#rejectfear

During the ceremony, Tim and I tasted bark from the iboga tree for the first time. After we took our medicine, I carried my offering through the forest until I found a tree to put it under that was particularly awesome.

Because I’ve had experiences with low doses of other psychedelics, when it kicked in, I felt a sensation that was vaguely familiar: that weird stretching of time and space that exceeds normal human perception.

What was unique for me with iboga was a profound sense of connectedness to the beauty of the world around me, and to how my own mind processed that beauty. I was able to perceive everything in my environment with high-definition detail (kinda what I imagine it feels like to be Spiderman) – every vein in the wing of a butterfly, every drop of water that flowed through the current of the river. Mentally, I experienced my brain speeding up to process my perceptions faster than I’ve ever consciously experienced before; and without any feelings of anxiety whatsoever.

This feeling of connectedness was only amplified in higher doses of the medicine, which I’ll share more about in my next posts. The sense of connection I had to the medicine, to the earth, and to my friends who chose to go on this journey with me is something that will stay with me forever. It is what we plan to share with others through SeekHealing, and what is too often missing from the modern human experience.

We came back together as a group to express gratitude and laugh together and play music in the forest for a little while. We said thank you to the forests of Gabon, where our medicine came from. We said thank you to the forests of Mexico, where we were so blessed to be hanging out in paradise. And we said thank you to the Redwood forests of California, where Tim comes from, and to the forests of the Blue Ridge mountains on the East coast, where I hail from. We jumped in the flowing jungle river together and witnessed each other’s intentions to let go of the past and embrace what the medicine was going to show us over the course of the next few days.

The photo of Tim and I above was taken as we were leaving the forest that day. He’s carrying a candle in that little lantern that we lit during the ceremony and which miraculously survived the bumpy truck ride home and burned throughout our treatment the next four days. We’re both painted in traditional colors for a banzi (an initiate to the Bwiti iboga tradition, which I’ll explain more in my next post) and having an awesome time. Tim is an incredible man with the heart of a warrior, and the bond that we built through this experience is something that will always stay with me.

I saw a Christian community that cared way more about love and healing than religious institution or methodology. I met people who had experienced spiritual encounters that they couldn’t deny, and who were accordingly passionate, authentic and full of love. I went to church services that were highly unstructured and focused on freeform artistic expression through song, dance, and visual arts like painting and sculpture. I heard a sermon from a guy with dreads. 

Most interestingly, I encountered people who had changed their lives and found healing from addiction through the faith healing practices used in the world-famous Bethel Healing Rooms. Beyond healing for addiction, I also met people who claimed to have experienced incredible medical miracles. My mom and I stayed with an amazing man named Rick Larson who was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer and experienced sustained remission after visiting the Healing Rooms. I even saw some pretty unbelievable stuff myself first-hand. 

The good work these folks are doing to help people in pain deserves notice and study just like any other healing practice. And, if you take away the dogma and ritual, it's remarkably similar in fundamentals to healing practices from other traditions. 

Faith Healing

Bethel and its congregation are part of a radical Christian denomination that identifies with the global Word of Faith Movement. They practice faith healing, which is a ritualistic practice of prayer, words and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are claimed to elicit divine intervention. The modern Christians of Bethel contend that laying hands on one another and using their words to speak in faith for healing allows the "Holy Spirit" to flow through the human body and manifest both physical and emotional healing. 

Reiki Healing

To be honest, the practices I witnessed reminded me a lot of Reiki - just a lot louder and with fewer rocks. Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. Reiki healers believe that they can manipulate how life force energy flows through bioenergetic fields (also known as “auras”) by focusing intention through touch, words, and the use of the programmable crystalline structures found in many natural geological formations. By doing so, they also manifest physical and emotional healing in believers.

Placebo-Effect Healing

Of course, the scientific community has its doubts about both Reiki and Christian faith healing - but it also has interest in understanding the reported success of such treatments, as well as some preliminary findings of its own. Science has long demonstrated the power of the placebo effect, be it through the Law of Attraction, neurolinguistic programming or otherwise, to create actual results and alter the personal experience of pain and/or other symptoms. Even if faith healing is a hoax, medical doctors, neuroscientists and psychologists alike agree that spiritual faith practices like prayer and community realize measurable benefit to the human body. Recent neuroscientific research also suggests that verbal articulation of your desires and intentions (i.e., with words) triggers neurolinguistic memory functions, making it more likely for you to be able to remember and act on that intention later. 

What all three have in common

Since all of these things produce tangible results for healthier bodies and brains, I think it’s worth (neutrally) exploring their basic elements for inclusion in any successful healing practice, whether you identify as Christian, Reiki, Bokononist, atheist or otherwise.

As far as I can tell, there are four core practices used in each of these apparently very effective healing practices:

1. External objects/symbols 

Christianity: Biblical scriptures, wine & bread 

Reiki: Crystals 

Science: Metaphor, mnemonic tools, placebo effect 

2. Physical touch 

Christianity: Laying on hands for prayer & divine communion 

Reiki: Massage, and laying on hands (palm healing) to move energy 

Science: Hugging correlates to release of key neurotransmitters 

3. Verbal reinforcement 

Christianity: Prayer, speaking in tongues, word repetition 

Reiki: Use of mantra, use of verbalizing thoughts to speak to the subconscious 

Science: Neurolinguistic programming, Law of Attraction 

4. Social connection 

Christianity: Group healing, often performed in circles around a sick person 

Reiki: Reiki circles (Reiki Mawashi) 

Science: Bioinformation analysis on the effects of social isolation 

I’ll add that I’m not without skepticism for any of these practices: I’ve met a lot of Christians, at Bethel and elsewhere, who tend to be close-minded and socially exclusive. I’ve also met Reiki practitioners who are far more concerned with being seen as someone who can practice magic than in objective observation of practical healing techniques. And I’ve been equally disappointed in scientific explanations that leave no room for the unexplainable and the clearly cognitive power of human intention that we simply don’t have a way to measure (yet). 

Call it magic, call it the holy spirit, call it a neurolinguistic programming or a placebo effect, call it whatever you like - humans from different cultures do all kinds of things to facilitate legitimate physical healing in each other. The human brain and body has more power to heal itself and others than we admit to ourselves, or have yet figured out how to measure. 

The above principles that are common to these practices clearly work. We have to learn how to destigmatize them and make them available to people who have serious healing work to do in order to free themselves from addiction.