About Root Healing

Our mission is to promote and provide safe, effective, and holistic healing experiences centered around Iboga. We are dedicated to supporting indivRoot Healing exists to set the global standard for Iboga retreats that are safe, effective, and true to the tradition the medicine comes from. Our aim is simple: that anyone, anywhere, can work with Iboga inside a container that actually holds them.

One belief sits at the center of everything we do — safe and holistic is not a trade-off. People are usually asked to choose between a sterile clinic and an authentic ceremony. We don't accept that choice, and nearly seven years of consistent retreats with over 1,000 people held directly is our evidence that it was never a real one.

Our work is guided by five core values.

Tradition — We follow the Missoko Bwiti rituals and wisdom that developed in direct relationship with Iboga over thousands of years, recognizing the inseparable link: "You cannot have Iboga without Bwiti, nor Bwiti without Iboga."

Safety — Guest safety is never compromised. We run rigorous pre-arrival medical screening, our team holds clinical emergency certifications including BLS and ACLS, medical professionals lead evaluations and on-site monitoring, and we follow time-honored Bwiti practices that carry their own safety architecture.

Study — Bwiti is "the study of life itself," and we hold ourselves to it. We commit to continuous learning through research, updated protocols, ongoing training, and collaboration with practitioners and clinicians in the field.

Equitable Access — We believe healing with Iboga should be accessible regardless of financial status. Our US retreats are held through two 501(c)(3) nonprofits — Bassé Root Church in Connecticut and the Missoko Bwiti Alliance in Oregon — and we offer scholarship pathways, a last-minute list, and committed community spaces as further routes in.

Reciprocity — We give back to the Bwiti communities in Gabon, the original guardians of Iboga, through direct financial support, volunteering, ethical sourcing, protection of the lineage, and supporting Bwiti voices outside Gabon.

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Root Healing offers boutique Iboga and ibogaine retreats grounded in the Missoko Bwiti tradition and supported by modern medical research.

We hold retreats in the United States — primarily in Connecticut through Bassé Root Church, and in Oregon through the Missoko Bwiti Alliance — as well as in Europe and Mexico, alongside hybrid and virtual care for people at any stage of working with this medicine.

Across those locations we offer our Traditional Iboga Retreat and other specialized programs like detox and neuroregenerative.

Every program pairs lineage-led ceremony with ibogaine-grade medical safety — continuous EKG monitoring, advanced emergency equipment, and an experienced team — alongside complementary therapies that support integration.

Unlike high-volume clinics serving 150+ patients a month, our core team personally holds the container for each guest. The relationship and the depth of the work are inseparable here.

Safety at Root Healing is anchored in the field's most advanced medical protocols available, and it is the one thing we will never trade away.

Every guest begins with an extensive intake and medical review led by our medical team, including comprehensive cardiac and contraindication screening before arrival.

On site, we use state-of-the-art safety technology — a 12-lead EKG monitor and defibrillation, running on a professional cardiac-monitoring platform configured specifically to the demands of Iboga work rather than left on generic default settings — with monitoring sustained before, during, and after each ceremony when necessary. Our team holds clinical emergency certifications including BLS and ACLS, the advanced training for managing cardiac and other life-threatening emergencies.

This medical foundation works hand-in-hand with the Missoko Bwiti tradition, whose facilitators carry safety practices passed down through thousands of years of ceremonial work with Iboga — and who are trained in life support themselves, so the people holding your spiritual container are equally prepared if your body needs them.

There are no handoffs between departments. Facilitators, medical staff, and support team work as one unit, present with you through every moment.

You cannot have Iboga without Bwiti, nor Bwiti without Iboga. The Bwiti tradition is the language Iboga speaks — the ceremonies, the safety practices, the integration, the way a person is held — all of it was built by and with the medicine itself over thousands of years, and none of it can be swapped out for a clinical framework without losing what makes the work transformative.

We deploy Bwiti somewhat as a clinical setting deploys a framework like IFS or CBT — a coherent, structured approach with specific tools and methods. The parallel ends there.

Clinical modalities pathologize. They locate the problem inside the person as a disorder to be managed, and place healing outside them in the hands of an expert, building dependency rather than connection to self. Their outcome data is far weaker than their cultural authority suggests.¹ And for most of the people who come to us, those systems are part of what wounded them — the conditions and relationship to self that created the suffering cannot be the thing that frees them from it.

Bwiti works in the opposite direction. It treats each person as whole rather than broken, returns authority to them, and reconnects them with what was always there. It is adaptive and emergent rather than dogmatic — it meets you where you are instead of fitting you into a predetermined model.

This is not a fringe stance. Animist and shamanic traditions were the framework the overwhelming majority of our ancestors lived within.² We are not reaching for something new. We are returning to how humans have always healed.