Iboga's Travel: questions raised by shamanic experience as a project of artistic exploration
Marion Laval-Jeantet
Technoetic Arts December 1, 2003 DOI: 10.1386/tear.1.3.181/1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Ibogaine Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that the Bwiti initiation and the resulting art project reveal contradictory aspects of globalization, which both endangers forest-based traditions and opens them to the outside world, and proposes that the experience offered an alternative way of comprehending the world. |
Abstract
Iboga's Travel is the title of a global project which was conceived after a Gabonese initiation into ‘Bwiti’. The Bwiti is one of the few secret shamanic practices forced to open itself to the outside world by the disappearance of the Equatorial forest. Its traditions remain alive in Gabon, but it has to adapt to the changes brought by cultural globalization. The Bwiti is a rite in which the sacred and revealing plant called ‘iboga’ plays a central role. It leads to visions supposed to widen the power of consciousness. Iboga's Travel can be analysed both in its political and spiritual dimensions. What questions the current globalization process is the author's very unusual presence in the Bwiti, and also when she obtained access to their traditional knowledge. This globalization has contradictory aspects, since it endangers the forest-based healing and initiation traditions on the one hand, and opens it up to the outside world on the other. This experience turned out to be a lot more than the political act that it was in the beginning. It showed us another way of comprehending our world. Making art about it was the author's own way of documenting this experience.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on ibogaine, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biosynthesis of an Anti-Addiction Agent from the Iboga Plant. | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Bioinspired Collective Syntheses of Iboga-Type Indole Alkaloids. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Fatalities after taking ibogaine in addiction treatment could be related to sudden cardiac death caused by autonomic dysfunction. Humans | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Iboga Alkaloids. II.1 the Structures of Ibogaine, Ibogamine and Tabernanthine | 1957 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Ibogaine analogues. Synthesis and preliminary pharmacological evaluation of 7-heteroaryl-2-azabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-7-enes. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |