Daniel Pinchbeck – författare

A new ‘The Doors of Perception’ for the 21st century? A visionary journey from cynicism to shamanism by a brilliant young US writer.Daniel Pinchbeck was an essentially sane and rational person, living the life of a sophisticated urbanite. But one disenchanted day he felt he’d exhausted the shallow aspirations of the contemporary scene. So he went on a quest.And he went all the way: to West Africa to test Iboga, a psychedelic herb which can cause such profound insight that one dose equals twenty years of psychoanalysis; to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert where cutting-edge technology meets radical self-exploration; to Mexico and to the Amazon where shamanic traditions are practised daily.Sceptical but curious, following in the footsteps of Aldous Huxley and Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck guides his readers on an astonishing journey around the world and through the mind. Are you brave enough to suspend your post-modern cynicism and break open the head with him?

2012 is a literary and metaphysical epic that binds together the cosmological phenomena of our time, ranging from crop circles to quantum theory to the worldwide resurgence of shamanism, supporting the Mayan prophecy that the year 2012 will bring an unprecedented global shift. In tracing the meaning of the prophetic Mayan ''end date'' of 2012 to our present society, Daniel Pinchbeck draws together alien abductions, psychedelic visions, the current ecological crisis and other peculiar aspects of 21st century life into a new vision for our time. 2012 heralds the end of one way of existence and the return of another, in which the Mesoamerican God Quetzalcoatl returns, bringing with him an ancient - yet to us, wholly new - way of living. There are many hints, both in quantum theory and elsewhere, that humanity is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. Pinchbeck''s journey, which takes us from the endangered rainforests of the Amazon to Stonehenge in England, tells the story of a man in whose trials we recognise our own hopes and anxieties about modern life.

A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience.While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe.Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author''s wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival.Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck''s personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.From the Hardcover edition.

In this unsparing tour of the perils and promises of the current era, visionary author Daniel Pinchbeck helps us understand that we don''t need to wait for the dawning of the next age to radically change our perspectives. In the years since his pioneering work 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck has touched a legion of readers hungry for insight and guidance about new ways of living amid the crises of the current moment. Notes from the Edge Times collects Pinchbeck''s most penetrating recent columns, articles, and essays that amount to an extraordinary mosaic view of the hopes, nightmares, and signs of breakthrough that mark our present era. Pinchbeck examines the current economic collapse (an event he had foreseen by many months), radical political and ecological alternatives, the uses of psychedelics for spiritual insight, the revival of the sexual revolution, unexplained phenomena such as crop circles and the Norway spiral, the imminent (and often-misunderstood) question of 2012, and what it means to be an artist in a time of radical change. Pinchbeck''s virtuosity as a social critic, on full display in these pieces, is his ability to illuminate real and serious questions within unconventional topics that most literary intellects are unwilling to touch, from secret weapons systems to extrasensory abilities to the intelligence of plant life. In Notes from the Edge Times, Pinchbeck does more than critique present-day questions and conflicts; he provides fresh ideas for living more consciously now, and for constructing our own more enlightened futures, even as the world around us faces profound environmental, social, and spiritual challenges

An informed, challenging, and engaging collection of essays on the new choices in lifestyles and community as we begin the countdown toward the year 2012. This fresh and thought-provoking anthology draws together some of today’s most celebrated visionaries, thinkers, and pioneers in the field of evolving consciousness— exploring topics from shamanism to urban homesteading, the legacy of Carlos Castaneda to Mayan predictions for the year 2012, and new paths in direct political action and human sexuality. Toward 2012 highlights some of the most challenging, intelligent pieces published on the acclaimed website Reality Sandwich. It is coedited by Daniel Pinchbeck, the preeminent voice on 2012, and online pioneer Ken Jordan, and features original works from Stanislav Grof, John Major Jenkins, and Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky); interviews with Abbie Hoffman and artist Alex Grey; and a new introduction by Pinchbeck. Here are ideas that trace the arc of our evolution in consciousness, lifestyles, and communities as we draw closer to a moment in time that portends ways of living that are different from anything we have expected or experienced.

The World Needs to ChangeWe have unleashed a mega-crisis threatening the future of life on Earth. The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world.Is It Too Late?How Soon is Now? presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat- ecologically, socially, politically, and spiritually. We can launch a new operating system for human society based on regenerative principles.The Choice Is OursAccepting this crisis as our initiation, we can choose to evolve to the next level of consciousness as a species. We can do more than survive: we can thrive.

Ayahuasca has gained significant popularity these days in cities around the world. Why? What effect might ayahuasca be having on our culture? Does this psychoactive brew, which seems to inspire environmental action, simplified lifestyles and more communitarian behaviour, act as an antidote to frenzied consumerist culture? In When Plants Dream, Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on society. Part 1 covers the background; what ayahuasca is, where it is found, and its cultural origins. Part 2 explores the role and practices of the ayahuasquero in both Amazonian and Western cultures. Part 3 examines the medicinal plants of the Amazon, looking particularly at the ingredients in ayahuasca and their therapeutic qualities, covering the most up-to-date biomedical research, psychedelic science and psychopharmacology. It also covers all the legal aspects of ayahuasca use. Lastly in Part 4 Pinchbeck and Rokhlin question the future of ayahuasca. When Plants Dream is the first book of its kind to look at the science and expanding culture of ayahuasca, from its historical use to its appropriation by the West and the impact it is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

Wir stehen am Rande einer ökologischen Megakrise. Unser Handeln in den kommenden Jahren wird wohl auch das Schicksal unserer Nachkommen bestimmen. Angesiedelt zwischen Manifest und konkretem Aktionsplan skizziert der radikale Futurist und Philosoph Daniel Pinchbeck eine Vision für eine soziale Massenbewegung, die in der Lage ist, diese Krise anzugehen. Pinchbecks zentrale These: Die Menschheit hat die Katastrophe unbewusst selbst herbeigeführt, um unseren gegenwärtigen Zustand zu transformieren. Wir stehen vor einer Feuerprobe, die notwendig ist, um uns von einem Zustand des Seins zum nächsten zu entwickeln. Basierend auf umfangreicher Forschung bezieht er dabei Energie- und Landwirtschaft, Kultur, Politik und Medien mit ein, vereint indigene Entwicklungsprinzipien und östliche Metaphysik mit sozialer Ökologie und radikalem politischen Denkens. Letztlich stellt How soon is Now? die Natur der menschlichen Seele und die Zukunft unserer aktuellen Welt auf den Prüfstand.

Un manual basado en El libro tibetano de los muertosA mediados de los años sesenta, una especial vibración recorrió nuestro planeta. La revolución hippie, destrozada por los tentáculos del pulpo capitalista que la vio nacer, supuso un revulsivo que, con el paso del tiempo, adoptó las formas más exóticas, las sutilezas más asombrosas, para sugerir a las personas el gratificante estado de éxtasis, el desarrollo de las dormidas capas de percepción, la generosa paz que deviene en un superior estado de comprensión, ausente el yo, aquietada la mente,situados en el espacio sin límites...Timothy Leary, junto a otros colaboradores, hicieron varios viajes a la India tras constatar que, en sí mismo, el «viaje» del ácido lisérgico no era la fórmula mágica para volver a todas las personas seres realizados.Estos ensayos sobre El libro tibetano de los muertos, concebidos en la época más inspirada de sus experiencias, son el resultado del contacto con la cultura oriental y la estrecha relación de ésta con los estadios superiores de la mente.