Being Human
An Entheological Guide to God, Evolution
and the Fractal Energetic Nature of
Reality
Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.
Being Human: An Entheological Guide to God,
Evolution, and the Fractal Energetic Nature of
Reality
Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.
All contents, © 2009, Martin W. Ball/Kyandara Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-615-32803-4
Permission to reproduce any part of this book must be sought directly
from the publisher in writing. Contact: Kyandara@yahoo.com
Disclaimer:
This book is intended for educational and philosophical purposes. The
author does not encourage, endorse, or support illegal or dangerous
behavior of any kind and readers assume full responsibility for their
choices and actions.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Congratulations! – 1
The Radical Non-Dualism of the Entheological Paradigm – 2
Part 1, The Nature of Reality
You
Who are You? – 5
Who or What is God? – 6
The Problem – 6
The Incomplete Perspective of Science – 7
The Fantasy-laden Perspectives of Religions – 9
Resolution – 10
God and Evolution
God – 12
Radial Geometry and Inorganic Evolution – 15
The Geometry of Early Organic Evolution – 17
The Geometry of Higher Evolutionary Forms – 19
Mammalian Evolution and Dimethyltryptamine – 20
Human Evolution and the Ego – 21
Ego Formation in Children – 23
God’s Signature in Fractal Anatomy – 24
What is God Doing? – 25
Part II, Living in Reality
Life as an Individual
Understanding Your Vehicle – 29
Actual Energy vs. Imaginary “Subtle” Energy – 34
Life and Death – 35
How to Begin
Waking Up – 38
Taking Stock – 40
Exercises – 41
The Mirror – 44
The Preliminaries of Practice – 45
Meditation – 45
Getting in Touch with Your Body and Energy – 46
Vocalizing – 47
Bodywork – 47
Self-Expression – 48
The Open Heart – 48
Spending Time in Nature – 49
Part III, Opening to Energy with Entheogens
Entheogenic Practice
Working with the Medicines – 52
Are Entheogens really the most effective tool for Awakening? – 53
Cautions – 55
Things to be Aware of – 57
Attachment to Story – 57
The Dangers of Shamanism – 58
Fear of Losing Control – 59
Engaging with Others – 60
Set and Setting – 60
Secure and Free from Distractions – 60
The Sitter – 61
Ritual – 62
Prayer – 62
Setting Intention – 63
Understanding Your Personal Interface – 63
Interfacing with the Divine
The Divine Imagination – 67
Archetypal Energies and Fundamental Geometry – 68
From Possibilities to Actualities – 70
Infinity Spectrums – 72
Salvia Divinorum – 73
Psilocybin Mushrooms – 74
Ayahuasca and its Analogues – 75
Extracted and Synthetic DMT – 76
5-MeO-DMT – 77
The Nature of the Journey – 79
Posture and Movement – 81
Movement and Working with Energy – 82
Maintaining Posture – 84
Uncrossed Appendages – 84
Sitting – 85
Lying Down – 87
Fractal Energetic Yoga – 88
Voicing – 89
Purging – 90
Trust – 93
Working Through Your Lessons – 94
The Fruits of the Work – 97
Responsibility
Taking Responsibility – 99
Responsibility for Evolutionary Integrity – 100
Children and Responsibility – 102
Being Yourself – 103
Entheogenic Affirmations
Introduction
Congratulations!
You hold in your hands (or are perhaps reading on your
computer screen) a genuine guide to fulfilling your nature as a human
being. In writing this guide, my goal is to present to the reader a basic
account of the true nature of reality without any fluff, fantasy, story, or
unnecessary metaphysics or speculation, with the confidence that this is
the true knowledge that can liberate you from all illusion and the
suffering illusion causes. Much of what is written here is presented as
matter-of-fact without much argumentation. It is my hope that readers
will see the internal consistency and overall simplicity of what I am
sharing and will find it easy to apply the principles and ideas presented
herein to their lives, attain personal liberation, and find fulfillment and
happiness.
However, it is not as simple as just reading this guide. Many of
the ideas found herein will be challenging for you, especially if you are
a practitioner of virtually any religion. Honestly, it might be easier for
you if you are a scientific materialist atheist. Regardless, truly
actualizing the wisdom presented in this guide in your own life will
take dedication and a willingness to work through your illusions and
your resistance to what is truly real.
Understanding reality is not about accepting certain ideas as
true. It is not about intellect or belief. It is about experience, and
understanding the contextual nature of experience. This guide will
2 Being Human
provide a clear map to how you can experience the ideas presented
herein for yourself, in your own life, in each and every moment. It all
begins with you and ends with you.
Are you ready to take responsibility for yourself and your life
and enter into a true relationship with the fundamental nature of reality?
If so, then this could be the guide for you. Set aside your beliefs, open
your mind, take a deep breath, relax, and let’s begin.
The Radical Non-Dualism of the Entheological Paradigm
As will become apparent throughout this guide, the view of
reality being articulated here could best be described as “radical nondualism.”
What this basically means is that “all things are one.” While
this is a common refrain of mystics and many spiritual practitioners, the
actual implications of what this means has remained mystified. The
difference between what mystics say and what is being presented here
is that this guide will explain, without any mystification, precisely what
it means that all things are one and how reality works as a coherent
energetic system. A key to understanding this profoundly
interconnected nature of reality is the energetic mathematics of fractals
and geometry, as will be explained in much greater detail below
(though no math or equations are presented in this guide). For now, it
is enough to say that all of reality, everything we know scientifically
and everything that we experience personally as life and consciousness,
can be explained by the fundamental concept of fractal energy. In
physics, this could be described as a “Grand Unified Theory,” or GUT:
A theory that is able to explain everything. However, this is even more
powerful than any GUT developed within physics, for the physical
sciences have no explanation for consciousness or life, whereas the
Entheological Paradigm does and is therefore far more inclusive and
comprehensive.
Another key concept is that this is an “entheological paradigm.”
Entheology is the “logic or study of God within.” Paradigm means
“exemplary model.” Thus the model of reality being presented here is
based on the concept that “God” is “within.” This is a bit misleading,
however, for in actuality, this model is not limiting the idea of God to
being “within.” In fact, God is not only within, but without as well. In
reality, God is all things. It is thus the task of this guide to adequately
Introduction 3
explain how God, as energy, is reality. The implication, of course, is
that this includes you!
So, we begin with you . . .
Part I
The Nature of Reality
You
Who Are You?
Who are you? And perhaps more importantly, what are you?
You are certainly a human being, but what, exactly, is a human being?
What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be you?
There are many ways that one can answer these questions. One
can look to religion, science, culture, tradition, psychology, spirituality,
family, etc., and generate answers from these perspectives. These
different perspectives provide very different answers, however, and
many of them do not necessarily agree with each other, raising the
question of the nature of truth. Science says that you are the product of
random, purposeless evolution - ultimately an animal that somehow got
smart. Religions might say that you are an incarnated soul on a divine
mission to reach enlightenment or salvation. It is hard to see how these
two perspectives could be reconciled.
In general, there is no real consensus in developing an answer to
the questions above. It all seems to depend on perspective and there
seems to be little room to bring disparate views into alignment with one
another. Scientific, religious, and cultural views all seem to be in
conflict with each other, all with their own assumptions, propositions,
explanations, and expectations. There are many competing camps, and
individuals usually choose where they feel they belong in the
6 Being Human
marketplace of ideas regarding the nature of being human with
explanatory systems that reflect their concerns, values, and beliefs.
Is there no way to sort it out? Are the answers to these
questions simply relative to one’s perspective?
I am confident that there is a way to sort out these questions and
that in the end, truth is far from relative. The purpose of this guide is to
answer the question of “Who are you?” from a definitive perspective
that is grounded in fundamental truth.
Who or What is God?
Though this may sound surprising at this point, the basic truth is
that the answer to this question and the question of “Who are you?” is
essentially the same.
Yes, that is correct.
YOU ARE GOD.
Startling, perhaps, but true.
However, this answer, at this point, doesn’t really help, because
it still requires that we answer the question of who, or what, God
actually is. If one does not understand the true nature of God, then
providing the answer that you are God does little to help in the way of
personal understanding.
Therefore, in answering the question of “Who are you?” one
must investigate the nature of God.
The Problem
If you are God, why is it that this is not your immediate
experience? How can the “truth” be so seemingly different from our
ordinary reality?
The simple answer is that this condition is a product of the ego.
It is our egos that structure our reality into a fundamental illusion of
separateness; that is their function. Due to our egos, we live in a basic
state of paradox: simultaneously being both God and an individual
“self” in a unique body. While this can be difficult for an ego to come
to grips with and accept (as egos constantly seek self-validation to
perpetuate the illusion of their existence), it is simply a basic truth of
our existence and the sooner it is accepted, the sooner liberation,
authenticity, and happiness will follow.
You 7
Though God is talked about in many religions, something that
this guide will make clear is that the ideas of God as produced and
circulated among religious traditions are largely the fantasy-based
product of egos (and therefore not helpful when considering the true
nature of the self, God, or reality). Religions have projected God “out
there” as something “other” that must be obeyed, worshiped, and often
feared. In short, most concepts of God are based on projections of the
ego and have nothing at all to do with who and what this being actually
is or what it is actually doing. This is especially true of the Western
monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which all
have profoundly distorted notions of who or what God is.
The Incomplete Perspective of Science
The physical and empirical sciences are by far the most
effective methods for understanding the physical nature of reality, far
surpassing any other development in human cultures or history.
Though all human cultures have had their own unique ways of
conceptualizing and describing the world around them, no intellectual
developments and methodologies have been as effective and fruitful as
the scientific method of observation, theory building, testing,
reviewing, and revising when it comes to producing collectively
verifiable objective truth. While the specifics of scientific truth are
always open to revision (with the introduction of new data or theories),
the methodology is highly effective and can be pursued across cultures,
regardless of one’s beliefs, traditions, or spiritual and metaphysical
views.
As a result, humans have garnered a great deal of verifiable,
objective data about the physical world in which they live, and science
has helped to reveal the physical mechanisms and properties at work in
phenomena that were formally obscure or mystified through religious
and cultural lenses. Things that were once understood to be the work
of the spirits or acts of God are now easily understood as natural
phenomena that function according to basic mathematical, chemical, or
energetic laws.
Though overly simplified here, the basic scientific position is
that ideas of entities like spirits, souls, gods and “God” are irrelevant
for understanding the nature of reality. When the physical world is
examined carefully, there appears to be no evidence for the existence of
8 Being Human
such entities. And following Occam’s Razor, the maxim that the
simplest explanation is usually the correct one and that theorists should
not introduce unnecessary explanatory agents into their models, the
conclusion is that spirits, souls and God are ultimately figments of the
human imagination and are reflections of pre-scientific thinking.
The case might be closed if science could accurately explain
how and why life developed, what consciousness is, where it comes
from, why it exists, and why we are here at all to ponder these
questions. However, upon even cursory examination, it is quite clear
that science is fundamentally unable to answer these questions. The
knowledge provided by science is therefore clearly limited.
This does not mean that science has nothing to say about the
nature of life and consciousness, for it certainly does. Science can
describe and map the evolutionary process. Science can describe the
physical and chemical mechanisms at work in your brain and how your
consciousness correlates with brain states. Psychologists can map out
patterns in human thought and behavior. Biologists can tell us how
different genes are related to different aspects of living beings.
However, these are all descriptions of physical mechanisms and
processes. What we get from science regarding the actual nature of life
and consciousness is not an explanation in any sense. Saying that
biological life is a product of the natural laws of evolution explains
nothing – it merely describes a process.
Consider the following question: If everything is made out of
the same fundamental particles (as is claimed by quantum physicists),
and there is NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between the
particles that compose your body and the particles that make up a slab
of cement (they’re all quarks, electrons, protons, etc.), then how is it
possible that you are alive and the cement isn’t? Science has found no
special “ingredient” that makes you alive, other than consciousness,
and since consciousness is not a physical phenomenon, science has no
way of studying or explaining it. At best, science can say that you are
alive and the cement is not because you are a biological being with
complex self-regulating systems. This, however, is merely a tautology
and offers no explanatory power whatsoever.
Science, then, must be understood as providing absolutely no
insight into why life or consciousness exists. At best, science can only
describe the physical mechanisms through which the energies of
consciousness and life appear to express themselves in biological
You 9
beings. Life is still a fundamentally unanswered and unanswerable
enigma in scientific theories of reality.
The Fantasy-laden Perspectives of Religions
Many people look to religion to provide them with the answers
that cannot be forthcoming from the purely physical sciences.
Religious traditions often purport to have exclusive access to “divine
revelations” about the nature of life, its origins, and its destiny. Unlike
science, however, which can be practiced by anyone regardless of
beliefs, much of what religions have to offer depend on the adherence
to basic “beliefs” and tenets of faith – things for which there is no
evidence and no proof.
In generating their dogmas and worldviews, virtually all
religions are at odds with each other to varying degrees. The basic
truth is that the vast majority of what religions have to offer in terms of
explanations for the nature of life and reality are based on inaccurate
knowledge of the world we live in. Religions use myth, metaphor,
symbol, allegory and other devices to communicate their particular
view of the world and the responsibilities of being human. When taken
as such, the perspectives offered by religions can be insightful.
However, when they are taken literally, they become dogmatic
expressions of faith that are beyond any rational argument, proof, or
evidence.
Take, for example, the Biblical presentation of God creating the
world in seven days. As a metaphor or symbol, that’s fine, but if we
are to take this literally, then we have to admit that there is absolutely
no reason to believe that this is true other than the belief that the
contents of the Bible were revealed by some divine being. Such an
evidence-lacking belief would never be accepted by science, for
obvious reasons. Unfortunately, from a modern, scientific perspective,
the majority of what religions have to offer in terms of descriptions of
reality fall into the same category of specious, evidence-lacking beliefs.
When it comes to describing what’s “real,” religions present us
with fantastical realities. They speak of heavens, hells, spirit worlds,
astral realms, spirits, souls, salvation, sin, reincarnation, resurrection,
ascension, damnation, angels, guides, etc., etc. The difficulty is that
while none of these ideas are observable from an objective standpoint,
people do claim to have experienced such things, and therefore they
10 Being Human
must be real. But here we have a confabulation of experience with
reality. Merely experiencing something is not equivalent to it being
“real” in any objective sense. People are confused about what they
experience all the time. And when religious claims are examined
carefully, the claims of different religions clearly conflict and
contradict each other.
When it comes to determining the nature of realty from a
perspective we can all agree upon, religions do not seem to provide any
real help – only mutually exclusive sets of propositions and beliefs that
are, by their vary nature, unverifiable and tenets of faith. And what is
worse, the vast majority of what religions describe as “reality”
completely contradicts what is verifiably known through science.
If it weren’t for the fact that religions make so many people
miserable and that religious adherents are so often willing to kill each
other over their fantasies, then religion could easily be dismissed as
simply misguided human thinking. However, since religion does cause
so many fundamental problems (despite whatever “good” it may
provide to individuals, communities and cultures), helping religious
believers to understand the truth of God is a necessary corrective for
living harmoniously and happily in reality. For religious adherents to
truly live in reality, much of what they claim will have to be understood
for what it is: fantasy.
Resolution
A fundamental position of this guide to understanding the
human experience is this: Physical sciences (particularly mathematical
sciences) reveal basically true knowledge of the nature of reality,
though there are limits to what this knowledge can be. Religions, on
the other hand, while providing a few nuggets of truth and some good
advice, are, for the most part, cultural constructions that reflect local
and historical values, meanings, and concerns and have very little, if
anything, to do with the actual nature of reality. In order for
individuals to come to a clear understanding of the nature of reality,
they have to understand both the limits of science and the illusions of
religion.
It comes down to this: God is real (though no religion has
accurately described who or what this being is), science is
fundamentally true, but limited, and the majority of what religions have
You 11
to offer (in terms of actual knowledge of the nature of reality) is pure
ego-generated fantasy and speculation. Thus, to reach a resolution, the
true nature of God (and thereby yourself) must be understood in order
to come to genuine knowledge of the nature of reality.
To understand your true nature as God, you have to experience
it. This guide will describe and explain the true nature of God and
what it means for you, but in order to actually benefit from this
knowledge, you must open yourself to the experience of being God,
which is best described as being open to your true energy. The key to
this process is personal work with entheogens, or substances that
generate the experience of God within. With these tools, you can
experience everything that will be shared in this guide directly for
yourself with no religions, gurus, priests, or shamans standing between
you and your direct experience of reality. The latter portion of this
guide is dedicated to how you can navigate your way through this
process and will also fully explore why entheogenic self-exploration is
the genuine path to personal awakening. But before we get to the how,
let’s initially deal with the what.
Key Ideas
• Understanding yourself is the key to understanding everything
• You are God in embodied from
• Science cannot explain the existence of life or consciousness
• Religion is fantasy-laden and offers little for understanding the
true nature of reality
• The method for coming to understand the true nature of reality
is through direct experience and self-exploration
• Entheogens provide unparalleled tools for self-exploration
God and Evolution
God
In order to begin, set aside any previous ideas of who or what
you think God is. Traditional religious views on God are largely not
much help in understanding who or what God is as they are mostly ego
projections that have been separated from the self, depicting God as
something mysteriously and enigmatically Other. Nothing could
actually be further from the truth. The reality of God is the most
intimate thing in existence – indeed, all of reality is God, including you
and the moment you are experiencing right now. There is absolutely
nothing other about this. God, simply put, is what actually is. God is
reality.
But let’s get more specific. Saying that God is everything isn’t
necessarily helpful as it is such a general comment. So let’s begin by
describing God.
First and foremost, God is a being. God is not an abstract
principle, a philosophical necessity, or a featureless, contentless
consciousness that is fundamentally empty. God is a being. This
means that God is self-aware and possesses will and intention and is
able to actualize itself and its goals. And not only is God a being, but it
is, in truth, the being. God is the only being that actually exists. All
other beings are expressions and embodiments of this one being.
This one being is perfectly self-aware. God knows full well that
it is the only being that exists and that all things are it. Because of this,
God and Evolution 13
there is no fear or judgment in God in any way whatsoever. God has
nothing but love for itself. God actually is love, or perhaps more
accurately, self-love. There is nothing that is not God and God loves
all aspects of itself.
Second, God is energy. Everything that exists is a form of
energy. There are many different kinds of energy and many different
spectrums of energy, but in one way or another, everything that exists
can be described as energy. We know from physics that all things we
perceive as mass or as solid objects are actually just stable patterns of
energy. Life, also, is energy, as are thoughts, feelings, sensations,
expressions, actions, and consciousness itself. All things are energy.
The source for all forms of energy is God, and God is energy
(somewhat paradoxically).
Third, God is what we might call “the multi-being.” God is
one, but God has the ability to take multiple forms simultaneously, and
thus is the “multi-being.” The energy of life and consciousness that
animates every living being in existence has its source in God, and
actually is God in embodied form. Religions teach us that we have
souls or spirits that give us life. This is fundamentally incorrect. Your
life is God. You do not have a spirit or a soul in any way whatsoever.
You are God in a body. Any idea of a soul or spirit is superfluous,
unnecessary, and ultimately incorrect. Every living being is God
embodied directly from source
 Another way of saying this, which will be explored in greater
detail shortly, is that God is evolution itself. Anyone who believes that
there is some kind of conflict between God and evolution simply has no
idea what they are actually talking about and could not be more
fundamentally misguided by ego-projected fantasy of who and what
God is or how God works. God has been evolving its form as a
physical being for several billion years and has reached its current apex
in us, in humanity. There is no conflict of any kind between God and
evolution and any such notion is absurd.
Fourth, God is geometry and mathematics and is perhaps best
described as a fractal energy being. Basic mathematical structures are
the ontological foundation of reality. As such, mathematics, geometry
and fractals were not invented by humans but rather discovered. All
energy functions according to mathematical principles. This is why we
are able to have sciences such as physics. Mathematical permutations
of energy are simply how reality works. The more one understands
14 Being Human
how energy and mathematics work, especially fractals, the more one
understands how the energy being of God truly functions to create and
sustain physical and experiential reality.
Fifth, God is NOW. Neither the past nor the future exists. God
is the ever-unfolding moment of now, which is precisely where all
permutations of energy exist. Energy, by its nature, is never static. It is
always changing in relation to what immediately preceded it in the flow
of now. As such, there is nothing that is permanent. All energy is
constantly changing and fluctuating. The only thing that persists is the
ever-changing energy of now.
Sixth, God is pure self-actualization. God is doing one thing
and one thing only: being itself in every way it can. In other words, all
of reality happens when God is simply being itself. God has no other
purpose or goal. Everything that God does is just being itself. In this
sense, we could describe all of reality as the life of God being itself.
Reality and everything we experience is God doing its thing to be itself
as it is expressed right now in the current moment. Nothing more,
nothing less. Absolute, total and complete self-expression and
actualization. There is nothing for God to do other than be itself.
And since YOU ARE GOD, that also means that there is
nothing for you to do other than be yourself. But learning how to do
that is both a simple and monumental task. How to realize this goal of
being yourself will be the focus of the latter portions of this guide.
First, we need to understand the way that God functions in reality
before we can properly address how to successfully be you.
Key Ideas
• God is a being, not an abstract concept
• God is energy
• God is self-aware
• God is evolution
• God is mathematics
• God is the epitome of self-actualization
God and Evolution 15
Radial Geometry and Inorganic Evolution
Let’s talk about how reality works. For this, we can turn to
both science and to the description of God given above to provide a
reasonably accurate picture of how we went from nothing to the very
moment of right now. So, let’s start before the beginning . . .
Given that time is a function of manifest reality (or the world in
which we live), we can’t really talk about the “time” before the
beginning. So, the “before” shouldn’t necessarily be taken literally, but
what I want to call to mind is that indeterminate state of being that
existed “before” the universe we live in came to be.
For whatever reason, perhaps some kind of paradoxical, selfreferential
choice, God realized that it existed, and not only that, that it
was the only thing that existed. “I Am!” proclaimed this being to itself,
and it was. But since this being was the only thing that existed, there
was only one thing for it to do, and that was be itself. There was
nowhere to go, nothing to do, and certainly no one to talk to or share
the unique experience of being with. And since God knew that it was
the only thing in existence, it knew that it had nothing to fear from
being itself, so it chose to be itself fully, completely, and perfectly.
And that’s when everything started. From the singularity that is
God came a tremendous outpouring of pure energy, moving out in
radial rays of mathematical permutations, constantly flowing and
changing. As this energy expanded, space and time came into
existence and the energy rapidly started changing form, cooling off,
and collecting into new patterns of energy that had not previously
existed in actuality, but only in potential form. It was this grand act of
self-expression that moved reality from the potential state that existed
within the being of God to the actual state of the universe and reality in
which we find ourselves today. It was the beginning of fractal
permutations of energy, forming itself into coherent patterns.
As the energy cooled off and became more stable, it started to
form into the most basic of geometric shapes: the sphere. The sphere is
the most basic as the limits of the energetic structure are all equidistant
from the center, or the singularity that is God. Thus, as the energy of
the early universe was cooling off and stabilizing, spheres and
variations on spheres and spherical energetic structures became the
basic building blocks of reality as energy moved from the state of
possibility and potential into the state of actuality. Today, we would
16 Being Human
call these basic energetic structures quarks, sub-atomic particles,
electrons, protons, etc., all repetitions of patterns in the fundamental
fractal geometry.
These then started to coalesce into more and more stable
structures with more complex energetic arrangements, and from these
energetic processes, we got the chemical elements as listed on the
periodic table of elements, the basic building blocks of physical reality.
These then were able to interact and conglomerate into larger and larger
structures, eventually giving rise to the large-scale structures of the
universe such as stars, planets, etc.
All through this process, God, as energy, is simply being itself.
Energy can only be true to itself. Energy can’t be something other than
what it is. For example, if you have 12 volts of electricity, you have 12
volts of electricity. It will never be anything else. It can only be
exactly what it is.
The way that energy works in the process of being itself is what
we call, from our human perspective, natural laws, or the laws of
physics or of mathematics. This is simply the given nature of reality as
an energetic construct. It’s just the way things work. God is energy.
Energy is mathematical. Reality is energy. Reality is mathematical.
God is mathematical.
Perhaps the most important mathematical function to
understand is that of fractals. Fractals are complex mathematical
formulas that map out repetitions and variations on patterns across
multiple scales simultaneously. Mathematicians were quite astounded
when, with the development of fractal mathematics, suddenly, here was
a construct that allowed for the mathematical mapping of what were
previously assumed to be somewhat chaotic and random systems.
Clouds, for example, can be mathematically mapped with fractals. So
can coast lines, mountain ranges, river systems, and possibly even the
energetic foundations of quantum physics. In other words, when the
basic geometric forms of spheres start to interact energetically, they
naturally form fractal formations: repetitions and variations of patterns
across multiple scales simultaneously. Energy, when simply being
itself and following “natural laws,” forms fractals.
There is one more interesting and significant geometric feature
of the non-biological universe, and that is crystals. Crystals are unique
in the non-living energetic environment for not only do they exhibit
complex geometry, but they also grow. Physically, crystals are natural
God and Evolution 17
amplifiers, transmitters, and conduits of energy. Crystals are able to
process energy in ways that other forms of physical matter are not.
They are decidedly unique and significant and their complex geometry
is integral in their ability to move energy.
The Geometry of Early Organic Evolution
The energetic evolution of the inorganic structures of the
universe took many billions of years worth of energetic transformation.
In other words, God, as an energy being, could not create the universe
fully formed as we now experience it. God, as energy, had to work
according to basic energetic, geometric and mathematical laws. This is
because God is energy and is not able to be anything other than itself.
The mythical notion of a “creator God” who snapped “his” “fingers”
and suddenly the universe appeared fully formed is precisely that – a
myth and a story. It has nothing to do with how God actually works
according to its true nature. God cannot be anything other than what it
is, and it is not some distant being that just made the universe, “poof.”
God is the energy that is continually transforming itself through the
ever-flowing moment of now.
With the eventual formation of the stable energetic structures
that we can now identify as comprising our universe, God reached an
interesting point in the transformation of energy. Metaphorically
speaking, God had succeeded in making a fantastic mansion out of
itself and its energy, but other than the energy transferred and amplified
by crystal formation, God had no actual “perspective” within the
mansion. To put it crudely, God built this fantastic mansion out of
itself, but still had the pressing question of “how do I get in to enjoy
this universe?”
That is precisely what biological evolution is for: it is the
energetic mechanism that God is using to get inside itself as distinct,
living beings, in order for God to play the reality game as multiple
“characters” simultaneously (much like when we dream, we are all the
characters in our dreams, as well as the total environment and context
of the dream, though we usually only personally identify with one
specific perspective that we identify as our “self” through the
imposition of our ego).
How did God do it? The answer is quite simple: God used
crystals.
18 Being Human
The universe is a great big place, and while it may be
statistically probable that there is life on other planets, the only planet
that we actually know of that harbors life is our beautiful home, Planet
Earth. Therefore, an account of reality as we know it does not need to
account for life anywhere else. It is important to make clear then that
all descriptions of the evolution of life need only address what we
know of here on this planet. We only need account for the actual
evidence.
Using crystals as a sort of inorganic sensory organ, God felt
around for the best place to begin the next phase of the reality game.
What God needed was the right environment where the vibrations of
the energy of consciousness could best be accommodated in the
physical universe. It wasn’t that God was looking to introduce
consciousness, for rudimentary levels of consciousness exists in energy
by its very nature, but in order for consciousness to process large
amounts of self-referential data within the physical system, it needs a
complex energetic structure to filter energy and information through.
In other words, it needs more complex formations than those provided
by inorganic matter in order for it to be expressed fully in physical
reality.
The environment with all the necessary conditions was found
right here on Earth. The planet was the proper distance from its nearby
star, for one, but more importantly, the majority of its surface was
covered in a liquid crystalline matrix that was ideal for processing the
energy of life and consciousness. Saltwater is a combination of two
crystalline forms: salt and water. A perfect energetic environment,
when mixed with the right amount of sunlight.
It was here, in our oceans, that God began to evolve itself as
living beings. As with the inorganic universe, God started with simple,
radial geometry. Single-celled organisms, or basic spheres, were the
first to arrive on the scene. Another complex crystalline structure
developed inside these early spheres. This structure would encode
information and map out future permutations of these living energetic
being and functions as a holographic encoder: DNA.
Thus began biological evolution. Working with spheres in the
ideal energetic crystalline environment, God made a great deal of
headway in the evolutionary process. Single-celled organisms began
interacting and forming symbiotic relationships, eventually
recombining into multi-celled organisms. This allowed for more
God and Evolution 19
complex geometric formations of living beings, and once organisms
moved past the single-celled stage, they started to develop, just as with
the inorganic universe, into fractal forms. Life eventually moved out of
the oceans, but brought the ocean with it in the saltwater that composes
the bulk of living bodies.
All living beings, just like structures in inorganic nature, are
fractal/geometric forms. Early life is based on radial, spiral, and branch
forms of geometry that grow according to fractal patterns, such as
plants, sea creatures, coral, etc. The basic geometry of early life is
fractal forms that are embodiments of God’s nature as an energetic
being.
The evolutionary potential of early life was limited, however.
The energetic structures produced by radial, spiral, and branch fractal
geometry were not sophisticated enough to process complex energetic
relations as required by high levels of conscious awareness. Thus, for
the most part, early life forms, and especially plants, are best
understood as living energy transformers. Early life was busy
transforming energy in ways to make the necessary energetic
foundation for more complex forms of life. It was laying the
groundwork for the radical potential of evolution.
The Geometry of Higher Evolutionary Forms
Eventually, conditions were energetically right for the next
stage: the introduction of infinity loops as an energetic organizing
structure.
The infinity loop is a stunning variation on the sphere. Imagine
taking a sphere and pinching and twisting it. This is how you get an
infinity loop. Now, instead of energy radiating from the center out in
all directions simultaneously, the energy moves through the center, out
one loop, crosses back through the center, and then goes out through
the other loop, and then back again, endlessly circulating and always
referencing back to the center, the source. It becomes an infinite loop
of energy and actually looks like our symbol for infinity, “∞.”
The infinity loop became the energetic model for all higher life
forms and is what allowed for the development of both bilateral
symmetry and a centralized nervous system. Without infinity loops,
the ability of physical beings to process the infinite possibilities of the
20 Being Human
energy of God as a conscious, self-aware being would not have been
physically possible.
The geometry is like this: take a spiral and unwind it. Now you
have a line. On that line, stack your infinity loops, with the center of
the infinity loop resting on the unwound spiral line. You now have the
basic energetic model of higher life forms with bilateral symmetry.
The unwound spiral eventually evolved into the spinal column
of the central nervous system, and the infinity loops evolved into our
basic physical features of two hemispheres of the brain, two eyes, two
ears, two nostrils, the chambers of the heart, the lungs, the sexual
organs, and our basic anatomy of shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands,
hips, knees, ankles and feet. Infinity loops were clearly a major
upgrade in the energetic blueprint of living beings. Beings were able to
process far more information, they became more mobile, they
developed more conscious awareness of their physical world through
their sense organs (as based on infinity loops), and therefore became
much more suitable vehicles for God to get around in as they more
accurately reflected God’s nature as a self-aware, conscious, living
being that can exercise free will in its process of being itself.
And God had a great time. Dinosaurs were a lot of fun. They
could swim, fly, run, crawl, climb, etc. There was a lot for God to do
in those forms and evolution progressed nicely.
The only problem was those big lizards weren’t very smart.
After millions of years, their potential as true God vehicles just wasn’t
quite satisfying.
So, this is when God introduced dimethyltryptamine into the
mix.
Mammalian Evolution and Dimethyltryptamine
Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, as it is commonly called, is listed
as a Schedule I illegal drug in the United States and is prohibited in
most other countries around the world as well. When consumed, it
becomes a powerful mind-altering agent and is therefore considered a
“drug” by the powers that be. The irony is that DMT is perhaps one of
the most important developments in all of evolution, and, without it,
there would not be a single human being on this planet today. In many
respects, humans, as well as all other mammals, are DMT beings.
God and Evolution 21
In the grand scope of evolution, mammals had some new
features. They were covered with hair. They gave birth to live young
and nursed them. They were warm blooded. And, not insignificantly,
all mammals have DMT and 5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxydimethyltryptamine)
in their blood, lungs, spinal fluid, brains, and on
their nerves throughout their nervous system. The presence of DMT in
mammals was a major evolutionary step.
DMT and 5-MeO-DMT are, in their physical form, crystals.
They are also tryptamines, or neurotransmitters. In other words, they
are crystals that process the energy of consciousness and awareness. It
is not an accident that forms of DMT are in our nervous system. It is
what allows us to process the energy of the conscious experience of
being in our bodies. It is also what allows us to experience higher
forms of consciousness and perception. In many respects, we could
characterize our experience of ordinary reality as being a low-level
DMT trip! When you add more DMT or 5-MeO-DMT to the system,
either through ingestion of a substance or through various techniques of
achieving endogenous (in-the-body) releases of DMT, our perception
of energy and our conscious experience changes radically. Much more
will be said about this in the latter portions of this guide.
With the introduction of mammals onto the evolutionary scene,
God now had a whole new set of possibilities to work with. These
mammals had true potential to develop as conscious and self-aware
beings. In other words, they had far more potential to be true God
vehicles than other previous evolutionary developments. Dinosaurs
were around for millions of years and didn’t get much smarter.
Mammals, however, were ready to take off and begin something truly
special.
Human Evolution and the Ego
Eventually, some of those mammals started to get really, really
smart. They were becoming more and more aware of their
environment, and through evolution, developed these things we call
hands, which really opened up a new realm of possibilities. Animals
were no longer limited to crude manipulations of the physical world
with simple appendages or with their mouths, but now they could truly
start to change the environment, according to their will, with their
hands. These mammals started to walk upright, and make things with
22 Being Human
their hands. The potential was enormous. And they were getting
smarter.
Now it was time for the next big development. These creatures
who were getting pretty smart held a lot of potential as God vehicles.
However, to truly be a self-responsible God vehicle (a being truly
“created in the image of God” as a responsible, self-aware energy
being), they had to understand themselves as existing as individual
beings. They had to be self-aware.
Thus came the ego. It is important to point out right away that
the ego is not the personality. Personality generates from your genes
and what you inherit from your parents and ancestors. All mammals, in
general, have some capacity to express personality. The smarter the
animal, the more the personality, or unique behavioral characteristics,
shows and is able to express itself. But the personality is not the ego,
so even though higher mammals have personalities, they do not have
egos and are therefore largely unable to reflect on themselves as unique
beings. In other words, they don’t ever think about how they are
expressing their personalities. They are merely expressing themselves,
and in so doing, are perfectly being themselves. It is humans, with our
egos, who reflect on our behavior and experience and understand that it
is “I” who is experiencing and expressing these things.
The ego, then, is a self-referential and self-validating energetic
construct within consciousness. It is also fundamentally an illusion,
though it is an evolutionarily necessary one in the development of
human consciousness. The ego functions by creating separations
between what it chooses to identify as “me” and “not me.” It generally
becomes very protective of that which it identifies as “me” and is wary
and cautious of what is “not me,” for anything that is “not me” has the
potential to harm or destroy “me.” The ego also constantly seeks to
validate its distinctions in any way that it can, and when its validations
are threatened, it reacts with fear and energetic contraction to maintain
the integrity of the illusion of the separate self.
Without the ego, humans would never have been able to stand
up and say, “I am!” However, that realization then led to a number of
questions, such as, where did I come from? Where am I going? What
is this crazy universe I find myself in?”
In other words, the ego is the starting point for God to wake up
to itself in the dream, but it is also the mechanism that does everything
it can to keep individual beings from realizing their true nature, because
God and Evolution 23
its very function is to create illusion. Anything that threatens that
illusion can be profoundly disturbing for egos. This is why the
fantasies spun by religions are far easier for egos to accept than the
basic truth that they are embodiments of God and must be responsible
for themselves. It is sooooo much more comforting for an ego to hear
that some great being that exists outside itself and will reward it for
good behavior or grant it favors if it prays or worships hard enough for,
ultimately, everything is in this superior being’s hands. Religions, like
alcohol, are profoundly intoxicating for egos and affirm their illusions
grandly. Any individual who truly wants to understand the actual
nature of reality must transcend the ego. It is also the path to genuine
liberation and happiness.
Ego Formation in Children
Though this is a topic that deserves far more attention than it
will be given here, let us touch on the topic of children.
When children come into the world, they naturally want to do
only a limited number of things: sleep, eat, and play. As with other
mammals and higher animals, they come into the world with the
possibilities of their personality already encoded in their genes. They
start to learn how to express their personality by observing the
behaviors of others, and their eager minds start to create strategies for
how to engage others and the world that surrounds them. It is through
this process that their egos eventually come into being.
However, children, with their superb powers of observation,
quickly learn that, essentially, no one is honestly expressing how they
really feel. They observe people saying one thing, but clearly feeling
and thinking another. They realize that people rarely express
themselves honestly, and when they finally do, it often comes out in
forms that are explosive, angry, judgmental, and overly emotional.
Their minds struggle to make sense of this peculiar situation. They
learn very quickly that everyone seems to be playing some kind of game
where they willingly engage in manipulation, repression, sublimation,
and lack of personal authenticity and responsibility. In other words,
they learn that people are trapped in playing ego games. If they want to
fit in, which of course they do, they understand that they too must play
the game. Before parents even realize it, their children start to
manipulate them using sophisticated ego games.
24 Being Human
What we have here is a fundamentally vicious cycle. Parents
with confused egos raise children with confused egos and the cycle of
illusion, manipulation, and suffering goes round and round. Therefore,
if parents really want to take responsibility for raising healthy children,
then they need to take responsibility for themselves and for the patterns
of their egos. The best thing a parent can do for a child is to be a
healthy and responsible role model. But they can’t do that if they
haven’t taken the time to become responsible for themselves. All
responsibility begins with self-responsibility.
God’s Signature in Fractal Anatomy
Let us return for a moment to our characterization of God. God
is a being of infinite energy that functions according to
mathematical/fractal/geometric expressions. To put it very simply,
from the infinite come fractal patterns. This is the basic nature of God
and the basic nature of reality.
Coincidentally (or “only naturally”), a clear representation of
this concept is in our very anatomy.
Let’s take a closer look at the human body and how the energy
of God works in human form. Consider first God’s infinite mind. The
capacity of God’s consciousness is infinite, but even so, the energy of
consciousness still works according to fractal/mathematical patterns.
All things might be possible in the mind of God, but energy still works
in particular ways.
This “signature” of the true nature of God is present
anatomically in our very bodies. Understanding that your personal
consciousness and awareness is God means accepting that your
consciousness and awareness originates directly from source, with no
intermediary functions. So, if we ask, “Where does the energy of
consciousness in your brain come from?” the answer is, “God, the
infinite source of all energy.” Consciousness clearly does not come
from the food you eat, the parts that make up your body, or anything
else. Consciousness is not an “ingredient” in the physical world. It
comes directly from source, from God.
Human anatomy literally shows us this “signature.”
Consciousness, while mediated through the entire body, is localized
energetically in our brains as the central processing center. As stated
before, the anatomical structure of the brain is an infinity loop placed
God and Evolution 25
on top of an unwound spiral (the spinal column). As the seat of our
consciousness, the brain physically embodies the symbol of infinity.
Then, branching out from the brain and the spinal column in a fractal
branch pattern is the nervous system. This is God’s signature. From
the infinite, come fractal patterns of energy and manifestation.
We find the same signature in the cardio-vascular system. God
is the infinite source of love and life. With the heart, we have two
infinity loops stacked on top of each other with the upper and lower
chambers of the heart. We also have the lungs, which are also infinity
loops (which supply oxygen, or necessary energy, to the blood). These
sets of infinity loops then branch out in the fractal branch pattern of our
vascular system. Once again, we find the same signature: from the
infinite source of energy come fractal patterns of energy and
manifestation.
The third place we can find God’s signature is in the sexual
organs. For the male, we have the infinity loops of the testes and the
two sides of the penis. For the female, we have the “lips” of the vagina
and the ovaries. Here the infinite energy of evolutionary development
is embodied in the infinity loops of our sexual anatomy. But where is
the fractal pattern of energy that is God’s method of manifesting energy
in physical reality? The fractal pattern of energy that extends from the
sexual organs is evolution itself, as well as the total physical body.
Your physical body, which is organized according to the geometric
principles of the golden ratio, is a fractal manifestation of energy from
your parents’ sexual organs. And when taken collectively, all of life
and the grand sweep of evolution is the fractal pattern of energy that
sexual reproduction gives rise to.
What is God Doing?
God has clearly been building better and better vehicles (living
beings) through the ongoing process of evolution. In humans,
evolution has reached a transcendent state. We have the capacity to
self reflect on the nature of our existence. And because of that, we
also have the capacity to transcend the limitations of the illusion and
realize our true natures as embodiments of God. We are the epitome of
the ultimate God vehicle at this point in evolution.
It seems reasonable to conclude that this is precisely what God
has been working for in terms of evolution. God has been evolving all
26 Being Human
of reality and living beings in order for God to be fully actualized in
physical form. This has been achieved in the human vehicle.
Evolution is now ready for the next step: vehicles that can take
responsibility for who and what they truly are. We are ready to more
truly be ourselves as embodiments of God.
In terms of taking responsibility, humans are certainly in their
infancy. Through our religions and myths, we have been telling
ourselves fairytales about our existence and our responsibilities. These
myths and fairytales have served to organize cultures and provided
guidelines for thinking and acting to humans in ways that have been
both fruitful and creative, as well as destructive and repressive.
However, just like with a human child, eventually, you have to tell
them that Santa Claus isn’t real and it is time to take a more adult
perspective on life.
The same is fundamentally true for humanity. It is time for us
to move out of the illusions and fantasy and into reality so that we can
truly take responsibility for ourselves. It is time to grow up.
If we can step up to the challenge and take responsibility, then
the potential for evolution into ever-more conscious forms of God in a
body becomes a true possibility. Consider that in truth, we are the one
energy being that is everything. In theory, the more responsibility we
can take for ourselves and the more control we can have over our own
energy, the more we will be able to do in this energetic reality game
that we are all busy playing. In other words, awakening to the true
nature of reality may just be the beginning of where we might go from
here. The possibilities are endless.
Consider also that we know of only one planet in the entire
universe that harbors life. Though statistically it seems unlikely, what
if this is the only planet with life on it? What if this is God’s cosmic
nest egg? Is it possible that God is planning on using our evolution as
conscious beings to begin the process of populating the rest of the
cosmos? If so, we will need clear minds and good science to
accomplish this grand task, and we will need to take responsibility for
who and what we are.
Ultimately, such speculation is largely irrelevant, though it is
interesting. Our main concern is to get clear, here and now. The future
will be what the future will be, and in any case, it is quite clear that
God is doing something with evolution, and whatever that something is,
it certainly serves God’s purpose of fully being itself. It is important to
God and Evolution 27
understand that in the end, that is all God is doing: being itself. That is
also all that we ever need do as embodiments and vehicles for God.
Key Ideas
• All of evolution, inorganic and organic, is an on-going process
of energetic transformations and interactions that function
according to basic mathematical and geometrical laws
• Fractal mathematics and geometry is the underlying
mathematical foundation of all aspects of reality
• All living beings are embodiments of God
• There is only one source of all life and consciousness: God
• Higher life forms with centralized nervous systems are built on
the bilateral symmetry of infinity loops and fractal branches
• Egos are necessary for conscious self-awareness
• Egos function to create the illusion of separation
• Egos provide individuals with a unique perspective
• Egos can be transcended
• Egos and personalities are distinct
Part II
Living in Reality
Life as an Individual
Understanding Your Vehicle
God, as the multi-being, has many different vehicles for it to
experience the reality of itself in. Every unique individual living being
is a vehicle that is powered directly from source, from God. Aside
from humans, all other vehicles are just being themselves within their
evolutionary and biological parameters. A tree is just busy being a tree
and a cat is just busy being a cat. Neither has to think about what it
means to be a cat or a tree. They are just fully themselves. They are
perfect vehicles, in their limited capacity way. Human vehicles,
because they have egos and are self-aware, have a great deal more
choice about how they express themselves and manage their vehicles.
They also have a great deal more potential for confusing themselves
and making themselves unhappy. While there certainly are “natural
disasters” that humans are subject to as embodiments of God playing
the reality game, the vast majority of problems that humans encounter
are purely self-generated. We are our own worst enemy.
A starting point for understanding how to avoid creating
problems for ourselves as vehicles for God to experience reality in is to
understand how our vehicle functions. If there is something wrong
with your car or it is having problems, you take it to a mechanic to see
if it is functioning properly. Similarly, given that human beings are
God vehicles, understanding the mechanics of God’s energy can help to
resolve problems that individual vehicles may be experiencing.
30 Being Human
Addressing the energy of your vehicle is a far more effective route than
going on a retreat, doing a workshop, joining a religion, or seeing a
therapist. When your car is having trouble, you take it to a mechanic,
not a guru or a priest. Your body is a vehicle too, so why not treat it
accordingly?
As a vehicle for God to walk around in and enjoy reality with,
your body has three “divine” energy centers. These are the energy
centers that anatomically shape into infinity loops. Thus, we have
consciousness (the brain), life and love (heart and lungs) and
creation/evolution (sexual organs). These are the three centers where
the infinite energy of God directly interfaces with our bodies. These
centers belong to God, so to speak, and the best that we can do is
manage the energy present there. We cannot personally control it (you
can’t stop yourself from thinking, or stop yourself from breathing or
your heart beating, or keep yourself from feeling sexual energy). At
best, we can influence how this energy is allowed to flow through us,
but we cannot ever stop these energies as long as we are in physical
bodies. And given that we only experience anything by being in a
physical body, these infinite sources of energy are our constant
companions and are what give us life, awareness and consciousness.
As a physical being, we have two other primary energy centers,
but these are not energy centers that are directly related to source and
are more closely related with our individual vehicles. These are your
“personal” energy centers and they function very differently from the
three listed above. The first of these is the mouth and throat.
Geometrically, this is a tube, not an infinity loop. In many respects,
physical bodies are reality processors, or tubes. From the tube, they put
things into reality and take other things out. Your mouth, energetically,
is an input/output mechanism. With your mouth, you both literally
consume physical reality as food and energetically, we “consume”
aspects of reality that we are attracted to. Both literally and
metaphorically, the mouth embodies what we “take in.”
As an output mechanism, the mouth is our primary means of
intentional energetic expression through vocalization and language.
Much of what we do with our hands becomes an extension of the
mouth. We use our hands to put things into our mouths and also use
our hands to create art, music, writing, etc., as extensions of our innate
expressive ability and communicative function as conscious beings.
Life as an Individual 31
It is the mouth/throat energy center that is the biggest problem
for humans as this center affects everything else. This is your most
personal energy center, for this is where you are determining what to
take in and what to put out. It regulates your self-expression and
thereby influences all the other energies of your system. From a purely
physical standpoint, this is very easy to accept as true. What you put in
your mouth will profoundly affect all the rest of the energy in your
body. If you eat healthy food, your physical system is nourished and
your energy functions better. If you drink poison, your physical system
will shut down and you die, thereby short-circuiting the divine energy
centers that are providing you with life.
The situation is more complicated when it comes to the output
function because it is primarily here that the ego gets in the way. For
example, let’s say that your personality energetically resonates with the
act of singing. You love to sing and want to sing as much as possible.
You want to feel that energy vibrating through your body and filling
the space around you. However, your roommate has been quite blunt
with you: “You suck! You can’t sing!”
How does ego react? There are a variety of ways. One is to
shut down. You feel bad, so you stop singing, and then you feel sorry
for yourself. Another option is to compromise and agree not to sing
when your roommate is around (even if you really feel the urge),
though this will probably make you feel unsatisfied and inauthentic.
Yet another response is to sing more often with the intent of showing
your roommate that you are not intimidated by their critique, which
will probably aggravate a passive aggressive situation and drama will
ensue.
If you have transcended your ego, then this situation will be no
problem whatsoever. You will tell your roommate that you are
fulfilling your desire to be authentic with yourself and your energy.
You are taking responsibility for the energy inside you and expressing
it in a healthy way. If you can’t sing, that is your roommate’s problem,
but not yours, for you are satisfied and confident in your self
expression, regardless of how it actually sounds.
Most people, in most situations, when confronted with an ego
challenge, do not respond from a position of ego transcendence. People
are so locked into the illusions and fantasies created by their egos that
drama almost always ensues (if not immediately, then somewhere
down the road). It is only the ego that creates such dramas. If a dog
32 Being Human
wants to bark, it will. It won’t stop to think about whether it’s the thing
it should or shouldn’t do. Shoulds and shouldn’ts are primarily ego
concerns, especially when it comes to personal behavior or choice.
The last energy center is your stomach. This is a continuation
of the tube of your mouth/throat center. What goes in and out of the
mouth affects the stomach, or your physical processing center. When
you eat rotten food, your stomach hurts. When you say ugly and
hurtful things, you get stomach cramps and digestive discomfort. The
ways you choose to use your input/output energy center will always
affect your physical experience in your body, in one way or another.
So, your vehicle has three divine energy centers that are the
sources of your energy, life, and conscious experience. These are
organized into your central core and process electromagnetic energy
(sexual attraction, brain waves and heart beat/pulse). We can influence
these centers, but ultimately we cannot completely control them. And
they are all physical expressions of infinite energy. Given that we, as
humans, are the epitome of God in embodied form, we are also able to
reach back into infinity through these energy centers. We can
experience infinite consciousness, infinite love, and infinite sexual
ecstasy. Through these centers, we can become full expressions of God
in physical form.
With the other two centers, also aligned along our central core,
we have the regulation of our personal expression and our physical
being. These centers don’t radiate energy as the divine centers do.
Rather, they process and transform energy and translate it from one
form to another: food turns into nourishment, our words express our
thoughts and feelings, etc.
The arms and legs then become extensions of these energy
centers and are primarily energy conduits for the energy that moves
from our central core. With our hands, we are able to engage our
environment at a physical/energetic level. Through our feet, our
personal energy grounds into the energetic matrix of our immediate
environment.
Overall, the entire body functions as a fractal expression of
electromagnetic energy. You are, quite literally, an energy being with a
liquid crystal interior, incased in skin, with three divine energy centers
and two personal ones.
The key to understanding yourself as an embodiment of God is
to understand your energetic nature, just as the key to understanding
Life as an Individual 33
physical reality is to understand the energetic structures that comprise
the physical world. Your primary concern as an energetic bio-vehicle
for God to enjoy reality in is this: Am I being aware and authentic with
the energy that is me? If you can honestly answer yes to that question,
then that is all you need ever do.
This view is at odds with virtually all religious traditions,
especially the Western Monotheistic traditions. These traditions have
invented concepts like souls, sin, morality, and salvation and
damnation. These concepts have no basis in reality and have nothing
whatsoever to do with your bio-vehicle or how it actually functions.
Key Ideas
• Your body is a “vehicle” for God to enjoy reality in
• Your personality is the natural expression of your energy as an
embodiment of God
• Human bodies have three “divine” energy centers:
consciousness/the brain and nervous system; the heart, lungs,
and vascular system; the genitals and reproductive system
• Human bodies have two “personal” energy centers: the throat
and mouth; the stomach and digestive system
• Egos block the natural expression of the energy radiating from
your divine energy centers whenever you fail to express your
energy authentically
• Authentic energy flow has nothing to do with moralistic
systems of behavior
34 Being Human
Actual Energy vs. Imaginary “Subtle” Energy
It should be clear by this point in the discussion that the kinds
of energies and energy centers in the body that are being described here
have nothing whatsoever to do with obscure mystical ideas of “subtle”
energy. Many religious and cultural traditions teach about “subtle”
energy and “subtle bodies.” For example, we have the chakra system
of both Hinduism and Buddhism, and we have the meridians and chi of
Taoism. It might be tempting to compare these ideas of energy to the
discussion of energy as provided in this guide. This would be
fundamentally misguided, however, and it should be made clear that
there is no relationship between the ideas presented here and religious
constructions of “subtle” energy.
The difference should be immediately clear. The energy being
discussed here is the energy of our actual physiological system – our
brains and nervous system, our hearts and circulatory system, our
sexual organs and evolutionary transformation. In other words, this is
your actual body. There is nothing “subtle” about this.
On the other hand, Buddhists and Hindus are quite explicit
when they proclaim that your chakras are your “subtle” energy system
and this system is not necessarily correlated with your physiological
system, which would be characterized as a “gross” system (as opposed
to “subtle”). This distinction is obvious when gurus describe how you
have chakras above your head and below your anus: this has nothing to
do with your actual physical body.
Let’s make the distinction even more obvious. Imagine that
your car is having engine trouble. You take it to the mechanic’s shop
and are greeted by two mechanics. One mechanic asks you how your
car is running and then proceeds to open up the hood and tinker with
the engine. The other mechanic, however, never bothers to look at the
engine. Instead, he pulls out some books with pictures of cars that
show different wheels of colored energy with different symbols and
syllables and starts to discourse on how your car can be made to run
better if these energy centers can only be properly opened up, purified,
and activated.
Who do you think is actually going to fix your car - the “real”
mechanic who is concerned about the actual machinery of your vehicle,
Life as an Individual 35
or the mechanic who wants to talk about these mysterious energy
centers that seem only vaguely related to your actual car?
To put it bluntly, the kinds of energy being discussed in this
guide have nothing to do with any concept of subtle energy and are not
comparable to religious constructions of subtle energy in any way.
Subtle energy is imaginary. Real energy is physiological.
Life and Death
Perhaps the most difficult concept for people to accept is that
the entheological model of God, life, and reality that is being
articulated here indicates that any notion of an “afterlife” is a complete
fantasy.
God is life. God is your life. You, as a vehicle for God to
experience reality in, are dependent on your vehicle/body in order for
you to have your personal perspective as a character that God is
playing. Without your body, you have no “personal” perspective as
one manifestation of the multi-being. The conclusion is therefore
obvious: when your vehicle is gone, so is your personal perspective.
In a sense, your perspective as an individual is a gift from God.
The gift only lasts as long as the vehicle does. God, as the multi-being,
is able to occupy all perspectives simultaneously. As an individual
expression of God in a body, you have your perspective. That is your
gift of experiencing yourself as an individual.
So what happens at death? Is there life after death? Is there a
heaven or a hell or reincarnation? Is there reward or punishment?
Ultimately, nothing that any religion has ever claimed about
these questions or their answers is relevant. It is all pure fantasy and
ego projection. When your body is gone, that unique perspective that
was “you” is gone. God lives on eternally. God has billions more
bodies and perspectives to enjoy. Your perspective was just one
perspective in the grand evolutionary arc of life and at your death is
then simply gone.
Think of it this way, if you like: God is playing a big, complex
video game. “You” are a character in that game. When your character
dies in the game, it’s the end of that character. That doesn’t affect the
gamer (God) at all, because God just gets more new characters.
Similarly, when you dream, you dream all kinds of characters, even
36 Being Human
yourself. However, you are all the characters, not just the one you
identify your personal perspective with.
So no, there is no “life after death.” There is nowhere for “you”
to go, because you are already there. There is no state of purification
to be achieved. No enlightenment to gain. No tests of character or
spirit to be overcome. Nothing. You are a character in a complex
game. Your only task is to be authentic to your character and nothing
else. Given that this is the only time that you have as this character,
your job is to make the most out of it while your character is around.
Everything else about what you should or shouldn’t do, especially
when one is getting advice from religions, is pure ego projection and
fantasy with no bearing on reality at all.
This also means that there is no reincarnation and no karma, so
the Eastern religions don’t fare much better than the Western
Monotheistic traditions when it comes to describing true reality. The
only one who “reincarnates” is God, who is the life and consciousness
already present in every living being. There is no such thing as an
individual consciousness or spirit or soul that can reincarnate, and since
there is no such thing, there also is no such thing as karma (cause and
effect accumulated over lifetimes of choices and behavior). It is not
your individual consciousness that evolves over many lifetimes. It is
God that is evolving as all living beings simultaneously. Our evolution
is collective, not individual, because we are the collective. We are that
one being.
A startling conclusion is that there is no reason to follow what
any religion says about what one should or should not do. It all
becomes a matter of choice. Religions can present you with options for
how you may want to behave, but none of their moral, ethical, or
metaphysical rationales for the views they promote hold up under
scrutiny. For example, Buddhism teaches you should be a vegetarian
because eating animals causes bad karma and a bad rebirth, thereby
lessening your chances of reaching enlightenment. But, since there is
no reincarnation, nor karma, the only real reason to be a vegetarian is if
you personally want to. None of the metaphysical reasons given by
Buddhism for vegetarianism hold up when considering the true nature
of reality.
It is much the same case with Christianity. This religion
teaches that certain behaviors are sins and will prevent you from
entering heaven and will damn your soul. Well, you don’t have a soul,
Life as an Individual 37
so there’s nothing to save or damn. If you want to “be a good
Christian,” that is up to you, but don’t expect anything for it. God does
not have any reward for you.
However, this is not to say that religions don’t have some good
advice for living your life. Buddhism teaches compassion and
Christianity turning the other cheek and loving your neighbors. You
will lead a happier life by following good advice, but that doesn’t mean
that it has anything to do with God, the afterlife, or what comes next. It
is only good advice if it helps you remain clear, centered, and authentic
in the present moment (in which case, Buddhism fares far better than
most religions in terms of practical advice, given its attention to
remaining present and focused and its emphasis on cultivating
awareness through meditation).
Given that worrying about life after death is a specious issue,
anything that draws your attention away from living authentically in the
present moment is a diversion and most probably an ego-generated
illusion. If you want to have a goal for yourself to help you on your
path to becoming healthier, happier and more centered and less trapped
by fear and negative thoughts and emotions, then I strongly suggest that
you get clear on who and what you are and be present with yourself and
your energy in every moment. Ultimately, this is a simple task with
many monumental challenges.
The remainder of this guide will share with you how you can do
it!
Key Ideas
• Your energy system is related to your physiology and is not
“subtle” energy – it is electromagnetic energy
• The direct source of your energy is God
• Souls and spirits and subtle bodies are religious concepts that
have no correlate in actual reality
• Concepts of an afterlife and all related moral systems are a
fantasy and have no relation to actual reality
• Your life and consciousness is God in embodied form: there are
no intermediaries
How to Begin
Waking Up
I like to think of it this way: What we experience as normal
reality is God’s altered state. In God’s baseline state, all things are one
and there is no separation. However, in ordinary reality, we experience
things as separate all the time and most of us have no idea that we’re
actually God and all of what we experience is ourselves. In other
words, when we humans are in our “normal state,” we, as God, are
fundamentally confused about the nature of our existence. We are
confusing all kinds of fantasies and illusions with reality and we think
that there are a bunch of separate beings running around, all doing their
thing. We are God’s altered state!
Conversely, when we alter our state of consciousness, we can
get closer to the baseline state that is pure God consciousness. From
my personal experience, this is best achieved through the ingestion of
5-MeO-DMT and is far more effective than any meditation regimen or
other “mystical” practice. 5-MeO-DMT is about as altered as any
human being can get, but from the God perspective, that state of
consciousness is simply the way things actually are. In other words,
that state of consciousness of complete mystical union is actually the
super-mundane state of reality. It’s the most ordinary, non-fantastical
thing. It’s the reality game that we’re playing here in embodied form
that is fantastical, given that it’s all a complex and grand illusion.
How to Begin 39
But don’t be mistaken. Just because reality is an illusion that
doesn’t mean it isn’t “real.” This is as “real” as it gets. For this reason,
no matter if one wakes up to the true nature of reality or not, one must
always be concerned with protecting the vehicle. It doesn’t matter how
awakened you are – if you walk in front of a semi moving at 70 mph,
it’s going to cream your body all over the freeway – that’s simply the
way the reality game works. If you want to stick around to be able to
enjoy your personal perspective, then you will always protect your
vehicle for as long as you are playing the reality game. The game is
much more fun when you can avoid unnecessary pain and suffering!
Waking up to the true nature of your being means essentially
only one thing, and that is liberation from the confines of your ego,
thereby letting yourself be more fully yourself and more responsible for
your personal experience of the reality game. Waking up does not
mean developing paranormal powers or anything mystical or
mystifying at all. It simply means liberating yourself from your ego
and thereby living a happier and more satisfying life. It doesn’t mean
you’ll be able to “manifest” anything you want, or “create your own
reality,” as are popular beliefs among New Age aficionados. Nor does
it mean developing psychic powers as Buddhism and Hinduism claim.
And it especially does not mean developing an ability to travel in astral
realms or visit alien civilizations or any such fantastical nonsense.
Waking up is simply about being fully present and authentic with your
energy at all times and is best described as being energetically open.
When you can do that, your ego will no longer have a hold on you.
When your ego no longer has a hold on you, you won’t be taken in by
fantasy and ego-projection. You won’t engage with others’ self-created
dramas and power-plays and you’ll understand how to avoid making
ones of your own. You will be happier and you will feel supreme love
for yourself and for God (which are one and the same). You will be at
peace.
But you will still be in the reality game until your vehicle is no
more, and at that point, you personally have nothing to worry about,
because you, as God, live on, and will continue in perfect self-love
forever.
Not a bad deal, is it?
Are you ready to take responsibility and be yourself?
40 Being Human
Taking Stock
Before beginning the process of opening yourself to the full
expression of your energy, it is good to take stock and see where you
currently are. Consider some preliminary questions:
• Do you feel that you authentically express yourself and your
feelings, or do you hold back and restrain yourself?
• If you restrain yourself, what is your rationale? Family?
Friends? Culture? Religion?
• Do you find that you judge others and yourself?
• Where do these judgments come from?
• Do you ever engage in behavior patterns that you know are not
beneficial to yourself or others but can’t seem to break out of
the negative patterns?
• Do you feel that you are a victim in life?
• Do you indulge in self-pity?
• Do you feel personally under attack when people criticize views
or beliefs that you hold?
• Are you honest with yourself at all times?
• Are you honest with others, even when being so is challenging
for others?
• Do you face your fears with love and acceptance or do you
prefer to do combat with them and try and eliminate them?
• Do you always stay in your comfort zone or do you push your
edges to discover your potential?
How to Begin 41
• Are you satisfied with the level of communication, trust, and
love in your intimate relationships?
• Is what others think of you a major motivating factor in your
life?
Exercise 1
Take the time to think honestly about your answers to these
questions. You might find it helpful to spend some time writing your
responses down on paper and see what patterns develop. As you see
patterns emerge, you can start to ask youself, “What could I do in this
situation to take more responsibility for myself?” For example, write
out some situations where you indulged in self-pity. What were the
circumstances? How did you feel? What did you do at the time?
Now, ask yourself, how could you have taken more responsibility for
your reactions and emotions in that situation? What could you have
done to express yourself more authentically? What expectations were
you attached to that, when they didn’t materialize as you hoped, led to
your feelings of self-pity.
Keep in mind that how you respond to any situation is always
your choice. Shit happens. That can’t be avoided, but how you
respond to any situation and how you mobilize your energy is always
your personal responsibility. If you can master that, then you can
master your life. It doesn’t mean that you are in control of anything
outside of your immediate vehicle and your immediate consciousness,
but it does mean that you become in control of yourself, rather than
letting your confused ego run the show.
In short, this is all about self-mastery.
Exercise 2
For another exercise, take a look at what it means for you to be
authentic with yourself. Take a piece of paper and divide it in half. On
one side, write down everything you can associate with the feeling of
being authentic, honest, and true to yourself. Then on the other side,
write down everything you associate with feeling inauthentic, dishonest
and untrue. Try to write freely without any attachment or judgment
42 Being Human
with anything that comes up. This is not about right or wrong thinking.
This is about looking honestly at your current thoughts and feelings.
How do you feel about your lists of associations? Which feels
more attractive to you? Without judging yourself in any way, but being
honest, where are you more of the time mentally, emotionally,
consciously, etc. Are you on the authentic side or the inauthentic side?
Remember, it’s OK if your honest assessment shows you that you’re
not where you want to be. Don’t judge yourself. Just recognize that
this is where you currently are and give yourself the goal of taking
more control of yourself and increasing your personal responsibility.
Exercise 3
Perhaps the most important question is this: Do you love
yourself fully, completely, and unconditionally? Try answering this
question verbally. How does your answer feel as it comes out of your
body and vibrates the air around you? Does your answer sound true to
you? Does it feel true? Is there doubt or hesitation or qualification in
your voice? Or is it pure, rich, and resonate with the profound
energetic qualities of truth? You might even want to record your voice
in answering this question. Listen to your recording at different times
and see what new perspectives you have on your own truth. You can
even record your answer many times over a course of days, weeks,
months or years. Listen to all your answers and see what’s changing as
you get more in touch with yourself and as you take more
responsibility. You’ll be surprised at how the quality of your tone and
voice changes. The further along you get on your path, the less like
“you” your original answer will sound.
Exercise 4
Another exercise to help you take stock is to complete the
sentence of, “I am . . .”
At the top of the piece of paper, write the words “I am” in clear,
bold letters. Then take 10-15 minutes to fill the page with as many free
associations as you can. Remember not to judge anything that you
write. This is not about right or wrong associations. For example, if
you feel depressed, then write that down. Don’t censor yourself by
telling yourself “I know I shouldn’t be depressed so I won’t write that.”
How to Begin 43
Just be honest! And don’t be idealistic, either. For example, if you
don’t actually feel that you are God, don’t write it! This is about
discovering what you actually feel, not what you think you should feel.
When you are done, circle everything that you perceive as
positive on the page in one color and circle everything you perceive as
negative in another color. Don’t do anything with it. Just observe what
has come up. Set the paper aside. When you feel ready, perhaps in a
few days, weeks, or months, do this exercise again. Get out your
original answers and compare them to your new answers. What has
shifted? Has the balance between positive and negative shifted, or is it
the same? If it has shifted, what do you feel you are doing differently
to produce different results? Can you identify healthy, authentic
patterns developing in your behavior? Remember, when doing this
exercise it is very important that you only focus on how you feel right
then, while doing the exercise. Your goal is to provide a current
snapshot of where you are at energetically, emotionally and mentally.
It is not about cataloging everything you’ve been through over the past
week. It is about getting in touch with yourself in the current moment.
As a normal human being, it is quite likely that in doing these
exercises you will find some areas in your life and in your behavior
where you are not being honest, authentic, and true to yourself. This is
good. Awareness is the first step. Taking stock is not about giving
your ego fuel to punish yourself or judge yourself. Your ego will likely
want to step in and say, “See, you should do this, you should be this
way.” Don’t listen to your ego. It’s just trying to take control. Taking
stock is not about what should be. It is about finding out what actually
is.
Exercise 5
For this exercise, at the top of a piece of paper, write in big,
bold letters, “GOD.” Write everything you can think of that you
associate with this word. It’s OK if you’re an atheist or agnostic.
Write whatever comes to mind. Again, there are no right or wrong
answers here. Take about 10 – 15 minutes.
After you are done with your list, read through what you’ve
written without adding anything. Looking honestly at what you’ve
done, how would you characterize your list? Do you find expression
of fear, judgment and doubt, or do you find love, peace and
44 Being Human
acceptance? Does it seem realistic to you or not? How does your list
make you feel?
If you are unsure how your list makes you feel, try reading your
list authentically and recording your voice. For example, if something
on your list makes you feel sarcastic or cynical, let yourself read that
item in a cynical or sarcastic tone. If something makes you feel
mocking, then read it in a mocking tone. If something on your list
makes you want to sing, then sing it. Your goal is not to sound how
you think you should sound but rather to let your sounds match how
you actually feel. Listen to your recording. How does your pitch and
tone of voice change with the different items on your list? What
qualities do you hear in your voice? Do you hear authenticity?
You can repeat this exercise as many times as you like and
observe what changes, what stays the same, and where authenticity,
trust and confidence grow or diminish. It’s never about right or wrong
answers. It is about taking an honest look in the mirror to learn how
you actually feel.
The Mirror
Ultimately, awakening to reality and opening yourself
energetically is really just a process of looking into the mirror of who
and what you actually are. As you remove your resistance to the
energy of your being, the mirror will become clearer. As you
overcome your illusions and fantasies, you will find that the mirror
distorts less and less. Eventually, if you persist and let go of your ego
and your remaining resistance, you will see your true self, God,
reflected in every aspect of your experience at all times and all
moments, for God is the only thing that truly exists, and it is you.
All of reality is a mirror. The question for you personally is
this: Do you want to play like a child in the funhouse of distorted
mirrors, or do you want to be an adult and see your reflection clearly,
free of any illusion and distortion?
If you want to be an adult, then it is up to you to take
responsibility for learning to recognize yourself in the mirror. No one
can do it for you. No savior is coming to lead the way or hold your
hand. No amount of faith, belief, worship, or prayer will ever do it.
No priest, guru, or shaman can do it for you. There is no grand cosmic
awakening coming that will do the work for you. If you want to wake
How to Begin 45
up, then it is your responsibility and yours alone. If you are ready, then
the time is now. Your personal life in this body is short. Take
advantage of it while you can. You only have one chance. It will be
challenging, but as someone who has taken the leap, I assure you, it is
the greatest thing you can ever do for yourself or anyone else. Let go
of your fear and gaze into the mirror of who and what you truly are.
You are more profoundly beautiful, powerful, and loving than your ego
can possibly imagine.
YOU ARE GOD!
The Preliminaries of Practice
The most effective tools for opening your awareness to your
true energetic nature are entheogens, or substances that “generate the
experience of God within.” However, there is a great deal that can be
done without entheogens that can help with the process of awakening.
Before turning the discussion to entheogens, let’s address some of these
preliminary practices first.
Meditation
Meditation is a powerful tool to help you gain some mastery
over the vagaries of the mind. Learning techniques of maintaining
focus, concentration, and awareness can be extremely helpful in
navigating the experiences of altered states of consciousness that
entheogens open one up to. Many people, especially in the modern
world, find maintaining focus and concentration for any length of time
to be extraordinarily challenging as these skills are largely atrophied in
our high-paced, instant gratification, multi-tasking and sensory
overload culture. Our culture is filled with diversions, distractions, and
temptations to draw you away from the present moment of what
actually is. Meditation, on the other hand, teaches you how to slow
down, set your busy thoughts aside, and simply pay attention and be
present. This is an invaluable skill and sorely needed in the modern
world.
There are many different meditation traditions. Some come
with more dogma, symbolism, metaphysics and religious fantasy than
others. Zen meditation is particularly sparse and unencumbered by
religious ritual or metaphysics, and I therefore suggest this as a good
46 Being Human
place to begin. Zen meditation is simply about sitting, breathing, and
being present. Nothing more, and nothing less. Such a practice can be
easier to work into than, say, tantric meditation, which teaches all kinds
of mudras, mantras, visualization, prayers, rituals, and use of complex
symbolism, etc. In more “complex” meditation traditions, it is very
difficult to get into the practice without having to learn and accept the
entire corpus of religious beliefs and propositions, many of which are
ego-produced fantasies, speculations, and metaphysics. One does not
need to be a Buddhist to practice Zen meditation, however. Anyone
can sit and follow their breath. No religion required!
The primary goal of meditation is to let your mind function
naturally without being attached to any of your thoughts and feelings.
It is a practice in maintaining mindful awareness without attachment or
expectation. It is a great way to get in touch with what is really going
on inside your mind and become aware of just how busy your internal
dialogue actually is. Even sitting quietly for five minutes is nearly
impossible for some people, at least at first. Be patient with yourself
and give yourself the time you need to ease into your practice and
become comfortable with observing your mind, thoughts, and feelings.
Your goal in meditating is to always bring yourself back to the
present moment. When your thoughts start to project out into the
future, bring them back to your breath in the present. When your
thoughts run to what occurred in the past, bring them back to your
breath once more. When stories and fantasies start to arise in your
mind, let go of them and come back to the present. Meditating is not
about figuring things out or telling stories to yourself. It is simply
about being present, here and now.
Getting in Touch with Your Body and Energy
There are many ways you can get in touch with your body and
your energy in everyday life. Dance, martial arts, yoga, sports,
gymnastics, making love, etc., are all viable methods for being in your
body. To really get in touch with your energy, however, it is important
that you incorporate expressive action into your body movements. For
example, becoming a professional dancer is different that letting your
body move to the music any way that feels right and good for you.
When your aim is to get in touch with your body and energy it is useful
to keep in mind that it is not about performing any specific actions
How to Begin 47
correctly or artfully. It is about letting yourself move authentically and
expressively. There is no right or wrong in authentic, expressive
action.
For example, try putting on some music that you like when you
are home alone. Stand or sit in the middle of the room. Don’t “try”
and dance any way in particular. In fact, don’t try and do anything at
all. You can sit or stand still until you feel inspired to move. Then just
let yourself follow your energy. It isn’t about looking good or
impressing anyone. It’s just about letting the energy flow and
following it with your body.
Vocalizing
A primary medium through which humans express their energy
is with their voice. Thus, another way to get comfortable with your
energy is to get comfortable with using your voice to express yourself.
This can take all kinds of forms, from prayer, chanting, singing,
to just making sounds and noises. Give yourself opportunities
throughout the day to simply express yourself verbally/vocally. It
doesn’t matter what comes out. Just do it!
Try experimenting. If you are a soft-spoken person, try being
loud. If you are usually boisterous, try subtle manipulations of sound.
Search for what feels authentic for you. Don’t be concerned about
sounding like anyone or anything in particular. Just make some sound!
To really have fun, I suggest learning some throat or overtone
singing as these forms of vocal expression mobilize a great deal of
energy, are fun to do, and sound great!
Bodywork
Tensions, stresses and energetic blocks and wounds are carried
in the body. As you begin to unwind yourself, you may find that
getting bodywork and massages help to release all of the blocked
energy you’ve been carrying around. If you are new to bodywork, you
will probably find that getting a massage comes with all kinds of
emotional releases. When the body worker finds the right spot on your
back, for example, you might start to cry or laugh uncontrollably
without knowing why. The why is not important. Just let yourself feel
it and express it. Give yourself permission to unwind and release
48 Being Human
whatever energy is not serving you. Given that most people hold back
on expressing themselves, most people do have energy to release, even
if they don’t realize it. Bodywork is a great way to help that energy get
out without having to consciously find and release it.
Self-expression
Regardless of whether you feel you have any artistic or musical
skill or not, finding a way to express yourself creatively is enormously
helpful in getting in touch with yourself and your energy. Expressing
yourself is not about good or bad, it is about the process and experience
of expressing. You don’t have to be “good” at painting to express
yourself through painting, for example. Anyone can pick up a
paintbrush and apply paint to canvas. Just do it! Don’t be attached to
form or outcome. It will be fun and possibly cathartic. Artistic
expression is all about self-discovery and the process of creating, not
the end product. So let yourself be an artist and express yourself
without judgment.
The Open Heart
Ultimately, being open to your energy means keeping an open
heart. We close our hearts when we feel threatened or when we
experience fear or judgment. Given that the vast majority of what
threatens us or gives us fear or judgment is ego-projection, our egos are
our own worst enemies when it comes to keeping our hearts open. A
general maxim, which may seem overwhelming at first, is to love all
equally without any exception. If you can maintain that attitude, then
you can keep your heart open.
This does not mean that you have to actively experience love
for all things at all moments – that would be a fairly large task. What it
does mean is that you should practice giving love to everything and
everyone you encounter at any given moment. This is much more
manageable than trying to love everything all at once. It just means
loving what you experience, yourself, and others, in each moment. For
example, it doesn’t mean that you have to actively love all 6.5 billion
people on the planet. Rather, just love whoever is with you, and if no
one is with you, then just love yourself. And keep in mind, love is
truth, so loving whoever you are with means being honest and truthful
How to Begin 49
with them, even if it makes them uncomfortable. Love is definitely not
indulging in the fantasies and illusions of others. Love is about living
in truth.
People want to close off their hearts when they feel wounded.
They become a victim and then indulge in self-pity. They make
excuses for why they can’t keep their heart open. Despite the fact that
pain hurts, people indulge in it all the time. It validates the illusions of
the ego and gives it strength. It is a way of running away from taking
responsibility for oneself. It is easier to identify others as the source of
our suffering than to own up to our own energy and take responsibility
for our own thoughts and emotions. The open heart is the heart that
takes responsibility for itself and its own happiness. It does not rely
upon others and gives love freely and unconditionally. The open heart
is godly for God gives love continually and unconditionally from an
infinite supply. The open heart will never exhaust itself.
Spending Time in Nature
Nature is an excellent place for self-reflection – literally. This
is especially true for natural areas that have been undisturbed by
humans and that have no introduced species. In such areas, one can
experience the energetic structures of nature in their “natural” form.
While a garden or park can provide an enjoyable nature experience,
undisturbed nature is a more accurate representation of how energy
works when left to its own devices. Patterns and colors blend together
or accent each other. Flows of rock, dirt, water, ice, and sand mark out
their fractal patterns. Plants grow in intricate fractal geometry to
convert sunlight into useable energy for other living beings. All of
nature is a constantly moving canvas of multiple energetic patterns
working simultaneously across multiple levels, all in cohesion and
concert with each other. Nature is simply energy at work, being itself.
Given that God is nature and that you are God, you are also
nature. For this reason, undisturbed nature shows you the natural
patterns of energy that ultimately are all a part of you. Observing
transformations and patterns in nature gives insight into how energy
works. It helps center one’s personal energy and relax the anxieties of
the ego-based mind. When done solitarily, it is also a refreshing escape
from the games of other egos.
50 Being Human
Personally, I recommend taking as much solitary or quite time
in undisturbed nature as possible. It is beautiful, it makes you feel
good, and it is a pure reflection. It is also a great place to start before
engaging in any work with entheogenic medicines.
Key Ideas
• Get to know yourself before undertaking entheogenic practice
• Use bodywork, meditation, dance, and time in nature to center
yourself and gain intimate knowledge of how you feel
• Aside from work with entheogens, spending time in undisturbed
nature provides the best mirror to reflect with
• Explore ways to express yourself
Part III
Opening to Energy with Entheogens
Entheogenic Practice
Working with the Medicines
We are now ready to address what it means to work with the
visionary medicines, or entheogens, and how they can serve your
awakening to your infinite energy.
First, there is the question of legality. The reality is that the
majority of truly effective visionary plants and substances are illegal to
posses and use. Most governments equate any use of entheogens with
abuse and only very rarely make legal exceptions for religious
practitioners. I have written extensively on this topic elsewhere, so I
have no intention of delving deeply into this problem here, other than to
say that the prohibition against using entheogens is a fundamental
violation of your right as an embodiment of God to explore your own
nature. As far as I am personally concerned, no government or
authority as any right to prohibit anyone from freely exploring their
own mind in ways that do no harm to others.
The situation is also bizarrely absurd. DMT is illegal to possess
and use in most countries, with some exceptions for religions that use
ayahuasca as a ceremonial sacrament (which contains DMT).
However, as has already been pointed out, DMT is a primary ingredient
in mammalian evolution and is already present in every single mammal
on this planet, including every human. It is also found in countless
Entheogenic Practice 53
species of plants and mushrooms (in the form of psilocin and
psilocybin). How in the world can something that is naturally in our
bodies at all times be an illegal substance? As a human being, you are,
by your very biology, possessing and using DMT right now! By our
current drug laws, every single person on this planet should be arrested
and thrown in jail for possessing and using DMT. This situation is
bizarre.
As of writing this, in the U.S., 5-MeO-DMT, perhaps the most
profound entheogenic substance on the planet, is currently under
consideration for Schedule I status as an illegal drug. As with DMT, 5-
MeO-DMT is already in every human being on the planet. It is as
natural to us as breathing air or drinking water and we cannot live
without it. It is a fundamental part of what makes us human. And now
the government wants to make it illegal.
What in the world is going on here? Does this actually make
sense to anyone? How can natural compounds already found within the
human body be illegal? For that matter, how can any part of nature be
made illegal? Isn’t that the equivalent to outlawing God?
Ah . . . foolish mortals . . .
So, virtually anyone who wants to explore their energetic nature
through the use of entheogens runs the risk of imprisonment, with few
exceptions. The absurdity is profound. You can be thrown in jail for
taking the responsibility of getting clear on who and what you actually
are as an energetic being and embodiment of God. Using natural
compounds to explore your divinity is a crime. It is a startling reality
check for anyone who thinks they live in a “free” country.
Are Entheogens really the most effective tool for Awakening?
When it comes to awakening to your true energetic nature as a
fractal energy being, entheogens, and particularly the tryptamines, are
the most effective tools available to humanity. There is nothing more
reliable and consistent for opening your perception of yourself and your
experience to the reality of energy as entheogens. While other
techniques of altering consciousness and perception can be
experientially effective, especially with sustained practice, there really
is no comparison. You can spend a lifetime meditating and not get
much more out of it than a sore bottom and tingly legs from cutting off
your circulation. All it takes is one hit of 5-MeO-DMT and in about 10
54 Being Human
seconds you’ll have the most profound energetic opening of your life
that will surpass anything you have ever experienced in meditation by
infinite light years. It is simply a matter of effectiveness.
Another way of looking at the situation is this: You can try and
map out the heavens with your naked eye, or you can look through the
Hubble telescope. Entheogens are the Hubble telescope of the inner
world. Sure, you can look at the sky with your naked eyes, but why not
use the Hubble if it is right there and you have access to it? What
would be the point of doing it with your naked eyes? So your ego can
be proud that you “did it” on “your own?”
Personally, I have yet to meet anyone who has been able to
honestly say that their meditation practice has gotten them to the same
states that can be achieved with entheogens. Regardless of one’s
meditation practice, I’ve never seen anyone experience 5-MeO-DMT
and say, “that’s just like my meditation.” In fact, it’s the opposite.
People proclaim that they never could have imagined the sheer beauty
and completeness of the 5-MeO-DMT experience and that nothing in
their mediation practice has ever come close to such a total and radical
experience of oneness with the true energy of being. As a tool for
exploring consciousness and one’s energetic nature, 5-meO-DMT is
simply incomparable.
However, once one becomes experienced with entheogenic
states of consciousness, then these states can be achieved without any
entheogens. You have to know what you are looking for, in a sense, in
order to find it again. For example, after experiencing 5-MeO-DMT,
one’s personal mediation practice can become profoundly more
powerful and effective, but without that initial introduction, it is
extremely difficult for anyone to reach a full-blown 5-MeO-DMT state
on their own (and remember that 5-MeO-DMT is a natural
neurotransmitter already present in your body). Once you’ve had the
introduction, you can start to actualize the endogenous 5-MeO-DMT in
your body and produce endogenous releases, but you need to know
what that feels like in order to cultivate it.
Another advantage to working with entheogens is that they put
you directly in touch with your own energetic nature without any
intermediaries. Remember that all of reality is a mirror, but many of
the individual mirrors walking around out there are distorted by their
egos and their illusions and fantasies. In other words, working with
others to find clarity in yourself is challenging as there is no guarantee
Entheogenic Practice 55
that those you are working with are clear themselves. For example,
working with a guru can be great help in deepening your meditation,
but if that guru is filling you with ideas of karma and reincarnation and
subtle energy bodies and astral projection, then you are working with a
distorted mirror, let alone trying to deal with your own distorted mirror.
Entheogens cut out the middleman, so to speak. Entheogens put
you directly in touch with yourself as God and the only distorted ego
mirror you have to deal with in such a context is your own. Dealing
with one distorted mirror is far easier than dealing with two, or many.
Given that the true nature of reality exists within you, the most
effective route to getting clear on what that reality is is to dive within
yourself to discover it for yourself. And given that the true nature of
reality is energetic, if you want to understand reality, you have to
understand energy.
When it comes to opening your perception and experience to
the reality of energy that exists within you, there is nothing more
effective than entheogens. It’s just that simple. There is no need to get
tangled up in moralistic or religious arguments about “drugs” or
“cheating” or anything of that sort. Entheogens are simply tools, and as
tools, they are the most effective at what they do. A hallmark of clear
intelligence is using the proper tool for the job. Why not use the best
tools available?
Lastly, given that all of reality is one, and all things are God,
could it really be an “accident” that entheogens affect us the way that
they do? That seems profoundly unlikely. Rather, there would seem to
be a reason why entheogens affect us they way they do: God created
crystal keys to help unlock consciousness in its vehicles so that they
can come to understand the true nature of their being and the reality in
which they live. Entheogens are crystal keys that unlock the doors to
the Divine Imagination.
Cautions
Working with entheogens is serious business and should not be
taken lightly. It takes dedication and often a tremendous amount of
bravery and personal perseverance. It is by no means an easy path.
Overcoming the illusions and fears of your ego and accepting your true
nature as God is the most significant challenge you could ever possibly
embark upon as a human being. However, given that you already are
56 Being Human
God, you can rest assured that you can do it! Ultimately, there is
nothing to be achieved and nothing gained. You already are fully
awakened as God. Thus, working with entheogens is not about
achieving some exalted or rarified state (as is promoted by meditation
traditions) but rather is about letting go of your resistance and relaxing
fully into the core of your true energetic nature. But remember: your
ego is designed to convince you that you are a separate being. That is
its function. To awaken to your true nature, you must transcend your
ego. Your ego will never go away, but by transcending it, you can
release yourself from its grip. Yet within this process, your ego will
use every resource at its disposal to keep you trapped in self-generated
illusions. In the end, it is as simple as relaxing out of your ego and
being true to your energy, but getting there can be profoundly
challenging.
Thus, if you choose to embark on a process of self-discovery
with entheogens, be prepared for a difficult ride. Opening yourself up
to your own personal mirror of the divine can be terrifying and the only
way through is to confront your fears and illusions. Really, it is a
process of letting yourself “die” fully in order to discover your true
nature. You will have to find the strength and courage within yourself
to willingly participate in this radical process if you truly want to
awaken and open energetically.
This process is also profoundly beautiful and personally
satisfying, as well, so it isn’t all difficulty. The entire point of seeking
personal awakening is to find happiness, authenticity, and personal
fulfillment by living in truth. These rewards are well worth any
difficulties or challenges one might face along the way. This is the
motivation for undertaking this great work. And let’s be clear: if
everyone took the responsibility to awaken to the true nature of reality,
this would be a profoundly different world. Just imagine what the
world would be like if everyone let go of their illusions, fears, and egogenerated
drama games. War, violence, manipulation, exploitation, and
human-produced suffering would be a thing of the past. It is absolutely
true that world peace and global harmony begins with each individual.
If you want to do your part to make this world a better place, then it all
begins with you.
Entheogenic Practice 57
Things to be Aware of
Attachment to Story
A common effect of working with entheogens is attachment to
story. People see visions or encounter other “beings” and then proceed
to weave fantastic stories around their experiences. Terence McKenna
and the infamous machine elves are an excellent case in point. Terence
“encountered” the machine elves in a now-notorious DMT trip and
subsequently created an entire cultural mythology around these
ephemeral beings. As will be explained below in the discussion of the
Divine Imagination, Terence was unable to recognize himself in the
mirror and thus became attached to the idea of machine elves, which
dovetailed nicely into his fantasy of UFO’s, intergalactic space travel,
and 2012. All of this is story, and subsequently, fantasy.
Another classic example of attachment to story comes from the
modern religion of Santo Daime. The founder of the Daime
experienced a vision of the “Queen of the Forest” coming to him and
telling him that he was a reincarnation of John the Baptist, and he was
to reinstate the Doctrine of Jesus through the Daime (a version of the
ayahuasca drink). Once again, we see someone who fails to recognize
himself in the mirror, gets attached to ideas of entities and
reincarnation, and then uses that as motivation to create a modern
religious mythology of the Daime. Another story is born . . .
The solution is quite simple: don’t become attached to story!
Working with entheogens can be like going to see a movie that has
been personally designed just for you. Enjoy the movie, but don’t get
attached to it. It’s just a movie, after all! Another way of putting this
is to remember not to take visions literally. They are symbol and
metaphor, not ontological reality.
Your job is to stay present in the moment. Story is the exact
opposite of this. Story takes a span of time and turns it into an object
of attachment. Story has nothing to do with the present moment. Any
focus on story is always a distraction from the present. It does not
serve you, so let it go.
58 Being Human
The Dangers of Shamanism
Many people who work with entheogens desire to do so in a
shamanic context or under the guidance of an experienced shaman. It
is important to keep in mind, however, the dangers that come with
shamanic practice. Shamanism, in contrast to the ideas presented in
this guide, is pluralistic, meaning that shamanic cultures traditionally
teach that the universe is comprised of multiple spirits residing in
multiple realms – basically the opposite of the radical non-dualism
being presented here. Within such shamanic systems there is
widespread projection and reinforcement of ideas of separation. In
turn, shamanic cultures tend to exhibit high degrees of jealousy, envy,
fear, and anxiety. The universe is split into realms of good and bad
spirits and good and bad shamans. The shamans fight with the spirits
and fight with each other. Sorcery is thrown back and forth and people
work “dark magic.” It’s all illusion, but when egos are playing the
game, they don’t know its illusion and react to it as though it were real.
People who become involved in shamanism often find that they
are overly concerned about “picking up bad energy” from people or
places. They engage in “protective” practices to try and shield
themselves from others. They go to shamans to have “bad spirits”
removed or “retrieve their lost soul.” While these practices can make
someone feel better and even improve their health, it’s a bit of a catch-
22, because they are willingly engaging in the ego-fantasy and illusion
generated by shamanic cultures.
Consider an example: A person is feeling troubled by their
patterns of behavior that do not seem to serve their highest good and
they want to address it so they go see a shaman. The shaman divines
that the person is possessed by an evil spirit that is manipulating this
person’s choices and behaviors and prescribes an ayahuasca session to
release the demon. The person is now fearful that there is something
“bad” that needs to “taken out” and is dependent on the shaman to
accomplish this for them. The shaman and patient then drink
ayahuasca. The patient then starts to feel the struggle inside and gives
more and more energy to the “demon” and it truly does start to feel like
an entity of its own. The shaman then performs ritual extraction
techniques and the patient energetically feels something “being
released” through the actions of the shaman. Case closed, patient
better.
Entheogenic Practice 59
The problem is that there are no such things as spirits or entities
that can “attach” themselves to you or possess you. Any such “entity”
or “energy” is merely a part of yourself that you are not personally
taking responsibility for. A shamanic extraction process “exteriorizes”
your internal conflict and then attempts to banish it. However, if you
haven’t addressed the underlying irresponsibility and disowning of
your own energy, then you are merely perpetuating your personal
illusion and you lay the groundwork for it to return at any time because
you haven’t properly faced and owned it as yourself. In other words,
this shamanic process is engaging in story and attachment to ideas of
separation. It is a fantasy game. That’s fine, if you want to live in
fantasy and accept the consequences of doing so (fear, judgment,
inauthenticity, etc.), but if you want to live in reality, this is not helpful.
Fear of Losing Control
When people work with entheogens, particularly high-level
entheogens such as extracted or synthetic DMT or 5-MeO-DMT,
spontaneous experiences become common. This is especially true with
5-MeO-DMT. It is not unusual for a person who has experienced 5-
MeO-DMT to awaken every night for a week or so thereafter finding
themselves fully launched into a psychedelic experience. This can be
extraordinarily unnerving. People might also start to spontaneously
see visions and scenes or psychedelic imagery when they are falling
asleep.
The important thing to remember here is simply to let go and
relax. Spontaneous experiences tend to mellow out, over time, if one
can relax about it. Reacting with fear and anxiety will only make the
situation worse. The problem is that energy and perception are always
moving and changing. A common fear is “I’m never going to come
back,” but everyone always does. So trust in that and just relax if these
experiences start to happen to you. Don’t try and fight them. Just
accept that you’re opening to your energy and remember that energy is
always moving and changing. No state of being or experience is
permanent.
It is also important to remain vigilant about not becoming
attached to story in such experiences as well. If visions present
themselves, just enjoy the show. Don’t worry about what they “mean.”
Chances are, you’re just bouncing around through different images
60 Being Human
without any real coherency. And when they stop, don’t worry about it.
They weren’t really serving you in the first place, but your ego might
miss them and want them to return. Don’t let your ego get in your way
of being clear!
Engaging with Others
Keep in mind that the more relaxed you become with your ego,
the more of a challenge you will become to others who have not
relaxed or transcended their egos. Given that egos make it their
profession to distort their image in the mirror of reality, the clearer a
mirror you become, the more uncomfortable you will make other egos.
This is because you will become increasingly less likely to engage in
others’ ego-dramas, and their egos won’t like this. From their
perspective, you will be refusing to play the game they want to play the
way they want to play it. That will make you something of a partypooper
in an existential sense. Egos don’t like that, and they will do
everything they can to get you to rejoin the game. It will be your job to
be vigilant and responsible with yourself and how you express your
energy.
Set and Setting
The environment in which you choose to use entheogens can
greatly affect the quality of the subsequent experience. Taking
mushrooms at a festival can be fun and novel, but it isn’t the best
environment for doing serious self-reflective work. Similarly, taking
entheogens in a religious context can be a profound way of practicing a
religion with others, but the context will probably also provide you
with all kinds of illusions, fantasies, and stories to catch your ego’s
attention and therefore also is not necessarily best for doing genuine
self-reflective work. Shamanic contexts likely aren’t much better for
the reasons listed in the section above about the pluralistic nature of
shamanic worldviews. So what is the best set and setting?
Secure and Free From Distractions
First of all, you will want to feel secure in your environment
and the people you are with (if anyone). Ideally, you want a location
Entheogenic Practice 61
that will not be disturbed by others during the course of your medicine
work. If you are at home, this means turning off the phone and the
computer and not answering the door if someone comes over. Have a
sitter to do that, if necessary. But during the time of your medicine
work, you want to be able to stay focused on what you are doing.
Furthermore, your aim is to “go within,” so you will want a
dark, quiet place in which to do your work. Nighttime is best for a
variety of reasons. For one, it will be dark so there will be fewer
distractions so you can close your eyes and focus inward. Second, our
minds relax more at night. During the day, most peoples’ minds are
busy thinking about the things they should be doing and should be
accomplishing. When you are working with entheogens, you want to
be able to focus your mind entirely on the present moment of your
experience, not thinking about what you should be accomplishing at
that time. It is simply easier for people to enter this relaxed state at
night.
To help your mind relax, it is also wise to have all tasks and
chores finished for the day before embarking on your inner journey. If
something is pressing on your mind, don’t leave it until after. Get it
done and out of the way so that you don’t have to bother worrying or
thinking about that issue. This can be especially challenging for people
in our modern world where our egos are trained to think that they have
to be accomplishing something at every moment and that we should
keep ourselves busy and task oriented. Taking up a simple meditation
practice can help break this pattern. If you find you are not able to be
present when you work with entheogens, then give meditation a try to
practice relaxing into the moment.
The Sitter
Many people find having a “sitter” to be comforting when
engaging in entheogenic self-exploration. The sitter is not there to be
an active participant but rather for support and reassurance, if such
should be necessary. The sitter can also take care of any unexpected
events, such as visitors.
Beyond comfort and reassurance, sitters can be important for
safety as well. Some entheogens produce such radically altered states
of consciousness that people may not be aware of their body or body
movements. This is especially true with inexperienced users. Until one
62 Being Human
is familiar with any particular entheogen and how it affects one, it is
good advice to have a sitter to make sure that everything proceeds
smoothly and no one hurts themselves.
It is also important to keep in mind that one never knows how
one will react to working with a new and as-yet-to-be-experienced
entheogen. Though rare, some individuals do have health-related
reactions and medical attention might become necessary. In such
cases, having a sitter can make a crucial difference.
As entheogen users become more experienced, sitters become
less necessary. People come to know their own limits and their own
reactions. Many find that doing a journey alone is more rewarding than
having others present, even if it is just a sitter. But even in such cases,
it is good to have a friend who knows what is taking place and will
check in with the explorer at an appropriate time after the journey is
completed.
Ritual
Many people enjoy adding ceremony and ritual to their use of
entheogens. The only reason to incorporate such practices would be
personal desire to have ritual. Entheogens are not mysterious, magical
substances that require arcane rituals, spells, or incantations. They are
perfectly effective all on their own; no ritual required. Yet, ritual can
serve to calm nerves, center attention, and create focus. If such is
deemed necessary, then ritual can be useful. Ritual can also become an
object of attachment and superstition, however, and can unnecessarily
obfuscate and muddy the process of working with entheogens. Ritual
is just a “container” and has no function or meaning outside of helping
to create the set and setting.
Prayer
Prayers are much like ritual: they are great if they help someone
get in the right frame of mind, but they can also be an object of
attachment. Prayers do not accomplish anything other than helping a
person express him or herself and set the tone and feeling for a
ceremonial action. Prayers have no actual affect on anything “out
there” in terms of either reality or God or spirits. Consider that you are
God. So to whom are you praying? Expressing yourself is fine, but
Entheogenic Practice 63
don’t become attached to having your prayers “answered” or as
actually being effective in “calling up spirits” or “energies.” You’re
only talking to yourself.
Setting Intention
Though working with entheogens is largely unpredictable in
terms of what kinds of experiences they will open anyone up to at any
given time, going into a session with a clear intention can help one to
maintain focus through the experience. The most universal intention is
simply to remain present and aware, but sometimes having more
specific intentions can be useful. For example, if you’ve become aware
of an ego-generated behavior pattern that you’d like to explore and
address, set your intention to do so, and repeatedly remind yourself of
that intention throughout your session. Though one ultimately does
have to surrender to the experience, a great deal of influence can be
exerted through repeated expression of intention. This also means
cultivating an intention not to be distracted on the journey and
consciously bringing one’s attention back to the experience and
question at hand.
Understanding Your Personal Interface
Despite appearances, you never actually see, feel, hear, taste, or
touch anything directly. What we experience as reality is actually all a
reconstruction within consciousness. In this sense, each individual
living being has its own personal virtual reality. Consciousness is a
sophisticated mapping mechanism. Through experience, we learn to
identify patterns of energy as objects and identifiable phenomena with
the data we take in through our senses and process in our
consciousness. Raw data comes into our senses and then we apply our
internal maps onto that data in order to produce an experience that we
can be aware of. For example, if you see something that you are not
able to immediately identify, your consciousness will sort through all
kinds of possibilities, trying to make a match between internal map and
external data. You might have had such an experience while out for a
walk on a dark night. You see a shape off in the distance and you start
to run through different possibilities as your eyes attempt to discern
what it is you are seeing. Is it a person? An animal? A rock? A tree?
64 Being Human
Is it dangerous, or friendly? As your mind attempts to process the data,
your perception and energetic reaction to the data changes rapidly.
Eventually, you’re relieved that it’s just a rock.
This process works so smoothly and rapidly that most of the
time we are completely unaware of how we are actively reconstructing
our experience of reality from the raw data of our senses in our
consciousness. But experience always works this way: an internal map
applied to raw data.
Buddhism proclaims that this process renders all concepts
empty of ultimate reality. According to Buddhist teachings, given that
our experience of reality is a compilation of relative concepts, they are
empty of all ultimate truth and all things are only conventionally true.
The only absolute truth is emptiness. For this reason, Buddhists claim
that all human thought, philosophy, science, religion, etc. are only
conventional truths and have no real ontological reality.
This position is fundamentally wrong for a variety of reasons.
The energy that comprises physical, “external,” reality and
consciousness work according to the same mathematical and
geometrical principles. In other words, the underlying energetic matrix
of both “inside” and “outside” is fundamentally the same. Simply put,
a square in external reality is the same as a square in internal reality
because a square is a fundamental geometric shape and the same
mathematical principles apply. This is also true of more sophisticated
objects. A tree might be a complicated shape with all of its detail, but
mathematically, it is a fractal. Our experience of a tree is therefore not
a matter of a conventional perception as determined by our concepts: it
is a mapping of an internal fractal construct onto the data of an external
fractal construct. There is no reason that the mapping can’t be one to
one, or in other words, a completely accurate representation of
energetic reality.
The basic problem with Buddhist philosophy is that it cannot
account for mathematics or geometry. While culturally-derived
concepts are conventional and relative to culture and perspective,
mathematics and geometry are not culturally-derived concepts.
Mathematics and geometry are “discovered” and are completely
independent of any cultural perspective or lens. Because of this, they
are universal. 2+2=4. This is an energetic universal and has nothing to
do with cultural concepts or relative truth. It is a fundamental aspect of
Entheogenic Practice 65
reality. Mathematics and geometry are the ontological underpinnings
of all of reality. As such, they are not “empty.”
Consider another example. Music varies from one culture to
another; so much so that what is considered music in one culture might
be considered noise in another. Musical tastes and styles are always a
matter of convention and therefore “empty” of fundamental truth, if we
were to ask which style of music is “better,” for example. However,
music itself is the expression of universal mathematical and energetic
principles. What we think of music and how we experience it might be
cultural convention, but rhythm, vibration, harmony, melody, etc. are
all mathematical functions. The energetic constructs of music are
universal and fundamental expressions of reality.
Working with entheogens is a means to access the more
fundamental energetic nature of reality. Consciousness, as mediated
through your body, is your personal interface with energy. When one
works with entheogens, consciousness and perception are affected so
that your interface works in a heightened and amplified fashion. The
underlying energetic, mathematical, geometric, and fractal structures of
reality become open to direct perception and experience. The stronger
the entheogen, the more geometric and fractal one’s experience and
perception becomes. This is also a major difference between
meditation and working with entheogens: meditation tends to simply
clear out and empty your personal interface of content (and thus the
Buddhist emphasis on emptiness), whereas entheogens open your
perception to the underlying energetic constructs of reality. Meditation
is largely about calming and clarifying consciousness. Entheogens are
a heightened experience of the fundamental nature of reality.
Key Ideas
• Entheogens are tools for self-exploration and learning to be in
touch with one’s energy
• Working with entheogens can be extremely challenging, so
proceeded with caution and self-education
• Avoid attachment to stories that may arise from visionary
experiences
66 Being Human
• Take ownership of your energy and experience: remember that
it is all you
• Set, setting, and context are all important considerations for
maximizing the effectiveness of your experience
• Working with entheogens is a method of opening up your
personal interface with the divine without any intermediaries: it
is direct experience
• Your personal interface works according to the same
mathematical and energetic principles as the rest of nature
• Your personal interface is ultimately a sophisticated, interactive
mirror
Interfacing with the Divine
The Divine Imagination
Entheogens primarily do one thing: they open up an
individual’s ability to perceive and experience energy. This takes many
forms and can appear as many different kinds of experiences, but all
entheogenic experiences are energetic experiences in the same sense
that all of reality is made of energy, yet there is still a great deal of
diversity.
Working with entheogens is a direct method of accessing the
Divine Imagination, the matrix of all possible energetic permutations.
The Divine Imagination is accessed directly through your personal
interface, or your consciousness as mediated through the structural
network of your body. Given that entheogens function as
neurotransmitters and that tryptamines are endogenous to the human
body, when we add a very small amount of additional tryptamines to
our bodies, our interface begins to function in a heightened manner and
our ability to perceive and experience energetic forms expands, and
with high level tryptamines such as extracted DMT or 5-MeO-DMT,
opens completely.
The Divine Imagination is best accessed with eyes closed. In
this way, data is no longer being processed from “outside,” and instead
one can focus consciousness directly on the play of energetic forms of
the imagination and consciousness itself. In a very real sense, this is a
process of looking into a mirror. Everything that one might experience
68 Being Human
in such a state is merely a reflection of the self in one form or another.
However, given that most people are not prepared to accept themselves
as God, these mirror reflections take on all kinds of forms and can
appear as an infinite variety of visionary and psychedelic experiences.
Experience in the Divine Imagination has a paradoxical quality
to it in that what one experiences is often taken to be “other,” or “not
self.” Keep in mind that human existence is itself paradoxical: you are
both an individual living being in a body with a self-identity and God
simultaneously. When working in the Divine Imagination, you are
actually interacting with yourself as God from your perspective as a
unique individual. Until you learn how to recognize yourself in the
mirror and accept that it is just you, you will experience the Divine
Imagination as something else. Rest assured, however, that it is just
you.
Archetypal Energies and Fundamental Geometry
One of the most distinctive features of the Divine Imagination is
its geometric quality. This is especially obvious during higher-level
experiences with tryptamines. Behind closed eyes, intricate
kaleidoscopic images undulate and writhe with stunning radial
symmetry. Fractals spin their patterns across universal grids.
Sophisticated images with distinctive bilateral symmetry shimmer in
translucent light of geometric forms. Patterns overlap and interplay
with one another. Infinite spectrums of color give form to subtle
gradations to energy. The living world of pure energy becomes
immediately apparent and open to observation and inspection.
Within these visionary energetic structures we find the
fundamental energetic archetypes of manifest reality. Here, in the
Divine Imagination, energy exists in potential or archetypal form: that
which exists prior to embodiment in physical form. These are not
psychological archetypes. They are more energetic blueprints or basic
building blocks of reality.
These are the energetic blueprints from which living beings
form as well as inorganic physical structures. When observing these
energies, it is very easy for the mind to recognize basic energetic forms
and begin to structure them into concrete images of creatures, beings,
landscapes, etc. When such happens, people tend to describe
themselves as having a “vision” or as encountering beings in a
Interfacing with the Divine 69
visionary realm. These are constructs of the mind, however, and are
not actual “encounters” with any other beings, for they are just
reflections of yourself.
It is easy to be confused by the Divine Imagination and indeed,
it would seem that most of what we take as religious revelation is the
product of individuals who have been confused by their experiences
within the Divine Imagination. When people have visions, a common
claim is that it must have been “real” because it was so far beyond
anything that the individual could have imagined that it couldn’t
possibly be a product of the mind. The problem is that human
consciousness is not normally open to such a heightened perception of
energetic possibilities and our engagement with our imagination takes
place at a very low level of perception. When we work with
entheogens, these limiting factors are suspended and our experience of
imagination takes on fantastical qualities. Just keep in mind that you
are transcending limited, human imagination and entering into the
Divine Imagination, where anything and everything is possible.
It is also important to keep in mind that when entering the
Divine Imagination, you are opening yourself up to an infinite amount
of potential information that will seem to be far beyond anything that
you think you personally know or can account for. Remember that you
are actually God in human form and God is all things and all living
beings. While your vehicle (your consciousness in this body) is not
able to process all this information simultaneously, you do have access
to it in limited form. This means that there is potentially nothing that
you can’t know or experience, at least in some sense.
Let’s consider an example. In a visionary state, a shaman
experiences the spirit of a plant coming to him and telling him how a
particular plant can be used to treat some ailment. In the shamanic
context, the shaman takes this experience at face value as a
communication between two beings. However, this is not what is
happening. The shaman is God and is therefore the plant, the shaman,
the patient, and the disease. The communication is experienced as
something transpiring between beings, but this is a fundamental
confusion. Really it is just one being interacting with itself in the
illusory form of different characters with different perspectives. In
actuality, they are all one. The shaman experiences the knowledge of
healing as being granted to him by outside spirits and agencies, but they
are really just visionary versions of himself. He is interacting with
70 Being Human
himself in a mirror. The knowledge he gives himself is something he
already knows but just doesn’t know that he knows it.
From the Possibilities of the Divine Imagination to the Actuality of
Manifestation
Energy is constantly translating from the realm of infinite
possibilities into the realm of actuality, or what we collectively call
reality. The energetic possibilities in the imagination are what are
playing out here in reality, or what is actually taking place. It is
important to understand that while there are infinite possibilities in the
Divine Imagination, reality itself is unitary. Geometric forms can
rapidly morph into beings that change from one form to another very
quickly in the Divine Imagination. In reality, such morphing does not
take place at an imaginary level but rather takes years of evolution to
actually be achieved. Actual reality does not work according to
imaginal principles. Reality works according to basic energetic
principles that interact and evolve over time to create what is actual. It
is possible for the fractal energetic form of a lizard to transform into a
human. In the Divine Imagination, this only takes a brief moment. In
actuality, it takes millions of years of evolution to be accomplished.
However, human agency plays a direct evolutionary role in this
process. While “nature” has to work according to evolutionary
principles as structured by mathematical permutations of fundamental
energy, there are aspects of the Divine Imagination that humans can
recreate freely and manifest as aspects of human culture, which is itself
a transcendent feature of biological evolution. Because humans have
self-conscious awareness and the physical ability to transform the
world around us with our hands, we can choose to move energy to
create what we experience in the Divine Imagination. God is therefore
no longer limited by physical evolution, but can engage in imaginative,
cultural evolution as well.
A great deal of what we identify as human culture is a product
of this process, and numerous examples abound. Let’s start with art.
The earliest expressions of human culture took the form of cave
paintings. A near-universal feature of early cave paintings is geometric
forms with bilateral and radial symmetry. Lines, grids, and repetition
of patterns are common as well. So too are animal-human hybrids and
fantastical animals. These are all things that humans encounter in the
Interfacing with the Divine 71
Divine Imagination in the entheogenic experience. The birth of human
cultures therefore coincides with moving energy from the possibilities
of the Divine Imagination into physical form through art.
A curious feature of the Divine Imagination is that it is very
common for people to perceive patterns of energy that they can
immediately identify as being culture-specific. For example, Celtic
knots are a common perception with tryptamines. Similarly, people
may also encounter what appears to be Meso-American motifs, Islamic
arabesques, Buddhist symbols, Aboriginal dot paintings, or Egyptian
hieroglyphics. A common, though entirely mistaken, interpretation is
that people believe themselves to be having “past life experiences” or
“traveling in the astral” to these other times and realms. This is a
fundamentally mistaken interpretation, however. What people are
experiencing are merely archetypal energy patterns. In other words,
there’s nothing “Celtic” about seeing a Celtic knot while on
tryptamines. The visionary is merely perceiving the same formations
of energy that early Celts perceived in their entheogenic trances and
then developed as a cultural artistic pattern and aesthetic. The same
holds true for other “cultural” motifs in visionary states. These forms
of artistic creation and expression all have their source in the Divine
Imagination.
Another example is language itself. In the Divine Imagination,
all energy is perceived and experienced as being communicative and
expressive. All energy has a qualitative and affective aspect to it (think
of the expressive quality of music, for example), because all energy is
conscious and an aspect of God. Speech and language is the expression
of energy with the intent of clear communication. Through entering
into the Divine Imagination, humans learned how to make meaning out
of energetic expressions and thus the birth of human language.
Even written language seems to have its origins in the Divine
Imagination. Ancient societies often claimed that their written
language was given to them directly by God. The ancient language of
Sanskrit, as a written form, is called Devanagri, which means
“language of the city of the Gods.” It is well known that ancient
Indians used entheogens and it is traditionally claimed that Sanskrit
was both seen and heard in trance states of consciousness. Thus the
written as well as the spoken form of Sanskrit comes directly out of
states of heightened perception of energy.
72 Being Human
Human architecture also has its origins in the Divine
Imagination. Experiences of temples, palaces, pyramids, and other
dramatic structures are common in entheogenic visionary states.
Inspired by their visions, humans have successfully recreated those
visions in actual architecture. It is no coincidence that, traditionally,
the grandest examples of human architecture have all been devoted to
expressions of religious cultures and traditions. It is also no
coincidence that grand religious architecture tends to exhibit significant
radial and bilateral symmetry in fractal forms with ratios that reflect the
golden mean. These are direct products of the Divine Imagination as
actualized through human hands.
Even science and technology has its origins in the Divine
Imagination. Though scientists don’t often publicize this, many
scientific breakthroughs and discoveries were made in dreams and
visualizations, and even in some cases with entheogens. Mathematics
and geometry were first developed in ancient Greece, India, and MesoAmerica;
all places where entheogens were used as a primary means of
religious and cultural activity. Visionary experiences of advanced
technology are also common with entheogens. The internet and our
basic computer software and hardware systems were mostly designed
by entheogen users on the west coast of California. Technology is
nothing but the accurate application of knowledge to the energetic
structures of reality. Our best technology is immediately inspired by
the Divine Imagination.
Clearly religion itself has its origins in the Divine Imagination,
but here we largely find a conflation between imagination and reality
where the images and experiences in the Divine Imagination are taken
literally, rather than as the energetic possibilities that they actually are.
The same can be said for modern-day beliefs in UFOs and aliens –
imaginal experiences that are taken as literally true.
Overall, it is easy to see that humans, in their most expressive
and intelligent forms, are directly inspired by the Divine Imagination.
Infinity Spectrums
Different entheogens provide different forms of access to the
Divine Imagination and can be characterized as infinity spectrums. The
basic idea here is that while all entheogens potentially open one up to
an infinite variety of experiences and perceptions, the spectrums of
Interfacing with the Divine 73
different medicines are distinct. Let’s consider a few examples to
understand how this manifests.
Salvia Divinorum
Salvia divinorum is an entheogenic sage plant from Mexico and
remains largely legal to possess and use. Salvia is unique in the
entheogenic world as its active compound, Salvinorin-A, is not related
to any other class of entheogen. Its impact on the nervous system and
brain is limited in the sense that it only interacts with one receptor site,
as opposed to tryptamines, which interact with a much broader
spectrum of receptors.
Experiences with salvia are unique and have an unmistakable
quality to them that is easily distinguished from other entheogens.
When compared to other entheogens, especially tryptamines, salvia
experiences seem thick, sticky, and clownish or cartoonish. In a very
basic sense, the spectrum of salvia experiences is less expansive than
tryptamines and as such, by comparison, seem to be comprised of
“fewer pixels” and are of a lower or slower vibration.
Take the cartoonish quality of salvia, for example. If salvia is a
cartoon experience, then by comparison, DMT is high-resolution
computer graphics. The spectrums of colors in salvia experiences are
not as varied or as finely detailed as with DMT. Swaths of color are
darker, less bright, and tend to be more gross – like the difference
between painting with a large brush versus drawing with a fine-tipped
pen.
Similarly, the energy of the experience feels thicker and slower
than tryptamines. Rather than the buzzing, high-frequency energy of
tryptamines, salvia feels like one is getting pushed, pulled, and
stretched out like taffy in a taffy machine. It is very common for
people to feel pushed over by salvia because of this quality of the
energetic experience.
Visually, this often translates into visual images that appear
cartoonish or clownish in nature. Many people describe salvia as being
like a “funhouse” or “circus,” and there is often an odd, ironic sense of
humor and absurdity to the experience. Many who go looking for
“divine” experiences of angels and heavenly choirs come away from
salvia sorely disappointed because all they got was clowns and carnival
rides.
74 Being Human
At high-level salvia experiences, most people report variations
on the same fundamental theme: reality unzips, turns itself inside out a
few times, and eventually reassembles back into the familiar. This
happens quite rapidly and can be uniquely unnerving, especially as
many people forget they’ve taken salvia when this begins to unfold.
Even with eyes wide open, one’s immediate environment disappears
and all one can perceive is this strange fractal of energy that looks a lot
like a hyper-dimensional zipper (and can also appear as conveyor belts,
serpents, or “worm holes”) that starts to unzip (it really can be uncanny
how much this looks like an actual zipper, complete with teeth and all),
and as it does, begins to fold over on itself and turn inside out in all
directions at once. As it does so, consciousness fractals out, leaving
one feeling like there are many “others” present at the same time, and
physically one feels the sticky, taffy-like quality of the energy moving
through one’s body in patterned, fractal form.
Such an experience is a full energetic opening with salvia. One
is completely immersed in the energetic state of perception and
experience. However, since salvia has a rather limited infinity
spectrum, the experience is nearly always the same with the same
features and qualities.
Psilocybin Mushrooms
The infinity spectrum opened up by psilocybin mushrooms,
which contain forms of DMT, a tryptamine, is far broader than that of
salvia. With mushrooms, the energy starts to take on a buzzing quality,
as opposed to the slowly oscillating vibrations of salvia. The difference
is immediately obvious. What might have appeared as a spectrum of
five shades of color with salvia appears as a spectrum of a hundred
shades of color with mushrooms. Especially at higher-level
experiences, the gradations in color and fine geometry of mushrooms
become exquisitely beautiful and captivating and can be a rapturous
experience.
Given the fine variations in geometry, it is easier for full
visionary experiences to open up with mushrooms than with salvia as
there is more structure for your consciousness to work with.
Fantastical scenes and creatures are common, especially with eyes
closed. Such visions can also seem uniquely realistic and seem to
reflect actual reality in a way that salvia often doesn’t. Cartoonish and
Interfacing with the Divine 75
clownish are not common descriptions of mushroom experiences
whereas they are for salvia.
Energetically, mushrooms can also make your body vibrate,
especially at higher doses. As crystalline structures, DMT molecules
amplify your energy, which tends to vibrate your body, especially when
there is resistance of any kind (mental, physical, emotional). Relaxing
your body can help minimize vibrations as can an internal willingness
to let go. They don’t hurt, however, and are not anything to worry
about, and can actually feel quite good. Relaxing through vibrations
tends to bring about deeper experiences, though, so it is usually
beneficial not to try and perpetuate vibrations when they occur.
Vibrating is also a clear sign that you are opening to your
energy. As your capacity to manage your energy increases, so will the
amount of energy that you process. Vibrating helps to break through
your resistances and the more open you become, the more blockages
you will remove. Sessions with mushrooms can be very useful for this.
Ayahuasca and its Analogues
Ayahuasca is a step up the infinity spectrum scale from
psilocybin mushrooms. Ayahuasca is traditionally prepared with DMT
containing plants, but is also mixed with 5-MeO-DMT containing
plants as well as members of the rather dangerous nightshade family,
such as datura or brugmansia.
In terms of sophistication of experience, ayahuasca is very
similar to psilocybin mushrooms, but often feels more sophisticated
and of a broader infinity spectrum. Vibrations of energy become even
more common and stronger with ayahuasca. The feeling of energy
moving through one’s body and consciousness is even more palpable
and immediate with ayahuasca, and the digestive action (purging and
diarrhea) accentuates this. Geometric forms and variations of colors
and patterns are even more subtle and intricate than with mushrooms,
and the experience is more enveloping. It is also quicker acting than
mushrooms, so the rise, peak and decline are more dramatic than
mushrooms, which also heightens the perception and experience of
energy. It takes you further, faster, and in greater beauty and
sophistication.
76 Being Human
Extracted and Synthetic DMT
Dimethyltryptamine can be extracted from a wide variety of
plants, and is even present in high enough quantities in some plants that
they can be smoked directly with no extraction and a full DMT
experience can ensue. A full DMT experience comes on in about the
time it takes to take a breath and lasts for only 10-15 minutes if
smoked, or 30-40 minutes if injected (which is a rather uncommon
method of consumption of DMT as most vaporize or smoke it).
Though DMT is the active ingredient in mushrooms and ayahuasca, in
its extracted form it is absorbed and processed must faster than in these
other mediums and therefore is far more powerful and intense.
Because of its extremely powerful and fast acting nature, DMT
is not necessarily as effective as a “medicine” as are mushrooms and
ayahuasca. Mushrooms and ayahuasca give the visionary a good
amount of time to explore themselves and receive lessons in the Divine
Imagination. DMT, on the other hand, is more of a rocket ride that one
really just needs to let happen and remember to breathe. In other
words, mushrooms and ayahuasca are much better for people who have
“issues” to heal. DMT is best for those who are looking to get
comfortable with their fully open energetic state. DMT is therefore a
great tool for learning to manage your energy in a highly expanded
state.
Body tremors, vibrations, and seemingly involuntary
symmetrical movements are common in the wide-open energetic state
of a DMT experience. Within the span of a breath, most people find
themselves more profoundly altered perceptually and energetically than
they ever thought possible as they are flooded with the high-level
vibrations of energy that DMT makes accessible. Within this state,
reality becomes a hyper-vivid collection of energy patterns, fractals,
and geometric kaleidoscopes of radial and bilateral symmetry. These
hyper-vivid energy patterns can very easily transform into very realseeming
beings and reports of gods, aliens, alternate realms, and other,
strange hybrid beings are very common with DMT experiences. These
are all reflections in the mirror of the Divine Imagination, however, and
none of them have any ontological reality outside of the immediate
perceptual experience.
By comparison, ayahuasca and mushrooms seem like playing in
the kiddie pool. A full DMT experience is simply so expansive and
Interfacing with the Divine 77
total that no amount of work with mushrooms or ayahuasca can really
prepare one. At lower levels, DMT is similar to a high-level ayahuasca
or mushroom experience, but once a certain threshold is crossed, the
range of DMT is just so far beyond these other medicines that
comparisons quickly break down. The geometry, fractals, and patterns
are always of a family resemblance, however, yet their complexity and
sophistication is greater by infinite degrees.
5-MeO-DMT
The crown jewel of all entheogens is 5-methoxydimethyltryptamine
and can reasonably be called “the God molecule.”
Infinitely more powerful than DMT, 5-MeO-DMT gives rise to
probably the fullest possible energetic expansion that the human body
can process. In terms of infinity spectrums, 5-MeO-DMT opens one to
the pure infinite nature of all possible energetic permutations. It also
fairly effectively dissolves the ego within a few moments if the subject
is willing to let go and trust the experience unconditionally. In this
sense, for those who are able to let go, an experience of 5-MeO-DMT is
a near instantaneous expansion into one’s full energetic state as God
(within the limits of what can be experienced within the human body).
A near-universal reaction by those who have experienced 5-MeO-DMT
is that this experience is definitively IT! Though it can be challenging
to process exactly what that “IT!” is, this conclusion is very difficult to
deny. Personally, it was my first experience with 5-MeO-DMT that
permanently moved me out of the agnostic/atheist camp into direct
knowledge of the existence of God, and in many respects, this entire
guide is the product of this transformation and the subsequent
understanding of the nature of reality as a unitary, fractal energetic
system.
And for anyone who is still inclined to react by saying, “but
that’s just a drug experience,” I will remind you that 5-MeO-DMT is a
natural neurotransmitter that is already present in each and every
human being on this planet (as is DMT). Given that all of our
experiences of reality are mediated by neurotransmitters, all of reality
is a “drug” experience. With different levels of neurotransmitters in
our system, we are able to perceive and experience the energy of reality
in different ways. That does not make the perception and experience
78 Being Human
less real or valid – only different (provided that we can remain clear of
confusion through our interactions with the Divine Imagination).
Unlike the other entheogens discussed here, 5-MeO-DMT is
largely non-visual in quality. Though it can give rise to perceptions of
pure, crystalline fractal rainbow light, visuals are not a defining feature
of the 5-MeO-DMT experience (and is a major distinction between 5-
MeO and the hyper-visual nature of DMT). Rather, 5-MeO-DMT is
more an experience of pure energy beyond any form or representation.
And it is quite significant that this energy is immediately perceived to
be not only fundamentally true and the actual nature of reality, but it is
also experienced as conscious and as being pure, absolute, and
unconditional love itself. It is your absolute nature as God, a conscious
energy being that is made out of love. 5-MeO-DMT is simply the most
pure and clear mirror for experiencing your true energetic nature.
Key Ideas
• Entheogens open one up to experiences of energy in the Divine
Imagination
• The fundamental matrix of energy in the Divine Imagination is
comprised of patterns and fractal geometry
• Visions in the Divine Imagination arise out of the energetic
matrix
• Much of what we take to be cultural products are reflections of
energy patterns within the Divine Imagination
• Conscious entry into the Divine Imagination drives cultural
evolution and personal expression
• Different medicines open one up to different “infinity
spectrums” and therefore have unique characteristics of energy,
perception, and experience
Interfacing with the Divine 79
The Nature of the Journey
Though each medicine is different, when working with
tryptamines, there are some common dynamics of the experience that
are worth commenting on. Journeys can be broken down into phases
that are fairly consistent. The first phase is onset. With mushrooms
this can take up to the first couple hours of the experience. With
ayahuasca, the first thirty minutes or so. For DMT the onset is less
than 5 minutes. With 5-MeO-DMT it is about 10 minutes. This is the
phase where the medicine is building up to its peak, or the most intense
and expansive part of the experience. During this onset phase the
experience grows in waves. With DMT and 5-MeO, the onset begins
with the first breath, but with mushrooms and ayahuasca, it can take up
to an hour before the actual onset even begins.
Onset is followed by the peak. This is the most expansive and
intense part of the experience. With DMT, and especially 5-MeODMT,
the peak is so massive and so total that it defies description. It is
brief, however, and then the experience begins to return back to
baseline. With ayahuasca and mushrooms the peak lasts longer and
then there is a gradual return to baseline, with mushrooms taking the
longest. It is during the peak that the ego is the most relaxed and
people experience their energy in its most expansive state. It is also
when most people feel the greatest mystical awareness of themselves as
the divine.
To make it successfully through these first two phases, it is
important to relax, trust, and let go. Egos can initially react with a great
deal of discomfort and distress at the experience of energetically
opening up, and these early phases can produce a considerable amount
of fear and anxiety. Really, all that can be done is to surrender to the
experience, let it unfold as it will, and trust that you will be able to
handle it and that you will eventually come back, even though it might
not feel like it at the time. Generally, if there is resistance, once it is
overcome, it has been dealt with for that particular session and is
unlikely to return until sometime after the peak, if at all.
After the peak, the next stage of return then begins to unfold.
This is another important transitional moment, for this is when egos
start to reassert themselves once more after the initial transcendence
through the expansion and peak. At this point, egos start to realize that
they are “coming back” and might try and bring the session to a
80 Being Human
conclusion prematurely. For example, when working with DMT, salvia,
or 5-MeO, many people begin to try and vocalize about their
experience at this time, commenting on how beautiful, strange, or
profound it is. If a sitter is present, this is a good time to remind the
person not to rush the experience and continue to focus inwards. The
temptation is for egos to bring themselves out of the experience and get
back to “normal.” However, some of the most important personal
revelations can come at this time. The voyager has just been through a
radically altered perspective and now has fresh insights to bring to their
personal issues and choices. This is a great time to integrate and bring
the lessons home and own them. Also, it can be particularly
challenging to try and articulate what one has just been through at this
time and trying to do so can be distracting from the process that is still
at work.
The return is also another phase that can feature significant
vibrations. As egos are becoming more present at this time, individuals
may begin to feel their resistances and blocks start to reform and this
can translate into vibrations in the body, especially of the limbs. This is
particularly the case with DMT and 5-MeO-DMT. At this time people
may feel that they are unable to manage the high level of energetic
vibrations. In extreme cases, this can manifest as purging. More often,
however, release is achieved through physically vibrating.
The key to the process of the journey really is the ego. In order
for the journey to successfully begin, the ego has to surrender to the
process. When egos refuse to surrender, it becomes a “bad trip” as
one’s God self will happily oblige to work the refusing ego over.
Generally, however, egos get the point and relax during the onset phase
of the journey. During the peak, the ego is more or less transcended
and the voyager is fully enveloped by the experience. As soon as the
peak has passed, however, the ego can sense that it is no longer
necessary for it to surrender, for the wave have cashed and now the
journey back begins. The ego jumps on this opportunity and will
attempt to begin reasserting itself immediately. To get the most out of
the experience, it is important to remember to continue to surrender and
relax the ego. One of the primary ways this can be achieved is through
body posture and movement.
Interfacing with the Divine 81
Posture and Movement
Though it is popular to describe entheogenic experiences,
especially high-level ones, as “out-of-body” experiences, it is important
to note that no such thing actually exists or occurs. Keep in mind that
while consciousness is not a product of the physical body, your
perspective as a living vehicle for God is dependent on your body.
When one works with entheogens, one is opening up to an energetic
experience. By immersing oneself fully in the energetic experience,
one enters the Divine Imagination. Here all kinds of experiences and
perceptions are possible, and it is very easy for one to forget that one is
in a body. Keep in mind that when in the Divine Imagination, one has
potential access to any aspect of the divine. Always remember that
God is all things and all beings. There is an infinite variety of
experiences that await one in the Divine Imagination. All of the energy
of the experience is mediated through one’s vehicle, however, and
energetic experiences are always experiences in the body, which is the
locus of your energetic matrix. An “out-of-body” experience, in the
literal, as opposed to experiential sense, is an impossibility. (Correlated
with this fundamental truth is that there is no such thing as disembodied
consciousness or beings – all true beings exist in a body. All
experiences of “spirits” or “disembodied beings” are just that –
experiences in the Divine Imagination.)
A phrase that is more useful than “out-of-body” is “full
energetic opening.” When one surrenders and opens fully to one’s
energy, one is able to energetically experience oneself as not being
identified with just the physical body. However, unless one is centered
in the core of one’s being, a full energetic opening can certainly send
one wandering about in the Divine Imagination in such a manner that
one has the impression of having left the body behind. However, it is
only attention and awareness that has left the body behind.
Consciousness itself hasn’t actually “gone” anywhere. Reality is
always a local phenomenon that is mediated through the physical body.
Relax into your center. This is your primary energetic goal
when working with entheogens. When the energy opens up, it is easy
to get carried away by it. The Divine Imagination turns into a
maelstrom of flowing, shifting geometric forms, patterns, and energy.
Images arise and stories begin to form. As long as you are not in your
center, it will be challenging to recognize all that reveals itself to you as
82 Being Human
yourself. When you are firmly relaxed into your center, the mirror of
self is clear and you can easily recognize yourself in all that you
perceive and experience. Maintaining your center in these experiences
and throughout your journey is training for maintaining the integrity of
your energy in everyday life. Monitoring your body can help
tremendously in this process.
Movement and Working with Energy
Give your ego the goal of staying still. This means that you
make an agreement with yourself that you will only move when it is
absolutely necessary, or if you feel inspired by the medicine to do so.
This is a way of keeping your ego in check. Egos want to find ways to
distract you from the work that you are doing. Remember that the
function of the ego is to maintain the illusion of separation at all costs,
and it will use every trick it can think of to pull you back into its sphere
of influence. This can translate into fidgeting, physical discomfort,
itches, twitches, etc. If you can recognize these distractions and keep
your attention focused on the task of exploring your energy, then you
can avoid unnecessary movement or adjustments that only serve to
bring you out of the moment.
Ironically, the more one relaxes, the more one might feel
“moved.” This is very different from the physical distractions created
by ego. The ego distractions almost always come in the form of “I
need to attend to this,” “I need to adjust this,” “If I can just take care of
this, then I’ll feel better,” etc. Being moved does not have this
“personal” quality to it, and in fact, more often feels like one is literally
being moved by forces that appear to come from outside oneself. Of
course there is nothing outside of oneself, but this is a manifestation of
the fundamental paradox of being: You are both a unique individual
and God simultaneously. In this sense, your self as God can interact
with yourself as “you” in a way that appears as though something
exterior is interacting with you. In other words, when working with the
medicines, people sometimes feel “possessed” by spirits or energies
that seem to compel them to move their bodies or make various sounds.
Though such an experience can be disturbing, it is actually a
sign of healthy progress. The key to integrating it successfully and
realistically is to own the energy. There is a very serious potential ego
trap here. Remember that egos don’t want to own the energy. Egos
Interfacing with the Divine 83
want to convince you that the energy is “other” and will create all kinds
of stories and experiences to convince you of this “reality.” For
example, it is much easier for an ego to convince itself that it was
possessed by the “Holy Spirit” that “descended into it” than it is for the
ego to accept that you were merely experiencing yourself. Similarly, it
is easier for an ego to accept that it was possessed by a demon rather
than own up to the fact that all that negative energy is the result of the
individual playing too many ego games that have prevented the
individual from properly and honestly expressing itself. To truly
integrate yourself and your experience and reside in your energetic
center, you have to own all of this energy – the “good” and the “bad.”
It is all you, so own it. Don’t put the responsibility off on someone or
something else, even God. It’s all you!
The more you own the energy and take responsibility for it, the
closer you will get to your energetic center (which is also the center of
all things and the “location” where God resides). Physically, this is
the center of your heart, which is also from where the strongest
electromagnetic field of your physical body emanates in the form of a
torus (another torus of electromagnetic energy is produced by the brain,
but it is far weaker than the torus of the heart). To get to the center of
your heart, there could be a great deal of energy you need to work
through. If you have lived a life of suffering, pain, judgment, fear,
anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction, etc., then chances are you’ve built
up all kinds of personally harmful patterns of behavior, choice, and
reaction. You’ll need to unwind all of these patterns and energetic
residues in order to successfully relax in the center of your heart and
being. Given that most people have these patterns, most people have
some work to do to discover and own their true center.
Coming to own your energy is like doing a dance or playing a
game with yourself. When you begin, your energy can definitively feel
like something outside and exterior to you, as does the deepened level
of consciousness that comes with it. The more you work with it, the
more your sense of personal identity can expand outside the usual
confines of your ego. As you do this, the “distance” between “you”
and the energy you perceive and experience as coming from outside of
you collapses. When you eventually reach the center of your being, the
difference is completely obliterated and you are able to take
responsibility and ownership for all of your energy, not just the energy
that your ego tries to convince you is “you.”
84 Being Human
Perceptually, one’s “visions” will change as this process
progresses. The more you own your energy, the more likely you are to
see fractals, geometry, and energy patterns as opposed to visions of
beings, creatures, landscapes, and other specific imagery. Remember
that all “visions” arise out of a fundamental matrix of fractal geometry.
The more you can stay focused on the energetic matrix, the less prone
you are to being caught by ego-generated illusions. Visually, the
geometry tends to exhibit more coherency and symmetry when you are
in a centered state. This is a more accurate reflection of yourself in the
mirror of the Divine Imagination than any “vision” that contains
specific imagistic content. God, after all, is not any thing. It is the
energy from which all things arise, and that energy functions according
to the parameters of fractal geometry. When you are able to perceive
yourself clearly, this is what you will see.
The perfect symmetry of the centered state is also reflected in
body movements and posture in that centered individuals tend to
exhibit mirrored bilateral symmetry in their physical movements (when
letting themselves be moved by the energy without resistance).
Movements also take on a flowing character, usually after one has
processed through their resistance in the form of vibrating or
convulsing. Once the body has been accustomed to the energy and
resistance has broken down, then the vibrations can manifest as
smooth, fluid, mirrored, symmetrical movements. This can only occur
when the ego is suspended or transcended. Vibrations indicate that the
ego is still struggling with the energy. Smooth movements indicate that
the struggle has been released.
Maintaining Posture
How you hold your body has a direct and immediate impact on
your entheogenic experience and should always be kept in mind in
order to maximize the effectiveness of any entheogenic session.
Consider the following guidelines:
Uncrossed appendages
Keep arms and legs uncrossed at all times. This is simple
energetics and there is no deep metaphysical secret here. Your central
core of energy is found along your central axis and runs from your head
Interfacing with the Divine 85
to the base of your torso. It is along this axis that your central energy
centers are located in your physical being. Your arms and legs are then
conduits and energy channels, but not energy centers. Always keep in
mind that your bio-physical energy is electromagnetic and therefore
carries a positive and negative charge. When you cross your arms or
legs, you are actually crossing over energy currents. There isn’t
anything necessarily “wrong” with this, other than that it can make the
energy of the experience more convoluted, like crossing over two wires
that really shouldn’t be touching. You’ll have a far easier time
remaining centered in your natural flow if you keep your arms and legs
uncrossed. Remember: your energy is perfectly symmetrical in a
bilateral fractal expression. Crossing arms and legs perturbs your
natural bilateral symmetrical expression. It can also create muscle
cramps and physical discomfort due to the confused energy flow. This
is easy to avoid: just remain uncrossed and symmetrical.
Sitting
When working with medicines in a seated position, your main
concern is to keep the above issue of uncrossed appendages in mind in
order to maximize your smooth energy flow. This means if you are
seated in a chair, keep both feet planted firmly on the floor, ideally
keeping your feet flat. Energy grounds out through your feet and
keeping your feet flat allows for a smoother transfer of energy, as
opposed to being on tip toes, for example. Keep in mind that large
energy discharges can create “energy burns” on your toenails. It
doesn’t hurt (though it might prick and tingle), but it can make toenails
look pretty ugly. Keeping your feet flat can help minimize the
possibility of this happening. If it does, don’t worry – your toenails
will eventually grow out and look pretty again!
Also, when seated in a chair, keep your back straight and your
arms at your side. It is best to keep you hands on your lap with palms
facing up. Remember that body posture communicates receptivity at an
energetic level. Having your palms facing up energetically says, “I’m
ready to receive.” Putting your hands down says, “I’m keeping to
myself.” Also, putting your hands on your legs can cause energy to
flow from your hands into your legs and can make discharging and
grounding through your feet more of an issue than it might otherwise
86 Being Human
be. Always keep in mind that your hands are powerful conduits and are
extremely sensitive to energy.
When sitting on the floor, many people want to sit in a
meditation position (lotus, half-lotus or crossed legs) as this is what
they are accustomed to through their mediation practice. Meditation is
about calming the mind and transcending the concerns of the body,
however, whereas medicine work is about opening to energy. While
meditation and medicine work have some similarities in practice, they
are actually quite different modalities of work, and thus the postures of
one modality don’t necessarily translate into the other. For medicine
work, crossed legs are not recommended for the energetic reasons listed
above. Thus, when sitting on the floor, legs should be kept out straight
or legs can be bent with the soles of the feet pressed together. This last
posture makes for a nice, contained energy circuit. Your legs will
make a diamond shape in front of you. This provides a nice base to sit
on and does not confuse the energy at all.
When sitting in this manner, you might be tempted to hold your
feet with your hands. There is nothing wrong with this, but be aware
that you can created an intense energy loop by doing so and can build
up a significant charge in your body. This can manifest as serious
muscle cramping and a feeling of overheating in your core. If this
occurs, crouch down and place your feet and hands flat on the ground
and take some deep breaths, letting your breath pass out of you slowly.
This will help to ground out the energy. As soon as you feel better,
resume your position and continue your journey.
As with sitting in a chair, when sitting on the floor, be mindful
of your hand positions. The best position, and most reflective of
openly receiving, is keeping hands at your sides or lap, palms up, ready
to receive. This is passive reception, however, and not grasping or
desiring. It is a body posture that says, “I’m not necessarily looking for
anything in particular, but am ready and willing to receive whatever
comes my way, regardless of what I think about it.” This is a body
posture that helps put the ego in its place.
While it is your goal to avoid fidgeting, be mindful of how the
energy is moving you. If you feel the energy moving your hands or
arms, set your ego aside and let it happen. You may find that your
hands spontaneously start forming into what Buddhists and Hindus call
mudras (think of statues of Buddhas and Hindu deities and their hand
gestures). It might be tempting to think that such a phenomenon means
Interfacing with the Divine 87
something. Don’t give into the temptation. It does not mean that you
are a bodhisattva or an avatar or anything else! All it means is that you
are being willing and open to letting the energy move you.
Another spontaneous hand gesture is the “prayer” gesture of
hands open and pressed together before the heart. If you feel you need
to center yourself, this is a good gesture to make. When you feel
centered, return your hands to the neutral position on your lap. Don’t
be surprised when, as you naturally become more centered, your hands
seem to float into this position all of their own accord as you open to
the energy flowing through you. This is a good sign, but don’t get
attached to it!
The more relaxed you become and the closer you get into your
center, the more likely you are to spontaneously move in mirrored
symmetry with your arms, and making the “prayer” gesture is just the
beginning. Energy is always flowing by its very nature and is never
static. In terms of body movements, this means that your arms will
start to move in flowing, fluid movements the more centered you are in
the energy. When you are truly centered, all of your movements will
exhibit total mirrored bilateral symmetry. In other words, your hands
and arms will mirror each other and will function together as a unit.
However, your arms will not cross over each other and at most your
hands will come together and meet in the middle to mirror each other.
When energy is working naturally and spontaneously, energy currents
do not cross over one another: they mirror each other.
Lying Down
The same conditions that apply to sitting apply to lying down.
Arms should be kept at your sides with palms open, facing upwards.
Legs should be kept uncrossed and slightly spread apart. Don’t move
unless you feel inspired to do so.
The temptation, when lying down and things become difficult
or challenging, is to move from a relaxed and open position to a closed
and protective position. Generally, this takes the form of the fetal
position. People curl up and try to energetically close themselves off
from the experience. Given that it is impossible to close yourself off
from the energy once you’ve taken a medicine, resorting to the fetal
position is a means of trying to ride out the experience in a protective
state. Chances are, this will make for a bad trip. Though it can seem
88 Being Human
frightening, bring yourself back to an open and receptive position
whenever this happens.
Another common form of resistance takes the form of rolling
from side to side or repeatedly turning over in place. This happens
when people resist letting the energy flow in symmetrical movements.
The rolling allows the energy to move, but it is in a confused and
“unnatural” way as the movements are a product of resistance. If you
are able, once more bring yourself back to a symmetrical posture and
hold your body in a state of openness, rather than resistance.
Fractal Energetic Yoga
Though I am currently the only person that I know of who can
do this, what you are eventually headed for is the ability to perform
what I call fractal energetic yoga. Once you have cleared away all of
your resistance and fully taken ownership and responsibility for your
energy, you should be able to perform fractal energetic yoga. I perform
these exercises on a daily basis, and when I work with the medicines as
well. As a regular exercise, I find that they help keep me centered and
authentic with my energy.
To begin, I sit on the floor with the soles of my feet and palms
of my hands pressed together. I then begin flowing with the energy by
rolling onto my back. Using a minimum of muscle and a maximum of
energy, I then lift my legs into the air, with my arms making fluid
motions at my sides and my heels pressed together. When I do so, I am
able to balance on a single point on my spine and do not need to use my
muscles to hold myself up. In other words, this is something of an
energetic balancing exercise through the authentic use of bio-physical
energy. I then go through free-form series of fluid movements using all
of my body as a mirrored symmetrical energetic system. It’s fantastic
exercise and is a genuine expression of my innate fractal geometry and
energy.
The more centered you become in your energy, the more you
should be able to do such exercises and the more natural and normal
they should feel. Don’t hurt yourself, but try experimenting! You can
do this with or without the medicines. (A video sample of Fractal
Energetic Yoga is available for viewing on my webpage,
www.martinball.net)
Interfacing with the Divine 89
Voicing
Another key area where energy is expressed is through voicing
and vocalizing. As with body movement, the same fundamental
distinction applies in terms of making an agreement with yourself not
to speak or say anything unless you feel inspired to do so. This is a
method for learning how to distinguish between the expressive
impulses of your ego and the expressive impulses of your genuine
energy.
Voicing and expressing energy linguistically can take different
forms for different people. A common experience is to “speak in
tongues.” Such an experience has no “religious” meaning whatsoever
and is not a “sign” of anything, other than that the person exhibiting
this behavior is letting themselves express their genuine energy. In this
sense, glossolalia can be understood as pure “energy language.” It is a
direct translation from one form of energy into another without any
specific meaning or linguistic intent.
Others experience vocal energetic expression in the form of
“mediumship” or “channeling.” With such behaviors, people generally
feel that their consciousness is being inhabited by some kind of being
or intelligence that exists outside of it and wants to express itself
through the vehicle of the person having the experience. Many
religions and spiritual traditions promote such kinds of experiences as
valid contact with “spirits,” “ancestors,” “ascended masters,” and other
such related interpretations. These “channeled” beings and voices are
merely part of the subject’s consciousness, however, and no matter how
“other” they seem, this is only an ego projection. When a person takes
ownership of their energy, this projected distinction dissolves.
In cases of unresolved energy, “mediumship” experiences can
become more like possession experiences. These are extreme cases
where people are not owning their energy and taking responsibility for
themselves. Voices, body posture, and movements can all alter
radically, giving the strong impression that “something” has taken
someone over. These are all just ways that energy expresses itself,
however, and should not be taken to be a literal possession in any
sense. If a person can take ownership of their energy, the “possession”
will dissolve in an instant.
Though it can feel silly to one’s ego, a perfectly effective
method for dealing with vocal phenomena is to have conversations with
90 Being Human
yourself. If you find that you start to manifest strange voices that seem
to compel you to speak when you work with the medicines, take the
opportunity to speak with the voices. It is actually quite easy to get into
a conversation with yourself in this manner and you might be surprised
at how easily your voice switches between what you would normally
identify as “your” voice and the voice of the “being” inside you. The
two voices can sound completely unlike each other. They are both you,
however, and this should be understood as a game or as role-playing.
Just like in a dream, the character of “you” can interact with other
characters that you experience as “not you,” but they are you, just the
same. Taking responsibility for your energy means learning how to
own those expressions of energy that seem to be “not you.” Vocalizing
and speaking in different voices is just one of several mediums through
which to practice this.
Speaking in voices and feeling inspired to say things is not the
same as hearing voices in your head. Some people hear voices when
they work with medicines or enter into altered states of consciousness.
In general, my advice is not to listen to the voices. Voices heard in the
head are projections of the ego. They are not genuine expressions of
innate energy. For example, when considering what to do in ordinary
life, you may hear a voice in your mind giving you advice in
considering your question. That voice can easily lead you astray by
playing off of your ego. Rather, when considering what choices to
make, center your attention on what you feel, not the voices in your
mind. This will always give you a clearer reading on the actual state of
your energy. The same holds true for working with the medicines.
Don’t pay attention to the voices in your head, but rather focus on what
you feel. Remember that it is the role of the ego to convince you of the
reality of its illusions at all times, and one of its primary methods to do
so is through internal dialogue and projection.
Purging
Occasionally, energy needs to be released through purging.
Some medicines, such as peyote and ayahuasca, lend themselves to
such experiences more than others. However, virtually any medicine
can lead to purging, depending on what is happening at a personal,
energetic level.
Interfacing with the Divine 91
In traditional shamanic cultures, purging is generally
understood to be a cleansing and purifying act to remove negative
energy from a person. This is not necessarily the case. Purging tends
to occur when people resist the energy of their experience, in one way
or another. Even the most cosmic sense of needing to purge or vomit
can be turned around in an instant if resistance can be let go of. If one
is not able to let go of the resistance, then the medicine could force it
out of the individual through purging. It is not necessary to go through
a purge, however, in many cases. For example, though ayahuasca
makes many people purge, some people rarely, if ever, purge with this
medicine.
Purging also occasionally occurs with DMT and 5-MeO-DMT.
With these medicines, purging is most likely at the very beginning of
the experience where the ego may still be trying to resist and hold on,
or at the transition between the peak and the return to baseline. After
the peak, the ego gets the idea that it can eventually regain control, so it
starts to reassert itself after the temporary suspension during the peak.
At this time, your ego may try and convince you that “this is too big,”
or “this is too much energy” and “you can’t handle this.” Your body
may then react by purging or vomiting.
Many people start to release energy before working with
medicines as well, due to anxiety and anticipation, especially before
working with such overwhelmingly powerful medicines as DMT and 5-
MeO. Here people may find that they need to use the restroom several
times before beginning their journey. Defecation and urination are both
ways of releasing pent up energy and freeing yourself up energetically.
Others may find that they suddenly have a great deal of gas and they
need to burp or break wind. If any of these things happen to you, don’t
judge yourself and just give yourself the time and space to let the
energy work itself out. There’s nothing to be embarrassed or selfconscious
about.
92 Being Human
Key Ideas
• Ego responses determine the quality of an entheogenic journey
• Ego resistance produces difficult journeys
• Egos will begin to reassert themselves immediately after the
peak of the experience
• Remember to relax and let go
• Body posture can significantly affect your experience
• Be mindful of your body
• Avoid distracting yourself with unnecessary movement or
sound
• Let the energy of the experience move you, not your ego
• Let the energy of the experience inspire your voice and choice
of words, not your ego
• Working with entheogens is a method of practicing letting your
natural energy express itself without the constraints of the ego
Interfacing with the Divine 93
Trust
Ultimately, working with entheogenic medicines is about
coming to know yourself and your energy. Though entheogenic
experiences can be frightening and intimately challenging, it is
important to rest in a state of trust. You can trust that transcending
your ego is the only genuine path to liberation and true personal
happiness, and that whatever work you require yourself to go through
in order to attain this is worth it. In the end, there is no difference
between trusting God and trusting yourself, for you are, after all, one
and the same. You can rest assured that whatever “God” puts you
through on your journey to claiming personal responsibility is exactly
what “you” need.
Entheogenic experience is a heightened experience of energy
and therefore is a heightened experience of your life. All of your
“issues” become amplified and exaggerated in the entheogenic
experience so that you may become aware of their true nature, and how
you are personally exercising choice and free will to create your reality.
While a great deal of reality is a given, there is a tremendous amount of
room for us to express free will and choice, and nowhere is this more
apparent than in how we choose to take responsibility for our energy
and for our reactions. Shit happens. We can’t control that. However,
we can control how we choose to react when shit happens, and this is
how we master our energy and take responsibility for it. You, as God,
are never a victim. Only egos are victims.
Working with entheogens is about learning how you are
actively creating illusions and ego dramas in your life through the
failure to take responsibility for yourself, your energy, and the games
that you create through your ego. Diving into the energetic world is
diving into the patterns that make up your life. It is a process of
looking into the mirror of who and what you are in order to get clear on
precisely how you are choosing to create your experience. This is not
easy work. It is much easier for egos to blame others for their problems
or look to outside sources for resolution – indeed, virtually all religions
and political and social systems play off this weakness of the ego.
Liberating yourself from your ego means not only liberating yourself
from yourself, but also from religion and social manipulations as well.
This is a process of developing true freedom. But true freedom comes
94 Being Human
with complete personal responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are
two sides of the same coin, and one cannot be achieved without the
other.
Working Through Your Lessons
Everything that you experience at every moment holds a
potential reflective lesson for you. All of reality is a mirror – no
exceptions! I guarantee you that you have lessons to learn and issues
to work on. Transcending the ego does not make your lessons and
issues disappear. In fact, in most instances, the ego is transcended for
only a brief period of time, such as when actively engaged with the
medicines, but then quickly reasserts itself as soon as it is able.
Working with medicines is therefore a practice. It is about learning
what it feels like to transcend your ego and take responsibility for
yourself while resting in the trust of your innate energy. This is easy to
do when 5-MeO-DMT blows your ego out of the water, but it is much
harder to maintain during everyday experiences when our egos are
confronted by illusions, dramas, and fantasies on all sides by every
single person we meet. Maintaining a state of transcendence and
liberation from the ego takes constant attention, honesty, integrity, and
willingness to trust your energy, even when it makes you or others
uncomfortable (people who have transcended their egos tend to make
those who are trapped in their egos uncomfortable for the basic reason
that egos habitually live in illusion and do not like to have their
illusions challenged).
It is therefore important to understand that the ability to
maintain a state of ego transcendence is not the product of a single
experience of transcendence, or even many. In other words, merely
working with entheogens won’t accomplish this goal in-and-of-itself.
Plenty of people have worked with entheogens for millennia but are
still caught in all kinds of ego-generated illusions. To return to an
earlier example, Terence McKenna explored all kinds of entheogens
but still got thoroughly entrapped by his projections of UFOs, aliens,
and machine elves. By the analysis presented in this guide, he
completely failed to recognize himself in the mirror and instead got
drawn in by fantasy and projection. Entheogens are by no means a
“magic bullet.”
Interfacing with the Divine 95
Entheogens do produce relatively reliable instances of
transcending the ego, or at least setting it aside temporarily as fear and
self-protection are suspended for the duration of the onset and peak of
an entheogenic experience. This is simply practice, however, and a
medium for becoming familiar with the experience, and with the nature
of one’s energy. People must actively choose to remain in trust and
suspension of the ego through constant attention to their energy and
their choices in all moments. The task of staying present with your
energy is a constant requirement of perpetuating and achieving your
personal liberation. Commit yourself to trust and honesty and you can
do it for yourself, but remember that you are the only one who can do
it. No one else can ever do it for you. It’s 100% up to you.
When you work consciously with the medicines, what you will
find is that you will move through various stages of lessons and
experiences. Even though different medicines give rise to different
kinds of experiences, remember that all uses of entheogens are an entry
into your own mind and energy. You, as God, know everything about
yourself and know everything that you need to face as an individual to
get clear on how you are responsible for your reality. You cannot hide
from what you already know about yourself!
Many people who work with medicines comment on how the
medicine seems to know everything about them – even things they
didn’t remember actively. The medicines seem to know exactly what
to show you and what kind of experience to bring to you and when. It
is as though you have entered a schooling program built with
interactive media that is designed perfectly just for you. It is simply
astounding how personal and intimate the experience can be. This is
only surprising if you think that it is merely a “drug” experience, or if
you think that the medicine has some mysterious spirit in it that
somehow knows everything about you. When you understand that you
are God and that the medicines allow you to look at yourself in the
mirror of the Divine Imagination, then none of this should be surprising
in any way. In fact, it is precisely what one would expect to find and it
works exactly as one would expect it to. Working with the medicines is
simply an entry into your personal interface with yourself as God.
There’s nothing mysterious, magical, or supernatural about it. It is just
the way that it works!
Through their lessons, what entheogens reveal is that our
authentic energy is just beneath the surface of our egos. Lessons into
96 Being Human
our true energy are present and with us all the time and it is the ego that
attempts to obscure this. This energy is always present and always
looking to express itself authentically. God is not something distant,
far away, or other. God is within you, is you, right here, right now, in
all moments. Transcending your ego is merely about relaxing the hold
your ego has on you and living authentically in the reality that you are a
vehicle for the expression of God’s innate energy. Though such a
realization changes everything, it really isn’t such a big change, given
that you already are God. It is not about developing new abilities or
becoming some kind of spiritual super-human. You already are
everything that you will ever be and you already have all the talents and
abilities you will ever express. In other words, being awakened to
being God in a body is identical to being fully human by taking
complete responsibility for yourself.
The thought of taking responsibility can seem overwhelming.
Egos don’t like to take responsibility. They’d rather dish out blame,
claim rewards, and indulge in illusion. Many people expend a great
deal of energy simply avoiding as much responsibility for themselves
as possible, especially religious fundamentalists and dogmatic politicos.
The idea of taking responsibility seems daunting, challenging, and
ultimately, not much fun (for some reason, egos seem to equate fun
with release from responsibility). Though it may seem this way,
actually, the opposite is true.
For one, being responsible is not about being responsible for all
things all at once. Rather, it means taking responsibility for your
energy and expression in each moment. In each moment, there is only
a limited amount of energy present that anyone needs to attend to. For
example, when you think about your responsibilities in your life, if you
consider them all at once, it can seem like a lot. However, the reality is
that in each moment, there are only certain things that need to be
addressed and dealt with authentically. To be responsible for all things,
all you need to do is be responsible with what is before you right now.
It’s like the saying, “a thousand mile journey begins with one step.”
When in the moment, all you’re actually concerned about is taking one
step. Then one more. Then one more. Then one more. Eventually,
you will have walked a thousand miles. Or consider writing a book.
Taking on the task of writing a book is a big responsibility and
commitment. However, every book is written one word at a time, and
that’s where you put your focus. Stay present in the moment and
Interfacing with the Divine 97
before you know it, you’ll have accomplished your task! If you are
confused about what to pay attention to in the moment, go back to the
medicines. Through them, you’ll show yourself what you need to pay
more attention to. Receive your lesson, apply it to your daily life, and
stay focused and committed to your path of authenticity and personal
responsibility.
The Fruits of the Work
The ironic truth of being human is that, aside from the
challenges of being a physical being in a physical reality where shit
happens (earthquakes, floods, disease, famine, physical accidents, etc.),
the vast majority of problems that humans suffer from are caused by
humans themselves. Through technology and science we can gain
some limited mastery over the effects of natural disasters and physical
and biological problems. As physical beings, protecting our bodies,
our vehicles, is a natural and necessary activity. Fear of physical
suffering and avoidance and prevention of pain are reasonable, rational
measures for us to take.
Yet humans cause far more trouble for themselves than nature.
Has there ever been a period in human history when we have not fought
each other? Have religions actually brought peace and happiness, or do
they fill people with fear, judgment, self-righteousness and selfloathing
that then leads to discrimination, genocide, slavery, and war?
Have any political systems actually brought about an end to human
suffering and created equality for all? Have our economic systems
brought happiness and satisfaction, or do they promote exploitation,
manipulation, and the fabrication of needs, goods, and services for the
gratification of the ego? Is there any culture on Earth where people are
truly free? Do any cultural, political, or religious systems actually
teach people to take responsibility for themselves and their happiness
and authenticity, or do they instead create divides between “us” and
“them,” “self” and “other,” “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong” and
avoid responsibility in the process? Do societies encourage people to
be themselves, or some socially-determined and ego-manipulated
version of how people “should be” or “should” express themselves?
Nature and the basic facts of physical reality come with being
human. There will be suffering and there will be physical pain. Shit
will happen. However, none of the problems caused by humans or
98 Being Human
human societies, religions, cultures, and political systems are
necessary. All of these problems are the product of confused and
illusion-bound egos. Therefore all of these problems have the potential
to be transcended. Just imagine if every single person on this planet
took responsibility for him or herself to get clear on their authentic
energy. No more ego games or dramas. No more fear, judgment, or
manipulation. No more illusions propped up by religious and cultural
institutions. Though it would take a collective effort to reorganize how
society actually functions, the foundation for the vast majority of
causes of human suffering could vanish in a very short period of time.
In other words, if everyone could take responsibility and actually live
in reality and not ego-generated illusion, this would be a profoundly
transformed world. It would be a world of radical freedom, and radical
responsibility. It would be a completely different world from the one
we collectively inhabit now. It would be a world of peace and
happiness for all.
Key Ideas
• Trust in yourself and your experience
• Be willing to surrender to whatever arises
• Everything you encounter is a mirror reflection
• You will present lessons to yourself
• These lessons are always relevant to your everyday life,
choices, and actions
• By becoming aware of your choices, you can learn how to
choose differently to better serve your higher good
• Taking ownership of your experience brings you closer to your
center and to actual reality
• You always have free will: how you choose to express your
energy and live your life is completely your choice
• Being authentic leads to increased self-responsibility, and
ultimately, radical liberation from all illusion
• Liberation is the key to peace and happiness for all
Responsibility
Taking Responsibility
It all begins with you. No one can sort out your ego for you, or
the ways you make yourself suffer at the hands of your ego. No one
can express your authentic energy for you. You are the only one who
can help yourself. Others can inspire you and give you good advice
and maybe even provide you with a good model for your own choices
and actions, but you have to do the work for yourself.
A corollary to the above is, if you want to make the world a
better place and help others, attend to yourself. You can achieve a lot
of “good” in the world and help alleviate suffering through social
action, politics, and the “good works” of religious activities, but none
of these are real solutions. Your ego may react by saying this is
narcissistic or egotistical, but this is just your ego talking – feel free to
ignore it! The only authentic path to helping the world is by helping to
free yourself from the illusions and limitations you have placed on
yourself through participation in ego-generated illusions and fantasies.
Everything else is just an ego game.
Authentic action is self-motivated action. For example, I am
writing this guide, which I sincerely hope will help you and potentially
change the world in profound and beautiful ways, but I am not
motivated by the thought of actually helping you. You are not my
responsibility. Your choices are your own, as is your life. What you
choose and what you do with your life is completely up to you and
100 Being Human
makes no real difference to me. I am not, then, actually trying to help
you in any way or make your life any better. You are your own
problem, not mine.
However, for me to be authentic and true to my energy, I simply
must write this guide. Anything less would be being untrue to myself
and my own personal energy. In other words, my motivation for
writing this guide and providing this true account of the nature of
reality and human experience is because this is important to me,
personally. I care about the truth, and because I am committed to being
authentic with myself, I care about expressing the truth. Because I care
about others (and because I also understand and accept that we are all
one being), I care whether others are able to live in truth and reality or
not. I care that people suffer from the products of their own egos and
illusions. Because I care, not acting on that would be inauthentic of
me. I would not be being true to myself. My primary concern is to be
true to myself. It’s the only thing that I can truly take any responsibility
for, and I care about doing my part to take responsibility. My
motivation is 100% self-motivation. And keep in mind that since we
are, in reality, all the same being, being true and authentic with yourself
will naturally be of benefit to others, though it will be up to them to
take responsibility to realize those benefits for themselves.
Responsibility for Evolutionary Integrity
While humans are neither personally nor collectively
responsible for evolution itself, given that our actions have such a
dramatic impact on the ecology of the planet, we are collectively and
individually responsible for the evolutionary integrity of the biosphere.
As an individual human, it is reasonable to take actions and precautions
to protect your vehicle. After all, you can’t lead much of a life if your
body is severely physically damaged or compromised. The same holds
true, at another scale, for evolution itself. God is all living beings
collectively and simultaneously. It was all of evolution that brought us
to the point where we are now. Since we are God, too, then we are also
all of evolution. Therefore, protecting the integrity of the evolutionary
system is on par with protecting the physical integrity of our personal
vehicles. Evolution is a collective process and we are products of that
process. Protecting evolutionary integrity is therefore ultimately
Responsibility 101
protecting ourselves. It is part of our responsibility to be true and
authentic to ourselves.
Currently, given the state of the world and its patterns of
economic development, environmental destruction, and pollution, we
are doing an extraordinarily poor job of protecting the integrity of the
evolutionary system. Countless numbers of species have already been
lost as a direct result of our disruptive actions at rates that far surpass
anything that might occur naturally. And, with our technology, we
have the stunning capacity to virtually wipe out all life on this planet in
the blink of an eye. We have collectively reached a potentially
disastrous point in time. To put it very bluntly, we could really fuck
up this little project called life that God has been busy working on for
the past few billion years. To put a new spin on an old theological
question: Can God create itself as a physical being with so much
capacity to affect reality that it could potentially ruin the evolutionary
project? Apparently, the answer is yes. We are living proof, as is the
world we currently live in.
Through our collective choices and actions, we have made the
integrity of the evolutionary system our responsibility. With the
development of science and technology, coupled with ego-generated
illusions and fantasies, this was perhaps inevitable. Now that the
effects of our choices and actions are obvious, the only responsible
thing to do is to actively take responsibility. This is ultimately no
different from taking personal responsibility. Evolution is the natural
expression of energy as expressed through living beings in physical
form. Being authentic with ourselves means allowing our natural
energy to express itself and being true to that. Being true and authentic
with evolution means letting the system run its course, naturally. Just
as ego games interfere with our personal expression of our energy, so
too do human activities interfere with the expression of evolutionary
energy by radically altering environments, polluting them, and causing
the widespread extinction of species. We are creating unforeseen
consequences for ourselves and for all living beings on this planet. As
conscious embodiments of God, it’s time to take responsibility. No one
and no thing will do it for us. It’s up to us.
102 Being Human
Children and Responsibility
Children present a special case of personal responsibility. Most
parents see it as their job to shape and mold their child into a “good
person” and a “good citizen,” and also maybe a “good” member of a
particular religion. Ultimately, these are misguided goals and are
locked into ego-projections of what is “good.”
As a parent, you have two primary jobs in relation to your child.
This first is to care for it and protect it physically, as it is not able to
assume this responsibility itself. It is a child, after all, and needs the
care and protection of adults in order to insure its safety and well-being.
Your second job as a parent is to do everything you can to
support your child in discovering, owning, and being itself. This does
not mean that you actively mold the child to come out the way you
personally want. Who and what your child is in terms of his or her
own personality may have nothing to do with how you think he or she
should be. Your job is to provide the context and environment that will
allow the child to discover him or herself for him or herself, and, if you
are able, present a responsible model for the child.
Other than these two things, parents do not really have any
other valid responsibilities toward their children. When children grow
up and mature, they become responsible for themselves, just like
everyone else, and then it is no longer the parents’ responsibility to
physically care for the child or provide a context for the child to be him
or herself. Upon maturity, these responsibilities then shift to the young
adult.
Realistically, most parents expend a great deal of energy trying
to make their children be what the parents want them to be. Our
societies are even built on such an expectation. Virtually all religions,
educational systems, and cultures promote shaping children into predetermined
expectations of who and what they should be and how they
should behave or act. Children are not encouraged to be themselves
and are not given adequate context or guidance for exploring their own
self-natures and energy. In turn, children learn how not to take
responsibility for themselves and are indoctrinated into ego-projected
fantasies and illusions, often forcefully at the hands of parents, clergy,
and educators. Is it any wonder that people in the modern world have
such a challenging time getting to know themselves or taking
responsibility for their energy? Virtually everything is working against
Responsibility 103
them, including their parents, those who could play the greatest role in
helping them to be themselves and take responsibility for their lives.
Being Yourself
In the end, it all comes down to being yourself and taking
responsibility for who and what you are. There is no grand destiny or
purpose waiting for you to discover. You came into this world with
free will, and so shall it always be. What you do with yourself and
your life is always and forever your choice. Looking for purpose or
answers outside of yourself is a distraction from who and what you
truly are. You have the ability to liberate yourself and take
responsibility for your life. You have the ability to claim your own
peace, happiness, and fulfillment. You have the capacity to do the
personal work that will help bring about world peace and universal
liberation. The energy is inside you and the tools to help you see
yourself clearly in the mirror, the entheogens, are there to help you and
guide you along your path. Everything you need is right here, right
now.
So what are you waiting for?
Step up and take responsibility. Be yourself. Be free.
Be the Divine Being that YOU ARE!
It is the greatest thing you could ever do for yourself or anyone
else.
Be bold, take chances, be yourself, and most of all, have fun!
Welcome, at long last, to reality.
Entheogenic Affirmations
I’d like to end with a few entheogenic affirmations to help remind
you to keep it real. They’re meant to be fun and a little whimsical.
“Spirituality” is so often presented with such earnestness that the absurdity
of reality gets overlooked. Egos take everything so seriously! Life is
serious, but it’s also the most ridiculous game ever, and a great deal of
fun, too. So whenever your ego steps and in starts getting all dramatic and
serious on you, give it a little reminder with one of these entheogenic
affirmations, or ones of your own creation.
Guess what? You are GOD! Now get over it =)
You are GOD’s altered state!
GOD doesn’t take you seriously, so why should you?
Your sense of humor is DIVINE!
Mirrors mirrors, everywhere . . . Enjoy the Funhouse!
Everything is an Illusion . . . Except Reality!
If you won’t be your True Self, then who will?
Other Books by Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.
Available at www.martinball.net and on-line retailers
• Mushroom Wisdom: How Shamans Cultivate Spiritual
Consciousness (Ronin Publishing, 2006)
• Sage Spirit: Salvia Divinorum and the Entheogenic Experience
(Kyandara Publishing, 2007)
• The Entheogenic Evolution: Psychedelics, Consciousness and
Awakening the Human Spirit (Kyandara Publishing, 2008)
• Entheologues: Conversations with leading Psychedelic Thinkers,
Explorers and Researchers (Kyandara Publishing, 2009)
• Mountain Spirits: Embodying the Sacred in Mescalero Apache
Tradition (VDM Publishing, 2009)
For more information, check out Martin’s weekly podcast,
“The Entheogenic Evolution,” available at iTunes and at
www.entheogenic.podomatic.com