Book debunks toad psychedelic 'guru' claims — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- The Ego Trip by Kimon de Greef (White Rabbit UK, Doubleday US) investigates physician Octavio Rettig Hinojosa's role in popularizing 5-MeO-DMT, a psychedelic secreted by Sonoran desert toads that causes total ego dissolution
- De Greef argues the claim that 5-MeO-DMT use is an ancient Seri people tradition is a "modern invention"; many Seri have distanced themselves from Rettig Hinojosa and asked him to stop invoking their name
- The book documents Rettig Hinojosa physically wrestling a client into taking more of the drug, angrily commanding a 14-year-old boy to take another dose, and pushing a bleeding, mud-covered woman into a swimming pool with his foot
- De Greef himself was tricked into ingesting the psychedelic while reporting, after Rettig Hinojosa told him the substance was essential oil
- The drug's 15-minute duration — compared to psilocybin's 6+ hours — makes it appealing as a clinical treatment, and trials have shown promising results for treatment-resistant depression, though de Greef suggests participants may emerge more distressed than the data reflects
- Toad poaching for the drug trade involves child labor and ecological damage; de Greef joined an expedition alongside a teenager whose missing brothers are among Mexico's roughly 100,000 forcibly disappeared by cartels and state forces over the past 20 years
- The late Apple engineer Bill Atkinson invented a bespoke 5-MeO-DMT vape pen and gave it away for free, while the late UK aristocrat Amanda Feilding also championed the substance; 5-MeO-DMT remains illegal in the US and UK
Why it matters: The book undercuts a key marketing pillar of the toad-psychedelic industry — that use is an ancient Indigenous sacrament — by tracing the narrative to one charismatic outsider physician whose practices, as documented, include coercing minors and assaulting participants. That complicates the drug's path to mainstream therapeutic acceptance even as clinical trials show promising results for treatment-resistant depression.
Ask SkimNews
