Episode 81 – Daniel Pinchbeck – How Soon Is Now?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:06 — 53.7MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Email | RSS | More

Daniel Pinchbeck, 50, journalist and author of fascinating works on entheogen and shamanism, penned a highly-anticipated, thought-provoking, must-read book due for a February 2017 release: How Soon Is Now?The book is an expansion of a 2013 TedX talk entitled The Planetary Initiation, which draws on extensive research to present a compelling argument for the need for change on a global basis.

(Photo: Interview Magazine)

How Soon Is Now?

According to Pinchbeck’s WikiPedia page, the book’s thesis is that the ecological crisis is a rite of passage or initiation for humanity collectively, forcing us to reach the next level of our consciousness as a species. The book outlines the changes to our technical infrastructure — agriculture, energy, industry — and our social, political, and economic system that Pinchbeck deems necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, species extinction, and so on. We can look at these current times as the possible storm before the calm. This is encouraging news, folks!

Where The Mind Goes, The Body Follows

Pinchbeck is no stranger to the wanderlust spirit, perhaps passed on through his abstract painter father, Peter Pinchbeck, or his mother, writer Joyce Johnson, who, before he was born, dated “beat” author Jack Kerouac, as his classic On The Road was just being released in 1957. But Pinchbeck’s travels were more of an internal mind journey, studying and living the life of a shaman. Though he’s written countless articles on the subject for various noted publications, Pinchbeck’s books delve deeper into the wormhole of his entheogenic awakening. An entheogen – derived from the Greek word meaning, “becoming divine within” – is a chemical substance, typically of plant origin, that is ingested to produce a nonordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purposes.
In 2002, Pinchbeck’s Breaking Open The Head: A Psychedelic Journey Into The Heart Of Contemporary Shamanism, he explored shamanism with the Bwiti of Gabon, who ate iboga for vision quests, and with the Secoya people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who drank the psychedelic ayahuasca in their ceremonies.

In Pinchbeck’s followup book, 2012: The Return Of Quetzalcoatl, where, through his search of divine connection, he is introduced to fellow New Age thinkers: Terence McKenna, who champions that humanity is experiencing an accelerated process of global consciousness; Dean Radin, who researched parapsychology and extra sensory perception; and José Argüelles, a visionary for humanity who dedicated much of his life to promoting an alternative calendar based on a cycle of 13 months of 28 days, which he believed would bring about world peace,” according to Argüelles’ WikiPedia page. Pinchbeck’s 2012 book studied the Mayan calendar in the context of New Age beliefs, considering that it was not indicative of the end of the world, but rather the end of world as we know it with all its current limiting beliefs. It was the end of stale thinking and the beginning of a global awakening — an Age of Aquarius, of sorts.

Pinchbeck appears in notable documentaries such as the intriguing 2012: Time For Change (2010), featuring other enlightened seekers like Sting, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Perry Barlow, Gilberto Gil, David Lynch, Ellen Page, Paul Stamets, Dennis McKenna, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Michael Dorsey, Shiva Rea, Ganga White and João Amorim (“2012” IMDb page), and Electronic Awakening (2011).