Spirit of the Medicine, beautiful stories, some of the most beautiful there are. Through the site they are shared, the stories as I have heard them.
It is important to note that there are no spirits in any medicine, no medicine is a man, none is a woman. There is no mother, father, grandparent, child, best friend or anything else in the medicine or the journey itself. These are beautiful stories forged from belief, they are guesses at what drives the experience, guesses from a time that there was not the evidence or the evolution of thinking to understand concepts of science.
MRI technology clearly shows each different psychedelic medicine works on a different part of the brain. This is the simplicity of the psychedelic experience, it does not need to be more, more only makes shit confusing. The similiarities in experiences from one participant to the next using the same medicine show this from a subjective perspective. There are commonalities in spirits, beings, entities, textures, worlds, feelings with every story.
When one can look at this rationally and practically they can start to understand that the story, the perception, the experience is coming from this heightened state of brain activity. Everything is coming from your brain, dominated by this spot, showing you your world in a way which is not available to you ordinarily. You pay attention to these experiences, remember the journey, research it and it will just make sense.
From here you start to learn the most important part about the psychedelic journey, it is you showing you You.
Remember this and we can move forward together with these beautiful stories of fiction, attempt to make them anything else, like truth, and our path gets blocked.
IBOGA Origins
I had never heard the Iboga origin story, Patrick knows that William has, that he knows it really well, he asks him to recite it. William tells his son, Tres (William junior junior, so number three, Spanish), it as a bedtime story every night at home, Tres knows it off by heart. He is asked not to repeat at childcare, he is only three or so.
Sitting around a fire in a village on the edges of the Congo jungle about a three hour drive from the capital of Libreville in Gabon. Sitting next to my mate William and about 10 brothers and sisters from the Bwiti, our shaman Patrick is there too. William and I are waiting anxiously for our first Iboga session in Gabon, for William this time around, has been once before. We are both in Gabon for a facilitator course, a story for another heading.
William starts, I didn’t want him to stop;
Generations ago the descendants of the Bwitit were asking questions. Questions about the giver of abundance in the world around us, what was responsible for everything they had, why did it not ask for anything in return.
The decision was made to send out parties in all directions. The people of the early Bwiti ventured north, south, east, west, up, down, to the seas and through the skies. They found nothing, no answers, they returned to their village.
Time went on and the questions went unanswered, they started to fade, the Bwitit did their best to always do their best by the forest and the forest continued to give. Trust had been built, the jungle was ready to reveal her secrets.
A trapper went out checking his traps one evening. There were many traps, every one was without a catch, unlikely to meat tonight. The hunter came on the last trap and it was not empty, witihin was held a porcupine. The hunter was ecstatic, he took the porcupine home, threw it to his wife and asked her to cook it while he has a break.
While the wife is cooking the porcupine the hunter has one too many drinks and nods off to sleep. When dinner is ready the wife tries to wake him, she fails, he is out like a light. The wife is hungry, serves herself a bowl and finishes every last drop, delicious.
Full content belly she lies down to rest. 45 minutes later she starts to feel strange, there is a weird warmth in her body, nausea brews in the belly.
She vomits uncontrollably and painfully across the room, to an audience anyway. To her it is dragon fire coming from her mouth, she is frightened, confused, excited, interested.
A big screen appears in front of her, it takes her on a journey. The woman is taken to a scene of the village, she sees her brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. She sees them all, the ones living, those of all times past, some that have yet to arrive.
The tribeslady sees her village, the mechanics of it, how the people flow together, a flow started at the beginning and will continue to the end.
She falls asleep after a while. Wakes up the next morning and tells her husband, ‘what crap have you beein smoking? Leave me alone I’m hungover.‘
The wife needs to tell someone, this is important so she goes and sees the chief, she dictates the events of the previous night.
Like this husband the Chief does not want to entertain this story, asks the same questions, ‘what you smoking woman? what you drinking?’ ‘Nothing, I swear’, replies the wife.
All though the chief is not interested in pursuing the fairy tale he has an obligation to his tribe so they decide to investigate the source of the cooked porcupine.
The husband is a bit annoyed by this, it was a porcupine like any other porcupine and it was in the very last trap, as far away as can be. The chief insisted they inspect so off they went.
On arriving at the final trap the tribe noticed some digging around the plants nearby, one in particular, the Iboga Tabernathe shrub. There wasn’t only digging but it looked as though the animal had been eating away the bark from the root of the plant. The Chief collected a sample and took it back to the village.
In a pot goes some water and the bark, it cooks for a few hours and they wait. Similar cooking process to the porcupine, just minus the porcupine.
In time, the brew seems to be ready, the Chief measures out a cup and hands it, without a word, straight to his wife. ‘Ummm, no thank you, I’m not your test rat’. ‘You’re a woman dear, possibly it only works on women?’, respnds the Chief. The wife sighs and swigs it down.
Everyone sits back and watches, it is very excirting. 45 minutes later the woman starts to feel strange, a weirdn warmth through her body, nausea. DRAGONFIRE.
Next she is transported on top of a big hill on which stands a single tree, a single iboga tabernathe shrub. ‘I am Iboga, I have watched you and your people for many years. I have watched as you ask questions, solve problems, work together for your tribe and the world around you. I love you.’
‘Today I give you a gift, the gift is me, come to me when you need help, support, have questions that need to be answered and I will tell you the truth, I will guide you on your journey.’
The Problem with the Iboga Teachings
The problem with Iboga, and psychedelic medicine lies in the story above, it is clear. It is the Bwiti teaching and it is getting in the way, Iboga is truth. This is not correct, it does not give you the correct answer, it gives you the answer you need now that assists in exploring the true answer, the answer to all, the truth behind your existence.
Bwiti do not have the ability to think for themselves, it is culturally ingrained through generations of medicine work and vbery limited outside influence. They have come stuck in this theory of truth because they have no alternative conversations to open the topic up, now when they invite outsiders in they think they are better than them. Well, Patrick does, and therefore do not have the ability to listen, to hear.
The Bwiti’s primary teaching is that only the physical is real, what we experience, that we are restricted to the six senses (per the Bwitit); sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing and third eye. I had to question the sixth, the third eye, I was like cool, makes sense, that’s your belief.
We do not believe here Fred, only truth, no belief. But that’s a belief? ‘No, it’s the truth, Iboga tells us so’, replies Patrick. But, Patrick, you just banged on about another spiritual path’s process including a non-physical human aspect and you dismiss it because you cannot see it, the third eye is the same thing, but you include it, isn’t this hypocrisy and ignorance, this is not truth. ‘No, the third is the sixth sense, it’s truth, Iboga says so.’ Okay,mate.
The Bwiti, Patrick, will tell you in one breath we are God but in the next we are restricted to our six senses, clearly this is hypocrisy. Again, this is a belief system, belief that is dictating the Bwiti way, belief they are palming off as truth when it is poles apart.
The important aspect to being a human is to be the animal we are first, this is level one of the human experience. We fail at level one because we want to go straight to the boss level, being God/Enlightened, without first having experience or gaining the necessary tools to defeat it.
Ever seen Free Guy? When Guy is level one and tries to take on a level 100 character? He fails, he keeps failing until he upskills himself, goes through each level. By the time he can defeat a level 100 character he is somewhere in the 80s, or further advanced. Same as this, the skills pay the bills, the bills cannot buy skills.
So, before you can get to level two, you first have to defeat the level one boss, You, the animal you are. Defeat in this scenario means accept and be this animal, know it is your purpose on this earth, you know no other purpose matters. To achieve this one must live in their own skin first, their own body, start there, be that and then think about God.
At this point, the end of level one, nothing you want now or think is important matters, you realise along the way every thought/desire/need currently in your head is attachment, socialising, conditioning, ignorance. You learn, above all, the perfection of life, heaven, lives in this machine you are, you start again with a different approach.
The Bwiti Shaman, Patrick
I do not call Patrick his Bwitit name, the one he received during his rite of passage, he does not deserve it. The man is a sell out and lies and lies and lies, he does not even know he is lying, his ego has become so strong that he cannot be questioned, he does not have ears to hear.
He owes me $30,000 AUD, money that would be very handy, it is what it cost for the facilitator course. Money he said he would refund to anybody who did not want to be there for the teachings, I did not. My four emails in the two years and four or so months since have gone without response, when prior to as they were receiving money the responses always came within hours.
Liars, and cowards, Bwitit are you sure you know what you’re talking about?
Patrick tells you he hears everything, misses nothing, but when I correct him, his ego bursts and he reacts. WIlliam and Pamela, sitting there next to me during this exchange, how did you not notice this? He was trying to compare my upbringing with my Dad to hium running into the jungle when he was told not to, coming back and getting told off for cutting up his feet. It was stupid. I said ‘Patrick, you have no idea what you are talking about, this is all ego. People are telling you stories of real trauma, trauma you have no personal experience of and you are putting yourself in front of them for hurting yourself when you are told not to do something. Are you an idiot?’
I DIDN’T SAY THAT, reacts Patrick. ‘I didn’t say that is what you said, I said that is what you did, it is what you did, continue to do with every story. You are all ego, I don’t want to be here for the teachings. I’d love to stay, learn the medicine, work around the village, enjoy the experience.’
We don’t do that here, psychedelic tourism. ‘No, you don’t?’, ‘besides, I’m here to learn, just not from you, you have nothing to teach.’ No, we don’t do that. ‘Okay, I’ll leave tomorrow.’
That night William, Pamela, myself and I cannot remember the new guy’s name talked about it. We had talked about it plenty of times previously, psychedelic tourism was a massive part of the Bwiti space, they were in the process of building a horrific building that completely took away the village environment to house more, to make more money.
Both William and Pamela had been before but not for facilitation course, other parts, the groups were heavily made up of psychedelic tourists. Patrcik simply lied because he was afraid, scared, of this man who would ask simple questions that Patrick did not have the answers for, simple answers that just required a little shelve of ego, a little capacity to think your own thoughts.
Leadership
There are some clear ways to tell when a person lacks leadership, not being able to take responsibility for your part in an activity or exchange is one, the ultimate surefire way to tell.
Patrick again, this pathetic man.
He was heading to Libreville for a day or two and left instructions with his staff about the days activities, five or six of them. They were to teach us the soul retrieval technique, more on this later and another subject, the name of it makes it sound important, and, well, the decription moreso.
Basically, you get too lost in the medicine there is a theory your sould can go wandering and not return unless it is called back. Again, more on this later but it could be pretty important as a facilitator.
Nobody had any idea was going on, the coupld of days were a mess, unorganised but mostly things were just confusing and nobody was on the same page. The instructors were reading from different books to one another.
Patrick returned, nothing was done right. The next words out his mouth were directed to the staff, all of them, ‘none of these guys listened to me.’ I laughed, I’m not sure if he knew why I was laughing but the look in his eye showed beyond doubt that he knew I was laughing at how pathetic he is.
Five, six, people are to blame for not listening and hearing one man. One man is not to blame for not being able to effectively communicate to five or six others, five or six others who all did not understand him. Yes, this a big clear tool in understanding, knowing, when a person in a position of leadership has no leadership aptitude.
Harvard does not make you smart
I know this for a fact, I know it from Gabon.
Two of the most beautiful people in the world were sitting next to me during the facilitation course, William and Pamela. Remembering Iboga is a medicine of truth, a course of truth which William and Pamela both voluntarily attended. Voluntarily attended to learn to live in integrity.
Integrity and truth, the two words mean the same thing.
Pamela, what a beautiful beautiful being, soul, woman. Harvard educated, as smart as anything, one of the dumbest mother fuckers I have ever met. William, significant responsibility in his community, the black community, both through his church and his advocacy work, does great stuff but sadly does nothing because it means nothing. It means nothing in both scenarios because these two beautiful people do not live in integrity.
You must live in integrity to facilitate medicine, to do healing work, it is the number one criteria. You live in integrity, you tell the truth, you do not lie, and the space you create is already safe, no bells and whistles are required. You do not live in integrity bells and whistles are all you have, these courses are just bells and whistles, bells and whistles are satan to healing. Bells and whistles are just fucking lies.
Pamela, from the Dominican Republic, has been a part of the medicine space her whole life, it comes with her family legacy, they are medicine people. What this shows me is generations have held people back, however generations past the evidence wasn’t available to see the results of many actions to the world, they are now. A damn Harvard graduate should be able to understand this.
We were speaking one night, at this course of truth, about William and his wife.
William had a medicine experience once where he saw himself as a little boy next to his grown wife. He talks about her in this way, she is the rock, she is so much more advanced than me, I’m chasing my tail because I am scared I am not good enough for her. His self-confidence is nowhere, it is stopping him from opening and growing to be equal in all things with this love of his life. This is his smallness, he trusts not a thing about himself.
William has one child with his wife, they would like another, they would love a daughter. The previous night during the Iboga experience William saw a vision where he was watching his wife holding a newborn baby girl, he could feel nothing but love in his being. It was a beautiful experience.
William tells his wife everything, I hear them on the phone, we are sleeping two metres away from one another in the same room. For some reason however he highlights in this conversation that he is not going to tell his wife this part of the experience. I questioned it.
Both William and Pamela argued that some things should not be shared because you don’t want to build hope and then possibly break the other person down. I questioned them, pursued their logic, pursued it from a position of being in attendance at a course on truth but choosing to hide details, choosing to lie to the people we say we love the most, that are more advanced than us on our path?
What is the purpose of not telling her? ‘I don’t want to get her expectations up, then if it doesn’t happen she won’t be hurt’, says Will. ‘Yeah Fred, some things you just shouldn’t tell people’, added Pamela.
This continued for about 10 minutes before I laughed, as I do, and changed the subject.
What William here is showing the world is how small he is still, Pamela too, he is showing his wife how little he respects her, that he thinks she is incapable of participating in an adult conversation about a scenario that presented while tripping on fucking drugs for god sake. William, you small man, and Pamela, you small women. Small people have no business in vulnerable spaces.
How men, and women, can treat your partners like they are not worthy of being treated like human beings and then somehow say you love them is beyond the scope of my understanding. If you gave a shit about the people in your life, about yourself, you would tell the fucking truth and let the other person decide what they do with it.
This truth anyway is not the truth, it is an hallucination in a high-dose trip on a substance nobody knows just about anything about, not even the traditional custodians of the medicine themselves. To think this is truth in anyway is the dumbest of dumb shit thinking the world knows.
And, this, is how I know that Harvard does not make you smart.
There could be many truths in this trip at the same time. William’s continued smallness could lead to another truth, a very very likely truth for people who have signed a contract to maintain a relationship, the contract is called a marriage certificate. When his wife realises how little he actually respects her, she sees his smallness there is every chance that he will be booted out the door.
There is the possibility of the truth in this scenario being his wife is holding that beautiful little girl in the years to come, there is nothing but love and light in her life, her existence is phenomenal in every way. The love William feels in his trip is simply what she is exuding, it is her love that she lives in and not his, William is not the father of the child.
In this scenario her life is nothing but love, there is no smallness in her life, other than the fact that William is the father of Tres he is not there anymore.
His ex-wife could not be happier.
The truth in the original tale
The truth behind the Bwiti breaking down in their teaching is the identity with a word, in this case truth. An identity that stops them seeing what is being asked, the truth behind the title.
No truth can be given, everybody knows this from every example. Take something practical, nailing, you have to hit the nail with the hammer to get it to sink into the wood. Any fool can tell you how to do this but once you start doing it you realise it is a whole different kettle of fish.
It takes an hour to get the first nail in, which is actually the 73rd. 71 of the first 72 went off on all angles and every single one of them managed to fall into little cracks never to be seen again, the other well it was way too short for any human to be able to hit with a hammer so I threw it in the bin and sent a complaint in to management about it, bitched and moaned with my friends about it for eight weeks before finally realising I probably over-reacted.
The truth of nailing is it takes a lot of hammering before you understand how to hit one nail, know the truth of the experience.
This is what the Bwiti are being asked, yeah the answer is truth, of course buds, simple. But, buddies, dumb fucks who I Iboga Tabernathe loves so much you have to understand that truth, how many hundreds of years have you been stuck on this teaching now? The true teaching of Iboga is this, exactly this, you have to experience truth to know it, it cannot be given. Even Iboga cannot give it to you, you are the only one who can.
But, again, everybody, through every single one of all their experiences knows this, again the simplicity in psychedelic teachings. Through all the fanfare and theatrics, these things are teaching you the beauty in the simplicity. Know yourself, experience yourself for yourself, be the truth you bang on about.
So Iboga is giving them, the five/six senses, this firm teaching, not because it is all there is but it is all you need to be. Get to this stage, this very stage, and you understand the beauty in the being you are.
You understand beyond doubt God/the creator/whatever your term for how you came into reality/existence is in the being that you are, it has to be, there is no other way, it is in all things, it is all things. But, now with the truth, that you don’t need anything other than this animal you know you can do anything with it, there is no limitation to your limitations, there is no fence, there is absolutely no boudary in the potential of a human being.
You understand the being of your being is the being of everybody’s being, the being behind every being there has ever been.
But come on Bwiti, Patrick, you know all this already you’re just too chickenshit to think for yourself, be real pioneers for the world, be anything other than psychedelic tourist junkies really.
Reality
Let us come back to the word reality, I am sure I used this or meant too. What is reality you ask, I reply what do you mean? I do not understand the question.
You then go on and on about the matrix, the mechanics of this and that, quantum physics, beings, entities.
I still do not understand, moreso, I am plain confused by this time. You will tell me about all this shit but not the one thing thatb matters, what you are experiencing right now.
This is reality, the rest of the shit, the machine driving the machine, who gives a shit. Your reality is the one you experience, that is what it is, when you are finished experiencing it will be gone, done, you will never wonder where you came from again.
In the meantime however, you are missing the experience completely, reality completely, simply by not living in the skin you have. Belief is not reality, this is a story stuck in your head. When you look with your eyes, hear with your ears, smell with your nose, fuck with a roaring hard cock, religion it is not there, nor are any of your other stories.
Especially the last one, hard cocks and religion is an oxymoron. Everybody knows that religous folk and soft cocks always hold hands, but not sexually of course, just to piss, never shake more than twice.
Reality, my conception through my eyes, ears, nose, touch, taste is what reality is. My experience is my reality, the only one I will ever know, I don’t bother questioning it, just live it instead, so much much much much more fun.
Going back to the Bwiti teaching, this is the key they are being asked to learn, it opens the door to a new room, the god room. They are ready to go in there, most are anyway. I would highly recommend sending Patrick well away from the medicine first, maybe somewhere like Alaska, I hear it is nice.
I’m harping on here, I do that, when I am trying to get you to understand for yourself what I am saying before I have to say it for you. Alternatively, I am almost saying right now to stop reading, to go away and think about it, why am I emphasising religion so much in a medicine teaching, an African Tribal teaching far removed from my concept of religion. Why is this still having words written, and me still reading them.
Enough chances, this is a more difficult one anyway. The Bwiti teaching right now and religous doctrine are the same thing, exactly the same thing, not a single difference. A theory/teaching is being held without it being questioned, not only not being questioned but people rejected from its space for asking questions, simple questions.
Iboga, the easiest of all medicines from a learning perspective, hands down. When you learn to sit with Iboga you will do miraculous things with your world, your progress will outstrip mine and in absolute record time, provided, of course, fences are not being put around you in the process.
The truth teaching, what Patrick is projecting, is simply the Bible but this time the author is the Bwiti. Any bible, any doctrine, any path that is not yours is not yours. Iboga teaches this beautifully and simply, kind of like I am trying to too, so let’s not make it something all the evidence suggests only leads to worse place for everybody.
An example
Medicine, psychedelic medicine, again does not give you the truth, it provides the circumstances for you to learn it for yourself, build your tools along the way. Many sessions, when they are done right will have very few psychedelic outcomes but you will laugh harder than anything afterwards, and during, anyway.
My very first Iboga experience. Sitting at my mate’s property alone overlooking the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park or whatever it is called. The intention of the experience was to learn how to express my truth more clearly. At the time the topic was everything is nothing, nothing is everything, to be continued, clearly, but not now.
An hour or so in I am waiting anxiously for the medicine to kick in, I go for a walk, my general anxiousness solution. Not a solution at all, still have to be with the feelings but I get to flop my body around in the process, ideal.
15 minutes into my walk there is a car coming up the dirt road, it stops, Fred? ‘Merlin?’
Haha, six hours later Merlin leaves as high as a kite and we have done nothing but talk about this concept.
Medicine experience 101, you’ll get what you asked for but there is no telling how it will present. Brace yourself, remember to breathe and be ready for the ride of all rides, You, buddy.