A charismatic doctor claimed to have rediscovered the ancestral roots of ‘toad medicine,’ becoming the face of a global psychedelic movement. But in his wake, he left a trail of destruction that embodies the maladies of our spiritually desolate age.
In 2012, a Mexican doctor announced that he had revived a forgotten indigenous ritual: smoking the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad, which releases a potent psychedelic substance known as ‘the God molecule’. The experience proffered ego death and a sensation of being directly connected with the divine, and demonstrated remarkable effects on those suffering from PTSD, depression and drug addiction. But as the doctor’s fame grew, stories emerged of extreme dosing, abusive behavior and even dramatic deaths – and a disturbing, cult-like following.
In this gripping and deeply reported book, Kimon de Greef explores the promise and the peril of ‘toad medicine’, distilling the defining tensions within the modern era of psychedelics. Part true crime, part cult story, part investigative journalism, The Ego Trip is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a self-made messianic figure, but it is also an investigation into a larger truth about our age of spiritual desolation. As this story forcefully demonstrates, no matter the lengths we go to in attaining a more cosmic understanding, we will always be firmly rooted in the real world: bound by our limitations and inescapably human.
In 2012, a Mexican doctor announced that he had revived a forgotten indigenous ritual: smoking the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad, which releases a potent psychedelic substance known as ‘the God molecule’. The experience proffered ego death and a sensation of being directly connected with the divine, and demonstrated remarkable effects on those suffering from PTSD, depression and drug addiction. But as the doctor’s fame grew, stories emerged of extreme dosing, abusive behavior and even dramatic deaths – and a disturbing, cult-like following.
In this gripping and deeply reported book, Kimon de Greef explores the promise and the peril of ‘toad medicine’, distilling the defining tensions within the modern era of psychedelics. Part true crime, part cult story, part investigative journalism, The Ego Trip is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a self-made messianic figure, but it is also an investigation into a larger truth about our age of spiritual desolation. As this story forcefully demonstrates, no matter the lengths we go to in attaining a more cosmic understanding, we will always be firmly rooted in the real world: bound by our limitations and inescapably human.
Reviews
Told with verve and built on deep reporting, The Ego Trip is strange and wonderful. De Greef is a great storyteller and he guides the reader beautifully around this story's crazy curves
Elegant and electrifying, this sweeping tale of would-be shamans, corporate cowboys, and faithful acolytes of the God Molecule is one of the sharpest works of long-form journalism I've read in years. It somehow manages to unveil new worlds, expose frauds, and tell a throat-gripping good yarn all at once. Don't hesitate-take the trip!