The Toé / Datura Diaries: A Shamanic Apprenticeship in the Heart of the Amazon Jungle

By Javier Regueiro

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781950367801

Book preview

THE TOÉ/

DATURA DIARIES

A Shamanic Apprenticeship in the Heart of the Amazon Jungle

JAVIER REGUEIRO

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2020 by Javier Regueiro

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

ISBN: 978-19-5-036780-1

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Publisher: Jesse Krieger

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To all the Sisters,

Daughters,

Mothers,

and Grandmothers

Delwood Barker stood himself in front of me, laying his head against the hole in my chest.

Berdache Indians from the old days say that knowledge can become understanding during the dark of the moon – that you can come face to face with who you are and who you think you are, Delwood said. And most people can’t take seeing who they are is who they think they are, and they end up going plumb crazy.

Delwood Barker’s mouth at my ear, him in my arms again.

Heard tell too you can talk to your shadow, and your shadow will talk back, Delwood said, …that’s what it is, you know, the dark of the moon is a shadow – you see, the earth comes between the sun and the moon, and what darkens the moon is the shadow of the earth. So, like my book says, the sun – being the source of light – gets blocked by the earth – earth being the place where we all think we are who we are – and the thinking we are who we are, the earth shadow – gets cast onto the moon – moon being our secret selves – secret being the fact that we’re not who we think we are at all.

Tom Spanbauer The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon

Contents

Disclaimer

Introduction

Beginnings

What Is The Toé Plant

The Toé Trance

Part I: The 2005/2006 Diaries

The Beginnings of a Shamanic Apprenticeship

Part II: The 2019 Diaries

Healing the Wounded Feminine

Epilogue

Glossary

Bibliography

Disclaimer

Plants belonging to the Brugmansia and Datura genera are very toxic and can be very dangerous when ingested without the proper care and preparation. The author does not recommend engaging with these Plant Teachers other than under the careful supervision and guidance of an expert plant medicine person.

The kind of plants referred to in this book belong specifically to the Brugmansia genus, which is a family of seven different but closely related plants also known as Angel’s Trumpets in the family of Solanaceae. These are trees with pendulous flowers, native to South America. Datura plants proper, known as Devil’s Trumpets, Jimson Weed, or Thorn-Apple, also belong to the family of Solanaceae plants but have spiny seed pods and their flowers are erect or spread out. Both kinds are equally, potentially toxic.

Every word in this book is simply the author’s opinion or point of view. Please feel free to dismiss anything that does not resonate with you. The experiences narrated here are not a foolproof recipe for growth and healing, and should therefore not be followed literally. If anything, it is hoped that such narrations will inspire the reader along their personal journey of healing and awakening.

Introduction

First of all, I would like to make it clear that this is NOT a handbook for engaging with the Toé plant. People interested in ingesting this medicine on their own, will find little detailed information about this process and would do better to save their time and money if that’s what they’re looking for.

The Angel’s Trumpet plant, henceforth referred to by its most common Amazonian name Toé, is a very powerful Plant Teacher but also toxic and dangerous. However, this plant has a long history of human use for medicinal, spiritual, and shamanic purposes. Such uses have traditionally been closely supervised by someone with a lot of experience with the plant and not left to the casual urges of individuals. This is why you won’t find any information here about dosages and specific modes of use. Indeed, some Westerners may be ready to engage with this plant medicine on their own, but they are an infinitesimal minority. For most of us, the recommended way to go about this process, is with an experienced teacher with a lot of integrity: someone who has only our best interests in mind, not someone who wishes to impress others by serving a medicine that could possibly damage the person ingesting it.

Initiation

Traditional spirituality and shamanism have always had an important element, which is to thoroughly prepare the individual before the next step is taken along the path of learning and awakening. For example, monks with a desire for enlightenment may have to spend years cleaning the bathrooms of the monastery before any teaching is imparted to them. The traditional approach of assessing the level of readiness of the individual is not casual or arbitrary, but stems from the awareness that in order to have a positive healing or spiritual experience, such preparation is deemed essential in order to avoid something that could be truly detrimental to the person’s psyche. Plant medicine is an organic process and, like all organic processes, offers no shortcuts and no magic pills along the way of healing and liberation. The path is often shrouded with taboos: these are created deliberately to warn people about the dangers of this or that process, and the experiences related here should prove the validity and importance of such taboos.

Modern people talk a lot nowadays about instant enlightenment along the same lines as fast food or any other kind of instant gratification. We do live in extraordinary times where literally anything is possible, and I don’t rule out that someone karmically and psychologically ready for it, may indeed become suddenly enlightened while riding the subway on their way to work, or by ingesting some Toé on their own: such exceptions, if anything, confirm the weighty importance of the rules. In our present state of a more-often-than-not inflated ego, we may think that we are exempt from such rules, that we are very special, and have no need to subscribe to any guideline, particularly when they require of us a lengthy and disciplined process. We may decide to skip the traditional approach and do what we feel inspired to. Even with the support and guidance of an experienced teacher, this medicine can catalyze severely detrimental effects on the body and psyche of the individual because most of us are really wandering in the dark, ignorant of our true needs or level of spiritual and psychological maturity, and unaware of what we are really getting ourselves into. For many who have ingested Toé without due preparation and readiness, the Toé experience has proven to be very unpleasant, sometimes even traumatic, or has left long-lasting negative repercussions.

Over the years, I have met and heard of people badly bruised and even damaged by this process or with other Plant Teachers, so my approach has always been very cautious and humble. I am not in the position to tell people how to approach this Plant Teacher, and I am definitely not sharing my experience as an example to copy or emulate. No rules are written in stone, but I do believe that sooner or later we all have to deal with the consequences of our choices and actions. There are people who have engaged with medicines such as Toé or Ayahuasca¹ and as a result of their negative or unpleasant experience (including short- and long-term psychotic episodes) spend the rest of their days in psychiatric wards or blaming the medicine or the plant medicine person for their experience, often referring to these powerful medicines as evil and accusing plant medicine people of sorcery. We will further explore these themes of psychosis and black magic later on.

The bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is that these individuals took a bite out of something much bigger than they were ready to chew on or could swallow No one is really to blame, but it is important to take responsibility for one’s own experience.

Years ago, a client who had some interest in becoming a plant medicine person was complaining about my teacher and his car salesman ways. In answer to his complaints, I mentioned that if anybody wishes to be a shaman, the first thing is to grow into a responsible adult. We live in a world where we can remain infantile through most of our lives, expecting to be spoon-fed and complaining when we are not. A mature attitude when entering the realm of plant medicine is one of our best assets. Of course, if we were fully grown-up and integrated beings there would be no need to engage with these medicines, and oftentimes our healing process IS about letting go of our childishness and embracing our responsibilities as adults.

In traditional societies we may be able to voice our interest in participating in a plant medicine ceremony or process, but ultimately it is the plant medicine person who will assess whether we are ready for that experience. And we may have to wait some weeks, months, or even years.

In recent times it has become clear to me that traditional plant medicine has a very important initiatory component. As with all initiations, it is a matter of being ready to receive what we say we want to experience. In the Amazon jungle, as well as in the Andes, the Quechua word Cocha is often used to reference a lagoon of fresh water but actually refers to the hollow earth that holds the water of the lagoon. In the same vein, particular veneration is given to the Kero ceremonial cups used since pre-Colombian times in Peru: an attitude which is still very much alive today when I see my teacher blow smoke and whistle an icaro² into the empty vessel used to serve Ayahuasca at the beginning of each ceremony. I understand the principle for such attitude to be that much importance is given to the container and for good reason: if the container is leaking or broken, whatever we pour into it will go to waste. In the same way, if someone’s psyche is not strong and flexible enough, whatever information is poured into it may actually confuse the individual or may eventually fade into oblivion instead of being properly integrated.³ As you will find when reading this book, the shamanic and healing processes are not exclusively about the great insights and healings one receives from them but very much about the cleansing – physical, emotional, and mental – that is required of us so that we can emerge from such a process renewed and more whole.

So, for most of us, an external and skilled assessment of our actual readiness to engage with this or any other plant medicine is a wise approach. I would also like to mention that by following, without exception, the guidance of my human teachers instead of becoming creative in a field I hardly knew anything about, has kept me relatively sane during these years of shamanic exploration and healing.

The initiatory aspect of Sacred Plant Teachers, has suffered dramatically since the (re) discovery of such processes by Westerners in recent times. I am amongst those to have benefitted from a less than strict entrance examination when I first expressed my wish to drink Ayahuasca and later on participate in an Ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. Just like many other people, all that was required of me was the time, the money, and the interest to engage in this process: not years of waiting under the watchful eye of the community shaman.

What has contributed to this change is the fact that Sacred Plants have increasingly become a major healing modality and are not just used for initiatory and spiritual purposes. This means that most plant medicine people are first and foremost doctors, and it is a pretty universal rule among doctors of any kind, anywhere, to offer medical assistance to anyone in need to the best of their abilities. Plant medicine people are no exception, and they will offer, more often than not, their support as generously as they can. If we add to the equation the fact that many indigenous and non-indigenous plant medicine people and their families depend financially on this activity, we can quickly understand how in many cases the initial assessment on the part of the medicine person can become hasty, inaccurate, or even faulty at times.

I write about this theme of readiness because the Toé experience requires a high level of maturity, both spiritual and psychological, of humility, and of patience from the person interested in working with it. Furthermore, it is important to remember that our chosen guides are not there to spoon-feed us just because we have paid our entrance ticket: this is an unfortunate modern consumerist attitude that has no place in the pursuit of healing and spirituality.

As I was transcribing the journal entries from my 2005 to 2006 dieta,⁴ I was mildly appalled and amused by my own lack of maturity at the time. At least I was under the care of my teacher, Don Francisco Montes Shuña, who provided me with plenty of support and enough wisdom to carry me through my first Toé dieta. You will see from these entries and the comments I have written years later, how this process unfolded for me and exposed my own level of unawareness. And how when I led myself through my own process fourteen years later, I was always under the guidance of my teacher and with much water under the bridge of time.

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1 - See Glossary

2 - See Glossary

3 - See Glossary

4 - See Glossary

Beginnings

My intense relationship with Plant Teachers started in 2004 when I signed up for a twelve-day Ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian Amazon jungle near the town of Pucallpa. Until then I had only drunk Ayahuasca twice some years before.

We were a group of twenty participants, all of us Westerners. Many had been to the jungle before but hardly spoke any Spanish. The experience was very healing and expanding for me. Quickly and instinctively, I started to consider ways of giving back for the gifts and blessings I had received. Even before leaving the jungle, I entertained the idea of supporting our group leader with future groups as a translator It is interesting how most people who engage in this process, feel a deep desire to contribute and give back for what they have received. For most of us, the plant healing process quickly exceeds all expectations. This is mainly because we are engaging in a process that surpasses, in depth and results, any idea we may have held until then about what is possible to experience in terms of real healing. The majority, me included, will do their best to help this process thrive further so that other people may also benefit from it. This is something rather unique to plant medicine and akin to what happened in the 1960s, when hippies wouldn’t expect their drugs to be returned but instead invited others to pass them on.

Only ten days after leaving the jungle, I was approaching on foot the sanctuary of Machu Picchu by way of the Inca Trail. I had the strange and unexpected idea that I ought to study plant medicine: I was surprised by my thought and quickly reminded myself that, The medicine path is not nearly as glamorous as one might think. As I walked on, I kept imagining the feasibility of this, feeling a mixture of excitement and vertigo, as if I were walking on the edge of an abyss that was as scary as it was irresistible.

Upon contacting our jungle group leader, I enquired about the possibility of studying with our ayahuasquero in Pucallpa. His advice to me was to look around and experience different ways of working with this medicine before signing up with a teacher. I was disappointed because his answer threw me into more searching rather than offering an answer, but he was right and I complied: after all, this was a world I knew nothing about, and it could only benefit me to explore it further before making any serious commitment to a teacher or tradition.

Six months later, I returned to Barcelona in Spain. I immediately looked online for other Ayahuasca retreats with the intention of revisiting the jungle to see if my interest in studying plant medicine was a serious one and not just a passing thought elicited by the enthusiasm I felt after five Ayahuasca ceremonies the previous year. Within a few days, I had signed up for two months to drink Ayahuasca around Iquitos in Peru with two different medicine people. When I held the airplane ticket in my hands, I had a minor freak-out. I wondered what on Earth I was getting myself into and whether I had what it took to drink medicine for two consecutive months with people I knew nothing about.

My doubt was answered three weeks later when I was at Lima airport waiting to board my flight to Iquitos. With nothing else to do, I started talking with the salesperson at a jewelry shop inside the terminal. I mentioned that I was going to Iquitos, so she showed me a catalogue of their jungle-inspired jewelry, then gifted me a small Tumi necklace. A Tumi is a pre-Columbian metal tool with a semicircular blade at the bottom and at the top. It was used in pre and post-colonial times by the natives for religious rituals, as well as varied forms of surgery including skull trepanation. Hmm, I thought, I am going to the jungle to have brain surgery.

I spent the first month in a small encampment run by a family of Shipibo people whose grandfather had begun to lead Ayahuasca ceremonies when he had turned sixty. We would drink Ayahuasca every other night and, because of my limited experience thus far with this medicine, I quickly forgot my main intention for being there and instead put my focus on surviving each ceremony. I speak of survival because that’s how I perceived those first few Ayahuasca ceremonies: an ordeal with no guarantee of success, a kind of death with a potential, but not certain, rebirth. I was so nervous before each ceremony that I took to listening to meditation tapes beforehand. Indeed,

Reviews for The Toé / Datura Diaries

[Moon Psychonaut · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Impressive testimony to a diet in the Amazon rainforest. However disturbing that he sermonizes his maestro Francisco Montes Shuna for sexual abuse of female patients at Sachamama and continues to work with him for years...

[Psykopadrian Fatpibe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing journey from a very wise man!
Super interesting read..
Viva toé