Dimitri and Khalid are joined by researcher Reid for a fascinating and bizarre deep dive into Biosphere 2, the ill-fated eco-utopian experiment/media spectacle that briefly captivated the world in the early 1990s. Topics include:

Serious cult erasure in Netflix’s 2021 documentary “Spaceship Earth”, Biosphere 2’s convergence of theater, science, and the sacred, “the naturalist trance”, the early life of Theater of All Possibilities leader John Allen, working for the Battelle Institute and David Lillianthal’s Development and Resources Corporation in Liberia and Iran, running off on a Yugoslav freighter, crossing paths with Boston silk topper Marie Harding in India and South Vietnam, founding a radical theater troupe in SF’s Summer of Love, experiments in management science, attack therapy at Synergia Ranch, recruiting Texas oil dynasty failson Ed Bass, the carefully-cloaked Gurdjieffian influence, and more…

Part one of two.