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Africa
Giovanni Lattanzi
Scientific research and spiritual ceremonies
Kambo and Iboga are two of the most ancient medicines in the world.
Kambo belongs to the traditions of Amazonian tribes, Iboga to the
spiritual tradition of the Pygmies of the central African Jungles. Although
Iboga originated from the Pygmies it is most well known for its
sacramental use in the Bwitireligion from the Gabon. The first president
of Gabon, Leon Mbawas a member of the Bwitireligion and defended
the use of Iboga and the Bwitireligion when Gabon was under French
rule. Since June of 2000, Iboga has been declared a ‘cultural heritage
strategic reserve’ by the Cabinet of the Republic of Gabon.
Kambo is the name given by some tribes of the Amazon to a specific
frog ( Phyllomedusa bicolor ) and also to the secretion produced by the
skin of these frogs to protect themselves from predators. This secretion
is used by the natives of the Amazon as a sacred medicine within a
shamanic context where this frog is considered a sacred animal, an ally
which may communicate with the shamans through dreams or visions.
The traditional use of this medicine which is nowadays spreading all
over the world is therefore spiritual. Both Kambo and Iboga were almost
completely unknown to westerners up until only a few years ago but
now these are spreading rapidly throughout America, and more recently
in Europe and the rest of the world.
Research studies have been done on both Iboga and Kambo with the
majority of the studies focusing on iboga. The results suggest that they
are doing more than just healing a specific disease: they appear to
enable a reset of DNA and of the electromagnetic field of the body
guided by the intention of the person, opening them up to a much more
fulfilling life. It heals on physical, mental and emotional levels, bearing in
mind that these categories are arbitrarily mind-made and may often
blend into each other on a deeper level. Both medicines also have
properties capable of healing specific diseases.
Kambo has been used for millennia by many tribes in the Amazon
(
Matses, Katukina, etc) to fight what they call: “ panema”or bad luck, in
order to save people from epidemic diseases, malaria, yellow fever, or
snake bites. It plays an important role in the preparation of hunters for
their magical hunting sessions in the rainforest (see Making Magic of P.
Gorman). Alongside this, Kambo is used in the education of the young
people by providing discipline and improving their capacity to take care
of their social life. Kambo is the most powerful enhancer of the immune
system. The results are immediate: after the session a person has good
humour, energy, stamina, enhanced senses, the ability to focus,
improved health and an empty mind free from useless thoughts.
Iboga and Ibogaine are not the same thing, contrary to what many
people believe. When I write about Iboga I mean Iboga root-bark. Iboga
root-bark is a part of the plant, while Ibogaine is one particular alkaloid
extracted in a laboratory. The Iboga plant belongs to Apocynaceae
family. Ibogaine represents just one of the 12 alkaloids present in the
Tabernanthe Ibogaplant. Other important alkaloids are Ibogamine and
Tabernanthine. Ibogaine (its chemical name is 12-methoxyibogamine),
is extracted from the Iboga root-bark and processed into Ibogaine
hydrochloride (HCL) crystals or liquid. Gabon, where the plant
originates, used to be a French colony for a long time. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century French doctors began studying the plant's
properties . Ibogaine gained exposure in the eighties after an accidental
discovery in 1962 by a young American heroin addict named Howard
Lotsof. To his amazement, he discovered that his withdrawal symptoms
had completely disappeared after one session with Ibogaine . He
recounts in an interview (Youtube: Ibogaine, Rite of Passages) how
having taken Ibogaine only once he was able to experience life again
without any fear. After his discovery, interest in Ibogaine started to grow
in the USA and in Holland.
In the USA in the eighties and early nineties studies on the Ibogaine
alkaloid were quite extensive in the USAwhen NIDA conducted
pre-clinical and Phase I clinical trials. According to scientific research,
Ibogaine is considered one of the most important alkaloids present in
Iboga root-bark, especially regarding its ability to cure drug addiction .
The first extraction of Ibogaine from the plant was made by two French
scientists, J.
Dybowskyand E. Ladrin, in 1901 who isolated a crystallized
alkaloid from the Iboga roots and gave it its name .A full organic
synthesis of Ibogaine was achieved and patented in 1956 but it has not
been used because the process to produce it is too challenging and
expensive. Known as 18-MC this synthetic chemical has a molecular
structure that is almost identical to Ibogaine. Scientific research on
Iboga plant was carried out over the course of the nineteenth century by
French doctors resident in Gabon. The entire time, the doctors' interest
was focused exclusively on the effects of Iboga administered in low
doses, and was considered a tonic with a relaxing effect on muscles. A
high dose of the medicine was considered to be toxic and the ritualistic
use of higher doses in the African traditions was relegated to the world
of sorcery.
The studies on Iboga and Ibogaine show there is no toxicity per se. The
French pharmacologist Goutarel in his ‘Pharmacodynamics and
Therapeutic Applications of Iboga and Ibogaine’ (French National
Scientific Research Centre)e stimates that the toxicity of Ibogaine is
about the same as that of aspirin. The shavings of Iboga contain about
2 to 5 percent of Ibogaine: you would need a great many spoonfuls for it
to be dangerous’ (Iboga, The visionary Root of African Shamanism).
According to the new method that I describe in this book, one who
wants to work with the wood doesn’t attend an Iboga ceremony as a
start but mostly as an end point, that means only when one is ready for
such an experience. A preparation–which may take months- is
necessary. For safety reasons I don’t allow a person who is still taking
drugs, methadone or medicines similar to methadone on daily base to
work with Iboga root-bark. In many cases attending a ceremony on high
doses is not necessary.
Treatments of drug addicts with high doses of Ibogaine has till now
been provided mostly in clinical settings. In 1994 Deborah Mash
professor of neurology at the University of Miami, a pioneer in this field,
received authorization to conduct experimental treatments with Ibogaine
to addicts. In 1996 she set up a treatment program with precise medical
surveillance equipment. She opened the Clinic of Healing Visions where
at least more than 150 patients have been treated. Mash’s team and
other doctors involved in this project were in agreement that at the level
of therapeutic doses, Ibogaine is not neurotoxic. Previously professor
Mash had presented her results of testing Ibogaine on monkeys, where
also no cerebral toxicity appeared. Another interesting development in
this field is the possibility of curing people addicted to methadone with
Iboga or Ibogaine in low-doses. I’m not familiar myself with this
approach, since I myself don’t work with Ibogaine, but I know of it from
doctor Thomas Corbin, who worked in the team of professor Mash and
is researching in this direction.
Iboga is known as “a drug that beats drugs”, but to those who are
familiar with it know that a recreational use of this substance is totally
impossible. The definition of a “drug”, meant as a “hallucinatory
substance”, has proved to be reductive and misleading in defining
Iboga. Iboga is in fact an ‘entheogen’ that works in a very different way
than any other entheogens, for instance Ayahuasca and Peyote. In its
own way, Iboga is a very peculiar planet in the universe of Master
Plants. The visions created by Iboga refer to the present life of the
person involved and sometimes to their previous lives showing
experiences lived by their ancestors .These visions and dreams are
always meaningful. However, healing processes often happen without
any visions, though there is an increase in the possibility of having
insights and meaningful dreams showing the direction which the
spiritual healing process is taking. There is nothing recreational in the
usage of this shamanic medicine, and for this reason it has never found
an audience among lovers of psychedelic trips and euphoric drugs. This
could also be a reason why the American beat generation's prophets
completely ignored it. So, contrary to recreational substances, Iboga is
used to make a quality leap in one’s life in order to achieve serious
internal growth or to heal one’s emotional wounds. There is an
important difference between what are socially considered narcotics and
drugs, and entheogens like Iboga. Entheogens don’t create addiction.
On the contrary they can help to quit addictions. Dopamine stimulant
drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroine, damage the
brain by reducing the growth of white matter and diminishing the volume
of the grey matter. On the other hand, as recent scientific research is
confirming more and more (see Gabor Mate’, In the realm of hungry
ghosts) entheogens improve the immune system, facilitate the brain to
recover their natural functions and produce dopamine and serotonine.
While addiction to cocaine and heroine provokes a loss of learning
capacity, a diminished ability to make new choices, acquire new
information, or adapt to new circumstances, the same cannot be said
about the use of entheogens.
The application of Iboga and Ibogaine to heal drug addictions has been
discovered only in the last 30-40 years in the western countries, where
this problem is deep-rooted and still growing, The tendency nowadays
in clinical settings is to avoid administering high doses of Ibogaine all at
once, and for safety reasons to split the administration into two or three
doses. The administration of Iboga on addicts was unknown originally in
Africa where Iboga, the ‘sacred wood’ is considered a Sacrament that
connects with the world of the ancestors in order to be reborn in a
spiritual life. That’s the reason why the Bwiti call themselves the true
Christians and affirm that ‘in the church you speak about God, with
Iboga you live with God’. It is a fact that Gabon- where the Bwiti is one
of the national religions next to Catholicism and Islam- is the most
stable country in West Africa with the least criminality.
References
1) Ten years of therapy in one night, Daniel Pinchbeck.