I thought this might be interesting:

Martin W. Ball's view on "The Spirit Molecule"

http://entheogenic.podom...12-01-09T21_08_42-08_00

Edit: I need to add here that I do not agree with Ball on most cases but I think it adds nicely to the discussion about DMT. I have my own view on the nature and effect of spice.

enjoy!


Martin W. Ball holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Native American Traditions and Entheogenic Shamanism. He is the author of the books Mushroom Wisdom: How Shamans Cultivate Spiritual Consciousness and Sage Spirit: Salvia Divinorum and the Entheogenic Experience. He is also the host of a weekly podcast about entheogens and spirituality, the Entheogenic Evolution, which can be found at www.entheogenic.podomatic.com or on iTunes. For more information about Dr. Ball's books, music and art, visit his website at www.martinball.net.

Martin comes off mostly as a charlatan who rarely knows what he's talking about IMO from what I've seen. He's rubbed many here the wrong way

I forgot to mention that I do not agree with him per se but I thought it would be interesting for this forum.

Though it is very possible that he may be wrong on various issues he is no charlatan. He has a great deal of experience with the molecules about which he speaks and writes.

Also, in this particular case, and in life in general, it seems wise to take little note about who "rubs many people the wrong way." Read, listen, and decide for yourself. If he rubs YOU the wrong way, universecannon, that is important (to you). Not the effect he has on the so-called "many".

eH

His huge charges for guided sessions using readily available plant medicines strongly smell of charlatan.

When universcannon says that he's rubbed many here the wrong way, it's not because he's just projecting his emotions and reactions on the "many", but because there have been a few select threads or articles that have received a great deal of controversy here. I for one have read his articles, I listened to the entire podcast, and I'm not entirely convinced. I think something inherent in a "nondual paradigm" should be that there isn't one right answer for everything. There should be holographic overlaps of correct answers and probabilities whereas he believes he's got the truth, and it's the one and only. Maybe twice in that podcast he concedes that he could be wrong, but it's really just semantics. His certainty levels come across as very high. He also seems to imply that if you can't get past the "illusory" states, then you're really only deluding yourself, and that they don't rank high in terms of being beneficial. He's very condescending.

Martin Ball..as annoying as ever it seems.

The guy is sort of deluded I think. He goes on and on about non-dual everything, but he does it in such a dualistic way! Following his own logic, every time I listen to him since he had his non-dual awakening or whatever I start to wonder if the guy walks down the street disreguarding every single person he meets as well and passes them off as just another ego projection.

My point being- while I agree with the idea of a non-dualisitc universe at some level, that paradigm has it's own limits. Martin Ball seems to think he has the answer for all of us egoic DMT users etc..He constantly dismisses the very REAL reality of subjective experience. Martin ball eats food to sustain himself I am sure which is a very ego centered subjective thing to do..if everything is really just a projection of the self to the extent that subjective phenomenon dont matter, than what is the point? Why does Martin Ball care about the health of Martin Ball? Why not just starve to death? Why not disreguard random people as well as just a projection of your self?

Just because the reality of a non-dual level of existance where everything is united makes some sense, does not mean that every subjective phenomenon within that whole is to be belittled or never engaged. Why this guy does not get that I dont understand but he constantly and arrogantly carries on as if this is so. He basically just told you that none of you are real either, other than at a subjective dualistic level that is pointless to engage..

The whole thing is so stupid I dont know what else to say about it. He wants to insist on a non-dualistic reality by creating some dualistic pyramid structure where unity is above duality. It is a cheap cop-out and just an easy explaination for a topic not so easily adressed. If I am just an ego projection, and some entities in another reality/hyperspace/outerspace etc are just an ego projection, than why would I treat them any different than I would expect some random person at the store or on the street to treat me? Should I just expect people top pass me off as a figment of their imagination just becasue at another level it is obvious that we are all one?

Something else I was thinking about was his dismissal of people who "clearly" had their egos because they were able to use descriptions to talk about what they were seeing. The fact of the matter is that regardless of whether or not the ego was fully dissolved in the experience, it's not when they're in front of the camera telling the story. They're (I'm assuming) being paid to tell their story so that's biasing to come up with descriptions anyway. Furthermore, even in the case of a full transcendental ego-less experience, if the ego doesn't get to work on trying to analyze the indivisible mystic experience, you won't remember a thing about it rendering it as helpful as a full on blackout (which may be the only true ego-less experience no matter how much "you" don't seem to be there). Mr. Ball doesn't recognize the importance of balance between the ego and ego-less. You go out to hyperspace, destroy your ego, but then if you can't get your ego to get at least some idea of what happened, then memories will recede in an amnesic fashion (which anyone who's smoked DMT knows will happen to some degree because your ego will most likely not get a handle on everything). The problem is balance. If you let your ego go overboard, it will get carried away and be succeptable to mistakes as much as relying on the intuitive nature of the mystical experience can lead to error if intuition is taken to the extreme. Yogis understand this when they go into their transcendental meditation as well. The whole integration process is based on your ego's ability to figure out what went on up there, so it shouldn't be discarded so quickly.

On a side note, I was also a bit put off at how he was picking on the guy for saying "you" instead of "I" when there's no evidence suggesting that he actually was projecting his experience on everybody. Using "you" is just a colloquial way of saying "I". It's ingrained in the contemporary use of the English language, and as the story-teller was caught up in telling a spiritually significant story, I see no reason why he couldn't have meant "I". Martin Ball also thinks he can analyze people by the sound of their voice (i.e. he had Terrence figured out because he was nasally and thought with his "intellect" - oh no!), so how would we analyze Martin's voice? Perhaps start off with arrogant?

I know I'm petty, but I can't take anyone seriously who use their middle initial. Martin "W." Ball. C'mon!

I went through somewhat of an infatuation with Terence Mckenna as I'm sure is obvious because of my alias sp? so this could be a bit biased.

I also recognized him as the author of that article, Global, and I was as displeased to read it as you probably were. It seemed to me he just wanted to raise himself above a true Legend to serve his own ego. Realistically, he did not and does not posess the qualities that would raise him to that level. Terence really put in the time to be able to comment on such things with authority (I use that term loosely of course!). I think he was also less self-serving and was truly motivated to connect to people and share information.

In his article Ball basically said that the hallucinations as a result of DMT were all ego, but somehow he didnt have an ego when using 5meo DMT because there were no hallucinations. It is a rediculous thing to say because we all know anyone who smokes n,n DMT is going to hallucinate, and anyone who smokes 5 meo DMT isnt. I read it a long time ago so I could be wrong but that was what I came out of it with. Despicable.

From what I've gathered from James Oroc's "Tryptamine Palace", 5-MeO can produce hallucinations to some extent just as DMT can produce the void to some extent, but his theory was that 5-MeO was just so much more potent than DMT that most often you'd blow right past all the visuals that you would normally need a lot of efficiently vaped DMT to do.

Once again I will state openly that my husband and I have met Martin Ball (Mystic Garden Party, 2010) and were summarily unimpressed. I'll be blunt: He is a petty, plaigeristic (he was blatently stealing material without referencing it for his Mystic Garden presentation from a then-recent Lorenzo Haggarty Psychedelic Salon podcast featuring a Terence McKenna titled, "Empowering Hope in Dark Times." ) person with a bit of a childlike mean-streak. His imitations of McKenna were extremely disrespectful but also extremely revealing. My husband turned to me and said "He's jealous," and I replied, "of a man 10 years dead!"

There was something else we witnessed, or became aware of when we met him. His eyes and attentions were mainly spent on very young, sometimes I'd use the word nubile to be frank, female admirerers. He definately had time for older women and men who bahaved star-struck, asked good questions or expressed interest in a formal (paid for) session with him, but most of his focus was on a different class. Let's not forget he left his wife and child to pursue his dream of exploring psychedlics. Pursuing his dream of younger you know what without the burden of a child is more like it. Now that's real mature responsibility right there. Thus, we walked away chuckling and saying to ourselves, "There's one man who's interested in exactly two things: Getting paid and getting laid." Given what we had seen of the organization at the Mystic Garden party we figured he was going to get lucky for one out of two that weekend.

Anyone see his infamous article in Reality Sandwich awhile back criticizing T. McKenna down to the style of McKenna's voice? See the feedback on that basically equating to "You should be ashamed!"? That about sums it up imo.

Remember, at least last I heard, this guy charges $200 for psychedelic sessions with substances that did or do enjoy quasi-legality such as salvia divinorum and 5-meo-DMT. He is NOT a licensed clinical counselor or medical doctor of any kind.

Also, just to be blatently mocking, who could forget this:



Clearly this guy just makes it up, does not pass Go, collects $200, then gets jealous when others know what's really going on. I'll probably go ahead and listen to at least part of this podcast but given my past exposure to Ball, I shudder to imagine what I'll encounter.

Note how on the last 5 rolls or so in the video how he starts to loose balance a bit and starts tilting off to one side. So is that muscle fatigue or the energy giving way?

Scandalous! it's pure plagiarism, he got all those hand movements from "Mr. Bean"

I got to say I didn't know anything about Mr Ball prior to posting this. I even posted it here while I was listening to it. I'm actually very happy I did because now I know a deal more about Mr Ball. His sympathy score dropped enormously after being educated about him by some members here. The yoga video gave me the rest. Thanks Nexus!

I've yet to check out this recent podcast, so I can't comment on that - but here are links to two juicy threads where he engages the Nexus in debate (via channeling through a starry eyed member):

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=13571

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=18201

Im skeptical of anyone who charges large sums of money for anything spiritually related. Actually, I downright distrust them. I certainly dont consider myself enlightened so what do I know, but my personal opinion- if youve had a true enlightenment, you would want to share your knowledge and the path you took to get there with anyone who wants to find it as well. I understand needing to make a living, but several hundred dollars for a psychedelic session?

Yeah, I was interested in Martin Ball at first. I got a lot out of his interviews with various people on his podcasts, but once I started looking at more of his work and his personal opinions and ideas I started getting really turned off.

He seemed alot more humble back when his mushrooms book came out but now he seems so egotistical. I laugh when he mentions 'non duality'.

I had been subscribed to his podcast for a while and found some of his episodes quite interesting to listen to. On putting the one in question on my view of him changed very rapidly. I didn’t really know too much of him outside of the podcasts and nothing of any dislike anyone had for him. Listening to that podcast I could see nothing but a truly obnoxious person wrapped up in their own ego with no time for the experiences or interpretations of others. One experience after another it was pretty much all down to “You’re doing it all wrong”. Rubbish. Nobody has the answer. There is no right, no wrong, just differences in experience.

Unsubscribed and deleted.