Iboga: The Visionary Root of African Shamanism

An introduction to iboga, the West African root at the heart of the Bwiti tradition of Gabon — long associated with initiation, healing, and contact with the ancestors. The book carries the subject from its cultural home toward a Western readership.

Iboga brings together the voices of a French novelist, a Bwiti initiate, and a researcher to present the plant from several angles at once. It introduces the Bwiti religion and the role of iboga within its ceremonies, the history of how the root reached the West, and the contemporary interest in its compound ibogaine. The account is part travelogue, part ethnography, part testimony — naming the tradition and letting its practitioners speak rather than prescribing the practice.

• Author: Vincent Ravalec, Mallendi & Agnès Paicheler
• Publisher: Park Street Press
• Published: 2007

About the Author — Vincent Ravalec, Mallendi & Agnès Paicheler

Iboga is a collaboration between French novelist and filmmaker Vincent Ravalec, the Gabonese Bwiti nganga (initiate-healer) Mallendi, and researcher Agnès Paicheler — a pairing that lets the tradition be described both from within and from outside.