S2E43: Ibogaine Inquiries Part V: Before the Forest Is Gone

Summary

The Telepathy Tapes: S2E43 — Ibogaine Inquiries Part V: Before the Forest Is Gone

Host: Ky Dickens
Date: July 31, 2026
Theme: The global journey and controversial consequences of Iboga/Ibogaine, with a focus on cultural preservation, commercialization, and respectful collaboration with Gabon's traditional custodians.

---

Episode Overview

This final installment of the miniseries “Ibogaine Inquiries” examines the dire effects of rising international demand for iboga on Gabonese ecosystems and traditions. Through voices of conservationists, indigenous practitioners, researchers, and those working in the global iboga retreat industry, Ky Dickens and her guests illuminate issues of poaching, cultural erosion, dangerous commodification, and the call for true reciprocity and cooperation.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Crisis in Gabon: Iboga’s Disappearance and Its Consequences

[00:50–07:10]

• Rapid Disappearance and Poaching:

  • Jan Guinon: “In 50 years, we estimate that 85% to 90% of the iboga from the wide area from the public domain disappeared, has been poached.” (01:39)
  • Wild iboga is vanishing; elders and city dwellers can no longer find medicine that was always accessible.

• Market Distortion and Quality Decline:

  • The high international demand drives prices up, incentivizing poachers to prioritize Western buyers over Gabonese practitioners.
  • Older, larger trees yield higher-quality medicine but are being depleted, leaving only young, low-potency plants.
  • Jan Guinon: "All the big tree has been harvested because it provide more root bark ... quality become low and low because younger the tree is lower, the quality is right." (03:27)

• Traditional Practice at Risk:

  • Scarcity leads to ceremonies where only elders access iboga, or substitutes (sometimes dangerous) like alcohol are used.
  • “So it corrupt the traditions ... It's not the same energy at all. Right. So that's the consequences on the Gaboni side.” (05:40, Jan Guinon)

2. Erosion of Cultural Knowledge and Norms

[06:03–07:51]

• Loss of Elders’ Authority and Youth Engagement:

  • Westerners visit for brief initiations, return home as self-declared experts, making money and diminishing the perceived value of traditional training.
  • “It’s reduced the value of the culture in the eyes of the young people who doesn’t want anymore to follow the rules.” (06:32, Jan Guinon)

• Bwiti Perspective:

  • Simon Pierre (via translator): “First point is the national cohesion. This knowledge is training the students about fantastic, remarkable moral values ... Values that we need for a structured society.” (07:32)

3. Misunderstandings in the West: The Limits of Extraction

[08:08–09:33]

• Extraction of ibogaine (the molecule) overlooks the holistic, centuries-old knowledge system of Bwiti.
  • Simon Pierre: “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.” (09:33)

---

[Ad Break Skipped]

---

4. The Global Retreat Industry: Shallow Roots, Dangerous Practices

[11:46–15:53]

• Nevaeh Wilder’s Testimony:

  • Shares personal and professional experience at retreat centers.
  • “I watched them end up in situations that cost them a lot because of the power, the money, the influence that came in with hosting these spaces ... just growth that wasn’t sustainable to the human soul, which is why I repeatedly stepped back.” (12:58)
  • Raised safety concerns at two centers; both later saw client deaths (14:09).
  • Warns of untrained, uninitiated “practitioners” charging exorbitant fees with little to no lineage or permission:
    “He sat with Iboga once and then went over to Africa to get initiated with the Bwiti and has no training or experience in actually serving the medicine.” (14:47)

• Commercialization vs. Relationship:

  • “For them [Bwiti lineage], it’s not about the money or the profit. It’s about relationship and connection to nature and the forest and a plant.” (15:53)

5. The Call for Reciprocity and Genuine Dialogue

[16:13–17:16]

• Simon Pierre: “It’s the eternal problem in the relations that we have with the Western world, the big gap between what is said and what’s happening on the field.” (16:13)

• “The conversations the indigenous peoples would like to have don’t seem to actually be taking place.” (16:22, Ky Dickens)

• Comparisons to Other Sacramental Plants:

  • Patenting and pharmaceutical commercialization of tobacco, willow, coca, poppy — creates cycles of harm and erasure.

• Dr. Dindisi (Academic):

  • “Without the participation ... of the traditional stewards ... whatever ... comes out ... is not going to be sustainable or good in the long run.” (17:16)
  • “You cannot commodify a sacred medicine to fix the war machine.” (18:43)

6. What Gabonese Leaders Want: Exchange, Not Extraction

[18:43–22:36]

• Simon Pierre: “The Gabonese government should take the hand on this field ... that our friends from the Western world start thinking into like an exchange ... instead of taking and only taking ... tobacco was a sacred plant, and then it became a business, to the detriment ... of the local knowledge about tobacco.” (18:50)

• Iboga’s value goes beyond chemical properties—it’s the system, the context, the relationships.

• Western science frames itself as the authority on safety but disregards proven indigenous protocols.

  • Jan Guinon: “I’ve never seen once someone dying eating medicine in Gabon, never.” (19:50)
  • “Safety knowledge does not begin and end with western medicine. Gabonese practitioners have spent generations developing their own systems ...” (20:29)

• Appeal for Collaborative Research:

  • “Rather than spending billions ... into researches on rats and dogs ... they should ... study program in Gabon ... and to look at the way things are done in Gabon.” (20:58, Jan Guinon)

• Not asking for ritual imitation, but for respect and profit-sharing; recognition of resilience through colonial traumas.

• Jan Guinon:

  • “We still wish and work also for a better space where ... a real, fair and sustainable cooperation between the modern science and Gabonese people [will exist].” (22:36)

---

7. Reflective Closing: Healing, Knowledge, and the Future of Iboga

[22:55–26:01]

• Ky Dickens:
  • Reviews the promise of ibogaine for addiction and trauma, its mysterious reports (visions, telepathy, “plant intelligence”).
  • Poses pressing ethical questions: “Who gets to decide what happens to a medicine after the rest of the world recognizes its value? Who benefits when sacred knowledge becomes intellectual property ... ? ... The people who practice Bwiti are asking to be recognized not merely as the historical source ... but as living partners in its future.” (23:54–25:10)
• Stresses the difference between sharing and extraction; asks for recognition that full understanding of iboga can’t be gained by isolating it from its cultural, communal context.

---

8. A Cautionary Vision

[26:01–26:26]

• Jan Guinon:
  • “I had a clear vision about what would be the world if humanity start to disrespect Iboga. I can tell you that Iboga will win. He will win. But Iboga’s spirit will just destroy the world before the world destroy Iboga.” (26:01)

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Jan Guinon on Poaching & Quality Loss:
  “All the big tree has been harvested ... now the quality become low and low because younger the tree is lower, the quality is right.” (03:27)

• Simon Pierre (translator) on Traditional Knowledge:
  “It's a global technology which uses the iboga. But not only ... guidance is bringing a reboot or reset of the human system, then the rest of the knowledge ... can be considered the software of the technology.” (08:08, 08:31)

• Nevaeh Wilder on Commercialization:
  “There was also an underlying capitalist colonialist essence ... just growth that wasn’t sustainable to the human soul which is why I repeatedly stepped back from these group ceremony experiences.” (12:58)

• Dr. Dindisi on Unsustainable Progress:
  “You cannot commodify a sacred medicine to fix the war machine.” (18:43)

• Ky Dickens on Collaboration & Responsibility:
  “The people who practice Bwiti are asking to be recognized not merely as the historical source ... but as living partners in its future.” (Approx. 25:10)

• Jan Guinon’s Warning:
  “I had a clear vision about what would be the world if humanity start to disrespect Iboga. I can tell you that Iboga will win.” (26:01)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:50: Background on Iboga's journey from Gabon to global attention; intro to today’s focus.
• 01:39: Jan Guinon explains extent of iboga poaching.
• 03:27: Impact of overharvesting on iboga quality and Bwiti practice.
• 07:32: Simon Pierre outlines communal/cultural stakes, not just plant access.
• 12:24: Nevaeh Wilder’s personal and professional iboga journey.
• 14:09: Deaths at retreat centers following safety warnings.
• 15:53: Concerns about fake lineage, commercialization, “phone” permissions.
• 17:16: Dr. Dindisi warns against unsustainable, exclusionary models; “band aid” for systemic trauma.
• 18:50: Simon Pierre on exchange over extraction; parallels with tobacco.
• 19:50: Jan Guinon challenges Western framing of “danger” vs. lived Gabonese safety.
• 21:47: Jan’s plea for research partnerships and profit-sharing.
• 22:36: Prospects of future collaboration.
• 26:01: Jan Guinon’s vision of Iboga’s “revenge” if disrespected.

---

Summary — In the Podcast’s Voice

“Who benefits when sacred knowledge becomes intellectual property, a medical treatment or a commercial industry? And what responsibility do we have to the people and places that protected that knowledge long before science had the language to even describe it?” (Approx. 24:20)

The episode leaves listeners with a sobering reminder: Iboga’s lessons are spiritual and ethical as much as medical. As interest in its healing expands globally, the episode calls for humility, partnership, and respect—insisting that connection means not only understanding iboga’s intelligence, but honoring the people and knowledge that have companioned it throughout history. There remains a choice—will it be a story of respectful collaboration, or another episode in a long narrative of extraction?

---

For listeners:
This episode is essential if you care about indigenous rights, responsible psychedelic medicine, or the intersection of science, tradition, and ethics in healing practices. Through direct testimony and trenchant questions, it challenges Western listeners in particular to rethink what collaboration means—before, as the title warns, the forest (and something far greater) is gone.

Transcript

[A]

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 experiences 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.

[B]

Foreign.

[C]

Hi, everyone. This is Kai Dickens. And welcome to the Ibogaine Inquiries, a miniseries from TTT Media, exploring one of the most promising, controversial and misunderstood substances in the world of mental health and addiction recovery.

[D]

This is part five, the final episode of ibogaine Inquiries. Last episode, we explored how iboga, a sacred medicine protected by the people of Gabon for generations, gradually made its way into Western science. We heard how decades of research, patents and growing global interest left many in Gabon feeling that their knowledge had been shared without their voices. We also introduced you to the Nagoya Protocol, an international agreement created to ensure that when indigenous knowledge and biological resources are used, the communities who have stewarded them are included in the process and and share in the benefits. But even with these protections in place, people are finding their way around them to expedite the use of this sacred plant. Today, we turn back to Gabon, where conservationists and traditional Bwiti practitioners say the consequences are very much happening already.

[E]

What is happening in Gabon is in 50 years, we estimate that 85% to 90% of the iboga from the wide area from the public domain disappeared, has been poached.

[D]

That's Jan Guinon again. We heard from him throughout the series. His mission involves protection for the boga plant and traditional knowledge that goes along with it. Yan says the amount of poaching they're seeing is largely restricting access to something very spiritually essential to local communities who have traditionally had easy access in the wild. I'll let him and our producer Catherine take it from here.

[E]

So it starts to be a big business, and iboga start to disappear into the wild. It start to become a problem for traditional practitioners. And now 80% of Gabonese people are living in the cities where you can't grow iboga. So they depend on the public domain. I mean, if they want some iboga, they go into the forest and to harvest iboga. But now it's become very complicated to find iboga in Gabon.

[A]

Today, roughly 80% of Gabon's population lives in cities. Traditionally, people could harvest the ibogo they needed from the surrounding forest, but as wild plants disappear, that access is becoming much more Difficult.

[E]

There's a huge traffic around iboga to sell to the west because for two centuries the west is looking for hibogan. Gabon is a very little country. It's 2 million people and 80% of people are in the cities. The countryside become empty, so there's nobody to check what's going on into the public domain.

[A]

Additionally, with all the poaching, the quality of the plant is decreasing. The plant takes many years to fully mature, and the younger it is when uprooted, the lower the quality of the medicine will be. The demand versus Gabon's ability to plant and give the shrub time to mature is not lining up.

[E]

The quality is decreasing of iboga because the biggest ancient tree are harvested. You know, in the US when you talk about iboga, you used to tell it's a bush, a little tree. It's not true if you let iboga grow. I know some places in Gabon where there's some trees that are 8 meters high. But all the big tree has been harvested because it provide more root bark. You know, that is the that contains the medicine. So now the quality become low and low because younger the tree is lower, the quality is right.

[A]

With limited oversight across such a large forested region, professional poachers have been able to harvest iboga from the wild and sell it into an increasingly lucrative international market.

[E]

And also what's going on is that iboga poachers prefer to sell to westerners that pay more expensive than medicine than Gabonese themselves. They give the priority to the west that pay more expensive, the price become higher, including for Gabonese people, because the medicine is more hard to find.

[A]

As wild iboga becomes harder and more expensive to access, more people are relying on medicine sold in city markets. Jan says some sellers mix the root bark with other plants to increase the volume. Substitutes that can sometimes be toxic.

[E]

So now it creates an accident because it's mixed with other plants that could be dangerous.

[A]

Because of this strain, people who have been practicing witi, unable to find the shrub, are turning to alternative substances to practice the sacred ceremony of initiation, which has never been done before and is negatively affecting not only their spiritual process and connection, but but also their mental and physical health.

[E]

And also because the medicine is not easy to find and expensive. Now, in Gabon, you can go to ceremonies where people do not have iboga so much. It's very rare. There's some ceremonies whose only elders take some medicine.

[A]

There are gatherings where only elders receive iboga, or where there is not enough medicine for everyone. In some cases, participants have begun using alcohol or occasionally Cannabis to approximate an altered state. This can change the energy and meaning of the ceremony itself.

[E]

So it corrupt the traditions. Because now people are on the influence of the alcohol during some ceremonies, sometimes more than on the influence of iboga. It totally changed everything. I will not enter into the details, but it's not the same energy at all. Right. So that's the consequences on the Gaboni side.

[A]

But Jan says the damage may extend beyond the forest. Traditionally, becoming qualified to serve a boga can require years or even decades of training. When younger Gabonese people see outsiders return home after a brief initiation, begin administering this medicine and earn significant money doing it, the traditional path can begin to look unnecessary. In Yan's view, commercialization isn't only extracting the plant, it is gradually eroding the value of the knowledge surrounding it.

[E]

So now he discouraged Gabonese young people to respect the rules of the elders because they see the Westerners that do not respect it, and there's no punishment, no penalty, and they make a lot of money. And then they come back to Magabon with lots of money, and they start to corrupt the village. For some of them to get more knowledge, to more profit in their country. So it's reduced the value of the culture in the eyes of the young people who doesn't want anymore to follow the rules.

[A]

Simon Pierre, a Bwiti master you heard from in episode three, shares Jan's concern. He agrees that what is at risk goes beyond access to the plant itself. It's a system of knowledge that helps hold communities together. As a reminder, Simon is speaking in French, so the voice you'll hear is his translator, Simone. What do you feel is at stake here above all else?

[B]

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.

[A]

Well structured, he says. This is knowledge that the community has been receiving from the plant for generations. What will happen and change if they continue to lose access? What do you think gets misunderstood most often by the Western media of what's happening right now?

[B]

Very good question. The first thing is that people in the west believe that it's enough to extract the molecule of ibogaine to be the solution. It's not enough. It's a global technology which uses the iboga. But not only.

[A]

Iboga has never existed in isolation within Bwiti. It is one component of a larger system of teachings, practices, music preparation and

[B]

guidance is bringing a reboot or reset of the human system, then the rest of the knowledge which is around the iboga, the software, can be considered the software of the technology.

[A]

In Simon's analogy, iboga performs the reset. The knowledge surrounding it is the software. And the nganga, the extensively trained healer and ceremonial guide, is the engineer who understands how the system works.

[B]

The nganga, who is the witty priest, will become the engineer who is very specific method. So with all this, the iboga, the knowledge and everything in a methodic way, he will bring the iboga and the wuti can bring to the people. The Western world understands wrongly is that it thinks that only the buga in can be useful. Although it's the whole process with the methods, with the knowledge, the rest of the knowledge which is it's a whole. So iboga or ibogain is just a piece of the whole knowledge. So this is the main thing that people don't understand in the West.

[D]

Simon's point is that iboga is only one part of a much larger system of knowledge that has traditionally required years of training to understand and practice responsibly. But as interest in the medicine grows and money is to be made, that knowledge is increasingly being separated from the plant being repackaged and sold. After the break, we'll hear what can happen when inexperienced practitioners begin administering one of the world's most powerful psychoactive substances, and how the commercialization and commodification of sacred knowledge can have devastating consequences for people seeking healing as well.

[C]

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. They focus on high quality essentials like breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, and beautiful jewelry without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but it's still easy and affordable. Their 100% European linen pants, dresses and tops are the pieces you reach for all summer. They're lightweight, effortless to style and start at just $32. I recently bought the Flowknit Breeze short sleeve Polo and it's perfect for going to work or going out on a boat or to a concert in the park. And the big thing for me is that Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. I personally love their 100% European linen long sleeve sleeve shirt because in California you go from super hot to super cold and it's perfect for layering and easy to throw in a bag. I also love their 100% European linen high waisted shorts. They look so good and classic. If you're going to the pool or to the beach or just to a summer barbecue, make your summer wardrobe feel easier, go to quince.com tapes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com tapes for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/tapes.

[D]

Welcome back. So far we've heard how rapidly growing global demand for a boga is affecting access, quality and traditional practice in Gabon. But the consequences do not end when the medicine leaves the forest. As a boga becomes more visible and profitable, people with limited experience may begin presenting themselves as qualified to administer it, and with a substance this powerful, the consequences can be profound. Our producer Catherine spoke with Nevaeh Wilder, who spent nearly a decade working around Iboga retreat centers and has witnessed both the medicine's healing power and the risk of an industry expanding faster than its safeguards.

[F]

My name is Nevaeh Wilder and I found iboga 10 years ago, really for my own personal healing journey. I had lost a sister to a brain tumor in my fourth journey. My sister who had passed away was able to come to me and answer all my questions about life, which was beyond profound and such a gift to receive from the medicine.

[A]

After her experiences with Iboga, she was hired by a retreat center where they were administering the medicine and had some remarkable experiences, but also some that disheartened her about what is happening in the industry as it moves so quickly.

[F]

I happened to get on an integration call two years later for the Iboga Wellness center and I was helping the people on the call so much that they reached out to me afterwards and offered me a job. I got the opportunity to apprentice and learn and have a very slow approach to a lot of beautiful things that I saw in the Aboga space and also a lot of things that were really, really difficult for me to operate within. I think they had well meaning intentions to support and help people, but there was also an underlying capitalist colonialist essence underneath what was happening and many of my previous employers who I knew and loved as family and grew with, I watched them end up in situations that cost them a lot because of the power, the money, the influence that came in with hosting these spaces. I think just growth that wasn't sustainable to the human soul which is why I repeatedly stepped back from these group ceremony experiences. It was something that I just didn't really want to be a part of.

[A]

Nevaeh says that on two occasions she raised concerns about certain practices she believed to be unsafe at the retreat centers, and those concerns were disregarded. Ultimately, lives were lost.

[F]

Two weeks later, after both of these conversations that I had with them, There were actual deaths at both of these centers, and real human lives were lost.

[A]

We were not able to independently determine whether the concerns Nevaeh raised were connected to those deaths. But her account reflects a broader fear shared by many people in this space that the medicine is spreading faster than the training, accountability, and experience required to administer it safely. Nevaeh recently became aware of a practitioner who she says began offering expensive Iboga ceremonies after sitting with the medicine and traveling to Gabon, but without receiving training or permission to administer it from the Bwiti community that initiated him.

[F]

He sat with Iboga once and then went over to Africa to get initiated with the Bwiti and has no training or experience in actually serving the medicine. I know for a fact that having gone over there with him, that we received no training to actually safely administer this medicine or permission, even with the Bwiti, to serve it at all. We actually sign contracts going over there that we won't use any sacred elements of the initiation for any commercial enterprise.

[A]

Nevaeh says the ceremonies are being advertised for as much as $15,000 per session in Hawaii.

[F]

He actually reached out to our same contact in Africa a few months ago, asking for permission to serve this medicine over the phone or the information and the wisdom to serve this medicine over the phone, to which the council responded, no, of course. And then he asked how much. How much it would be to get this information over the phone, which is again a disrespect of how these indigenous lineages are wanting to relate with the Western world altogether. For them, it's not about the money or the profit. It's about relationship and connection to nature and the forest and a plant.

[A]

But the larger pattern Nevaeh describes echoes what we heard from Bwiti leaders in Gabon that the appearance of consultation or lineage can sometimes be used without the depth of relationship, consent, or training those communities believe the work requires. Here's Bhiyti master Simon Pierre again as a reminder, you're hearing the voice of his translator.

[B]

It's the eternal problem in the relations that we have with the Western world, the big gap between what is said and what's happening on the field.

[A]

There is strong dialogue around Reciprocity. But in truth, the conversations the indigenous peoples would like to have don't seem to actually be taking place.

[B]

Despite this, we see videos online where we see people who go and visit local people, and it's just to pretend that we've asked these guys what it is about. It's not true. It's just to pretend it's not happening. But I'm convinced that we can still take things over if we start again from the start. The problem is, if the Western world is into an economical state of mind, that's a problem. It becomes a business.

[A]

Plants like tobacco and willow bark have been taken from indigenous people, transformed into new formulas, allowing them to be legally patented and sold. And the result can be quite damaging. I asked Dr. Dindisi what the ramifications would be if we do turn iboga into a business too.

[G]

As an academic, as a researcher, I think that without the participation and cooperation and collaboration of the traditional stewards of this medicine, that whatever the research results or whatever program comes out of this treatments for people is not going to be sustainable or good in the long run. We're talking, you know, generations here into the future that this could have impacts for people. Just like these other medicines that we've talked about. Tobacco, coca, poppy, these are all traditional medicines that are now the world's pharmaceuticals that, that can harm people and take lives, many lives. I think that these pilot programs definitely need to be having this conversation. Even if it slows things down and takes time. I don't believe that creating these ibogaine treatment centers to cure veterans of their PTSD is the actual solution. It is a band aid. The problem is not being addressed. As long as we continue to send people to war, we will still have issues. We are looking at the wrong thing here. Like, if we really are talking about the evolution of humanity, then let's move towards peace and not war. You cannot commodify a sacred medicine to fix the war machine.

[A]

Here's my conversation with Simone again. So what would be the ideal situation for the people in Gabon?

[B]

The Gabonese government should take the hand on this field, which is not the case yet. And second, that our friends from the Western world start thinking into like an exchange instead of mine, instead of taking and only taking Europe and that we don't find this in a situation some years ago about the tobacco in the usa. At the beginning, tobacco was a sacred plant, and then it became a business, to the detriment, of course, of the local knowledge about tobacco.

[A]

Simon also compares iboga to tobacco. This is not meant to suggest that iboga should never leave Gabon. It is a warning about the commodification that can happen when a sacred medicine is separated from the people, knowledge and responsibilities that once surrounded it. For Jan, that separation also reveals a contradiction. Iboga is often described in the west as so dangerous that only modern medical systems can learn to administer it safely. But he says that framing overlooks generations of experience already present in Gabon.

[E]

Now it's like the United States decides what they're going to do with that, and it looks like Columbus syndrome, like they discovered it and they know how to do it the best way because, oh yeah, this medicine is very dangerous. So only us knows how to use it without any danger for people. I mean, in Gabon, there are thousands and thousands of people using it very often. I've been personally to hundreds of ceremonies with kids and with elders. Some are 70, 80 years old, some are fat, some are sick. I've never seen once someone dying eating medicine in Gabon, never.

[A]

Jan's experience is anecdotal, and it does not mean iboga is without serious medical risk. As we've discussed throughout this series, iboga and ibogaine can be dangerous, particularly for people with certain heart conditions, medications, or underlying health issues. But his larger point is that safety knowledge does not begin and end with western medicine. Gabonese practitioners have spent generations developing their own systems of screening, preparation, dosing, observation, ritual and care.

[E]

So if it was so dangerous, why Gabonese people are so healthy using the medicine? It's because they know how to manage the medicine. They know how to use it. I think that for the west, rather than spending billions or millions of dollars into researches on rats and dogs and I don't know who into universities, they should find a way to make a study program in Gabon lean to US Universities and to look at the way things are done in Gabon.

[A]

Yan is not asking Western clinics to recreate a bwiti ceremony inside a medical facility. He is asking whether modern science could approach Gabonese knowledge as something worth studying, respecting and learning from, not merely extracting from.

[E]

We don't ask American people to make a fire in their clinics and to dance around, right? But to try to find what is valuable and what is very important and the way they can create something that is a mix of traditional and modern medicine and to share the profits, to share the benefits, to help those communities who conserve this medicine and his knowledge through colonialism, through evangelism, through slavery, through all these dramas for centuries, the cap those knowledge is.

[A]

Despite everything he has witnessed, Jan has not given up on the possibility of cooperation. He still believes iboga can become a bridge between Gabon and the rest of the world, but only if the people who protected it are treated as partners.

[E]

So they are still very generous people, still very open mind people. They still wish and work also for a better space where there will exist a real, fair and sustainable cooperation between the modern science and Gabonese people. So we work on that. We work on that.

[A]

Over the course of this series, we set out to understand why ibogaine, a substance that remains illegal in the United States and largely unknown to the general public, has suddenly captured the attention of scientists, veterans, doctors, politicians, and people desperate for healing. We heard extraordinary accounts from people who say it interrupted years, years of addiction, relieved the symptoms of trauma, and gave them a renewed desire to live. We heard researchers describe a molecule unlike almost anything else they have studied, one that appears to act across multiple systems in the brain and body at once. But we also heard experiences that science cannot yet easily explain. Life reviews, encounters with loved ones who have died, shared visions, telepathy, and the persistent feeling described by so many people that they were not simply under the influence of a substance, but interacting with an intelligence. Those stories invite profound questions about the brain, the nature of healing, and consciousness itself. But Iboga also asks us to confront some difficult questions. Who gets to decide what happens to a medicine after the rest of the world recognizes its value? Who benefits when sacred knowledge becomes intellectual property, a medical treatment or a commercial industry? And what responsibility do we have to the people and places that protected that knowledge long before science had the language to even describe it? The people we spoke with in Gabon were not asking the rest of the world to turn away from iboga. They told us that the purpose of iboga is to heal and that they want others to experience that healing genuinely. But sharing is not the same as surrendering. Ownership and collaboration is not the same as extraction. The people who practice BHITI are asking to be recognized not merely as the historical source of this medicine, but as living partners in its future. They're asking the scientific world to consider that iboga may not be fully understood by isolating a molecule from the forest, the music, the community, the preparation, and the generations of knowledge surrounding it. Perhaps modern medicine and traditional knowledge do not have to compete. There is opportunity for beautiful collaboration, and a medicine intended to heal trauma should not create new trauma in the way that is brought into the mainstream world. Throughout our shows, we explore the possibility that consciousness may be primary and more interconnected than our current scientific models allow. The story of Iboga raises that same possibility, but it also reminds us that connection is not only something to study or experience, it is something we are responsible for practicing. As interest in ibogaine continues to grow, the decisions made now will determine much more than how this medicine is researched or administered. They will determine whether this next chapter becomes another story of extraction or the beginning of a more respectful relationship between different systems of knowledge. Yan believes we still have that choice, but he also believes the final outcome does not belong entirely to us.

[E]

I had a clear vision about what would be the world if humanity start to disrespect Iboga. I can tell you that Iboga will win. He will win. But Iboga's spirit will just destroy the world before the world destroy Iboga.

[C]

If you enjoyed this podcast, you'll find even more on the main Telepathy Tapes feed, where each week we explore consciousness, human potential, and the mysteries that challenge

[D]

our understanding of reality.