Amazing Grace

Rating:
Summary: A unique, informative and inspiring account
Review: Amazing Grace, by Lee Albert, skilfully combines a factual account of ibogaine, a mind-altering natural substance found in Africa, with insights into spirituality and personal development, reflections on a changing Irish culture and heart-felt autobiography.
The author describes, movingly and powerfully, the experience of growing up in a small town in the Irish Republic at a time when its people and institutions were dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. After two years' training for the priesthood, the author lost his own religious faith and embarked on a geographical and spiritual odyssey that culminated in an inner transformation through eboga, the ceremony in which the user consumes the powerful natural hallucinogen ibogaine, which is mainly used in the western world for helping people overcome heroin addiction. It has been banned for personal use in several countries, including the United States, although, as Albert demonstrates, it is in no way a recreational substance and has quite astounding healing properties.
In this first-ever book about ibogaine, Albert combines solid factual information about the eboga experience with personal reminiscences about how it enabled him to experience an inner transformation, healing psychic wounds and enabling an appreciation of the spiritual world and a newly integrated connection with reality which he compares to the quest for the Holy Grail in the Arthurian legends.
Amazing Grace is a unique and substantial book in the tradition of Carlos Castaneda, and is sure to fascinate and enlighten readers interested in personal development, the nature of spirituality, the therapeutic and transformative use of mind-altering substances, and Irish culture and identity. I highly recommend it to all such readers.

David Botsford
Clinical Hypnotherapist