I traveled to Mexico City last month to attend the World Bufo Alvarius Congress (WBAC), bufo alvarius being the name of a toad species native to the Sonora Desert that secretes a substance that when dried and smoked creates a powerful psychedelic experience. When synthesized in a laboratory, the compound is known as 5meo-n-DMT, somewhat related to dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is produced by the human body and many plants and is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. The gathering in Mexico City July 27-29, 2018, was the first of its kind to assemble in one room a few hundred people who had all experienced this sacred medicine – “the indigenous peoples, the practitioners, the scientists, the anthropologists, and the psychonauts – the now-global toad family whose lives have been touched by this most powerful of entheogens,” as the website described the target audience. “Join us for three days of lectures, panel and group discussions, and films by the leading experts in this nascent field…to address the pressing issues of toad conservation, ethics, best practices, and sustainable alternatives, and to explore the limits of both our science and our spirituality. What’s more, it is also a much needed gathering to discuss the power and responsibility of using this unique compound, and to find ways in which we can grow as an educated and unified community.”

I attended the congress partly out of professional interest, since I’m engaged in a year-long training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. But I suppose I also fall in the category of psychonaut, someone with a passionate curiosity to explore these medicines for the sake of spiritual growth and self-awareness.

My report on the gathering, “Romancing the Toad,” has just been published in the online magazine Reality Sandwich. There was a lot of useful information conveyed, and not a small amount of drama. You can read the complete account here. Check it out and let me know what you think.