Expanding Mind

Occultist and Aleister Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski talks about Jack Parsons, the "method of science,” the Agape Lodge, the women of Thelema, and the pluses and minuses of the Strange Angel TV series.   

The Gurdjieffean teacher and DuVersity director Anthony Blake talks about dialogue, synergy, mind between brains, the trouble with teachers, and the gymnasium of beliefs in higher intelligence.   

In part two of our conversation, author and blogger Eric Wargo talks about dreams, self-fulfilling prophecies, unconscious trauma, the banality of true spirituality, and his book Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious.   

In part one of our conversation, author, blogger, and dreamer Eric Wargo talks about uncertainty, determinism, Zen, and his book Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious.   

A conversation with eco-literary scholar Derek Woods about science fiction, terrariums, geo-engineering, eco-modernism, and the wild science of designing technologies that exceed our control.

Host Erik Davis reflects on Burning Man in light of his first return to the event in nearly a decade. Topics include: the Burning Opera, Instagram, poetic terrorism, remembering dead people, chaos, and the unfolding paradigm of the city.

A conversation with devotees Usha Harding and Swami Bhajanananda about the unique Kali temple they help run in Laguna Beach: the perfume of practice, religious diversity, and the challenge of commercial yoga.   

A conversation with activist and writer David Nickles about the DMT Nexus, psychedelic militancy, extraction tek, the Statement on Open Science for Psychedelic Medicines, MAPS, and the trouble with for-profit psilocybin companies. 

A conversation with South African ethnobotanist Dale Millard about sangoma healers, animist science, beta carbolines, ayahuasca, and the broad-spectrum healing properties of harmine. 

A conversation with writer, editor, and performer Mitch Mignano—aka Raven—about existential humor, the Cacophony Society and the origins of Burning Man, pranking your fears, nihilism, and the sacred clowns of the Sun Dance ceremony.  

A conversation with philosopher and religious studies professor Dustin Atlas about ancient skepticism, Madhyamaka Buddhism, the taste of honey, Montaigne, Robert Anton Wilson, and the path of doubt.  

A talk with gnostic scholar Matthew Dillon about religious mourning, the Nag Hammadi library, sex magick Jesus, the gnostic Eden, David Icke’s lizards, and the power of the archons as an allegory of contemporary technological and political power. 

A talk with journalist Adam Fisher about virtual reality, the cyberculture underground, libertarianism, and his Silicon Valley oral history Valley Of Genius. 

A conversation with author Michael Pollan about psychedelic awe, trip reports, the mental health crisis, underground therapists and his book How to Change your Mind (Penguin).

A talk with music scholar and ethnographer Owen Coggins about amplifier worship, sonic pilgrimage, “as if” listening, metal humor, and his new book Mysticism, Ritual and Religion in Drone Metal.