According to reports, Clairvius was poisoned with a mixture of various natural poisons to simulate death. The instigator of the poisoning was alleged to be his brother, with whom he had quarreled over land. After his "death" and subsequent burial on May 2, 1962, his body was recovered and he was given a paste made from datura which at certain doses has a hallucinogenic effect and can cause memory loss. His new 'master', a bokor (sorcerer), then forced him, alongside many other zombie slaves, to work on a sugar plantation until the master's death in 1964. When the bokor died, and regular doses of the hallucinogen ceased, he eventually regained sanity (unlike many others who had suffered brain damage from being buried alive) and returned to his family after some time, though only after findi