[PREVIEW] 01.12 Psychedelics and Spiritual Practice with Erik Davis

Erik Davis is an author, scholar, podcaster, and award-winning journalist. In this conversation we talk about the new science of psychedelics; the loss of the mystic in the mainstreaming of psychedelics and spiritual practice; and the tricky business of marketing yourself as a yoga teacher or spiritual teacher.From his website:His most recent book is Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (Yeti, 2010). He also wrote The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), Led Zeppelin IV, and TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Crown, 1998), which has been translated into six languages and was recently reissued.Erik’s essays on music, counterculture, technology, and alternative spirituality have appeared in dozens of books and publications. He has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, public radio, and the New York Times, and explores the “cultures of consciousness” on his weekly podcast Expanding Mind, on the Progressive Radio Network. He graduated from Yale University, and earned his PhD in religious studies at Rice University. His next book, High Weirdness: Drugs, Visions, and Esoterica in the Seventies, will be co-published by MIT Press and Strange Attractor.