Expanding Mind

Joshua Tree homesteader and former Arthur editor Jay Babcock talks about turkey vultures, Vipassana, wildlife stewardship, and the communities of purpose he has discovered in the desert. jthomesteader.com

Canadian musician Sarah Davachi talks about analog synthesizers, reverberating cathedrals, attention spans, and her amazing new ambient drone album All My Circles Run.

Ecologist and wildlife tracker Meghan Walla-Murphy talks about following bears, reading the landscape, and cultivating relationships across species (and political) lines. http://www.meghanwallamurphy.com

Criminologist and law lecturer Charlotte Walsh talks about freedom of thought, neurotechnologies, religious exceptions, and how the role human rights might play in the decriminalization of psychedelics.

Media researcher and filmmaker Florian Cramer talks about 4chan, Pepe the Frog, memes, and the nihilism of the digital alt-right. For Florian's dense mapping of the alt-right, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w94mQjxHkRs.

Former LSD chemist Tim Scully talks about acid idealism, magical thinking, biofeedback, and the Orange Sunshine history told in the new documentary The Sunshine Makers.

Photographer, artist, and ethnographer Shannon Taggart talks about Spiritualist mediums, ambiguity, orbs, and the metaphysics of photography. www.shannontaggart.com

Author, historian and curator Mike Jay talks about Bedlam, lunacy, Big Pharma, and the history of mental illness he covers in his new book This Way Madness Lies: The Asylum and Beyond.

Philosopher and writer Joshua Ramey talks about oracles, markets, spontaneous order, and his new book The Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency.

Religious studies scholar Hugh Urban talks about the colorful guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, freak tantra, intellectual property and religion, and his new book Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement.