Iboga: The Visionary Root of African Shamanism

Having worked in healing using various plant medicines i have experienced that with each medicine 5 - 10 % of the population do not react at all. This is medicine specific meaning that a certain person might not react at all to iboga (and i have seen this at very high doses) but will react to another plant medicine) but go very deep with ayahuasca I have seen people not be effected by super high dose 5Meo yet flood easily on iboga. I have seen people eat very high dose of mushroom with zero affect I have heard that Dr. Strassman had a similiar % of non-reactive subjects  to intravenous DMT 5 - 10 % seems to be the norm and I can tell you it is quite shocking when you see it happen

Hey JB.Good, did you find that some people don't react at all to taking Iboga, meaning that the bark doesn't cause any effect? Interpreting such facts is tricky I guess. What does 'not being able to metabolize ibogaine' mean in terms of effect? I am thinking this means it won't have any lasting effect, but does cause the experience itself. When I get to it, I'll look up the footnote and maybe find the underpinning research paper.

R. Scott Obach, John Pablo2, and  Deborah C. Mash,"Cytochrome P4502D6 Catalyzes the O-Demethylation of the Psychoactive Alkaloid Ibogaine to 12-Hydroxyibogamine" Link to full text here: http://dmd.aspetjournals.org/content/26/8/764.full

really good book samyama... hmm if I understand this correctly the same folks who would not metabolize ibogaine, would also not metabolize morphine very well, so maybe my guess that those same people wouldn't be seeking it out for some reason was a good one...  I think that makes sense.  I think if 5-10% of drug users would not metabolize this enzyme we would be seeing a lot more folks complaining about how it didn't work for them.   I am pretty sure that some people could also be allergic or have a bad reaction this is why a test dose is given first. Thanks! roxine

gus_rests, does your book give the T 1/2 or halflife of noribogaine? I can't seem to find this elsewhere except "long" and "months",ect. Maybe this book would say this?   Thank you kindly

I thought the answer would be in the book is why I didn't think to search in other resources..... Anyways after googling some very interesting facts came to light.....the main ones are 1.  ibogaine half-life only 1-2 hours at most ! 2.  noribogaine half-life of about 1 day at least 3.  noribogaine levels are 2x that of parent compound ibogaine ! 4. females have greater ibogaine bioavailability than men(weird),which means they can take less interesting to say the least.....

I love this book !!!! I learned allot of stuff from the wonderful history of the Bwiti to the attempts by Howard Lotsof & co to get Ibogaine approved for use in the States in the 1980's & 1990's. Thanks roxine

Not to mention those essays by Ravalec. His descriptions of the theatre of consciousness, pre-consciousness and the intruder with a laserbright flashlight. Somewhat hilarious but very helpful insights there. I've been looking for a online pdf download, no luck thusfar. Do the moderators allow for a link if it can be found?

Sure, you can link a PDF...have to ask pkeffect about torrent stuff though, as I am sadly lacking in an awful way the technical savvy to get into 'all that'. In fact, I am seriously having memory problems, which have gotten to the point that I will make thread about it - if I do not forget first. I have read this book, I left it in a house in Mexico for the people who came after me to read... Thanks for the reply and great thread samyama, nice work. Concerning those figures regarding half life of ibogamines ( ibogaine is 12, methoxyibogamine and the metabolite - 12,hydroxyibogamine or noribogaine), it is very easy to get some data confused, the studies 'out there' are mostly animal studies - like, we do not have an LD/50 for people...and I have myself gotten turned around where statistics and information about metabolic reactions to ibogamines are discussed. Sometimes the animal data gets 'mixed in' or mixed up with the people data and this is tricky and potentially really dangerous.  When calculating doses an estimating an LD/50 for human subjects I wonder how or if there is any practical way to translate lab data culled from animal testing and have it 'fit' humans? The LD/50 for rats was insanely high...(sorry no citation or notation) but it was way higher than I imagined mg/kg, and still I seriously wonder if that is anywhere near what would potentially be lethal for half of any human tests... I have also read' that women may require less ibogaine to treat whatever they're being treated for, and they might have higher sensitivities but in my own field work I have not noticed anything profoundly different in the way women 'handle' the sessions or even in the dosing protocols observed. This reinforces my belief that dosing plays only a small part in the unfortunate incidences we read about where there are deaths related to iboga/ibogaine treatments. I think in most cases, it is a (largely unknown or unreported) pre-existing medical issue that presents when ANY active amount of any iboga-alkaloid is working in the system. It just never struck me that anything like an overdose, accidental or otherwise, has ever been the culprit. This is only my own opinion folks, hone in on that little detail. The reason we get these 25 mg/kg-ish figures comes largely from Dr. Mash's research - and I think often times, these numbers represent the minimum effective dose, especially for drug detoxes. But at the same time, many detoxes are justified in trimming it down to the smallest working dose because ibogaine is rough and hard on the system, and so many people who do finally manage to get to it are themselves in very poor health. Interesting and important topic