In The Ego Trip, Kimon de Greef investigates the rise and fall of Octavio Rettig, the charismatic doctor who became the public face of “toad medicine” and a global psychedelic movement. Blending investigative journalism, true crime and cultural critique, the book explores the allure of psychedelic healing alongside the dangers of abuse, extremism and spiritual manipulation. Deeply reported and sharply told, The Ego Trip is both a fascinating portrait of a self-made messianic figure and a compelling account of the tensions shaping the modern psychedelic age.
Description
A charismatic doctor claimed to have rediscovered the ancestral roots of ‘toadmedicine,’ and became 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.
About the author
Kimon de Greef’s original coverage of Octavio appeared in a March 2022 print edition of The New Yorker. He is the recipient of the inaugural Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. Kimon’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Guernica, and National Geographic, among others.