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Dr. Martin Ball - Entheogenicist

Migrated topic.
May we please add to the ledger of community consensus the following basic premise:

Total lifetime quantity of DMT smoked ≠ quantity & quality of personal wisdom.

I think discussions could be a lot more fruitful if everyone abandons the notion that the taking of psychedelics is a fucking race - an idea which has been forwarded by several parties engaged in this outright ridiculous trollfest.
 
Personally, I have no problem whatsoever with any of the man's theories. Lord knows there are enough such ideas floating around in here daily. He's certainly welcome to some of his own, and as theories go, they're not bad. We're all one energy, we're expressions of God, where we go is strictly subjective; all of these things make perfect sense and I really can't argue with any of them. The guy writes well, he's erudite and accustomed to metaphysical wankings. So... bully for him. He's clearly entranced by the sound of his own flapping gums, but if he's found something that makes him happy, who am I to object?

But this is the thing: because he chooses to put himself out there, he's become a de facto spokesperson - and in my ever so humble opinion, he ain't a very good one. He charges people for the experience (which to me is unforgivable), and his priority really seems to be that of achieving a cult of celebrity. He isn't even remotely interested in an open exchange of ideas. He presents his Unifying Theory of Everything (which really ain't all that new, unique, or complex to hear him explain it) as undeniable, unequivocal, take-it-or-leave-it fact.

Now I don't have a PHD in anything, alright? And I have no problem admitting that Dr. Ball is smarter than I am. But I've dived as deeply into the world of DMT as most, and the very first lesson I learned in there was that I DON'T KNOW A THING. It's given me a million questions and obliterated all my answers. It's humbled me to participate in something so vast and immeasurable, and I can safely say that I don't have the first fucking clue what it means. I'm open to a variety of ideas, but in the final analysis, who cares? It is what it is and that's all that it is. If you want to put a name to it, go ahead and take a shot - but tread lightly if you're doing it on some kind of a public stage. Because the world is looking for egomaniacal ponytailed weirdos doing make believe yoga to discredit "the movement" entirely - and the misguided efforts of megalomaniacs only serve to marginalize us further.

Mixing DMT with money is (in my opinion) wrong, as is using it as some kind of vehicle to achieve a measure of fame. This is my problem with Martin Ball - I just think he's a dangerous phoney, and for someone whose catchword is "authenticity", I don't find him authentic at all.
 
Very respectable opinion Art.

I guess my question is this: Why is it wrong of him to charge for his services?

Like he said, you wouldn't go to a doctor, therapist, yoga instructor, etc. for free.. why would this be any different? He is a "Dr".. and it is a type of therapy.. 5-meo DMT is only a tool after all.
 
Because the thing that he is actively marketing and selling to you is divinity. He's giving you one on one time with God for the price of $200. It's wrong (and this is just my belief), as it is for the Church of Scientology to sell enlightenment in levels and the Catholic church to sell indulgences. In short - what he's selling just ain't his to sell - and again, this is just my opinion (though I think that others here share it).

That's the more ethereal reason. The more practical one is that he may very well be fucking things up for the rest of us. Selling these substances can only hasten the illegalization of source materials.
 
Cloud said:
Very respectable opinion Art.

I guess my question is this: Why is it wrong of him to charge for his services?

Like he said, you wouldn't go to a doctor, therapist, yoga instructor, etc. for free.. why would this be any different? He is a "Dr".. and it is a type of therapy.. 5-meo DMT is only a tool after all.
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He is a very expensive drug dealer, and the worst kind: you have to do the drugs at his crappy apartment with his deep deep voice guiding you to The Truth (because it's only the Truth if you capitalize it). A $200 drug trip is what he offers in a new age package of "Energetic Realignment".

Imagine the aya kicking in and Mr. Ball (enough of this "Dr." nonsense) going, "Wait, wait, first we must do some fractal yoga. I discovered this yoga practice . . . I'm the only one in history to know The Truth, have I told you that? It's a terrible burden. Oh, sorry, I don't take American Express."
 
tetra, LMAO to the point of cramping and crying!


Electric.Sight said:
Anybody else receive sinister vibes from that video?
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I refer you back to my very first post on this topic. I've met him in person. There is a distinct creepy edge about him. What I saw was someone who was interested in getting laid and getting paid and it was an immediate turnoff. The debate that has bloomed here has just enhanced that initial impression . . . .
 
tetra said:
He is a very expensive drug dealer, and the worst kind: you have to do the drugs at his crappy apartment with his deep deep voice guiding you to The Truth (because it's only the Truth if you capitalize it). A $200 drug trip is what he offers in a new age package of "Energetic Realignment".

Imagine the aya kicking in and Mr. Ball (enough of this "Dr." nonsense) going, "Wait, wait, first we must do some fractal yoga. I discovered this yoga practice . . . I'm the only one in history to know The Truth, have I told you that? It's a terrible burden. Oh, sorry, I don't take American Express."
Click to expand...

Now this is a dude who can bring the funny.

*I wave my magic moderator wand, and poof - he is out of the nursery*
 
Uncle Knucles said:
Because the thing that he is actively marketing and selling to you is divinity. He's giving you one on one time with God for the price of $200. It's wrong (and this is just my belief), just as it's wrong for the Church of Scientology to sell enlightenment in levels, and the Catholic church to sell indulgences. What he's selling ain't his to sell. That's just my opinion.

That's the more ethereal reason. The more practical one is that he may very well be fucking things up for the rest of us. Selling these substances can only hasten the illegalization of source materials.
Click to expand...

He isn't selling divinity (we already are divine), and he isn't selling drugs. He is selling a service. His service is no different than a therapist.. the only difference is that he is using a tool to help the patient make realizations. I think the fact that he has a Ph.D gives him the right to be able to do this. He did work for it..
 
What is his Ph.D. in? Is he a clinical, licensed psychologist? If so, he should publicly display is license number and have agreed to a number of ethical and legal principles laid out by the American Psychological Association. If he IS licensed, is his license current? Has he kept up? When does it or did it expire?

I honestly believe his Ph.D. is NOT in psychological or social work but I do not know. I honestly believe he is not licensed, but I do not know. I DO KNOW the standards for practice and licensing that Ph.D. psychologists and social workers are held to and he does not meet them.
 
^^^This was taken from his website:
Martin earned his B.A. at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1994 where he studied Philosophy and Religious Studies. From there he went to graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies in 2000 with an emphasis on Native American traditions, Philosophy of Science and Religion, and the Phenomenology of Mystical and Shamanic Experience. For his Ph.D. dissertation, Martin performed fieldwork at the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico where he studied with a number of medicine people and researched the Mescalero Mountain Spirit tradition.
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So you would be correct in your assumption that he is no psychologist.
 
Cloud said:
Very respectable opinion Art.

I guess my question is this: Why is it wrong of him to charge for his services?

Like he said, you wouldn't go to a doctor, therapist, yoga instructor, etc. for free.. why would this be any different? He is a "Dr".. and it is a type of therapy.. 5-meo DMT is only a tool after all.
Click to expand...

Here's the thing Cloud, he already has a day job. I listened to one of his podcasts this morning (interview with the man who made the Spirit Molecule film) and he was telling Mitch Schultz about his gig as a professor at a college, teaching comparative religion or something like that. I imagine he should be able to support his earthly needs with that job. I am a pet sitter and I'm doing fine. I'm an unenlightened being who likes to buy music gear and books and I have a family. Now I don't know if he has tenure, and I assume he would have told us by now if he did, but I'm sure he makes enough money to buy food and pay rent. Which is about all he should need, being an elevated being.
If he truly has become a god and has the absolute truth and has completely decoded REALITY (whatever that is) he should be doing his teaching sessions for free. I know I would, and like I said, I'm just some unenlightened guy. If I could heal the world, I'd do it for free.
 
I sent Martin some of your posts, and asked him to write a final reply to wrap this up.

Here it is -

- M

Final response

Participating in forums is something that I choose not to do. My participation here has been as a result of Cloud personally emailing me and discussing some of the issues raised in the forum as well as sending me selected quotes from what others have posted, requesting responses. I haven’t visited the forum and read through all that is here, so my participation has been and will be highly limited. As a personal choice, I communicate with people who communicate directly with me. If anyone here would like to engage in a dialogue, then I invite you send me an email and we can talk one-on-one about whatever issues you may like. I’m not personally concerned with defending my “public image” and therefore do not feel a need to completely engage myself with the postings here, but am always happy to talk with those who genuinely want to communicate at a personal level.

I don’t know if anyone ever had their mind changed by what they read on a forum post, especially when the topic is heated and feelings, judgments, and projections are running high. As a medium, it does not lend itself to actual dialogue or discourse – just a posting and counter-posting of ideas, often with conclusions already settled and trenches dug to defend positions, and often attempting to turn things “personal” and the attacks heat up.

So, it may be pointless for me to attempt any more response here, as we’re not really communicating, and I don’t expect anyone to see any of their positions differently based on anything I may or may not say. There’s a good chance I can just offend you more, as really what this is about is that people want to see “humility” from me, and the truth is, you’re not going to get it. I don’t alter my behavior or way of being for others, so any desire for such is bound to disappoint. However, as Cloud has personally asked me for a concluding remark, I offer the following thoughts:

Cutting through to the main issue about the Terence on DMT article, my overall aim was to detail how McKenna’s DMT experiences were reflections of himself and his egoic concerns and attachments. Also, in response to his own challenge that people who don’t believe that reality is made out of language should take DMT as the “ultimate convincer,” I wanted to make clear that this is a pure reflection of Terence and his concerns about the nature of language and the DMT experience – not something intrinsic or revelatory about the DMT experience itself. Regardless of what experiences Terence may have had with his “alien language,” my concern has been to highlight the nature of the fundamental energy that informs all entheogenic experiences and the very nature of the self (and the ego). Yes, Terence had a lot of interesting ideas and some entertaining experiences, but in the end, that’s what he leaves us with – interesting ideas and tales of the strange and wonderful. What I’m urging is for people to look beyond the ideas and tales and look into the genuine heart of the nature of being to understand the deeper workings of the self and how it creates the realities we experience in psychedelic (and other) states of consciousness.

As I’m sure is quite obvious, my intention in writing the original article was to be provocative and jarring. I didn’t do this to win friends and popularity, but to give the pot a serious stirring, and McKenna was a natural focus, given his huge influence on how people think about DMT experiences and psychedelics in general. The theme of “entities” and “realms” runs rampant in DMT circles, (and entheogenic and New Age circles in general) and as a product of the ego, it is in need of some serious clarity. There isn’t a nice way to shatter illusions, so my method is to be direct. McKenna was a convenient focus as an example of how attachments to certain ideas and concepts and constructs of the ego can significantly influence what we receive from entheogenic experiences, and also mask their true potential and genuine revelatory quality.

My interest is in liberation from illusion, and no matter what anyone might say in defense of Terence and all his ideas and experiences, machine elves are self-produced illusions – nothing more. Therefore, spending too much time debating how I chose to represent Terence is largely beside the point, for the fundamental truth remains – DMT entities and realms are self-produced illusions, and the more one focuses on them, the more one removes their focus from genuine reality and the clarity and personal fulfillment that such awareness can bring. Entheogens are the most powerful tools we have, and if used properly, can fundamentally change the world by helping to bring people to a full understanding of the nature of reality and the self.

Focusing on machine elves, entities, mystical languages, and other realms, will never help us here, now, in actual reality – they are merely fascinations for the mind. There are unique techniques, methods, and practices that I’ve shared that can help move anyone beyond these attachments and projections - if they are willing to do the work and undergo the demanding challenges that such work brings. There’s no need to believe me. Just give them a try, and see what happens. Practice symmetry. See what happens. What have you got to lose? (And that’s not a rhetorical question – I really mean it. What do you have to lose if you were to see beyond all your own projections and illusions? What would you have to let go of and leave behind?) What do you really want for yourself? Do you want to know, without a doubt, who and what you genuinely are, beyond ideas and beyond beliefs? Do you want to know reality as it truly is?

As for myself, there’s nothing I can say that would change anyone’s mind about me, so I won’t attempt to do so. I know that I can be a real challenge on many levels and that it can be difficult to grasp why I do what I do or say what I say – and that it is very easy to jump to any number of conclusions about me and what motivates me. In the end, I’m just being myself, and have some very important truths to share, and will continue to do it in whatever way I can and through whatever medium I can. You can listen to what I’m sharing and benefit from it, ignore me, write about how messed up you think I am on web forums, protest against me, or whatever else you may like. In the end, that’s your choice – it’s a free reality, after all, and everyone is responsible for his or her own choices. In whatever you choose, I hope you find the clarity and courage to be yourself, no matter what.
 
Convenient answer where he ignores all the obvious flaws and incoherencies that were pointed out from his ideas.. Mirror mirror, point the ego of others, point the belief of others, you are pointing at yourself.

Bye bye Mr Ball
 
As I suspected, Mr. Ball did not address the issues I brought up. He claims to have a physical theory of reality, yet when legitimate criticisms of his ideas are brought forth, he ignores them. How disappointing.

Physicists tell us that 95% of the universe is composed of “something” that is neither matter nor energy. Mr. Ball claims that “god” is a being of energy, and that everything else is essentially energy. His theory does not and cannot explain the nature of the majority of the universe.

An observer in a closed system cannot say anything about what lies outside of the closed system. And for a system as large as the universe, an observer can’t even know if the system he is in is closed or not. This is a very basic fact that is expressed in many different ways in many different fields, from mathematics, to physics, to information theory, to philosophy. Uncertainty is an intrinsic property of existence. Yet Mr. Ball is certain that he knows, that he understands. Good for him.

Rather than address these fundamental issues, Mr. Ball chose to occupy the bulk of his response with trite criticisms of Terrence McKenna and drug-induced visions.

Mr. Ball is a fraud.
 
gibran2 said:
Mr. Ball is a fraud.
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Agreed. I really think it's time to stop wasting time and energy on him. Cloud seems really conflicted. I think he needs time to work out wether he is a disciple of Ball or not. I think the action in this thread is impeding his progress. I say we leave this subject alone. It seems useless to debate it anymore.
 
After studying Martin Ball's work and brief communications with him, and after reading Dr. Martin Ball - Entheogenicist - Welcome discussion - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus , I felt compelled to offer my perspective, because I feel a little outrage at how the "community" (not that "groups" actually exist in reality) has come down on this man, excepting a rare few.

This is my overview take on Ball/McKenna and the perspectives everyone has on these individuals:

This physical world appears to be structured on a duality: proton/electron, north-pole/south-pole, up/down, tall/short, big/small, far/near, awake/asleep, night/day, etc ... Most people will agree to this as a fact of physical existence and the foundation to any and all perception. And so it seems to be with the human mind: left-brain/right-brain, arts/science, emotion-feeling/natural-laws+logic, subjective/objective, and so forth.

And when it comes to Ball/McKenna, I see these elements of human nature play out as follows (with some lenient consideration that Ball is heavily into the arts, but is also struggling to be somewhat scholarly/scientific in a professional sense):

B: the science/reason/logic that can be extracted from psychedelic experiences.
M: the art/feelings/emotions that can be extracted from psychedelic experiences.

B: those tending to lean more conservatively as we tend to use that word.
M: those tending to lean more liberally as we tend to use that word.

B: those that care more about laws/designs of nature.
M: those that care more about personal experience.

B: those that argue objectively with findings of fact that could stand the test of an evidentiary hearing in a court of law.
M: those that argue subjectively utilizing personalities, impressions, intuitions, ad-hominem attacks.

B: those that are "individualists" and emphasize personal responsibility and accountability.
M: those that are "communists/socialists" and emphasize shared-responsibilities.

B: those that are independent-minded, and could care less about "what others think".
M: those that are dependent-minded, and care a lot about "what others think".

And so on, I think a reader gets the picture I am painting. And the divisions are fuzzy, with some people 90/10 one way and the other way, and others 60/40 or 30/70. But my general impression as someone that is probably 80% along the scientific/non-feeling/non-emotional/legal-argumemt/measure-weigh-physics lines, is that the attacks on Dr. Ball are ummm ... full of hypocrisy and misunderstanding, and full of "community agenda", with very little foundation in reason and reality. And in other debates/attacks, I found a haughty elitism which uses erudite volcabulary to express superiority and enlightenment (ultimately, evidently, to establish the winning argument), which almost made me barf :)

In conclusion, my somewhat cursory sense is that Dr. Ball cares to extract whatever science he can from worlds beyond words, which is not an easy task, and he also makes an attempt to delineate between that which is illusory and that which is reality, that which is merely personal projection, intution, and dreams, and that which is measureable, repeatable, and inarguable. And he is doing this to clarify and demystify the psychedelic experience to get at the objective truth, the laws and functions of nature.

Some may say "there is no truth", which is indeed the case in subjective matters, but there is truth in the laws of nature; it is true that if you drop a rock, it will fall due to gravity at a rate which can be calculated, and not float up into the clouds. And it seems that most people don't understand this, and they attack Dr. Ball because they see him as "attacking" McKenna, whereas, if they cared to be a little objective, they would understand that he is just exposing McKenna as someone that should not be relied upon for any objective understanding of the psychedelic experience. McKenna output was art, and Ball is trying to make his output science.

It's not a matter of Ball vs McKenna, it's just a matter of art vs science. And Ball only cares to make the distinction, because many people don't seem to understand that there is one, and may possibly, worry a little that (as is self-evident in the words of psychonauts) people get too wrapped up in the artistic/emotional/subjective aspects of the psychedelic experience, and not enough are involved in assembling the the science/inarguable/objective aspects, if they have even ever considered that side at all.

It's like comparing the Dark Ages to the Scientific Age derived from Natural Laws. The real potential of psychedelics will be achieved when their science is understood, not by endless mysticism, intuitive theories and superstitions (fun and personally enlightening though it may be). And it seems to me this is Dr. Ball's angle, and it not something psychonauts should be deriding and bashing him for.
 
That thread about Dr. Ball is hilarious for anyone with critical thinking skills. It's full of stuff like:

I don't know anything, but I know that you know less than me!
I am full of love and empathy, but I hate you and you suck!
It's very important to be humble, but you are not humble!

hahahahahaha ... what is wrong with people?
I am fairly certain that psychs don't enlighten most people!
Or even educate them! hahahahaha ... Do you know that most of
the Amazon DMT/5-MeO-DMT tribes were head-hunters and cannibals?
They would eat their enemies, and then stick their skulls into
hot coals to shrink them and dry them and use them as ornaments.

Obviously, DMT is not all about love and God and new-agey teachings.
It's only as good as the knowledge and education that go along with it.
 
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