Can really recommend this one:

https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/hamiltons-pharmacopeia-the-psychedelic-toad/59cd5cd7c6e1eb5725458fdc

Another nice documentary about 5-MeO-DMT.

Yeah, except that at least one practitioner documented, namely "Dr. Gerry", has some very serious allegations currently being levied against him including accusations of theft and multiple rapes. Apparently he is under indictment in Mexico for rape and is fleeing the charges while advertising his "services".

Don't believe everything you see on television, they don't call it programming for nothing.

Just watching his sequence, you can see how much he's grasping celebrity status. Be wary of this man, and anyone else using toad venom. The other main one, with his pseudo archaeology supporting claims of indigenous tradition along with his taser and water boarding and $2000 sessions is no better.


Unfortunately the issues around using "toad", as some call it, are not promoted as heavily as it is as the new ayahuasca for the new age psychedelic tourist crowd. Using a living creature to get high from, no matter how consciously just seems wrong to me, especially when synthetic is just as if not more effective and more easily sourced.

I'm afraid toad venom is just the next thing for psychonauts to brag that they've done.

I never was a fan of Gerry, but still I respect very much the term "innocent until proven". But although he takes part in this documentary, there still is much info to gain for someone who is interested in trying and sitting. Especially the reactions at the end are interesting for anyone who wants to be a sitter.

A link for UK peeps here to this documentary:



Regarding Dr Gerry, it was via him I had two experiences with Bufo, the second of which was a pivotal life experience for me. So I am grateful for him acting as a conduit to this experience for me and a few people close to me (despite the great cost)...however his conduct was already called into question by a few friends, and I've heard the account of someone who hosted Gerry in his house for nine months, and they had a big fall out over Gerry's conduct, greed over toad secretion and money, and other things. There have also been multiple accusations of sexual assault, LSD spiking’s and poor conduct, so I think there is more than enough evidence (from multiple sources) to call into question his behaviour. It seems that the Bufo persona he puts out is very different to the man behind it. There is a group on facebook "Beware of the Bufo gangsters" that provides more information regarding these accusations from a number of different sources.

That being said, I enjoyed the documentary, I thought Hamilton's detective work in finding the first ever Bufonaut was cool, and I thought his ending conclusion, encouraging people to seek out synthetic 5-MeO-DMT instead of the toads for long term sustainability concerns was also admirable.

There are some good segments to be sure. And I feel that I should reiterate that the allegations against him are just that and he has not been tried in any court. However, and there is a however, he is running from charges and the fact that more than two women are accusing him of sexual abuse and a bunch are accusing him of other things should be taken into account.

Unfortunately this is what seems too happen. A person starts giving these drugs to people, and those people have life changing experiences from the drug. There is no integration or aftercare, and they are unable to process fully their experience and go from healing into recovery. They place the importance of their experience upon the person that gave it to them,since that person automatically comes from a place of spiritual authority. They then praise and deify the practitioner, who takes that into his ego and then self initiates an apotheosis. Two years ago, Gerry had a picture on his FB of him grinning going two toads, obviously in love, now he portrays himself as a third eye having, Alex Grey painting.

I'm sorry for publicizing this, but I feel that many people go to people like him without doing any research, and just looking at the marketing material, and they should have all info.

If you don't mind me asking, were you near a stream or river also when you had your experiences? The opening sequence of the video puts me off 5-MeO-DMT. The environment just doesn't look safe to me. The guy trashing around amongst rocks and water...... Even with minders nearby, there is so much chance for an accident to happen. I witnessed a friend die by hitting his head on a rock in a shallow stream when I was in university; he wasn't even on anything at the time just excited and messing around. So I find this a quite uncomfortable.

I was on a barge on a canal in London that was kitted out for sessions for my two experiences...it felt a pretty safe and secure setting, if a little boxed in and confined, and Gerry and his assistant were on the barge too, and people launched one at a time. So no chance really of one getting up and out of the barge and falling in or hurting themselves.

That being said, you're absolutely right, Gerry's choice of setting here seems really stupid, and he has gotten a lot of flak off members of the 5-MeO community for this. Given his experience he should definitely know better than to behave like this and put people in such a setting when they are in such a vulnerable state. It's really reckless and completely avoidable behaviour on his part.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this one, nor of Gerry who himself said that using toad venom was not sustainable yet in the documentary is obviously not doing anything to lead by example. The location and setting was poor at best as has been mentioned. There seems to be a lack of ethical accountability in the psychedelic world, and a lack of moral congruence. People become apologists for rapists, abusers of power, cult leaders, people who negatively impact the environment, etc. We need to stand up for something, and we need to protect the community from those that take advantage of the vulnerable.

In my opinion, we need to move away from idolizing people who don’t act in alignment with their words.

The thing is that Gerry himself actually believes only the toad secrete is really healing, and not the synthetic version. He made this clear on several occasions in talks he has given.

I repeatedly pointed out, that IMHO this unnecessarily puts stress on the toads for no real reason, except his "belief".



IMHO one shouldn't idolize people at all.

How convenient for him to say that toad venom is healing while the synthetic is not. As he works with toad venom and has invested thousands of dollars in acquiring kilos of the stuff, it wouldn’t be very good for him if people started refusing to use the toad venom and started opting for synthetic. However, many people have been healed by synthetic. This will come out soon enough in research.

Yes, I agree, no person should be idolized. Also we should not put people on a pedestal that do not follow their words and values with action.

There seems to be a tendency in people on spiritual quest whether religious, psychedelic or by other means; to place their guide on a pedestal (almost like a guru - disciple relationship). This always seems to have a corrupting influence on the person in the position of authority.

I don't know anything about this gentleman apart from what is mentioned here and what is shown on the videos. To me he comes across as a multifaceted individual who on one side is genuinely on a mission to make the substance available to as many seekers as possible but on the other hand is perhaps a bit blase about the safety of people who put their trust in him and has allowed the rewards of financial remuneration triumph over personal principles and ethics.

I personally don't even think it is about money. I think it is just very common and human, that people who get idolized, tend to drift off in an ego bubble (Jesus complex). IMHO it needs quite a strong character not to get influenced by that. E.g. IMHO Leo from actualized is showing the same tendency.

I think most of us would get in the same pitfall, if we would be in the same situation.

Yeah the other Mexican "toad shaman" Octavio Rettig claims the same thing, that only the Bufo secretion is healing, while the synthetic pure 5-MeO-DMT isn't. This is a myth fabricated by these guys to keep them in business...I happen to know that an entire gram of high purity synthetic 5-MeO-DMT (at least 66 release doses via vaping) can go for half the price of a single session with Gerry...I've heard sessions with Octavio are even more expensive!! So you can see why they want to both peddle this pro-Bufo propaganda, even though it is a completely empty claim based on nothing more than their own opinions. And yes I got the impression he has absolutely no intention of doing anything that will threaten his way of life with regard the toads and the threats facing them.

Having experienced both Bufo extract and synthetic pure 5-MeO, I can say with firm conviction that they both get you to the same place...a few samples of Bufo extract have been analysed by Nexus peeps and I recall only 5-MeO as the sole tryptamine detected.

I've noticed quite a few people getting the message mixed up with the messenger when it comes to Bufo/5-MeO-DMT in particular. I've observed this with ayahuasca shamanism too but it seems a lot more common with 5-MeO, and I find this cultish guru/messiah worshipping baggage that comes with the experience a bit weird and worrying.

My hunch is when dealing with an experience as powerful at taking down the ego as 5-MeO is that when returning from the experience, the reintegrating ego has a tendency to latch on to and project the awe experienced onto the first things it encounters, which often happens to be a facilitator. To use a similar analogy, a baby duck or goose when hatching from an egg will bond with the first moving thing it sees...which more often than not of course is its mother, but it could just as easily be a predator or something else not so benign...

The magic with this experience is between YOU and the substance, obviously. A facilitator is more of a caretaker than anything else, and they have very little influence or power over how an experience unfolds, and their role should really be to look after one's physical body during the experience. And they, like you and I, are a flawed human being and nothing more.

Again, I personally do not think it is a money thing. The price of a session certainly isn't based on the cost for the substance. For that even the toad poison is too cheap.

I think they just fall into the same idolizing the users usually do, but they project it on the toad.

I really belief them their reason why they think only the bufo is the real deal. They think it is from nature blabla. Especially in the entheogenic/alternative scene you see this kind of attitude a lot, where people just dismiss anything synthetic a priori and think only "natural" stuff can be the real deal.

Ironically exactly this belief puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on nature itself and natural ecosystems get fucked up because of it...

That is a very interesting viewpoint. In a Jungian model, it would mean that there is a guru / messiah / prophet / spiritual hero archetype in our unconscious and following the massive shake up of the psyche that is a full on psychedelic trip, some people start to create complexes involving the guide around this archetype and perhaps the guides form the same complexes around the toad in addition to a disciple complex created in response to the clients.

I am sure it is probably a bit more complicated and multi-factorial but it is a very fascinating way of understanding the dynamics of what is happening.

I think this is due to the fact that people do experience real "healing", but do not move into being able to integrate the experience and into "recovery". They have this powerful experience and then go off back into the world with noting to attach it to, and latch onto the provider. They will idolize them, and send all sorts of praise, worded in terms of worship, trying to appear to the person that gave them the experience that they "get it".

The provider, Gerry is just a spectacular example as can be seen in the evolution of hisfacebook page's self-representational imagery, then believes all the adoration and personalizes it. His page used to have a picture of him adoring his toads, now he has the whole third eye treatment, it's astounding.

Asfar as money, AFAIK, a couple years ago, his charge was in the low three figures fora ceremony, and he spent a good amonunt of time with each individual participant. Now the cost is apparently in the four figure range, and he does not give any individual attention. It's all wham, bam, thank you, sir or madam.

It's not good, but his perfect prey, er vivcim, uh customer(?) is the person who is interested, maybe has been to a few festivals or a burning man-or knows about them anyway-but is otherwise naive about psychedelics and wouldn't attempt to self-source anything. They don't come here, they don't read other pages, they just hear all the apologists and people who praise the facilitator. It was he case in WA with Trinity Guzman, it's the case with Gerry. They operate best in vaccums.

I don't have any negative experience with bufotenine. There is an initial phase of nausea when it comes-up, but for me as a non-smoker, a joint with tobaco in it is far worse in terms of nausea or dizzyness.

Just to provide a little balance here Godsmacker, as far as I know only traces of bufotenine have ever been found in Bufo secretion, and our very own endlessness did some GC-MS analysis on Bufo secretion and only 5-MeO-DMT was detected. Any other tryptamines are occurring in trace amounts, and having experienced both Bufo secretion and synthetic pure 5-MeO-DMT, both get you to the same place in my experience. There might be subtle differences in flavour of the experience, but such differences are rendered moot by the truly awesome power of 5-MeO. I think you'll find some Nexians who disagree with your assertions regarding bufotenine (I lack the personal experience to comment).

For all of Gerry's apparent faults, he is at least a medical doctor. You aren't smoking toad skin (although that does also contain tryptamines), you are vaping the defensive secretion from the skin, and if extracted well it should cause no harm to the toad. And you aren't doing it on any kind of retreat. While research is lacking it seems like the tryptamine component is vapourised by the heat and the other toxins destroyed, looking at the weight of the venom before and after vaping. Licking a toad or orally ingesting the venom would be very reckless indeed, due to the presence of cardio toxins in the secretion...but if was dangerous to vape the secretion we would definitely know by now. I did not and would not pay thousands of pounds/dollars for this, I paid a few hundred pounds. A lot of money for sure, but given where I was at the time...wanting to try 5-MeO but in the presence of someone highly experienced in overseeing sessions (the less savoury parts of his character were unknown to me at the time), a medical doctor, and another key thing is I wouldn't need to worry about the dosage, all that was taken care of. My second vaped Bufo experience, I still...half a year later...consider the pivotal event of my life to date. So as you can imagine I have zero regrets...far from it!

I'm hoping the pro Info Wars/Alex Jones homage sentiment was some kind of well concealed joke...

Moderator Note: Off topic posts were removed from this thread.

Yet another downside to the drug war is that Hamilton only seems to get people on his shows who are kinda yahoos I think. Did anyone see the DMT episode? The Silicon Valley DMT 'shaman' guy? Come on...