Editor's note: This is an interview that I had with Zani Chi Chi Sophia about her journey with iboga. She is a sangoma in the traditional South African medicine worker lineage and a kuchina of ixCacao. She speaks Afrikaans, so there are a few places where I have inserted a translation in square brackets like [this]. It was a very joyful interview, so I’ve also used those square brackets to include moments of laughter. Finally, I have added a couple of clarifications in the same way.

Interview with Salvia Starling

Namaste, Zani Chi Chi Sophia! How wonderful to talk to you today. So tell me, what was your life like before iboga?

Thokoza, Aloha, Camagu, Namaste! What was my life like before iboga? Hm! What life!? I just lived trauma. I didn’t have a life! I had a traumatic experience. My life before iboga was basically one traumatic cycle followed by another traumatic cycle, followed by another traumatic cycle, followed by another traumatic cycle, and it just continued to go like that for about 32 years [laughs] and it was horrible! It was horrible. I had, like, brief moments of happiness in between the traumatic cycles, but most of the time those were when I was high or on drugs or at a trance party; there was very little genuine joy. So, my life before iboga was just me being trapped in cycles that I was vaguely aware of but not really aware of, and just living a horrible repeat of traumatic cycling. It was really kak [shit/terrible]! Like, really kak! [laughs]. Yeah.

I feel you. I see a lot of myself in your story, especially with the sense of stuckness. So what drew you to wanting to work with the sacred wood?

Well, I mean, I’d heard of iboga, but I didn’t know… I thought it was only for heroin addicts, because that’s what everyone said. I didn’t know that you could use iboga for anything else except for being a heroin addict. I didn’t know that it could be used to treat basically everything! I thought you had to be a heroin addict if you wanted to have iboga. I’m quite grateful that that’s not the case! [laughs]

Ya, so iboga came in when I started my sangoma training. I ate a little piece of wood during my naming ceremony, and that’s where it started [laughs]. That’s where it started. Me and that little piece of wood went through quite a beautiful journey on the receiving of my name. It was interesting. As soon as I released the iboga, the name came. I was holding it in my mouth and it kept trying to come out and come out, and I was thinking “oh no, I’ve got to keep it in my mouth!” And then the moment I surrendered, you know, and stepped out of mind, the name came. So, what drew me to working with the wood? I’m not actually quite sure. It’s just… I came for healing and it was there. And now, it’s become my greatest ally, you know - me and Dr. Iboga! He’s such a beautiful plant medicine to work with. I really dig him!

Yes! He’s an amazing ally and friend. Now you’ve mentioned your first taste of the wood, but how was your first flood? Did it address the issues you were hoping to resolve?

My first flood was magnificent! It was just… wow. It was exactly what I needed, without knowing what I needed to need, if you know what I mean [laughs]. My first flood was just such a big recoding of the DNA. We found so many problems lying in… I want to say 5th dimension but I’m not even sure it’s the 5th dimension that iboga goes into. But it was in the different dimensional aspects of my body-being. I went so deep into myself and I found so many things that were out of alignment within my 5th dimensional energy code, and I was able to be like - “Okay! Let’s take that out; that’s better! This isn’t lekker [nice] - okay that’s better. Okay, this isn’t so good; let’s get rid of that.” And we basically scanned my body and went through all the places that were carrying trauma and took out the stuff that was keeping it there and recoded, or started the recoding of that trauma bond that was basically sitting on my DNA code and causing me to relive perpetual traumatic cycles. So I definitely, definitely got a LOT of the issues resolved. It was definitely a success. I’d say 100%! But then, you know, there’s always more.

Also, in my first flood, I walked through my initiation gates (or at least, I think I did. Sometimes I wonder.) But for me, after my first flood, I initiated. I went through the gates and was greeted on the other side. Ya, it was very powerful! I went to a place where there were millions of people before me, and they all greeted me with “Thokoza, Gogo” [“greetings, ancestor”], but then once they greeted me I was there all alone. It was very interesting to go through these gates and see all these people greeting me on their knees then all of a sudden I was alone on the other side of these gates and it was this vast expanse of existence. It was really beautiful. Yea, my first flood was really good!

And how else have you worked with iboga?

I started my microdosing course with iboga a year before I did my first flood, so I did a LOT of groundwork before the first flood. As soon as I started doing the microdosing course with iboga, I think within the first week, the plant spirit had come to visit me and been like, “Hey, Sophia! We’re going running through your psyche!” And I said, “yes, Dr. Iboga, we’re going to go running through my psyche!” Then he took my hand, and the two of us went running through my psyche. It was really a year-long process of me microdosing with the iboga, going through the psyche, finding all the things gently, already just gently opening things up before I went on the floor [for a flood]. So I did the microdosing course, one flood, another microdosing course, I streamed myself [a ‘mini’ flood of 3-6 grammes of iboga], then I did another flood, then I streamed myself again… in total I’ve done three microdosing courses, two floods, and I’ve streamed myself twice, but I now forget the order which I did them all in.

Your journey with microdosing sounds especially profound and transformative. How do you feel about iboga now?

So for me, I always struggled to find the medicines to help me. I tried all the medicines and most of them just made it worse: mushrooms, san pedro… Actually. sceletium really helped a lot. But ayahuasca and all that other stuff made it worse. It didn’t help. It all pushed me deeper into my trauma. It was very difficult for me. So for me, personally, those medicines can go sit down! Because iboga is The One. Thank you very much to them, but I have found the medicine that works for me. Sometimes in combination with other medicines, but primarily I use iboga to help recode my DNA and help me to break my unhealthy traumatic cycling patterning experiences, now being able to actually mentally observe them as cycles trying to occur again, then having the power to say “No, I’m not going to let them.” Iboga is The One. It is the singular medicine that can help me to recode and fix my damaged DNA. I have work to do! I’ve done so much already, but I’ve got more. I have to fix this damaged DNA, this ancestral spirit strand that I have been given, and for me to do that work, to do the deep recoding, iboga is the one and only. Together with ixCacao and a few other medicines, but iboga really is the primary medicine for me.

It sounds like you’ve experienced some deep healing right down into the roots of your being, right into your DNA. With that in mind, what do you want the world to know about iboga?

You know there’s a part of me that is scared to let the world know about iboga, because I feel like it would get misused, and then there’s another part of me that says we should put iboga in the drinking water! [laughs] We should put it in the water and everyone, everyone should have it! It’s just such good medicine! It really works, and works so subtly and gently [when microdosed], it doesn’t make you nauseous, it has no side effects! If you look at all these chronic medications that people are on, they have so many side effects and make people feel fucked up weird. And with iboga, you have this medicine and, with the exception of a flood, when you’re microdosing there are no side effects! Just don’t have a drink or a coffee - it’s not too much to ask. And if you do, just don’t have a drink or a coffee again and start again. It’s fine! Iboga is so gentle. It’s okay - nothing bad is going to happen to you if you have a coffee or some alcohol. It’s just not recommended. Where with some other chronic medications, if you have the coffee or alcohol, your liver might shut down, or something really bad might happen to you.

So, it’s this medicine that works on this subtle subconscious level, and it really does help with depression, anxiety, migraines, suicidal ideation, addiction, negative self-talk, self abuse - emotional and physical abuse, it helps with all of that. Whatever you’ve got, iboga can help you with it, in my opinion. I might be a bit of an iboga cheerleader! But it has helped me so much. It really has. It’s been now almost 4 years of my journey with iboga and I am a completely different person. I can’t even tell you. I’m really happy! I know what safety and happiness is now, and I never used to know those things in actuality. So, that’s that.