Daniel Pinchbeck
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Daniel Pinchbeck (born June 15, 1966) is an author and advocate of the use of psychedelic substances such as LSD, Psilocybin mushrooms and peyote for enriching people's intellectual, psychological and spiritual beliefs through the psychedelic experience. He is the son of painter Peter Pinchbeck and writer Joyce Johnson.
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He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism. 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 ayahuasca in their ceremonies. He also attended the Burning Man festival in Nevada, and looked at use of psychedelic substances in a desacralized modern context. Through his direct experiences and research, and influenced heavily by the work of anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner (who did not advocate the use of psychedelic substances and did not consider hallucinations to be sound spiritual perceptions), he became convinced that the shamanic and mystical view of reality had validity, and that the modern world had forfeited an understanding of intuitive aspects of being in its pursuit of rational materialism.
This awareness led to his second book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which examines prophecy through personal and philosophical approaches, and offers the hypothesis that humanity is experiencing an accelerated process of global consciousness transformation, leading to a new realization of time and space during this period. In 2012, he also explains the psi or extra-sensory perception research of Dean Radin, the theories of Graham Hancock, his own encounters with crop circles, a visit to calendar reform advocate José Argüelles, and his direct reception of prophetic material: the voice of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, began speaking to him during a 2004 trip to the Amazon in Brazil. At the time, he was participating in a ceremony of the Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion that uses the psychedelic brew ayahuasca as its sacrament. Through its references to 2012 and the Maya calendar in the context of New Age beliefs, Pinchbeck's book has contributed to Mayanism. The book also details his acts of infidelity and his interest in polyamory.
Pinchbeck's feature articles have appeared in numerous periodicals. A founding editor of Open City, a literary journal, he has recently launched a new Internet-based magazine, Reality Sandwich, offering a new paradigm for a planetary culture, in March, 2007. He is the executive producer of PostModernTimes, a series of web videos presented on the iClips Network.[1] In 2005 he co-founded The Evolver Project, with the plan to create a membership organization supporting sustainable commerce. Although Pinchbeck is no longer connected to it, a part of this project can be seen at evo.net. On December 14, 2006, Pinchbeck appeared on the television program The Colbert Report to discuss his book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.[2]
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[edit] Further reading
- Daniel Pinchbeck, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, Broadway Books, 2002, trade paperback, 322 pages, ISBN 0-7679-0742-6
- Daniel Pinchbeck, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Tarcher, 2006, hardcover, ISBN 1-58542-483-8
- Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordan, editors, Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age, Tarcher, 2009, paperback, ISBN 978-1-58542-700-0
[edit] External links
- Reality Sandwich A website he moderates and writes for.
