Shamanic Portals

In the Central African countries of Gabon, Cameroon, and Zaire, certain age-old ancestor cults still flourish in the twenty-first century. Their members share a common belief, based, they say, on direct experience, in the existence of a supernatural realm where the spirits of the dead may be contacted. Like some hypothetical dimension of quantum physics, this otherworld interpenetrates our own and yet cannot ordinarily be seen or verified by empirical tests. It is therefore a matter of great interest, with highly suggestive research implications, that tribal shamans claim to have mastered a means, through the consumption of a poisonous shrub known locally as eboka or iboga, by which humans may reach the other world and return alive.

The Plant that Enables Men to See the Dead

Tabernanthe iboga. Its root bark is the source of the powerful hallucinogen ibogaine.

I fell into a dream state for what seemed like a very long time, and as with most dreams I now find it hard to remember the details. All I can confirm is my absolute certain conviction that something happened - something of lasting importance to me. Did I hallucinate an encounter with my father? I don't remember clearly enough to be absolutely sure, but I get flashbacks of that night in which I see him amongst the crowd of phantoms gathered round me. As well as these tantalizing recollections of my father, I’ve managed to dredge up a few other broken images from those hours of fevered dreams, which add to my sense that something momentous occurred.

Healing with Spirits

Iboga is a shamanic drug. In the Bwiti scheme of things, it brings healing in this world by reconnecting us to the world of spirits. My visions, I knew, had been relatively subdued and unspectacular by comparison with those of the Bwiti initiates, but I too, in my own limited way, had experienced contact with some sort of otherworld through consumption of their sacred plant. Was it really a supernatural realm that the ibogaine took me into, or just a crazy hallucination? But what was miraculous nonetheless was the dramatic turnaround in my mood that I benefited from after my ibogaine session. For months beforehand I had been intensely depressed and irritable, filled with morbid thoughts and gloomy anxiety.