S2E40: Ibogaine Inquiries Part II: The Intelligence of the Medicine

People around the world describe remarkably similar experiences with ibogaine: encounters with ancestors, shared dreams, telepathic abilities, and moments that seem to transcend ordinary consciousness. Are these a coincidence, a hallucination, or something science has yet to explain? In this episode, psychologists, neuroscientists, chemists, physicians, and former patients explore why ibogaine appears unlike any other psychedelic they've studied. From blindfolded perception and shared visions to groundbreaking brain research and the search for safer treatments, we examine the growing evidence and the enduring mystery surrounding one of the world's most extraordinary medicines. A note to listeners: This series is intended to inform, not encourage the use of ibogaine. Ibogaine is a powerful psychoactive substance with serious medical risks and should never be used without thorough medical evaluation and appropriate supervision. As you'll hear throughout this series, increasing global demand has also had profound consequences for the Indigenous communities in Gabon who have safeguarded Iboga and its traditions for generations. We encourage you to listen to the full series before drawing conclusions or seeking out treatment. _______ To support the indigenous peoples of Gabon, Africa and help protect the sacred Iboga plant, please visit https://blessingsoftheforest.org/ where you can learn about those who use this medicine ceremoniously, have for thousands of years, and whose access is in grave danger. _______ Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com. https://thetelepathytapes.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:08Ky Dickens?

  Hi, everyone. This is Kai Dickens, and welcome to The Ibogaine Inquiries, a mini-series from TTT Media exploring one of the most promising, controversial, and misunderstood substances in the world of mental health and addiction recovery. Ibogaine has been described as a treatment, a molecule, a psychedelic, a dangerous drug, a sacred medicine, a key to consciousness. And the deeper you go, we discovered that it becomes harder to fit inside any one category. And that's because ibogaine is not just a story about a substance that can help cure addiction, or PTSD, or seemingly reset the brain. It's also a story about a plant that seems to pull people into some of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of their lives. And this week on The Ibogaine Inquiries,

• 1:52Ky Dickens?

  we'll be exploring just that: people having life reviews, or encounters with a guide, or conversations with ancestors. Often, they have shared visions, telepathy. People can see through blindfolds. Again and again, the feeling is that the medicine is not just producing hallucinations, but showing people... Exactly what they need to see. In our last episode, we looked at why ibogaine is suddenly moving from the margins and into the center of Western policy conversations. We heard from people whose lives were changed by what happened under its influence, and we began asking how sacred African plant became one of the most talked about treatments for addiction, PTSD, mental health, and trauma in the United States. But that rise comes with some complicated

• 2:33Ky Dickens?

  questions, because ibogaine at its core is not just a treatment. It challenges our ideas about consciousness. In this episode, we go deeper into the mystery and unsettling possibility that this plant may be working through an intelligence that we do not yet understand. Dr. Joseph Barsuglia, former pastor turned psychedelic researcher, has a uniquely blended view of ibogaine coming from both a scientific and spiritual standpoint. He describes some of the mysterious experiences while offering a grounded perspective as a doctor.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  So my name is Dr. Joseph Peter Barsuglia. I'm a clinical psychologist and a psychedelic researcher. I've been working with ibogaine for over a decade. And prior to that, I worked in a church. I was a worship minister, went to seminary and did pastoral counseling, and then went into psychedelic research. I think it's good to situate iboga and ibogaine in the landscape of psychedelics. This is really in the deep end of psychedelics. People refer to ibogaine as the Mount Everest of psychedelics because of its intensity and how long it lasts. It's very uncomfortable. It's mentally very challenging. Being able to witness people that have taken ibogaine, it's, for me as a

• 3:43Speaker 03

  psychologist and a therapist, it's the most powerful transformation I've ever seen in my own work. And then what people commonly say is in their own life. It's a peak spiritual experience, the most healing they've ever received. The kind of transformations you see with ibogaine is that people are able to access pain and trauma and things that have been blocked or walled off. Things that are even way beyond the conscious or the subconscious mind, things connected to their ancestry, like multi-generational events. On a spiritual level, there's divine visitations, there are divine insights that come in that people report, receiving messages about their soul, about who they are, about their purpose.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  About what's blocking them.

• 4:31Ky Dickens?

  Just as Admiral Jim reports in the last episode, people will come out of the experience feeling like their brain is brand new.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Oftentimes is the first time people report feeling like they have a like a newborn brain.

• 4:44Ky Dickens?

  But this isn't just a feeling experiencers have. It's hard science backed up by brain scans.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  People report after ibogaine that their vision improves. And so we saw this kind of reflected in in this brain scan. We did a couple of brain scans. We published one of them, but the other ones showed a similar finding of this increased blood flow in the occipital lobe of the brain. And this reflects something that's really unique about ibogaine, which is that when people take ibogaine, they can often see with their eyes closed. And they will have eye shades on, but you can hold up fingers and they'll tell you how many fingers you're holding up. And it was interesting to see on these brain scans that these parts of the brain associated with vision had significantly more blood flow connected with them.

• 5:30Ky Dickens?

  Being able to see while blindfolded is something we've explored previously across our shows, but the incident of this occurrence while under ibogaine or iboga's influence is very well documented across the world. And now is a good time to clarify the difference between ibogaine and iboga. And by the way, when Dr. Joseph says the traditional context, he's referring to people in West Africa who've been using iboga as part of tradition for thousands of years.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  The difference is that in the traditional context, they're using iboga, the plant. The part of the plant is the root. It's the root bark. In the middle layer of the bark of the root, that's where the alkaloids are. And there are many alkaloids in the plant. Ibogaine is just one alkaloid. So most of the clinics are using ibogaine, which is like a pharmaceutical extract of that. So you might think of like THC and cannabis, like in cannabis, there's a lot of different compounds. THC is the most common one. Ibogaine and iboga are kind of like that.

• 6:24Ky Dickens?

  Iboga is a plant native to West Africa from which the alkaloid ibogaine is derived. You cannot have ibogaine without iboga, in the same way you cannot have THC without marijuana. One common experience that we find particularly fascinating is that people experiencing ibogaine will actually report seeing an African guide, regardless of where they are or if they even knew the plant was from Africa. How can this be logically explained? It's as if the molecule itself is aware of its origins.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  Ibogaine is considered an oniophrenic drug, which means it induces dreams.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  And so I think it's a catalyst. And there's something really unique about iboga that people will have visions of Africa or see African elders, even if they're not doing it in an African context. So I think there's something in the molecule and in the plant that has its own narrative and its own consciousness, even its own sense of humor. People will see kind of funny, funny imagery in cartoons in iboga that they could never manufacture. Like, there's no, people say, there's no way that came from me. So there's something that is coming in from the outside. And then ibogaine also being a dream inducing medicine. It reveals things to you that are deeply personal and biographical and things that

• 7:42Speaker 03

  are associated with your own subconscious. So there's this dynamic interplay between the intelligence of the medicine and its own, perhaps, agenda, which seems to be healing and love and peace and oneness with nature, and a person's own psychology and what they, they bring to it. And one of the beautiful things about iboga is it often brings people back to their childhood, both memories that may have been beautiful and innocent and pure, as well as things that may have been forgotten or challenging, or times where there were ruptures in relationships or you didn't feel safe. And so it's part of the root etymology of the word of iboga means to care for.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  And so it feels like there's this interplay of a, of a caring, loving, healing consciousness that is coming through the medicine, coupled with what do you need healing for? What, what areas of your life need care and attention? But what is universal afterwards is how clear people feel and how centered and grounded people feel after this experience.

• 8:48Ky Dickens?

  These concepts are things many people relay when sharing their experience. Our producer Catherine has heard this from various experts, including award-winning documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker. I'll let the two of them take it from here.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  I sort of think of it as in the sort of theme park of iboga, there are some kind of set rides and people will have the same sorts of experience.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Lucy, who has spent years documenting the story of iboga and ibogaine, has experienced the plant many times herself. While a materialist at heart, she still attests to some of the unexplainable journeys the plant will take users on.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  There's a very strange experience, which you can kind of describe or understand in different ways, where you appear to see, not just through your eyelids, but if you're wearing a blindfold, completely through your blindfold. And the experience is that you can see the room and around you, and it's very confusing. And you can see a notebook, and you can't tell, are your eyes closed? Is your blindfold on? Is there writing in the notebook already? Or are you about to write the notebook? I mean, things get kind of very mushy in there.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  And perhaps even more extraordinary is something that happened during her first experience with Iboga. She and another participant actually shared the exact same vision.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  I had this very specific vision about faces melting as they twisted. There was a spindle with specific masks, with specific expressions, and I could describe the whole thing. And as we sat up, after our first, probably six-hour round of MedSoc, the guide in charge went around and asked all the different, eight of us sort of lying on the mats on the floor that were going through the experience, to tell out loud the visions that we were having. And the first vision that the first person sat up and told us was the same exact vision I had just had. And I was sort of a bit confused and thinking,

• 10:52Speaker 04

  no, wait, I must have gone first. I must be getting confused here because he's describing the masks melting on the spindle and the same expressions and the same kinds of face masks. And I'm sort of just absolutely thrown. And I kind of put up my hand. And they say, yes, they say, well, he's describing my vision. That's, I just saw that. That's the one I saw. What's going on? And the guide said, oh, yes, you can catch dreams.

• 11:23Speaker 04

  So I sort of thought, okay, we're entering strange territory here. I have certainly never had the experience of catching anybody else's dreams. I'm a pretty grounded skeptical type, honestly. And I am a great believer in psychedelic science and a great wanna believer of so many other things. But I must say, I keep my filter up very high. And I've only had a few experiences I really can't kind of fathom, just can't reconcile with my own side of...

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Like framework?

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. But this one was really, okay. We're entering strange and powerful territory was my absolute first indication. Where synchronicity happens and where the coincidences just seem too meaningful, too unlikely to sort of be mere coincidence. I think that's where it starts to get really interesting. And that vision where me and somebody across the room had the exact same vision. And that certainly got my attention because that didn't seem statistically plausible whatsoever.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  While it may not be statistically plausible, it is certainly happening across the board, with many people reporting the exact same thing. I spoke with Talia Eisenberg, co-founder of another clinic that administers Ibadan treatments in Mexico, about her experience with Ibadan, as well as the unique experiences the clinic has been tracking.

• 12:45Speaker 05

  My name is Talia Eisenberg. I'm a co-founder of Beyond Ibadan. We're a facility and we also have our own research department. We're located in Cancun, Mexico. And the reason why I founded Beyond in 2021 was because back in 2011, I was in my early twenties and I had a pretty severe opiate addiction.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  After years of struggling with addiction, a friend of Talia's, who had also been addicted to opioids, returned from a session with Ibadan, completely changed. So as a last resort, she turned to it as well.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  So I myself went and did Ibadan and I had...

• 13:28Speaker 05

  A very profound awakening. It wasn't easy. Ibogaine is different for everybody. What it shows you, what it does. For me, I had a very real connection to my grandmother, who had survived Auschwitz, who, for me, taught me what love was as a child and was just full of light, this woman, and a beautiful person who was not angry. She forgave the Nazis and lived with such kindness and forgiveness and went on to help many other people. I saw her and it was as clear as day. Like, she came to me and she, you know, I could see the parchment thinness of her skin. It was very vivid, and this is a hallmark of Ibogaine.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  It's not like a hallucination. It's very real, the image. It's as if you're in this other realm and you're lucid and aware and very clear in your thoughts. She came to me and I could still see, like, the wrinkles on her skin and her parchment thin skin and piercing blue eyes. And she said to me, "Get your life together. Stop poisoning yourself. Our family lineage survived. Everyone else was killed around me, but our..." I started crying when I talk about it. "Our family survived so that you could be here and be of service to the world. Stop poisoning yourself." So, for me, that was a huge awakening. I was an atheist.

• 14:57Speaker 05

  I didn't believe in anything bigger than myself. But this woke me up and I vowed to never touch opiates, alcohol, harmful drugs like cocaine again, and I haven't. And that was more than 15 years ago. It's not just about Ibogaine the medicine, or Bogon the medicine, but it connects you to the other side.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Her experience completely altered the trajectory of her life. She knew she was being called to a new path.

• 15:26Speaker 05

  The other thing that happened to me that sometimes happens to people, not always, was that I saw almost like a timeline of my life. It showed me if I go this way, and I continued harming myself, because really, it was a lack of self-love that I had. If I continue to use these drugs, I will end up dead soon. But if I go this other way, you know, and this is where free will and choice comes in. I was shown very vividly also a place where people could come and basically find their truth in themselves again, people that are lost. And it looks exactly like the first

• 16:07Speaker 05

  facility we have and still have, down to the way the pool is set up, the physical layout of the space. But show me one day, if I, if I choose, that could be part of my destiny, if you want to call it. And I realize still, it's a choice. I had to make that choice and do the work to get there. But, you know, we, we met with one realtor five years ago, and this was the first place we saw, and it looks exactly like the place in that vision.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Wow. So how were you able to get things going in a safe way as someone who had just sort of experienced it and had this vision?

• 16:44Speaker 05

  I knew, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor, and we were able to hire, there's only a few doctors at the time, that really understood I begane protocols. And we were able to hire a number of doctors when we opened Beyond and develop protocols.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Everything falling into place for Talia's clinic sort of affirmed for her the greater intelligence of this substance and how she had connected with something much bigger than herself.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  So that told me a lot about consciousness. And there's, you know, there's a lot of unanswered questions related to consciousness, but this, but I begane, from what we've seen now, is certainly a tool that, one theory is that our brains and nervous systems are like channels, you know, TV, a TV channel. And there's years of trauma and suffering and pain can create static. And I begane may allow individuals to have a clear connection to

• 17:50Speaker 05

  parts of themselves, or a greater consciousness, if you want to call it that, and see what they need to do to make changes.

• 18:05Ky Dickens?

  Sometimes you have an idea you really believe in, but figuring out how to bring it into the world is what stops you. You know what you want to create, but building a website, setting up payments and actually getting it into other people's hands can feel like a whole nother job. That's why I love Shopify. We use it for the Telepathy Tapes merch store, where every cent we make supports nonprofits who are serving non-speakers. It makes it easy for our listeners to support our community, and I believe that doing good should be as simple as possible. For anyone getting started, Shopify's pre-built themes and AI site builder help you create a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. And its mobile app lets you manage inventory, customer support and payments from anywhere. That kind of flexibility matters when your business is one of several things you're pouring your energy into. With Black Friday approaching, launching now means you can take advantage of the extra online traffic.

• 18:50Ky Dickens?

  Give yourself time to get comfortable with your store before the holiday rush. Give that idea that you've been carrying around a place where people can find it. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/tapes to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/tapes. Go to Shopify.com/tapes today to hear your first

• 19:12Ky Dickens?

  You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated, everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted and made to be worn again and again. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50, giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I actually recently discovered their jewelry, and I love the 14-karat gold station bead choker.

• 19:57Ky Dickens?

  I wear it with everything. It can be dressed up, it can be dressed down, it can be layered with other necklaces. I love it, and you'll see it in a lot of our video podcasts. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Telepathy Tapes. It's the best way to support our show.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so you had this completely profound experience with your grandmother. What other experiences are common in people who come through your clinic?

• 20:36Speaker 05

  There's a lot of observational data. We've had several thousand people come through and there's incredible stories and miracles that happen. Roughly 25% over the last few months are able to see the room with a blindfold on. And some of these people report that they can feel the nurse or somebody coming into the room before they come into the room. They see their face and then they take the blindfold off and it's them in the room. You know, some guests will have similar visions. So we, sometimes people are treated individually or together.

• 21:16Speaker 05

  One guest, for example, will have the same imagery, like these birds will fly at them. And the other guests at the same time will have similar imagery. Things like that happen. So they're accessing the same state of consciousness at the same time.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  So not only does Ibogaine seem to be bringing experiencers of its influence together in a shared space of consciousness, vision, and connection, it often seems to connect them to the other side of life itself, like with Talia's grandmother. But with one experiencer's connection to the other side came real-time evidence to back it up.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  We had a guest who recently, their family member were expected to pass away, but they didn't know when. They crossed over during the Ibogaine treatments. And mind you, in the day before, the day of, and the day after, we asked people to kindly give up their phones so that they can go inward.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  So as this person was under the influence of Ibogaine, their family member passed away unbeknownst to anyone at the clinic, since all phones were put away.

• 22:22Speaker 05

  When this person received their phone back a day later, it was verified, like they had a full-on conversation with their father, who had, you know, left his body during their Ibadan treatment, and they had connected with them. Their father had comforted them and said, "It's okay. It's my time to go." Had a full conversation, very vividly. And then it was verified afterwards when they were given their phone back. So, you know, that just tells us, like, all these anecdotes are true. That's another example of how it connects you to another realm. You know, it's not just a hallucination.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Here's Dr. Martine Polanco from last episode, who runs a different Ibadan clinic in Mexico, discussing some of the similar experiences he's come across. He believes Ibadan gives us the ability to open up channels to access a greater consciousness or intelligence.

• 23:15Speaker 06

  Ibadan seems to open one of those channels that, you know, it's very unique in when it's starting, it's almost like these screens suddenly open up. And you have access to information from the past, information from the future, you know, how your own brain works, different voices that we're hearing. And even inside of the experiences, we've seen people exchange information telepathically. So they would do their journey in the same room. And then people who did not know each other, they knew something about the other person. It's like, oh, you had this experience when you were a child. And the other person would confirm it. Again, like, it's very hard to validate this scientifically,

• 23:58Speaker 06

  but there's just so many anecdotes that we've seen that it just becomes unamoyable.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Other researchers share the same sentiments as Talia and Martine. What they both have been observing are not just happening at clinics. They're happening with real scientists who are backing up the notion that Ibadan works in mysterious ways they've never seen before. I spoke with Dalibor Samiz at Columbia University, who's fascinated by how this alkaloid works in the brain.

• 24:23Speaker 07

  My name is Dalibor Samish, or Dalley Samish. I'm a professor of chemistry and neurochemistry here at Columbia University in New York City. I have been interested in this question of how molecular information or information encoded in molecules can express itself in effects of consciousness and subjective experiences.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  He initially found his way to ibogaine while looking for substances that have special functions, like the ability to restore synaptic connections in the brain, or our brain's ability to send messages.

• 24:54Speaker 07

  I was familiar with ibogalcoloids. I was familiar with them as interesting structures, interesting substances, but I didn't know they had this remarkable potential and ability.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  What piqued his interest in particular was the molecule's ability to totally disrupt addiction. He had never seen anything like it before.

• 25:13Speaker 07

  I came across these reports of observational studies showing this remarkable effect of ibogaine to interrupt addiction, particularly opioids and cocaine. That was almost hard to believe, that you could have someone actively dependent on opioids or other reinforcing drugs and basically remove that dependence within a few hours. So that was, that was really a shocker. And since then, my team here, we have been asking the question, is it, is it even possible? Or is this for real? Or is it some sort of a snake oil?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  But after studying ibogaine more and more, his team acknowledges it certainly isn't. And addiction recovery truly seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

• 25:52Speaker 07

  Now we hear about Parkinson's disease and potentially others. So it currently today, it looks like ibogaine has the transdiagnostic potential. And on top of it, these remarkable psychoactive and psychedelic effects and the subjective effects. So it's a rich, rich terrain, rich package. And so the question was, well, how does it work?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  How does it work? How can it have transdiagnostic potential the way that it does? How does it know exactly what each individual's body needs?

• 26:23Speaker 07

  The messages are quite, quite astounding because they report things like I'm being scanned. This, this feeling that there's other entity and I'm being scanned and this, this ibogaine is getting to know me. The honing in into these essential subjective personal issues. And revealing insights into that, that's, that to me is really suggestive or indicative of some sort of a, you know, I think of it as some sort of a healing algorithm. And yet very common, the presence of iboga spirit or, you know, ibogaine or ancestors or other entities. So there's this feeling of there's some other intelligence involved here. And then the ability to, to simulate different versions of reality.

• 27:07Speaker 07

  Some experiences are fully immersive, holographic. It just appears as, you know, highly sophisticated, basically a psychotech, what I call it, technology.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Because of this, Dalibor and his team struggle to even compare it to anything else.

• 27:22Speaker 07

  It has become such a puzzle and such a challenge for us because ibogaine doesn't seem to fit to existing paradigms or to existing ideas or concepts that we teach in school, how drugs work in the body.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  In what way is it not fitting our current paradigm of other psychedelics? How is it so mysterious to you?

• 27:44Speaker 07

  Yes, great question. So classically, we explain how drugs work, including psychedelic substances, that once they enter the body, they interact with these special molecules called receptors. So they largely bind and change the receptors, these molecules that are dancing all the time. So they're moving and it's not static. So you have this dance going on and all of a sudden a neurotransmitter comes or a compound like LSD comes, binds to the receptor, changes completely the dance.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  So traditionally psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin will come into the brain, bind to our receptors and change the way they're moving, which can dramatically affect our experience and perception. However, Dalibor says ibogaine does not behave in the same way.

• 28:28Speaker 07

  It doesn't really, with a few exceptions, it doesn't really act on these receptors. It's interacting with many different molecules that are outside of these receptors and it's not very potent. It's quite weak. It's more like brushing. So imagine the traffic grid in Manhattan and the traffic jam in Manhattan.

• 28:47Speaker 07

  If you would use the logic of psychedelics or other drugs, you would say, well, let's go to a hub, a major hub, like Times Square. And let's relieve the traffic there through opening new streets or lanes and things like that. And then you hope that this effect then propagates through the whole grid. If we picture IbaGuin, this analogy, it's more like coming in and modifying traffic throughout the whole grid. It concentrates on the busiest street, but it has one, two, three multiple interactions, but it also modulates far away as if there's some sort of a logic, some sort of a greater molecular logic.

• 29:29Speaker 07

  Or even maybe somehow it's reading the entire system and modulating and adjusting the whole system. So we have scientific evidence to support this very complex picture. I think it's a completely different molecular technology that we have ever seen.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  IbaGuin may be such a game changer because of the fact that unlike any other substance he's come across, it can change the entire brain system.

• 30:04Speaker 07

  IbaGuin is a teacher, so it's showing us things that we have not really seen before. And it's showing us the complexity. Yeah, I'm really fascinated with this idea. What is the logic and, you know, where does it come from? It leads us to a completely different paradigms and different ideas. I see IbaGuin and Evoga on the level of impact as antibiotics. And people forget how transformative antibiotics have been and they are. So for mental health, neurological health and spiritual health, I see IbaGuin as on that level.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  IbaGuin is certainly on a level of its own. Let's now return to Kai's conversation with Dr. Martin Polanco to talk a bit more about this scanning process IbaGuin seems to elicit that potentially forces us to think outside of the current paradigm of substances.

• 30:50Speaker 06

  Part of the felt experience with Ibogaine is also this process of scanning, like that the molecule is coming in, or the essence of the molecule, or the spirit of the molecule, and acting like an AI diagnostic system. That it does this assessment, this multi-thread analysis of different systems, and then it detects which areas have structural damage, where there's maladaptive patterns, and then it starts very targeted repair. And people in the experience, they can actually feel it working on specific areas where they have injury, where it's like their knee or specific areas of their brain. And then the vision that they have is often of these little microbots that are like in there kind of repairing things.

• 31:33Ky Dickens?

  It's fascinating. I mean, what do you think is going on?

• 31:37Speaker 06

  We don't really understand what's going on, and the mechanism of action is quite opaque. And modern psychopharmacology really cannot explain everything that's going on. It seems to reset serotonin and dopamine transporters, which are affected by addiction. So in a way, it's helping the brain repair and regrow. But that's not the whole story. There's like so much more, you know, going on as well.

• 32:02Ky Dickens?

  Despite the mysterious and intriguing effects of Ibogaine, as well as the plethora of positive outcomes, every expert we spoke to had words of caution.

• 32:10Speaker 06

  So Ibogaine affects the heart and can prolong an interval in the EKG reading called the QT interval. So there's a QTC prolongation, which can lead to a more severe type of arrhythmia.

• 32:25Ky Dickens?

  An arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat when the heartbeat's either too fast or too slow, or the actual pattern of the heartbeat is inconsistent.

• 32:32Speaker 06

  And that can be mitigated through the use of magnesium. It requires quite a bit of medical infrastructure. So it's easier to start with other psychedelics that are less onerous from a medical standpoint and less expensive. There is a lot of clinics out there. Some are doing great work. And it's important to meet all the kind of physical requirements, the health requirements, get an EKG. We do echocardiograms on people, we get lab work. So it's a pretty comprehensive screening process.

• 33:05Ky Dickens?

  Here's Talia with Catherine again.

• 33:06Speaker 05

  This is not for everybody. Many people come who are in dire situations, who are... Struggling, you know, veterans struggling with suicide, or those that have severe addiction issues and have tried everything, and ibogaine's the last house on the block. I just wanted to state that first, because I think it comes with our responsibility, both from a media perspective and as a clinic founder and owner.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Despite the warnings, things seem to be taking off at an increasingly rapid rate. Trials are underway, funding is lined up, and researchers are eager to move this train along. Here's Dr. Dalibor Samaj again from Columbia University. He co-founded a company dedicated to this research.

• 33:51Speaker 07

  Well, I'm a co-founder of Gilgamesh Pharma, and we put together Gilgamesh because nobody really cared about ibogaine and other psychedelics. Certainly, the pharmaceutical industry was, as you know, I mean, that was a taboo for a long time. So we started our own company, and Gilgamesh has multiple research programs. One of the areas is ibogaine analogs. So the idea here and the goal is, can we take these novel iboga molecules that were created in my laboratory? Can we generate safer ibogaine compounds? Molecules are basically like children of ibogaine. So they're inspired by the parent, and we're creating versions.

• 34:33Speaker 07

  None of them will be exactly like ibogaine, I don't think. But we may get pretty close, or we may create a new generation that will have its own special features and characters. Can we generate an entire portfolio of ibogaine-like therapeutics?

• 34:49Speaker 01

  But what are the implications of these therapeutics? Is anything lost if new versions are created? If this plant is indeed conscious and a teacher, does it want us to be doing this? In order for ibogaine to be used, oftentimes, the plant is being taken from the forests of West Africa. Dr. Samas is aware of the consequences of that and doesn't want the supply burden to fall on that part of the world, which is in part why he's working on creating ibogaine synthetically. However, as we'll hear about in the next few episodes, even if ibogaine is chemically created in a lab, it can have direct impact on communities in Gabon, Africa. However, his excitement is clear, and it's understandable. This plant is clearly incredibly powerful.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  He thinks its knowledge might really have the ability to change science and the world.

• 35:36Speaker 07

  I really think it's a novel molecular technology.

• 35:41Speaker 07

  And I also believe strongly that to be able to understand it and learn from it, we will need something like a human genome project. We will need a major project initiative, you know, national, international initiative to really go, go deep. Because this is the boldest version of my theory that I think of, that we may find out that Ibegan is more of a molecular algorithm. Ibegan may actually be its own version of molecular intelligence.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  And from so much of what we've been hearing throughout these interviews, it's a loving intelligence. The plant is so special, and if it is indeed conscious, the intention behind it is certainly pure.

• 36:27Speaker 05

  It wants to help people and wants to further society. It's a loving being, I believe that. And even if it's very stern and direct, that's like the highest form of love in a way, when a grandfather or grandmother comes at you and is incredibly direct. That's why I don't think it's a hallucination, because hallucinations are usually based on deep fears or deep desires. This is, you know, you need to do this clear as day and later, months later, it still rings as true, whereas like hallucinations sort of fade off afterwards. This is a realm that's very much real and a level of truth that I hear over and over

• 37:07Speaker 05

  from clients, just with how that it's a truth serum and it can be very damning and very direct and not fun to look at these parts, but it's what you need to hear to live a better life, you know, and that can come down to love. And it really showed me actually how the light always wins. Like Ibegan is this loving force and in the end, there's all this strife and there's wars and there's chaos and it's, it's humans hurting other humans and, and our ill-thinking and our fear minds, but how the light prevails. I did see like the African, like where we come from as humanity and the struggle of

• 37:49Speaker 05

  it all and how we need that struggle to evolve. It was very, very powerful.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Talia also identifies a concern that we'll hear more about in the next episodes. It's one many in Gabon have as well.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  There's a 747 a day of overdoses in the US. And then, you know, the veteran's suicide is awful. It's serious. So what? We need to move fast, but we need to be rigorous and not move too fast. Rigorous with the science.

• 38:19Ky Dickens?

  We in the West have our own views of science and how to administer this medicine. But the truth is, there have been thousands of years of practice, knowledge, and research about iboga done by the communities in Gabon, Africa. What would happen if we started mass producing this sacred compound? What are we losing by severing iboga from these ancient and time honored traditions? And maybe most importantly, what does this all mean for people in Gabon? That's next time on the Ibogaine Inquiries. 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 our understanding of reality.