125 | The Iboga Experience: Cautions, Guidelines, and Game-Changing Prep Advice w/ Leo Van Veenendaal
“If you’re going to work with Iboga, don’t rush it. Take it slow, get clear, and make sure you’re really ready for it. It’s a long-term investment in your life.”
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In this episode, Lana chats with Leo Van Veenendaal, author of The Iboga Experience, about his profound journey with Iboga and the insights he’s gained from his personal experiences and the research he conducted for his book. Leo shares his unique perspective on Iboga, its role in healing, and the importance of preparation, integration, and guidance when working with this powerful plant medicine.
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Topics Covered:
Leo’s Journey with Iboga: How a transformative Ayahuasca experience led Leo to discover Iboga and the deep shifts it created in his life.
The Role of Iboga in Healing: Insights on how Iboga functions as a powerful tool for personal transformation, healing, and uncovering blind spots.
The Challenges of Writing About Iboga: Leo discusses the process of writing The Iboga Experience, navigating cultural sensitivities, and helping others understand the diversity of Iboga experiences.
The Importance of Preparation & Integration: Leo emphasizes the necessity of setting clear intentions and preparing properly for an Iboga ceremony, as well as the long-term integration process.
Iboga’s Influence on Other Plant Medicines: How Iboga has shaped Leo’s experience with other plant medicines, including his observations on the unique energy it brings.
Lessons from Bwiti Tradition: Reflections on the spiritual teachings of the Bwiti people and the importance of patience, wisdom, and taking a long-term perspective on life.
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Things Mentioned in This Episode
Show Links:
Iboga Integration & Prep Coaching (NEW-now enrolling)
Psychedelically Informed Life Coaching (6 Month Program)
The Iboga Experience: Stories from the Sacred and Secret Plant That Saves, Heals, and Transforms Lives (Available on Amazon)
Recommended book on Bwiti tradition (by HW Fernandez)
Where to find Leo Van Veenendaal:
About Leo Van Veenene:
Leo is the author of The Iboga Experience, a collection of interviews with people whose lives were transformed through Iboga. The book, the result of years of work, was published in 2023. From 2022 to 2024, Leo trained in Amazonian shamanism with a teacher of the Cocama lineage and now co-hosts healing retreats alongside his mentor. He was initiated into Iboga in Gabon and continues to study medicinal plants. In his spare time, Leo is currently building a retreat center and off-grid, regenerative farm in the mountains of Peru.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
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Lana Pribic: Hi Leo. Welcome to the show.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Hey, so nice to see you. To meet you.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. I'm so excited to talk to you today because you wrote this amazing book, the Iboga Experience, which
Leo Van Veenendaal: Oh, thank you.
Lana Pribic: devouring and just, I'm just so happy that there's a more modern, recent text about Iboga available now, because a lot of the stuff that's been written about it, at least in books, is a lot older, so thank you.
Leo Van Veenendaal: No, you're welcome. And I wrote it because when I had my Ebo experience, there was no good literature out there to help people.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: yeah, that was the intention of the book. If I could help one person have a better experience, then it was worth writing the book.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. It's full of so much sound advice, which we're gonna get into. But I was wondering, I already sent you an Instagram message about how much I loved the opening paragraph, but would you be okay if I just read it out loud here on the air for people listening?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, of course. Go for it.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Okay. 'cause I think it's such a great intro, [00:01:00] to the medicine and to. Your writing style and to who you are as well. You wrote, iboga is a hell of a plant, a mind-bending soul, healing, psyche splitting titan of a plant. The experience is likened to more than 100 ayahuasca ceremonies in one journey. It has the power to drag someone through their own underworld, physically, mentally, and spiritually. help someone alchemize their regular reality to become more closely aligned to their own personal dream. It is a plant that is used for those who need to be saved, whether that be from their own traumas, their mind, or addictions. Ebo is best seen as a technology, a plant, with the capacity to enable someone to confront their own hell, which they might be inadvertently living in, and assist them to claw their way out of it. So good.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Oh, thank you.
Lana Pribic: So just as I'm reading that back to [00:02:00] you, what comes up for you around the medicine, the experience of writing this book? Is there anything that's surfacing for you right now?
Leo Van Veenendaal: It took a long time to write the book like over two years, and I had a lot of battles to write it that the people I was initiated with were initially very anti me writing anything about
And it took maybe two or three years of building their trust, of supporting them, supporting their organization, and helping them.
And then eventually I got their approval and it was a really wonderful experience in writing the book that I really helped myself integrate and understand my own experience through talking to so many different people. And I interviewed probably 30 or 40 people and I think 25 interviews made it to the book.
So there was a huge range of experiences that I found really helpful in understanding my experience and then also I think will be helpful in other people with their experiences too.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, [00:03:00] certainly. Certainly helpful for the integration process to just about how long the Iboga experience can be from the prep to the integration that is years, a lifetime long sometimes. And you mentioned some of those hurdles that you had to overcome, the challenges getting permission, being in alignment with your teachers. Can you share with us a little bit about what that process was like and some of those challenges you had to face to, just get this book out here in a way that felt ethical and in alignment with you.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure thing. The main issue was about preconditioning people, and I write in the book that sharing visions or sharing experiences too soon can actually be detrimental to other people. That it can be almost like emotionally or energetically purging on other people. Oh my God, I had this wonderful experience.
Hear all about it. And people kind of throw their experiences onto others. [00:04:00] And I ended up convincing them that it was a good idea to write the book because there was so much myths and so many like unfair stories, about Iboga out there. And my argument was, Hey, if I write this book and I make it with respect and I make it with reverence to Iboga, but with the intention of saying, look at the huge range of experiences, like there's 25 people's interviews in the book and they're all different.
They all had such different experiences. And if I interviewed 500 people, there'd be 500 different experiences. And I think that was the key thing to say, Hey, I'm actually not preconditioning people, but I'm showing them that, okay, the whole range of experiences is massive. And in my own personal experience, I was really upset that I didn't have the movie of my life, that I didn't have the repeat of my life in slow motion and see all the major events, and I felt like I'd failed.
And, through interviewing people, maybe five or 10% of people see the movie of their life. So it's really [00:05:00] not common. And then a lot of people don't have visions. Some people have just like a talking therapy session. Some people feel a lot of feelings. Some people have a comatose experience where they're just blacked out for the duration of the ceremony.
And all these things are normal. And I didn't know that going into it. I was like, oh, I'm gonna see the movie of my life. I'm gonna see the future. I'm gonna get total clarity and direction. And I didn't really get any of them. Yeah, the book for me was a process of helping remove preconditioning and also showing people the range of experiences, whilst also providing a text that would help people prepare and integrate the experience.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Perfect. I love that take because yeah, every experience is so different and an individual, and yes, that's true with every medicine, but Iboga has such a direct teaching style that I think that uniqueness of each individual experience is just amplified even more with this medicine.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Big time.
Lana Pribic: [00:06:00] Yeah. Yeah. So let's take it back to, leading up to you discovering Iboga 'cause that's an interesting story too. So what were you with before you decided to do Iboga, and what was that journey like to get that full body? 100%. Yes. I'm doing this. Let's do iboga.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, so to rewind to how I started with plant medicines. I first drank Ayahuasca in 2016 and before that I had been suffering from IBS, really bad stomach issues, anxiety and depression. And I tried everything from a Western medical perspective. I worked with five different specialists in Australia and nothing worked.
And I went to Peru the first time in 2016 and drank ayahuasca. And in the first ceremony she told me, I'm going to fix your gut, but your real work will start with Iboga. And I was like, what [00:07:00] the heck is Iboga? I've never heard of this thing before. And it was a very clear voice that came to me in ceremony when I was very still.
And the next morning I was talking to my friends, I'm like, Hey, have you guys heard of this thing called I boggy, like Ebola iboga? And they were like, oh yeah, it's this west African plant medicine really strong, like a West African Ayahuasca. And I was like, oh, okay. And I was initially quite scared and, was researching it as best as I could for two years.
And then had a reference from someone to work with Tatio in Gabon. And then, so I waited two years from drinking Ayahuasca in 2016. And in 2018 I went to Gabon and worked with Iboga. And at the time I just finished my master's studies and my mind was a mess. I would say I had, chronic depression probably from the age of eight or 10 years old, and anxiety as well.
And maybe 98 out of a hundred thoughts in my head were negative, depressive, [00:08:00] anxious, self-limiting thoughts. And then after working with Bulger, it's maybe now like one in 200 that Iboga just totally cleaned the slate of my mind. And if it was a raging ocean before of darkness, it became like a very still clear lake.
And now when a dark thought comes through or a negative depressive, anxious thought comes through, I can identify it and disarm it. And. It'd be like, oh Leo, you drank alcohol last night. You had a fight with someone. You didn't sleep well. You ate junk food. That's why you're feeling bad. And it really gave me peace of mind, which then set me up to do everything that I'm doing now.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Beautiful. so interesting that Ayahuasca. Said that to you.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah,
Lana Pribic: What are your thoughts on how these various plant medicines, especially the psychoactive, psychedelic ones, like how do they work [00:09:00] together? How do they not work together? What's going on there? Like how does Ayahuasca know about Iboga?
Leo Van Veenendaal: it's a really good question and it bends the mind to think about it. My explanation is that I think in a ceremonial space when we're really still and very open, all sorts of things can come through. And that might be old emotions, it might be old experiences, it might be old friends, might be.
Friends or parents that have passed on. But I think when the space is open, the spirits or the energies information that needs to reach us can come through. And for me now I work primarily with Coca Ayahuasca and San Pedro. They all take me to a similar place. It's like a different freeway or a different highway to get to the same place of open-heartedness, open-mindedness, the realm of imagination and receptivity.
And yeah, I think once we're still open, relaxed, lots of things can come through.
Lana Pribic: Okay. [00:10:00] Interesting. You worked with Iboga and Gabon for the first time. How long ago now? How? How
Leo Van Veenendaal: That was in June, July of 2018,
Lana Pribic: Okay.
Leo Van Veenendaal: so six years or seven years ago. Yep.
Lana Pribic: okay, perfect. And have you had any subsequent journeys with Iboga or has, was it the one
Leo Van Veenendaal: Just the one. So I had the full month long initiation in Gabon. And within that there was a few ceremonies beforehand, like not the main event and then the major flood dose initiation, and then a few other ceremonies. I joined and took, a microdose afterwards, but I haven't worked with Iboga since then.
Lana Pribic: Okay.
Leo Van Veenendaal: And Tatio, who was my initiator, or the priest who facilitated the ceremony, he says that once you eat iboga, it's stamped onto your DNA and you can connect with it anytime. And when I was writing the book, I would often listen to wiki music, smoke tobacco, and would feel iboga. Like it would feel like, oh, [00:11:00] this feels like I've taken a microdose.
And I think that's the power of having that connection with iboga and then also setting that intentionality, listening to music, really relaxing. That the memory can come back up, the feeling can come back up and we can connect back to that state. And I definitely felt its presence in many points in my life, like guiding me to places, keeping me safe and things.
So although I haven't taken it since 2018, I definitely feel Iboga quite often.
Lana Pribic: Mm. Man, that Bwiti music is enough to trigger it sometimes, isn't it?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, big time. I love it though.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: enjoy the music. Yeah,
Lana Pribic: I like
Leo Van Veenendaal: I,
Lana Pribic: A lot of people have a lot of people. I. are very resistant to it and are like, oh my God, I'm so happy ceremony's finally over. But yeah, it's something special. So you mentioned that you still feel the presence of Iboga
Leo Van Veenendaal: yeah.
Lana Pribic: today, six, seven years later.
In what ways do you find that it's still [00:12:00] working with you? Still with you, still a part of you guiding you?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. So in 2018 when I was looking for a job after I just finished my master's studies. I went to a conference looking for a job as an engineer. And this is a good example because this very clear voice came into my head and said, go to the left side of the room. I was like, oh, okay. Like left side of the room.
All right. And then it's go to the middle and sit to the next to the person with dreadlocks. I was like, oh, okay. Like, all right. And so I had to make my way all around the room and I ended up sitting next to a guy with dreadlocks and he offered me a job. And then I had a great job working with his company for 18 months.
I was like, ah, okay. That was Ivo. And then recently it comes through in ceremony with ayahuasca, probably one in five, one in four ceremonies. I'll feel iboga come through, and it's not ayahuasca visions, but very clear iboga visions, which for me manifest as hyper cartoon-like hyper [00:13:00] colorful and like explosive visions.
And I'm like, oh, okay. Iboga ISS here tonight. What do I gotta learn?
Lana Pribic: I've heard that that, yeah, Ivo can come like hijack other plant medicine experiences. Interesting. Wow. So powerful that Yeah, it like your teacher said, it's stamped into our DNA. I've personally also had where I was like on. MDMA actually, and it was a couple months leading up to my next iboga ceremony, and I was like, I was feeling the energy of the medicine.
It's a very specific energy that you can tap into. How
Leo Van Veenendaal: Very distinct.
Lana Pribic: yeah. How would you describe that energy when it comes through, even when you're not actually eating the wood?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, so I think important to say, this is my experience and it's not gonna be the same for everyone. And it's a reflection of my mind and how I work, but it's very direct, it's very clear, [00:14:00] like hyper clear. It'll be like one liners or like just seeds that get planted in my mind that it super clear. And then in ceremony it's hyper visual.
It's like, oh, okay this looks identical to when I was eating iboga, like hyper cartoon, like hyper visual hyper colorful. And I'm like, oh, okay. Iboga is here.
Lana Pribic: Wow. It's almost like it, it unlocked in you. Like
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, big time. I think for me, I think of it as a very positive masculine kind of archetype. And it's very direct, very protecting, very clear, doesn't tolerate bullshit for one second. But at the same time as a great teacher, and I don't see it as sure it can be, like, there's this kind of phrase that it's the stern stepfather, like the marine stepfather that comes in is clean your room, start exercising, get your shit together.
But for me it's always been fair and it's always been, yeah, you're right. Okay.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. And do you find it to be funny [00:15:00] sometimes, or
Leo Van Veenendaal: hilariously Brandon. Yeah.
Lana Pribic: It's a funny one, right? I
Leo Van Veenendaal: yeah,
Lana Pribic: realized how funny Iboga can be.
Leo Van Veenendaal: yeah. Big time.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. There's something about the simple direct clear truth that like when it hits us, it is funny 'cause we overcomplicate things so much that once we like really hit onto the truth of something, it's like, oh yeah. Hilarious. How simple it actually is. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. A good example of how funny and twisted in a way Iboga can be was I can share about this vision. ' cause I write about it in my book. Growing up I had a big fear of like homosexuality and being like gay myself growing up in like Australian macho culture and for a long time in ceremony, iboga was just showing me.
Endless homosexual images like erotica and the forces of chaos and evil manifesting as two men, making love to each other for eternity. I was like, oh my God, iboga like, please stop. I Bo's until you get over your judgment, [00:16:00] like you're gonna sit with this. And I was like, okay.
Until I could sit with it and not feel any judgment and accept lovers love. I had to sit through these like quite graphic images and then after it, it's like, okay, this is the intelligence of Iboga. After it made me make peace with a lot of judgments that I had. It then showed me the collective pain of the 1980s and 1990s with the AIDS epidemic.
And I was like, okay, look at the pain these people have gone through. Look at like in terms of modern tragedies and modern catastrophes, there's few things more heartbreaking in the AIDS epidemic. Like people just feel the confidence to come out. They start celebrating their culture, they start feeling love and being accepted by society.
And then a, a horrible plague virus comes through that kills all of their friends. And Berg was like, sit with that. Stop judging it and sit with it and open your heart to like just how sad that is. And I was like, whoa.
Okay. All judgment removed and heart opened. Thanks. [00:17:00] Iboga.
Lana Pribic: Wow. Wow. That's so intense. And there was a woman in your book that also talked about how there was, I think it was the woman who's, she was processing her father's death and she just
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, Reliving the grief of it over and over and over again.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Seems to really, yeah. Seems to really amplify. That thing that we need to look at.
Leo Van Veenendaal: yeah. Big time. And I think it's one tool that Iboga has to use and maybe three or four people that I interviewed had a similar exposure. Therapy kind of approach from Iboga. And I had the same experience too, that my greatest fear was being separated from my family and that I couldn't live with them and that like I would lose them.
And so Iboga made me sit through entire lifetimes of being without my family. And it was like waking up every morning, tending to a fire, reading a book, walking to the beach for 60 years. [00:18:00] And I would wake up and watch my hands get like older and more aged. And then when I got to about 65, 70 years old or something, it would restart and I'd be taken back to me 25 years old.
And until I made peace with okay, I'm fine if I'm not with my family, then yeah, the vision continued until I was finally at peace. And it was very liberating for me because a lot of the projects I wanted to do and a lot of the things I wanted my life, I had to have distance from my family and travel to a different country.
And it gave me the freedom to do that. So exposure therapy is a big one that, maybe 10% of the people in the book experienced. But I think if someone does have a big fear or really traumatic experience or memory, it's a way that it works through it and very powerful.
Lana Pribic: Wow. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense with it being, yeah, a medicine that asks us to confront our own fears, like simply just by making the decision to sit with iboga, we're overcoming a lot of fear, but just [00:19:00] teaching us to face our fear to be with it and then find the peace on the other side.
Makes a lot of sense. When I was reading about that part of your journey, going through, like cycling through that fear over and over again, . I was curious about whether that was all within one ceremony or were you constantly going through that, like after the ceremony, while you were doing other things?
Leo Van Veenendaal: It was primarily during the main ceremony and then maybe it lingered in dreams and like meditative thoughts afterwards, but most of the work was done within ceremony.
Lana Pribic: yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: had a question for you about fear around Bulgar. I had a huge amount of fear before I got to Gabon and was, I didn't know any close friends that had worked with Iboga.
I had no idea what to expect and a lot of fear, but the second I took the microdose, all fear just evaporated, and then I never felt fear going through it. Did you have a similar experience with [00:20:00] fear and. Being relieved once you ate the wood, or how did it present to you?
Lana Pribic: Yeah, no, for me, I was pretty much nervous. While I was there at the first fire and then the medicine came on, it was very strong and I felt like I was spinning the spins. I think that's like a common thing.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: I think I was in the fear until I was strapped in and I had a sense of what the experience was gonna be like until I
Leo Van Veenendaal: Hmm.
Lana Pribic: Connected with what the energy of the medicine was like.
I think I was in a little bit of fear. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yep.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Because we did get yeah, Levi did give us like a microdose. I forget it was if it was the day of the ceremony or the day before, and I don't think that, yeah, I don't think it evaporated the fear for me.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. Okay.
Lana Pribic: yeah,
Leo Van Veenendaal: Different,
Lana Pribic: yeah, for sure. For sure. So [00:21:00] you went to do your initiation in Gabon. What about that? Can you share with us, 'cause I know a lot of it's like private and secret and not meant to be shared, but what can you share with people?
Leo Van Veenendaal: sure. So I can't share any of the specific rituals that are done, but I will say it's a very thorough cleaning with many different plants and herbs and rituals that are done in like the week or two leading up to the ceremony. The ceremony itself, like the main event was very intense, and for me, the visions lasted five days continuously.
And I didn't sleep for five days. And then I had persistent kind of traces and other kind of psychedelic distortions for maybe six months afterwards. And I left Gabon, at four weeks feeling very like not, I wouldn't say sad, but very broken, like all the bullshit in my life had been stripped [00:22:00] away.
All the things I was holding onto, being stripped away. And I really didn't know, anything. And I was very lost. And I went there with a very specific intention of, okay, what should I do for my professional career? Like, where should I go? I've just finished my studies, what should I do? And I had three potential areas of, okay, I'm either gonna go work in recycling engineering for like plastics.
I'm either gonna go and work in cannabis engineering, or I'm gonna go and do standup comedy. And I got no clear answer because the question was a really bad one, and I didn't work with a coach, and I didn't work with a counselor beforehand to really set a good intention because, I look at my life now and it's working with plants and Iboga was kinda like, Hey, that's a really silly question.
That's not any of those three things you're meant to do. And if you're not open to hearing what the answer is, then I can't tell you.
Lana Pribic: There's such an art to asking the right questions for [00:23:00] Iboga, and I think that's where the value of working with a coach is because I had an experience during my first ceremony where. I remember the day after the ceremony, I went and I looked at my list of questions and I was just like, was I thinking?
Like this is just so missing the point,
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: seemed ridiculous to me. And I think where we trip up with our questions for Iboga, as can be seen with your questions, is that we try to buffer the answer into the question itself. So it's like, what should I do professionally? It's either this, or this, and it's like, no, it's iboga.
Just like blast your consciousness open to such a high level that you can't even perceive what the answer or that path forward for you
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah,
Lana Pribic: be. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: totally. And I think, if I reflect, how does Iboga work across the people I interviewed, what I see it as as two things. One [00:24:00] is it's a circuit breaker, and so all the kind of habitual patterns our minds get into all of our daily routines just get broken. It's like a hard reset on that. And the other one is, it highlights blind spots.
And so that combination of like, okay, wiping the slate from. What behaviors are we engaging in? Then being like, Hey, look at this old behavior or this hidden thing, this blind spot. Look at how this is controlling your life, or look at how this is affecting all your actions. And that combination of revealing a blind spot and then giving your mind a blank slate.
Iboga is not doing the work for you. You have to have the courage to say, yep, I'm ready to face this thing. I'm ready to make a change. I really wanna make a change. But that combination in my perspective is the miracle that it's okay, fresh slate, blind spot. Total freedom.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. And then the other side of it is also filling that space, right?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: side to Iboga, that's like also [00:25:00] about, it's the cleanser, but it's also an accelerator in terms of giving that guidance and sense of purpose going forward. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: You mentioned that the time after your initiation was quite challenging.
You were feeling ungrounded, and if I'm not mistaken, this went on for quite a while for you.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yep.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. You know, Common, super common. I have a whole podcast episode called like when things, sometimes things get worse before they get better working with medicine. And that's the disappointing truth when people are desperate and just wanna feel better and they're like, I don't wanna do something that's gonna make things worse.
But, sometimes for a while it does. So tell us a little bit about how you navigated that to offer some hope to people listening who might also be navigating that. Like, how did you stay grounded in that trust that [00:26:00] ultimately you had to go through this challenging period? Or did you even have a sense of that?
Did it feel like you were never gonna get out of it? Yeah. If you could just share more about
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure. At the start I was very worried. I was like, oh my God, I've broken my brain. I'm so ungrounded, I dunno what's going on. And I had no friends living in Australia that had worked with Iboga, so I had no one to cross reference it with and check it with. And, for one or two months it was, deep despondency like, oh my God, I've.
I've really ruined things, but this very clear voice came to me, which was have faith and just keep going. And for me, that looked like meditating every morning. At the time I was doing transcendental meditation going to the gym, going for runs, exercising, like taking care of the body, eating well. And at about the six month mark, I was really still not feeling back in my body.
Like I was still quite out there. And it's important to note that I took a very big dose of iboa. [00:27:00] Like my ceremonial dose, I share about this in the book was 14 spoons, which is about five grams of spoons. So I call it like 70 grams of iboga root bark from a very old tree,
Lana Pribic: Oh my
Leo Van Veenendaal: which is a huge dose. Like
Lana Pribic: Wow.
Leo Van Veenendaal: I think people can have profound transformative experiences with very small doses, like five grams, 10 grams can be plenty, can be a huge amount.
And then the big dose I took, I have total faith. My life has turned out well now, but. That six months afterwards was not easy. And one day I called Tatiao and I was like, Hey, I'm really not feeling okay. Would it be okay to sit with another plant or work in another ceremonial space? And he's okay, what are you thinking of?
And I was like, oh, I think I might do some LSD, go to the beach and just really connect with myself and tune in. And he was like, sure, if it's high quality LSD, it's been six months, go for it. And that for me was what really brought me back to Earth. [00:28:00] And I had a day of just smiling, being my body, being in nature, letting my brain kind of itself with LSD, and then after then it became much easier.
So my broad advice to people is to have faith to just continue with the practices that they know are really good for them. Whatever it is, like making art, exercise, meditation, eating well, being with friends and family, being in nature. And then, at the kind of six month to 12 month mark, I think it's appropriate to start working with other medicines again, but
Don't rush into it.
I will share this. I have a very close friend who was initiated at the same time as me, and he was running an ayahuasca retreat center and went back to serving Ayahuasca a month or two afterwards. And for him, his process was much more drawn out and probably much tougher than it needed to be because he started working with other plants too soon afterwards.
So I think it's a good lesson that it's can be a really tough time period, but it's a really [00:29:00] long-term investment in yourself. Like changing the trajectory of your soul is not easy work and takes a lot of sacrifice and hard work and also faith and trust and. I'm prone to wanting to blast back off into ceremonial psychedelic space, but it was a good lesson just to take it slow and to really give it at least six months to integrate the experience and just keep going.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Beautiful. That's definitely a reminder that I need right now. 'cause summer's coming up, festival season is coming up. I'm like, what's this gonna look like? And I'm really curious to explore a more sober lifestyle for the next six months. And I'm so happy that you were able to really tune into what you needed the LSD and to come back to yourself and, yeah.
You mentioned that even though you didn't go in with the strongest, clearest intention. you wish you had worked with a coach or something [00:30:00] before to really clarify your intention. It sounds like you still got what you needed,
Leo Van Veenendaal: Oh, big time. Yeah.
Lana Pribic: And like it was a really profound experience for you. What do you have to say to people listening who feel disappointed by their iboga experience and feel like they didn't get much from it or anything from it?
Leo Van Veenendaal: I would say there is a time to be disappointed if the facilitator really didn't do a good job, didn't care for you, didn't follow traditions, and didn't make you feel safe. I'm not gonna discredit someone's experience of feeling, Hey, I'm disappointed. That's a very real thing. There's a lot of cowboys and cowgirls working in the industry that haven't had the training.
So yeah, that is a real thing. But for someone who has worked with a great facilitator, for someone who has, done the work, done, the preparation has really given it their best. Give it time and. It is a very common thing that it takes 10 years to understand the first experience. [00:31:00] And for me, I felt, disappointed and frustrated.
I would say for maybe two years after that, the first experience in 2018. And that's normal. Like now, looking back seven or so years later, extremely grateful and I can see the greater pieces of the puzzle coming together. And I don't feel like I've fully understood it yet, my experience, but at the same time, I have immense gratitude and that's shifted with time.
So my thing is that, Iboga will give us the experience we need. Maybe not the experience we want, but it will give us the experience we need if we prepare well and treat it with respect and go in with a good intention. And just to have faith, to take a very long-term perspective, to take a 10 year, 20 year perspective and try and zoom out, which I think a coach or counselor or therapist can be great for.
It can be very easy to get stuck in the monkey mind. And just ruminate and be disappointed, but yeah.
Lana Pribic: Beautiful. Beautiful. I know that there's lots of [00:32:00] people listening who just felt a sigh of relief. Hearing those words. You mentioned again and again in your book, both in your own narrative and through the people that you interviewed about the importance of securing prep and integration support.
Can you talk to us a little bit about why this is particularly and uniquely important when working with Iboga and maybe what people should look for in prep and integration coach or therapist and, when is a coach better? One is a therapist better? That was a lot of questions, but I
Leo Van Veenendaal: Oh, okay.
Lana Pribic: handle it.
Leo Van Veenendaal: I'll do my best. So I think primarily having a coach, therapist or counselor to help you through the experience is great because they can hold the bigger picture. And for different people working with say addiction issues or substance misuse and then someone just working to try and cure depression or really be inspired in their life, a coach or counselor can be great to hold that bigger [00:33:00] picture and to zoom out.
'cause we can get stuck in like the monkey mind of feeling frustrated, feeling disappointed, feeling exhausted, feeling just, done with things and having someone who's on your team and can be like, you know what, I have no dog in this fight. I have no agenda. Apart from helping you have the best experience is totally, it's invaluable.
Like you can't put a price on it. And for me, sure it might be expensive, but it's probably the best investment you can make. If you think of your bogar as really serious business and something that can change the trajectory of your life, paying an extra, I don't know how much cost a thousand, $2,000 to have someone to really help you make the most of it.
Incredible. I probably one of the best investments someone will make and. What else would I say about that? I think it's also really important to have a therapist, coach or counselor that has worked with a similar intention or issue that you are bringing to Iboga. And so let's say I'm going in for depression, I'm going in for anxiety and working with [00:34:00] someone who primarily works with people addicted to heroin, probably not appropriate and vice versa.
So I think it's a really good question to ask the person that you are consulting with, okay, have you worked with Iboga? What was your intention? Have you worked with similar clients who have had similar intentions to me? And then what's your current relationship with Iboga like? Are microdosing it, are you integrating a big experience?
Are you preparing for a second experience or something like this? I personally wouldn't work with a coach or counselor that hadn't worked with Iboga themself. And I would really look for someone that has a very similar. Intention and experience is to what I'm going in with. And I think that's really important 'cause it's very hard to help or heal someone or be, really effective if they don't understand the issue on a personal level themself.
Lana Pribic: Beautiful. what do you think about. someone be better served by a coach or a [00:35:00] therapist? What do you think about that?
Leo Van Veenendaal: I think it really depends on the issue someone's going in for or the motivation behind them. I don't wanna say all therapists are great, all coaches are great, all counselors are great. It's really case by case of finding someone who feels good to you and someone you can trust. Someone you feel like you could cry in front of, someone you feel like you could throw a tantrum in front of and they would understand and someone that you really feel safe around.
And sure, we can go technical and say, okay, if someone is dealing with treatment resistant depression for multiple years and they're on different medications, a psychiatrist might be best or a therapist might be best. But I think it's case by case. Finding the right person for you and finding the right person who understands your issues, who you trust, who you feel safe with, and then having a good connection with them.
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Similar to finding a good provider for yourself,
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yep.
Lana Pribic: such good tips about in your book. Yeah. I would almost say, okay, hear me out. I almost feel like the [00:36:00] prep is more important than the integration when it comes to iboga. Partially because as a psychedelic culture, we're so primed at this point about the importance of integration.
We have a handle and a grasp on how important it is, but also because. I feel like the thread of integration is easier to follow, as in there's an aspect of integration that's gonna naturally unfold and you're gonna naturally be asked to step into, prep is like, it's a little bit more grueling, it's a little bit more like, you have to force yourself to do it and to put that work in beforehand. So we'd love to hear your thoughts on that and the importance of prep with Iboga specifically. And then also just the prep process and what you recommend for people who are preparing for a journey. How far in advance should they be preparing? What are some of those like non-negotiables that they should be looking at?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. First of all, I will say preparing [00:37:00] with substance misuse or substance dependency is very different to preparing for psycho-spiritual growth. So two totally different things. And my experience was not with addiction or not with substance misuse. So I don't, I go into that in the book a bit from a medical and, what's essential perspective, but my experience personally has been with psycho-spiritual growth.
So I think the best way to say this might be that iboga is going to slow you down afterwards anyway, and I. It's gonna make you reassess your life and reassess the direction you're going in, and put the brakes on things that aren't in alignment for you. So integration will take care of itself, provided that you have someone to keep you accountable, to help you through it, and you take that longer term perspective.
But the preparation is really where the money's at. And for me, I prepared for two years. I was meditating a lot, doing a lot of yoga, trying to set my intention, working with a close group of friends to set my [00:38:00] intention, not a professional. And I was also doing a lot of boxing, which I would not recommend for head trauma going in before working with Iboga.
And I think the more someone can sacrifice and the more someone can invest into their experience beforehand, that's gonna amplify 10, 20, a hundred times in their experience. And if someone just casually, you know, let's take an extreme example oh yeah, I heard about Iboga at a house party last weekend.
I've got a facilitator who can host it next weekend. Don't waste your time. That's recklessly dangerous. Yeah, huge
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: red lights, red flags, everything going up there. But someone who says like six months, 12 months, 24 months to really prepare. Fantastic. And I think for me, there's two main variables. The first one would be, okay, do you feel healthy and strong?
And it's a different thing if someone's coming in for addiction or for substance misuse, but do they feel healthy, strong, and like, okay, I'm really feeling in a good position and I think that's great. [00:39:00] So exercising, doing whatever it is that makes you feel great. And the second one would be like, okay, I've got my intention.
Like I'm really clear. If I had to ask iboga one question, like I had to go really deep on one thing, what is that? And when that's crystallized, I think that's a really good time to be like, okay, I feel ready.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I love in the book how you talk about starting broad. Then narrowing it down. That's been my exact prep process, at least for this last journey that I did, was just keeping like a big list, the months leading up to ceremony of all of the things that I wanna take to the retreat, and then, finding the themes, the commonalities between them, trying to really get down to the root of what's going on uh, yeah.
A good way to start figuring out what is that core, core intention. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. Yeah. And I think once that core intention is clear, then it's a green light.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: And another important thing to say, [00:40:00] I talk about this in the book, that you shouldn't feel like you're forcing it. Like it shouldn't feel like, oh, I have to do this. Like I'm really working hard to make this happen. Almost everyone I interviewed in the book said that.
The right time is the perfect time. That things will really align on almost every level to come through perfectly. And it might be that, okay, I booked this six months in advance, or I booked this three or four months in advance, but the finances will be there. Or I know I can take the time off work and I feel like I'm in a good place in life.
And it is quite dangerous when someone is really forcing it. And I think, it's a position of luxury to say, oh yeah, take it slow. Don't don't rush into it. But yeah, when you really feel a green light within yourself, then I think that's a good indicator.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. It's intuition medicine, right? It teaches us to connect with our intuition. And you know, a lot of people say, a lot of people in the book say too that you interviewed, like the medicine's already working with you. I [00:41:00] think a part of that process is like you're learning to listen to your intuition.
Notice where that funky energy is, where that force is, where that um, Where maybe even that ego voice is coming in and teaching you to really make those decisions based on Yeah. Intuition and going with the flow of the energy.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. I think another thing I love about your book, you guys, if you haven't realized I'm like, I'm such a fan of this book and I think everyone considering working with Iboga should go pick it up. The other thing I really liked about it is I think that you did a great job of appropriately scaring people away from working with Iboga. Because it's such a big medicine and it should be really pursued only by people who are truly called. This isn't like something you can do casually. And so what are, yeah, what are some of those [00:42:00] cautions and warnings and things that people should be thinking about before sitting with Iboga?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. Okay. So one is medically, for someone coming from a place of substance misuse, it can be quite dangerous. And the early statistics about Iboga were that one in 100 people die whilst working with Iboga. And I don't think that's accurate for a second. I think that's a reflection of the first clients working with Howard Lotof in New York, ages ago in the seventies and eighties.
And that was people coming in primarily from heroin addiction. I. And so people with, poor diets, chronic deficiencies in different places, not with a strong heart, not exercising. And I interviewed multiple facilitators that had held ceremony or facilitated for over a thousand, 2000 people that had never had a death.
When people do meet the proper safety requirements, they do have a healthy heart, they're in a good place physically, IEB can be remarkably [00:43:00] safe, provided the dose is not reckless and crazy. So that's one thing to think about. And then in terms of other warnings, I really try and encourage people that there's a lot of other great plant medicines and other great modalities to try that can probably solve problems or really help someone without having to go right off the deep end.
I. And a lot of people say to get in touch with whatever your ancestral traditions were. So if someone's, Celtic, get in touch with Celtic Traditions. If someone is, belonging to a native culture, explore them first and then whatever is local and familiar to you because, I Bora is fantastic, but it's also, as I say in the book, the Plant for someone who needs to be saved.
And it's not something to be taken lightly. And I think there can be tremendous growth in other places. It's having chemotherapy to have a haircut. Like it's just doesn't make a lot of sense to really go off the deep end unless you really need to. And if someone really does feel the call deeply, then I think it can be fantastic.[00:44:00]
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Beautiful. And I wanna take it to back to your own personal experiences for a little bit. How connected are you, to the Bwiti tradition and the teachings of the Bwiti? And have they, has that been an aspect of working with Iboga that's been guiding you and stuck with you or not so much?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, so when I was in Gabon I was really trying to learn as much as I could and learn quite a lot. Then again, it's quite limited on what people are allowed to share with others that haven't consumed e bogger. But I will say this, there is a fantastic book by HW Fernandez about Bwiti and you can order that from Amazon.
It's quite expensive. It may a hundred dollars or something. But for someone who is interested in ti, that's the best resource. So
Lana Pribic: Wow.
Leo Van Veenendaal: have a copy of that book.
Lana Pribic: something about
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure.
Lana Pribic: How was that book allowed to be written? Because Bwiti is meant to be an oral tradition. Did this person have to go through a [00:45:00] similar process? Do you know anything about
that?
Leo Van Veenendaal: I'm not sure about the process they went through, but I've had multiple elders tell me it's very accurate. For someone who is interested, I can recommend that book. But again, I would say it's probably best to learn about Bwiti when someone has eaten Iboga. And so for people that have Hadi Bogar and been a, have met Iboga, I think it can be a great resource, 'cause we can't all speak French and live Gabon and receive oral transmissions, but it can be a great resource for people who are interested and have met Iboga already.
Lana Pribic: Wow. On my way to order that book that.
Leo Van Veenendaal: It's a big one. It's it's 500, 600 pages
Lana Pribic: Wow.
Leo Van Veenendaal: through with diagrams and explanations and the whole law behind it. It's terrific.
Lana Pribic: goodness. Is it like a dense read? Is it like heavy and hard to read, or is it just
Leo Van Veenendaal: It's fun to read. I would say that if you like really Likey Iboga, it's fun to read. But yeah, it's not so easy.
Lana Pribic: Okay. Interesting. Okay, [00:46:00] amazing. And is there anything about the Bwiti way of life? You call it a cultural technology in your book,
Really like. Is there anything about Bwiti that really guides you or you work with or that's really impacted your life?
Leo Van Veenendaal: For me, I would say it's taking a really long timeframe and I have to be careful with what I can share here. But it's taking a super long timeframe on issues I'm facing, on personal relationships, on goals and dreams. And that for me is what I really like about bti, and Tatiao says that bti, as its core is how to be wise and how to be happy.
And
For me, a lot of my problems come from short term thinking, getting stuck in the mind, getting stuck in frustration or projection and just zooming out and taking a much longer time perspective. For me is the essence of being wise and being happy. Like not stressing out the small stuff, not getting upset about everything that [00:47:00] goes wrong, but trying to understand the greater wisdom of life that kind of flows through things and there's something guiding the longer story.
Lana Pribic: Take it slow. One step at a time. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And. How has working with Iboga influenced and impacted your relationship with other medicines? Because you live in Peru, you're quite the medicine man working with lots of different plants, ayahuasca, different Amazonian plants and diets.
So yeah. How has that, Levi, I don't know if the, he said this when you interviewed him, but he says this at retreats often, that Iboga makes other medicines more effective. So curious to hear about your thoughts on that and just how it's shaped your relationship with the other plants.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure thing. So I did a three year apprenticeship in the jungle with my primary teacher who is Koma and Alco, two small ethnic groups of the upper Amazon. [00:48:00] And he at the start didn't understand what plant I'd worked with. He was like, there's something different about you, like the way you process medicines, the way you connect to plants what is it?
And I was like, oh, okay. I did this initiation in Gabon. I cleared my mind. I'm much more open and receptive. And he was like, ah, okay. And he had never met Iboga, and he told me that often in ceremony he will see Iboga working through me and coming out in my voice. He's like, this is a plan I've never seen before.
I've never met before physically, but I will hear it in your voice and I will hear it like when you're talking to people that's coming through. So I think it is stamped in my DNA. It is part of, the spiritual person that I am or the identity I am, and I think to make it more objective and scientific, my mind is quite still and my mind is quite happy, which makes working with other plants easier and it makes [00:49:00] things more grounded and more stable.
If someone is meeting any plant medicine from a place of security and stability, they're gonna have an easier time than someone who's bringing in a lot of their baggage and demons with them.
Lana Pribic: Basse. Amazing. this teacher of yours had met you. He had worked with you before Iboga and after Iboga, and he noticed the difference, or
Leo Van Veenendaal: No, I met him in 2022. So what's that, four years after working with Iboga.
Lana Pribic: But he recognized a very particular essence within you.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah. And he really likes it. He says it's a very supportive, great spirit, which is nice to know and he wants to come to Gabon with me next year or the year after,
Lana Pribic: Wow. Will he
Leo Van Veenendaal: which will be fun. Yeah, for sure.
Lana Pribic: Wow. Oh, that's so exciting. That's so exciting. And tell us a little bit about your current work with plants and what you're doing, what you're working on what's going on with you?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure thing. So [00:50:00] at the moment, I've just finished building a house here in Peru, and at the start of the year I was serving medicine just from my living room to friends and family. And had great times. My teacher came and visited and we served medicine together. His name is Armando. And yeah, I got a very clear message to wait until I built my temple to serve more medicine.
And that kind of makes sense. People don't serve medicine from their living room. People don't serve medicine from their kitchen. You need a dedicated space. So at the moment saving up to build a temple, I'm still holding ceremony for myself in my house just to connect in. But yeah, I'm primarily working now with cocoa and tobacco in San Pedro and I have, a great blessing to have very good teachers here in Peru.
So still learning, still taking it slow. I had an internal rule that I didn't wanna serve medicine until I had 10 years of experience at drinking medicine. Just that, there's enough [00:51:00] one in a hundred experiences with people that you can be like, okay, I know how to handle really tough experiences.
I know how to help people through the toughest stuff. Because a lot of people start serving medicine too early. Like it's a pretty common thing here in Peru. People do one diet for one month, three months, and then start serving medicine, and they're probably gonna be fine for eight out of 10 people. But those one in a hundred or one in 10 experiences, there's no way to skip the homework.
You have to sit in ceremony, watch how teachers handle it, watch how masters handle really difficult people, and then yeah, put in the reps.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. And there's a lot of that in the Iboga world too, where people are really rushing to serve. This medicine without the apprenticeship and it freaks me out.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, I think of it as brain surgery and. Or brain or heart surgery. And you can work with someone who has, done the equivalent of studying at Harvard or Johns Hopkins [00:52:00] or Oxford University with a really good teacher for say, 10 years and they've done their homework. Or you can work with a phlebotomist, like someone who just serve a big dose of medicine.
They'll play some kind of music, but it's lobotomy. It's really just not doing anything productive long term. And I think working with really great teachers, working with really great facilitators is so much more valuable than just working with anyone. So I say to a lot of people, take it slow.
Be really certain you wanna work with this person. And then treat it like brain surgery. Okay, if I was having brain surgery, would I want a great surgeon who spent 10, 20, 30 years working studying? Or would I take someone who you know, has just done a one month crash course?
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good way to think about it. there's a lot that can go wrong, unfortunately with the medicine. Not even just medically, but also, yeah, psychologically
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: around providers who [00:53:00] know how to handle the depths of that psychological depth that you enter within yourself. I heard you say being the spiritual person that I am, and I also heard you say on another podcast that you were atheist before. So
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: about that. Do you not identify as atheist anymore? What was that journey like for you?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, sure. So I was, grew up in a loose practicing Catholic family in Australia. Both my parents fell into atheism towards later in life. And then I started, studying engineering and became very materialistic. I. And it was in 2016 when I first worked with Ayahuasca. I went into ceremony very disrespectful.
Like just, okay, I don't care about any spirituality, I don't care about any of these customs. I don't care about any of these traditions. I just want to fix my gut. I just want to get healthy and I'll do whatever it takes. And the very first night that I drank [00:54:00] ayahuasca, I had two experiences. I was pretty much dead sober the whole night, but I saw this white light flying around the space and it flew in front of my eyes.
And then it flew around the room and then it flew back into my left ear and out my right ear. I was like, whoa, what the heck was that? It was like a bright white vibrating light. And then it came back around and flew in again and like my whole body lit up and until I worked with you bogus. So for two years after that first experience, anytime I would like really relax and roll my eyes, in the back of my head, I would feel that white light.
And I was like. Okay. That for me is pretty undeniable proof that there's more to this reality than just a material physical plane that something in ceremony can, like a white light flies around and then I feel it for like months, years afterwards. What the heck? Anyway, I asked the Sharman I was working with at that time, what was that?
And he said, oh, it's Cupid. I was like, [00:55:00] Cupid like this, that little angel cherub that shoots arrows. And he's like, yeah, spirit of love. He's like, you needed to learn love for yourself. And I was like, okay, that's nice. but when I worked with you Iboga, Iboga is like, that is black magic. That is very tricky territory to shoot love into someone, even if it's their own self-love.
And I can share that one of the first things I purged was that white light and hasn't happened since.
Lana Pribic: Interesting.
Magic because it's something that's coming from outside of yourself or,
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, I think black magic is for me to do with consent and I didn't ask for the spirit of love to enter my body. I didn't ask for that. I was desperate for healing and open in that way. So it's
Lana Pribic: interesting.
Leo Van Veenendaal: territory. It's legally ambiguous as to what it is.
Lana Pribic: ceremonies can get messy. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, big time. And I think it was helpful for me at the time, like it did teach me self-love, [00:56:00] but very weird thing.
I don't know how to make sense of it and Iboga cleaned it out. So Iboga is great at cleaning out those kind of weird things we pick up or weird things we experience in ceremony. A few things are better.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Oh yeah. I know. I always describe myself like pre iboga. I was a spiritual mutt, as in I was just like right, you get it. Like spiritual mutt, just like looking for answers anywhere and everywhere.
And then after Iboga was just like, clear all of that away. Focus on what, you know,
Leo Van Veenendaal: hmm.
Lana Pribic: on what's true, lean into the mystery and know that it's a mystery and you probably aren't gonna figure most of it out anyways.
And that's why it's a mystery.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, big time. And I would just say something quickly on that. I think that's a really important phase of the journey that we have to try different things and be like, you know what? I really like this thing. This thing really resonates with me. Ugh. Can't believe I did that. [00:57:00] And it's important for that first, however long it takes of being like, okay, I'm gonna try whatever I can, whatever I feel called to, whatever I feel safe in.
But then ultimately, some point down the path. I think it's really good to choose a particular lineage, to choose a particular teacher, to choose a particular medicine and work primarily with that.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: So no judgment from me, but also good to start thinking, Hey, what do I want to do longer term, rather than just running around to lots of different experiences.
Lana Pribic: Totally. And I think we're probably running around towards different experiences because we are finding that medicine or that lineage or that spirituality, spiritual lineage, that does resonate with us. And I have definitely found that in, in Iboga and, weirdly Kana as well. I don't know if you know that one,
Leo Van Veenendaal: No, I haven't heard of it.
Lana Pribic: African medicine too.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Okay.
Lana Pribic: so wild that I ended up resonating with the African plants. When I first started with medicine work, I [00:58:00] really was like, yeah, like Amazonian medicines and exploring those and yeah, it's just, it's interesting. You gotta be a, you gotta be a mutt for a little while to, to explore. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, I think that's important. I think if we don't have, parents or ancestral lineage to guide us, it's a kind of free for, it's a beautiful time of your life that we can, try iboga here. Seriously. We can do different meditation practices. It's wonderful. But I think longer term we have to start being like, okay, this is for me.
That's not for me. And start narrowing down.
Lana Pribic: Definitely. Yeah. And Iboga definitely helps with that compass orientation. Leo, is there anything in the book that you wish you included that you want people to know?
Leo Van Veenendaal: Good question. So I did my best to be as comprehensive as I could be at the time, but then I've learned stuff since. So one thing I would really recommend to people is magnesium supplementation. I was talking to a few different facilitators and they said that their theory [00:59:00] behind people having heart issues in ceremony, a lot of it is due to magnesium depletion.
Magnesium supplementation is a really good thing to consider in the months or years leading up 20 boger ceremony. And there's many different types of magnesium. There's magnesium L three eight, which crosses the blood-brain barrier. There's magnesium glycinate, which is really good for the body and muscles.
And then, there's lots of different types to use. So I would, have a very strong section about the benefits of magnesium supplementation. I think that's great to do. Very cost effective as well. I think it's also important to talk with the doctor. And have medical screening for nutritional and mineral deficiencies.
And again, potassium is a really common deficiency. I think 80% of US adults are potassium deficient, so very easy to correct, like eating bananas, taking supplements, and then also, like vitamin D, magnesium, all these sort of things which are very common but quite easy to correct. Like you can correct them within a few months.
And I think that just helps [01:00:00] with the general health going to ceremony and then also acts as an insurance behind the very small risk something goes wrong. So easy to do and quite good. And then I would also put something in about phone usage. I think in a broader context, it's good to have at least a week of kind of a soft dopamine detox before going in.
So really limiting phone usage, like trying to keep it to the bare essentials of say, half an hour to an hour a day maximum. And then, not watching tv, not watching movies, this kind of stuff like really trying to give the brain. As much of a reset as you can before going into it so that you are coming in on the smoothest, easiest kind of platform that you can to do the deep work and dive in.
And that would be the three things I would add. So magnesium supplementation, checking for vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and then also a soft dope men detox in the weeks leading up to iboga.
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Yeah. God is in the details. Those are
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, big time. It's like those little kind of 1% or five percenters can really add to,[01:01:00]
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: someone feeling safe, but also having the physical health to dive really deep.
Lana Pribic: Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Magnesium for every, I feel once you hit 30, you just gotta get on the magnesium for everything. I swear by it. But the last retreat I just went to mate, Mexico, have you heard of them?
Leo Van Veenendaal: I did. After hearing about your experience, I.
Lana Pribic: They're a bit newer, but doing amazing work. She actually had magnesium IVs available for people during retreat, which was just so clever.
And hopefully something we start seeing more with the retreats.
Leo Van Veenendaal: I haven't done that personally, but it seems like a great move.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Is there anything else you wanna share before
Leo Van Veenendaal: I think we covered quite a lot. Maybe
Lana Pribic: went all over.
Leo Van Veenendaal: I would say that I'm looking forward to working with Yvo again. I waited as long as I could. It's been, I felt the call now for the past two years or so. Like it came in [01:02:00] dreams to me. So eating iboga and dreams, having iboga visions, and it's oh, all right, here we go. And I've been praying and asking Iboga, Hey, just give me, a year, two years to really get on top of my life to get everything organized and then I'll be back.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: And, this next initiation for me, the intention is starting to crystallize. I think it's gonna be about dreams and visions and bringing visions to reality and the strength and power behind that. But again, the vision's not crystallized. So it's not time just yet. So I've got a bit more time.
Lana Pribic: Something there about creativity and being a creator perhaps.
Leo Van Veenendaal: Yeah, I think so. I think dreams and visions and learning how to bring cool things to reality,
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Love that. Love that. So let people know where they can pick up the book, the Iboga Experience, stories from the Sacred and Secret plant that saves, heal, and transforms [01:03:00] lives.
Leo Van Veenendaal: On Amazon is the best place to purchase that. I'm also working on an audiobook, which will be out in, three or four months, but for the time being, Amazon is the easiest place to find it.
Lana Pribic: Amazing guys. It is an incredible book. I picked up the hard copy 'cause I knew that it was one that I was just gonna keep going back to throughout my personal work with Iboga. So yeah, if you're considering it, if you're integrating it, if you're just curious and wanna learn more. incredible book.
Leo, thank you so much and thank you for sharing
Leo Van Veenendaal: No, thank you so much. It was an absolute delight and I'm wishing you the absolute best on your Iboga journey and I think you'll do very special cool things. So thank you so much for this opportunity.
Lana Pribic: Thank you so much. Yeah. Excited to see what comes. What's next for both of us? We'll see. Yeah.
Leo Van Veenendaal: indeed.
Lana Pribic: All right. Catch you, everyone in the next episode.
