Date: Sun,  4 Jan 1998 19:10:55 EST
From: HSL123@aol.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <ibogaine@ibogaine.org>
Subject: Iboga experience report

Dear list,

I received permission to provide this report to the Ibogaine list and to
place it on the Ibogaine Dossier.  This is the first report received from a
male and I am in discussion with this individual concerning his perceptions
as to gender interpretations as I believe Iboga will provide masculine
perceptions to males and feminine perceptions to females along with neutral
gender perceptions to all.  After all, we are what we eat, incorporating who
we are.

Howard
======================================================


Dear temporarily astonished fellows,

thanks to some Gabonese friends I recently had the chance to enter the
exclusive club of Banzie ("those who have eaten" :-) ), and I'm quite proud
of
course to share with you all well learned friends this experience, which
suddenly has cast me from the humble mass of novice psychonauts to the
Legendary Iboga Elite...  ROFL :-)))

I still have not very clear memories but I hope you will enjoy my report just
the same (despite of my limited english too).

I powdered 4 grams of Iboga root bark and took 2 gms on an empty stomach,
with
some water (real bitter stuff, indeed). After an hour, I started to feel the
first physical effects, like a big ancestral strength spreading through my
body. Something dark, heavy, fluid, slow, powerful: it was like if I had
borrowed the muscles of an African warrior of ten thousands years ago. It was
quite hard to tame this new "bionic" body, where a lot of bronze and ebony
fiber had been injected :-).
I then took other 2 grams. I had a wrong idea about Iboga and its traditional
use, I somehow underestimated it, and thought there had to be a lot of funny
meaningless folklore in those ceremonies.
Completely wrong, fellows. Iboga is a very deep, serious thing. Something
coming from a remote past... something that makes you remember that the roots
of mankind are in Africa.
"Roots" was the key word of my experience: the energy, instead of kicking me
off my body in the hyperspace as I had experienced most of the times with
other
entheogens, was rather making my body heavy and well connected to the ground.
The main characteristic of Iboga, which I clearly experienced physically
first,
and the psychologically, was a "stabilizing" effect. As soon as I kept still
for more than a few seconds, standing or sitting on a carpet, it was like if
the weights inside of my body progressively were going down in their natural
place, blocking me in a stable and very comfortable position, which I could
keep without any effort, with a sense of great balance. So it was with the
mind.

This is a very "masculine" substance, in my opinion. The will and the
thoughts
became of steel, I felt a big sense of responsibility, and a terrific
capability to focus on an goal and to stretch my being to achieve it.
I laid down on a carpet, in the dark, with some Mayan music playing. Closing
my
eyes I experienced some visions, mostly related to the music.  I had some
weird
sensations, like being in the middle of a pluvial forest, roaming over a very
thick and dark water. When I opened my eyes, the visions disappeared, and a
weird "stroboscopic" effect took place: my hands moving left behind a slow
series of empty. electric shapes.
The peak of the experience arrived I think after three or four hours, Then a
fantastic descent started, which lasted at least till 2 p.m. of the day after
(I had taken the first 2 grams at 11.p.m.). My heart literally opened.
The distinctive sign of the Iboga landing is in my opinion a fantastic mood,
not only a positive mind as I usually experience for instance at the end of
mushrooms trips, but a real explosion of deep, conscious joy; an irresistible
need to smile, to laugh. This effect lasted for many days, and so did the
sense
of being able to manage in a much better way and without anxiety all the
matters of life. I'm not a light-hearted person, so it was real unusual for
me
to laugh just watching my face in the mirror while shaving in the morning a
few
days later...

My knowledge of this substance is too limited to draw conclusions, but given
the very calm nature of the experience, the absence (as far as I have seen)
of
potentially frightening or ego-disintegrating passages, I am wondering
whether
Iboga could become THE psychopharmakon, something able to sweep away many
harmful prescribed drugs. For sure this plant would deserve a much wider
research, not only as a remedy to addictions.

A couple of weeks have passed now, and I'm still experiencing some other
noticeable effects... They are just hypothesis, though, since they might be
the
result of other factors in my life, and not just an Iboga gift.
It seems that this experience had the power to remove some blocks in my
receptors. I still must investigate about that, but smoked substances affect
me
in a very different way now.
It also seems that it has opened me to a new awareness of my body and my
soul,
For instance I never was very attracted from meditation, but I feel that now
my
attitude and my skills have changed, it's strange.

Happy new year
hugs from Italy