TrueLife - Levi Barker - Iboga

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://ibogawellness.com/Music: https://youtu.be/nThfHcRNQI0Today we speak with Levi Barker. All things Iboga. What can we learn from this plant medicine? What has it been used for in the past? What is it being used for today? What secrets might it hold for our collective future? Let’s find out!  Levi Barker is an iboga provider at Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica. Levi has helped over 1200 people work through some of life's most difficult problems with the personal transformation tool, iboga. The message of iboga's power is quickly spreading throughout the Western world. People come to iboga to move past depression, anxiety, eating disorders, parental problem, non substance addictions like gambling and sex, and to reset their life and recieve guidance on the best path forward.At its core, iboga is a tool to understand ourselves and understand how to live on earth. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry Born from the blaze The poem is Angels with Rifles The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini Check out the entire song at the end of the cast Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast

We've got a great show for you today Normally we do, we have been tap dancing around the ideas of psychedelics. And for the first time on the show, I have got someone who has a background in the world of Iboga, a Mr. Levi Barker. He's an Iboga provider

at Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica. He's helped over 1,200 people work through some of life's most difficult problems with the personal transformation tool, Iboga. Levi, how are you today, my friend? Doing beautiful. Yeah, thanks for having me, George. Oh, I'm so excited.

I'm so excited that you're here because I've had a lot of people send out some feelers to me and ask me, George, I've been thinking about using these different transformation tools. I'm familiar with mushrooms. I'm familiar with, you know, ketamine, but I don't know a whole lot about Iboga. And you're the first person I've really gotten to talk to about this. So I'm excited to learn from you. Maybe we can start off with your journey. Like, how did this come to be? You're in Costa Rica. Like, how did you get started with Iboga? Yeah. Well, so, you know,

Really? To, you know, it really did start, like a lot of people that come to Iboga or Iboagain is from an addiction, you know, and so this started very young. Growing up on my mother's side of the family, my grandfather was a heroin addict for all his life. And yeah, even from a young age, like somehow I knew I would go through something like that, but I was also on the search to how to heal the family. some way. And so, you know, eventually I did have my own opiate addiction and did a home detox, which is what they recommend nobody should ever do. I was pretty, pretty desperate at the time. So during that time, I had met my now wife who's Nicaragua in Costa Rican, and I was staying in Nicaragua at the time and went to the place we were staying at the time, ended up having the and going through my own detox experience. And that lasted about three full nights. And on the fourth night, finally got some sleep.

And so for the listeners that don't know, Iboga is the only thing in the world that will help alleviate the physical withdrawal symptoms of an opiate withdrawal. And so, you know, the only other thing that does that is more opiate. So Iboga is the only one thing that does that. And many people may have heard. of Iboga because of that reason, but Iboga is also just so much more, much, much more.

But it does happen to have this property of being able to alleviate the physical withdrawals of opiates. So I, you know, I did that and it did get me physically clean. And from that very first point of working with Evoga, I knew I wanted to work with it from that point forward. And that's when, you know, kind of the spark was in there. But really, at that point, I was starting from kind of ground zero. you know, all of a sudden now I'm, you know, not an opiate addict. Now what do I do? You know, who am I? I've spent the last 10 years trying to, you know, get away from who I actually am.

And it so happens that about a year and a half later, there was a Buiy shaman. So a Buiy is a spiritual tradition that follows the path of Iboga. And so there's indigenous and non-indigenous people in Africa that practice this spiritual path called BWIdi that comes from Iboga itself. And so I happened about a year and a half later, after my experience with Iboga, this Bedi shaman came to Costa Rica and opened up the first kind of psychospiritual, traditional-based Iboga Center. So before that, there was some Ibogaine clinics around, which is more like a medical procedure, but he was the first one to come and do it in a psychospiritual context. And I happened to meet him. And so he was really the guy to bring it really out of Africa. He was the first one that came that could learn how to speak English, learned, you know, Western culture,

and could then start teaching about Iboga, its properties, how to work with it. really importantly, like the tradition behind it, because the tradition behind the BWidi is all about living your best life. Who are we as humans? What do we want in life? And how do we make that happen? And understanding that this is the biggest, you know, being given our life is the biggest gift that we can ever be given. So really just cherishing that. And so that's kind of the foundation of that Buey path. But that's in a nutshell. So I've been, I lived in Nicaragua for about seven years. And I've been, been here in Costa Rica now for about eight. And I came to Costa Rica for Iboga. So my partner and

mentor, a guy named Gary Cook, he's relaxing in New Hampshire right now. He started Iboga Wellness. So he was a teacher of mine, best friend. He's now going, kind of chilling more out with the grandkids now. He's 71. And so he went back home before the pandemic. But yeah, really, really owe him a lot. but he was the first one to graduate under this Bleedy Shaman, opened up Iboga Wellness, and shortly after he opened Iboga Wellness, I came down and continued training and working with him. So that was about eight years ago now. Wow. I've always found, it's an amazing story. And I've always found that the people who turn out to be some of the most passionate teachers

are someone that has gone through an experience that has got them there. So I'm always thankful to hear, you know, I think there's a difference between someone who is practicing via the pharmaceutical industry, like modern medicine, which there's some good modern medicine, but it always seems more, I can't think of the right word. It always seems more authentic to me when I'm speaking with someone who understands what I'm going through because they themselves have gone through it. And it sounds to me that seems to be what's happening down at the clinic right there. What is the difference between ibogane and iboga? So in our perspective, it's really, really huge. So, you know, ibogane is one alkaloid within, say, 13 eboga alkaloids in the Ebola plant. And so that one is especially good for physical detox of opiates and drugs.

You know, here we work with the whole plant. So Iboga is a root bark, so the actual bark from the root of the plant is ground up into a powder, and we serve that off of a spoon, also in capsules. And then there's a way to organically, at least we do it here organically, make an extract, so a concentrated version of Iboga with all the alkaloids in a capsule form. And so really the big difference is Ibergaine is typically used more just kind of in a detox sense where Zuboga is used for the overall, you know, life advancement, psychospiritual type work. So it is a fuller thing. And the idea behind that is, you know, the plant has the spirit to

it, you know, and if you go and just start taking things out of it, that spirit, you know, goes away. And that's a big part of, you know, what happens when you take the medicine. Yeah, that seems to, there seems to be a sort of thread that is running through the world of plant medicine right now. And that, at least to me, that thread is people trying to take the spirituality out of the medicine. And if you look at what pharmaceutical industry is doing with a lot of clinical trials with psilocybin, they're trying to find, and even with cannabis, they were able to, hey,

let's try to find a way where we can use the cannabinoids, but you don't get the feeling of being high. Let's try to use the psilocybin where you get the effects, but you don't have any hallucinations. And it sounds like that's something similar that's happening. with iboga, they're trying to separate this spiritual from the medicine. And when you do that, it seems like you separate the healing process out of it. I'm sure that the other alkaloids inside that Iboga plant are there for a reason. And the traditional medicine shows us that.

Does that sound correct? Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, I do think, like, the newer of psychedelic medicine is going to open it up to people that otherwise may not come down and say have Iboga or, you know, do it, do it that way. But yeah, I think you're going to be hard-pressed to do better than, you know, the full plant. You know, unless you're getting down to like specific physical problems maybe that people have, then maybe, you know, one alkaloid or a molecule can, you know, really target that, you know,

if you amp up its potency of whatever that is. But yeah, like for pure psychosperitual, human, you know, problems and moving on with your life, Yeah, I think it's going to be really difficult to do any better than what's already being done by, you know, the indigenous people that are serving these medicines around the world or, you know, in a setting like ours. Yeah, it's going to be tough. So a lot of people that are familiar with some plant medicines and the people in my audience understand a little bit about the time frame for, say, psilocybin or LSD or ketamine. But what does an Iboga ceremony or what does an Iboga experience feel like? Can you kind of walk us through what happens to an experience with Iboga?

Yep, yeah, sure. And I should mention that, you know, I'm not a doctor and anything I say is for researcher informational purposes only. But, you know, in a few words, I'll say it's hard. It's just a difficult experience. you know, for most people, it's at least going to be one of the hardest three or four things you've ever done. For some people, it's going to be the hardest thing. And so, you know, you take this medicine, it starts kicking in anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, hour and a half later.

You know, you start feeling heavy. You might start seeing kind of flashing lights going on. you could hear a buzzing sound in your ears means it's coming on pretty strongly. Eventually you're going to feel like you just want to lay down at some point. You're going to be like, I need to lay down. So at least here we take people over to their own mattress where they're set up and people lay there and it's a very, very, what a lot of people don't realize is how deep up a physical detox Ebola gives you. You know, very careful with saying, you know, it's going to help somebody here.

heal from a certain thing, but this medicine just really detoxes people on a deep level to, you know, and each time we have a group, like if they're over 35 years old or so, everybody looks like they shed anywhere from two to five years off their face. They can just brighten people up. Their eyes are bright and clear. Like, it's just a very, healthy thing. And so, you know, it's really going through the body and you can feel it going through the body. A lot of people describe it as having like their cells kind of scrubbed, you know, or their DNA scrubbed on a very deep level. During this time, typically what happens with Iboga is your mind starts racing. So you start having these thoughts that go a thousand

miles per hour and don't really make any sense. Like there's no conclusion to them. And so that can happen for a long time. So we encourage people not to even pay attention to it. But that's definitely one of the ways Zyboga works. And when that's happening, it's very much going through not only cleaning the brain physically, but it's very much going through and cleaning the mind. And all the experiences we've had, the things we've accumulated through our lives, like it's really going in there and moving those things out. And so it just goes into overdrive that way.

And so during this, this is kind of during the night. We start about 8.30. We go until sunrise the next morning. So then at least here, we then get people. up. So this will be about, what, nine hours later, we'll get people up and kind of take them back to their room for some quiet alone time. And so by this time, not always, it's still very, very intense. But eventually around 11 a.m. 10 a.m., it kind of starts slowing down. And so the first part of the journey is kind of like Iboga going in, accumulating everything and bringing it up

to the surface, and then from there, it's time to now get it out of us, but release it, and move it on, whether that's emotions, beliefs about ourselves, bad habits, whatever it is. And so typically when that happens, those things that we come to Ebola for, whether it's depression and anxiety, you know, those things are going to present themselves in some way. And not in this scary way, not to where you're frightened or it, you know, that's one thing I can say Zuboga is not a scary experience. Some other medicines, people can kind of get spooked if they have a lot of it and, you know, just not the right time for them.

With Yboga, everybody is very aware and present, but then we have to look at our lives. So this next day, it's really just a deep look at who we are, like all of our faults, everything we've ever done and starts, you know, and when those things are going to come out of us, it just doesn't feel good. It's such a deep process. So people kind of, we hang out through the very next day and the next night. And eventually, when you get to sleep, is kind of when the first phase has completed itself. And that can be anywhere from 20 to, you know, 36 hours later after having the Bogha.

You know, so it's a long, it's a long thing. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like it is. it sounds like it's hard that's a long time to be going through any sort of psychosomatic ideas but you know when you when you look at it from the point of view of the cleansing or a purge you know most fast or 36 hours or most sort of any kind of fast like that where you're really going in and you're doing a full body detox it takes a long time it's actually rather fast for a fast if that kind of make sense. But it does seem long to be in an altered state of consciousness. Yeah. No, it is. And it slows

time down too. That's, you know, Ebola kind of heightens all the senses up into, you know, you, your senses go plus 10. And so when your senses are so aware and you're so in your body, that way, time starts slowing down. So yeah, it even feels longer than that. But yeah, no, for for own well-being, you know, 36 hours, 48 hours, like, that's, you know, gladly take it to better the lay. You know, in some cases where I've found myself in an altered state of consciousness for a long period of time, the difficult parts for me are, you know, if you have an instance where you're going for 10 or 12 hours, sometimes you get to this point where you're like, I just

want this to be over, you know, or, you know, I'm curious, is that feeling around or what other feelings are in there? Sometimes the intensity can be so real, at least on psilocybin or other particular psychedelics that you feel like you're in another reality. What are some of the feelings and thoughts that you had when you were in this experience or maybe some stories that you've heard? Yeah, definitely wanting it to be over as is a big. Quite a bit. Yeah. Everybody gets that one, you know, and say this day after we have this ceremony, like, yeah, most people, it's just, like I said, it's a heart. And so if you ask people, like, you're going to be ready to do the second one because we do it two times when people are here. Most of them would be like, I'm not, I'm not even going to do the second one. I'm done. And, you know, but that's until they get the benefits and, you know, the thing, you know, things come together for them.

But yeah, wanting it to stop, you know, people question themselves a lot. Like really, they're coming in. They don't trust themselves at all. They can go through hours and hours of that. And I did it wrong. You know, it's not working. This isn't the right thing. So we do.

That happens quite a bit. But, you know, it is different here. You know, there's a way of working with the medicine in a consistent way. And, you know, sharing the right things with people at the right time, like, helps them. get through it. And so it is easier here, you know, because you have, we have all our staff here, like supporting you. We've seen it a hundred times, you know, we've been through it ourselves. We know what you're going through. We know how the medicine, you know, reacts with people and how they're going to feel. And so that's very, very helpful for people. So, you know, we get everybody

through it, that's for sure. Is it common in the traditional sense to do it twice like that? Do you guys follow the same procedure that you were taught by the gentleman that came over? Or is it is it twice? Is it three times? Is it once? Or what is it look like? If I were to come down there and I said, Levi, I'm really interested in what you guys are doing. If someone were to come down there, can you walk them through what the process would look like?

Yeah. So, you know, the two, having the medicine twice isn't necessarily like a traditional thing. but what happened when our teacher first started working with people is just realizing, you know, us in the West, like we, you know, and I think most people can agree, you know, a lot of us have lost our path over the last 20 years. So he was finding that one wasn't enough. So we better do it twice to make sure people really, really get it. You know, traditionally a lot of people do only have like this one big experience and then they follow their tradition. You know, there's many different ways that the Bweedy work, and so nothing is kind of universal. But yeah, so people,

you know, here at least they come down. We give them a solid like orientation, like talking about what what Iboga is going to feel like. The symptoms are going to come up. Here's what you do when those things come up. We meet with everybody individually. Just hear about why they're here, you know, what they want from the experience, hopefully give them a bit of guidance. And then we have that first ceremony, and that goes all through the night, and we're there with them the next day, and then hopefully they get some sleep that following night. Even if some, you know, maybe 10% of people don't sleep the night after the Iboga ceremony as well, you know, even so, like Iboga is used as a hunter's medicine, like quite literally in Africa for just sharpening

the senses, giving you a lot of stamina. So there's a lot of stamina in this medicine and that. that's true after the experience too. People leave with more stamina, just more vigor altogether. And so even if people don't sleep that next night, usually the Bogia can push them through the next day. It's definitely not a stimulant per se, but it can be stimulating.

And so we go to the beach the following day. We hang out on the beach and have a picnic, come back, we have a taco night, usually that night. So we have a really great chef that sets up like a taco bar. And then after dinner, sometimes we'll have a fire. Most of the time, people are kind of ready to go to sleep and get some rest. We wake up the next, the following day.

We do a non-iboga traditional cleansing for people at a river. We come back. We have an integration circle. And then that night we do the second ceremony. And so the second ceremony, typically, we're going to give them more medicine right off the top. just because now we've seen how they react to it. You know, the first time we kind of ease people in, just, you know, making sure there's no such thing as two months, too much,

but you don't want to keep people up for three nights in a row, you know. And so we definitely, you know, gauge it that way. But yeah, by two of them, by two of them, I mean, you know, people get what they need from the experience for where they're at in life. like Iboga opens the way forward. Like here's what needs to happen from here. Here's the things you need to change about yourself. You know, here's the things we need to practice doing,

making a part of ourselves. You know, here's the thing that you have to stop doing, you know. And so you definitely get homework on what needs to happen in life afterwards, you know, and there's no substitute for that time. And Iboga is different than other plant medicines in the sense that it stays in you longer. So if you go, say, have ayahuasca, San Pedro, peyote, whatever, some of the other plant medicines, like there's definitely an afterglow period as well.

But with Iboga, you start getting into the months of it. And so you have this period of guidance from Iboga for two, three, four months afterwards where it helps you just integrate and make these things a part of your life that you need to, you know, you now need to do. So it's, yeah, very powerful in that way. So when people leave here, it doesn't just stop there. You know, there's still plenty to happen. Yeah, it's so fascinating to me to think that someone can come down.

And you yourself have experienced this with someone that has a, be it a peyote addiction, or an opiate addiction or a heroin addiction or gambling addiction or any of these sort of, you know, demons that lock on to us in our life. you know, that become something that we can't get rid of, that we just become so attached to. And then to think that you could come down and take this medicine for a day or three days and be done with that. Like, maybe you can help people understand. Like, in my mind, I'm thinking, we probably all have known people that have been addicted to something. And they feel as if they're a fiend, like they must have this thing in order to get through their day.

So what goes on in the thought process? Like how does it just switch over where you're like, I don't no longer need this. Is it sort of a mix of I don't need this and I've been ruining my life? Or I don't need this and I've been hurting everyone around me. But how is that process? How do you get rid of this desire to need this thing one day? And then three days later, not have that desire.

Or do you have that desire but you're able to overcompensate for it or overthinking? How does that process work, do you think? it does take longer you know so like here we we used to back in the day do like opiate detox work but it's gotten so serious now with fentanyl and you really need like a medical staff and stuff so everybody that comes here it's a very serious procedure but in a week 10 days you can knock that addiction out of somebody you know whether it's heroin fentanyl opiates you know and then it comes down to like there's no doubt that the Ibogor Ibogaine will get somebody clean, but then it comes down to like, are they going to do the right things after? And, you know, they need coaching. They still

have a long ways to go. But Ibrahimagane does give them the best shot. So everybody that comes here kind of, you know, maybe they drink too much or they may have had a substance abuse problem, but they're clean coming in. So they have a period of clean time. Or the biggest, kind of our biggest categories, you know, depression, PTSD, anxiety, bad parents, you know, that's one against everybody just, you know, parents can mess us up like nobody else. And so working through all that. And so what people see is they start seeing their own fears, you know, how their decisions and actions, you know, can be guided by fears. They really start seeing the beliefs that they have about themselves. And so we call Iboga, kind of like your podcast, we call Iboga the greatest

hunter for the truth. Because in the end, it's going to blow through the beliefs that we may have about ourselves or how the world works and just break it down to the core where, you know, it just gives you the truth of something. And we tell people, the reason beliefs are beliefs is because we can't fully verify them. That's why they're called beliefs, you know. And so in this tradition within Iboga, it's really about verifying things with our senses. You know, that's how we know the truth. Those are the tools we were given as a human to verify what is real. And just because we think something or have a thought about something doesn't make it real.

Like the mind, the human mind can think anything that it wants. So it goes through this process of just getting down to the truth. And, you know, the biggest truth that helps all the humans is, And what a Bogor really does at the beginning is people come through and they've lost their love for life. You know, whether it's however it happened, whether it's through addiction or depression or whatever it is, they've lost a love for life. And through that, you know, time, it's hurt them more and more. And so what Ibogar really does is gives them the appreciation of life again.

And so because if we don't have the appreciation of life, like it's going to be very difficult for anything else to work in our life. Like we have to, we have to want to live, appreciate living. And so in the Bledy, that's how we talk about, you know, giving thanks for the gift of life. How do you give thanks for the gift of life? You appreciate and value your life. And appreciating and valuing your life comes through the actions that you take. And so, you know, really inputs that back into people. And like I said, it's going to show them how their own mind works and they're going to very much realized that a lot needs to change and how they think about things. And so we give people very simple, witty tools while they're here on how to think or, you know, what about this looping

thought that we've been thinking about the last 15 years keeps coming up. Like the medicine, the Iboga gives them the chance to like fully process that. And so when it comes up again, it could come up again, but it's just not going to give them the same response or emotion inside anymore. They'll see it as a thought and realize, okay, that's a thought. It doesn't really make it real. I know there's nothing there for me. There's nothing left for me to learn from that thought anymore. Now, let it go and move on fully. And so a lot of it happens kind of in that level. And yeah, then you get the guidance from Ibogon. Here's what needs to happen from here. And that's really powerful. So, you know, we tell people, you know, better listen to what, you know,

what you know you have to do from here because those are the things that matter in your life. Yeah, that's fascinating to me. It's always, it always blows my mind to think of the insights that you get when you take some of these plant medicines. And it seems there's been a debate, at least on the peripheral about integration and doctors and people kind of going it alone. But from what I'm hearing, it sounds to me that when you take Iboga, it seems to bring to the surface the ideas that you need to do. It sounds like you as the person ingesting the medicine are coming up with your own solutions to solve your own problems. I'm sure there's some integration that happens there. But would you say that that's kind of the case?

Like you as the individual together with the medicine begin to understand what your own problems. It's like you're almost diagnosing yourself and then coming up with your own solutions, which seems to be the most positive way forward for people. I'm sure there's people that may need more help, but does that seem accurate? Oh, yeah. No, perfect. Yeah. Yeah, nailed it.

You know, it's not necessarily the boga that's giving you the answers. The bogus going in and clearing out, like I said, the beliefs, you know, the memories, whatever we have inside that's preventing us from getting to that truth. So, yeah, no, it's just connecting you. with what's already in there. So then you can, like you said, diagnose yourself and lead your way out. Absolutely.

Yeah, good. It seems like it just, the more that I hear about this and, and this renaissance of plant medicine that we're on, it just seems to me somehow we've lost our connection to the earth. Like we've lost our way and we have all these external inputs, whether it's,

if you drive down a freeway in any part of the United States, you're just bombarded with billboards and, signs and radio ads and magazines and they're all telling you these just nonsense like you need more money you're not pretty you're fat you don't have enough no one care like you're just you're just bombarded by so much negativity and then you find yourself maybe at your place in costa rico or you find yourself with you know a friend that can give you some mushrooms or you find yourself in this position where you can reconnect using plant medicine and all of a sudden these blockages begin to move out of the way. All of a sudden, like the doors of perceptions

are wiped clean and you can begin to see, hey, I have a problem. I got several problems, man, I'm being a knucklehead. But it's, do you see a sort of reconnection happening with the people coming down there, the retest, the return to plant medicine and psychedelics beginning to move their way to the forefront? Do you see this as something that is beginning to be like a new renaissance? Absolutely. Yeah. No, for sure, for sure. You know, I kind of see it as nature's way of like getting us back to the truth and like what really matters. Yeah, there's no doubt, you know, within the tech industry, you know, especially like the crypto blockchain industry, plant medicine and psychedelic medicine is really big. And so that's a real positive thing because, you know, You know, I'm sure it's getting into some politicians now, which will be really, really helpful, you know. So, yeah, no, it's going to make some shifts as well. So I think overall it's going to be a positive thing.

But, yeah, no, I think we're just at the start of it as well. I've noticed in North America there has been a bit of a debate about some people using particularly peyote. because a lot of the indigenous tribes are saying, like, look, this is our medicine for us, and we're glad that people can have an experience, but we prefer that if you wouldn't come over here and use this, and in some ways there's this idea of cultural appropriation and these sort of barbs that are out there. I'm wondering if there's any sort of animosity between people in the West using Iboga and the shaman from it, from where a Boca came from. Is there any sort of problem there?

Or, I mean, does that kind of make sense? Is there any sort of questioning going on there? I'm sure there's some of that, you know, for myself and Iboga Wellness Center, you know, we definitely kind of done it by the rules through an actual greedy shaman from Gabon to make this happen and his blessing. and we definitely look to support Bweedy back in Gabon and plan to do more of that. But I'm sure there's, you know, I'm sure there's a bit of confusion like on how we work versus how they do it over there.

But, you know, that's the place to go to learn. And, yeah, so no doubt. I think everybody in Iboga, at least everybody I know wants to give back to the Bledi in Gabon and different organizations and structures are getting set up to do that. So I think, you know, that that's a big thing going forward as the plant medicine or the psychedelic medicine industry grows and moves forward. Like how do we, you know, respect the places where these medicines come from? And, you know, in the case of peyote, that's one of the toughest ones because those things,

you know, I think take 20, 20. years to be able to get to a size, like this little tiny thing, to be able to take it. So that's super special to take. You know, you can, you can definitely take five, six-year-old Iboga. You know, may not get a lot off of it, but it's definitely there, you know, whereas mushrooms can grow, you know, in a very short period of time. So, yeah, there is, there is the concerns around, you know, the medicine is being used and is there going to be enough of it? And I'm glad Iboga isn't as big as some of the other medicines, like ayahuasca would be, like it would put it, it would definitely put a strain on the supply if it was really, really big.

But thankfully now there's more organizations, people growing Iboga, so there's different plantations coming up, which is really good. What does the growing process look like? Is it, it's primarily a plant that grows in tropical areas, or does it have a certain sort of soil that it likes or do we know about the growing process? Yes, so it grows, you know, it's a jungle, a rainforest plant, you know, and if you look at, say, where the Amazon or when Brazil was connected, when we had Pangaea connected with West Africa, it was kind of like the birthplace of life in there. And so Iboga, you know, ayahuasca, a lot of the medicines come from that,

that central kind of rainforest region that life sprung out of. and yeah so it grows in the jungle. I've heard there's some that grow kind of in the beach areas as well in Gabon because Gabon's a coastal country. But yeah, there's like a little shrub. They like not having direct sunlight on them. You know, they go pretty slow when they're young, but then once they kind of get bigger, they start filling out quite a bit quicker.

But yeah, you want to give them probably at least eight, nine, ten years before you actually use them. So there's definitely some, you know, some thought, planning that needs to happen going ahead. Yeah. I'm also curious, you know, I've read quite a bit about some psychedelics. And when people take ayahuasca, they often use the term like mother ayahuasca and they see a spirit of some kind. it's not uncommon for people who take large doses of psilocybin to be contacted by or hear voices or sometimes see entities or get a download of some information. I'm wondering if there's some sort of spiritual component to Iboga that may be similar to that.

You know, in our wady, we see Bogas having both the masculine and the feminine together in this one thing. And it's definitely there as well. Like there's the loving part of Iboga, the gentleness that needs to come, but then there's also the directness that we also need, you know. And so we look at it as having both of those things in there. And like I said, you know, there can be a voice that comes through through Iboga, but, you know, in the end, you're the one that has to listen to it and process it and make sense of it.

So in the end, you know, the Bogos really connecting you with yourself for the answers and the direction and, you know, just clearing whatever out of the way that's preventing us from getting to that truth or those answers. Yeah, it's fascinating me just to get to be in some small way part of this healing process. And it seems like that's what you guys have been doing down there for some time. You've helped over 1,200 people. Is that a fair statement down there? Or is that a recent statement?

Yep, yep, that's right. Yeah, and just small groups throughout the years, you know, anywhere five, now we kind of do seven people, but anywhere from like four or five, seven people through the years. Is there a certain time a year where people come down? Or is it you guys take a little bit of time off here? Or do you have a season for it? Or how does that work? We go year round.

We kind of have to go year around to support everybody, all the staff. and everything and medicine, but we just had a month-long break, which we usually take a pretty good break, like, during Christmas time going into the new year. But usually we go year-round, you know, all through the rainy season and everything. It's pretty nice down here, like, all the time where we're at Costa Rica. It's like a really beautiful climate. Like, it's 70 to 85 degrees all through the year. You know, definitely get some rain during some of the year. But Yeah, probably a lot like Hawaii. Yeah.

Yeah, very tropical and moderate and, you know, the temperature doesn't fluctuate too much. I'd say within a 10 degrees range and it's really, it's really beautiful. I'm sure we're probably pretty close to the same latitude and longitude, but maybe that, I'm sure that has something to do with it. You know, on another note, Levi, it's, this is a related question, not, and it's partially, maybe you can answer about Iboga or just psychedelics or however you see. fit. But it seems to me that in the world of psychedelics right now, especially when it comes to clinical trials, the people that are putting forth clinical trials have these people that they alienate.

They say, listen, psychedelics aren't for everyone. If you have like a bipolar disorder or you're schizophrenic or you have this list of mental problems, then we don't want you in our clinical trial. And I could understand why they would do that. You know, number one, maybe they're they're fearing for those people, but it seems the more important thing they're trying to say is like, look, we don't want any of these people messing up our clinical trial. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so when I started thinking about that, I'm like, ah, they're kind of tainting the trial. And the truth is those people that have these difficult mental issues are probably the people that need the medicine the most. And it seems we're excluding them. Like, oh, you people that need it most, you guys go over here.

You can't have this. And I'm just wondering if that's, if that, to me, that's beginning to seem like a problem. I don't have an answer for it because I understand why they do it. But what do you think about that? Yeah, that's a tough situation. You know, I could see their perspective of not wanting to mess up the clinical trial. And, you know, those things are all labels they created and even they don't understand fully, you know. And so those are the things that the labels they get people when they don't fully understand what's wrong or what's going on with them. And so, you know, that's one where, like, traditional healing with Iboga or ayahuasca or San Pedro or whatever it may be can really, you know, come through because those are the

places those people can come. I don't know about here, like schizophrenia per se, but, you know, we definitely get very depressed, very anxious people that come through and that's probably more apt for them, probably be a bit more successful than, you know, it's tough to, yeah, take a pill in a controlled environment and just heal. Like, you know, I know they'll have therapy and things like that, but yeah, I just don't think it'll ever be quite as successful as, it's like something that we do. But yeah, if it can help people, that's wonderful. But yeah, that's a tough situation. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We got a question from one of our people that are watching. And they

They were wondering. So he phrases it, I'll put it up here. And then I'm going to modify it a little bit, Johnson. Johnson asked, this is why Jesus wrote everything that we need to know has been written in our DNA when we were born. I would say that, I don't know if I thoroughly agree with that, Johnson. I do believe that the code for life is written in our DNA. And I don't know. I guess that I would say a creator of some sort

had to have written in our DNA our life's plans like that. What do you think about a creator and our DNA and this medicine, Levi? How would you respond to something like that? I can't speak too much to the DNA because that's a, you know, a science or of a scientific thing

where I was more kind of a spiritual guy. but no absolutely the creator yeah yeah so in the widi anyways we kind of separate things that come from the creator or God versus things that come from man

and we've kind of come you know instead of trying to figure everything out we've kind of come to accept that the things that come from the creator or God just operate on a bigger level than we're fully meant to understand so I will never you know maybe fully understand how we got here

or how all this happened. But, yeah, you know, but within us, that's what also separates us from the rest of the animals on Earth is our ability to create. And so essentially our job here on Earth is to create our life and, you know, enjoy our life. This is the chance that we have to live.

And, you know, we, the thing is, like with the afterlife, we can't fully experience that yet. So unless we can experience something, we can't fully know it. But we do know for sure that we have this life to live right now. And our job is to live it, to be here. That's why we're human beings. And so I keep it pretty simple for myself,

but I'm sure there's a whole bunch I don't know as well. Yeah. you had you had touched on this idea of spirituality and I'm curious if you agree with the idea that what it seems to me what we've seen over the last 200 years especially in the west is this sort of like branching off or this fracture between spirituality and science and like we've it seems in the west we've taken a really hard turn towards the ideas of science and we've become so specialized that we have taken the ability to see spirituality out of science. And it seems a lot of what these plant medicines are doing are bridging the gap back. I think we're seeing a reconnection

of spirituality and science. And it seems in a lot of the mystic traditions that the two were together. The shaman was in a way a scientist. And if you look at the conclusions that science is coming to, they are spiritual in nature. What do you think is this connection between spirituality and science? I mean, in the end, there's only the laws of nature and operating on Earth, which, you know, you can call science, of course. And, you know, like you said, like, yeah, the, you know, the scientist of today, at least the ones that are in tune enough spiritually to see the connection of science and spirituality, you know, those, those guys are, you know, like the shamans of today. And it's just that, you know, say, a traditional healer or shaman just has different

tools to work with, to connect with those codes of nature. And so, you know, a modern scientist has different tools and, you know, say a witty shaman in the jungle of Africa, working with the same nature to figure, you know, figure out things out and like the plants and the things that can help us live better to make our life better. But no, that's definitely coming together. And I think plant medicine is a big part of what's bringing that together because they do come from the same place. But I will say that we're not meant to understand all of it.

Yeah. You know, we're meant to understand a good chunk of it, but everything, like there's things that happen that are just beyond us, you know. And so, you know, figuring out the things that can have, help us live here on earth are the most important ones. Yeah, I heard a good quote ones that said, life is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine. Yeah. You know, like there's no, there's no set of rules that says we should understand what's going on. Like we can't understand what's going on. It's, it's, we don't have a long enough

timeline to see the way in which our actions are going to affect. not only my children, but my children's children or the planning, you know, if we were able to look back on a long enough timeline, things would probably make a lot more sense, which sometimes you begin to get these insights on a psychedelic, like, oh, I get it as above so below. The same way that the water drops down the road, the path of erosion from a glacier to the bottom. So do I live my life. There's the same hangups there. if you concentrate enough on the world around you, you can really get some answers. I think this takes us back to what you were saying about Iboga and that you come to the solutions for your own problems. I think that the knowledge for all of us is it's not so much that you learn it from a school, but that it's revealed to you when you have an open heart, when you have an open eyes,

and when you're in the right setting, I think the knowledge is revealed to you. What do you think? No, absolutely. You know, these medicines, you know, through working with the medicine, you figure out the setting and what needs to happen, you know, in order to make the healing and the learning happen. And, you know, like I said, we all live within the laws of nature, and that's one of the biggest things that you bogat teach us

is we have to operate within these laws of nature and, you know, our abilities as a nature. as humans to live. So it keeps it very simple in that, in that way. But yeah, no, the setting, the setting is really big in all these experiences. I'm wondering, Leba, in your journey, after you have had, after you had your Ibova experience that helped you get rid of the opiate addiction, what do you think was the most difficult part of that journey?

of like during the actual taking in the medicine like the detoxing part of it well first off the detoxing part and then maybe the psychological part of it afterwards okay yep yeah the detoxing part I mean that's just hard you know for for people to know like whenever you do take iboga or ibegain for say an opiate detox it's a very very different experience than taking it say for psychosiritual you know life advancement type purposes and so And so, you know, I remember just being very, very long, felt, feel like I'm just getting just cleaned out, seeing like sludge get cleaned out of me. Just a very slow, just grueling process for these three nights.

But then eventually, like I said, once you get some sleep, it's kind of the end of phase one. So I got some sleep, woke up, wasn't physically addicted, but now here for, you know, the first time in the last 10 years, I'm aware of my own emotions and who I am. And so that was very difficult. Like now I can't hide anymore with the drugs or with the opiates. I have to see it. And so that was very, very difficult, you know. I had to, you know, just be very positive with myself.

And, you know, I put out the energy to find, you know, find my power. and it so happened that a year and a half later I did come to, I didn't know at that at time that Iboga was going to be such an accelerator for my growth, but that year and a half later I met our teacher here in Costa Rica and continued working with Iboga, and there's nothing that quite accelerates your life quite like Iboga does, you know, but I will say that Iboga, like on a big dose, isn't something you do all your life. You don't just keep doing these big doses of it, you know, through my 13 years of being involved with Iboga, I've had eight or nine big experiences through the years. It's probably been three and a half, four

years since I've had kind of a bigger dose since. So eventually the Iboga teaches you how to fish, you know, teaches how to think and how to be. And then it's, you know, up to us to then, you know, like you said, practice those things and make them a part of us. What was it like to, like you, you, you have this addiction to opiates and then you go through the cleansing, the purging process, the learning process and the healing process. Do you remember what it was like when people saw you for the first time where you weren't addicted? That seems like it must be a pretty powerful experience. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, some people could tell, like at that point, so I went through the whole thing. So initially I'd broke my wrist snowboarding, and so at 19 started taking percocets. And that went on for a while, as long as I could find the pills, then all of a sudden the pills don't work anymore. And so then at that point was when something called buprenorphine came out. And so that's kind of like Suboxone without the thing that you don't want. If you're trying to have opiates, I think it has, you know, has some sort of blocker in Suboxone. And so then I had that, and then we couldn't find those anymore. And that's when you go to heroin.

And that's when it goes really deep. And so I kind of gone like this and went a couple times like this, but could never fully come out. And so even though I was in an addiction like that, like most people probably wouldn't notice, you know, too much. Like, I wasn't, you know, I don't know, most people just wouldn't notice. And opiate addicts can be like that. Like, they can seem pretty normal unless they're, you know, living on the street and, you know, track marks all over. I'm like, but then, you know, it took a while. Even with Evoga, like just learning who I was, what I wanted in life, which in the witty we talk about are the two most important things.

like really knowing who you are on a deep level. And then once you know who you are, you can know what you want in life. And because once you know those two things, like you're not confused about anything anymore. You know who you are. You know what you want in life. And so then you just go and you track it down. You take the small steps each day to go get those things that you want. And so that, you know, there was a couple years of figuring that out, like figuring out who I was.

like processing the emotions. This is why I've been an unhappy kid. This is why I was so awkward in a young teenager years and, you know, going through the whole thing. Yeah, that's good advice. I wish everybody, and I hope everybody, can take the time to figure out those two things because I think you can really begin to become who you're supposed to be when you figure out who you are.

You can figure out your real potentials and you can figure out why you're, you love yourself and why other people will love you and what you have to offer other people. And I really admire it. I think it's a it's a bold step to take. A lot of people don't take that step because they're afraid. But maybe the medicines that are out there now are in some ways, if you look at it from that angle, it seems like the medicines are helping us as humans become just more whole, more whole. Is that? Is that? What do you think? Is that possible? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, we're different in the West growing up than a lot of other cultures.

And one of the big things that why we're so lost is we don't have any traditions anymore. Most of us as men or women don't have anything that takes us from manhood or adulthood. Nothing that we go through to like symbolize like now, you know, it's your time to live. and, you know, kind of the culture of, you know, video games, buying things, you know, money's going to make you happy. And now the poor kids today, Instagram and the photos and, you know, AI photos now we can't even tell which ones are real. You know, so we've just kind of lost touch. We've grown up trying to ignore ourselves as much as possible and go into our mind and think things to try and. and, you know, typically to make money, you know, like the kids in school when we're younger,

you know, if you're into science or math, like, that's great, you know, if you're, you know, really in tune with yourself or nature, like, that's not so good. And so, so yeah, these are bringing us back to being, just being a human, you know, and, you know, definitely one of the first thing that needs to happen is, like, our connection with nature is one of the first thing that happens, like through these plant medicines, just getting back to realize that nature gives us everything, like everything, even plastic, all our food, our clothes, or shelter, like everything comes from nature. And so we talk about in the beauty from the time we're born, as soon as we're born into this world, as far as nature is concerned, everything here is already here for us.

It's provided for us. And so then it's about, you know, so that's another reason why we separate things from nature versus man because as far as nature is concerned, everything's here for us, but man then makes rules on how to distribute nature. But as far as like the creator, nature is concerned, it gives us everything. And so, you know, the connection with nature is one that's coming back through these plant medicines and respect for nature. And yeah, that's one of the, you know, the things that was normal for us through all past generations until very recently was like, oh, I can just buy it, you know, without that it, you know,

does come from nature. So, you know, I think it's going to be a powerful time in the next 20 years or so as people come to these medicines and even without medicines, just waking up in general and looking at things and, you know, becoming more aware of themselves. Yeah, I agree. When I look at the world in which we live today, there's seems to be a lot of turmoil, but it almost seems like a rebirth to me. And everybody knows that anybody who's been fortunate enough to have a child or be present at a birth or even give birth, there's a real chance that that child could die in birth. That's why it's such a miracle when a child is born. And I, you know, there's a lot of anxiety and there's a lot of things

that are happening. And it seems to me like that's where we are in the world right now. Like, there's this war going on. And there's all this anxiety. and there's these bells and whistles and everything's going crazy. But I have a lot of positive thoughts and a lot of, I'm really bullish on the future. I think people are coming together and beginning to see themselves in a way in which they haven't done in a long time. And I think what you're doing is a huge part of that.

Yeah, what's up, buddy? Speaking of kids or my daughter. Hello, lady. Did you get a, is that my candy bar? Yeah. He was just talking about kids too. Okay, let's finish up here. She's beautiful. She's beautiful.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. As we're getting ready to land the plane here, you know, I always ask people before they go, what can people find you? What do you got coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, okay, cool. So, you know, our website is iboga wellness.com.

We have a lot of information on there about us in Iboga in general. Let's see, what do we got coming up? We're going to start doing more trips for people to Africa, to Gabon, to experience the medicine. So if they're interested in that, definitely get in touch with that. And so usually that'll be like a 10-day thing. For us here, we operate year-round. And yeah, no, go and live. this is our shot to live and be here on earth and whatever that means for you, whatever

is going to make you happy, go get it. And understand happiness doesn't just happen right away. There can be some things that we need to get through to get there and on the path. And so you just keep pushing forward little by little being, you know, and not hammering yourself along the way, not abusing yourself on the way. So yeah, thank you to everybody for listening. Yeah. Thank you, everybody.

all the links will be done the show notes down there. And if you have any questions, reach out to Levi. He's a really cool guy. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about any issues that you have going on and to see if the Iboga treatment is right for you. Reach out to him. Thank you for watching the True Life podcast.

And thank you for those who are participating in the chat. And we will be back tomorrow with another podcast for everybody. Thank you so much to everybody. Aloha.