and more and more and more. One of the many things Iboga revealed to Apollon has really stuck with me. The medicine seems to have revealed to him a very profound truth about the universe. Time is not only past or present. It's all at the same time. At the same time, time is like a circle. It's like a circle.

Past, present, and future is like, you can see the future just like that, one second, two seconds. But you can be inside the future also, like people who can create something from the future. And this is how, for me, how I can explain, how people can get access to what I call the collective memory.

The collective memory Appalon is talking about is something we've heard many times throughout our shows, this concept of a universal consciousness or energy that holds all knowledge, past, present, and future. It's where many people believe the foundation of reality stems. It's where many believe creativity is born. Then you can receive information from there, like inspiration for a song, for a movie, or things like that you can receive.

Receiving downloads from collective memory. To hear it from Aplon is so affirming because he's showing how Iboga connects you to a universal consciousness that others we've spoken to over the years have accessed in different ways. I think the biggest difference is that for Buiti practitioners, this collective consciousness is almost taken for granted. It's a given, not something that needs to be proven. And the idea that the medicine itself, or the Aboga, is part of this collective consciousness. consciousness also seems to be common knowledge.

Iboga is treated as a conscious guide in and of itself, and the Bui Ti masters simply need to assist it. As you've heard, this knowledge is also incorporated into the rituals themselves. The community and their experiences affects that initiates journey in profound ways. And the question really becomes, what happens if this integral part of the story gets lost in Western applications of a Boga's derivative that we're calling Ibegain? If you simply walk into a doctor's office and take Ibogaine as a pill or injection and have a private, individuated experience, what are we losing? Again, the Bwiti who take Iboga have been doing this for hundreds if not thousands of years.

There's practices and traditions associated with taking aboga based on what the Buiti masters have learned over centuries. And even though we've heard about incredible healing being done in the Western medical context, what more healing might be achieved by taking advice from the people of Gabon and incorporating them, and their time-honored practices into the Western adoption of this medicine. When we come back, we're going to take a deep dive into some of the potential origins of this powerful medicine, how it may have started being used in Gabon, and how humans may have learned about it initially. More on that in a minute. I'm called Ovonot and Yené, Simon Pierre. My name is Ovonaut and Yenet, Simon Pierre.

That's Simone. Catherine talked to him, along with an English-N-N-Pierre. interpreter who translated from the French. In this episode, whenever you hear from Simon, you'll be hearing his interpreter. Simon is a deeply respected leader in his community. In Gabon, he's referred to as a Buiti master. He's spent years studying Iboga and the spiritual discipline. I'll let him and Catherine take it from here.

I learned enough and I have been consecrated to say that, yes, I'm a booty master. There's been a training first and then there's a consecration. It means there's an act of, okay, you are now, a priest or a master. If we make comparisons with the West, somebody who needs to be, who wants to become a doctor, so he's trained, he studies,

and then he gets a diploma that allows him to practice. Simone's father was the one who first initiated him into the Bwiti tradition. My father was already, like, a master who was initiating people already. Here's Simons' interpreter

explaining how much experience he has. So he went to school like everybody. He worked, in companies, and at the same time, he was learning the science, what we call the science, from his father. So he had his first initiation when he was seven. He is now 57, so 50 years of practice.

His witty name is Master Akamangangang. Part of Simons' expertise isn't just in witty rituals and traditions, but also in their history and origins. It's a very old tradition, and it dates back to antique Egypt. We can see that in Egypt as well in the tombs. So when we look at the ancient, Egypt like scripture, we discovered that the priests were drinking a special beverage, and we don't know what it was.

He theorizes that this was a concoction of Iboga, based on the depictions and context in which they were drinking it ceremoniously. The ceremonies included music and dance and resemble the same Buiti initiation practices using Iboga today. We know historically that the earliest people in Gabon, known non-pejoratively as the Pygmy people, had contact with ancient Egyptians. The migration of these pygmies who moved to this area, the Angunia River, in the area around today's Gabon. They practiced this tradition, which looked very strange to the people here, these bunch of people started to have contacts with the pygmies.

So they started to discover and to learn the science, this science, from the pygmies. Here, Simone is referring to the science of using Iboga. So all these people, then after that came back to their original area, bringing back the tradition. which was adapted to the local culture, which means that Bouti will end up being practiced in eight of the nine areas or provinces of Gabon. So it became almost an identity, a cultural identity of the country.

Apalon explains how this migration of people to and from cities and villages and the adoption of Bui T traditions in different places is why now today there are many different types of Bui T sex and practices. When people say that, oh, I practice Bouti, it's good to know that in Buti, Buti is like a, it's a more generic, generic words,

something like that. Buti, you have the Buti di Sumba. You have the Buti Mishoko. And inside the Buti Mbigham goande, Bousuka, Sengadia, Mabundi, and after you have the Mabanzi, the Biloombo, and you have the Buti Fong.

But Buti Fong, they had a religion like Christianism inside. They put a little bit element of Bible, of the Bible. I asked if in layman's terms we could compare this to Christianity and it's sex to help me understand. Yes, it's a little bit like Protestant, evangelic, and feel like a little bit, yes. I want to return now to my conversation with Dr. Martine Polanco because I was blown away

by something he said. He makes the case that the history of all these varied Buiti traditions might actually originate even deeper in the natural world. Before its potential usage in ancient Egypt that the Buiti master Simon described. In fact, humans may have first noticed that animals were eating the roots of the Iboga plant. So we have documented use for at least 300 years, but very likely it goes back far deeper into time. In fact, one of the observations is that also animals seek it out so they've seen elephants dig up the roots. So potentially humans even learned it from observing animals because it's not something that you would just kind of grab and put into your mouth. It's a root and you have to scrape off the root bark.

And then you have to eat a large amount of it. So it's a pretty intense and laborious process to get the right amount to have an experience. It's not something that somebody would just casually pick a berry and eat it, right? I mean, they've seen elephants seek it and also some gorillas. Wow. And then one of the origin myths is that there was a porcupine that was eating it and the hunter got it with an arrow, and then when he consumed the porcupine, he had an experience, so he realized, oh, what was that porcupine eating? So that's one of the origin myths of how humans discovered it. However they may have originated, Simon makes clear that these ancient traditions have become part of Gabon's national identity and have instilled

values in the culture derived from the plant itself. Iboga started in the small corner of Gabon, then widespread everywhere. So Iboga, in fact, participate to the cohesion of the national spirit of Cabo. That's the first point. First point is the national cohesion, like solidarity. This knowledge is training the students about fantastic, remarkable moral values. For example, the respect of the ancients, respect of nature, respect of the community, values that we need for a structured society, well-structured. And their foundation for those points of learning are being threatened, as access to the plant is becoming increasingly difficult. People like,

Yon, who you heard from at the beginning of the episode, are fighting to preserve access to the plant throughout local communities in Gabon. Yon is a westerner who experienced the profound healing of Iboga. He married a Gabonese woman and was adopted into the family. He feels it is his responsibility to work to protect what he has been welcomed into. At the end of the day, I'm a westerner who has been healed in the West and then being adopted in Gabon. And I think I have like a responsibility as a white guy as a French towards Africa and Gabon, to not fucked up, you know, a Hindu relation. And so, yeah, my job is to develop that project of sharing cultural and natural heritage in a

fair way with the West to help people to get here. Of course, we are not against, for example, United States to heal their veterans or drug addict or stuff like that at all, of course, because once again, I'm a Westerner who benefited from that, you know? What Jan and others in Gabon want is to be part of the conversation for the process of sharing to be slow and thoughtful,

free from the fast-paced attitude the West often adopts. We really advocate to make it fairly and sustainably and really for people to really understand what's going on on the field in Gabon. What is the perspective

of indigenous communities that have no voice. There is a history between the West and Africa. and we would like this time to make it the right way, you know, not in an extractive way, and I would say racist way or colonialist way or, you know, abusive way or naive way, sometimes a clumsy way. Jan is referring here to colonialism

and the way that many natural resources from Africa and elsewhere have been taken and exploited by colonizing forces, including even Iboga. We're going to talk a lot more about this in the upcoming episodes. So I try to make that bridge for the benefits of everybody, in fact, for not only Gabonis, but of humanity. Here's Apelon again on the matter. You do something in your way, it's okay. We don't mind. And this is what I told you for African people, even to share our knowledge with foreigners, we don't mind. But we just need people and respect what we do.

And we respect the rules. Ivo guides meets healing. So if people can save people, it's okay. But if they want to say people, please, just one respect where come from the Iboga and who first gave the information of the therapy with Iboga, who the people who talk about the possibility to healing people with Iboga is the people of Gabon. Despite this desire to share knowledge and healing contained in Iboga with others, there is real concern about separating Iboga from Buiti traditions,

because while this medicine is undoubtedly powerful, people in Gabon believe that it's actually inextricable from the other traditions we've talked about today. The songs, the dances, the colors, and the community support surrounding it are critical to its value. Here's the Buiti master Simon again. What the Western world understand wrongly is that it thinks that only Ibogain can be useful,

although it's the whole process with the methods, with the knowledge, the rest of the knowledge, which is a whole. So Iboga or Ibogaine is just a piece of the whole knowledge. So this is the main thing that people don't understand in the West. It's exactly this space between how people in Gabon see Aboga as part of a much larger understanding of consciousness, life, healing, the world, and spirituality. And how the West is beginning to see Aboga that we're going to look at more closely next episode. We'll dive into exactly how Aboga first found its way to the West. How did it leave Gabon?

And we'll hear about a teenager who's famous for bringing it to the United States, what happened when he did, and what could go wrong if we try to force its presence in the West too soon. That's next time on the Ibegain inquiries. If you enjoyed this podcast, you'll find even more on the main telepathy tape's feed, where each week we explore consciousness, human potential, and the mysteries that challenge our understanding of reality. Thank you.