Future Fossils

This week’s guest is Bernie Taylor, whose novel interpretation of ancient cave paintings suggests an overlooked and deeply significant alternative take on the subjective experience and world-space of prehistoric human culture. Finding animals hidden in the interplay of paint and rock forms unnoticed by other archeologists, and corresponding with a diverse array of experts over decades (including legendary animal researcher George Gamow), he argues that these murals depict a heroic journey across continents, the crossing of the Iberian Peninsula, an ancient rite of passage coded in time and story that, if accepted by the scholarly community, would transform our understanding of our ancestors.Bernie’s Website: beforeorion.comWe Discuss:• How Bernie noticed an entire parade of African and European animals in the El Castillo’s Cave of Disks that no one had seen before;• The ancient animal versions of the constellations that became the modern ones (crocodile > Draco, great auk > Cygnus, etc.);• The prehistor

My graduate advisor Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is one of the most consistently inspiring and refreshingly different thinkers I’ve ever met. In our first Future Fossils conversation, we discussed his work to apply a profoundly “meta” and pluralistic philosophy to the everyday work of organizational development and social impact. In this discussion, we turn over the rock and examine his decades of inquiry into some of the world’s most puzzling and confounding phenomena – namely, those surrounding the UFO and its aura of science-challenging incursions into mundane reality. Might “Exostudies” be the locus of a transformation in how we understand reality? This is not your normal New Age conversation about aliens, but a rigorous look into the persistent weirdness and problematic implications of one of humankind’s greatest mysteries. As Phil Dick famously said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” If UFOs are here to stay – with all of their attendant provocations to our oversimple cate

This week’s guest is professional psilocybin retreat host, long-time practicing Buddhist, and general good guy Mitsuaki Chi of Amsterdam. In this episode we get into the practices and benefits of psychedelic community, his unusual path from hardcore meditator to mushroom trip facilitator, and how he understands his life and purpose in light of a mysterious intelligence none of us can fully comprehend…trufflestherapy.comtripsitters.org“Even after so much time in meditation, I was still falling back into my patterns…”Coming to our senses.Going Buddhism-to-Psychedelics (instead of the usual other way around). How does meditation prepare you for tripping?Control? Renunciation? Acceptance? Grief?How does psychedelic healing as spiritual practice interface (if at all) with science and medical institutions?“More circles, less stages. Which is more important, direct experiences from a hundred people or one scientist who has been studying this stuff in a laboratory?”What are the longitudinal benefits of practice in a

Android Jones is one of the world’s hottest digital artists – even if it’s kind of a mistake to label him this way and limit his creative action to the digital. A master portraitist, designer, and explorer of new tools, Android made concept art for video games in his early years before becoming the creative consultant for the best-in-class Corel Painter software, touring the world while doing live visuals for huge musical acts, collaborating on epic dome projection shows, and ultimately pioneering the possibilities of VR with his latest project, Microdose. But arguably his most vital and illuminating evolutionary edge as an artist has been with his two children, learning to raise the next generation of curious and creative minds. This week on Future Fossils, I sit down for a three-year-overdue discussion with one of the most objectively inspiring people I can call a friend – to talk about our hopes and our concerns for Those Who Come Next, and what being a creative parent means in our Age of Transition.https:

Erick Godsey was almost my roommate in Austin, and even though I trust our destinies I still consider it a bummer that we didn’t. He is a nobler beast than I. He’s also the host of The Myths That Make Us, which is an excellent program for reasons that have nothing to do with my recent appearance on his show, but that’s nice too…What Erick IS is devoted to helping people live the absolute best stories that they can, which means first figuring out why we’re living the stories we already ARE.Notes are slim for this episode but that’s because just go listen to it right now.Erick’s website:https://erickgodsey.com“A great idea reconstructs your map. It’s one of the most painful things you can go through, but it’s beautiful.”“I was an atheist but I prayed. At night, I would pray to a thing I didn’t understand and say, thank you, because all the people who were asking for things were stupid, and I was self-righteous.”Don’t read Gödel, Escher, Bach and then take 5 grams of mushrooms. (Psychedelic Conservatives.)“If yo

Bruce Damer is a living legend and international man of mystery – specifically, the mystery of our cosmos, to which he’s devoted his life to exploring: the origins of life, simulating artificial life in computers, deriving amazing new plans for asteroid mining, and cultivating his ability to receive scientific inspiration from “endotripping” (in which he stimulates his brain’s own release of psychoactive compounds known to increase functional connectivity between brain regions). He’s about to work with Google to adapt his origins of life research to simulated models of the increasingly exciting hot springs origin hypothesis he’s been working on with Dave Deamer of UC Santa Cruz for the last several years. And he’s been traveling around the world experimenting with thermal pools, getting extremely close to actually creating new living systems in situ as evidence of their model. Not to mention his talks with numerous national and private space agencies to take the S.H.E.P.H.E.R.D. asteroid mining scheme into sp

This week’s guest is Nadja Oertelt – research scientist turned film-maker and founder of Massive Science, a science communication community that cares about restoring care to the storytelling of scientific discovery. Not only is the website wonderfully both rigorous and easy on the eye, the writing takes you on a journey. Clearly she and her colleagues are doing something right by teaching scientists it’s not just okay, but vital to the meaning-making of their work, to have a story and not just solutions.Here’s her amazing publication:https://massivesci.com/And an interview she did with Forbes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/catescottcampbell/2017/04/10/the-limit-does-not-exist-nadja-oertelt-has-a-massive-take-on-science/Super cool short film series Nadja did for HarvardX Neuroscience:https://vimeo.com/channels/972301 We Discuss:How working with scientists was a revelation into the social process of knowledge production and translation.Anna Wexler & DIY brain interfaces.http://www.annawexler.com/David Cox, D

This week’s guest is Epiphany Jordan of Austin, Texas – a nurturing touch professional whose therapy sessions help triage the crisis of loneliness and touch-hunger facing billions of tech-immersed but intimacy-stranded people. In her new book, Somebody Hold Me: The Single Person’s Guide to Nurturing Human Touch, Epiphany explains how to get your basic touch needs met – consensually – outside of romantic relationship. In our conversation we talk about why this is such a widespread issue, how people are fumbling their attempts to connect with one another, and what to do about it.Her Website:nurturinghumantouch.comPrinted Book:amazon.com/gp/product/1732879206?pf_rd_p=c2945051-950f-485c-b4df-15aac5223b10&pf_rd_r=VGPWK0WEF50A2TD8YA3T  E-Book:amazon.com/Somebody-Hold-Me-Persons-Nurturing-ebook/dp/B07MM6FFBD/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=somebody+hold+me&qid=1550610978&s=gateway&sr=8-2Support Future Fossils on Patreon and get access to secret episodes, our sci fi book club, and more:https://patreon.com/michael

This week it's a deep dive into futurist Stowe Boyd's research on Social Scaling, Boundless Curiosity, Deep Generalists, Emergent Leadership, and other major features in the metamorphic landscape of the 21st Century workplace.We live in an age when our human cognitive limits are being tested against a proliferation of possibilities in the digital space – and we zealously rush into always-on internet work, open office co-working spaces, enormous distributed online collaborations, and other novelties that seem to be more about the infinite capacity of our electronic tools than the finite reality of our minds and bodies.Stowe Boyd has been studying and reporting on the future of work for over a decade, and his blog Work Futures is one of my cherished news sources for understanding how “we shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” Talking with him is a blast of cool reason and warm humor about the insanity of the modern work environment and the impossible demands that it makes on us – pointing toward more luc

This week is part two of the intense, bizarre, and wonderful roundtable conversation with The Hypermoderns – John David Ebert, Michael Aaron Kamins, and Mimetic Value/Ikkyu Sojun) where we discuss the puzzling connection between clowns and DMT; John’s voyage into the strange realm of mediumship; and Michael’s life-altering series of UFO encounters right after college. Among other things…The Guests:Michael Aaron Kaminshttps://twitter.com/michaelaaronkJohn David Eberthttps://twitter.com/johndavidebertIkkyu Sojunhttps://twitter.com/mimeticvalueSubscribe to Future Fossils on any platform you desire:https://shows.pippa.io/futurefossilsSupport this show on Patreon. It’s good for you and makes you feel good:https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldWe Discuss:How everyone gets their own language once we invent the universal translator.Addressing the question of hyperspace “entities” from nonduality and landscape agency.Clown/Harlequin Theory in the psychedelic realm.JDE:“Now I don’t wanna do DMT. You’ve ruined it for me, b

This week, we have a rad roundtable conversation with The Hypermoderns – John David Ebert, Michael Aaron Kamins, and Mimetic Value/Ikkyu Sojun) where we talk Snow Crash, Linguistic Entropy, and The Metaphysics of Video Games; spoil Meow Wolf and Annihilation (warning!); and go deep on the origins of Hypnotherapy and NLP. It’s just part one of an intense three-hour hoedown with some of the sharpest minds I know…The Guests in Order of Appearance:Michael Aaron Kaminshttps://twitter.com/michaelaaronkJohn David Eberthttps://twitter.com/johndavidebertIkkyu Sojunhttps://twitter.com/mimeticvalueSupport this show on Patreon. It’s good for you and makes you feel good:https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldWe Talk About:Michael Aaron Kamins:“Shigiro Miyamoto is the Dante of the Hypermodern Age.”Mario is a shaman, Link is Percival of the Round Table…NextNature.net, the Anthropocene, and the Wood Wide WebAre videogames more effective than books as a form of storytelling?John David Ebert likes Grand Theft Auto: “Video games ar

Happy holidays! This week’s guest Tricia Eastman helps people find the holiness in every day by facilitating legal ceremonies in which ordinary membranes in between the different areas of thought and non-thought relax, and new or somehow ancient greater selves emerge appear whatever.It’s a solid conversation with a fascinating person doing very crucial work. I hope you get as much from this dense hour of passage, insight, integration…Tricia’s Sites:psychedelicjourneys.cominstagram.com/psychedelicjourneysWe Discuss:How she became a plant medicine practitioner through the festival psychedelic harm reduction undergroundLeaving a husband, four houses, and all of her possessions to be of service to humanityOvercoming her severe, debilitating eating disorders with ibogaine, ayahuasca, and 5-MeO DMTHow to smuggle the sacred into the global shopping mallReviving the ecstatic mystery schools and other lost spiritual traditionsCoping with the aftermath of collectively “waking up in a burning house” as we make last-minu

This week we sit with Bill Pfeiffer – deep ecologist, shamanic guide, and spiritual coach – whose life carried him from nuclear protests on the US East Coast to citizen diplomacy to Russia, where he first encountered Siberian shamans and became immersed, over decades and dozens of visits, in their traditions of ecstasy and communion, with realms and intelligences deeper than the world of identity and politics. A friend of Joanna Macy’s, founder of the Sacred Earth Network, and leader of hundreds of spiritual ecology workshops, Bill has dedicated his life to being a bridge between Native American & Siberian cultures, between alienated humans and the wisdom of the Earth, between heart and mind, future and past.https://billpfeiffer.org/biohttp://www.sacredearthnetwork.netSupport Future Fossils Podcast on Patreon to join our book club, access secret episodes, and more:https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldIn this episode, we discuss:Reconnecting to nature, to the bodyHow political activism for nuclear disarmamen

This week's guests are two of the most limber and insightful minds I know, futurist Michelle Shevin and actor-artist "The Ungoogleable" Michaelangelo. Since this is episode one of a whole new hundred episodes – and since I'm a sucker for ceremony and round numbers – this week we're taking a whirlwind tour of this show's recurring themes: how life, mind, culture, psychology, art, and science all change in the Internet Age, and how to live the best lives that we can amidst these transformations...Support the show for exclusive episodes, music, a book club, and more:patreon.com/michaelgarfieldMichelle Shevinmedium.com/@micheboxMichaelangelovoidandimagination.comWe Discuss:• Kronos & Kairos, revisited• Re: JF Martel – Episodes 18 & 71 • The information science of innovation and why Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero may not be TOTAL hogwash• Book: Geoff West - Scale• Re: “An Oral History of the End of ‘Reality’” – Episode 91 • IS our time unique at all?• WJT Mitchell paraphrase: “We’re all constantly feeling

This week’s guest is The Teafaerie, my amazing friend and a true one-of-a-kind psychedelic superhero.The Teafaerie writes stories, poems, movies, plays and essays, makes videos, organizes flash mobs, and is one of the founders of Prometheatrics, a big beautiful Esplanade camp at Burning Man. At various times she has been a writer, nanny, actress, flow arts teacher, childbirth doula, homeless person, aid worker, live-action storyteller, toy inventor, app designer, street performer, and party promoter. She is a frequent contributor to the worlds most excellent psychedelic information site Erowid.org. She also regularly volunteers as a festival trip sitter with the Zendo Project and RGX medical.Her most recent essay on Erowid:https://www.erowid.org/columns/teafaerie/2016/05/17/mapping-the-source/My favorite of her essays:https://www.erowid.org/columns/teafaerie/page/18/More about psychedelic harm reduction:https://www.zendoproject.org/We Discuss:Why it’s okay that the Elon Musk will get (to beta-test) immortalit

This week’s guest is Erik Davis – one of my great inspirations, someone who has influenced me and this podcast in immeasurable ways since I first encountered his amazing criticism, histories, and “seen it all” visionary cool – I still recommend his first nonfiction book (Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information) on a near-daily basis, and his show Expanding Mind has got to be my number one most-listened podcast of all time.Erik is a native Californian Gen X mystic who played no small part in the explosive West Coast visionary cyperpunk scene in the 1990s alongside folks like Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary, RU Sirius, Doug Rushkoff, and Jaron Lanier. But he’s taking a profoundly different stance these days, with a Religious Studies PhD in hand and a new book at the printers, drawing on his thirty-plus years experience investigating modern life’s weird marginalia to help us navigate a world in which the weird’s no longer marginal.https://techgnosis.comhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/books/high-

It’s a deep and wide investigation of decentralized networks of many kinds this week, drawing on the insights and wisdoms of five very different panelists in a discussion held at the legendary experimental city-under-construction Arcosanti, Arizona. Like it’s a rainforest, I don’t even know how to start talking about this conversation – too many points of entry, too many species living in it! Here are this week’s fabulous guests:Emaline Friedman of Holochainhttps://herlinus.com/Sarah Johnstone, COO of The NuMundo Projecthttps://numundo.org/aboutJacob Devaney of Unify http://www.culturecollective.org/about/“Raven” Mitch Mignano, loosely “of” Reality Sandwich & Institute of Ecotechnicshttps://facebook.com/mitch.mignano.77––Support this show, and Michael's many other awesome projects, on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldSubscribe on any platform you desire:https://shows.pippa.io/futurefossilsJoin the Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/futurefossilsRecommend a sponsor:futurefossils@protonm

This week’s guest is Dr. Zak Stein, an author and educator whom I met as fellow students of the work of philosopher Ken Wilber over ten years ago. Zak took the road of serious high academic scholarship while I was learning the less laudable and messier way through immersion in the arts and entertainment world, but here we are converging to discuss one of the most important issues of our time: the need for a new human story that includes both modernity’s rigorous scientific inquiry and postmodernity’s revelation of how everything we know is framed by language, culture, and perspective. Without some clever, soulful balance of the two we’re stuck in a “post-truth” era where our need for answers to our fundamental questions leads us backwards into “isms” instead of forwards into something more good, true, and beautiful than what has come before.Zak’s answer (like so many other guests on Future Fossils) is to get MORE rigorous about the scope and limits of the world disclosed by science, MORE honest with ourselves

This week’s guest is the intriguing, talented, and amazingly well-organized Malena Grosz, who is currently traveling across the United States to interview party culture professionals for her multimedia thesis on community-led party culture to gain and share their perspectives on best practices and shared challenges in cultivating better life through celebratory gatherings – and to tackle the corporate commodification of “nightlife” and its dangerous side effects.Her website-as-thesis-project will eventually be live (circa May 2019) at:http://partyprotoolkit.comWe Discuss:Gentrification and corporatization of nightlife versus community-led celebration, What urban nightlife can learn from Burning Man and festival culture, The disavowal of mundane time in spaces of celebration and how party culture does and does not need to accept the realities of our organic rhythms,Mentorship, moderation, self-control, personal agency, Reconciling the nomadic and sedentary strains of humanity,Taking responsibility for your own

This week’s episode is the conclusion of a special two-part conversation with Dr. Mark Nelson, one of the eight “biospherians” who lived for two years inside the closed ecological network Biosphere 2 – one of the most ambitious experiments ever performed, the reproduction of five distinct biomes inside a building in the Arizona desert. Mark is the author of the newly-published history of his experience in Biosphere 2, called Pushing Our Limits – he’s also the author of The Wastewater Gardener, which applies the same closed-loop, full-system ecological thinking to more easily attainable forms of agriculture. I know Mark through my lucky acquaintance with Synergia Ranch just outside Santa Fe (where I am right now, editing this episode) – the home base for The Institute of Ecotechnics, the group that pioneered the discipline of “Biospherics,” and the hub for a planetary network of brilliant, passionate, eclectic individuals whose stories never cease to blow my mind. Mark’s tale of his two years living under glas