Ibogaine Treatment Clinics

My research into the Dogon continues with a look at ibogaine use among the Dogon. Ibogaine, or iboga,  is a psychedelic from Africa that has received some attention due to its reputation as a treatment for addiction and alcoholism. It is legal in Canada and Mexico, where several detoxification clinics have sprung up. There is also an ibogaine treatment center on the island of St. Kitts, off the coast of Florida. Addiction treatment centers using ibogaine can also be found scattered throughout Europe and Central and South America. Israel has a clinic offering offering ibogaine. Even Pakistan has one.

Don’t Even Plan to Purchase Ibogaine in the United States – Unless You’re a Rodent or a Scientist

Ibogaine is, of course, illegal in the United States, where it’s classfied as a drug with potential for abuse and no medical value. In other words, you’ll bring the Drug Inquisition down on your head if you take it – or even plan to take it – on U.S. soil. In December of 2005, a Casper, Wyoming couple were arrested by the feds for the crime of planning to purchase ibogaine. continue reading »

I like the Dogon. Not only do they have a weird and suggestive history and mythology, with densely packed symbolic meanings that map well to science, mirrored in all of their routine behaviors and hand-made things. They also seem like they are really, really nice people. After reading all about their belief that amphibious aliens gave them their knowledge, it has been refreshing to read next about what they’re like as people and how they live. I’ve made my way most of the way through the book, Dogon: Africa’s People of the Cliffs. They have been dubbed the sewa people by neighboring tribes, because of their greeting rituals that always involve the response sewa. Dogon greeting rituals go something very roughly like this: How is your health? Sewa. Are you strong? Sewa. How is your mother? Sewa. How is your father? Sewa. How is your sister? Sewa. How is your brother? Sewa. Sewa can be translated as something like very good. continue reading »

Who Are the Dogon?

The Dogon people of Africa will play a role in the unfolding story of The Myth of Merula. The Dogon are a people numbering at least 450,000 who live in Mali, farming onions and millet in the Niger river delta. They have not been converted to Islam to the extent of most of the population of Mali. Their own sacred traditions, beliefs and rituals remain strong. Islam is spreading more rapidly among the Dogon of today. Chrisitianity has made only small inroads. The people live in small mudbrick or stone mud-covered dwellings, many of them on cliff walls. Weaving is primarily a craft of men, while women engage in the crafts of pottery and cotton spinning. Frequent locust plagues and droughts often mean that farmers’ crop yields are meager. Boys are circumcised. This is thought necessary to remove the female element from their genitals so that they can become men. As the clitoris is considered a male element, it is also thought necessary to excise it so that girls can become women. (Since my character, Blackbird, was adopted by an American celebrity when she was a little girl, she will not have suffered this fate.)
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I often read unusual books for the purpose of mining them for information I could potentially incorporate into science fiction. One book that I had picked up at a library sale several years ago and just rediscovered on my bookshelf is called The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. The first chapter, titled “Aquarius”, is about learning the skills that will be needed in space colonies by practicing with sea colonies on Earth first. The colonies have the added benefits of solving world hunger and world power shortages, as well as funding space travel. With so many starry-eyed ideas and names like “Millennial” and “Aquarius”, you’re probably thinking right about now that the whole thing sounds suspiciously New Age. But hold on; this book got rave reviews from renowned science fiction authors Arthur C. Clarke and Larry Niven. I’m not qualified to evaluate the engineering ideas presented in this book, so I hope that qualified readers will not hesitate to offer their critiques. Don’t knock them ’till you know what they are. With my limited knowledge, it seems to me that there are no logical or physical barriers to accomplishing the goals outlined in this first chapter – only (“only!”) social, psychological and political barriers. continue reading »