Frequently Asked Questions - General Info

The Iboga House Center

Iboga House is a treatment center, where the primary medicine we use is Iboga. We are here to serve all of humankind, regardless of different backgrounds or spiritual paths. With the guidance of Bwiti shaman Moughenda Mickala, Iboga is used to heal addiction, to heal people physically and mentally, and to assist people in awakening spiritually. We also accept students to train as providers, healers or shamans.

We are located in beautiful Costa Rica, outside the city of Liberia, in the town of Buena Vista. Our center sits on top of a hill, overlooking breathtaking views, and surrounded by tropical forest containing many of the same healing plants and herbs found in Moughenda’s homeland, South Gabon.

Iboga journeys at the Iboga House are guided by Bwiti shaman Moughenda Mickala. There are two worlds: the physical world and the spiritual world. Anyone can provide you with a map to travel the earth, but only a Bwiti shaman can guide you through an Iboga journey to discover the spiritual world, where you can make a lifetime connection with spirit.

 Moughenda Mickala is a tenth generation shaman of the Missoko Bwiti sect from South Gabon. He was born and raised in Libreville, Gabon, and in the Mimongo Village, the home of the Massango tribe on his mother's side. His father is from the Mitsogho tribe. It was Moughenda’s maternal grandfather who guided him through the five major initiations of the Missoko Bwiti, from the age of twelve to twenty-two. 

These five initiations relate to the five aspects of Missoko Bwiti: 

Ngonde: bwiti of the spirit of the moon, in charge of visions and diagnostics

Mioba: bwiti of healing with plants, herbs and root bark

Senguedia:  bwiti of protection

Bosuka: bwiti of knowledge of creation

Mabundi: bwiti of women

The Missoko Bwiti of South Gabon were not influenced by Christianity, and their traditions are closest to Dissumba, the original Bwiti that was first practiced by the Pygmies. 

With a lifetime of traditional training in the use of Iboga, Moughenda is able to guide people masterfully through healing all types of addiction, as well as through physical healings, psycho-spiritual journeys, spiritual journeys, spiritual development journeys, pre-initiations, and full initiations.

Iboga is the plant of knowledge and life. It originated in Gabon, in West Central Africa, and has grown there since the beginning of time. It was discovered by the first people living in the jungle in Gabon, the Pygmies. We in Gabon have been using Iboga since day one, for treatment, healings and teachings, for initiations, and as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. At the Iboga House, we use Iboga to heal all types of addiction, for physical healings, psychospiritual journeys, spiritual journeys, spiritual development journeysand pre-initiations.

Iboga has a lot of power and a lot of properties, and a very, very strong spirit.

Iboga originated in Gabon, and spread to Cameroon and the Congo. Now there is a bit in the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea also. There are three kinds of Iboga: the one growing in the wild, the one growing on the beach, and the one we grow in the village. It is the same plant, but with different degrees of power. The one that grows in the wild in the jungle is the most powerful. The next strongest one is the one growing on the beach, and then the one cultivated in the village. In Gabon we use all three kinds of Iboga plants, know their different strengths, and choose them depending on the research, healing or initiation we are doing.

Iboga is a small tree that grows from four to six feet in the village. In the wild, it can grow to over twelve feet, with a trunk over six inches thick. The size of the one that grows on the beach is between the two. The one growing in the village has a lot of fruit, while the one in the jungle has bigger leaves and less fruit. The trees are more powerful depending on the soil where they grow, and also become more powerful with age.

On a physical level, it is possible for anyone to plant and grow an Iboga tree. But the healing and teaching power of Iboga is not in the physical form of the plant; it is in its spiritual properties. One has to know how to grow and maintain the plant on a spiritual level in order for it to have these properties. You need the proper codes to grow Iboga with the power and properties to do spiritual work. The way it is grown, the way it is gathered, prepared, and handled—all these things require great awareness, and affect the power and properties of the plant.

The Iboga I use is from South Gabon, from my family. They are all Bwiti tribe members, who know how to process the Iboga properly. They know what to do and say before and after they take the root. They know how to clean and process the root, and how to pack it. Every step of the process influences the spiritual properties of the plant. There are codes to know every step of the way. These are spiritual codes that need to be used in order to preserve the full power and purity of the plant. The Iboga I use is the best there is.

The full (or total) alkaloid is the first extract from the Iboga root. I also use the full alkaloid for all types of healing and spiritual work. I use the two together. Iboga takes longer for the body to break down, whereas the full alkaloid is absorbed more quickly. Sometimes I use the full alkaloid together with the Iboga, to accelerate the treatment. Sometimes people do not have a month to be here while the Iboga heals them. Or sometimes when someone is really sick, it is important to free them as soon as possible. It is also hard, especially for Westerners, to eat the root.  It is hard for someone to sit down and chew ten teaspoons of Iboga. It is also important to keep the wood in your stomach as long as possible. Not everyone here has the capability to eat the wood and hold it in their stomach. The full alkaloid is swallowed in capsules, and one can hold the medicine longer. My main concern is results, to free people from chemical dependency, spiritual dependency, whatever it might be.

Whether you are using Iboga, the full alkaloid or ibogaine, you want to make sure the medicine contains the spirit of Iboga. It is not about the wood itself. The spirit is the driving force of the wood. That is the power that results in a proper treatment. The wood itself may do twenty percent of the work; eighty percent is the spirit doing the work. That is what people do not understand here in the West. People are doing extractions with no idea whether the spirit is present. They have no connection with the Iboga spirit, so how would they know if the spirit is still there? When we do our own full alkaloid extraction, I know what to do before the chemist begins so that I do not lose the spirit of the plant. I would estimate that the full alkaloid I use maintains seventy percent of the full properties of the wood. This is good for any type of healings or spiritual work.

Ibogaine is the second extract of the Iboga, extracted from the full (or total) alkaloid. I have done some work with ibogaine. If somebody invites me to help them in their work, and the only medicine they have is ibogaine, I can work with it. I have found that it is not the best medicine for me. It is a good medicine for providers, but for me as a healer shaman, I cannot use ibogaine for the healings I do. The spirit of the Iboga must be present when I am doing the healings, because in that moment, it is not me as a human who is doing the healing. I am just there as a messenger. When you process the medicine with chemicals, you lose the spirit. Ibogaine undergoes too much chemical processing to be able to preserve the spirit, even with traditional techniques. Ibogaine might have one percent of the spirit present. It is not strong enough to heal someone spiritually. That is why you see most people ending up using drugs again after a detox treatment. Healing is not just physical; it is also spiritual. I prefer not to work with ibogaine, because my main concern is results. I want to always have good results with a treatment.

“You cannot separate Bwiti and Iboga. To fully understand Iboga, you must be initiated into the Bwiti, and if you want to fully understand the Bwiti, you have to eat Iboga. The two go together.” - Moughenda

Bwiti is a traditional spiritual path of Gabon in Central West Africa that originated with the Pygmies. It is also a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. One of the main purposes of the Iboga for the Bwiti is the initiations. We use Iboga to travel from the physical world to the spiritual world, to meet our ancestors and other spirits. The other main purpose we use the Iboga for is spiritual discovery.

We do not trust humans to answer questions about nature. If we want to learn about nature, about the creation of humankind, we do not trust humans to know the answer. Whatever different skills humans may have, we are all still human. Nobody was present when God created humankind and the universe, to transmit the information today. That is why we use Iboga for spiritual discovery.  Whatever we want to find out about humankind, about the universe, or about the physical or spiritual worlds, we use Iboga. We as humans get confused, especially by science. The scientists are doing a good job, but they are limited. As a human, even one’s imagination has a limit. With Iboga, there is no limit. You can travel anywhere on the earth, to the spiritual world, and to the beginning of time.

Bwiti has been practiced by the Gabonese for thousands of years, and until now the secret was kept from the rest of the world. This path was kept secret because the Gabonese people wanted to keep Bwiti pure from the influence of manmade religions. Other religions have their own understanding, based on their studies, based on what they believe. With Iboga, there is no faith. The Bwiti do not believe in things we do not see. If we have any questions, we find out the answers from the Iboga. That way we make sure we are not getting information from humans. Humans allow themselves to be deceived by fast talkers or people in positions of authority. There is no way for you to confirm the authenticity of what these people claim. Bwiti, on the other hand, allows you to see the truth for yourself.

God made spirit to serve humankind. Unfortunately, humankind has been so caught up in creating new technology and focusing on financial gain that we have forgotten to pursue and learn about the proper codes to talk to and receive messages from the spirits. “Program” is a term used to describe the many beliefs that exist today, including religious beliefs. These programs were designed to control people by blinding them to the truth and disconnecting them from God.

Bwiti, through the use of Iboga, allows you to see the truth for yourself, without having to rely on the word of others. You are able to interact with spirit and get the answers to any information you seek, thereby being your own witness. 

The use of Iboga with the guidance of a Bwiti shaman is a safe and life changing experience. Iboga can be used to heal physical and mental illness, to develop spiritually, to overcome the most severe addictions without withdrawal symptoms, and to undergo a once in a lifetime complete spiritual rebirth. When used without the proper guidance or training, Iboga can also be a very dangerous medicine. The following is Moughenda’s advice for those who wish to work with Iboga, either with themselves or with others:

“Iboga is not a Western medicine. If you want to work properly with Iboga, the full alkaloid or ibogaine, you want to have the proper training. If you want to work with a traditional Eastern medicine, you need traditional Eastern skills. There is no need to weigh anybody before treating them. It has nothing to do with weight. This is the wrong way to do it and people are getting confused. We do not have scales in Gabon to weigh people. We have traditional techniques we use to know how much wood a person has had already, and how much more they need. This is very, very important. It is crucial that you have a good connection with the medicine, with the spirit of the Iboga, who tells you how much medicine the patient needs. It is not you as a human deciding how much medicine you are going to give this person

You may do your best to be careful, and treat people for five years with no problems. But what are you going to do if one day things go wrong and someone is dying in front of your eyes? I am not saying this because I want people to all come and train with me. I just want people to be working with the proper skills. There are other good shamans in Gabon people can train with. In Gabon, they do not know about ibogaine. That does not matter, because Iboga has the same effect as ibogaine, only more. If there is a shaman in Gabon you want to train with, and he does not know about ibogaine, just bring him ibogaine. He will taste it and he will know.

Anyone working with Iboga, the full alkaloid, or ibogaine should train to be able to do the screening first. You do not want to work with this medicine without having the screening skills. What is happening here with this medicine is that people are working as humans. With this medicine, you do not do that. Sometimes somebody will die. Sometimes they do not get the proper treatment. It is risky to work with someone’s mind. There are two possibilities: either you do a very good job, where the person is safe, or you are going to mess them up forever. That is just the truth. Even with detox, Iboga goes everywhere, and the main place the Iboga will stay is in the mind. He wants to show you exactly where you are at, what kind of person you are. You will be working on the body, but the main concentration of the medicine is in the mind. If you do not know how to do a proper treatment on a patient, you will mess them up. How will you know how much medicine you need to give that patient? You will not know by using your own mind and thoughts, based on the information you are given by the patient. In the traditional way, we do not use ourselves or our own thoughts to do treatment. It is important that you know how to do the screening process, and that you have a special connection with the spirit of the Iboga. And third, you want to know the antidote. I guarantee you that ninety-nine percent of people working with this medicine here do not know the antidote. They do not even know that there is an antidote. You want to be able to stop a treatment if something goes wrong. If you do not know the antidote, somebody will die. This is really simple stuff to know, but until someone teaches you these techniques, you will not know.

Before learning these techniques, the first and most important step is to have a connection with the Iboga. You need to have your own personal relationship with the spirit of the Iboga. First, you need to do a pre-initiation, to establish a connection with the spirit. Then you need to train to know how to communicate with the spirit. Then you will never again decide as a human how much medicine to give your patients, because that is not the way it is done. That is the starting point. As a provider, you need to know some basic healings also. Let’s say a patient has asthma, and they do not tell you. They are on drugs, but they also have asthma. What would you do? They will die if you have no knowledge of how at least to do a small herbal treatment to hold the asthma aside for the medicine to work. If you have enough skills you can also heal the asthma. If not, you leave it alone, and the patient is fine, able to be detoxed by the Iboga, full alkaloid or ibogaine without any problem. Or what if someone does not tell you that they have epilepsy? For whatever reason, they do not tell you. If the epilepsy comes on, you are in trouble. You might call a doctor, but the doctor has no knowledge of Iboga other than what they have read on the internet. They have no knowledge of what is really going on in that person’s body. How would they stop it? They cannot stop it. These are basic traditional medical skills that as a provider, you want to learn. You do not need to become a super healer. You can be taught how to deal with these things in a short period of time. Then you learn how to screen a patient. Then you learn the antidote. Then you can work safely with patients.”

All shamanic services at the Iboga House begin with a traditional diagnosis and prescription process called a “screening”. A partial screening can be done over the phone. I am able to get a sense of the patient, of the level of their condition, issue, or spiritual awakening, and also to determine if someone has a bad spirit with them.  I will remove any bad spirits with a traditional purification ceremony before treatment begins.

Once the client arrives at the Iboga House, I do a full screening. At this time, I receive the diagnosis and treatment or journey prescription from the Iboga spirit. Iboga is able to heal anything—physical, mental or spiritual—for anyone whose body remains in its natural state. The only time complete healing may not be possible is if someone’s body is no longer in its natural state, for example, following significant surgery.

Iboga is used to treat addiction successfully, including drug, alcohol, food and tobacco addiction. I always screen the client first, to determine the level of addiction.  With drug addiction, the first thing I do is find out if the person is dealing only with drugs, or if they are also dealing with bad spirits.

I would estimate that seventy-five percent of people with a drug addiction are also having an issue with bad spirit possession. That is who is pushing them to get the drugs. If necessary, I extract the bad spirits first, and then send the person to treatment.

What Iboga does is free the person from withdrawal symptoms and completely free them from all craving. The Iboga takes the person back to the first time they started to use drugs [or another substance]. In that moment, they face themselves. They review that first day, and they confront themselves through knowing how and why they started using drugs. At that moment it is not somebody else telling them what to do. It is themselves facing themselves. It is a challenge. They will have visions, and they will be able to make a decision, whether to come back, or whether to use the drugs again. The Iboga also plays a big role in helping somebody make that decision. Once you get totally free, your mind is set to zero. When the mind is set to zero, you begin to think properly. That means that when you see the drugs again, you are able to choose clearly not to take that path again. You become a different person.

With Iboga there are three stages to the healing. I know what to do before the detox and afterward. It is not just physical, but mind, body and spirit combined. The mind and spirit need to be detoxed and healed also. I make sure that the body is clean, the mind is set to zero and the spirit is clean. That way the person leaves totally free.

Physical healings heal the human body. The problem here in the West is that we are so caught up in technology, creating chemicals to heal the body. It is not supposed to be that way. The human body is natural, one hundred percent organic. You are not supposed to take chemicals because you are not feeling good, or for a pain somewhere, whether it is in your feet or in your head. It does not matter what part of your body is not feeling good, people are supposed to concentrate on healing the body from organic plants and herbs.

When life started there was no disease. In its natural state, in a natural environment, the body would be healthy. The body has a natural defense system that responds to heal itself. You are meant to have enough strength to heal yourself. Anything that causes imbalance is human created. No disease is natural. Humankind creates disease. The human body is like a flower. Food grown with chemicals and organic food taste different. The food is affected by chemicals. It is the same with the human body. When you try to use chemicals to heal disease, your body gets more messed up. Whether to grow, or to be healthy, you do not need chemicals. You need organic stuff.

We have different therapies for physical healing. No matter what it is, we always have a therapy for it, as long as people have not been through surgeries. When the body is in its natural state, the Iboga can heal anything, by cleaning out any unnatural elements in your blood, and bringing your body back into balance.

Iboga can also be used successfully for people looking to detox their body for greater health. Under the proper guidance, Iboga will detox your body more quickly and effectively then anything else. A single Iboga detox is equal to months of tradition detox methods, and is completed without any of the withdrawal symptoms normally felt during detoxification.

There are two components to mental health: a physical one and a spiritual one. At a physical level, mental health is a result of the health of the brain. Any need to heal the brain would be addressed by a physical healing. Mental illness that requires healing at the spirit level would be addressed in a psycho-spiritual journey, where with the Iboga I am able to see exactly what is going on and to address it.

When people are suffering mentally, and go to psychiatric hospitals, the doctor has no idea what is going on in their mind. They have no way to find out. They ask you questions, and that is how they write a prescription, but they have no way to go into your mind and see what is happening there, and how to heal you. That is why people will spend five years in a psychiatric hospital. When someone can screen you, they will know what is going on in your mind. Easy. It is a onetime deal. You heal the body, you heal the soul, you heal the mind.

A psycho-spiritual journey is for someone who is caught up in past drama, or who has locked themselves on emotions. They want to totally clear their mind, and unlock themselves from drama and blocks. This type of journey can also be used to heal all mental problems at the spiritual level.

Iboga is the only tool that can really take a person back to the very beginning, when they started to have problems with drama, or blocks, or whatever it is. They have to face themselves. What Iboga does is bring all those past memories back to life. Because if somebody is having drama, it is like they are having flashbacks, back and forth. Iboga brings those memories alive so the person can see the truth about the blocks and drama. Until somebody stops and faces and recognizes that truth, they can not be free, no matter what they try to do. You have to be able to stop, look back and face all the drama and accept it. At that moment, you want to totally detach yourself from it.

Drama and emotions are pain that come from attachment. Once you detach yourself from it, you accept the truth. You look at it and recognize it: “You know what? You’ve been messing with me for a long time. And now I’m going to let you go.” We need to look at it properly, understand it, and then release ourselves from that attachment. The healing is about removing all that drama and those blocks, to set the person free.

That is the job of the spirit of Iboga. The spirit of Iboga goes everywhere in the body, into the brain, everywhere, shows you the truth about it, and puts you in the spot where you have to make a choice. At the same time the Iboga helps the person to make decisions, based on the way they feel, and what they are seeing. Everything we do in life is about choice. Iboga is not a magic bullet: “I will take Iboga today, and tomorrow everything will be gone.” No. Otherwise, it would be so easy. We are still human; we still have to do the work ourselves. What Iboga does is put you at the spot where he shows you everything about the road you have been on, and then he shows you a new road, where everything is so clear for you. What you need to do is to choose to jump on this new road, free and clear.

Iboga can transform your life overnight, if you are willing to surrender. You must be willing to completely let go of your old life. Some people, even though they choose to step onto the new road that the Iboga just gave them, continue to drag everything from their old life onto the new road. If you do not apply what you saw, and you continue to think the way you did before the journey, you are going to still have the same problem, saying, “I did Iboga, but I don’t see the result.” That is not the fault of the Iboga.  Freedom depends on the way you decide to think, what kind of decisions you make, and how you apply whatever you saw on your journey. Anyone who truly wants to shift, no matter how beautiful their Iboga journey is, must be willing to give up their old life to become free. Anything is possible with the Iboga overnight, for someone who is fully ready, one hundred percent, to let go. Are you willing to surrender yourself, one hundred percent? Let Iboga teach you and lead you to spiritual freedom.

When somebody does a psycho-spiritual journey and has a very good provider, Iboga is the best medicine for any psychological problem. No matter how bad your mind is, pills, even counseling, will never heal you before setting the mind to zero. What do I mean by “setting somebody’s mind to zero”? The mind is like a computer hard drive. We wipe whatever problem somebody has off the hard drive. The mind is like a keyboard. Every time we think about something, the brain stores it. Why do you think people get stressed out or depressed? Science will explain different ways to you, but it is whatever we think every day. The brain stores it. The brain stores everything by itself, but you have to know how to delete it. With a keyboard, as soon as we type it, it is on the screen. If you do not delete it, it will stay there. It is the same thing with your brain. Every time we think about something, the brain is loading it. If you want to heal the mind, it is not physical. You will not see it until you cross over. That is why we use Iboga. It is not just the plant itself that does the job. It is the spirit of the plant who does eighty percent of the job. That is what we need for the treatment. Psychospiritual treatment is the most dangerous kind when someone is not properly trained, but it is easy when somebody knows what to do. We set the brain to zero.

A spiritual journey is someone’s first exploration in the spiritual world. It is for someone without drama or blocks, mentally and physically clean, who is ready to begin at the starting point of spiritual awakening. 

A spiritual development journey is for someone who has been working at the spiritual level already, and wants to develop further. They do not really understand who they are, do not really know what is going on, and opening their third eye is an advancement. They want to have more clarity, more understanding. The first thing to recognize when you are talking about “spiritual”, is that you are talking about spirits. Becoming spiritual is moving from knowing about the physical world to learning about the spiritual world. Spirituality. The center of spirituality is having your third eye open.

Pre-initiation is a path of self discovery, and a preparation for the full initiation.

I determine whether someone is ready for the pre-initiation based on the state of their mind. If they have a strong mind, without any drama or blocks, I push them straight through to the pre-initiation.

The first step is the self discovery. You will know and learn everything about yourself, who you are. You can also resolve any type of problem you have in this physical world, by stepping one foot into the spirit world. The spirit world is the one in command of the physical world. It is a way to resolve any situation, to find any answers you have been unable to find. It is a way of receiving guidance from the spirit world for the physical world.  It is also a very good preparation for the full initiation. One goes through fifty to sixty percent of rebirth. One completes this rebirth in the full initiation. It is a prerequisite for the full initiation. Anyone wanting to do the full initiation should start by doing this standard pre-initiation.

Someone can also heal themselves physically by doing a “healing pre-initiation”. The healing pre-initiation is a therapy where rather than working only at the physical level, I go straight to the spiritual level to heal the person, and at the same time, the person can heal themselves. You can heal your body, and also the bodies of your relatives, by entering and fixing them. It is a fast and dynamic way to heal. This type of pre-initiation does not prepare someone for a full initiation. They must continue on to the standard pre-initiation.

The full initiation is the ceremony of a lifetime, and a full welcoming into Moughenda’s Missoko Bwiti tribe. Moughenda will be conducting full initiations during the upcoming Iboga House adventure to Gabon, and all pre-initiates are invited! Please contact us for further details.