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TechGnosis

The work of Erik Davis

Erik Davis is an American writer, scholar, journalist, and public speaker whose writings range from rock criticism to cultural analysis to esoteric explorations of California’s history.

I’ve been publishing stuff for over three decades, and most of it—with the exception of my books—resides on this site, which I have maintained through various iterations since the late 1990s. With Burning Shore now disseminating my fresher communiqués, Techgnosis.com acts more than ever as an archive of my work, including lectures, interviews, personal reflections, and almost a decade of the Expanding Mind podcast. Like Techgnosis itself, still in print and more relevant than ever, my stuff combines deep research with vivid writing and oracular aims that resonate through the years. For this revamped trans-temporal site, I and my team have introduced more robust searching and cross-linking of materials, as well as a roll-the-dice feature, which will hopefully allow for richer, more entertaining, and more synchronistic wanders through this wunderkammer.  — Erik

  • Books

    Blotter

    The Untold Story of an Acid Medium

    The Untold Story of an Acid Medium

    Blotter by Erik Davis is the first comprehensive written account of the history, art, and design of LSD blotter paper, the iconic drug delivery device that will perhaps forever be linked to underground psychedelic culture and contemporary street art. Created in collaboration with Mark McCloud’s Institute of Illegal Images, the world’s largest archive of blotter art, Davis’s boldly illustrated exhibition treats his outsider subject with the serious, art-historical respect it deserves...

Living with Others
Media
Living with Others
The Ethics and Ecology of Animism

Space 1994: Looking Out, and Back
Technoculture
Space 1994: Looking Out, and Back
One Small Step for a Man, One Giant Explosion for Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Born in the Kali Yuga
Media
Born in the Kali Yuga
Sounds for the Bardo

Lost Shadows: In Defense of the Soul
Music
Lost Shadows: In Defense of the Soul
Yanomami Shamanism, Songs, Ritual, 1978

All Known Metal Bands
Articles and Essays
All Known Metal Bands
Howling More

DMT Culture
Expanding Mind Podcast
DMT Culture
Expanding Mind

Doom Scroll
Burning Shore
Doom Scroll

Plus News and Notes

Don’t Mind if I Do
Music
Don’t Mind if I Do
Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me

Visionary Woman
Expanding Mind Podcast
Visionary Woman
Expanding Mind

Robots on Acid
Expanding Mind Podcast
Robots on Acid
Expanding Mind

PixelVisionary
Moving Pictures
PixelVisionary
Kyle Silfer's expanded machinima

Santa Muerte
Expanding Mind Podcast
Santa Muerte
Expanding Mind

Visionary Art
Art and Design, Psychedelics
Visionary Art
Visionary Art and Tradition

Sounding Off and On
Burning Shore
Sounding Off and On

Plus News and Notes

Cybernetic Psychedelica
Media
Cybernetic Psychedelica
MU Gallery, Eindhoven, NL, May 2011

This is Your Brain on Buddha
Mind and Philosophy
This is Your Brain on Buddha
Buddhism and neuroscience