Name: Ibogaine Advocate Bryan Hubbard | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #596
Uploaded: 2025-07-12T00:33:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ibogaine Advocate Bryan Hubbard | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #596' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ibogaine Advocate Bryan Hubbard | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #596' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-12. Transcript available.

Ibogaine Advocate Bryan Hubbard | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #596

Today's guest is a veteran attorney and policy advocate most known for his
focus on Ibogaine,
a possible new treatment for things like addiction and PTSD. He's currently
with the
Reed Foundation doing this research and he's CEO of Americans for Ibogaine.
It was a fascinating conversation. I'm grateful for his time. Today's guest is
W. Brian Hubbard.
Dude, you brought me a cake today. That's nice of you. What is that you brought?
My wife, who's here sitting with us many years ago, found this bakery in
Nashville that has this chocolate ganache cake.
I had never had it before until about three months ago. And I like to eat,
especially chocolate.
So she introduced me to this chocolate cake and it's the best chocolate cake I've
ever had in my life.
You can leave it sitting out on the counter for four days and it tastes just as
good as when you bought it.
So we wanted to give you a touch of something that once you taste, you can't
untaste.
Oh, dang. Yeah. Something chocolate too, huh?
Hell yeah. I might end up meeting a mixed girl after eating that. You just
never know what could happen.
But thank you. That's just beautiful, you guys. It's so sweet of you to think
of me.
And thank you for coming. Thank you for making the trip over from, you guys
live in Kentucky.
Yes, sir. We live in Lexington. And thank you for the wonderful hospitality to
visit with you.
Yeah. We're looking forward to it, man. I know I want to talk to you.
So you've had a lot of experience with like Ibogaine, with like treatment.
I know there's new laws that have been passed in Texas. I want to get into like
what Ibogaine is, right?
But first, I just wanted to start with like, like I know that it's a plant
medicine, right?
And so what is something you've seen? Like, take me on a story of somebody that
you've seen use a plant medicine, use Ibogaine and an experience that they've
had or a transformation that they've had.
I just wanted to kind of start with an experience that you've witnessed.
In terms of personally witnessing a transformation, my wife and I, we traveled
down to the Ambio Clinic in Tiawana, south of Tiawana in November of 2023.
And the way that the whole transportation system occurs is we flew from
Kentucky to San Diego and then a shuttle took us from the airport in San Diego
to a Sheraton nearby.
And then the clinic sent a driver to pick me and her and the other folks who
were coming down up to go there on a Monday.
And when we landed at the airport in San Diego and went to check to the airport
shuttle, there was a gentleman who was standing down about 30 feet from us.
And Brandon Glasser, if you hear me talking, you know exactly who I'm referring
to.
Brandon Glasser, that was his name?
Brandon Glasser, yes, sir.
He was kind of had a longer hair, looked to be about my age.
I pegged him probably somewhere in his mid-40s or so.
He was kind of ashen.
He kind of had that thousand-yard stare that comes with an individual who has
experienced tremendous trauma.
And just the way that he looked, the way that he was standing, the way that he
was looking,
he looked like somebody who had come to the end.
And my wife and I looked at each other and we said, I wonder if he's going to
be getting on the shuttle with us on Monday morning.
Well, sure enough, Monday morning comes along and the driver comes to pick us
up.
And Brandon gets on the shuttle with us and we're sitting behind us.
And we'd go down the road and he makes a couple of observations about, you know,
what's bringing him to have an Ibogaine experience.
And he talks about that he was in, he was a Green Beret and he had seen a lot.
And his entire affect was one of just, this was a guy who had had it, who had
had it with life, who had had it with.
Himself probably at that point.
Himself.
Yeah.
Oh, that's the worst sickness.
Yes, sir.
So, we get to the clinic on Monday.
We go to a sweat lodge ceremony Monday evening, Tuesday.
We have some group activities with two of the other gentlemen who were there.
It was a group of five of us.
And then we go in for Ibogaine on Tuesday night.
And leading up to that, Brandon's eye affect was consistently just flat.
And what I would describe as just kind of checked out.
So, we go in on Tuesday night and they give us our Ibogaine.
The next time we all see each other is on Thursday morning at the breakfast
table.
And I don't know how many audience members may be familiar with the Bible story
of Lazarus.
When Lazarus had passed away and Jesus called him from the grave after he
having been dead and he emerged.
And they unwrapped his burial clothes and he was as he had always been.
Seeing Brandon at the breakfast table on Thursday morning is the closest that I
will ever come
to seeing what the people who saw Lazarus emerge from that grave saw.
His entire affect and demeanor had been transformed.
This guy who had the thousand yard dead eye stare, his eyes were clear and
bright.
All that consternation and brokenness that was on his face and that had drawn
it in was gone.
He was a radiant being.
Amen.
And when I sat down at the table, I just looked at him and I started crying.
I said, dude, your transformation is unbelievable.
I feel it.
It's visible on your face.
And I mean, it was just a miracle.
It truly was a miraculous, beautiful transformation that had occurred over
those 36 hours.
Wow.
And you could just feel it.
I mean, that's so powerful when you can just when you can see it in somebody.
Yeah, because that pain of feeling.
I mean, it's just like you were looking like somebody.
So just they're broken.
They're sick of themselves.
You know, they can't even, you know, it's like they're hunting without a gun.
They just have that look on their face.
You know?
Yes, sir.
You know, I got to saw this at scale at a place called Beyond that's located in
Cancun.
My wife and I went there in December of 24.
And there you have people coming and going at all times.
And we were able to come in and see people who were coming to the door who were
at death's door.
They had tried everything in the world to resolve either their trauma or their
addiction and nothing had worked.
And as people are coming, people are also going.
And as they walk out the door to leave, there is a community circle to
celebrate their departure home.
And the people who, as they were leaving, were coming through the door, you
could see and feel that same radiant transformation that we saw individually
through Brandon Glasser.
And we got to watch that occur over the course of a week.
And you could see when people would come through the door, they were just like,
what am I here for?
What am I doing here?
How did I even manage to get into this place?
Yeah.
But by the time they left, they knew why they had been there.
And it was to be restored.
Amen, dude.
Were you able to talk with Brandon at that moment?
Like, were you able to speak with him and ask him how he was feeling?
And, like, was he able to iterate kind of what he felt like was going on with
him?
At the breakfast table, he explained what his journey was like.
It was very visual.
It was very spiritual.
And many of the things that had troubled him in mind and heart, he found relief.
He found catharsis.
And he felt assurance that what we see on this side of life is only a fraction
of what true ultimate reality is all about.
We are here as earthly creatures to have an earthly experience.
But at our essence, we are spiritual beings who have eternal significance.
And what Ibogaine and some of the other plant medicines can do is affirm that
reality.
As an individual has a new beginning to reorient their relationship with their
self, the world, and their maker.
It ain't going to solve all your problems.
It ain't a magic wand.
But it essentially provides you with an opportunity to establish a brand new
foundation that is grounded on your significance as a spiritual being with
eternal value.
Amen.
God, sign me up.
My God, if that's a pyramid scheme, I want to get to the dang top.
You know what I'm saying?
No, I mean, you say, I mean, it's just like, I feel it, dude.
I mean, I've had my own experience with ayahuasca, and you even describe it
like, God, I just remember, like, processing so much.
Like, it was like all these things that I could, you know, in regular life,
even by going to therapy, it was almost like pulling weeds, right?
The weeds would grow, and I could go in therapy and pull them, right?
Or I could go through 12-step and pull them.
But now, with ayahuasca, it felt like I was underground, like I was part of the
earth, and I could pull the dang roots, right?
Or I could at least see the roots.
I could see the roots, and I could organize them better, and I could prune them
even.
I could prune my own roots, and so it gave me a chance.
So suddenly, the stuff on the top, it wasn't just weeds when I got back out of
the experience.
It was a little bit more like my garden made a little bit of sense.
It wasn't just a constant struggle to, like, manage my own, like, little acre
of existence, you know?
And it's hard to explain sometimes, but I will say this.
You know, I've probably done it, I think, five times over the past three years.
And recently, I have started having this feeling that, oh, man, this is just a
little part of existence, right?
Like, whereas I used to feel so connected and so scared about dying, and I do
still, you know, I want to be alive.
I want to spend time with my loved ones and see if I can see certain
experiences or dreams through.
But I don't feel like, yeah, you almost feel like, oh, we'll just be getting
back on the train, you know, after that.
Like, it'll be something else is going on.
Like, this is just a stop at a Buc-ee's, you know, out in the middle of space
that we're stopped at, you know?
And you can get you a damn snow globe with Dolly Parton in it, or you can do
whatever you want.
I mean, it's a Buc-ee's, you know, it's Earth.
So, but, yeah, I start to think that, oh, there's more after this.
And it does make me less afraid about just the weight of every moment of my
life.
And my life weighed, every moment weighed so heavy.
And I don't even know why sometimes.
So, take me through Ibogaine itself.
Like, what happens with Ibogaine, like the medicine itself, right?
So, the one thing that is cool about Ibogaine is its intelligence and its
ability to produce an effect within the individual, which is unique for that
individual.
Now, there are certain common themes that exist within it.
Let's go back to the very beginning, which is, this is an alkaloid found in
three West African botanical sources.
There's three plants that grow in Africa.
One is called the Iboga root.
That is the mother plant.
There's another plant called the Vokanga africana.
The Vokanga?
Vokanga africana.
Vokanga africana?
And the third one's not named.
It's the more minor.
Okay.
So, the third one is a more minor root.
Okay.
So, the Bwiti peoples.
The Bwiti?
Of West Africa.
And they primarily reside in Gabon.
Gabon?
Gabon.
Yes, sir.
They are the cultural possessors of all the ancient knowledge around Iboga and
Ibogaine.
They have used Iboga and Ibogaine in their cultural and religious traditions
for centuries now.
They are humanity's caretakers of all the knowledge and wisdom that comes from
this plant.
So, like the librarians, kind of?
Correct.
They have known and understood its abilities to connect us with divine source
for centuries.
God, and they weren't sharing it, were they?
Well, there was no opportunity for them to share because they're a self-contained
society and the contact was made with them by the West.
And, of course, that first contact came through the establishment of the transatlantic
slave trade.
Right.
So, not a good foot, not a good start off.
Not a good start off.
Got off on the wrong foot.
So, you have this society that has ancient knowledge, knowledge which, until
now, has essentially been dismissed by the reductionist perspective of the West.
And now that the West is being strangulated by 