Just read a book called "2012: Something or Other" by Daniel Pinchbeck; I came across his name 'cos he'd written an article about eating iboga for The Guardian and then, lo and behold, saw a book by him in the library a week or so later. Promised to be an account of his personal journey into shamanism and an investigation into 2012. Turned out more, however, to be some weird attempt to link together every crazy bit of apocalypse-theory and ancient mythology ever written (eg, picking bits out of Revelation rather than the sensible option of just dismissing the whole thing as some madman's ravings and then trying to match it up with crop circles, stone circles, 9/11, Quetzlcoatl, The Book of Hopi, Egypt, etc, etc). A more unreadable book I don't think I've ever come across: it was as though someone had dropped the contents of a New Age dictionary into a bag and let it fall out in any old order, sort of the way Bowie used to write his songs, but madder. And though not quite as insane as David Icke, neither was it, if you can believe this, even half as coherent. Still, the personal bits - few and far between and mostly about taking mindbending substances - were interesting and held my attention, reinforcing once more that actual experience is where the substance lies, whereas the melding of philosophies and theories is kind of empty. Oh well, Pinchbeck, at least you tried.
Back when I was a prophet I used to get asked all the time about 2012: you know how New Agers are convinced something's going to happen, much as barmpot Christians have been expecting the apocalypse - whatever that is - something like every few decades for the past two thousand years. Weird, isn't it, how the wacked-out ideas of a handful of guys can plant such a powerful thought into the minds of so many people? But as far as I can see the world ain't gonna end until the sun explodes, and all thoughts of 2012 are about as relevant and substantial as all the worries people had about Y2K. They wrote books about that too, and tied it in with ancient prophecies. But you know what? We've got a calendar on our wall at home and that ends on December 31st 2011. Mean anything? Spooky? I shouldn't think so. Some of us like to think right now's a special time because it makes us feel special - and because we know so little about the past - but life goes on much the same as it ever did. You live. You learn. You grow. Same now, same a thousand years ago, and same in 2013 and all the years that will follow. I mean, don't get me wrong, nobody wants an apocalypse and all the associated global upheaval and chaos more than I do - but just because a bunch of befeathered jungle cannibals carved something in stone - or a drugged up early Christian had visions of seven-headed winged-lions - or some ancient East Indian dreamed up a far-out idea of an impossibly long system of eras and people 36 feet tall who lived for a hundred thousand years it don't make it so.
Roll on 2013, that's what I says.
And: I wonder what the date for the next nutjob apocalypse will be?
Saturday 25 June 2011
Friday 17 June 2011
Bloody bike thieves
Dig this story: I'm at home yesterday morning doing a bit of housework when there's a knock on the door: figure it's somebody selling something useless - who else knocks on your door these days? - but, no, it's some builders from the new houses that are going up opposite and they're saying, 'ere, mate, someone's just nicked your bike. They're looking around the corner. They say the guy's still there. So what to do? I run out in the rain in my bare feet and - whaddya know? - some youth (white, English, maybe seventeen or eighteen) comes back around the corner on my silver Puegeot racer. I do a double check, and then a triple one - yup, it's definitely my bike. I run up the street after him, catch him up - not so bright, this lad - and grab hold of the seat post. What you doin' on my bike? I ask. It's my bike, he says. I quadruple check. No it's not, it's mine. A bit of toing and froing. I say, get off the bike. He says, okay, okay, it weren't me that nicked it. Get off the bike, I say. He says he will but it's not really happening. Maybe because I'm holding it upright. Or maybe something else (eg, he thinks he can escape if I let go). Anyway, it's all resolved when the builders come up and one of them pulls him off the bike and punches him in the face, busting open a cut around his eye. He protests something and then goes slinking up the road. I've got my bike back and though I'm thinking maybe I should go after the lad and apprehend him, tape his wrists and feet together and call the police, mainly I'm just interested in saying thanks to the builders and feeling grateful that I don't have to face the hassles of buses and tubes and stuff or shell out for some new wheels. The builders curse the youth of today and I buy them all a load of beer and crisps.
Funnily enough, this is the third time I've had a bike stolen and got it back. First time was in Wakefield, back when I was a super-trusting space cadet, and I left it just inside the door at Sainsbury's without any lock. It went - but then a wee bit later I got a call from the police saying they'd arrested two guys, that they were wanted for other things, and I could collect it forthwith. Another time I was in Canada and this old racer I found by a tree went missing from outside the train station in Guelph. Irony was that it was about the first time I'd ever locked it up. Anyway, I found that maybe a week later outside somebody's house. I knocked on the door, said, what you doin' with my bike, and the teenagers inside said they'd found it somewhere. Who knows? Maybe they did.
Other than that, I think I've had about five bikes successfully stolen from me, though only one of those I actually bought. The first one I nicked myself (naughty naughty!) and a couple were freebies off freecycle; the last two were ones I found abandoned in the street. The one I did pay for I bought brand new for a couple of hundred quid back in 2007; probably never do that again. Though it does of course serve me right for thinking a bike lock from the pound shop would survive the night in Leeds 6. Foolish boy!
Funnily enough, this is the third time I've had a bike stolen and got it back. First time was in Wakefield, back when I was a super-trusting space cadet, and I left it just inside the door at Sainsbury's without any lock. It went - but then a wee bit later I got a call from the police saying they'd arrested two guys, that they were wanted for other things, and I could collect it forthwith. Another time I was in Canada and this old racer I found by a tree went missing from outside the train station in Guelph. Irony was that it was about the first time I'd ever locked it up. Anyway, I found that maybe a week later outside somebody's house. I knocked on the door, said, what you doin' with my bike, and the teenagers inside said they'd found it somewhere. Who knows? Maybe they did.
Other than that, I think I've had about five bikes successfully stolen from me, though only one of those I actually bought. The first one I nicked myself (naughty naughty!) and a couple were freebies off freecycle; the last two were ones I found abandoned in the street. The one I did pay for I bought brand new for a couple of hundred quid back in 2007; probably never do that again. Though it does of course serve me right for thinking a bike lock from the pound shop would survive the night in Leeds 6. Foolish boy!
Monday 13 June 2011
Monday
Strange night. Couldn't quite get to sleep and then woke up about 4.30am and couldn't sleep then either. Then I think I had a vision or something: I felt some kind of energy bolt hit me in the solar plexus and there was this loud buzzing sound. I felt an urge to resist and then I told myself it was okay, probably something groovy and good. I said, Thy Will Be Done. I opened up to it. The buzzing grew louder and then I closed my eyes and there were all these buildings, different styles, old school, German castles and turrets and I was floating among them and they were getting taller and taller, storeys upon storeys, towers upon towers, turrets upon turrets. I could swoop in and look at them real close, examine all the details, the windows and the bricks and the roof tiles. It was sort of trippy. And a little bit like a dream but then again nothing like a dream. I knew where I was. I knew I was in my bed and that I was awake. I thought if I opened my eyes I would still see the buildings but I kept them closed. There was sky too, and it was blue with wispy clouds, a really beautiful blue. Everything was in colour, real nice shades. I said at one point, what's it mean? and all I could think was 'build towers'. But I don't know what that means or whether that's what the message actually was, if there was one. Odd.
After a while I dozed off and when I woke up I thought, wow, I really don't want to go to work today. And then I thought, you know what I really want to do? I want to go to Queen's Club and watch the tennis final with Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. I took three coins and said, if these all come up heads I'll text work and say I'm not coming. And they all did.
I texted. I went to watch the tennis. It was awesome.
Sunday 12 June 2011
My week
This week was a good week, and I definitely the benefits of the iboga. Haven't played - or even wanted to play - a single game of online chess, despite loads of free-time and loads of time spent on the computer. It's pretty staggering really: so many months of being hopefully lost to it and, almost in an instant, it's gone, no desire whatsoever. Haven't sought to replace it with anything else bad either, which was always my habit in the past. So all good there. Instead, I've been more productive than I have been in a long time - two days writing a Wayne Mercedes story, and a couple of days working on the revision of Discovering Beautiful (done and submitted) - both things I've been procrastinating over for months.
And what else? Watched tennis - I loves the tennis watching season - and played a couple of fun games of football, and read a book. It was 'The Twelfth Insight' by James Redfield. Didn't have any real reason to read it, just sort of wanted to complete the set. Can't work out whether it was bloody awful, merely poor, or just not for me. I think the first one. Must be nice being established author knowing you can turn out any old crap and have someone buy it. Still, it did make me think again of my time in the west of the US, as several things have done lately, and get me pining once more for that place, those people, that time. Seems like there was a magic in my life when I was there back in the late nineties; a magic I haven't been able to find in England, and which I'd like back in my life. Shame I'm not allowed to go there...
Also did a lot of research for this autumn's proposed travel adventure. ;-)
Anyways, a good week! A nice change detected in my life, and in myself. And next week: I've got work! Yup, first since New Year's Day. Looking forward to that.
Cheers!
Iboga video
So my roommate Tom, being a bit of a filmmaker, couldn't resist documenting my recent dabble in iboga. Not that it really gives you any insight into what it's like - it's purely an internal, introspective experience - but I suppose it'd be wrong not to share it, it is quite amusing in places. Was also useful in reminding me of certain things that I'd forgotten: such as coming downstairs for about 45 minutes some nine hours in. Also, sipping tea. Also, talking really, really quietly and slowly and not making much sense. At the last clip, just after 9pm, I felt it kick in again and went back upstairs. Earlier clips show me attempting to put music on my phone. Noises of traffic and stuff were a bit annoying. I heartily recommend sorting all that out beforehand.
Here's the vid:
Sunday 5 June 2011
Rory's Iboga experience
So I've been talking about it and on this Thursday just gone, I did it. And now it's time to write it up.
Background
I first heard about iboga during a radio interview with Bruce Parry, talking about his experience taking it with the Bwiti in Gabon. A number of things struck me about what he said: that it was a really positive experience; that it seemed to be a tool for personal and spiritual growth; that he was able to relive past experiences and gain a greater understanding from them; and that he was able to relive events in which he had affected others from their viewpoint. I think it was this last one that I found most profound: not only did it seem incredibly useful, it also tallied with some of what I believe takes place after death - the so-called 'day of judgment' - when one reviews one's own life and gets to see where we did well, and where we fell short. Of course, there is no judgment in the sense of punishment - just an accounting, and a realisation of where one can do better next time around. It seemed to me that Parry had touched on this experience while still in the body. I thought, well there's something I'd like to do too. I read up on it, I looked into flights to Gabon, and then I more or less put it into the back of my mind for three or four years, the idea of iboga surfacing only intermittently until earlier this year, when I found a few places that sold it in Europe.
My reasons for taking iboga
A lot of people take iboga in an attempt to break free from some sort of chemical addiction - heroin, alcohol, tobacco, etc - and it reportedly has a very high success rate in this regard. In my case I saw it as a means in which to develop my spiritual connection and to try to move beyond certain emotional blockages which I had been aware of for a long time, but which I hadn't been able to overcome. Also, I have felt that lately I had become way too obsessed with the computer, with being online, and in particular in playing internet chess (!). And I suppose I had hoped it would help me to perhaps be a little less lazy, and to stop procrastinating so much with the multitude of writing projects that I long to do and yet avoid like the plague, for one reason or another. The main reason, though, was that I felt that I had an issue which stems from very early childhood, and in particular to do with my mother, which has left me with a deep down feeling of being unloved, or maybe even unlovable. Rationally, it makes no sense, and I'm not saying it's a black and white thing, a hundred percent issue one way or the other, but it's there, and I can see how it affects me in such subtle ways. Explicitly, many moons ago when I was living a fairly intense stage of 'the spiritual life' I felt that I had run into a brick wall, that I couldn't deepen my practice any further: a friend who did these pretty awesome angel channeling readings told me that it was because of issues stemming from my childhood, that because I did not get the feeling of being wanted and loved by my birth mother, I could not accept that I was truly wanted and loved by The Divine Mother (ie, God). It made sense, and I strove to overcome it, and yet I could not. This was more than ten years ago. I also saw how it was affecting me in my relationships with women and given that I was getting ready to embark on a new one, I really wanted this sorted. Iboga seemed like a way to maybe get to the root cause of the issue - if you'll pardon the pun.
My spiritual and psychological background
I think it's probably important to mention this, as I believe the experience will of course be different and dependent on where a person is coming from, at what stage they're at in their life. First off, as I say, any aspect of drug dependency was not an issue for me: I haven't taken drugs in over 12 years; gave up alcohol and caffeine at the same time; and have even been off chocolate and sugar for the past three months (was well addicted over the winter, as is my habit - summer off, winter well and truly on). I've never smoked and, not that it makes any difference, I'm a vegetarian. Spiritually speaking, I had some fairly intense experiences in my mid-twenties, ten or so years ago, which I think do bear some relation to my iboga experience because, it seems to me, they seem to have given results similar to what one might expect from iboga. Namely, I'm thinking of the first vision quest I did - which involved six days alone on a beach in Mexico, free from any sort of distraction whatsoever (including reading, writing, cooking, making fire) - and which was a deeply introspective and emotional experience. After that vision quest - before which I had been a very heavy and frequent drinker of about eight years - I simply lost all desire for alcohol: it was as though it had taken me to the prime reason why I drank - I imagine some sort of emotional disturbance - and simply removed it. Without it, there was no impulse or imperative to drink, and alcohol came to be seen purely as a toxic substance which caused physical and mental imbalance lacking any positive qualities whatsoever. Several times before this I had tried to give up drinking - but without having tackled the cause of my drinking - merely seeking to alleviate the symptoms - it had been a struggle and an effort and I had failed: after my vision quest, all desire was gone.
Also: I did two further vision quests, one of twenty-eight days and another of six; spent several months meditating in a Vipassana centre; followed Ammachi - the hugging saint - around Europe a couple of times; had a few sort of mystical experiences - eg, oneness with everything and what I believe was a meeting with my/the soul; and in general got very heavily into the God thing, which gave me a lot of good (in the way of happiness, peace, meaning, etc) and a fair bit of mad too (delusion, confusion, lack of understanding at how to live well in the material world). Most of that, however, is years ago, and both the ecstasy and the madness have significantly subsided (for example, I reckon I'm at least 99% cured of my Messiah complex!)
But I digress...
The iboga
I did my research and my sums and I felt pretty good about what I'd found. There are some great resources online - lots of first-hand accounts and tips from "iboga therapists" - and I found especially useful the writings of Howard Lotsof and an English woman, Hattie Wells. Finding out what I should take took a bit of effort but I learned that iboga root is sort of useless and will make you sick and it's actually the rootbark that's where it's at. This can be bought in various forms - powder, pills, HCl (which I don't really understand) - though I ended up going for the actual rootbark itself. A number of reasons for this: but mainly because that's the base product - ie, what they'd be eating out in Africa - and because it's by far the cheapest! Yep, tight-ass Yorkshireman to the last. I ordered 25 grams of the stuff from a place called Maya Ethnobotanicals in Amsterdam and paid something like £58, including shipping. They had a good reputation - unlike another seller, Shamanic Extracts - and the shipping was prompt and included a load of free samples. Plus - bonus of bonuses - they overfilled their bags and I ended up with 30 grams of the stuff. Nice chaps. The iboga smelled like some sort of tea I'd had years ago: I tried a pinch and pretty much immediately felt some noticeable effects in my body. Wow! If that's what a pinch would do, imagine two and half bags of the stuff. I ruminated on it and waited for the right time.
Preparations
From what I'd read probably the most important thing was to have someone with you who would be able to support you through the experience. Someone who would be able to deal with watching someone puke - and maybe even shit themselves - without freaking out. Someone who could do that for anything up to 30 hours. Preferably someone who was experienced with iboga and knew what to expect. Alas, I didn't have anyone I knew who fulfilled this criteria, though I did have a few people in mind who I thought wouldn't flip out and who would be supportive and caring and present through the whole thing. In the end, though, I didn't bother. Also, the other thing is setting, and I suppose somewhere quiet and away from your home and ideally in nature is the best place for it. But I didn't bother with that either. Instead, I went to bed on Wednesday night and just had this sudden sense that I would wake up the next day and do it then. It was sort of clear to me. And then I wake up and another voice says, no, that's daft, so many people online say you should never, ever do it on your own. I accept that - but then a few minutes later my roommate Tom comes downstairs, tells me that he's got the day off and will be staying at home - his first ever day off while I've been around, as far as I'm aware - and that pretty much clinches it. Today is the day; I'll do it at home and no doubt all will be well. I set up my tent on a rug in the living room, next to the dining room table where Tom will be working, so he can keep an eye on me, and I create a second space up on the top landing, on an air mattress with some blankets where it's quieter, darker, and more secluded. I figure once I know I'm not going to die I'll go up there and do the main part of it out of the way on my own. I put out a couple of bowls for puke. I find some ambient New Age music and some headphones. And I'm ready to go.
My expectations
Physically, I'm expecting to be pretty messed up. Lots of nausea and puking: maybe even shit myself. I think that I'm going to be incapable of movement for something like 16-30 hours; probably won't even be able to see or hear or speak. I'm expecting visions; to enter into another realm where I'll vividly relive episodes from my earlier life; to meet the spirit of the plant - some black guy - and maybe go on a journey to the jungles of Africa. I'm expecting wisdom, teaching, and the clearing out of my old baggage, answers to my every question. I'm expecting to come out of it with a new fresh mind, born again and free from traumas and blockages (such as they are) accumulated during a time when I was too young to understand what was happening to me, but could feel it anyways. I'm expecting to have my ass kicked, to be shown where I'm lacking, to be chastised for my laziness, my arrogance, all my shortcomings - and to be shown how to move beyond them. And I'm expecting to see again times where I've hurt people - I'm thinking women in relationships - and to gain some realisations about that, to feel bad about it, and to see how I can avoid ever doing that again. And I'm expecting - hoping, really - to crack through that aspect of myself that wrongly believes that I am not loved.
The eating
I ate the first iboga rootbark at around 10.40am. The flavour is actually quite nice, a bit like menthol. I take half a mouthful and chew it and swallow it down. It takes, I think, about 20 minutes to eat the whole 30 grams. I don't rush it, I just take my time. Then I lie down in the tent and stick on the headphones.
First effects
Pretty quick, I notice that I'm slowing down: my movements, my thinking, my speech. I had to get up a few times to adjust a few things (had to put some music on my phone to take upstairs with me) and it was all pretty comical. I was aware that it was comical - that I must look, to Tom, like the typical tripping druggie - but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I closed my eyes and settled down and waited for it to kick in.
Now, what I must say here is this: that when it was all done, I realised that it had 'kicked in' pretty much immediately. But because I was waiting for something a bit more dramatic than what actually happened I didn't really recognise it. In fact, I didn't really feel that different to my normal state, which is generally a state of observing my thoughts, of being introspective, of investigating my being and seeking understanding. So maybe I missed a trick or two there - though I don't really think so. In any case, looking back I do see that my thinking had altered and that I received some pretty profound benefits almost straight from the off.
And now I'll just waffle in a general and less linear way...
Quantity and setting
I can't go any further in my writing without saying, first of all, that I don't think I had a large enough quantity of iboga. I started thinking this while I was under the influence, maybe even just a few hours in, and I was even doing sums and trying to work out where I'd gone wrong, how much I should have had. I guess I thought this because I realised I wasn't going anywhere near as deep as I'd expected. But that's the problems with expectations, eh? And I may be totally wrong with my belief that I didn't have enough. But, the funny thing was, I suddenly remembered half-way through that one of my earliest calculations called for something like 45 grams of rootbark - and I of course kicked myself, and immediately made plans to do it again (in amongst everything else that was happening). The equation goes something like this:
recommended dosage x weight = quantity of rootbark x alkaloid content
Hattie Wells recommends a dosage of something like 15mg/kg, which would require me (at the monstrous 84kg I currently am!) to ingest 1.26 grams of ibogaine (the active ingredient). Apparently, the alkaloid content of my rootbark was between 3 and 6 percent, therefore:
30 grams x 3 to 6% = 0.8 to 1.6g ibogaine
Which, now I've typed it out makes me realise that I may have been totally wrong in all of this thinking! Oh well: seems important to mention that, as it was on my mind during the excursion. And while I'm in the mood for digression...
I think being away from one's own home is certainly a good idea, and something I'll definitely do next time. I think, for me, it's generally beneficial in lots of way: for instance, when I try and write, the more I separate myself from things that may have a pull on my mind, the more focussed I can be on the task in hand. Not having the ability to go online, for example - or simply being away from the pulls of a house (cooking, tidying up, bills, chores, etc). Not having anything in your vicinity that can speak to your mind is a great tool for focus: hence the power and reason for retreats. Doing it at home, I definitely thought of things to do with the home, with Tom. But for a first trip it was all good lessons...
And now maybe I can talk about what actually happened.
So I see iboga, primarily, as a tool in powerful and beneficial introspection (Daniel Pinchbeck titled an article in The Guardian "Ten years of therapy in one night"). Pretty much immediately, almost all my thoughts became focused on myself, on my own being, on things that were important to me. Thoughts arose about my ex, who I've been separated from for four years, yet who I've long imagined I might get back with, who I always thought of as "the one". In a nutshell, I've never truly let her go. Yet as the thoughts arose about her - as I began to tell myself my usual story of her, of how things could have been different, of what I could do - a story I could often entertain myself with for hours - pretty much right away another voice cut in with the words "she's gone". The first voice perhaps tried to explain, to bring the story back, but it was always cut off with those two words, very direct, very clear, and nothing to argue with. It was as though my mind simply accepted the truth of that statement and instantly, after all those hours and months and years of thinking one way, it started to think another. Throughout the trip I might call her to mind and always it was the same way: as it has been in the days since. The truth of the situation was always that: but I had never been able to see it and accept it before. Instantly, it was done. It's as though there's nothing more to say about that, it's just...gone.
So that was good.
Another thing I remember from the early stages was that I might think something, and I would instantly realise that it was a negative thought, and that it didn't serve me to think that way. Then the thought would either disappear, or I would be shown how I could turn that thought into a positive expression. After a bit of this, I would only need to be a few words into a negative thought when the thought would die and be replaced by something beneficial. I know of late I've given in to lots of negative thinking - hating the world for various reasons, etc - but now there just doesn't seem much point, because ultimately all it does is effect and reflect poorly on me. No need.
I think that's all I remember from 'the first stage'. After that I decided to go upstairs and lie down there. It was apparent that I wasn't going to die. Also, I was disturbed by the noises around me and wanted to be away from them. I got up and walked slowly to the nest I had made earlier. My balance was poor and turning my head at any kind of speed made me feel dizzy and created lightning flashes around various objects. But I made it upstairs fine and lied on my back. Lying on my side created nausea and dizziness, but on my back I was fine. Then, again, I waited for it to really kick in.
Second stage
I think I vomited after about three hours: vomited three times and instantly felt better, and figured the trip would begin then. All that came out was the rootbark - though I'd had some raisins for breakfast - and the puking was in no ways unpleasant (though I don't ever really mind puking). About ten minutes later, however, I vomited again, this time much stronger, and again a few minutes after that. In all, three sessions of vomiting, probably about 11 or 12 pukes in total. Just chewed up rootbark and not unpleasant, no real nausea once done - or before, to be honest, unless I was walking or moving my head about - and then it was back to lying on my back and being mellow. I think just after this the visuals may have started, though it could have been before. Started with various little shapes which may just have been eye gunk - couldn't really tell - but then I remember distinctly seeing a lizard scuttle across my screen and realising that it weren't no eye gunk. This was followed by more lizards, some spiders and scorpions, none of which were in any way frightening, they were just there (thought maybe some connection with Africa, although perhaps also the rainforest ambient music I was listening to). After this there were many faces - some of which I recognised, and had some relevance at the time, though I don't recall them now - and also cars. Every now and then I'd get this black guy's face appearing, looking at me as though he were checking me out, coming closer and then turning away. I wondered if this was Mr Iboga, the so-called spirit of the plant that I'd read about. He popped up intermittently but I felt that I hadn't eaten enough rootbark to really get into him.
Mainly, I suppose, that was it. I think I vomited at around 2pm and then the visuals and the introspection may have lasted about four or five hours. It was all good stuff. After that, there was a sense of 'coming down', though I continued to lie still and with my eyes closed (on my side now) until at least midnight, when I fell asleep. I was very calm, very mellow, and very content throughout the whole experience, and had no desire for food or drink and felt nothing in the way of thirst or hunger. Indeed, the next morning, despite having drunk nothing for nearly twenty-four hours, I still had no thirst, nor any sense of dehydration, which I believe is common to the iboga experience. The next day, I watched a movie and relaxed until about 5pm - I was still moving and thinking very slowly - at which time I felt like I had returned 'completely to normal'.
I type all this now and it all seems rather uneventful - which is quite amusing as it's what I felt at the time, and then afterwards, when I realised that certain things had actually happened, I felt that I'd received a lot. All in all, though, despite my feeling that I didn't take enough to go deep enough into a major "break through" - to meet the spirit, to be shown mind-blowing things, to get reprimanded and have mad visions - I really feel that it was an overwhelmingly positive and beneficial experience, without anything of the negative whatsoever. There were no side effects, no depressing come down, nothing of the madness and weirdness that one might expect from a so-called "hallucinogen". Since the trip I have felt incredibly calm and positive, and have noticed some real changes in my being and in my way of thinking. Obviously, being able to let go of an old relationship is a pretty major step - at least, it is for me, as I really haven't been able until now - and the transmutation of negative thoughts into positive seems to have stayed with me. It's as though that voice that would butt in and show me a better way to think has integrated itself so that it is now the default rather than the correction and that I immediately jump to the positive thought rather than wallow in negativity. I've been on a bit of a downer for a few months now and I literally feel no trace of that. Also, I haven't played a single game of online chess and have absolutely no desire to do so: that's pretty amazing. Before the iboga, I might be playing for anything between four and twelve hours a day; would play even when I had other things to do; until the early hours (and I'm talking, on occasion, like 5 or even 6am); and would play when my brain was screaming no, when I had promised myself "last one" several times over, and when I had lost any sense of enjoyment whatsoever. Even thinking about how I hated it and what a waste of life it was would make me play, as though the mere mention of the word "chess" triggered the desire to have a game. I can't remember the last time I was on a computer, online, and didn't have a game. And yet...here I sit, and over the last few days, when I've contemplated it, and when it's been but a click away, there's nothing in me that wants to play. That's pretty major. It's almost like...before the iboga, I might think to myself, shall I have a game? and there'd be a voice in my head that would tell me, immediately, "no". And yet I'd ignore it. It almost seems like iboga has made that voice - a voice of wisdom and a voice of sensibility - so strong that it has become the dominant voice. It's the voice that doesn't let me dwell on regrets and negative thinking. It's the voice that instantly tells me the truth of a situation and of my thinking - and rather than there being any argument or discussion, and that voice losing, as was so often - pretty much always - the case, that voice now wins. And, indeed, it's almost as though it has become not just the dominant voice but the only voice. Perhaps that's why iboga works in helping people move on, in helping them let go of their addictions: it's like an amazingly strong reinforcement in the battle against the part of us that makes us do the things we know, deep down, are bad for us. Always we have a voice that knows what's good, knows what's bad - and this is a way of redressing the balance. I may not have been addicted to heroin but, wow, you have no idea how lost and how bad I was with the chess. If iboga has removed that urge...then I can't tell you how awesome it is.
Drug?
It's hard to think of iboga as a drug, so different is it from what most of us think drugs to be. It's not something you'd take to get high, to feel ecstatic, because it doesn't really have that effect. For me, it wasn't even about 'getting out there', because I always knew where I was, who I was, and didn't really feel that different from my normal state of being. It really was like therapy - above and beyond anything, a deep and focused introspective experience entered into for the long term benefits. There were, I feel, and hope, definite long term benefits from this - and, as far as I can tell, absolutely no side effects, nothing of the negative. Even if things have changed, once the trip is over the overwhelming feeling is of a 'return to normal': I feel no different than beforehand, except, as I've said, that I seem to be lacking several things that weren't good for me. How cool is that?
Next time
I'd gone into this experience wanting it to be a one time only thing: I don't really want to make a habit of this kind of thing and would rather achieve these results naturally - though I guess we all need a helping hand now and again. Having believed that I'd fallen short, however, and would require a stronger dose, even during the experience I was making plans to do it again. If you're gonna do it, do it right, right? So I do think there's more to learn from this and - well, if not, I at least want to know that I've given it my best shot. This time was great for what I got from it - I really shouldn't underestimate that - and also as a trial run: I think I have a much better idea of how to go into it now. Number one, I want a larger dose: probably around 50 grams I think. Number two, I want to be away from home, away from anything that can divert my thinking, and away from the noise of cars. Number three, I want someone with me who can be totally focused on the task in hand: although, really, I think I would have been equally fine - and maybe better off - doing it on my own, and perhaps would be also next time. The vomiting and the nausea really weren't anything to put me off and the whole thing was altogether more mellow and gentle than I could have possibly imagined. I must stress, though, that I think this was entirely due to the spiritual practice that I've done in the past, and I don't think it would be the same for people who were coming at it from a markedly different place. I think I will do it again: I want to meet Mr Iboga! He was there, but just a little out of reach. Maybe in a month or two. We'll see...
Bits I've missed
I thought often about the girl I'm currently involved with, and that was all really, really good. And also about my favourite place on earth, the hot springs canyon in Mexico, which we'd talked about going to spend six months in come this autumn, and I really feel like I was getting the go-ahead for that, like it was almost telling me that, more than anywhere, that was my home. And, I forget to mention this, but there really were loads of questions that I had where the answers pretty much instantly came. Not that I remember the specifics but...well, it all adds to the sense of clarity, and the sense of clearing out old debris of thoughts, which is all good. Also...
My short-term memory was atrocious - and laughably so. Many times I'd think something, then think, where did this thought begin? and by the time I'd thought that I'd forgotten what I was thinking about. It really was very difficult to hold on to anything. But then, that's not really the point, it seems to be about letting go, about moving through things rather than getting into them in a conscious, analytical way.
The next day, I kept thinking of things that I did 'the day before' - ie, food I'd bought, some places I'd been - and I then had to keep reminding myself that all this was actually two days before. It was as though Thursday hadn't happened. Very strange: like flying across the international date-line or being asleep for an entire day and night. Time was different: even though I wasn't doing anything there was no real sense of it passing or of boredom.
Oh! Something just came back to me - probably the peak of the whole thing. Don't know how I'd forgotten it: it was very clear at the time and I remember telling Tom about it later. Anyway, it's short but was quite dramatic in the moment: I was lying on my back with my eyes closed and I felt these hands either do this thing, or be about to do it, which sort of involved reaching into my rib cages and basically pulling me apart, so that my body shattered and exploded into quite a lot of pieces. At the time I thought that was when I was really going to get into it: but then probably immediately after that I again got the sense that I hadn't eaten enough rootbark and that it was something I could perhaps look forward to next time.
I also think that there was something pretty much right at the beginning, where I had this thought, "what makes you think I'm worthless?" (during, I think, some imaginary conversation with somebody). And then I felt like I got stuck on the words, "I'm worthless" and they kept repeating and coming back intermittently throughout: I felt like I was touching on some deep, hidden part of me, some core belief, a voice or thought that lies beneath a great many other things. I think "I'm worthless" is a bit dramatic - I certainly don't feel that way - but I thought it was interesting given the whole "unlovable" thing I'd been thinking of beforehand...
I'll add more here as it occurs to me, which it probably will. Or if you want to ask questions I'll post some answers.
Links
A video of Hattie Wells talking about ibogaine therapy: she seems to know a lot.
Iboga for sale at Maya Ethnobotanicals.
A whole load of personal experiences.
Manual for ibogaine therapy by Howard Lotsof.
Hatties Wells' notes for treatment.
Daniel Pinchbeck's article in The Guardian.
Ibogaine at Wikipedia.
Note
While I do highly recommend experiencing iboga for those that have a serious interest, I'd also think it wise to do proper research and take note of what people like Lotsof and Wells have written in their guidelines as there have been a few deaths among people taking iboga. Also, iboga is illegal in several countries, including France and, of course, the US.
Rory's iboga experience
So I've been talking about it and on this Thursday just gone, I did it. And now it's time to write it up.
Background
I first heard about iboga during a radio interview with Bruce Parry, talking about his experience taking it with the Bwiti in Gabon. A number of things struck me about what he said: that it was a really positive experience; that it seemed to be a tool for personal and spiritual growth; that he was able to relive past experiences and gain a greater understanding from them; and that he was able to relive events in which he had affected others from their viewpoint. I think it was this last one that I found most profound: not only did it seem incredibly useful, it also tallied with some of what I believe takes place after death - the so-called 'day of judgment' - when one reviews one's own life and gets to see where we did well, and where we fell short. Of course, there is no judgment in the sense of punishment - just an accounting, and a realisation of where one can do better next time around. It seemed to me that Parry had touched on this experience while still in the body. I thought, well there's something I'd like to do too. I read up on it, I looked into flights to Gabon, and then I more or less put it into the back of my mind for three or four years, the idea of iboga surfacing only intermittently until earlier this year, when I found a few places that sold it in Europe.
My reasons for taking iboga
A lot of people take iboga in an attempt to break free from some sort of chemical addiction - heroin, alcohol, tobacco, etc - and it reportedly has a very high success rate in this regard. In my case I saw it as a means in which to develop my spiritual connection and to try to move beyond certain emotional blockages which I had been aware of for a long time, but which I hadn't been able to overcome. Also, I have felt that lately I had become way too obsessed with the computer, with being online, and in particular in playing internet chess (!). And I suppose I had hoped it would help me to perhaps be a little less lazy, and to stop procrastinating so much with the multitude of writing projects that I long to do and yet avoid like the plague, for one reason or another. The main reason, though, was that I felt that I had an issue which stems from very early childhood, and in particular to do with my mother, which has left me with a deep down feeling of being unloved, or maybe even unlovable. Rationally, it makes no sense, and I'm not saying it's a black and white thing, a hundred percent issue one way or the other, but it's there, and I can see how it affects me in such subtle ways. Explicitly, many moons ago when I was living a fairly intense stage of 'the spiritual life' I felt that I had run into a brick wall, that I couldn't deepen my practice any further: a friend who did these pretty awesome angel channeling readings told me that it was because of issues stemming from my childhood, that because I did not get the feeling of being wanted and loved by my birth mother, I could not accept that I was truly wanted and loved by The Divine Mother (ie, God). It made sense, and I strove to overcome it, and yet I could not. This was more than ten years ago. I also saw how it was affecting me in my relationships with women and given that I was getting ready to embark on a new one, I really wanted this sorted. Iboga seemed like a way to maybe get to the root cause of the issue - if you'll pardon the pun.
My spiritual and psychological background
I think it's probably important to mention this, as I believe the experience will of course be different and dependent on where a person is coming from, at what stage they're at in their life. First off, as I say, any aspect of drug dependency was not an issue for me: I haven't taken drugs in over 12 years; gave up alcohol and caffeine at the same time; and have even been off chocolate and sugar for the past three months (was well addicted over the winter, as is my habit - summer off, winter well and truly on). I've never smoked and, not that it makes any difference, I'm a vegetarian. Spiritually speaking, I had some fairly intense experiences in my mid-twenties, ten or so years ago, which I think do bear some relation to my iboga experience because, it seems to me, they seem to have given results similar to what one might expect from iboga. Namely, I'm thinking of the first vision quest I did - which involved six days alone on a beach in Mexico, free from any sort of distraction whatsoever (including reading, writing, cooking, making fire) - and which was a deeply introspective and emotional experience. After that vision quest - before which I had been a very heavy and frequent drinker of about eight years - I simply lost all desire for alcohol: it was as though it had taken me to the prime reason why I drank - I imagine some sort of emotional disturbance - and simply removed it. Without it, there was no impulse or imperative to drink, and alcohol came to be seen purely as a toxic substance which caused physical and mental imbalance lacking any positive qualities whatsoever. Several times before this I had tried to give up drinking - but without having tackled the cause of my drinking - merely seeking to alleviate the symptoms - it had been a struggle and an effort and I had failed: after my vision quest, all desire was gone.
Also: I did two further vision quests, one of twenty-eight days and another of six; spent several months meditating in a Vipassana centre; followed Ammachi - the hugging saint - around Europe a couple of times; had a few sort of mystical experiences - eg, oneness with everything and what I believe was a meeting with my/the soul; and in general got very heavily into the God thing, which gave me a lot of good (in the way of happiness, peace, meaning, etc) and a fair bit of mad too (delusion, confusion, lack of understanding at how to live well in the material world). Most of that, however, is years ago, and both the ecstasy and the madness have significantly subsided (for example, I reckon I'm at least 99% cured of my Messiah complex!)
But I digress...
The iboga
I did my research and my sums and I felt pretty good about what I'd found. There are some great resources online - lots of first-hand accounts and tips from "iboga therapists" - and I found especially useful the writings of Howard Lotsof and an English woman, Hattie Wells. Finding out what I should take took a bit of effort but I learned that iboga root is sort of useless and will make you sick and it's actually the rootbark that's where it's at. This can be bought in various forms - powder, pills, HCl (which I don't really understand) - though I ended up going for the actual rootbark itself. A number of reasons for this: but mainly because that's the base product - ie, what they'd be eating out in Africa - and because it's by far the cheapest! Yep, tight-ass Yorkshireman to the last. I ordered 25 grams of the stuff from a place called Maya Ethnobotanicals in Amsterdam and paid something like £58, including shipping. They had a good reputation - unlike another seller, Shamanic Extracts - and the shipping was prompt and included a load of free samples. Plus - bonus of bonuses - they overfilled their bags and I ended up with 30 grams of the stuff. Nice chaps. The iboga smelled like some sort of tea I'd had years ago: I tried a pinch and pretty much immediately felt some noticeable effects in my body. Wow! If that's what a pinch would do, imagine two and half bags of the stuff. I ruminated on it and waited for the right time.
Preparations
From what I'd read probably the most important thing was to have someone with you who would be able to support you through the experience. Someone who would be able to deal with watching someone puke - and maybe even shit themselves - without freaking out. Someone who could do that for anything up to 30 hours. Preferably someone who was experienced with iboga and knew what to expect. Alas, I didn't have anyone I knew who fulfilled this criteria, though I did have a few people in mind who I thought wouldn't flip out and who would be supportive and caring and present through the whole thing. In the end, though, I didn't bother. Also, the other thing is setting, and I suppose somewhere quiet and away from your home and ideally in nature is the best place for it. But I didn't bother with that either. Instead, I went to bed on Wednesday night and just had this sudden sense that I would wake up the next day and do it then. It was sort of clear to me. And then I wake up and another voice says, no, that's daft, so many people online say you should never, ever do it on your own. I accept that - but then a few minutes later my roommate Tom comes downstairs, tells me that he's got the day off and will be staying at home - his first ever day off while I've been around, as far as I'm aware - and that pretty much clinches it. Today is the day; I'll do it at home and no doubt all will be well. I set up my tent on a rug in the living room, next to the dining room table where Tom will be working, so he can keep an eye on me, and I create a second space up on the top landing, on an air mattress with some blankets where it's quieter, darker, and more secluded. I figure once I know I'm not going to die I'll go up there and do the main part of it out of the way on my own. I put out a couple of bowls for puke. I find some ambient New Age music and some headphones. And I'm ready to go.
My expectations
Physically, I'm expecting to be pretty messed up. Lots of nausea and puking: maybe even shit myself. I think that I'm going to be incapable of movement for something like 16-30 hours; probably won't even be able to see or hear or speak. I'm expecting visions; to enter into another realm where I'll vividly relive episodes from my earlier life; to meet the spirit of the plant - some black guy - and maybe go on a journey to the jungles of Africa. I'm expecting wisdom, teaching, and the clearing out of my old baggage, answers to my every question. I'm expecting to come out of it with a new fresh mind, born again and free from traumas and blockages (such as they are) accumulated during a time when I was too young to understand what was happening to me, but could feel it anyways. I'm expecting to have my ass kicked, to be shown where I'm lacking, to be chastised for my laziness, my arrogance, all my shortcomings - and to be shown how to move beyond them. And I'm expecting to see again times where I've hurt people - I'm thinking women in relationships - and to gain some realisations about that, to feel bad about it, and to see how I can avoid ever doing that again. And I'm expecting - hoping, really - to crack through that aspect of myself that wrongly believes that I am not loved.
The eating
I ate the first iboga rootbark at around 10.40am. The flavour is actually quite nice, a bit like menthol. I take half a mouthful and chew it and swallow it down. It takes, I think, about 20 minutes to eat the whole 30 grams. I don't rush it, I just take my time. Then I lie down in the tent and stick on the headphones.
First effects
Pretty quick, I notice that I'm slowing down: my movements, my thinking, my speech. I had to get up a few times to adjust a few things (had to put some music on my phone to take upstairs with me) and it was all pretty comical. I was aware that it was comical - that I must look, to Tom, like the typical tripping druggie - but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I closed my eyes and settled down and waited for it to kick in.
Now, what I must say here is this: that when it was all done, I realised that it had 'kicked in' pretty much immediately. But because I was waiting for something a bit more dramatic than what actually happened I didn't really recognise it. In fact, I didn't really feel that different to my normal state, which is generally a state of observing my thoughts, of being introspective, of investigating my being and seeking understanding. So maybe I missed a trick or two there - though I don't really think so. In any case, looking back I do see that my thinking had altered and that I received some pretty profound benefits almost straight from the off.
And now I'll just waffle in a general and less linear way...
Quantity and setting
I can't go any further in my writing without saying, first of all, that I don't think I had a large enough quantity of iboga. I started thinking this while I was under the influence, maybe even just a few hours in, and I was even doing sums and trying to work out where I'd gone wrong, how much I should have had. I guess I thought this because I realised I wasn't going anywhere near as deep as I'd expected. But that's the problems with expectations, eh? And I may be totally wrong with my belief that I didn't have enough. But, the funny thing was, I suddenly remembered half-way through that one of my earliest calculations called for something like 45 grams of rootbark - and I of course kicked myself, and immediately made plans to do it again (in amongst everything else that was happening). The equation goes something like this:
recommended dosage x weight = quantity of rootbark x alkaloid content
Hattie Wells recommends a dosage of something like 15mg/kg, which would require me (at the monstrous 84kg I currently am!) to ingest 1.26 grams of ibogaine (the active ingredient). Apparently, the alkaloid content of my rootbark was between 3 and 6 percent, therefore:
30 grams x 3 to 6% = 0.8 to 1.6g ibogaine
Which, now I've typed it out makes me realise that I may have been totally wrong in all of this thinking! Oh well: seems important to mention that, as it was on my mind during the excursion. And while I'm in the mood for digression...
I think being away from one's own home is certainly a good idea, and something I'll definitely do next time. I think, for me, it's generally beneficial in lots of way: for instance, when I try and write, the more I separate myself from things that may have a pull on my mind, the more focussed I can be on the task in hand. Not having the ability to go online, for example - or simply being away from the pulls of a house (cooking, tidying up, bills, chores, etc). Not having anything in your vicinity that can speak to your mind is a great tool for focus: hence the power and reason for retreats. Doing it at home, I definitely thought of things to do with the home, with Tom. But for a first trip it was all good lessons...
And now maybe I can talk about what actually happened.
So I see iboga, primarily, as a tool in powerful and beneficial introspection (Daniel Pinchbeck titled an article in The Guardian "Ten years of therapy in one night"). Pretty much immediately, almost all my thoughts became focused on myself, on my own being, on things that were important to me. Thoughts arose about my ex, who I've been separated from for four years, yet who I've long imagined I might get back with, who I always thought of as "the one". In a nutshell, I've never truly let her go. Yet as the thoughts arose about her - as I began to tell myself my usual story of her, of how things could have been different, of what I could do - a story I could often entertain myself with for hours - pretty much right away another voice cut in with the words "she's gone". The first voice perhaps tried to explain, to bring the story back, but it was always cut off with those two words, very direct, very clear, and nothing to argue with. It was as though my mind simply accepted the truth of that statement and instantly, after all those hours and months and years of thinking one way, it started to think another. Throughout the trip I might call her to mind and always it was the same way: as it has been in the days since. The truth of the situation was always that: but I had never been able to see it and accept it before. Instantly, it was done. It's as though there's nothing more to say about that, it's just...gone.
So that was good.
Another thing I remember from the early stages was that I might think something, and I would instantly realise that it was a negative thought, and that it didn't serve me to think that way. Then the thought would either disappear, or I would be shown how I could turn that thought into a positive expression. After a bit of this, I would only need to be a few words into a negative thought when the thought would die and be replaced by something beneficial. I know of late I've given in to lots of negative thinking - hating the world for various reasons, etc - but now there just doesn't seem much point, because ultimately all it does is effect and reflect poorly on me. No need.
I think that's all I remember from 'the first stage'. After that I decided to go upstairs and lie down there. It was apparent that I wasn't going to die. Also, I was disturbed by the noises around me and wanted to be away from them. I got up and walked slowly to the nest I had made earlier. My balance was poor and turning my head at any kind of speed made me feel dizzy and created lightning flashes around various objects. But I made it upstairs fine and lied on my back. Lying on my side created nausea and dizziness, but on my back I was fine. Then, again, I waited for it to really kick in.
Second stage
I think I vomited after about three hours: vomited three times and instantly felt better, and figured the trip would begin then. All that came out was the rootbark - though I'd had some raisins for breakfast - and the puking was in no ways unpleasant (though I don't ever really mind puking). About ten minutes later, however, I vomited again, this time much stronger, and again a few minutes after that. In all, three sessions of vomiting, probably about 11 or 12 pukes in total. Just chewed up rootbark and not unpleasant, no real nausea once done - or before, to be honest, unless I was walking or moving my head about - and then it was back to lying on my back and being mellow. I think just after this the visuals may have started, though it could have been before. Started with various little shapes which may just have been eye gunk - couldn't really tell - but then I remember distinctly seeing a lizard scuttle across my screen and realising that it weren't no eye gunk. This was followed by more lizards, some spiders and scorpions, none of which were in any way frightening, they were just there (thought maybe some connection with Africa, although perhaps also the rainforest ambient music I was listening to). After this there were many faces - some of which I recognised, and had some relevance at the time, though I don't recall them now - and also cars. Every now and then I'd get this black guy's face appearing, looking at me as though he were checking me out, coming closer and then turning away. I wondered if this was Mr Iboga, the so-called spirit of the plant that I'd read about. He popped up intermittently but I felt that I hadn't eaten enough rootbark to really get into him.
Mainly, I suppose, that was it. I think I vomited at around 2pm and then the visuals and the introspection may have lasted about four or five hours. It was all good stuff. After that, there was a sense of 'coming down', though I continued to lie still and with my eyes closed (on my side now) until at least midnight, when I fell asleep. I was very calm, very mellow, and very content throughout the whole experience, and had no desire for food or drink and felt nothing in the way of thirst or hunger. Indeed, the next morning, despite having drunk nothing for nearly twenty-four hours, I still had no thirst, nor any sense of dehydration, which I believe is common to the iboga experience. The next day, I watched a movie and relaxed until about 5pm - I was still moving and thinking very slowly - at which time I felt like I had returned 'completely to normal'.
I type all this now and it all seems rather uneventful - which is quite amusing as it's what I felt at the time, and then afterwards, when I realised that certain things had actually happened, I felt that I'd received a lot. All in all, though, despite my feeling that I didn't take enough to go deep enough into a major "break through" - to meet the spirit, to be shown mind-blowing things, to get reprimanded and have mad visions - I really feel that it was an overwhelmingly positive and beneficial experience, without anything of the negative whatsoever. There were no side effects, no depressing come down, nothing of the madness and weirdness that one might expect from a so-called "hallucinogen". Since the trip I have felt incredibly calm and positive, and have noticed some real changes in my being and in my way of thinking. Obviously, being able to let go of an old relationship is a pretty major step - at least, it is for me, as I really haven't been able until now - and the transmutation of negative thoughts into positive seems to have stayed with me. It's as though that voice that would butt in and show me a better way to think has integrated itself so that it is now the default rather than the correction and that I immediately jump to the positive thought rather than wallow in negativity. I've been on a bit of a downer for a few months now and I literally feel no trace of that. Also, I haven't played a single game of online chess and have absolutely no desire to do so: that's pretty amazing. Before the iboga, I might be playing for anything between four and twelve hours a day; would play even when I had other things to do; until the early hours (and I'm talking, on occasion, like 5 or even 6am); and would play when my brain was screaming no, when I had promised myself "last one" several times over, and when I had lost any sense of enjoyment whatsoever. Even thinking about how I hated it and what a waste of life it was would make me play, as though the mere mention of the word "chess" triggered the desire to have a game. I can't remember the last time I was on a computer, online, and didn't have a game. And yet...here I sit, and over the last few days, when I've contemplated it, and when it's been but a click away, there's nothing in me that wants to play. That's pretty major. It's almost like...before the iboga, I might think to myself, shall I have a game? and there'd be a voice in my head that would tell me, immediately, "no". And yet I'd ignore it. It almost seems like iboga has made that voice - a voice of wisdom and a voice of sensibility - so strong that it has become the dominant voice. It's the voice that doesn't let me dwell on regrets and negative thinking. It's the voice that instantly tells me the truth of a situation and of my thinking - and rather than there being any argument or discussion, and that voice losing, as was so often - pretty much always - the case, that voice now wins. And, indeed, it's almost as though it has become not just the dominant voice but the only voice. Perhaps that's why iboga works in helping people move on, in helping them let go of their addictions: it's like an amazingly strong reinforcement in the battle against the part of us that makes us do the things we know, deep down, are bad for us. Always we have a voice that knows what's good, knows what's bad - and this is a way of redressing the balance. I may not have been addicted to heroin but, wow, you have no idea how lost and how bad I was with the chess. If iboga has removed that urge...then I can't tell you how awesome it is.
Drug?
It's hard to think of iboga as a drug, so different is it from what most of us think drugs to be. It's not something you'd take to get high, to feel ecstatic, because it doesn't really have that effect. For me, it wasn't even about 'getting out there', because I always knew where I was, who I was, and didn't really feel that different from my normal state of being. It really was like therapy - above and beyond anything, a deep and focused introspective experience entered into for the long term benefits. There were, I feel, and hope, definite long term benefits from this - and, as far as I can tell, absolutely no side effects, nothing of the negative. Even if things have changed, once the trip is over the overwhelming feeling is of a 'return to normal': I feel no different than beforehand, except, as I've said, that I seem to be lacking several things that weren't good for me. How cool is that?
Next time
I'd gone into this experience wanting it to be a one time only thing: I don't really want to make a habit of this kind of thing and would rather achieve these results naturally - though I guess we all need a helping hand now and again. Having believed that I'd fallen short, however, and would require a stronger dose, even during the experience I was making plans to do it again. If you're gonna do it, do it right, right? So I do think there's more to learn from this and - well, if not, I at least want to know that I've given it my best shot. This time was great for what I got from it - I really shouldn't underestimate that - and also as a trial run: I think I have a much better idea of how to go into it now. Number one, I want a larger dose: probably around 50 grams I think. Number two, I want to be away from home, away from anything that can divert my thinking, and away from the noise of cars. Number three, I want someone with me who can be totally focused on the task in hand: although, really, I think I would have been equally fine - and maybe better off - doing it on my own, and perhaps would be also next time. The vomiting and the nausea really weren't anything to put me off and the whole thing was altogether more mellow and gentle than I could have possibly imagined. I must stress, though, that I think this was entirely due to the spiritual practice that I've done in the past, and I don't think it would be the same for people who were coming at it from a markedly different place. I think I will do it again: I want to meet Mr Iboga! He was there, but just a little out of reach. Maybe in a month or two. We'll see...
Bits I've missed
I thought often about the girl I'm currently involved with, and that was all really, really good. And also about my favourite place on earth, the hot springs canyon in Mexico, which we'd talked about going to spend six months in come this autumn, and I really feel like I was getting the go-ahead for that, like it was almost telling me that, more than anywhere, that was my home. And, I forget to mention this, but there really were loads of questions that I had where the answers pretty much instantly came. Not that I remember the specifics but...well, it all adds to the sense of clarity, and the sense of clearing out old debris of thoughts, which is all good. Also...
My short-term memory was atrocious - and laughably so. Many times I'd think something, then think, where did this thought begin? and by the time I'd thought that I'd forgotten what I was thinking about. It really was very difficult to hold on to anything. But then, that's not really the point, it seems to be about letting go, about moving through things rather than getting into them in a conscious, analytical way.
The next day, I kept thinking of things that I did 'the day before' - ie, food I'd bought, some places I'd been - and I then had to keep reminding myself that all this was actually two days before. It was as though Thursday hadn't happened. Very strange: like flying across the international date-line or being asleep for an entire day and night. Time was different: even though I wasn't doing anything there was no real sense of it passing or of boredom.
Oh! Something just came back to me - probably the peak of the whole thing. Don't know how I'd forgotten it: it was very clear at the time and I remember telling Tom about it later. Anyway, it's short but was quite dramatic in the moment: I was lying on my back with my eyes closed and I felt these hands either do this thing, or be about to do it, which sort of involved reaching into my rib cages and basically pulling me apart, so that my body shattered and exploded into quite a lot of pieces. At the time I thought that was when I was really going to get into it: but then probably immediately after that I again got the sense that I hadn't eaten enough rootbark and that it was something I could perhaps look forward to next time.
I also think that there was something pretty much right at the beginning, where I had this thought, "what makes you think I'm worthless?" (during, I think, some imaginary conversation with somebody). And then I felt like I got stuck on the words, "I'm worthless" and they kept repeating and coming back intermittently throughout: I felt like I was touching on some deep, hidden part of me, some core belief, a voice or thought that lies beneath a great many other things. I think "I'm worthless" is a bit dramatic - I certainly don't feel that way - but I thought it was interesting given the whole "unlovable" thing I'd been thinking of beforehand...
I'll add more here as it occurs to me, which it probably will. Or if you want to ask questions I'll post some answers.
Links
A video of Hattie Wells talking about ibogaine therapy: she seems to know a lot.
Iboga for sale at Maya Ethnobotanicals.
A whole load of personal experiences.
Manual for ibogaine therapy by Howard Lotsof.
Hatties Wells' notes for treatment.
Daniel Pinchbeck's article in The Guardian.
Ibogaine at Wikipedia.
Note
While I do highly recommend experiencing iboga for those that have a serious interest, I'd also think it wise to do proper research and take note of what people like Lotsof and Wells have written in their guidelines as there have been a few deaths among people taking iboga. Also, iboga is illegal in several countries, including France and, of course, the US.
Wednesday 1 June 2011
I'm going slightly mad
Reading. Not the rubbish town in Berkshire but that thing where you turn pages and look at words and say them to yourself in your head. I read stuff, sure. I'm a sucker for a discarded newspaper on a train, even though it's all pointless and goes in one ear and out the other and, really, it could be any newspaper from any day, any year, it really don't make no difference: I reckons ninety percent of reading is just done so'as we can avoid listening to our own thoughts for a little while (like a great many other things). And maybe ninety percent's a conservative estimate. I know it, and I do it - but I wonder how many others know that's what they're doing? Gotta keep abreast o' the times, they say; s'interesting, they say. Hogwash! It's just a way to keep the brain busy and suppress all the madness of an internal modern lonesome disheveled human being. Yep, that's right. Deny it if you want: but them's the truth.
An' then there's books: a lot o' them are just the same, just stuff, words, things to float before the eyeballs and divert, distract, fill time. I knows I done it, and will do it again. And then sometimes you learn something. And then sometimes you read something truly great. And maybe even some of them change your life - and maybe even for the better. Anyways, I'm a jus' wafflin' - what I really want to talk about is books I've read, and books I like an' books I hate. And - well, have you guessed yet if you can tell what the last book I read was? Yessum, that's a-right. Grapes of Wrath. Holy Moly, what a read! Them poor old Okies. Makes me mad for America and Californians and the whole bass-ackard situation that good ol' Steinbeck wanted to get us mad about (succeeds). Also makes me think of the noble poor, makes me want to be a noble poor, sitting here as I am in my veritable palace all alone and with nothing to do 'cept count my gold coins and stuff my face - gotta be eating every day at least double what a poor ol' Okie family of 12 had for their sustenance back in the day. And it sure ain't deep fried grease balls or whatever it was they et, lemme tell ya. Poor bastards! Med me feel it was happening right now.
So...Grapes o' Wrath: good book. And then you say that in our house, when there's people home, and you get talking about other good books. Roommate Diego's read a lotta the classics - even though he's Spanish, claims to be a simple man - and it's heartening to know we share many of the same views. Catcher in the Rye? Overrated. Just a young guy saying everybody's phoney and not really doing much (ha! sorta like my life). Ulysses? Don't even get me started. There ain't nothin' makes me happier than hearing someone say, Ulysses? Pile o' shite! What a load of nonsense. Motherfucker! Anybody who likes that book wants looking it, arseole academic nutjob freaks. Fuckin' hell: I tried the first ten pages and I gave up. Best book ever? Worst book ever more like. Garbage. And did you know the last chapter is something like 23 pages long and just one big long sentence without grammar, just some woman thinking random bullshit and then it ends? Ho man, that's your reward after seven-hundred-and-odd pages o' turgid bullshit claptrap.
Yup, say that kind of thing in my presence and you're bound to get in my good book.
Best book I ever read, I think, was David Copperfield by the Dickenster. Don't know what it was but I was hungry for them pages. Tried some other Dickens and wasn't quite so blown away - but DC? Wow. What characters: ain't read nobody what does characters like Dickens. So alive, that book: I guess 'cos so much of it is autobiography.
I also love whatever I've read of Kurt Vonnegut; sort of dig a bit of Kafka; thought One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest was awesome (though remember nothing of it, while knowing the film almost as well as I know the little insane asylum that lives inside my own head); Kerouac, of course, but mainly just On The Road - which gets me instantly jazzed up, infects me with its fever - though I can't say I'm too bothered about the rest of them, and don't see the glamour in a road that leads you where his did. Lovely Bones was a nice read: made me cry, which I can only remember one other book doing (a bio of Jimi Hendrix, when I got to a dramatised account of his death; I was sixteen). And then I was well into Raymond Carver for a while, though I kinda went off his minimalist approach and craved a bit of emotion - the kind of thing that oozes from the pages of all those Gothic and Victorian melodramas like Jane Eyre and Frankenstein and how comes nobody any more writes about characters that are endlessly suffering the greatest woe and misery ever visited upon a human being, the poor, miserable wretch? To Kill a Mockingbird was awesome too: read that while I was thinking I really ought to tick off the list of classics and see what they're all about. Read The Great Gatsby during that time too: but couldn't see what all - or any of - the fuss was about. Probably somethin' special back in the day - but like Catcher in The Rye, nothin' to be danced over.
You pull up a list of the best books ever and, dispiritingly enough, Ulysses is generally somewhere up around the top. Sons of bitches! Only people I ever met who liked it were egghead loser professors. I was supposed to read it for a uni course and, hero that I am, I did many forty-five pages or so before I gave the hell up. Be just as well to read a thesaraus. Bag o' shite. I also once carried a copy of Finnegan's Wake around with me for a few months while hitchhiking - only to discard it almost immediately upon opening when I finally got around to reading it. Read the other day an account of a chap who spent a couple of years in prison - really fantastic read - and he says in there somewhere that he had like two books when he went in - Finnegan's Wake being one of them - and though I guess he was desperate for stuff to do at times he didn't ever get beyond a few pages. Okay, so he was a prison-type bloke - but he weren't dumb. Says somethin' to me. Although, I gotta concede, Dubliners was cool. Shame he had to go all Etherington Noose.
Another book that's on a top-10 list I'm just a-lookin' at is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Anybody read that? Heard long time that it's supposed to be awesome an' I tried to get into a couple of times but, man, have you seen the way that guy uses adverbs? Unbelievable: not even twelve-year-olds or Dan Brown would be that retarded. Everything's "he said, irritatingly" and "the chaplain muttered, apologetically." Well I can't do justice to how bad it was - but seems like every page I turn to is so stuffed with 'em I really thought it had to be a joke. But it's not. Really, I couldn't read it.
And to mention Dan Brown: here's my sum total of words of his consumed: the last chapter of the Dan Vinci Code, and the first. Bloody awful. And no need to go into that one, 'cos everyone with half a brain knows he can't write for shit. Yeah yeah, it's all about the plot, I know. But it's gots to make a man angry when it's that compellingly bad. Dumbass successful millionaire motherfucker.
Oh dear: moaning again. Moaning about books I've read, moaning about books I've never read. Oh well, more fun in that I suppose. And the thing is, weirdly enough, I don't really like books all that much, don't possess the ability that some do to lose themselves in them: mostly it's just words. Or on the very rare occasion, when I luck into something like Copperfield or Grapes or Slaughterhouse 5. All the rest...One Hundred Years of Solitude? Just a family's name repeated over and over again. Midnight's Children? Yeah, it was all right, I suppose - certainly remember enjoying parts of it - but, I tell you this, my abiding memory of that book was closing it and thinking, wow, I've read all those pages and it means not a single thing to me: I finish it; I put in down; and I walk away as though the whole thing never happened. That really struck me: struck me that a supposedly great book oughtn't be able to leave a man with that kind of impression. And, yeah yeah, I'm sure it's all very clever and all the way it says somethin' deep about Indian Independence - but, really, if I wanted to know about Indian Independence I wouldn't wade through something that was all symbols, metaphors, opinions, all that shite - I'd read a bit of non-fiction, some proper bona fide history. What's the point in dressing it up as fiction? Other than as an exercise for your own brain.
I suppose them's the crux: that I actually much rather prefer non-fiction to stories. We laugh at guys who only read footballer's autobiographies and stuff - but at least it actually happened, isn't just the pie floating around in the sky of some bloke's head. A man makes up a story - but it's not the truth of the man, and I like truth. Me, I'm no good at separating the author from his work: s'why I ain't got time for no celebration of people like Sylvia Plath, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf - you end your life with your head in the oven while your children play in the next room you got no right telling people anythin' about how life oughta work. You flunked, baby: you're a failure. Who gives a fuck if you can string a pretty sentence together? It's making it as a human being that counts. S'why we shouldn't look up to Kerouac or Cassady neither - 'cos they flunked school too. Damn, I really thought I was gonna find a road that led to somewhere cool - but I don't think I'm gonna make it neither. Maybe writing's just something that sick people do. Maybe when you stop that's the sign that you've made it. Ever met a saint who wanted to write a book? A genuinely happy person? Hot steamin' shit, I've put a lock of stock in this barrel of wanting to be some sort of writer-type bloke - seems like such a joke of late - and I wonder, I wonder...was it all just...getting carried away? Have I gone wrong? Has it made me unhappy, led me down stupid paths? And, if so, could I let the notion drop? Could I...what would I be if I never expressed myself in type, with pen? No emails, no letters of texts or blogs or books: just what comes out of my mouth - or maybe not even that. Lately I been thinking I made myself sick with this insatiable monster that seeks to express every goddamn thing I got in my brain - but ain't the brain the enemy of peace? Would I give it all up - them writer's dreams - for a peaceful smile and a life like what normal people have, all bundled up and sane and not driven by THIS? I dunno - but I'm in the mood to give stuff up. I want it all to die. It's all just, as the man said, like so much straw.
Best book I ever read? Conversations With God: gave me shivers down my soul. And if I had to take one book to a desert island, that's what it would be. Something I could go back to time and time again. People say, blah blah this, blah blah that; how can that man be talking to God, maybe he's just making the whole thing up. I say, sure - quoting the book - but who cares anyway, it's wise words, it's how it seems to work, I ain't found no truer or better way to live (not that I live it). I read that book and it rang true: it got my whole body vibratin' and resonatin' with it: it made sense and matched up with my experience. And then - even greater testament to the truth - there were certain bits that I didn't agree with, but then some years down the line things would happen, and I'd come back and read it, and I'd be like, oh yeah, I remember thinking that was a crock - but after [life experiences] it seems like, bloody hell, right again. First three books are awesome. Fourth is nice too. After that, I thought he went off it a bit, put too much of himself in there - and, conversely, not enough, pretending instead to be speaking for imagined others when he didn't really know what those others would say. Last one though - Home With God - blew my mind, and gave me ever such a liberated feeling, thinking anything's possible, you really can do what you want - which I mostly seem to have forgot. Good stuff though.
Now, can I just say that all the time I've been typing this, sat here with the roof terrace door open, I've been listening to the non-stop drone of MOTHERFUCKIN' AEROPLANES! I really swear I am gonna go wild mad out my box if someone don't shoot the fuckers out the sky and blow up every airport in the land SOON. Oh, for a moment's peace. I long Long LONG for a place where I can't hear fuckin' planes, fuckin' cars, fuckin' radios and stereos and drills and saws and noise. Every one o' those things is a modern invention: for ten thousand billion years all creatures and dinosaurs and primitive ape-man humans were ignorant of such things. What? Two hundred years our technological bullshit noise pollution has been around: and I fuckin' hate it. Plane after plane after plane after plane. Blow up London! Take me somewhere, please, where I can't hear this shite. Oh, my poor dear sweet deaf old uncle. No wonder he smiles! No wonder he's the happiest of the bunch!
Books. Books I've read and liked. Books I've hated. Stephen King and Allen Dean Foster in my youth. Lolita. Bonfire of the Vanities. 2001. All them spiritual and self-help books. Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick. The Bible. Burn the books! Burn 'em all! Words just to...stop writing...never write again. Crawl away into a quiet nice place; forget pen and computer and newspapers; dig the trees and the sky and the soothing hot water; love your woman and love your babies; eat well; dance and sing and marvel at the rocks and the animals; I want to...go back to Mexico. I want to exit Plant Dust. I want to blow up the world - stop the world - and get off, get my rocks off. Just typing, just moving fingers, this stream of thoughts saying, put me down, express me will never ever end. I hear the next sentence before this one is finished. I don't know what I'm going to type next. I...
Thoughts. Wither comest though? Wither goest though? Who sent you? Who is making them up? Me? No, not me. I hear them. I observe them. I don't create them - for if I did, I would surely create some different ones. No, all I'm doing is dictating. You see! Even while I was writing that one, I was hearing this one. But who is speaking? Who is speaking these words? And what are you going to think of next, hm?
I ask that question and all thoughts stop. What are you going to think next? Except, he thunk this: and he thunk that. He thunk the whole thing. Who is he? And why doth he torment me so? WHAT IS THIS THING THAT DWELLS IN MY HEAD!? That speaks to me ALL THE TIME? That annoys me much as billboards and advertisements and all things outside that pull on my eyes, force me to repeat their message to myself? That is, even, getting me to type all this? Is it me? It doesn't feel like me. Or is it some parasite that has latched on - or am I the parasite all hanging bad smell around? And all these questions: him or me? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
Who am I? Where am I? Words. Voice. Feels like it's in my head. Who's head? The voice's head? The voice doesn't have a head.
Voice, where are you?
I'm here, in your head.
What are you doing there?
Just talking. Just amusing myself.
Why do you think it's funny?
I like making you mad.
Are you a demon?
Yes, I suppose I am.
An imp.
Yes.
You make me do things.
Yes.
You're screwing everything up.
Yes.
Why?
For fun. To stop you.
Why would you be answering these questions then?
I have to. Sworn to the truth.
Can I believe that?
Yes. No. Course not.
I'm gonna punch a fuckin' aeroplane any moment now, I swear! Blow up the world! This mad, mad world. If I had balls...I would walk away from it all. Thoughts would follow me: enticements. You've got to write, they'd say, you need a laptop. Sit down, they'd say, we've got some stories for you. But just a game of chess at first, this'll drive you nice and mad. Do that for a bit, and then get desperate, and then write something: it'll make you proud and happy and you'll want to do it more. More and more - it's a bottomless pit. The worm has got you: the enticements will follow. They'll give you stuff to do: you'll think it'll make good material. You'll dream of fame: poor, delusional you. You've gone mad and you need help and there's no help out there to give you. Live a while; get old; wonder how you wasted your youth, your life. Lie down then and die. And look back then and weep, your poor soul, your poor soul - all those dreams and schemes and the best laid plans and such good intentions - and what did you do, what did you do with all that time? But: nevermind, you can always come back again. Or can you? Or is that not just some mad thing we made up to screw you further down, further in, further up? Yes, you've gone mad and you need help and you're never going to get it. Iboga? Yes, maybe. Eat it. Eat it all. God mad, my boy, go mad...
Hahaha. And, just for good measure, heeheehee. A part of me digs all this - and another part of me thinks, hey, you've seen Se7en, remember all them crazy fookin' books Kevin Spacey wrote full of mad writing and think of how mad he was. Gotta do somethin' with your brain; gotta find a job. Four months without work. So little interaction with other human beings. Eight billion games of internet chess. And yet: you could toss it all off in an instant and be back.
A moment's silence.
Go outside.
You're housebound.
There's nothing there!
Remember York. Remember the trees. Remember the monastery. No boredom, no madness there - only in London, only in South Elmsall: only when you have this lousy computer and play chess and write all this mad shite. Go outside. There's nothing out there. Shop. Buy some eggs. Yes. That's all there is to do. Maybe you'll meet a person. Maybe they'll ask you what you do. Maybe you'll like their vibe and you'll start to talk to them and then you'll realise they're not really listening, they've got too much going on in their own heads, their owns worlds, they don't know that they're supposed to; they're a pretty girl but they drink too much, care only about hair and makeup, will fuck you up, will one day shrivel up and die too. All those sex tapes on the internet! Every fucking woman in the world is naked and fucking on the internet! All three and some billion of 'em. All gorgeous and beautiful and one day to shrivel up and die. And Wayne Mercedes: when will you give birth to him? He's there, isn't he? He's the one that's holding up the whole show. You write about him and there'll be no more internet chess, no more worrying about what the fuck you're doing/not doing with your life, no more overeating and thinking about girls and lazing the fuck around and chasing daft careers and -
But you won't, unless you will: you'd rather write several thousand words of shite and then spend the rest of your day buying eggs, Deal or No Deal, a whole 'nother loaf of bread, shitting and ignoring the housework and lazing lazing lazing -
You're hard on yourself.
I deserve to be.
You've had no help.
I've had plenty. I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I just don't do it.
That's the way of the world.
Why is it like that?
Laziness. You either is or you ain't. But really it's just fear.
Yes, I can feel I'm afraid.
Afraid of what?
Afraid that...that I won't be able to do it. That it won't be good enough if I do. That...I'll fail. And then what will I have? Now I have an always-future to-do list - but if I do it and it's not right...all I'll have is failure. And nothing.
And you'll have crossed the wilderness. Who knows what's out the other side.
Yeah, you're right, I know. I should. I will. I can't.
Such a lonely business trying to write, eh? Where's the people to read to? Where's the people to share it with? Musicians got each other, got their bandmates, got their audience. And maybe back in the day, before all this entertainment and the abolition of attention spans, people had time to listen. But now...?
Excuses.
Yeah, more excuses.
Lazy. Lame. Loser.
We'll live - somehow - and then we'll die, and then we'll look back on all this with such regret, such regret.
I need a poo.
Are you going to buy some eggs?
Yeah. Get outta the house. See what's there. Realise there's nothin'. Maybe shop even more - there's always shopping. I hope there's a Sainsbury's in heaven. Wish I could live there. Wish I could die there. Wonder if I'll ever get knocked off my bike and if she'd come to visit me if I did.
Need a poo. Going to stop now. Don't worry about me, I'm okay. I'm not smiling now but I'll bet you I'll have a big ol' laugh about this within maybe the next thirty seconds or so. Maybe it's even done me good.
Damn, them poor old Okies, sufferin' and starvin' and dyin' right here, right now, all out in California while fat men in white suits and Boss Hog cars chow down on drippin' hunks o' prime steak just a few miles down the road, and I sit here, in palatial comfort, and all that sufferin' and starvin' the world over and still it don't stop me to moan.
You can't compare yourself to others.
I need a poo.
Goodbye.
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