Shamanic Iboga Treatment in Costa Rica: Interview with Gary Cook of Iboga Wellness Center
Gary Cook is the founder of Iboga Wellness Center
(IWC) in Costa Rica where he, his son, and their staff offer iboga
treatment. IWC is unique among ibogaine healing centers — whereas many
centers today use synthetic ibogaine, Cook and his son use the
traditional iboga root bark and are initiates of the Bwiti shamanic
tradition where iboga use first emerged. Gary spoke to us from his home
in Costa Rica.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Gary. How were you first introduced to iboga?
I came to Costa Rica about three years ago with my son, who was a
heroin addict. We went to a clinic here in Costa Rica that was run by
the shaman that we eventually trained with. He worked on my son for
about nine days: I was there to witness the most incredible
transformation I could imagine. Beforehand, [my son] was a mess,
battling a 17-year-long drug problem. I’m so happy to say that he is
doing wonderful now—he has a baby girl and he works here at the
center. We have a great relationship again, which was something we
didn’t have for a long, long time. It just couldn’t have gone better, it
was amazing.
Myself, I was a spiritual seeker, and I came to support him for his
treatment and also to have my own experience. I had worked with some
other plant medicines before and had been interested in shamanism for a
long time. Iboga was what I was looking for on a spiritual level [to]
open the way for me to understand my life and what it is to be a human.
It just answered so many questions.
Both my son and I were blown away by the experience, so we decided to
train and learn how to facilitate it ourselves. We worked at another
center for a while and got some experience there before opening our own
center. We were happy to find out that the medicine works just as well
for our clients as it did for us. The medicine itself is just so
remarkable.
You and your staff are all initiated in the Bwiti tradition
and have traveled to Gabon to learn directly from them. What was the
initiation and your time with the Bwiti like?
It was great, although it was very difficult. There was a group of
about twelve of us, and we started out from Libreville in Gabon. Then we
took an 18-hour SUV ride over dirt roads to reach the village in the
jungle. We lived there for a few weeks and went through initiation. At
our center, when we want clients to have a meaningful experience, we
offer them about 5 grams of root bark. In Gabon, we did over 100 grams
of root bark in the span of 5-6 hours as part of the initiation
ceremony. We had to dance one by one in front of the tribe, and do some
other things that were physically demanding, especially while under
iboga’s strong effects. I’m really, really happy that I did it. It’s one
of the treasures in my life and I’m so glad I got to live with them for
a few weeks. We also visited a pygmy village that was more primitive.
We were only there for one night, but they did the ceremony for us all
night. I came away with an understanding and an intuition about what
life is, how precious it is, and what we are doing here as humans.
How do you feel about ibogaine treatment centers that offer
ibogaine therapy without the Bwiti ceremonial context? Do you see pros
and cons between the two methods of sharing this medicine with people?
I believe very strongly in the way we do things here. It feels very
right to me, but I do see the value in ibogaine being used elsewhere.
For people with opiate problems, an ibogaine clinic would be good for
them. It has a tremendous effect on reducing opiate withdrawal symptoms,
and that’s often what addicts are often most afraid of. Clinics that
offer ibogaine are definitely doing a good thing. Addiction is a real
problem across the world, and putting people on substitute addictions
like suboxone and methadone don’t seem like good solutions to me. One of
the astonishing things I’ve learned is that suboxone, which is the
standard treatment for addiction in the United States, is actually more
addictive than heroin and about twice as hard to get off. Both iboga and
ibogaine clinics can get people off opiates without putting them on
something worse.
How do the Bwiti traditionally see the potential dangers of
iboga, and what sort of medical pre-screening do you do for your
clients?
Where we were in Africa, there are no hospitals, the shamans are the
doctors. Those are the people you see when you’re sick, and those are
also the people that give you iboga. It’s just part of being healthy
over there. They are very strong, healthy people and they don’t consider
it to be dangerous. The jungle there is a crazy place. You’ve got to be
strong because it’s unbelievable.
At Iboga Wellness Center, we do medical screenings, and a doctor
[attends] each of our group’s eight-day sessions. At the beginning, we
take an EKG to look at the heart, and we ask clients to send us a liver
panel/blood test before they arrive so that we can make sure no
complications will appear. There are also specific things we screen for,
particularly certain pharmaceuticals where there can be a lot of
interaction. In my experience if there is anything artificial or
synthetic in your body, iboga just flushes it out. In the case of
benzodiazepines like Xanax, if those are taken away from people
overnight it causes some strange effects, including psychosis. In
general we don’t like to take people who are on those drugs; we have
them get them off of those first before we expose them to iboga.
You mentioned in a past conversation that you do not consider
iboga to be a psychedelic, but rather a visionary tool. Can you
describe how you see the distinction between psychedelics and the iboga
experience?
My experience with psychedelics goes back about forty years when I
was in college and experimented with LSD and mescaline. I would observe
distortions in reality under those substances. Iboga is not as cosmic or
“groovy” or visually stimulating as those, but what you do see is
extremely pertinent to your life. Like a movie reel, you can see the
truth about what happened in your life, and what to do about it. It’s
about yourself and not really about the cosmos. It’s drawn me to be a
lot more truthful, personally. I see the value of that now.
Thanks for talking with us, Gary!
Link to article - PsychedelicTimes.com
Shamanic Iboga Treatment in Costa Rica: Interview with Gary Cook of Iboga Wellness Center
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