#11 — Not Outsourcing Redemption to a Plant with Jeremy Weate

In this episode of the Iboga Leadership Summit podcast, Ryan Rich speaks with philosopher and international development consultant Jeremy Weate about what it means to bring the Bwiti tradition into contact with the mechanisms of modern medicine, policy, and commerce without losing its soul.

Jeremy traces a journey that began on a London bus in 2004, when a chance conversation sparked a calling that led him to Bwiti and Iboga. Already living in Nigeria and immersed in Yoruba spiritual culture, with its trickster figures, its sacred groves, and its own plant medicine lineages, he found himself drawn inexorably toward Gabon. His Bwiti initiation in 2016 left him with humility and a deepening recognition that the knowledge stemming from Iboga is embodied, apprenticed, and unfolds over time.

Jeremy speaks candidly about his experience on the board of a Vancouver-based Ibogaine company during the height of the psychedelic hype cycle; a lesson in what happens when commercial intent outpaces authentic grounding; and about the open letter, “A Practitioner Statement,” published by Psychedelics today, which he has helped catalyze in response to the recent AFI executive order, raising urgent questions about the risks of routing Ibogaine through a hyper-commercialised American medical model. 

Central to Jeremy's thinking in his current engagement with the Iboga-ine landscape is the question of reciprocity, understood as something that must begin in ceremony and in the unglamorous work of listening. Drawing on his professional background in mining, he argues that just as any significant project ought to begin with acknowledgment of the spirit of a place, meaningful engagement between the West and Gabon around Iboga must start from a clearly defined relationship, not revenue streams.

"Reciprocity begins with ceremony and storytelling in a circle. No levers of hierarchy, no ‘us and them’. We're all sitting around the fire together, just listening to each other."

At the Iboga Leadership Summit, Jeremy is looking forward to continuing this conversation about how the field can hold its ambitions accountable to the spirit, the lineage, and the communities that have always been the true custodians of this medicine.

The Iboga Leadership Summit is hosted by Moughenda and the Bwiti community in Gabon, bringing together physicians, pharmacists and providers, neuroscience researchers, farmers and agricultural technicians, students and community leaders, lawyers, policymakers, environmentalists, and all those called to Bwiti, Ibogaine and Iboga.

22–28 June, Libreville, Gabon. Details and tickets: https://ibogaleadershipsummit.com/

Sacred harp: Papa Boussengue. Podcast producer: Ros Stone