Join experiential journalist Rak Razam and Dr. Octavio Rettig, a Mexican doctor who works with the sacred medicine 5-MeO-DMT found in the Sonoran Desert Toad, the Bufo Alvarius. Rettig has worked with the Seri Tribe of Sonora, Mexico, to help treat methamphetamine addicts, reintroducing the use of the medicine to the local culture that had lost it. He has learned the ancient songs and rites of the Seri, apprenticing to 'Don Pancho', an elder shaman.
The council of Seri elders has authorized the latter to use the most powerful shamanic medicines in the West. What is the connection of the Bufo toad to the local environment of Sonora, and why do the toads have the most powerful natural psychoactive in their glands? Why did previous Mesoamerican cultures worship the toad, and what shamanic realms does it reveal? How can this medicine be used to initiate people on a spiritual path? What are the dangers? Why is 5-MeO-DMT so powerful, and what exactly does it do? Dr. Rettig's book The Toad of Dawn is forthcoming from Divine Arts.
Originally aired on: May 1, 2015