Expanding Mind

 Erik reflects on a decade of podcasting, the learning curves of the show, the work of conversation, the uncanniness of our moment.  

A conversation with my wife Jennifer Dumpert about collaborative dreaming, iPad skrying, meditation, play, the problem with interpretation, and her new bookLiminal Dreaming: Exploring Consciousness at the Edges of Sleep (North Atlantic).   

A discussion with meditation teacher and author Michael Taft  about hardcore dharma, Buddhist modernism, shop talk, the soup of the sangha, and the problem of the achievement self and the blind leading the blind.  

An informative chat with psychedelic researcher Dr. Alexander Belser about qualitative research, the Mystical Experience Questionnaire, queer spiritualities, and the idea of coming “out of the psychedelic closet.”

A conversation with philosopher of religion Mary-Jane Rubenstein about wonder, horror, animism, the multiverse, Heidegger, Einstein, Hawaiian telescopes, and her book Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters (Columbia).  

A talk with experience designer Ida Benedetto about transformative games, trespassing, rules for sex parties, active introversion, magic circles, funerals, and queer spirituality.   

Entheogenic and community activists Larry Norris and Kufikiri talk about decriminalizing entheogenic plant medicines within Oakland: blind spots, changing the narrative, and resisting “the metronome of programming."  

Poet Janaka Stucky talks about guerrilla poetry, burlesque horror, mystical language, shame, prophecy, and the strange DMT experiences that inspired his latest book, Ascend Ascend (Third Mind Books).

Science and technology researcher Rebecca Jablonsky talks about consciousness hacking, tech ethnography, information ecosystems, media fasts, and the ups and downs of outsourcing awareness.  

Poet and literary scholar Stephen Yenser talks about James Merrill's poetic epic The Changing Light at Sandover (1982).   

Yogi, psychonaut, and dear old pal Spiros Antonopoulos returns to talk about the Ashtanga lineage, Crowley’s yoga chops, NYC punk yoga, and psychedelic Patanjali.

In this second wide-ranging talk with Anthony Blake, author of A Gymnasium of Higher Intelligence, we discuss J.G Bennett’s ideas of higher intelligence.

Host Erik Davis does a solo show on Beat Zen, the Fifth precept, tantric heresy, headless dharma collectives, capitalist subjectivity, and the Psychedelic Sangha meetups popping up in a few cities around North America.

Author and Tarot expert Mary Greer discusses Pamela Colman Smith (the illustrator of the famous Rider-Wait-Smith deck). We touch on the Golden Dawn, Jung’s active imagination, and the marvelous Pamela Colman Smith: the Untold Story.  

Historian and astrophysicist Adam Becker—author of What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics—talks about Schrödinger’s Cat, Bell’s Theorem, and the difference between weirdness and nonsense.