Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence
Language: English
Published by Doubleday Books August 2026, 2026
- Hardcover
- New

Seller: A Cappella Books, Inc., Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.A Cappella Books, Inc.
AbeBooks seller since August 27, 1997
Condition: New
£ 27.05
Quantity: 2 available
Add to basketSeller Inventory # 397670
- Title
- Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence
- Author
- Kimon de Greef
- Publisher
- Doubleday Books August 2026
- Publication year
- 2026
- Condition
- New
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0385550243
- ISBN 13
- 9780385550246
- Seller catalogs
- Social Sciences
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 drug, which often induced states of ego death and the sensation of being directly connected with the divine, had remarkable effects on those suffering from PTSD, depression, and drug addiction. As the doctor’s fame grew, however, stories emerged of extreme dosing, abusive behavior, and even dramatic deaths.
In this gripping and deeply reported book, Kimon de Greef explores the promise and the peril of “toad medicine” and captures the defining tensions of this new era of psychedelics. As the notoriety of this powerful drug rose, psychonauts, spiritual seekers, and sufferers of innumerable conditions flocked to Sonora, giving rise to a bourgeoning economy of psychedelic tourism. Many of the Seri people, who had once lent their imprimatur to the doctor’s narrative of indigenous tradition, conspicuously avoided using the substance at all, and evidence of ancestral use appeared questionable. Impoverished toad collectors chased after the animals in drug cartel territory and risked their lives in the process. And pharmaceutical companies raced against one another to harness the therapeutic potential of the toad’s chemical wonders and develop a world-altering breakthrough in mental illness treatment—a drug that could rival Prozac in its impact on psychopharmacology.
Part true crime, part cult story, part cultural history, The Ego Trip is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a 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.
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About the Author
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A Cappella Books, Inc.
Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since August 27, 1997
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A Cappella Books is a full service used, new & out-of-print bookstore located in Atlanta since 1989. We stock a general selection of approximately 10,000 paperbacks & hardcovers, ranging from the common to the quite scarce. We also stock many new books, including some bestsellers and some almost-never-sellers. Our specialties reflect the personality of our neighborhood and, to varying degrees, our staff. But don't be fooled, we really have something for almost everybody who loves books.…
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