Customer Reviews

Sage Spirit: Salvia Divinorum and the Entheogenic Experience

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Sage Spirit is the most relevant, practical book about actually using the Salvia Divinorum cognitive state. Like Benny Shanon's book Antipodes of the Mind, this is a practical insider's book, oriented around cognitive phenomenology of using the plant; this book provides a description of the realm of salvia from inside the realm of Salvia, rather than standing on the outside. Throughout the entire book, each page has the feeling of reading a book that is genuinely about the intense mystic altered state -- not run-of-the-mill pop New Age self-help philosophy.

Ball's mentality is in the right, relevant, experientially based place, and he is up-to-date on current thinking about entheogens and their practical use. This is a needed complement of other existing Salvia books, which read like a rationalist observer outsider's distanced, remote, external discussion; the other books focus on details about the external, objective, surface history of the physical plant. In contrast, Ball's book is filled with useful, subjectively practical, descriptive explanation of the subjective experiencing induced by the plant -- he designed this book, like his book Mushroom Wisdom, as an experiential user's guide.

Sage Spirit provides in-depth reportage of the author's experience of being taught vocalization and music techniques by Salvia as a plant teacher. The book includes excerpts from the author's mystic altered-state fiction.

The author is an authority on visionary plants in American Indian practice, having written a graduate thesis on that subject. His treatment and usage of practices from shamanism is relevant and insightful, not a boring 3rd-person anthropological approach; he gives insight into why one would use musical instruments and singing in a shamanic fashion during an entheogen session. He meaningfully connects the modern use of psychedelics with shamans' practice.

Ball characterizes McKenna and Pinchbeck as adventurer-heroes and entertainers, in contrast to his own call for regular and serious integration of entheogens into Western culture. Sage Spirit has solid, experientially based, well-developed commentary on ideas about entheogens and their role, with forward-looking but practical and clear-headed recommendations about re-integrating entheogen-based initiation into culture and religion.

Today we in the West need more guides for entering deep spiritual experiences. Martin Ball is proving to be such a shamanic guide for the contemporary world. If you are interested in finding a "textbook" for navigating alternative consciousness journeys or deep trance experiences, Sage Spirit ( as well as the author's previous book Mushroom Wisdom) will help immensely. Tribal societies have had guides for seeking deeper wisdom from the plant teachers for thousands of years, but we in "modern culture" often lack the kind of detailed information about entering into more intimate relationships with entheogens and the shamanic worldview that they open up.

I found this book applicable to many types of plant teacher experiences, not just Salvia, which the book does a wonderful job of demystifying. Even if you do not work with plants, this book offers an interesting foray into Earth-centered spirituality from an earnest searcher who is attempting to bring Beauty and healing from the "Otherworld" back to our world.

I was particularly intrigued by the author's experimentation with sound, vibration, singing, and music while in deep altered conscious states. He found that certain forms of music could actually help build and form the architecture of the vision, and in many cases stabilize it. Sound in our dimension seemed one-dimensional, he observed, but in the other dimension of the sage vison sound became three-dimensional. Read the book to learn more about this fascinating topic that the Amazonian ayahuasca shamans know so well, and that we are now just learning about.

A must-have for any library on Earth religions, shamanism, and entheogens.

In the book, Martin Ball discusses "driving" the Salvia divinorum experience with sound. He talks about using rattles, the didjeridoo, and vocalizing to enhance and extend the effects. I found this part of the book particularly interesting. I also write and speak about using mantras and songs that I learned during my entheogenic experiences to assist me in maneuvering through my experiences. I like how he uses the word driving; it describes this phenomena perfectly.

He also mentioned that, "...the context in which entheogens are used greatly influences the nature of the experience that will unfold. When one treats psychedelic substances as entheogens, that is what they become." This concept rang true to me, because I like to spiritually center myself before a trip (I haven't always done this, but I have found that it helps invoke a more desirable experience). I find it helpful to spend a few moments to pray, ask for guidance and safe passage, purify my intentions, and remind myself why I am about to take an entheogen. I also accomplish this through a pre-trip meditation.

The only thing the book was lacking was a section on the pharmacology of Salvia Divinorum - that is why I only gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

I was very disappointed with this book, I had hoped to find a source that was very informative and this book was not it. Like other reviewers have mentioned it hardly deserves to be referred to as a book as it is short and would be even more so had the author not used double spacing. The most painful part about the book was the authors plugging of his fantasy works which i felt did not need to be included at all, it seemed like he had run out of things to say and was merely filling in space. The authors inclusion of his experiences was interesting but unfortunately the book is lagging in so many ways it could have been alot more than it was.

I was honestly surprised that the author Martin Ball had a Ph. D. after reading this. The book was not informative and contained very little actual information about Salvia Divinorum. He mostly spent the book talking about different experiences he's had with salvia and about his philosophy on different subjects. He also spent a substantial part of the book plugging his fiction novel. It was a little interesting, but I knew nothing more about salvia after reading it.

Even as a user's guide, this book is severely lacking. It had very little on how to actually use the plant. All the first-hand accounts were quite vague and didn't bring me any closer to knowing about salvia. I found many more informative experiences from several online personal accounts I've read.

I only bought the book because it was the only one I could find on the market about Salvia Divinorum, and I must admit I was disappointed. I would not recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about Salvia Divinorum. If you want to know more about the plant, its use, and its history, I would instead suggest that you visit the website [...], which is a much more valuable source of salvia information.

This "book" was a huge disappointment. I put "book" in quotes to warn you that--because of the author's peculiar choice to make most of the text double-spaced, and because the text is quite repetitive--the book's 129 pages could actually have been presented in less than half that space--the length of a long essay.

Ball's treatment of the salvia divinorum experience is sophomoric, self-absorbed, and poorly written. It is likely to be misleading for anyone who has not experienced salvia but wants to learn more about it before doing so. For such readers, Daniel Siebert's excellent site (http://sagewisdom.org/) and Erowid (http://erowid.org/) will be much more useful.

As for those experienced in the use of salvia who are seeking some insight or assistance in understanding/working with this often difficult ally, they will find little to inform or enhance their own work with salvia. For them, this book is likely to be a waste of money, but even more a waste of time.

The author has an unfortunate mannered, self indulgent, vague way of writing. He provides no scientific and little practical information, which is strange because he spends a chapter "Neo-Shamanism and Entheogens" citing those who have come before and failed to do so. He often uses phrases like "This is very hard to describe ". This is obvious, so why doesn't he save us the time and bucks we could spend elsewhere. For all his rambling not much seems to happen and few conclusions are drawn from his dabbling with the herb. The descriptions are only slightly interesting. It isn't well researched or well rounded. I felt embarrassed for him writing, and for me, reading it. I say "let the genuine shamanic practices of the world be where they are and stop trying to be a genuine - whatever he thinks he is ". It's laughable that he has a Ph. D who lectures.