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Erik Davis's blog

Eco

Lotusland

Erik Davis

In the tony Montecito foothills near Santa Barbara lies Lotusland – a garden of eclectic whimsy, bold inventions, and theatrical juxtapositions that express a recognizably Californian spiritual temperament. (more)

4-9-08

Psyche

Diamond Solitaire: Washing Beets with God

Erik Davis

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience – or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like one. (more)

12-15-07

Life

Tapping the Source

Erik Davis

For anti-cult crusaders and deprogrammers obsessed with "brainwashing," the Source Family could hardly present a more perfect case study. Here, amidst the wild freedom of early 70s California, was a deeply devoted group of young people, living communally, whose eccentric sexual, spiritual, and financial relationships were commanded by ex-Marine Jim Baker – an enormously charismatic patriarchal figure who presented himself to his flock as both Father and God. (more)

10-31-07

Arts

Burning Men Addendum: More Sparks

Erik Davis

Since posting my two-part exploration of the Great Prank of 2007, I have had a number of thoughtful and substantial email exchanges and conversations, mostly with people from the Burning Man Department of Public Works – the DPW folks. Larry Harvey, Burning Man's exec director, also gave me a buzz. (more)

10-2-07

Arts

Burning Men

Erik Davis

What happened on the playa that Monday night? There you are, in a fireman's coat, hurling through the wee hours across a parched and dusty lakebed in a 1979 American LaFrance fire truck. Above you the rare shadow of the earth has morphed the full moon into a dusky half-burnt clementine that hangs there pendulous like some wandering orb on the cover of a 70s SF paperback. "Baby's on Fire" is spewing out of the iPod, and Fripp's incandescent solo mixes with Burning Man's surrounding soundscape of engines, explosions, house beats, and the rising cries of gesticulating passersby who have-wait a sec-just realized that the iconic 40-foot-tall trademark that centers their entire week of organized revelry is prematurely aflame. (more)

9-27-07

Arts

Dr. Bombast

Erik Davis

As part of an ongoing but essentially lazy quest to wrap my psyche around alchemy, I had recently been drawn towards Paracelsus: the wonder-working itinerant sixteenth-century healer who is sometimes cast as the Copernicus of medicine. Rejecting the leech-loving, bass-ackwards, and literally by-the-book healing practices of most medieval doctors, Paracelsus instead made room for a medicine based on plants, material causality, and self-healing powers of the body.(more)

9-6-07

Arts

Galactic Games 2: Delvin Solkinson's Oracle Deck

Erik Davis

An enthusiastic former jock influenced, in roughly equal parts, by permaculture, Elfquest, plant medicines, Taoist poetry, and D&D, Delvin Solkinson is a dedicated crafter of scenes and rituals. One of his greatest concoctions is, to give it its full name, the Galactic Trading Card Oracle Complex Entheo Art Microgallery. This visionary artifact combines elements of the Tarot, the Dreamspell, and a trading card art catalog, creating a gorgeous and deeply millennial chunk of meta-programming soultech. (more)

7-27-07

Psyche

Galactic Games 1: The Dreamspell Calendar

Erik Davis

My pal recently decided to ditch his copy of Telektonon: The Game of Prophecy, a boxed Mayan-calendar board-game mind-virus that was released in 1995 by Jose Argüelles. I love artifacts that attempt to map and embody mystic systems – the aesthetics of apocalypse you could say – so I happily swapped copies of my last two books for this treasure. (more)

7-13-07