Author, Performance Artist, Holistic Life Coach

Elizabeth Bast was originally brought to the iboga medicine to help treat the opiate relapse of her lover and then her own PTSD, but the medicine gave the couple much more than they anticipated. Bast shares how their healing journey with the iboga medicine and Bwiti ceremony also helped to radically deepen and purify their intimate relationship. This is not only a love story between two people, this is a love story between humans and plants. Bast also explores: Why is it important to come to the medicine as apprentices—and not just consumers? How do we respect these profound medicines, the indigenous people, and the earth as we partake of their healing gifts?

Elizabeth Bast serves as a writer, poet, yoga and meditation teacher, performance artist, healing artist, musician, and holistic life coach specializing in entheogenic medicine integration, addiction recovery, and women’s empowerment. Bast studied at New College of San Francisco with an emphasis on Art and Social Change. Bast is the author of HEART MEDICINE: A True Love Story, a memoir about a healing experience with the sacred Iboga medicine. She has experienced the Missoko Bwiti initiation and Rite of Passage in Gabon, Africa, and is currently in an iboga facilitator training with the Bwiti tradition. She studies the medical safety aspects of iboga treatments with Jamie McAlpin, R.N., of IbogaSafe. Since 2007, Bast has co-created with artist Chor Boogie, producing numerous collaborative works of visual and performance art at galleries, museums, and special events. She is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Elizabeth is a recipient of a Women of the Psychedelic Renaissance for presenting “The Evolution of Our Intimacy: An Iboga Medicine Love Story” along with her lover, Chor, at the Spirit Plant Medicine Conference, Vancouver.

Elizabeth Bast dancing with Missoko Bwiti women in Gabon, Africa

“For the sake of all, women's voices are an essential element in the balance and efficacy of the psychedelic renaissance.” – Elizabeth Bast

Elizabeth Bast by Ariana Cosmos