Eamon Armstrong - Iboga, Ethics and Rites of Passage

In this episode, Kyle and Joe interview Eamon Armstrong, host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival. In the show, they talk about Eamon's Iboga experience, the festival culture, rites of passage, ethics and more.

3 Key Points:

1. Eamon Armstrong is the host of Life is a Festival, a podcast promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture.
2. Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols.

3. Rites of Passage can look different for everybody, they can look like going to Africa to be initiated in an Ibogaine ceremony, to attending Burning Man.

Show Notes About Eamon

• Eamon is the host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival
  • It's not about festivals, it's about how to make life like a festival
• Eamon is very passionate about mental wellness
• After graduating college, he felt very lost
• He was throwing mushroom tea parties, making electronic music with his friends
  • The key to throwing a mushroom tea party is to have people drink less mushrooms than they think that they're drinking, everyone just thinks they are tripping harder than they were
• He went to Burning Man in 2010
  • He started working in social media for Burning Man's off playa events
• Psychedelics and harm reduction became core to their editorial voice
  • He worked closely with Psychedelic Peer Support, Zendo, Kosmicare, etc

Ibogaine Experience

• Eamon attended an Iboga retreat in Gabon, Africa, and he says it was more about the retreat than the Iboga
  • He was in the chamber for 5 days, and he was alone in it
• This retreat was in the Bwiti religion
• He really went there for a full sledgehammer experience
  • He felt he had some addicted aspects that were hindering his sexual experiences
• Iboga goes to the root of the trauma and shows you where the addictive pattern of behavior is
• Iboga has a long integration period
• Iboga is a root, and he consumed it in a form of a tangled nest
  • He felt very blasted open from the experience
• Iboga took him directly to his anger
• "We have in our modern Western Culture, a lot of lost, young people" - Eamon
  • "The value of a rite of passage, is that you are confronted with certain things that you can't get to on your own" - Eamon
• The fact that you can die in an Iboga experience, is part of the initiation

Rites of Passage

• Burning Man isn't a rite of passage, but it can be used as a rite of passage
  • Burning Man is a temporary experience in civic living, it is not orchestrated by elders
• There is a growing topic on psychedelic parenting, and taking psychedelics with children

Maya

• Maya is designed in partnership with psychedelic practitioners & ceremony leaders
• Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols
• Ethics in psychedelics are so important right now
• This does not replace the therapist, it's everything the therapist needs to support their clients in healing
• "The ecosystem itself will thrive when we are all working in service to each other" - Eamon
• "If you want to be a part of the cool kids, and the cool kids are doing it ethically, then you have to do it ethically" - Eamon

Final Thoughts

• The soul is the most beautiful thing
• "Psychedelics as medicine, treat society, beyond individuals" - Eamon

Links

Eamon Armstrong Website

Life is a Festival Facebook Group

Maya

Maya Health Facebook Page

Psychedelic Therapy Podcast

Psychedelic Therapy Podcast by Maya Facebook Group

About Eamon Armstrong

Eamon Armstrong is the creator and host of Life is a Festival, promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture. He is the former Creative Director and public face of Chip Conley's industry-leading online festival guide and community Fest300, where he was a global community builder. Eamon's belief in the transformational power of psychedelics led him to take part in a traditional Bwiti initiation in Gabon, and to become a trained Sitter with MAP's Zendo Project. Eamon is a passionate advocate for mature masculinity and offers public talks and workshops from mythopoetic men's work to stand-up comedy on integrating masculinity.

Headshot Photo Credit: GBK Photos

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