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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
\nErik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information

Philip K. Dick, American science fiction writer
\nRobert Anton Wilson, American writer
\nTerence McKenna, Half-elf bard
\nGraham Harman, American philosopher
\nTimothy Morton, British philosopher
\nJeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent\u2019s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion
\nWilliam James, American philosopher and psychologist
\nHee-jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist
\nDogen, "Instructions for the Cook"
\nSteve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process"
\nPeter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life
\nAlbert Hofman\u2019s famous bicycle ride
\nErowid LSD vault
\nGeorge Lackoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
\nAlexander Bard and Jan S\xf6derqvist, Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age

Special Guest: Erik Davis.