Howling about ketamine, magic bullet cures, psychiatric bullsh*t and traumadelic culture with clinical psychiatrist and writer Bruce E. Levine

Hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

“It is always refreshing to find someone who stands at the edge of his profession and dissects its failures with a critical eye, refusing to be deceived by its pretensions. Bruce Levine condemns the cold, technological approach to mental health and, to our benefit, looks for deeper solutions.”

— Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“Between 500 and 750 ketamine clinics have cropped up across the United States,” NPR reported early in 2024 (“The Ketamine Economy: New Mental Health Clinics are a ‘Wild West’ with Few Rules”). This may be an underestimation, as Psychiatric News reported later in 2024, “More than 1,500 intravenous (IV) infusion clinics have proliferated nationwide.” Ketamine industry revenues of $3.1 billion were reported in 2022, and projected to be $6.9 billion by 2030. All this has occurred despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration has warned: “Ketamine is not FDA approved for the treatment of any psychiatric disorder.”

Bruce’s Ketamine article with lots of citations and links: https://brucelevine.net/psychiatrys-latest-insane-magic-bullet-treatment-for-depression-why-ketamine-2/

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Howling about Louis Brawley's time with anti-guru UG Krishnamurti and that other Krishnamurti (Jiddu)

Hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Louis Brawley met UG Krishnamurti in 2002 and spent the following five years travelling with him in the USA, India and Europe keeping a record of this remarkable non-teacher and documenting his own inner struggles as his ideas about life, love and Enlightenment were constantly tossed around and demolished. Louis fell into the role of foil and sidekick to UG’s bizarre interactions with his friends and audience and, as UG’s health deteriorated, he became his informal caregiver.

Louis works as an artist, photographer and freelance art handler worldwide—occupations which fund his travels around the world writing and recording accounts and impressions from friends of the “Raging Sage.”

Louis' website (for now) https://louisbrawley.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/louisbrawley

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Howling about James Hillman, Carl Jung, Henry Corbin, cosmology, phenomenology & psychedelics with writer, poet and rogue scholar Tom Cheetham.

Hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Tom Cheetham is the author of five books on the imagination in the sciences, psychology, religion and the arts, and one book of poems. He is co-editor of the recently released Uniform Edition of James Hillman's ON MELANCHOLY & DEPRESSION, published by Spring Publications (which I highly recommend!)

Tom's website: https://www.tomcheetham.com

James Hillman Uniform Editions https://www.springpublications.com/ue.html

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Howling about love, marriage, alchemy & soul-making with 90-year-old Susan Tiberghien, a Jungian writer and teacher who has been married to her lover Pierre for 66 years.

HITW is hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Susan Tiberghien, an American writer living in Geneva, Switzerland, holds a degree in Literature and Philosophy and did graduate work at Grenoble University, France and the CG Jung Institute, Kusnacht, Switzerland.

She has published four memoirs: Looking for Gold, A Year in Jungian Analysis; Circling to the Center, Invitation to Silent Prayer; Side by Side, Writing Your Love Story; Footsteps, In Love with a Frenchman, and two writing handbooks: One Year to a Writing Life, Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft; and most recently Writing Toward Wholeness, Lessons Inspired by CG Jung, along with numerous essays in journals and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tiberghien has been teaching Jungian informed writing workshops for over twenty-five years at CG Jung Societies, at the International Women’s Writing Guild, and at writers’ centers and conferences in the States and in Europe. Recently she has recorded courses for the Jung Society of Washington DC, for Soul at Play, and for the Jung Platform.

She is an active member of International Pen, a founding member of the International Writers’ Residence at Lavigny, Switzerland, the founder and past director of the Geneva Writers’ Group, an association of over 240 English-language writers.

Mother of six children, grandmother of fifteen grandchildren, and great-grandmother of three great- grandchildren, she lives with her French husband in Geneva, Switzerland, a city whose dedication to peace and justice she fully endorses.  

Susan's website: https://www.susantiberghien.com

Seasons of Love: https://chironpublications.com/shop/seasons-of-love-a-lasting-marriage

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If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

HITW is hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

Catherine Liu (born 1964) is an American cultural theorist and author whose areas of research include Sinophone cinema, French literature, critical theory, identity politics, and visual arts. She is known for her critique of the professional–managerial class.

Her research and teaching focuses on the intellectual history and formation of cultural criticism, the history of the professional-managerial class, psychoanalytic theory, the political economy of cultural revolutions, and the work of the Frankfurt School and Walter Benjamin. She has also published on various topics in art criticism, museum history, and cultural politics.

Her most recent book published in 2021, Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class, is a polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits.

Catherine’s Substack: cliuanon.substack.com

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If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

HITW is hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

Erik Davis was born during the Summer of Love within a stone’s throw of San Francisco. He grew up in North County, north of San Diego, and spent a decade on the East Coast, where he studied literature and philosophy at Yale and spent six years in the freelance trenches of Brooklyn and Manhattan before moving to San Francisco, where he currently resides.

He is the author of five books: High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the 70s (MIT Press/Strange Attractor Press); Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (Yeti, 2010); The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), with photographs by Michael Rauner; and the 33 1/3 volume Led Zeppelin IV (Continuum, 2005).

His first and best-known book remains TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Crown, 1998), a cult classic of visionary media studies that has been translated into five languages and most recently republished by North Atlantic Press.He currently writes the Substack publication Burning Shore.

https://techgnosis.com

https://www.burningshore.com

Previous episodes with Erik:

HITW 125 Is GenX Still Relevant? https://www.patreon.com/posts/hitw-125-erik-is-92906404

On his book High Weirdness https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-high-with-32872409

On psychedelics and spiritual practice https://www.patreon.com/posts/01-12-and-with-34272619

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This is the first half of a longer conversation. If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

C. Michael Smith (aka Mikkal) is Director of Crows Nest Wilderness Retreat and Conference Center, Dowagiac, Michigan and director of Crows Nest Centers for Shamanic Studies International in France and Belgium, and currently teaching in Paris and Payzac; Captetown, South Africa, and Iquitos, Peru.

An active clinical psychologist and medical anthropologist, Mikkal is author of PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE SACRED (Chicago), and JUNG AND SHAMANISM IN DIALOGUE (Paulist, Trafford), and has served as peer reviewer for the Journal of Anthropology of Consciousness, and published his research with Kye Nelson on “Heart, Health and Disease: A Medical-Anthropological Study” (NOVA Science Publishers). 

He has led more than 200 workshops and retreats on shamanism, Jungian psychology, and his method of Sacred Breathwork, world-wide and for many years is a teaching faculty and member of the the international circle of shamanic teachers, Le Cercle de Sagesse Ancestrale de l’Union. He was elected into Le College de Chamanique in Paris in 2014.

Links:

Crow's Nest Center for Shamanic Studies: https://crowsnestshamanism.com

My previous conversation with Michael: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mpp79-c-michael-56880128

Our free course TUKUY: Showing Up with Presence & Purpose: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8p9DS5PqUJ_rPtM24y3HKd2yLCF58q7m

Show Links:

http://brianjames.ca

http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

http://youtube.com/@howlinthewilderness

http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Howling about Tim Burton and Henry Selick's enduring animation masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas with psychoanalyst, writer and podcaster Vanessa Sinclair.

Hosted by depth counselor, writer and cultural activist Brian James: http://brianjames.ca

Check out my new book Traumadelic: Re-Visioning Psychedelic Therapy http://traumadelicbook.com

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

We touch on Lacanian analysis; Tim Burton's delightfully dark and wonderfully weird world building; the value of the eccentric outsider; the importance of staying true to yourself; and the dangers of sanitizing the spooky out of children's stories.

Keen listeners will probably figure out that Vanessa is married to Carl Abrahamsson who has been on the podcast twice (first on ep 105 & recently to discuss Midsommar).

I'm looking forward to more conversations with my new favourite power couple!

Check out Vanessa's diverse range of work: https://www.drvanessasinclair.net

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Howling about music, alternative therapy, community care and art as activism with Andy Abbott aka ADRA.

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

Andy Abbott is an artist, musician and writer who lives in West Yorkshire, UK. His most recent album is "Music for Psychiatric Wards and Fluid Structures," a compilation of recordings inspired by his experiences as a creative practitioner performing ambient music in psychiatric wards across Yorkshire in 2023.

https://andyabbott.bandcamp.com

Show Links:

http://brianjames.ca

http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

http://youtube.com/@howlinthewilderness

http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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Howling about ayahuasca, shamanism, apprenticeship and music with François Demange aka Metsa.

If you’d like to gain access to early release of full, ad-free episodes and support the podcast, consider becoming part of the pack over at patreon.com/howlinthewilderness. We are an independent production and rely on the support of listeners like you. Make a one-time contribution to http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

François Demange (aka Metsa) is a musician, spiritual guide and ceremonialist with decades of experience working within Amazonian vegetalismo and other Native American traditions. In this wide-ranging conversation we talk about his journey from addiction to apprenticeship in the Peruvian Amazon, issues around cultural appropriation, and the role that music, plant medicine and perfume play in healing. 

François' links:

https://www.metsaseries.com

https://www.sacredwaysfoundation.org

Show Links:

http://brianjames.ca

http://instagram.com/brianjames.soulwork

http://youtube.com/@howlinthewilderness

http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul

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