A old chat on the podcast was with two Mexican friends. Leonardo and Octavio. First, some background...
Leo is a fellow documentary filmmaker who was with us on the first episode of Shamans of the Global Village. Octavio is known for being one of the main providers of 5-MeO-DMT in the world, who has ability to legally travel with and administer the medicine, and is the shaman who the first episode of our show featured. Find his website here.
If you are interested in galactivation, we have spoken many times around vetting a practitioner who you might work with. My personal experience with Octavio has been astronomically life changing in a positive way. However, full disclosure... he has become extremely controversial since our making of episode 1. For numerous things which I am out of the loop on and have only heard about after the fact. Apparently stemming from there having since then been deaths around his ceremonies. Shamanic medicines are no joke and Octavio is a bit of a cow boy. While being a beautiful Mexican Jesus style figure and a really honorable and good hearted dude, which is why my colleague Rak originally decided to feature him in the first episode of our show. But over time there were challenges to his practices and claims. Mainly related to this technique which can be seen in our episode where he pours water on people's mouths during their experience. Which looks like waterboarding. Also, challenges to the validity of the toad venom (the medicine) use actually not being an ancient indigenous tradition like Octavio states.
Leo and I share the commonality of having spent lots of time having made a documentary around Octavio and now always having a piece of media out there which faces these obstacles. Rak is more the face of Shamans of the Global Village than I am and since I'm out of sight, am thus usually out of mind with it, he's the one who's taken all the blowback for his choice to feature Octavio. Another toad practitioner, Gerry Sandoval, is even MORE CONTROVERSIAL than Octavio. Having done super sketchy unethical things around his practices. For some details see this article 5-MeO-DMT: Light and Shadow in the Psychedelic Toad and this community open letter 5-MeO-DMT-Malpractice.
So we learned a lot making the first episode, and are continuing to deal with the ramifications of having made it. Including a complete press blackout in what seems like the entire English speaking first world. No streaming platform seem to want to touch it. Yet the vast majority of feedback we get from folks who actually watch it is positive and warm hearted. So we are still very proud of it as a stand alone piece of filmmaking, stand by it, and have a "onward and upward" attitude with the series as a whole.
There are many more details to this story and it goes way deeper of course, but along with the first episode of Shamans of the Global Village, this conversation is a good initial vector into learning a bit more about this particular incredible, amazing, and remarkable shamanic medicine. Even though it was recorded prior to much of this toad politics and drama which have since occurred. Do give it a listen.