Martin W. Ball has written more about 5-MeO-DMT than almost anyone, and Entheogenic Liberation is his most complete statement of the method he practiced for years. It's thoughtful in places, sharply critical of guru culture and spiritual pretension, and frank about many risks. It also describes, in Ball's own words, session practices that most people would consider unsafe and a violation of boundaries. This page summarizes every chapter and explains both.

At a glance

Full title: Entheogenic Liberation: Unraveling the Enigma of Nonduality with 5-MeO-DMT Energetic Therapy
Author: Martin W. Ball, PhD
Published: 2017, Kyandara Publishing, Ashland, Oregon (self-published)
Structure: 13 chapters and 4 appendices
Best for: readers who want to understand the "nondual" school of 5-MeO-DMT work and its influence
Reputation note: serious. See below.

A note on the author's reputation

Ball was an adjunct professor of religious studies, the host of the Entheogenic Evolution podcast and an organizer of the Exploring Psychedelics conference in Ashland. He says he ran one-on-one underground 5-MeO-DMT sessions for about seven years and retired from that work in 2016.

In 2021 reporting by Psymposia, Ball described his own past session practices, which included touching clients' genitals, and said he had no emergency medical training and no medical staff on hand. He has also publicly defended Octavio Rettig. Much of what concerns people about his practice is described openly in this book, in the chapter "Being a Nondual Energetic Practitioner" and in the appendices. Those passages are summarized below.

The short version

Ball argues that the ego is a prison each person builds and maintains, made of habits of thought, posture, voice and belief, and that underneath it everyone is God. 5-MeO-DMT, in his view, is the one tool that can reliably overwhelm the ego's "energetic structures" so a person can surrender into full nondual awareness. A single experience isn't enough, though. Liberation requires repeated sessions, ideally one-on-one with a "practitioner" who takes the medicine alongside the client and works the client's energy hands-on. He calls this "nondual energetic therapy," and its signature principle is bilateral symmetry: he believes a body moving in perfect mirror symmetry shows the ego has let go, and any asymmetry shows it hasn't.

He rejects religion, ritual, prayer, shamanism, spirits and visions as products of ego. He's also scathing about cults of personality, people who say they've been "called" to serve the medicine, and the idea that toad secretion is somehow better than synthetic.

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Introduction

Ball dates his own "nondual liberation" to 2009 and calls this the definitive work on 5-MeO-DMT and nondual awakening, presented as therapy rather than spiritual practice. He claims everything in it is "fundamentally true" and free of speculation or belief, and cites no one else's work. He says he's retired from one-on-one sessions and, asked whom he'd recommend instead, answers "no one." He sees no meaningful difference between natural and synthetic 5-MeO-DMT.

The Prison

The ego as a prison: "You are the prisoner, the prison, and the guard." Underneath, "You are God embodied in human form." He separates a single nondual experience (a "furlough") from lasting liberation, and warns that this work can be brutal, shattering beliefs and identity. It's for people who see themselves as having a problem, "not for the merely curious."

Approaches to Engaging Psychedelics

A survey of the ways people use psychedelics: recreational, exploratory (with a sharp critique of Terence McKenna), creative, problem-solving, therapeutic (including clinical research and MAPS), religious and spiritual, and sexual. He argues nondual use is fundamentally different from all of them.

Nonduality

Sections on the ego as a constructed character, nondual experience as all-or-nothing, self-knowledge as a human birthright that overrides laws against it, why 5-MeO-DMT is uniquely effective, and the "radically awesome nature of God." He stresses that the medicine can't override free will: if the ego fights, the experience can be "profoundly destabilizing and traumatic."

Working with 5-MeO-DMT

The core practical chapter, covering many topics:

Setting: it's "not, in any way, a casual, social, or recreational affair." First-timers should always be with an experienced guide. People may run, thrash, scream or lash out, so the space should be private and indoors. He recommends against ceremony and groups.
Sexual ethics: a provider who has sex with a client is "in clear violation of basic care-giving ethics," and later relationships with clients are problematic. "When in doubt, bring a friend."
Finding a facilitator: a long, useful list of red flags, including heavy ritual, cults of personality, followers who attack others online, claims of a "calling," chaotic personal lives, no aftercare, rushing people, extraordinary healing claims and uncomfortable power dynamics.
The experience: a description of the arc, visuals, whiteouts, spontaneous "reactivations" (often at night), and after-effects.
Breath, voice and purging: he interprets audible breathing, narration and certain sounds as ego. He calls vomiting a release of stuck energy and describes people smearing vomit on themselves as "profoundly healing." He says foaming and seizure-like tremors "aren't" seizures and "nothing needs to be done," and that long breath-holds aren't a concern unless someone changes color.
Failure to reassemble: in rare cases people can't function for days to years afterward. His recommended response is usually more medicine with a skilled practitioner.

Dosing and administration details in this chapter aren't reproduced here.

Challenging Reactions

An honest list of risks: chasing the experience, grandiosity and messiah complexes, believing you've been "called," attachment to providers, traumatic experiences that can "easily qualify" as PTSD and last months or years, feeling broken afterward, and amplification of serious mental illness. He says "not everyone makes it through." His remedy for trauma, though, is mainly to go back into the medicine, and he frames turning to counseling, diet or ceremony as the ego trying to regain control.

The Human Energetic System

A model of five energy centers along the body's midline (head, throat, heart and lungs, gut, genitals), with ego patterns mapped onto each. Its core claim: "Bilateral symmetry is the key." Asymmetry "is always egoic." He suggests resting in symmetry and practicing symmetrical movement daily.

Thinking Clearly

An inventory of beliefs he sees as obstacles: trying to understand the experience, "out-of-body" language, conditional love, raising personal preferences into moral law, control, religion and spirituality, and the "natural vs synthetic" distinction, which he calls "total nonsense" and pure ego. With a pure molecule, he says, no one can tell the difference.

Being a Nondual Energetic Practitioner

The chapter that matters most for safety. Ball describes how a practitioner works, presenting it as an illustration few readers will ever qualify for:

The practitioner takes the medicine alongside the client, across several rounds in one session. If clients want to stop early, he says, "it's important that they trust you and take your advice to continue."
Clients' personal histories are "not really relevant." Ritual and prayer are discouraged.
Hands-on work, in his words, includes repositioning the head and limbs, holding the face, "sitting on" clients who are thrashing, lying on top of clients "unless they actively push you off," kneeling between their legs to press along the body's midline from the genitals to the head to find painful "knots," and putting fingers or thumbs in their mouth. He writes that this requires not being caught up in "concerns over right and wrong, proper or improper."
He says that in rare cases the practitioner may "purge directly onto the client," and that "tough love" has a role: "let them have it. They're asking for it."
He does say a practitioner should never force anything and should back off if there's resistance, and should give "fair warning" that the work can be painful.

Couples Work, Relationships, & Sexuality

Honesty as the highest commitment in a relationship. Couples should do sessions separately. Joint sessions are only for couples with complete trust, using slower substances, and conventional therapy should come first.

Going Solo

Solo work only after a supervised introduction, with a sober sitter nearby for emergencies. He warns against fantasy, ego inflation and claims of psychic powers.

Legal Issues

A critique of the War on Drugs and an argument that 5-MeO-DMT doesn't meet the criteria for Schedule I. The legal information dates from 2017.

Final Thoughts

Liberation is an open, unguarded, loving heart lived right here, not an escape. Nondual awakening, he argues, is the cure for most human conflict.

Appendix A: 5-MeO-DMT User's Guide

A question-and-answer guide first posted online in 2010. Its health section is worth knowing: avoid MAOIs; it raises heart rate and blood pressure, so people with heart or blood pressure problems shouldn't use it; very high doses "have been known to stop hearts"; and people with severe psychological problems or psychotic tendencies shouldn't use it. Dosing material isn't reproduced here.

Appendix B: Taking Five

A practical guide written for an online group. Its key claim is that a properly guided session makes it "practically impossible" to leave traumatized, and that anyone who leaves shattered either resisted or was served by someone unskilled. It repeats the hands-on and multiple-round methods.

Appendix C: A Few Notes on Other Substances

Brief notes on other psychedelics, opening with a caution to check psychiatric medication interactions with a doctor.

Appendix D: Interview with the Author

An interview covering his background, his rejection of reincarnation and shamanism, and his view that in nondual realization "there are no victims, there's nothing to heal."

What holds up

The red-flag list. His warnings about cults of personality, "callings," heavy ritual, rushing and extraordinary healing claims are genuinely useful.
Sexual ethics, stated plainly. No sexual contact between providers and clients.
Synthetic is the same molecule. His view that pure synthetic 5-MeO-DMT is no less "authentic" than toad secretion matches the chemistry.
Honesty about harm. He acknowledges that traumatic experiences can last months or years and that mental illness can be amplified.
Health cautions in Appendix A on MAOIs, heart conditions and blood pressure.

What to read critically

Touch and consent. The hands-on methods described, including lying on clients, pressing near the genitals and fingers in the mouth, go far beyond what most people would consent to while in an altered state, and the book doesn't describe agreeing on them in advance.
Pressure to continue. Encouraging clients to keep going when they want to stop, and treating more medicine as the answer to distress, raises real concerns about consent.
Medical safety. Seizure-like episodes and breath-holding are dismissed as not needing attention, and there's no plan for medical emergencies.
Blaming the person. Difficult experiences are framed as the ego's resistance, and Appendix B suggests that properly guided clients can't leave traumatized.
Discouraging other help. Counseling and other support after a hard experience are framed as the ego taking control, when they may be exactly what someone needs.
Certainty. The book claims to be fact, not belief, while making many claims that can't be tested.

What it means for choosing a facilitator

A good facilitator agrees on touch with you clearly, in advance and while you're sober; respects "stop" without pressure; has a plan for medical emergencies; takes your history seriously; and supports you in getting whatever help you need afterward, including therapy. See How to Choose a Facilitator and Safety & Screening.

Where to find it

Entheogenic Liberation is self-published through Kyandara Publishing and available as a print-on-demand paperback and ebook.

Keep reading

The Entheological Paradigm: Ball's collected essays
The God Molecule: Ball wrote its foreword
The Toad and the Jaguar: a contrasting approach, where touch is agreed in advance and voyagers reach for a hand only if they want one
All 5-MeO-DMT book summaries

This summary leaves out dosing, preparation and administration details on purpose. It's a critical summary and review for educational purposes. Descriptions of session practices are drawn from the book itself and from the reporting linked above.