Opening the Doors of Perception with Martin Ball: Psychedelics, Non-Duality and the End of Fear

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Martin Ball, thank you for joining me again. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. [00:00:03] Speaker A: It's a pleasure to be here for sure, man. So, yeah, we already had a conversation. I already know what you do, but for anybody that's new joining in, would you be able to give us a little synopsis of what you do Exactly? [00:00:16] Speaker B: Sure. So first of all, my shorthand tag that I use is I describe myself as a non dual and theogenic educator. And just to unpack that really quickly, I have a non dual perspective on the nature of reality and being. So the quickest way to put that is that there's only one universal being in consciousness that is interacting with itself through the disguise of self and other and me and not me. And that's what we experience as dualistic reality. And I'm very interested in how psychedelic medicines and compounds can can generate direct experience and apprehension of that nature of reality. I particularly emphasize 5MEO DMT because that is the one psychedelic molecule that can reliably dissolve the relatively artificial structure of the human ego to allow us to enter into the direct apprehension of the unitary nature of being. And then the educator part is because I spend time educating people about it in the sense of I write books, I do interviews, give lectures, I host my podcast, the Enthusiasm Theogenic Evolution. I've been doing that for the past 18 years. And while I definitely interview a lot of different guests on the show and everybody brings their own perspective, I am generally known for my non dual perspectives. So a lot of my guests like to speak about that when they come up on the show. And then I share a lot of my own talks and own materials on the show along those lines. And then I also work with people on a one on one basis, either as a mentor or as a integration coach. People come to me with their psychedelic experiences and want help unpacking them and understanding them and work on integrating them. And I always say I specialize in 5 Meo DMT, but I'm not limited to that particular psychedelic molecule in any way. And then I also teach with the Mindscape Psychedelic Institute. Got two classes that I'm involved with there. The larger one is the Trauma Informed 5 Meo DMT Facilitator Training Course, which is a five month long course and I'm one of the primary instructors for that class. And then I also teach my 5 Meo DMT integration specialist training course, which is just my own course. I'm the only instructor for that. We use my books as the reading materials for the course and the experience that I've built up working in this field for a number of years, and in that class work on helping guide people into what is the knowledge base that they need to know around 5 Meo DMT, because it is significantly different than pretty much any other psychedelic that exists out there. And as integration has been prioritized as one of the primary features of doing intentional psychedelic work, you know, the whole field of integration is actually really very new in the world of psychedelics. But the program is designed to help people learn what do they need to know about 5 Meo in terms of the phenomenology of the experience and then what happens afterwards with people. So how we can develop the proper guidelines and tools for helping people integrate that experience, which, in my professional opinion, a lot of the modalities that have been developed for integrating other psychedelics don't really work when it comes to 5 Meo because it is so much more powerful and so distinctly different from other psychedelics. So, you know, that's. That's the education part. I spend a lot of time, much talking about this stuff every day, all day long. I work with clients around the world, people either doing integration or people who are facilitators who want mentorship or instruction, and then spend time talking to folks like yourself about this on interviews and podcasts. So this is what I do, and most of it is right here where you see me right now, just sitting here at this seat in my house. This is my office doing this work. [00:04:26] Speaker A: Awesome. That's quite the resume. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot. A lot of bits to it. [00:04:34] Speaker A: I'm just curious, do you remember the first time you took a psychedelic or had a psychedelic experience and it hit you that this. This is it. Like, this is something special? [00:04:47] Speaker B: Well, really the first sense of that, I would identify as my second experience with psilocybin mushrooms. And to properly characterize that, I'll tell you just a little bit about the very first time. So the first time I was 19 years old, and it was. No, excuse me, I was 18. Yeah, I would have been 18 because it was after my first year of college. I entered college when I was 17. So I was 18 years old. And it was the summer between my first and second year of college. And I had a friend who informed me and another friend, like, oh, there's this music festival happening out in the woods in the hills of California. And like, let's go. It's called Gathering of the Vibes. And so we went to this festival. It was the first festival I'd ever been to. Really opened my eyes because I Didn't think stuff like that happened anymore. You know, a bunch of dreadlock naked people walking around and people smoking pot out in the open. I was like, whoa, this still happens. Like I, I thought this died in the 60s or something. But anyway, this would have been like 1990, I think would be the year. And we were in his truck and we were waiting in the line of cars to get into the festival, just to initially park. And some dude was walking down the line of cars and he's like, shrooms, shrooms for sale, shrooms. And so my friend Gary like leans out the car like, yeah, we want some. So he buys this baggie of shrooms from this guy. He's like, yeah, we're going to take these, like, oh, okay. And I think it was maybe the second night of the festival. We split this bag of mushrooms three ways. And by that point I'd had several years of experience with cannabis, really liked cannabis, really enjoyed that. Had also, at the age of 15, had kind of sworn off alcohol. Alcohol just makes me feel stupid and careless and I don't enjoy that. But cannabis makes me feel very inspired, very enlivened. Really enjoyed the experience. So anyway, took some mushrooms, I don't even know how much it would be in terms of how many grams do we eat. And we split a bag. I don't even know what the bag was. Was it an eighth, was it a quarter? I don't know, just a bag of these dried up mushrooms. And I got separated from my friends pretty quickly after that and so I spent a couple hours walking around trying to find them and just feeling really weird, like, wow, this is really weird. And found that if I looked other people in the eye that I felt like I started to see sort of their whole inner matrix of, you know, where their self loathing existed and their sense of failure, you know, just the limitations and the internal perceptions that we have of ourselves. I'm just like, God, this is fucking eerie. Like, this is, this is too weird. Like, I don't, I don't want to know this shit about people. So I was like trying not to look people in the eye, but when I did, like, oh, I'm seeing way too much and just walking around thinking, like, I don't know why anybody would ever do this. Like, this is just so weird and like, pot is so much more fun and this is just strange. And then I finally found my friends and they were like sitting down, like right in front of the stage. And then there was this African high life band playing. And so once I found them. I kind of relaxed a little bit and then realized, like, oh, wow, like, all the instruments are breathing. Like, this is. This is kind of cool. So I enjoyed that. But still my impression was like, I don't know why anybody would ever do this. Like, this is just really, really strange. But was kind of curious and wanted to explore more. So then with the same two friends, a few weeks later, we got some more mushrooms and we ate those in my friend's apartment. This was in Chico, California. And my friend Gary, he kind of lived over in the college part of town. He was. He himself was not attending college, but you know, where all the student dorms and apartment buildings and stuff like that were. And so we were in his place and he was really, really, really, really, really into like heavy reggae dub music. And he put on some dub, we ate the mushrooms, and then he decides, like, oh, I want to go to 7 11. And my other friend Damon was like, yeah, I'll go with you. And I was like, let's go. And I was like, like, this is like the classic how kids die on drugs kind of thing. Like, that was my sense was, there's no way I'm getting in a car with you, Gary, who is already reckless and driving a 711 for no purpose. So I decided to stay at the apartment. So this heavy dub music is playing. So I just kind of sitting there with my eyes closed and the mushrooms started to come on. And this was a far more visual immediately than the mushrooms that I had taken at the festival. We probably took more again, I don't really know. But I was watching this white wall. You know, it's just a white painted wall. There's nothing on the wall. Gary didn't have any decorations in his place. Like, very minimalistic. Anyway, the dub music is playing. I'm looking at this wall and then I started to notice that there were all these geometries and it was like Celtic knots. And it was like I was looking at ancient Celtic designs and I was like, wow, this is. That's so interesting. And that really raised the question, like, well, why. Why am I seeing this? And the immediate thought that came to mind, you know, like some people would interpret that as, oh, well, you. If you're seeing Celtic stuff that indicates like some kind of past life as a Celt or something like that, or like, this is your ancestral DNA. But my first thought was, oh, they must have eaten mushrooms too. And at the time I didn't know that Liberty Cap mushrooms were very common in Ireland and that you could Just go out into the field and you can pick these mushrooms and eat them. And that they're quite strong. Been seeing all this, like, wow. So this is interesting. And because we're eating the same substances, we're seeing the same visual effects, and then I noticed I could interact with it and felt like, wow, like part of my mind is extending itself out. And now I'm interacting with these visions that I'm seeing. And for me, the experience was a bit of a revelation because the next thought was, this must be what they. And it was very nebulous at the time, but this must be what they mean by this spirit world, that you're actually interacting with your own own mind that is extended outward from you so that you can interact with it as subject and object, yet you're still just interacting with yourself in some way. But this is a different level of the self. So that was really, really profound for me. And it really opened up a different way of starting to think about people's claims of what they meant by spiritual experiences. Now, keeping in mind that I was raised as a secular, scientific humanist within my own household. No religion, no spirituality. And I'd had a very, very negative view of religion in general because where I grew up, mostly it was very conservative, fundamentalist Christians. And I just thought that they were full of. And I still do, just to, you know, be clear on that. My opinion has not changed if anything has gotten even stronger. But that was my experience of, like, religion was believing a bunch of shit that is clearly not true. So that's nothing that I was ever interested in. But this idea that, well, maybe there's this experiential level of what we might term spirituality that actually is accessible and is something that presents as something that you can observe, that something you can directly experience, something you can talk about and that you can compare across cultures and times. So that was the first one. That was my second mushroom experience. But that really made me think about there's something very, very interesting going on here that might be relevant across the span of human history and cultures. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Wow. Very well spoken. It's interesting because I felt the same way too, in my first heroic dose of psilocybin. Same thing. I was secular atheist, very materialist, scientific, didn't believe in any of that hoo ha of religion. [00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:32] Speaker A: And then, you know, I was induced into the psychedelic experience, self induced. And I said, wait a second, maybe they're onto something and it's just people's interpretation of it that is wrong. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:47] Speaker A: But maybe all of these books and, you know, sages of the past are on to something and we're just looking at it in the wrong way. And ever since then I've been on the spiritual path and speaking to people like you and so forth. Yeah, it's. It really opened the doors of perception, you could say. [00:14:06] Speaker B: I'm curious, how old were you at that point? [00:14:11] Speaker A: Well, I'd say mid-20s, probably like 24, 25, something like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. I'm 32 right now, so. It wasn't that long ago. [00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I got a few years on you, man. [00:14:28] Speaker A: A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You were taking mushrooms. I wasn't even born yet. [00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:37] Speaker A: But same wavelength, you know, that's the beauty of it. And I think that's what you touched upon is the Celts, you know, you in 1990, me a few years ago. We're all touching upon this timeless wavelength, this spirit world, we could say, but it seems to be like the spirit world is, as you sort of elucidated, it's like the one mind that we're just kind of opening the aperture to. Like we're seeing this one timeless, non linear, non local mind. [00:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's. I would say that that was kind of the budding of my non dual perspective of what's really going on here, is it really came out of that, that second mushroom experience because again, I really interpret it as somehow I'm just interacting with myself, but this is a self that I'm not familiar with and that I don't identify with, but it still seems to be myself in some way and kind of pursued that, as I would say, a philosophical perspective for a number of years and felt that it was correct, but would always kind of hedge and say, well, you know, I don't really know. This is my suspicion. This is what I think is going on. But what really solidified that in a very, very powerful way was then 18 years later. Yeah, 18 years later, in January of 2008, is when I had my first full experience of 5 Meo DMT. And that experience just completely blew me out of the cosmic waters into, wow. There really is only one universal being in consciousness interacting with itself. And at that point I became very comfortable using the word God. That was also a word that I was very uncomfortable with, primarily due to the context of my upbringing that, you know, I have people talking about God and God's holy book and God's plan for you and all that, and just was very antithetical to how I viewed meaningful reality. But this experience of 5 Meo DMT just clearly landed with there is one universal being in consciousness. It is intelligent, it is aware. The energy of which it is fundamentally comprised is best described as absolute unconditional love. And the only thing that it is ever doing is interacting with itself. And we are all direct expressions of that and that it is what I truly am at the ultimate absolute level. So that was the next really fundamental turning point for me. I mean, well, there were others before then, but that was the one that really landed into, okay, I'm no longer a philosophical non dualist. I'm not just holding this out as an intellectual proposition, but this is something that I have immediately experienced in every atom of my being. And there really isn't anything that convince me otherwise at this point because it's such a profoundly true experience. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Powerful stuff. Yeah. That's what's very interesting, right, about the psychedelic experience in 5 Meo. I haven't done it. Just want to disclaimer. I haven't done it, but I have felt this on high doses of mushrooms as well, of unconditional love, that God is love, that maybe the Christians were onto something, you know, literally in the Bible. And to feel that unconditional love that, I mean, quite literally never leaves us that force. Right. We could say that is God. That is the turning point, that is the shift, that is the 180 that I think we all need to know that we're all loved, man. And that sounds a little corny, I'm not gonna lie. But it really is the truth. And that's why I spread the word of psychedelics and how powerful they are. It's not so you can, you know, trip balls and see Celtic imagery. That's all cool. But it's to know that God is love. Right. And to know in a way that you said where you couldn't be convinced otherwise. Yeah, that's the true power of psychedelics, I feel. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So the way that I like to frame that is to say that this is actually a fundamental human right. And sometimes I even put the spin on it, like, this is your divine right, that we all have a right as an expression of this universal being in consciousness. We have a right to know who and what we truly are at the most absolute level. And we have a right to know that we actually are this infinite being of unconditional love. And that, you know, it can be preached about in a religion, but it's still, it's just a belief. It's still just, okay, we're holding this out as like this is something to believe in. And then especially when we look at religions, I mean, like here in the United States currently, I think we're just seeing the absolute bastardization of Christianity and the Christian message through maga, Christianity and Christian nationalism, which now they're talking about like toxic empathy and that you can't, you know, you've got to not love. People are completely going against the teachings of Jesus. I mean, it's just, it's, it's gross. It's absolutely nauseating to see what's happening in this country. But the answer to that is not just, well, let's reframe your beliefs and let's give you new beliefs or let's bring you back to this teachings of Jesus. I mean that, you know, for some people perhaps, but the real powerful message is like we have a direct access route to experiencing this directly, that we don't need to believe something, we don't need to be told what to believe. And as a human being, we have certain. In the United States, we say that we have certain inalienable rights. Right to freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of association, right to protest. We have all these rights and some people would want to expand that, that we should have a right to health care, we should have a right to employment, we should have a right to housing, all right, and that these should be extended across the board and we have the right to vote and that we shouldn't just be giving rights to certain groups of people versus other groups of people, which again, if we go back into this, oh, empathy is toxic and we want to take away rights from all these other groups so that we can protect the rights of our limited group. That, that's just gross, in my opinion, and really, really warped. But anyway, that we can have this right to know our true nature so that we don't have to rely on religious authorities, spiritual authorities, political authorities, people outside of us telling us what to believe and what we want to consider to be true or not, that we can access this level of experience. And yes, people can absolutely have this experience on mushrooms. They can have it on ayahuasca, they can have it on lsd, they can have this experience without using any substance. But that is very, very rare, first of all, and it tends to be relatively rare on these other substances as well. What we tend to get. This is what I experienced on mushrooms prior to my 5 Meo DMT experience was what I would now call non duality within duality. Where in A very heightened state of awareness and consciousness. There is still a subjective experience in self that is present that I would identify as Martin or me. And then there's that sense of, oh, I'm connected to everything. All of life is the expression of the same universal force and we're all in it together. So there's a sense of reality, really bounded connectedness between all manifestations within reality. And so there's a sense of unity there. But there's still the perception of, oh, yeah, it's, I am connected to everything. And it really. It's running off of this program of love. Okay, so that I call that non duality within duality. But what's different with 5 Meo? In most instances, you know, not always, but that when the ego is fully dissolved, this reality doesn't present as I am connected to everything, or I am a part of everything, or I am a part of God. It actually reveals as, oh, shit, it literally is me, that I am God, I am reality. Because that's all that there really is. And so it just presents it at different levels. So this would be. I would distinguish this as the full non dual experience where there is no more duality. There's no more. Because if I say I am connected to everything, there's still a sense of, well, there's me and then there's the other stuff that I'm perceiving and experiencing as not me. So it's still other, but we're connected. We're part of the same thing. We're all together versus this is. It's all me. But it's not the ego me that that includes the ego me. The ego me is a part of this universal me, is an expression of this universal me. And so that full flowering of the non dual experience tends to be fairly rare with other psychedelics. I mean, people do talk about it on high doses of mushrooms, sometimes even low doses of mushrooms, but it's more often than non duality within duality experience. And that it also, when it does show up at these other psychedelics, it tends to be very brief for most people. And it's simply because the ego, which is a collection of energetic patterns with which we have habitually identified, their job is to reform and re coalesce as quickly and as soon as possible. Right? The job of the ego is to be resilient, is to be consistent and to maintain itself over time because that's what gives us a sense of identity. That's how the ego functions. So when these openings happen on other psychedelics, it does tend to be brief. So like when I have integration calls with people for the example they might share. Yeah, I had this experience on mushrooms and they will usually say, and it was just for like a few brief moments, it was like the totality of everything. But then I fell down out of it. That's the language that a lot of people use is to say that I fell down out of it and my sense of self started to reassemble very quickly. So I like to say that with 5 Meo, we get more time and more opportunity to, to experience that. But I guess my original point, I've gotten off tangent too busy educating. I do feel that this is a fundamental human right, which means that when it comes to psychedelic medicines, not only do I think we have a right to use them just to explore our own consciousness or to achieve healing and effectuate transitions out of depression, anxiety, trauma, and use these very effectively as medicines in that regard, but that we also have a right to know who and what we are at the most fundamental and absolute level and that that reduces again our reliance on outside authorities and dogmatic religious structures that. Yeah, I mean, like in the Bible there's God is love. Okay, that's good. There's a lot of bullshit in the Bible that doesn't have anything to do with, with the nature of reality. It's more about society and culture and politics and genetic lineage and things like that which are useful for structuring society, but they're not the nature of truth, they're not the nature of God. So most of the Bible we can just get rid of in that sense. It's not about the nature of reality. It's about various forms of mythological constructs and social values which again are important for human society. But they're not absolute truth. It's just relative truth so that we can cut out the middleman of the holy books and the priests and the dogmas and the doctrines, and we can just experience it directly and then we can make up our own minds about what we want to believe. And that even I like to say, like I don't hold any religious or spiritual beliefs because I'm just interested in the nature of reality. I'm interested in what's true. I don't consider that to be a matter of belief. It's a matter of empirical access and observation and direct experience. So anyway, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but it's your fundamental right. Everybody is their fundamental right. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And that's the only way that I think we can experience or understand or realize the so called truth is to have it oneself, in oneself. Right. You can't get it really from a book. It's nice, it's a nice reminder. You can't really get it from a podcast either. It's a nice reminder. It's a nice testament, we could say. But when it really comes down to it, when the rubber meets the road is this is like a. It's almost like you have to be initiated, an energetic initiation into truth. And psychedelics are a very effective way to do so, that's for sure. But you're saying 5 Meo DMT is like, that's number one, that's the number one way to get initiated. [00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, because it really just comes down to the fact that it's powerful enough to completely override the ego. In most psychedelics there's not quite enough energy to completely override the ego, because again, the ego, it's resilient. And keep in mind, I'm not saying that the ego is bad, it's just it's limited by definition. The ego is limited. It's a limited perspective. It's comprised of a limited number of energetic constructs and habits and modes of expression and thought and processing. And so it doesn't have access to the fullness of being. In order to experience the fullness of being, we have to be released from the ego. It's not possible to have the full experience of reality if the ego is present, because the ego is again by definition a limitation and it presents barriers and it gets in the way. And this is just where 5 Meo DMT excels in ways that other psychedelics do not. Where it's far more reliable that someone can actually completely dissolve the structures of the ego so they can have an immediate experience of this non dual nature of being. So I like to view that as allowing access to the fundamental ground of being. And once you've had that experience, that then puts all other experience in perspective because then we can really acutely see that all other experience is still mediated through the ego. Now just because something is mediated through the ego doesn't mean it's wrong, doesn't mean it's bad. But. But it does mean that there's a high likelihood that there will be attachment and projection and various levels of confusion and assumptions and beliefs, because these are all aspects of the ego. So that when the ego perceives something, it wants to fit it into categories of understanding through which it can relate. And that can rely on beliefs, false information, projections, illusions, bullshit, lies. So it's only by getting all the way out of that construct that we're able to apprehend truth directly. And then it puts other experiences into perspective. So, for example, a lot of people through psychedelic experience, it's fairly common for people say, yeah, I didn't believe in spirits until I took psychedelics. And all of a sudden, whoa, wow. I really believe in spirits. Why? Because I'm perceiving them and interacting with them and experiencing them directly. So they must be true, okay? And that's a statement that has a lot of credibility. It's in psychedelic experience. And we can see that there are rich shamanic traditions based on the use of psychedelics that are grounded in the assumption that there are spirits that exist and that we can interact with them and they bring us information and sometimes they can trick us and they can lie to us and all of this stuff. But when you go beyond. So that's still dualistic. It's still, there's me and these other beings right here. And these beings seem to exist independently of me. But when we go into the non dual experience, we immediately recognize there aren't actually other beings here that I'm interacting with, it's just me. And that I am creating characters through which my ego can relate and interact with. But if I'm not in my ego, I'm not creating other characters. So for me, the non dual experience completely dissolves any kind of reality of spirits. Like, I just, I don't personally believe in spirits, I think, like they're products of the mind, they're created in the experience, but they don't exist independently. And for me, this also is any notions of souls or spirits don't believe in them. That all I see is God interacting with itself through different bodies. And if there's no body, then there's no real character or perspective or Persona there. It's just a construct of the mind. And it's a temporary phenomenon that arises within the phenomenology of the psychedelic experience. But it doesn't have an independent existence. So getting this level of ontological awareness through the non dual experience, it just allows us to reappraise any other experiences that we might have when we can identify. Okay, the ego is present. So that means there's likelihood to be certain levels of projection and distortion that are taking place within the experience. So it provides an unprecedented level of clarity within a person if they can integrate it. So I do see it as a fundamentally different kind of experience with 5MEO, because for most people, if they take 5MEO they don't talk about spirits, they talk about, oh my God, it was like infinite and it was all one. Or it was this tremendous void, or it was this endless ocean of unconditional love. And I think it was me. That the ego really grapples with that when it comes back. Because we've also all been trained to think that it's pathological to say that you are God or that you are the infinite being. That we're told that that's egotistical, we're told that that's pathological, we're told that that's megalomania or that it's narcissistic. But that's just the ego reacting to the reality that, oh shit, it really is me. And that the ego can also get very confused then as like, okay, so if I want to accept that, does that mean that I am the Messiah, I am the Holy One, I am the chosen One. Like, is that me? But that's just the ego trying to co op the reality of the experience. That one of the things I like to tell people is like, well, you were this before you knew you were this. So it doesn't really change anything. Right. It doesn't mean anything special for you because this is the universal truth that anyone can discover within themselves. So, yes, you are very special, but you're also not special. We're all fundamentally equal. We are just different vehicles, different embodied physical vehicles through which this one universal being in consciousness can perceive and interact with itself and have experience. That's really all that there is. It doesn't mean anything at a religious level. [00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah. If we're all special, then nobody's special. Yeah, essentially. Yeah. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:59] Speaker A: If we're all God, then yeah, it's not that special. I mean, it is and it isn't. It's difficult to put into one sentence. It's extremely special, obviously, but it's like, you're not the only special one. That's the huge difference. When you say I am God, that's when people get a little scared. They're like, what? He's saying he's God, he's the Messiah. It's like, well, yeah, but so are you. Yeah, so, yeah, whatever. And we all are. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yeah. It's important to emphasize that to have that experience is extraordinarily special. Especially when you consider that the vast majority of humans that have ever existed and that probably will ever exist will never have this level of experience within themselves. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a heavy one that. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah, the vast majority. Right. Like 99.99% of all human beings have never had this experience, have never had the direct and immediate apprehension of, oh my God, it's me and I am the being of infinite unconditional love. So to have that experience is very, very rare. It is very, very special. And like, when, when it happened to me in that first full experience of 5 Meo DMT, nothing in my life compared to that experience, just like, oh my God, this is so amazing, so profound, so incredible, so empowering that obviously I've been looking for this experience my whole life, but I had no idea that this is what I was looking for because I didn't even know that this was possible. To have an experience like this. And so you do feel very, very special and you do feel a certain sense of, I like to call it divine grace, of like, wow, somehow I've been granted this level of experience. But then it is the corollary to that is the recognition of like. And this is true for everyone. It's not just me, because this is the nature of being in the nature of reality. And I am enormously grateful and feel very, very special that I've had the experience so that now I can say, yeah, I know this is true, because it's so obvious, like, there's just not even a point arguing for it. It's like, this is obviously what reality actually is. And then taking that empowerment and being able to claim that for yourself, yet also moderate it with, and it's you too. I know you haven't had the experience yet, whoever it is, you know, that you might be talking to. I mean, you have, Gary, you have had the experience, so you know what I'm talking about. But a lot of people listening, maybe they're like, yeah, I believe it, or I hope or I think or maybe or I don't know, but if you have the experience, you'll know it. It's like, oh shit, they were just telling the truth, like, obviously, but still, it's just a tiny little portion of humanity that's had that experience. And one of the things that is a natural response to having had that experience is not only the desire to proclaim it, to share the reality of what you've experienced, but also that desire of, I want other people to have this experience as well because it is transformative and it is healing and it, for one, it allows us, if we really can go into that state of unconditional love. It allows us to trust reality in a way that I think it's impossible to trust reality without having had that experience. Because there's a profound level of relaxation that comes with that. It's like, oh, it's actually all okay at the deepest level. Which doesn't mean that it turns us into apathetic. You know, I don't care. I mean, that's one of the dangers. But I don't think that that's an automatic response. And there's that sense of, well, if everybody could experience this and relax and trust and know themselves at this level, we'd actually would live in a very different world. I wouldn't have to complain about people distort Christianity into some fascist regime that is fueled by hate and dehumanization. Because that kind of shit just wouldn't happen. Just. You don't do that. When you realize. When you really realize every living being on this planet is a direct embodiment of God and that they are me in the very real sense. Right. Going back to these teachings of Jesus. Right. What you do to another, you do to me because I am you. That changes the dynamic of how people want to interact with each other and makes these artificial egoic identities of, I'm maga. You're not maga. I'm a real heritage American. You're not a real heritage American. I'm not an immigrant. You are. My skin is white, yours isn't. So I'm better. That shit just evaporates because it's superficial nonsense. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Those are just really. [00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just constructed identities and that we've built these massive systems of power and domination around these relatively meaningless distinctions. I just think that the more people who have this experience, the more that kind of bullshit could just evaporate. We don't even need to fix it. It's like it just evaporates because there's no motivation for it. The only motivation is the wounded, fearful ego that says, oh, it's me against them. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. That's actually what I was gonna ask you. So I'm glad we're going down. This route is inevitably, whatever psychedelic it is. We always come down, right? We always come back to Earth. We always assume. We always assume. The meat suit. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:41:00] Speaker A: The ego, The Gary Ness, the Martin Ness, or whoever's listening. So my question was going to be. But you already kind of answered it, is like, how does this all. How does it change us? Right? And I think you said it very well. It instills you with a really deep sense of trust and a sense of obviousness that this is the truth. And I like to say faith, you know, again, kind of touching upon Christian ideals here. But it's true faith. It's not like blind faith just because somebody said so. It's like true faith because you know what you saw, what you realized and then you live from that. You embody that and yeah, so on. [00:41:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's a few things that I'd like to add to that. First, I just want to reinforce that. I think that that is a good use of the word faith. I guess I tend to use the word trust because that. So we have associations with faith and like blind faith was something I was never going to do. Like, just can't do it. No way, Jose. But trust this. Like, okay, I trust that my perception is true. I trust that this feeling of love is real and that I can relax and trust into it. And despite whatever may come within reality, I can trust that it is all God interacting with itself. And therefore it is by definition an expression of love, Even if at a human level it doesn't feel that way or it doesn't seem that way. So I think that that's very important, that it allows a deep level of relaxation within the system, which I think is very important because an aggravated system is much easier to manipulate. An aggravated system is much easier to disrupt and to lead astray and to get hooks into and convince that aggravated system to participate in something that is atrocious. Then what it also does is it can really cultivate a deep appreciation for the ego and really start to look at it as, you know, the ego is largely demonized. We're told like, oh, that's very egotistical, or get out of your ego or your ego is bad, you got to kill your ego or, or your ego is keeping you trapped in reincarnation or your ego is deluding you. And these are statements that have some relevance for the ego. But if we reframe it, we can actually see, wow, this is a really profound gift that I've given myself as God. That I get to experience my entire life as Gary or Martin and have all the ups and downs and all the tragedies and all the successes and all the experience that this one character, that out of the billions and billions of characters I get to be this one, this one is me in this embodiment and in this expression. And that, that then can lead to a lot of motivation for how do I clean up this character? How do I remove the self imposed hate and loathing and limitations and judgment and how do I remove any distortions or the lack of clarity or the confusion within this character? Because this is a gift. It is a gift to be this person. So can I be this person in a way that is most in alignment with the full energy of my being, which is this being of unconditional love? And can I allow that nature to express itself through me, through this character, and really value that even though I am this infinite eternal being, paradoxically, I'm still always going to experience myself as this particular individual with this particular ego through this very relatively short lifespan. I mean, it's this, when you really think about it, it's this mind blowing magic trick that this infinite universal being experiences itself as leading just one human life. And because that's what it's doing through each and every one of us, it experiences only itself as us, yet it's everyone. But still it experiences itself as Gary and Martin. That's mind blowing, that it can do that. And that, that's me. That's my life. That's your life. And so what I make of my life, what you make of your life, how you integrate and express and embody your character, that is your freedom, that is your choice. And the more clarity, love and authenticity and openness you find within yourself, the more you experience that within reality itself. And that, that's, that is the beginning and end of what we're really able to have any modicum of control or agency over is how we experience ourselves as individuated beings. So it's this incredible, incredible gift. And hopefully it motivates people to really be the clearest and most authentic versions of themselves. And that, that is what is most in alignment with the infinite energy of unconditional love, is how we embody and express it through the vehicle of our life. [00:46:27] Speaker A: That's it, man. [00:46:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:28] Speaker A: Beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Hey, man, that's mic drop moment right there. Fired today, Martin. [00:46:37] Speaker B: Yeah, fired up. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Okay. I mean, I think that's the essence of enlightenment, if you want to use that word. When I see these very enlightened beings, or at least ones that, you know, I feel are on this wavelength, at least I feel that they're loving. They're right, they. They don't want anything from the world, really. They're just here hanging out and loving. And I think that's the essence. That's the path, we could say the spiritual path, the embodiment, is to just be here, be here now, and to be love, essentially. It's that simple. [00:47:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And I do like to put in some different shades into that because sometimes the idea of will be love, that sometimes that can be Clouded a little bit too much by what I like to identify as human sentimentality, that sometimes we frame the idea of the infinite unconditional love of God as human sentimentality. But it's really important to note that that's just one part of the spectrum. So if we look at it as if we take the spectrum of electromagnetic energy, we have everything from X rays to gamma rays and we've got this little bit of it that we refer to as visible light. And that's white light that gets broken down to red, orange, yellow, green and purple. So we can only see this very small spectrum of this large bandwidth of energy. And we say, okay, that's light and the rest we call electromagnetic radiation. Well, it's actually, it's all light, but just the little tiny bit that we see. We refer to that as visible light. But we know scientifically that actually there's a lot more to that energy than just what we see. And so when we refer to love, the absolute, universal, unconditional love of God, we have to understand that actually it's a very broad spectrum of energy. That it's so broad it actually encompasses everything. Everything. Every, like every thought, every experience, every perception you and I are having right now, including anybody who is watching or listening to this, that's part of it. Everything that has ever happened in your life, that is also an expression of this universal, unconditional, infinite love. And that everything that will happen is also an expression. That that's how broad the spectrum is. Now within that we've got a more limited range of what we say is human sentimental love. Like if I'm referring to my dog over on the couch, I get all Lovey Dovey. She's 15 and a half. She's getting close to the end. I mean, she really is. Her back legs are starting to go out. I don't know how much longer my dear dog Moxie is going to be with me. I have a lot of sentimental human love for her. She has been my companion for the past 15 years. She has been my shadow. And so I have a lot of personal attachment to her. And that is a deep, deep expression of love. And I'm going to be really, really sad. I'm going to be really heartbroken when her time is up because I'm going to miss her tremendously. So that's human sentimental love. The unconditional love is. She also is a direct embodiment of God that is giving itself the opportunity to experience life as a dog. And that every life comes with a limited time span. And a limited arena of experience and expression. And when that time is up, it's okay, because that's just the nature of being. And so that unconditional love loves both the birth and the life and the death of the being and loves and celebrates that because it is all welcome. And that includes that there. You know, I got her from a shelter. I don't know how she was treated before she came into my life. You know, a lot of dogs that are in shelters, they've been abused or they've been harmed in some way. So she might have been abused. She's had a very, very good life with me. But that also, whatever happened to her beforehand, that also is something that is embraced in love. So going back to the point of it's important not to confuse human sentimental love. Like sometimes you meet people that are just like, oh, well, I love you and I love this and I love that. And what they're expressing doesn't actually feel authentic. It feels more like a construct within the personality of like, oh, I'm going to say I love everything. And usually those people also want to avoid conflict and they don't want to call people out and there's no backbone around standing up for themselves or perhaps standing up for others or standing up for truth or something like that. So I do like to say that this energy of unconditional love is also the energy of truth. So it doesn't mean just always acquiescing, it doesn't mean just appeasing. It doesn't mean, oh, let's always promote peace over conflict. Because sometimes conflict is the true statement of love. Sometimes conflict is the true expression. But ultimately, yes, it is grounded in love because it's not judgmental, it's not divided, but it is just a direct and immediate embodiment and expression. So it's lived in a different way. But yes, it is all love. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah. The problem is we only have one word for it and we use the same word for human sentimentality, for something that's God. So gets a little fishy, gets a little mixed up. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why, you know, if we go back into the ancient Greek and this is where the King James interpretation of the Bible just really falls apart. Because when, you know, the, all the gospels, they were all written in Greek and in Greek they actually had different words for love to denote different contexts and different shades of meaning versus if then we translated into English, we're just using the word love all the time, but we're not getting these nuanced shades of meaning. Between different constructs of what we mean by love. So I like to say, like once we get into the non dual experience, one of the things that I've advised is that the words love, truth, energy, reality, God, me, you, it, them, they, these are actually all synonyms. They all mean the same thing because it's a totality. And one of the difficulties just stems from the fact that language itself is a product of duality and is a product of the human ego. That the human ego says, oh, I'm going to make sounds and these sounds are going to have particular meanings. And then when I say these words, the person who receives them is going to be able to understand that I mean this and not that, right? So language is, is divides things and it's super useful. I'm not bagging on language. I mean, for a guy who talks a lot, if I bagged on language, that would be awfully hypocritical. So language is very important, but words are by definitions, limitations. Because when I say this, you know, I don't mean that. So I've already divided things in some way. So everything that we can say about something is still a phenomenon that occurs within the perception of duality. Whereas in the non dual experience there really are no words that can accurately describe it because it is a totality. And that's why when people have the experience, they often say, well, it was eternal or it was infinite, it was everything and, and, but it was also nothing. It was me, but it wasn't me. It was filled with everything, but the nothing was there, right? So we end up speaking in paradoxical statements because language can't really describe it. And that's why the word non dual is actually very apt, that we're describing the experience with a negative. We're saying, well, it's not that, because as soon as we say it is that we're relying on language. So by creating a negative, it allows us to enter into the linguistic conceptual openness of what the genuine experience actually is. And that's where again, the perception tends to be, this is, this is it. Whatever it is, this is it. And then, you know, we use words afterwards to try and communicate it and describe it. But it still rests on this premise that in order for you to understand what this it is that I'm talking about, you must experience it directly yourself. And then you will be able to accurately assess how do these linguistic descriptors apply to this experience and that you. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's about as apt as we can get. So, yeah, it's infinite. It's eternal. It's everything. It's nothing. It's beyond creation. It is creation. Right. All of these things. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Mm. And even ironically. So we put a word on infinite and eternal. [00:56:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:44] Speaker A: What doesn't make any sense. I had the other night. I don't know why, but I was just. And I encourage anybody to try this. Really sit down with what infinite means. Really sit down with what eternal means. Try to rationalize that. And you'll never come to any kind of rationalization that simply actually doesn't make any sense. There's no logic. But it touches upon what we feel in these experiences, eternal and infinite. It's. It's kind of laughable that we have words for something that grand. But, yeah, it is the truth. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And usually when people think about infinite, they think about, oh, well, it lasts forever. But even that kind of assumes that there was something before in a sense, like, conceptually, because it's hard for us to think about, well, what came before forever and what comes after forever. No, it's forever. Or if people think of infinite. I think it's really easy for people to conceptually imagine space. Right. They see stars, they see galaxies. Yeah. It just goes on forever. Like, you can just keep going. But we have to populate it with objects in order to even conceptualize how far away it is. Like, how big infinite is. So another way that I like to put it into language is that it's the experience of no limits or no borders. So not even. It's not the perception, it's the experience of no limits and no borders. And that's also why it is a simultaneously energizing and very relaxing experience. Because if there are borders, if there are limits, there are certain tensions, there are certain withholdings within the system. But this is a sense of, wow, everything is infinitely open. And that because there are no borders or limits, it is therefore eternal. There's no beginning, there's no end, there's no before, there's no after, because those are limits. And there's no outside, there's no beyond, there's no before. Right. Those are limits. And that usually, in our individuated sense of self, we have very clear sense of limits. And these are useful and functional. Like, it's good. It's good for me to know that if I want to nourish the body and drink water, I've got to reach for it. It's over here. I can't just sit here and be like, okay, water. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:59:08] Speaker B: I've got to actually engage that there are limits and get my glass of water and drink it. Because that's how dualistic reality functions. But when we can dissolve this strict conceptual barriers that oh, the water is not me into oh, it is me. It actually is me, that yes, this body is me, but the water is also me and everything else is also me. Again, it just changes the way that we tend to interact with reality because we have a very different self conception. And I think that that's very healthy to have that conception that the. It's easy for the ego to become pathological. And again, it's easy for an ego to be manipulated into various constructs of power within dualistic reality. [00:59:58] Speaker A: Oh yeah. And the biggest way that we get manipulated is through the limitation of our inevitable demise is through our death is it's the fear of dying. It's the fear of loss really. Not even in terms of us like loss of anything. [01:00:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:11] Speaker A: But number one is our death. Right. That's the biggest limitation that we all hold. And once you kind of see through that, once you see that even past the body there is this essence of immortality. That's power, that's true power. And really nothing can harm you. And that's freedom as well. There's many different words to associate with it. But that's the essence is once you see that the grand limitation that we all hold in the back of our heads is an illusion that there is no demise, then yeah, you're free. [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that becomes very liberating. And that's a common response people to have to five MEO experiences. They say, wow, I'm not afraid of dying anymore. And it is such a motivating factor. I mean, there's nothing a religion that has ever developed on planet Earth that is not some kind of response to the reality of death. Right. That that's a huge motivating factor for where religions develop their ideologies and their belief systems and their mythology and their communication systems around the reality of death. And then usually promising like, well, if you just do the right things and believe the right stuff and do the right rituals, like we've got you covered. But that's just all an illusion. So it doesn't really assuage the fear of death. But if you could have an experience of dying and then able to experience, what does it mean to be completely outside of the individuated construct? Oh, it's infinite and eternal. I don't need to worry about it. So it can free us from that existential fear and anxiety. And that's what allows us to live much more freely where again, many religions are responding to death and then promoting fear and then using that as a motivating factor to get people to behave in various capacities. But that's fear versus this is direct apprehension that allows trust, relaxation, faith, and actually removes fear. Which doesn't mean that then you are eager to die in any capacity because again, it can really re energize your love for life and the experience, this limited window that we have of getting to experience being this particular being. But it just removes the fear so that it's no longer a dominating motivating factor that is causing you to behave in various ways. And as you say, that fear of death translates into fear of loss of all kinds of things. Fear of loss of status, of power, of control. And so it allows us to interact more openly and more freely in a more liberated way. [01:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And also accept, as you talked about with your dog, accept other's deaths a little bit easier as well, because that is harder for me. Right. Losing, losing people that you love, I feel like is harder than my own demise at this point, strangely. So. Right. It's really tough to lose somebody and see somebody else suffer and go through it. It's almost like I'd rather be in their place. Right. But with this knowing, with this essence of knowing, it's a little bit easier to handle the loss of others. There's a place, there's a place for death, really. I know that sounds really heavy, but there's a place for death in the context of this unconditional love. And that's a huge pill to swallow because we're all going to experience loss. We all have loved ones, we all have dogs that we love. So it's just. It just provides so much more context. Right. When you know that God is love. It just provides context for everything in a faith, faith imbued in everything. And the. The very bright moments of our life, for sure, it makes them even sweeter. But even the shitty moments, even our suffering, there's a place for it. And that truly is a miracle to be bestowed upon oneself. [01:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And really, death is the ultimate act of love, is the ultimate gift of love. Because death is really the only thing in reality that gives anything else meaning is death. Because death means everything is transient and temporary. Therefore it gives value and meaning to what happens and what transpires and what choices we make and what actions we take and what. Where we choose to love or where we choose to resist. That is the thing, the one thing in reality that Gives all of it meaning and substance and value. That if everything lasted forever, nothing would have any kind of meaning, nothing would have any kind of value. That it's by everything having an expiration date that introduces value into the equation. And so even though death is hard, it is the ultimate gift. [01:05:32] Speaker A: I mean, it's like, worth it, is what you're saying? [01:05:34] Speaker B: Yes. That's what makes things worth it, is that it's not going to be here forever. I'm not going to be here forever. No matter what success I have, it's not going to be here forever. No matter what tragedies I experience, it's not going to be here forever. No matter who is in my life now, they're not going to be here forever. Whatever it is that I'm doing, it's not going to be forever because it's limited. It therefore has value. That if everything were unlimited, nothing would have value. So it's actually the most profound gift because it's the one thing that actually brings meaning into existence is death. And I just think that that's really, really profound. [01:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's where love comes from, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. This is powerful stuff. And one may say, well, didn't you guys just say you're eternal and you are forever and you are immortal? That's the thing. It's tough to talk about this stuff and put it in, like, one sentence structure. It's simultaneousness. It's like, yeah, there's an essence of us that is eternal and immortal and unbound and many different ways to label it for sure, right. That is God. But then the essence of us that isn't is the one that is temporary that makes us love more in the temporary form. [01:07:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:02] Speaker A: That's the part of us that isn't forever. So it's this. We're somewhere between limits and unlimited. We're somewhere between form and formless. That's the dance, right, that we dance in this whole thing we call reality. [01:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah. We are the nexus between which these two extremes meet and allows this opportunity to have any kind of experience at all. And so the individuated form, that's what is temporary, the eternal essence, that's eternal, that's immortal, and that doesn't go anywhere. And it's not going to go anywhere because it's limitless, it's eternal, it's immortal. But we as individuated expressions, that's where, again, we can view ourselves as a gift. I have the gift of experiencing myself in this one life. And that is what is definitely going to come to an end, as are all individuated expressions of the universal. That's all going to come to an end at some point. So it's like if I were to eat chocolate and just eat nothing but chocolate, like, have the taste of chocolate in my mouth all the time, it would eventually just fade into background noise. There'd be. Because the only thing that we ever experience actually is difference. We don't experience sameness, we experience difference because anything that it gets experienced as sameness, it just devolves into background noise and it becomes unnoticeable because there's no difference there. So by having difference, we get to experience anything. So again, if I had the taste of chocolate in my mouth all the time there, you know, at first it'd be like, oh, chocolate, then chocolate, then chocolate, then that. It's just. No, it's just the way my mouth tastes. Like, versus if I only have chocolate in limited experiences at limited times, then I can say, oh, man. Oh, it's so nice to eat chocolate right now. It's like, this is really hitting the spot. I'm really enjoying this chocolate right at this moment. But that's only valuable because I don't get it all the time, because it's limited. So, again, it's limitation that actually creates value. And death is the ultimate limitation, that the physical individuated form will always come to an end. And that is what gives anything in my life meaning. Because, again, if I could live forever, what does it matter what I do or don't do or what do I achieve or not achieve or how I lived or how I loved or how I expressed myself? None of that would matter because, well, I mean, there's no end to it. So who gives a shit what I do, right? Versus if I only have X number of years to embody and express myself, that gives it value and meaning. So for me, as Martin, what that means is I'm interested in, well, what's the next book I'm going to write? What's the next piece of music I'm going to record? Who's the next person I'm going to interview on my podcast? How many more people can I help integrate this week? Right, because it's limited. It gives it value because I'm not going to be here forever. And then with my dog, Moxie, it's how many times can I pet and cuddle her today and let her know how much I love her and value and appreciate her because her time really is coming to an end? It's Coming soon. She is physically deteriorating. That makes it more valuable to me how much I can enjoy and experience her right now. But if I knew that moxie's gonna be there forever, then so what if I pet her today? Because there's always tomorrow. [01:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's something very special about there not always being tomorrow. [01:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, man, yeah. [01:11:10] Speaker B: Who? [01:11:14] Speaker A: You use value. I like novelty. Terence McKenna uses that. All right. We build novelty through our limitations, through these, these illusions we could say of our individuated experience. There's. This is a novel experience, like the experience of Gary, the experience of Martin, the experience of whoever's listening. It's very novel that you're here to create this novel experience for God, essentially. Of God for. And of God that only you could experience. Right. It's very valuable and very novel, I like to say. And yeah, I think that's why we individuate. That's why we have the, this ego, we could say, is to create an experience, to have an experience that has never happened before and maybe never will. And yeah, that's the beauty of our lives. I think that's the gift that we, that we give ourselves essentially, that's the gift that we really, you know, take in, take into our hearts, is that it's something special to be you. I know that sounds corny again, but it really is something special to be you. And I think you recognize that. That's why you do the things that you do. Because there's only ever gonna be one Martin Ball. [01:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where I do like to point out that I think that human beings are very, very special in the overall matrix of creation. Because not only are we embodiments of this universal consciousness and being along with all other life forms, so that's where all life is fundamentally equal. Like we are all equally God, but we as humans, we also have this funny thing called the ego. So that we can then also become self aware. And then we can transcend that egoic limited self identification into full non dual awareness of what we actually are. And we also have the capacity to communicate our experience with each other and to share. And we have the capacity to reshape and remold reality around us. So that with that idea of novelty, that's what humans have been doing for several hundred thousand years, is pushing the boundary of what's possible through the development of art, communication, technology. And this is where religion actually has been very important, because religion has been a motivating factor in human societies to create new systems of meaning. New systems of communication, new systems of architecture, of art, of symbolism, of meaning making. And then getting into science and technology and this endless quest that humans seem to have of what else can we do, what can we do next? That I think that that is a fundamental driving force within dualistic reality. And we are more embodiments of that than other living beings simply because we have the physical capacity to do it. And we also have the mental hardware and software in order to communicate and share this with others. So it's like where we started. Maybe it was even before you hit record, we were talking about where you're on the east coast, I'm on the west coast. And that contemporary technology makes geography irrelevant in that sense that we can communicate across these great distances. And that's where science and technology is really this vast development within human society. Only in the past couple hundred years where we've really broken through into how, how can we not only communicate more or develop more culturally or in terms of our society or our systems of thought, but how can we also reshape reality and dive into novelty of new technological forms, new substances, new ways of investigating reality? And so this is, I mean this is like God on a super high of like, wow, I get to really dive into the reality of what I am in this way that has not been possible for the many billions of years that life has already existed. So this is, you know, for us it feels like science and technology has been around for a long time just because we were born into it. But it's in the geological time span and the time span of the existence of life as we know it. It's just like this latest little fraction of that this has been possible. So we're just really diving into all different novel ways of being and experiencing and exploring reality so that, that we've kind of hit this logarithmic climb in terms of novelty within reality. So I think it's, it's very exciting and I think it's, that's where science and technology that is an expression of God exploring itself. You know, sometimes people want to like, oh, science, technology, that's just human made. And like the divine is the eternal, it's the transcendent, it's the sacred. Like, no, this is what God is doing. Like God's making computers and satellites and rocket ships and quantum computer systems because God is endlessly exploring itself and that, that's the intelligence behind all of this. So that there's nothing that duality between, oh well, there is man made and there is, you know, God or the sacred is like it's. It's all the same thing. That's also what non duality says is like. Like it's all the same thing. We can't make these artificial distinctions and then hold them up as somehow absolute within reality. That there is the world of God and the world of man. These two are separate. No, they're the same thing. Yep. [01:17:06] Speaker A: The world of man is the world of God. [01:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:17:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And there is. Just to echo your point, there is something very, very novel about this lifetime. And Terence McKenna again did predict that. He predicted that back in the 80s and 90s. If he were alive today, I can't even imagine what he would have to say. But he kind of spoke it in the 80s and 90s of how weird it was going to get. And it is getting very peculiar in this lifetime in terms of novelty exponential. Every day that goes by, the exponential just connectivity exponential just. I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it. There's something going on. I guess that's all I have to say. There's something going on about this lifetime. And I think it's really the awakening of humanity. We're seeing it reflected through technology in the Internet. Like we're all realizing that we're God internally, little by little, you know, as we go. [01:18:00] Speaker B: And. [01:18:00] Speaker A: And I think that is being reflected like that interconnectivity that we feel with each other in the cosmos is being reflected through our technology. So it's like we already know that we have this inherent Internet, right? This inherent mycelial network where we're all connected into one mind, but we're also establishing this physical one mind through silicon, right. Through our technology and AI in the. And things of that. Like. So, yeah, I think that's kind of what going. What's going on right now is we're all slowly but surely. Doesn't look like it if you turn on Fox News or your TikTok feed. But slowly but surely, we're all establishing ourself into this one mind and it's being represented through the technology that we have. [01:18:40] Speaker B: Yeah. If you think about at the base level, like what a nervous system is, a nervous system is the communication of information from one location to another and then relating it within a centralized operating system. That would be a nervous system. So for example, if I prick my finger, right, I have a little sensation of pain and then that pain has to travel all the way up to my brain and then the brain says, ow, I pricked my finger, right. So it's the translation of information. So with the Internet and communications technology, what we are getting is a form of nervous system that is now spread around the globe that allows us to, to transfer information from one area to the next almost instantaneously. I mean, only limited by the speed of light, essentially, because it's transmitted through electromagnetic signals. And we've already established that electromagnetic signals, that those are actually light, even though we don't call it light. That's what they are. So it's only limited by the speed of light and the processing power of the hardware that we have, which is probably soon going to be overcome because we're going to be getting into quantum computers which are going to process much, much faster. So we've got this vast nervous system through these communication networks. And then I think a lot of what we're seeing right now is that we're also getting a lot of viruses and junk information being passed through the system. So this is where the sort of the danger is where. And even the use of AI to create false news stories, false images that are then passed off as like, look what's happening. You know, like, I live in Oregon and this is one of the places where there's been the surge of ice and the National Guard and like the White House and the Trump administration, which has no commitment to truth or reality in any way, shape or form. They're purely propaganda driven based on limited egoic concepts. They're putting out images of like, oh, look what's happening in Portland, like it's burning to the ground. And then they actually sent people there and there's a guy in a fucking chicken costume, okay? Like, the reality is something totally different. But through these technologies and information systems, there's a possibility for viruses or false information. For example, if I prick my finger, I want my nervous system to, to be accurate so that, oh, I actually have pricked my finger, versus if I'm constantly experiencing, like, I'm pricking my fingers but there's no physical wound there, we would say, wow, the system's misfiring, that it's going to be hard for me to make accurate decisions about how I want to use my body within reality. If I'm constantly getting false signals and false information through my extremities and through my nervous system. So we'd want to clean that system up, right? Because that's not accurate information. And if, if the nervous system is designed so that I can survive and thrive, I need to have relatively accurate information coming through my nervous system. But with propaganda, with AI Slop with just creation of absolutely false narratives. What we're getting is a lot of viral information within the system that is not reflective of reality. So this is where we're really on a precipice. Because not only has this nervous system been created and is only growing exponentially and allowing for technological innovation and communication innovations, but it's also allowing lots of pathways for viral information, conspiracy theories, propaganda, just outright fake and false information to be spread at a level that then causes people to react as though their finger is being pricked. But there's nothing pricking the finger there. And then getting all upset with like, oh, why was my finger pricked? So this is where there's also. We kind of tie it back in again to the non dual experience. This is why the non dual experience is so important. Because when we can ground ourselves in the truth and reality of being, which then inspires the desire for clarity and overcoming the egoic temptations of self and other and protecting the narrative of the me versus them, that's the antidote. Not just we need better regulation systems so that we're not spreading false information. It's like, no, actually we need to bring people out of the condition that makes them prone to disseminating and participating in false information. And that brings them into a state of clarity so that then they're choosing to. I'm not engaging in that. And then it loses its power because then the information is not being taken in. That virus is not being invited in. [01:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting too. We use the word viral. Something went viral. [01:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:40] Speaker A: It's not a coincidence. Yeah, yeah. And what you described as discernment, there's a sense of discernment that comes from this understanding and realization of oneself that is tied to intuition, I feel. [01:23:52] Speaker B: Yes. [01:23:52] Speaker A: Intuition leads the way is what I say. And it's like you just. You can smell a mile away. That's the thing. It's like, you know, when something is real and something isn't, essentially. And yeah, that's kind of like what. It's kind of what guides me throughout my life, I find, is from that vantage point of the one mind, how do I discern all the possible distortions or anything? Anything that is, you know, presented to me on the movie screen of my mind. How do I discern what is real and what is a virus? Essentially, it's like an immune system in some way, you know, from this understanding. It's like you have this shield of armor that is all through discernment and intuition. Feel that? [01:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that That's a good way to describe it. So I usually put it into the language of energy with this sense that, okay, the base level energy of reality is universal unconditional love. And then I as an embodied being, I am taking in energetic inputs through my eyes, ears, nose, skin, sense of my body in space, right? Proprioception. I'm taking in these energetic inputs and then creating a virtual reality within the nexus of my brain that says, okay, this is what I'm seeing, perceiving and what's real and what's not real. And again, through the ego. The ego is a collection of energetic patterns with which we've become habitually identified. And a lot of them are running on unconscious programs that we shaped and formed when we were very young. And that the ego also can take in lots of very damaging programs of self hate, self loathing, self judgment, and also buying into constructed narratives from outside of this is what I need to be in order to be good. Speaking of religion, political systems, things like that. So we take in all this stuff so that we're running on a largely dysfunctional program which things makes it very difficult for people to trust their intuition because there's so much self doubt and there's so much constructed reality with which we have internalized that is just a construct, it's not real, but we're behaving as though it were real. And therefore the uninitiated ego is prone to projection, attachment, distortion, illusion, lies, half truths. And that it's because it also has certain levels of self loathing and self doubt that are built into is constantly trying to protect itself and to bolster itself through our choices and actions and through the information that we want to accept as true and that which we want to reject as false. So here is where the ego is very, very problematic. That most egos are not clean in that sense of being able to operate from a sense of clarity. So the system is distorted through our experience and through our societies and our cultures and our politics and our religion and blah blah, blah, blah and all of that stuff. So by going through the non dual experience and then integrating that and unloading the distortions, we're able to operate more from a sense of direct, energetic clarity and presence. And that's what makes that first thought, that first sensation, that first intuition that makes it much more accurate in the sense that we're not filtering it through multiple layers of distortion to say, oh, that reaffirms my sense of self or that reaffirms my beliefs, right? So as we go through this Clarification process. It's often the case that people say that they are able to operate more intuitively or another way that people describe that would be operating from less thought, that they don't think about things as much, because usually we're always thinking about, okay, what's the best thing to do here? How do I achieve it? What are other people going to think? Is that right for me? What are my parents going to think? What is. What are my spouse going to think? How should I do it? Did I do that right? Maybe I should do this other way. So we cloud our system with overthinking and a lot of value judgments, which, again, might not really be based on reality, but just a false construct of reality. So as we clear all that out, we're able to just more intuitively trust, like, oh, this is what I feel like doing. So I'm doing it, and I trust that I'm coming from a place of clarity. So I'm not getting caught in these thought loops of guessing and then judgment and doubt and then regret. And, you know, this, these endless cycles that people get stuck in. And this is also where these kinds of psychedelic experiences, this is why they're so profoundly therapeutic for people. Because when people are in a dysfunctional relationship or pattern or system or depression or anxiety or trauma, it's very, very hard to get out of that and have relief. This is where psychedelic therapy is potentially way more effective than traditional therapy, because it gets us out and then lets us unload whatever energetic residues are there through all of these dysfunctions. And then we're able to re. Enter into ourselves in a way that is more clean and in alignment. And then we're able to make better choices and embody and express ourselves in a way that is more in alignment with that unconditional love that we've been talking about. So this is where psychedelic therapy, let alone for discovering the true nature of reality, is very, very effective. And this is why we're also seeing a lot of changes in the world of psychedelic therapy and in therapy in general, in terms of what kind of medicines people are working with, what kind of outcomes are expected from that, which generally are much higher than traditional forms of therapy. [01:30:23] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? I know we're going on an hour and a half here, but you want to get into, like, the legality of psychedelics and where you see this industry, if you want to call it an. [01:30:38] Speaker B: Industry, going, yeah, well, we're at a very, really, It's a very uncertain time, because there's a lot of potential and there's also a lot of roadblocks and there's a lot of pushbacks. But in general, psychedelic therapy, even though it might sound like something new, it's actually a potential return to the contemporary psychedelic roots of modern culture. So if we were to make a very general distinction, we could say that entheogens and psychedelics have been used within traditional cultures, tribal cultures, for hundreds, potentially thousands of years. We can also see that there's been use of psychedelics and entheogens and mind altering substances within highly structured religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Shintoism, Taoism. Right now, this is largely uncontested material that it's been involved in religion and spirituality and culture for a long, long period of time. But a lot of that was either suppressed or forgotten in various ways, or just transformed into other, more symbolic kinds of presentations within cultures and societies. So a lot of this knowledge around the use of entheogens was effectively lost for a number of years throughout the world. So then there was sort of a rediscovery in the 1900s, and that was actually by psychotherapists who were experimenting with things like mescaline and lsd. And also then a little bit later, mdma, of giving those to their psychotherapy clients and finding that they're making a lot more progress than people who are just coming in for talk therapy or behavioral therapy or whatever form of therapy that they were offering, that actually this is way more efficacious if we give somebody a psychedelic because they're able to access unconscious and repressed materials in a way that you simply cannot through ordinary states of consciousness. So it allows the unpacking of unresolved or conflicting or dysfunctional material within your operating system that you're not aware of at the surface because it's buried within the subconscious or it's suppressed. And so this kind of takes the lid off and allows the therapist to help the client poke around into the inner workings of their sense of self and therefore can produce really astounding results. But then as the drug war heated up starting in the 1970s with Richard Nixon, and then really was exported around the world, all of this stuff got criminalized and all of it was made illegal. And even when MDMA was first rediscovered by Sasha Shulgin, it was being used very widely by therapists, particularly on the west coast of the United States. And they were finding that it was producing way better results than anything they'd ever experienced with their clients. But then it was made illegal in the mid-1980s, I think it was like 1985, MDMA was made illegal, and therefore all of that therapy suddenly became illegal and everybody had to go underground. Now, there have been organizations such as MAPS working since then to re legalize, first of all, just MDMA therapy of allowing that as something in the therapist toolkit because it works. It simply works. It really does. And then we've had more work also done looking at psilocybin as. And so this is the active compound in quote, magic mushrooms as another therapeutic tool that it does allow for certain levels of catharsis to take place. A lot of studies have been done looking at how particularly what are called heroic or just large doses of mushrooms, which might involve a mystical experience like we've been talking about, that those seem to be the most therapeutically effective for people. So now this was actually taken up in Oregon, where we now have the psilocybin program where. But we're at this weird crossroads, right? So you can go and legally have a facilitated psilocybin session here in Oregon, but that's not allowed to have any kind of therapy involved with it. So you have a facilitated psilocybin session, but the people who facilitate, they're not allowed to work as therapists. So it's a completely different licensing program about how you can become a psilocybin facilitator from being a therapist. So you can't even call it therapy. So that's why it's just called the psilocybin services. But then any kind of therapy you might be getting would have to be outside of that. But more and more therapists are now becoming educated around the use of psychedelics for therapy, so that then potentially they could talk to someone and help them integrate their experience because they have a stronger knowledge base versus just like, oh, those are drugs. Drugs are bad, or drugs will drive you crazy, so that's meaningless. Then also we have in Colorado, they've also legalized psilocybin services, but those are just getting off the ground right now, as far as I know. Then last year, MAPS had presented its case to Congress for rescheduling MDMA for therapeutic purposes. And Congress, or I'm not sure if it was Congress or it was the Drug Enforcement Agency or the. I forget which department it was basically said like, no, we think this was unscientific. So everyone was expecting that MDMA therapy was going to become legal last year, but it didn't. And so it now is just kind of leaving it with, like, we don't know where it's going, but I think Australia has fully legalized psilocybin and MDMA therapy at this point. So this is just, it's change that's happening around the world. And even this is also something that's happening at an underground level, even places where there's not like above ground movement. So I was speaking with a psychotherapist in Israel like three days ago and he was telling me about how all the therapists he works with in Israel, they're all providing five MEO DMT sessions for their clients and this is just happening. And also I recently was with a psychotherapist from Ukraine and he was telling me about how they're doing psilocybin and five MEO therapy with veterans in Ukraine. So this is just happening whether or not it's legal or not. Like this is a major movement around the world where psychedelics are openly being embraced within the psychotherapeutic community, even if the professional and legal world hasn't caught up yet. Like this is just something that's happening and it still remains to be seen, like how this is going to develop at the legal above ground level. But it's definitely encountering a lot of hurdles along the way. So it's very nebulous about when and where and how and what's going to happen first. But we're at least at the point now where there are studies being conducted around the world in various universities and research institutes and even sometimes these are pharmaceutical companies that are looking to develop psychedelic derivatives and applying them for purposes of treating anxiety, mental health and depression, ptsd, various forms of trauma, addictions, eating disorders, psychological disorders, things like that. And it just comes down to the fact that they're very effective. And I would also mention that I think Texas is now looking at ibogaine as a potential treatment for addiction. But this is something that's been going on in Mexico for the past couple of decades. Actually. There's lots of ibogaine treatment centers there where people travel to Mexico generally with heavy opioid addictions and dependence. And ibogaine is very good at giving you kind of a brain scrubbing that allows people to move into a non addicted mode of being without having to suffer through extended withdrawals or cravings. And so they can go through a very powerful experience with ibogaine and then might feel afterwards like, wow, I'm not craving fentanyl anymore, I'm not craving oxycodone and I can go about my day and there's mixed results there. It's not a universal panacea, but definitely holds a lot of promise. So there's just a lot of areas where this is really still in development. It's still somewhat taboo and still somewhat underground. But like, the next two interviews that I have planned for my podcast, I've got this book written by two psychiatrists called Psychedelic Therapy. They're in Colorado and they are, are making the argument for why mainstream psychotherapy should be embracing psychedelic therapy. And then I also have another book, Ecstasy for Couples, which is by another therapist who does couples therapy. And his argument is like, look, we can bring people into couples therapy and they can talk about their shit for years and not get anywhere, or we can do one session with MDMA and they can have massive, lasting breakthroughs that really saves the relationship. And here's all the mechanics of why that is. You know, so it's just, it just comes down to efficacy in the end. It's like, this stuff works and that's why there's such a strong movement. But again, it's just not clear where the, quote, authorities are going to land on these issues and that it might be something that here in the United States we see kind of like with marijuana might be more of a state by state basis as things change before. Before the federal government catches up. I do know that RFK Jr. Which, I mean, I'll just be honest, he's not someone that I personally have a lot of trust or respect or confidence in as an individual. My impression is the dude's full of a lot of shit, but he also is open to psychedelic therapy and apparently he likes dmt. I'm a little wary of him because, like, anything that comes out of the fascist regime of the Trump MAGA cult, I think is just going to be problematized as soon as they lose power. So, like, a lot of people in the psychedelic world, like, yeah, RFK Jr. He's going to help psychedelic therapy move forward. But as soon as the next administration comes in, they're going to want to undo everything that Trump has done because he's been so objectively awful. So I don't have a lot of hope or confidence that RFK Jr. Is going to help legitimize psychedelic therapy. If anything, I think him supporting it is going to help delegitimize it just because he is not a trusted individual, in my opinion. But anyway, that's maybe getting a little too specific about the current administration, but it comes down to, like, we don't know where it's headed ultimately. [01:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we're making small steps. We're getting there slowly but surely. I mean, if you brought up the fact that it was legal in Oregon or Colorado in 1960s and 70s, you know, that's a hippie pipe dream. [01:42:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:42:56] Speaker A: So the fact that that's happening, it's a proof that something's going on. Unfortunately, Massachusetts didn't pass it in the last election because that was up for legalization of. It was five different substances. I forget. It was like it was dmt, psilocybin. I forget. I'll put the list at the bottom of the screen. It was like five different substances they were trying to pass and it didn't pass, unfortunately. So I agree with you. I think it's going to be like state by state and only certain areas are going to have it legal. But as you described, it doesn't really matter either. That's the thing is people already know the potential of this and laws or no laws, it's gonna happen. You know, there's a will, there's a way. And yeah, I think this, it's going to. The underground is just going to flourish. And it already is, it's flourishing because people already know that it's real. So the laws don't really mean anything. The only thing that I think they mean is they can convince people that don't know any better that there's potential. Because unfortunately, people still believe in the, the war on drugs like that, that mind virus is still present. So the legality of it would not only open up access to people for sure, but it would open up people's minds that, hey, maybe, maybe I can explore ecstasy with my partner or maybe I can explore psilocybin, yada yada. It's the, maybe that I think the legality will, will allow people to entertain, you know. [01:44:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's true that people pretty much do have access to psychedelic therapy as it exists right now, but it's not. [01:44:23] Speaker A: Hard to grow mushrooms. Just saying. [01:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but for people who don't have the right connections, this is where we can see a lack of care in the sense that there are people who really want these forms of therapy because they've heard how efficacious they are, but they don't know how to access it. They don't know where to turn. There's lots of people out there who don't have. They're not connected to psychedelic culture, but maybe they've seen a special on Netflix and they're like, well, yeah, I want that for myself. So they don't know where to go. They don't know how to find someone. And then when things are underground, what that does promote is that people who are practicing, that they be very secretive. And that also then is a recipe for the potential for manipulation and abuse, because, you know, things are underground and it's secret. And so sometimes, you know, I work with a client who finds an underground practitioner, and they're just like, this person was the best. This was amazing. And other times I'm working with a client who says, yeah, I found this underground facilitator, and, man, they just. They ripped me off. They abused me, you know, so that it just makes it harder for people who actually are seeking help. Or then what happens is people end up traveling out of country to go somewhere where it is legal, and it just ends up costing more. So that there are all of these structural obstacles to just getting people help. You know, people who are suffering who just. They just want help. So that's where it is important that it become normalized and become legalized. So it just makes it more accessible for people, and then it's more able to hold people accountable for what's happening and how people are potentially treated. So I think that it's important. But, yeah, essentially, anybody who wants psychedelic therapy these days, if they try hard enough, they can find it, I think. But they might have to travel, and it might cost them quite a bit of money. [01:46:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that we can at least have this conversation and not have to fear for our lives or fear being put in jail. You know, that's the good news, is the word is spreading, and it's thanks to people like you that are leading the way. You know, I mean, there's not a lot of people that are very open about it. I mean, you could say it is. There's a good amount of people on the Internet, but in terms of how many people on Earth, how many people in the United States, there's not a lot of people that are very open about it as much as you. So, yeah, kudos to you. Kudos to you being very open and very eloquent and grounded in that regard and to what the psychedelic experience brings us and the potential of psychedelics and entheogens. That's all I got to say, Martin. All right, thank you. [01:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah, well, thanks for inviting me back on for another conversation, Gary. It's been great to have this discussion today, and I think we touched on a lot of great topics, and I appreciate your perspective and your experience that you bring into it as well. And it makes it a very fruitful and interesting conversation. So thanks for having me. [01:47:31] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. This was an awesome conversation. I knew it was going to be a good one. I had a good feeling about it. But, yeah, man, keep up the awesome work. Maybe again we can have a conversation in the future. But until then, I wish you all the best, man. [01:47:42] Speaker B: All right, well, you have a great afternoon. [01:47:44] Speaker A: You, too, Martin. Peace and love, everybody. All right, goodbye, y'. [01:47:47] Speaker B: All.