Entheogenic Liberation: Unraveling the Enigma of Nonduality with 5-MeO-DMT Energetic Therapy

Well this book blew a lot of the egoic illusions that I held about some spiritual concepts apart. Be ready to be really honest with yourself if you want to receive what is written here. Honestly to fully receive it, you will need to experience it yourself.

What an amazing book. no nonsense, no holes barred.Perfect follow up to Being Human.Many metaphysical and new age readers will find themselves surprised by the author's logical reasoning that the "esoteric" and "spiritual" is no better than the most fundamentalist & religious crowd when it comes to maintaining the illusion of separation of the self from the Ultimate.Even if you have yet to have an entheogenic experience, the author's explanations of the ego are dead on and will serve as a beacon in the darkness of illusion until such time as you can go for the light in a true psychedelic practice.Highly recommended reading. Ball's description of the ego reminds me of the classic painting of Narcissus by Caravaggio Narcissus - By Caravaggio - Giclee Canvas Prints 20" by 24" Unframed

Required Reading:Rarely do I post reviews and only in the case wherein leaving one is absolutely essential and entirely deserved.This book answers many "big" questions and is exceptional in its scope of thorough exploration of this topic from all sides and all points in between.After reading many books for almost two decades on the topic of enlightenment, this might very well be the most important.I have been amused reading the comments of those that have invariably called the author "egotistical" when he has clearly dedicated his life work to helping people escape the slavery of the human ego.Again buy this book if you are even remotely interested in anything in and around this space.

Matin Ball shares his vast experience with entheogens and their use to induce nondual awareness in a practical and reproducible way. His views on religious dogma are clarifying and open up possibilities for advancing the science of psychedelic psychotherapy.

Amazing! Have spent nearly a life time studying religion, spiritual practices, cultures, all the while feeling I was missing part of the story. While reading this book I kept thinking, ah, ok, but what about and a little further into the book the answers came. Some of what I learned is shocking. I've seen a few video's about 5-MEO-DMT but have no real understanding. I've kept an open mind, wanting to see what others have to share. Some of the processes people goes through is scary, read on to get the whole picture and you just might be surprised! Mr. Ball thank you.

Much of the information presented herein will seem, strange, contrarian, downright insane, even to experienced psychonauts! However this is a lavishly detailed guide to getting to know yourself and the universe as it truly is as opposed to what it is presented as through oh so many filters. If it seems a bit overwhelming allow yourself time to process and genuinely consider the information provided. Use critical thinking and allow yourself to see the evidence which is not just presented here. Cohesively written and coherent I highly recommend this to anyone seeing deeper knowledge. Especially to anyone with an interest in psychedelics.

This book is amazing. Dr. Ball answers the question: "What is the Holy Grail for which we spend our whole lives searching???" And then he shows us how to easily and simply experience it . . . . now.

This is an odd book.I'll start with a bit of my background, to give this review some context. I got here through an interest in personal development, self actualization, meditation, consciousness work, etc. I'm a big fan of psychedelics, especially in the context of healing and mental health. 5-MeO-DMT has been on my radar for a while, especially as it pertains to reaching nondual states of consciousness. I'm very much intrigued by the possibility of evoking a permanent shift in consciousness in which I'm no longer a prisoner to my own ego.I listen to Sam Harris' podcast and use his meditation app, so I've been exposed to many variations of "the spiritual path" and contemplative practices, traditions, etc. Despite my interest in attaining advanced states of consciousness, I typically see things from a very secular, materialist point of view. I'm open-minded (after all, I did buy a book about transcending the ego by smoking synthetic toad venom), but I'm also a bit nihilistic. I'm fascinated by neuroscience, and that is the primary lens through which I try to understand this stuff. I've never had a nondual experience, so my perspective is quite limited in that respect, but I've learned about it from many different angles, so I have a solid conceptual understanding of it.Throughout this book, the author repeatedly rejects many of the myths, stories, and traditions associated with 5-MeO-DMT and psychedelics generally. He very confidently pooh-poohs shamanism, ritual, "natural 5-MeO" advocates, chakras, spirit guides, etc., and he clearly has some sort of resentment against those who mindlessly perpetuate psychedelic folklore. This actually appealed to me. I'd rather skip that stuff and just get to the point, preferably with some science-based reasoning thrown in. But that's where this author let me down. He basically throws out others' unsubstantiated claims only to make room for his own.The entire premise of this book can be boiled down to the following: smoke 5-MeO-DMT, relax, keep your body symmetrical, and if possible, hire a "practitioner" who can smoke 5-MeO at the same time and then physically poke/prod/rub the "egoic energy knots" out of your body. He claims that through his years of experience, he's realized that nondual experience produces "bilateral symmetry" whereas egoic experience does not. Therefore, to free yourself from your ego, you need only to maintain body symmetry while smoking 5-MeO. If that raises your eyebrow, you're not alone.Now, at this point, I have not tried 5-MeO, so I can't say whether or not this "energetic therapy" works. But for me, making references to an undefined "energy" is a red flag, and the author leans quite heavily on this ambiguous notion without making any real attempt to ground his theory in science or relatable experience. Here are a few excerpts..."As a human being, as an embodiment of the universal energy of reality, you are a being of energy. At the most basic level, the only thing you've ever experienced is energy. Thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions, states of consciousness -- these are all forms of energy. The human body itself is an energetic construct that perceives energies of the surrounding environment, produces energy internally, and processes energy via self-expression, and through interaction with elements of the surrounding environment."Still with me? How about this:"The vast majority of ego-generated energy patterns tend to manifest via asymmetries in the human body. This is a natural outgrowth of the fact that the ego, while mediating our relationship between subject and object, often must use asymmetries to engage with the objects of experience, both internally and externally. It is also a result of the egoic tendency to divide thinking into dualistic categories of right and wrong, good and bad, etc., where one side of the equation is given preference over the other."To me, this just sounds like complete BS. This whole "asymmetry = ego" idea is essentially the backbone of this entire book, and THIS is the reasoning behind it? That just seems awfully hand-wavy to me. And even if there does happen to be a strong correlation between nondual states and bilateral symmetry, that still doesn't mean symmetry CAUSES nondual states. But this author seems convinced that maintaining symmetry is the path to ego liberation. Maybe there's a grain of truth to it, but it's such a wild idea that I have nothing to ground it to. You might as well explain things in terms of chakras and spirit animals; to me it's all equally fantastical.If you think the energy claims are suspect, wait until you get to the chapter on practitioners. Check out this excerpt:"Energetically, as a practitioner, you'll know that there's something that needs to happen for clients. An energetic insistence is present. You won't know specifically what it is, but you'll feel it. Something will just feel "off," and there will be a sense that something needs to be done to help the energy express itself and ground out."And this one:"At times, these energetic knots can move about the body and even try and hide. Clients may later describe the experience as something akin to the movie Alien, with a strange creature moving about inside their body."And this one:"For one, because energetic knots and distortions can manifest anywhere along the centerline of the body, it might mean that you need to put your hands on them and work the energy anywhere along that line from genitals to head. Most often the knots are accessible through the abdomen, but not always. You may even be energetically required to put your fingers or thumbs into someone's mouth..."And this one:"When energy is ready to release, it may come out of either your or the client's body. In initial sessions, because you are more energetically clear, open, and grounded than clients, the energy will most likely release through your body, rather than theirs. This can take the form of dry heaving and gagging or full purging and vomiting. In rare cases, the energy may be so demanding that you are required to purge directly onto the client."I mean...I consider myself more open-minded than the average person, but this guy is telling me that an "energetic therapy" session involves the practitioner smoking 5-MeO, lying on top of me, dislodging energy knots (possibly by touching my genitals and/or putting his fingers in my mouth), and then exorcising said energy demons by vomiting in my face? He claims that a practitioner can increase the effects of the 5-MeO on the client by smoking more of it themselves and allowing it to flow through them and into the client. Again, I haven't tested any of these claims, so as far as I know, it very well might be possible, but like...WTAF is this guy talking about?If you overlook the unsubstantiated batshit claims and magical thinking, the book does offer some reasonable insights on the nature of duality and human experience, so I would have given it 3 stars, but there were a number of other issues that irked me down to 2.5 stars. I'll still round that to 3, but like...in my heart, there were points lost for the following.There is a chapter on "Legal Issues" that basically just says 5-MeO-DMT is illegal in some places, legal in others. It offers no useful information to people looking to try this substance in a legal setting. You write a book on how to use 5-MeO, but don't tell your readers where to find it? Nothing about how to choose a retreat in a country where it's legal? The "Legal Issues" chapter is like 5 pages long, and all it really says is (paraphrasing) "cultures have used mind-altering substances throughout history, and it's a real shame that the US is fighting this stupid war on drugs." That's not helpful to your readers, but if you're going to lament US drug policy, at least point your readers toward organizations like Drug Policy Alliance that are fighting back.The book reminds me of the 10-page reports I'd have to write in grade school. It would be like 2 pages of content, plus images, title page, dedication page, index, about the author, etc. It has that same kind of dispassionate feel to it, like the author just wanted to get it done and over with. You can almost sense the gradual decline in excitement as the book progresses, as if the author spent a year writing the first 2/3 of it, and a week writing the last 1/3. The last 50+ pages (out of 276 pages) are appendices, and their value is questionable.Appendix A is a "5-MeO-DMT User's Guide" that is sorely lacking in really basic information. For example, it lists recommended doses without any distinction between the freebase, the HCl salt, fumarate, oxalate, etc. It doesn't tell you how to identify these variations or how to test them for authenticity. It doesn't explain the various routes of administration, completely omitting sublingual, IV, IM, and plugging. It doesn't explain how to vaporize it without burning it or what kind of apparatus works best. It's really just a shockingly sparse "guide" and a clear indication that the author didn't bother doing any real research outside of his own personal experience.Appendix B is basically a complete rehash of the chapter on being a practitioner. It's like the author plagiarized himself and tried passing it off as new content.Appendix D is an interview of the author. Book isn't quite long enough, so just throw in an old interview to pad things out? I mean...I guess.I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh. After all, it's a very esoteric topic, and ultimately, I think this book is an important addition to this space. Really, the author is simply sharing his personal experience with 5-MeO-DMT and explaining it in a way that makes sense to him. I'd rather hear his perspective than hear no perspective.Despite my criticism, I don't actually regret buying and reading this book. Even though I'm not going to hire someone to unknot my genital energy and vomit on me, I still appreciate the unique perspective this book offers. And who knows...maybe it will all make perfect sense after I've tried 5-MeO-DMT. If I ever reach a point where this whole energetic therapy thing makes sense, I'll update my review accordingly. Until then...relax and stay symmetrical my friends.

Geweldig boek, een must have!

Martin Ball is the most inspiring individual I’ve come across in my life to date. He speaks words of deep wisdom and is a phenomenal human being. This book is absolutely crazy and I recommend it to anyone with a truly open mind!

This book has helped me out to identify what i did wrong when I first smoked 5 the last year since I didn't have a pleasant experience with the medicine, now I understand better the process I went through and I realized the aftereffects. Thank you Martin for such an amazing guide!

Finally a book that cuts through the nonsense often promoted by the New Age group that is yet another clique of superior wannabes, well intentioned, nice people but misguided. To truly understand what the author has distilled one MUST experience 5-MeO-DMT if only once. He takes on established doctrines and demolishes them whilst eloquently opining an alternate view of reality based on his extensive experience. A must read, especially for anybody that has had this 'Toad Medicine' that will shatter the illusions of reality and leave the user... well, unfortunately words are insufficient only experience will enable an understanding of Martin Ball’s writings.

Excellent book, years possibly decades ahead of its time. Keep an open mind.