Learn · On The Joe Rogan Experience
Eleven clips from The Joe Rogan Experience, from 2014 to 2026, in which Joe Rogan and his guests talk about ibogaine: a Marine back from war, the author Michael Pollan, a chemist who sat in ceremony in Gabon. Each clip comes with the exact words and where they were said.
Clips from The Joe Rogan Experience, used with permission. Joe Rogan and his guests speak about ibogaine in general; they do not refer to or endorse Bwiti Life.
Before you watch
Iboga (Tabernanthe iboga) is a shrub of the Central African rainforest. In Gabon its root bark has been taken for generations in Bwiti, a spiritual tradition of initiation, music and fire. Ibogaine is the main alkaloid in that bark, isolated in a laboratory and given as a purified salt, usually in clinics. When the guests below say ibogaine, most of them mean those clinics.
At Bwiti Life we work with whole iboga root bark, held in ceremony by practitioners trained in Gabon in the Missoko Bwiti tradition, with a physician on site and a written medical protocol. The difference is explained in iboga vs ibogaine. Both act on the heart's rhythm, which is why screening comes first: how we protect your heart.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
“Ibogaine is the best one to start out with because ibogaine has zero recreational use. It’s zero. It’s not fun. Nobody likes it. It’s not a good time. … You freak out for 24 hours, but when you come back, you’re a different person. And if you’re willing to do that, if you’re willing to do that, you can change. You could do a lot of fixing, all that’s, and also maybe even more importantly, be aware of what these little traps, these little, these little deeply carved grooves that your consciousness seems to comfortably slip into over and over again, whether it’s alcoholism or gambling or whatever it is, it seems to just shut those down.”
Rogan on why ibogaine is no party drug, and on the habits of mind he says it can interrupt.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
“Not only does it help eliminate the addictive properties and the connection that your body has to those substances, but it also allows you to re-examine why you went down that road in the first place. … I know so many people that have gone to Mexico and gone to these clinics and done one ibogaine session for 24 hours and come out of it a totally different person, come out of it with a complete new perspective on even why they were using whatever they were using in the first place.”
Talking with chemist Hamilton Morris, Rogan describes the people he knows who travelled to Mexico for an ibogaine session.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
“Yeah. Ibogaine is another fantastic drug for dealing with addiction. I have a good friend who had a back injury and got hooked on pain pills and had a real problem and really couldn’t kick it. Went to Mexico, did ibogaine, … He’s just a different human being. When I talk to him, he’s just like so at peace and just a different guy. He knows himself in a different way.”
One of Rogan’s earliest mentions of ibogaine: a friend who went to Mexico after years on pain pills.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Joe Rogan Like, did you get counseling for that? Did you, like, how did you…
Dakota Meyer I went to Mexico.
Joe Rogan What was in Mexico?
Dakota Meyer Um, I went down and I did ibogaine. …
Joe Rogan How was that?
Dakota Meyer It gave me my life back. I mean, it gave me my life back.
Dakota Meyer, a U.S. Marine and Medal of Honor recipient, tells Rogan where he went after coming home from war.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Joe Rogan The way I’ve heard it described is that it’s ruthlessly introspective. It’s like it makes you see things that maybe you’ve been avoiding thinking about.
Dakota Meyer Yeah. I mean, look, we all know, if we all sit down and we truly want to see it, we all kind of know why we are the way we are. Everything adds up, right? Like, it’s just like we don’t want to, we don’t want to face it. Um, and ibogaine makes you face it. Like, you’re gonna sit there and it’s gonna keep you there until you’ve seen enough of it.
Later in the same episode: why the night is described as a review of your own life.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Taylor Sheridan What is it now?
Joe Rogan Ibogaine. Do you don’t know what that is?
Taylor Sheridan No.
Joe Rogan Ibogaine is a, it comes from the iboga tree in Africa and it is this very potent psychedelic that has no recreational use at all. … You go into this very dark experience for like 24 hours where it like replays your life to you in a very uncomfortable way and also somehow or another rewires addiction in your brain.
Rogan explains to the creator of Yellowstone where ibogaine comes from and what the long night involves.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
“I think the difference in ibogaine versus DMT, DMT is ego-dissolving and very hallucinogenic, and you see these amazing visualizations. Ibogaine seems to not have that, but instead be deeply, to the cellular level, introspective. And there’s some sort of a physical action that happens in the way your brain looks at addiction changes pretty radically.”
Rogan on how ibogaine differs from DMT: less a light show, more a look inward.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Joe Rogan What about ibogaine? Did you look into that at all?
Michael Pollan A little bit. Ibogaine is a psychedelic from a root of a tree that grows in Africa. And it has been used specifically to treat opiate addiction. …
Joe Rogan He had a back injury, got hooked on pills, was really struggling to get off them, went to Mexico to do ibogaine, got completely off of it.
The author Michael Pollan answers Rogan’s question, and Rogan returns to his friend’s story.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
“I actually, for the first time, went to an iboga ceremony in Gabon in December of 2019, and it was incredible. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. … A big part of the ceremony is fasting, sleep deprivation, various feats of endurance, dancing for 12 straight hours, continuous, extremely loud music, continuous socializing.”
The chemist Hamilton Morris describes a traditional village ceremony in Gabon. Read more on the Missoko Bwiti tradition.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Michael Pollan I mean, including ibogaine, where you really should have a health examination before you use it.
Joe Rogan Why is that?
Michael Pollan Well, ibogaine has shown some— this is an African shrub that is a psychedelic used in Africa for a long time.
Joe Rogan Which is apparently phenomenal for people with—
Michael Pollan Opiate. Yeah.
Joe Rogan Yeah, yeah.
Michael Pollan So, because in addition to giving you the psychedelic experience, it removes the craving for opium. … However, the medical advice is you should be on a heart monitor the whole time you’re using it, because it can lead to various cardiovascular events. And so it’s not as benign as some other psychedelics in terms of the physiology.
Pollan on the heart risk, and why screening comes first. See how we protect your heart.
The Joe Rogan Experience ·
Joe Rogan I texted him on Friday about ibogaine, and I was telling him how there’s all these vets.
Luis J. Gomez That’s a hallucinogen?
Joe Rogan This is the one the vets use. So they’ve had to go to Mexico to get this. … It’s called ibogaine.
Luis J. Gomez Synthetic, like acid?
Joe Rogan No, no, no, it’s from a plant. It’s from the iboga tree. And this one thing that they do is not recreational. … And you have this, like, very weird experience where it goes over your entire life and shows you, like, in every detail why you’re like this and why you do this. … And I said, I told him about it. I said, how effective it is. And I said, you know, and it’s been held up for so long. And he said, what are you looking for? Are you looking for FDA approval? He goes, it sounds good to me. He said, let’s do it. … That one is a really good thing for everybody because addiction is a huge problem, and ibogaine is one of the most effective treatments for addiction that they’ve ever found.
Rogan recalls telling the President about veterans who travel to Mexico for ibogaine, in a passage on the executive order. Included as part of the record; Bwiti Life takes no political position.
The clips are short edits of longer conversations: an ellipsis (…) marks a cut, and filler words were left out of the captions. Episode dates are those of the first release. The views are those of the speakers; they are not medical advice.
