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Daniel Pinchbeck | |
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Occupation | Author, Journalist |
Nationality | American |
Subject | Entheogens, Mayanism, New-age philosophy, ecology, technology |
Notable works | Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl |
Relatives | Joyce Johnson (mother) Peter Pinchbeck (father) |
Website | |
www |
Daniel Pinchbeck is an American author. His books include Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism , 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, and Notes from the Edge Times. He is a co-founder of the web magazine Reality Sandwich and of the website Evolver.net, and edited the North Atlantic Books publishing imprint Evolver Editions. He was featured in the 2010 documentary 2012: Time for Change, directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He is the founder of the think tank Center for Planetary Culture, which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki.
Pinchbeck’s father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter, and his mother, writer and editor Joyce Johnson, was a member of the Beat Generation who dated Jack Kerouac as On the Road at the time was published in 1957 (chronicled in Johnson's book, Minor Characters ). [1]
Pinchbeck was a founder of the 1990s literary magazine Open City with fellow writers Thomas Beller and Robert Bingham. He has written for many publications, including Esquire , The New York Times Magazine , [2] The Village Voice , [3] and Rolling Stone . In 1994 he was chosen by The New York Times Magazine as one of "Thirty Under Thirty" destined to change our culture through his work with Open City. [4] He has been a regular columnist for a number of magazines, including Dazed & Confused .
In Breaking Open the Head, Pinchbeck explored shamanism via ceremonies with tribal groups such as the Bwiti of Gabon, who eat iboga, and the Secoya people in the Ecuadorean Amazon, who take the psychedelic tryptamine brew ayahuasca in their ceremonies. [5] He also attended the Burning Man festival in Nevada, [6] and looked at use of psychedelic substances in a de-sacralized modern context. Philosophically influenced by the work of anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, [7] [8] through his direct experience and research Pinchbeck developed the hypothesis that shamanic and mystical views of reality have validity, and that the modern world had forfeited an understanding of intuitive aspects of being in its pursuit of rational materialism.
Drawing heavily, and somewhat controversially, from material shared on the Breaking Open the Head forums, Pinchbeck's second volume, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, chronicles Mayan and Hopi prophecies, [9] and follows Pinchbeck's travels and travails as he responds to leads, both physical and intellectual, he receives via this forum. Examining the nature of prophecy during this period, Pinchbeck investigates the New Age hypothesis of Terence McKenna that humanity is experiencing an accelerated process of global consciousness transformation, leading to a new understanding of time and space. The book details the psi or extra-sensory perception research of Dean Radin, the theories of Terence McKenna, the phenomena of crop circles, and a visit to calendar reform advocate José Argüelles. Pinchbeck concludes with an account of receiving a transmission of prophetic material from the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl,. [9] This claim was enough to get the book dropped by its planned publisher, delaying its release for the greater part of a year. While acknowledging that the validity of such an experience is unknown, Pinchbeck describes how a voice identifying itself as Quetzalcoatl began speaking to him during a 2004 trip to the Amazon. At the time, he was participating in the ceremonies of Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion that includes sacramental use of ayahuasca. Through its references to 2012 and the Maya calendar in the context of New Age beliefs, Pinchbeck's book has contributed to Mayanism.
In May 2007, Pinchbeck launched Reality Sandwich. He is the executive producer of Postmodern Times, a series of web videos presented on the iClips Network, and co-founder of Evolver.net, an online social network. [10] [11] His life and work are featured in the documentary 2012: Time for Change, featuring interviews with Sting, David Lynch, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and others.
In August 2013, Pinchbeck became the host of Mind Shift, a new talk show, filmed in New York City, produced by Gaiam TV.
Pinchbeck's How Soon Is Now? (2017) explores the idea that the ecological crisis is a rite of passage or initiation for humanity collectively, forcing us to reach the next level of our consciousness as a species. The book outlines the changes to our technical infrastructure - agriculture, energy, industry - and our social, political, and economic system that Pinchbeck believes necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming and species extinction. [12]
In a 1973 article about the Wacky Packs parodies of consumer packaging, seven-year-old Pinchbeck told a reporter for New York Magazine, "I think they're bringing out the truth about foods." [13]
On 14 December 2006, Pinchbeck appeared on the television program The Colbert Report to discuss his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. [14]
Pinchbeck was featured in the 2006 video Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world. [15]
Pinchbeck was also featured in the 2008 video 2012: Science or Superstition, a documentary describing how much of what we are hearing is science and how much is superstition. [16]
He interviewed Alejandro Jodorowsky for the German/French art television network Arte in a very personal discussion, spending a night together in France, continuing the interview in different locations like in a park and in a hotel. [17]
Pinchbeck appears in the documentary film 2012: Time for Change , directed by João G. Amorim, which was released in October 2010. [18] He also appeared in the documentary film Electronic Awakening , directed by AC Johner, released in 2011. [19]
Pinchbeck appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, recorded on 8 September 2011. [20]
Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brew, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies, divination, and healing a variety of psychosomatic complaints. Originally restricted to areas of Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, in the middle of 20th century it becomes widespread in Brazil in context of appearance of syncretic religions that uses ayahuasca as a sacrament, like Santo Daime, União do Vegetal and Barquinha, which blend elements of Amazonian Shamanism, Christianity, Kardecist Spiritism, and African-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda, Candomblé and Tambor de Mina, later expanding to several countries across all continents, notably the United States and Western Europe, and, more incipiently, in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia, and Japan.
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states and/or an apparent expansion of consciousness. Sometimes, they are called classic hallucinogens, serotonergic hallucinogens, or serotonergic psychedelics, and the term psychedelic is sometimes used more broadly to include various types of hallucinogens or those which are atypical or adjacent to psychedelia such as salvia and MDMA, respectively; this article uses the narrower definition of psychedelics. True psychedelics cause specific psychological, visual, and auditory changes, and oftentimes a substantially altered state of consciousness. Psychedelic states are often compared to meditative, psychodynamic or transcendental types of alterations of the mind. The "classical" psychedelics, the psychedelics with the largest scientific and cultural influence, are mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, and DMT. In particular, LSD has long been considered the paradigmatic psychedelic compound to which all other psychedelics are often or usually compared.
Terence Kemp McKenna was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, ethnomycology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the "Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture".
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise in sacred contexts. The anthropological study has established that entheogens are used for religious, magical, shamanic, or spiritual purposes in many parts of the world. Entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, healings, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, imitation of sounds, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance. The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences. Ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a Chilean-Ukrainian avant-garde filmmaker. Best known for his 1970s films El Topo and The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation".
Alex Grey is an American visual artist, author, teacher, and Vajrayana practitioner known for creating spiritual and psychedelic paintings. He works in multiple forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, visionary art, and painting. He is also on the board of advisors for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is the Chair of Wisdom University's Sacred Art Department. He and his wife Allyson Grey are the co-founders of The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a non-profit organization in Wappingers Falls, New York.
Stanislav "Stan" Grof is a Czech-born psychiatrist who has been living in the United States since the 1960s. Grof is one of the principal developers of transpersonal psychology and research into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of psychological healing, deep self-exploration, and obtaining growth and insights into the human psyche. In 1993, Grof received an Honorary Award from the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP) for major contributions to and development of the field of transpersonal psychology, given at the occasion of the 25th Anniversary Convocation held in Asilomar, California. He also received the VISION 97 award granted by the Foundation of Dagmar and Václav Havel in Prague on October 5, 2007. In 2010, he received the Thomas R. Verny Award from the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH). On the other hand, Grof has been criticized by the skeptic group Český klub skeptiků Sisyfos in the Czech Republic for furthering what they view as nonscientific psychology too far outside the bounds of the materialistic philosophical underpinnings of modern science. He is the only person to have been awarded the anti-prize Erratic Boulder Award twice in that country. Grof was married to psychologist Brigitte Grof in 2014.
Dennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is the brother of well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna and is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.
Jeremy Narby is a Canadian anthropologist and author.
Ralph Metzner was a German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Metzner was a psychotherapist, and Professor Emeritus of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he was formerly the Academic Dean and Academic Vice-president.
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples.
Jonathan Ott is an ethnobotanist, writer, translator, publisher, natural products chemist and botanical researcher in the area of entheogens and their cultural and historical uses, and helped coin the term "entheogen".
Richard Theodore Tarnas is a cultural historian and astrologer known for his books The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.
TarcherPerigee is a book publisher and imprint of Penguin Group focused primarily on mind, body and spiritualism titles, founded in 1973 by Jeremy P. Tarcher in Los Angeles..
Michael James Harner was an anthropologist, educator and author. His 1980 book, The Way of the Shaman: a Guide to Power and Healing, has been foundational in the development and popularization of Core shamanism as a new age path of personal development for adherents of neoshamanism. He also founded the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Mitch Horowitz is an American writer in occult and esoteric themes. He is the former editor-in-chief of TarcherPerigee. A frequent writer and speaker on religion and metaphysics in print and on television, radio, and online, Horowitz’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and CNN.com, and he has appeared on NPR, CBS News, NBC News, and Vice News. In 2022, Ferdinando Buscema noted that "Horowitz is among the most articulate and respected voices in the contemporary occulture scene."
Chris Kilham is an author, educator, and researcher of plant-based medicines. He is known for his appearances on Fox News as the "Medicine Hunter".
Electronic Awakening is a 2011 American documentary film which investigates the spiritual history of electronic music culture. Told from an ethnographic perspective, the film explores the international Electronic Dance Music (EDM) phenomenon as the re-emergence of shamanic ritual. In addition to interviewing people whose lives were changed by the claimed transcendent experiences on the dancefloor, anthropologist and film’s creator AC Johner ponders the cause of this mind-altering effect and suggests that the repetitive, mathematically perfect rhythms and oscillations of EDM have the power to create a communal hive mind. The electronic beatscape propelled by the emergence in the late 1980s and early 1990s of something new and freshly synched. The primary emphasis of the documentary is the deeply spiritual basis of the cultures and practices that have developed around these parties, particularly trance music and the possibilities this spirituality might offer for ravers and the world in general. It is one of the first full-length documentaries to uncover the spiritual and transformational elements of EDM culture as a central theme.
Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.