Not So Sacred

A protest song. A tiny forgotten tribe. Two TIME magazine covers fifty years apart. And one question that won't let go: what happens when history shifts under your feet and nobody notices? Something is happening here. The Issacharites always knew before everyone else. Maybe we can too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robzahn.substack.com

Larry Norman threw a grenade at the church and called it worship. Long blonde hair. Sharp tongue. Difficult as hell. And right about almost everything. His 1972 album is a Library of Congress national treasure. Most Christians have never heard of him.He asked one question: Why should the devil have all the good music? Then he proved it.Without Norman, none of what you hear on Sunday morning exists. But for Christian rock to become a multi-billion dollar industry, it needed more than a grenade. It needed a homeless hippie with an acid vision and an ocean full of surfers.That’s next. Read the book. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robzahn.substack.com

Bicycle Day.Most people have never heard of it. Every April 19th, a small and unusual community marks the anniversary of one of the most consequential accidents in modern history — the day a Swiss chemist got on his bicycle to ride home from work and the twentieth century changed forever.His name was Albert Hofmann. He wasn’t looking for God. He wasn’t looking for enlightenment. He was looking for a circulatory stimulant.What he found instead has been called everything from a miracle to a menace — and the argument is still not settled.In this first video I tell the story of Bicycle Day, what actually happened in that Basel laboratory in 1943, and why it matters to anyone asking whether the sacred shows up in unexpected places.This is also — loosely — where my book LSD to Galilee begins.Welcome. I’m glad you’re here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robzahn.substack.com