A journalist investigates the unsettling world of a charismatic shaman and the people who trusted him
Which, in your opinion, is the worst current cultural trend: social media influencers; unregulated wellness practitioners; macho manosphere posturers; psychedelic bores; cultural appropriators? The good news is that, with Octavio Rettig, the central character in Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip, you don’t have to choose between them. He’s all five wrapped into one objectionable package, and so much more besides.
The tale begins with the Sonoran desert toad, an improbable amphibian that spends most of its life hiding underground in the baking badlands along the Mexico-Arizona border, and has done so blamelessly for millions of years. Whenever it rains, the toads emerge from their hiding places to mate, laying strings of eggs wherever water has pooled.
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