{"id":33,"date":"2026-09-14T23:26:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2026-09-18T14:59:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T14:59:24","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/?page_id=33","title":{"rendered":"About the Author"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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About the Author<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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James Mbela is a passionate musician, integration coach, plant medicine facilitator, and author of Healing with Psychedelics and Shamanic Plant Medicines: A Practical Guide<\/em>. Over more than five years as a professional journey facilitator, he has guided nearly a thousand people through deep medicine work, and his writing draws directly from that hands-on experience rather than from theory alone.<\/p>\n

His background spans both ancient and modern approaches to healing. James brings over fifteen years of dedicated yoga and meditation practice, a three-year apprenticeship as an iboga provider, and initiation into the Bwiti tradition. He is a certified holistic nutritionist, a certified life and wellness coach, a trauma-informed coach, an herbalist, and a practitioner of Taoist healing arts. This range lets him meet each person as a whole, addressing the body, the nervous system, and the deeper work in one integrated framework.<\/p>\n

Music runs through everything James does. Classically trained in guitar performance and composition, he is also a producer and a player of the Bwiti mouth harp and a range of medicine and shamanic music. Sound is not a side interest but a core part of how he holds space and supports healing. His path also carries an unexpected thread: he began in computer science, working in network security and architecture as well as general computer technology. That blend of the technical and the ceremonial gives him a rare, wide-ranging skill set, and a mind that moves easily between precision and intuition.<\/p>\n

James is also a committed voice in the ongoing conversation around psychedelic and plant medicine ethics, a frequent participant in discussions on safety, responsible practice, and the respectful stewardship of these traditions. He hosts the Cura Medicina<\/em> podcast, where he explores healing, consciousness, and the practical realities of medicine work with a wide range of guests.<\/p>\n

He is the founder of Summit Garden Wellness, a multimodality healing retreat in Costa Rica, and of La Luz de Vida Church, a legal ceremonial container for iboga work. James has served as a volunteer firekeeper for indigenous elders and remains a supporter of indigenous communities in Costa Rica and Gabon. Deeply compassionate toward all life, he is guided by a single steady intention: to help people heal safely, to honor the traditions that make this work possible, and to leave a meaningful contribution while remaining humbly in service.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Get in Touch<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Contact placeholder \u2014 add your contact details here (email, social links, or a booking link), or send a message using the button below.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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About the Author James Mbela is a passionate musician, integration coach, plant medicine facilitator, and author of Healing with Psychedelics and Shamanic Plant Medicines: A Practical Guide. Over more than five years as a professional journey facilitator, he has guided nearly a thousand people through deep medicine work, and his writing draws directly from that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingwithpsychedelics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}