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Dr. Martin Ball - Entheogenicist

Migrated topic.
> 7 posts in over 2 years...yet you decide to turn up and run down the opinions in an old thread. What's up with that?

Actually, 6 posts in the last 24 hours. I registered 2 years ago I guess, but since I have a dial-up connection, and I must reload every page 2 times (which takes several minutes) before it displays, I am generally unable to make use of the forums. If you read my introductory post, next to this post in the index, you would see that I am researching 5-MeO-DMT, and its potential as an agent of enlightenment, as per the claims of Dr. Ball. A Google search on Martin Ball places the DMT-Nexus link discussed in this post near the top, so it must be a thread that is widely used when researching Martin Ball and 5-MeO-DMT, so despite it being an "old thread", it is still very relevant to the topic.

I disagree that I am "run[ning] down the opinions", because the were presented as facts, not opinions, and it is directly related to my research on whether DMT and it's analogues have a contributory effect, in whole or part, towards enlightenment. Are threads only informational if they were posted in the last week or month or year? It's only 2.5 years old. Maybe if you are young it seems like a long time ago, but if you are 50 or 60, 2.5 years seems like yesterday. Time speeds up as you get older.
 
Although Ball has immersed himself in his research and no doubt has many valuable things to say, he did himself no favors by attacking McKenna's personality. For starters, personal attacks- like picking apart TMK's voice and using that as a basis for devaluing all of his work- just make you look petty, insecure and small. Many of us in the community found that to be a big turnoff, especially coming from a guy whose voice sounds deliberately pretentious.

Some have accused the community of putting TMK on a pedestal that makes it impossible to disagree with his words, but I do t see that at all- many of us respectfully disagree with much of what he said. Ball's attacks were just unnecessary, making him look like he's acting out of typical stupid professional jealousy. He could have made a much better point without trying to take McKenna down. What was the point?
 
I think that needs reiterating: Ball picked on his VOICE, conjuring images in my mind of a petty, adolescent schoolyard bully. If one has serious ideas and serious intent it is incumbent upon one to present them seriously. Otherwise, why would one expect to be taken seriously?

I read that article. I had previously read two of his books that I had found facile and unoriginal (and very new-agey without a speck of the "professional" science you attribute to him), but it was that article that sent me from mild but easily forgettable irritation to outright dismissal. I have no time for someone who builds an argument against someone by including an attack on their vocal chords. The voice thing was, of course, just the tip of the iceberg, but is the best example of the thrust of that article.

And I am not that big a McKenna fan, though I find some of his writings and speculations interesting.

I am not trying to provoke here, only to emphasize that the attacks, by and large, on Martin Ball in that thread (which I cannot access for some reason) were not an attack on his ideas or his approach, but on his pettiness and condescension.

JBArk
 
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