"In Gabon, a small country on the Equator, I went through a Bwiti initiation, eating iboga, a psychedelic rootbark inducing a trance that lasts for thirty hours. The bark powder temporarily releases the soul from the body, allowing the initiate entry into the African spiritual cosmos, where he is shown the outline of his fate.

Some of the Bwiti call this ceremony, "breaking open the head." The book describes how my own head was broken open, and how I have gingerly attempted to put the pieces back together again."