A three-way idea fest with Marcus Boon and Gabriel Levine about art, discipline, self-care, crafting community, tikkun, and their rich and stimulating edited collection Practice (MIT Press). Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – Psychedelic Bridges – 04.12.18
A conversation with Brazilian anthropologist, conference programmer, and chacruna.net editor Bia Labate. We cover peyote politics, the bureaucratization of psychedelics, the legalization of ayahuasca circles in the United States, and working with indigenous leaders on the “Sacred Plants in America” conference she recently convened. www.bialabate.net Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – The Revery of the Ordinary – 04.05.18
A sprawling conversation with my interlocutor and old pal Ed Phillips (aka Faustroll on Twitter) about revery, misery, irony, and the ethics of being real. https://congruenz.wordpress.com/ Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – Chaos Magic Flashbacks – 03.29.18
A juicy chat with occultist Joe Max about punk-rock sorcery, Cthulhu invocations, intensity and fear, and the power of chaos magic in rave-era San Francisco. Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – They Shimmer Within – 03.22.18
A conversation with artist and independent scholar Bruce Rimell about psychedelic entities, evolutionary module of cognition, Visionary Humanism, and his meaty new book They Shimmer Within: Cognitive-Evolutionary Perspectives on Visionary Beings. http://www.biroz.net/about.htm Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – How to Die – 03.16.18
A conversation with classics professor James Romm about mortality, Stoicism, the ambivalent freedom offered by suicide, and his new book of Seneca translations, How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Princeton). Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – Out There – 03.08.18
A conversation with Burt Shonberg biographer Spencer Kansa about LA bohemia, psychedelic art, Marjorie Cameron, gumshoe biography, and his new book Out There: The Transcendent Life and Art of Burt Schonberg. http://burtshonberg.com/ Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – Erowid on Pineapple – 03.01.18
A conversation with Sylvia Thyssen, senior editor at the Erowid Center, about experience reports, drug geekery, Shulgin’s notebooks, and Erowid’s current Pineapple fund-matching drive. Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – Goodbye Reality – 02.22.18
A conversation with futurist, inventor, and educator Mark Pesce about Faustian bargains, Facebook mind control, surveillance capitalism, and his bracing recent article “The Last Days of Reality.” https://www.markpesce.com/ Download this episode (right click and save)
Expanding Mind – The Gnostic New Age – 02.15.18
A conversation with historian of religion April DeConick about altered states, religious conspiracy theory, emerging cognitive structures, and her new book The Gnostic New Age: How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion from Antiquity to Today. Download this episode (right click and save)