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The Toé / Datura Diaries: A Shamanic Apprenticeship in the Heart of the Amazon Jungle
The First Ever Account of Dieting the Revered Shamanic Plant Brugmansia aka Toé / Datura A personal account of the use of the Brugmansia plant commonly known as “Toé,” is revealed. The plant is native of the Peruvian Amazon and the Andes, where it’s highly revered among shamans. Despite its popularity, the ingestion of this plant is surrounded by many justified taboos due to its toxicity and many dangers.
Javier Regueiro worked and studied intensively with this unique Plant Teacher in 2005 for five months, deep in the Amazon, and again in 2019. These experiences have been essential in his shamanic apprenticeship, as well as a profound personal healing and spiritual process.
In The Toé / Datura Diaries these experiences are shared in great detail through journal entries from both shamanic dietas - or diet regimen in Spanish, - as well as extensive commentary on those experiences. Following his first Toé dieta in 2005, Javier Regueiro began working as a plant medicine person and created the Ayaruna Center in Pisac, Peru. Over the last 10+ years he has been offering healing retreats with Ayahuasca and San Pedro / Huachuma plant medicines, both of which he has published books on.
While this book is not intended as a DIY manual for ingesting either the Toé or any other potentially risky plants, it does provide a very detailed overview and intimate glimpse into both the traditional practice of dieting medicinal plants. The commentary and insights provided are designed to avoid common pitfalls and maximize the time and effort invested in the profound healing process plant medicines provide.
This captivating tale presents an honest and vulnerable journey into the wisdom and medicines of the Amazon jungle. The many challenges faced by the author along the way ultimately led to a profound healing and expansion from engaging with this powerful Plant Teacher.
Javier Regueiro worked and studied intensively with this unique Plant Teacher in 2005 for five months, deep in the Amazon, and again in 2019. These experiences have been essential in his shamanic apprenticeship, as well as a profound personal healing and spiritual process.
In The Toé / Datura Diaries these experiences are shared in great detail through journal entries from both shamanic dietas - or diet regimen in Spanish, - as well as extensive commentary on those experiences. Following his first Toé dieta in 2005, Javier Regueiro began working as a plant medicine person and created the Ayaruna Center in Pisac, Peru. Over the last 10+ years he has been offering healing retreats with Ayahuasca and San Pedro / Huachuma plant medicines, both of which he has published books on.
While this book is not intended as a DIY manual for ingesting either the Toé or any other potentially risky plants, it does provide a very detailed overview and intimate glimpse into both the traditional practice of dieting medicinal plants. The commentary and insights provided are designed to avoid common pitfalls and maximize the time and effort invested in the profound healing process plant medicines provide.
This captivating tale presents an honest and vulnerable journey into the wisdom and medicines of the Amazon jungle. The many challenges faced by the author along the way ultimately led to a profound healing and expansion from engaging with this powerful Plant Teacher.
230 pages, Paperback
Published September 5, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 16, 2020
Having recently had a magical (yet sober) experience with a field of Datura, I felt guided to read this book. It is an insightful and responsible account of the Toè dieta in the jungle, very respectful of the people of the jungle and non dual. I’ve noticed a grotesque era of narcissism in ayahuasca tourism and “influencers” who are more interested in Instagram numbers than the plants. These people write articles claiming to speak for ayahuasca and also low key shame others who don’t know the ways of the medicine while other times acting like it’s only available to people like them (wealthy, white and privileged). This book is not at all of that parasitic nature. It is an account of a personal experience and a wonderful guide in learning from plants while not projecting ego or, if ego is projected, learning lessons from the experience rather than getting lost in narcissism. Much love for the author and his experiences.
May 10, 2022
Italian author Regueiro has spent years in the Amazon jungle working with the Datura, Ayahuasca, and occasionally San Pedro (mescaline) plant medicines in his quest to become a shaman of the "poison path." His journeys into this underworld are at times remarkably philosophical and reveal such insights as:
"The truth is that, even when we are totally sober, we are always hallucinating: projecting so hard as a matter of fact, that we don’t even realize we are tripping on our own drama. The people who insist on judging altered states of consciousness and praise absolute sobriety are clearly unaware that even they are already tripping all the time and putting up their own show on the stage of Life. All spiritual practices are devoted to waking up from this state of amnesia and to living more consciously as a result....The threat is not out there but is the creation of our insane minds: the more we suppress or soothe our fears, the more we project them onto the world and create what we call our reality accordingly....What actually happens is not that the medicine makes us crazy, but that it shows us in vivid detail how insane we already are."
Meanwhile, the sheer amount of these potent drugs the author is compelled to consume raises many questions he never answers and greatly frustrates the reader. Now, I've known people whose lives have been transformed by a single powerful psychedelic session. In ceremony after ceremony, however, Regueiro repetitively unpeels layer after layer of pain and healing that never seems to accomplish anything but dredge up yet more deeply buried trauma. And what exactly IS the difference between Datura and Ayahuasca, which he regularly mixes together in varying proportions? They are wholly different and unrelated alkaloids, but how exactly is this baneful brew, Datura (and the other nightshades), long the purview of witches and sorcerers, distinct from the medicine the Amazon is more commonly known for, Ayahuasca? Regueiro maddeningly refuses to clarify the one thing we want to know more than anything else until he finally tosses us a few nuggets: Datura is so much more potent than Ayahuasca that the latter serves more as a catalyst or enhancer (in the same way cannabis enhances a psilocybin or acid trip).
Datura is so potent in fact that by the end of the book our author-shaman admits to having "brushed very closely with madness" in his Datura trances and the deep unconscious work the medicine continues to perform on the mind long after consuming it. Another example of the unsettling after-effects of this substance is Reguerio's loopy hermaphroditism, preceded by his somewhat sheepish admission of being gay. And then we're hit with this:
"I move on to the theme of how women hurt, shame, and judge each other: no, it’s not only men who hurt women….I go through a long process of becoming aware of and forgiving all the subtle ways in which I have judged, ridiculed, and shamed women simply for being themselves AND women."
Yes, Reguerio soon admits, so deeply does he empathize with women and their timeworn oppression that it has turned him into a woman. He is, he confesses, actually a woman, and I grow confused. No, wait - I look at his name again and check his author photo. I was right the first time - he's a man. But after his numerous Datura experiences, it appears he's not so sure. By the way, as he himself warns, stay away from Datura unless you know what you're doing. It puts you into a state, lasting up to several days, where you have no awareness of what's happening or memory of the bizarre behavior you may have engaged in during the spell.
"The truth is that, even when we are totally sober, we are always hallucinating: projecting so hard as a matter of fact, that we don’t even realize we are tripping on our own drama. The people who insist on judging altered states of consciousness and praise absolute sobriety are clearly unaware that even they are already tripping all the time and putting up their own show on the stage of Life. All spiritual practices are devoted to waking up from this state of amnesia and to living more consciously as a result....The threat is not out there but is the creation of our insane minds: the more we suppress or soothe our fears, the more we project them onto the world and create what we call our reality accordingly....What actually happens is not that the medicine makes us crazy, but that it shows us in vivid detail how insane we already are."
Meanwhile, the sheer amount of these potent drugs the author is compelled to consume raises many questions he never answers and greatly frustrates the reader. Now, I've known people whose lives have been transformed by a single powerful psychedelic session. In ceremony after ceremony, however, Regueiro repetitively unpeels layer after layer of pain and healing that never seems to accomplish anything but dredge up yet more deeply buried trauma. And what exactly IS the difference between Datura and Ayahuasca, which he regularly mixes together in varying proportions? They are wholly different and unrelated alkaloids, but how exactly is this baneful brew, Datura (and the other nightshades), long the purview of witches and sorcerers, distinct from the medicine the Amazon is more commonly known for, Ayahuasca? Regueiro maddeningly refuses to clarify the one thing we want to know more than anything else until he finally tosses us a few nuggets: Datura is so much more potent than Ayahuasca that the latter serves more as a catalyst or enhancer (in the same way cannabis enhances a psilocybin or acid trip).
Datura is so potent in fact that by the end of the book our author-shaman admits to having "brushed very closely with madness" in his Datura trances and the deep unconscious work the medicine continues to perform on the mind long after consuming it. Another example of the unsettling after-effects of this substance is Reguerio's loopy hermaphroditism, preceded by his somewhat sheepish admission of being gay. And then we're hit with this:
"I move on to the theme of how women hurt, shame, and judge each other: no, it’s not only men who hurt women….I go through a long process of becoming aware of and forgiving all the subtle ways in which I have judged, ridiculed, and shamed women simply for being themselves AND women."
Yes, Reguerio soon admits, so deeply does he empathize with women and their timeworn oppression that it has turned him into a woman. He is, he confesses, actually a woman, and I grow confused. No, wait - I look at his name again and check his author photo. I was right the first time - he's a man. But after his numerous Datura experiences, it appears he's not so sure. By the way, as he himself warns, stay away from Datura unless you know what you're doing. It puts you into a state, lasting up to several days, where you have no awareness of what's happening or memory of the bizarre behavior you may have engaged in during the spell.
October 8, 2021
This is well written and an interesting perspective on plant medicine. I disagree on many of the author's points however I do really appreciate the perspective and experience and the humble way it is presented. I don't buy all the author's perspectives on gender or the consciousness of plants. However Javier does make clear that this was their experience rather than absolute truth. make sure to read to the end.
Point is this book might not be for everyone but it's definitely full of interesting perspective and a large helping of general life wisdom.
Point is this book might not be for everyone but it's definitely full of interesting perspective and a large helping of general life wisdom.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews