Where did 5-MeO-DMT come from, and how did smoking a toad's secretion become a ceremony? These books trace that story: the 1983 pamphlet that started it, Ralph Metzner's look at toad and synthetic medicine, and a 2026 work of journalism following the toad, the facilitators and the companies around it.
Much of the "ancient toad tradition" turns out to be modern, and these are the books that show how.
Almost every modern toad ceremony traces back to a short pamphlet written for a college class in 1983. Here's what it says, who really wrote it, and what he came to want for the toad.
Psychologist Ralph Metzner's short field report on thirty years of underground 5-MeO-DMT circles: what people experienced, what went wrong, the safety practices that grew out of it, and the origin of the name "Jaguar."
Kimon de Greef investigates how 5-MeO-DMT from the Sonoran Desert toad became a global psychedelic phenomenon. Following the charismatic Mexican doctor Octavio Rettig, Seri communities, toad collectors and biotech companies, the book asks what happens when profound experiences become entangled with ego, money, power and cultural appropriation.
Curious what this medicine is like in a careful, ceremonial setting? I offer private 1:1 ceremonies and Inward, a low-dose sound bath, in Victoria, BC.