Disclaimer: Part of the media library. The FIVE Institute does not necessarily agree with every view expressed in these works.
5-MeO-DMT Books on the Shelf
James Oroc (2009). Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. Park Street Press.
About: James Oroc’s account of the molecule and the toad, a foundational text tracing the secret history of DMT from the 1950s onward.
View the book BookKen Nelson (writing as Albert Most) (1984). Bufo Alvarius: The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert. Venom Press.
About: Ken Nelson (writing as Albert Most), the pamphlet that started it all, now in its 4th pressing. Hamilton Morris’s republication effort has raised more than $205,000 for Parkinson’s disease research.
View the book BookDavid E. Carpenter. 5 & I.
About: David E. Carpenter’s book on the 5-MeO-DMT experience.
View the book BookKimon de Greef (2026). The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence. Doubleday.
About: Journalist Kimon de Greef’s investigation into Octavio Rettig, the Mexican doctor who popularized smoking Sonoran Desert toad secretions, and the movement, deaths, toad-hunting conflicts, and pharmaceutical interest that followed.
View the book BookRalph Metzner (2013). The Toad and the Jaguar: A Field Report of Underground Research on a Visionary Medicine. Regent Press.
About: Ralph Metzner’s field report of underground research on Bufo alvarius and 5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine.
View the book Book
In memoriam: Ralph Metzner, James Oroc, and Ken Nelson, authors whose writing shaped this field. Rest in peace.
Start With Foundations 101
A self-paced, one-hour mini-course with key understandings for those newer to 5-MeO-DMT, with a desire to go deeper.