Episode 48: Walking the Tightrope with Erik Davis

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2019

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Journalist and historian of religion Erik Davis joins Phil and JF to talk about his latest magnum opus, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. In this masterwork of weird scholarship, Davis explores the simultaneously luminous and obscure worlds of three giants of Seventies counterculture: Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick. Their psychonautical legacy serve as fuel for a deep-delving conversation on Davis' own ontological leanings, yearnings, and hesitations. We touch on his philosophical development since the release of Techgnosis in 1998, the meaning of "weird naturalism," the primacy of the aesthetic, the uses and abuses of anthropotechnics, the challenges of tightrope-walking across bottomless chasms, and lots more. REFERENCES Erik Davis, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Expreience in the Seventies Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information Philip K. Dick, American science fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson, American writer Terence McKenna, Half-elf bard Graham Harman, American philosopher Timothy Morton, British philosopher Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion William James, American philosopher and psychologist Hee-jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist Dogen, "Instructions for the Cook" Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process" Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Albert Hofman’s famous bicycle ride Erowid LSD vault George Lackoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age Special Guest: Erik Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Specter Vision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdstudies.com. Hi, this is Phil.
0:51.5	This week, J.F. and I welcome Eric Davis back to Weird Studies. This is the one time I could
0:57.5	introduce an episode with a time-saving platitude. Here is someone who needs no introduction. If you're
1:03.6	listening to this show, you almost certainly have listened to Eric's OG podcast, Expanding Mind,
1:09.6	possibly for years.
1:17.3	Eric has pursued a decades-long career as a free-range intellectual of all matters, mystical,
1:18.7	psychedelic, and occult.
1:25.8	He wrote a book on Led Zeppelin 4 for the Continuum 33 and a third series, a volume of essays titled Nomad Codes, a history of Californian spiritual
1:29.9	culture titled The Visionary State, and the classic study, Technosis, which explored the
1:36.3	esoteric currents of information technology. And before we go any further, press pause on your
1:43.3	podcast app. Stop listening to me and go
1:46.9	pre-order his new book, High Weirdness, Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the 70s,
1:53.9	which Amazon tells me will be released on June 11th. I'll wait.
2:04.5	Okay, now that you're back, let me tell you what you can expect once you've gotten this hefty tome unwedged from your mail slot. High weirdness is a study of the
2:10.3	esoteric currents in 1970s California counterculture, namely those belonging to Terrence and Dennis
2:16.4	McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip
2:19.3	K. Dick. More broadly, though, high weirdness is a magisterial work of scholarship that
2:25.3	confronts the great challenge of esoteric studies, how to understand extraordinary spiritual
2:31.0	experiences from a scholarly and rational standpoint, but without dismissing them as
2:36.8	delusion or pathology. One image that runs through high weirdness is the figure of the
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