TSV EPISODE 4:
ERIK DAVIS & AARON WEISS

Photo by Mathew Schwartz

Erik Davis

Erik is an author, a podcaster, an award-winning journalist, and a lecturer based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. He is the author of several books, including Nomad Codes, The Visionary State, and TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information.

His work has been translated into a dozen languages, and his essays have appeared in scores of books, including Zig Zag Zen, Magic in the Modern World, The World According to Philip K. Dick, and AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Μan.

Erik explores the cultures of consciousness on his long-running weekly podcast Expanding Mind, on the Progressive Radio Network. He has also written for The Wire, Bookforum, Arthur, Artforum, Wired, the LA Weekly, and the Village Voice, and he has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, public radio, and the New York Times.

He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, and recently earned his PhD in religious studies at Rice University. His next book, High Weirdness: Drugs, Visions, and Esoterica in the Seventies, will be out in the Spring of 2019 through MIT Press and Strange Attractor.

Aaron Weiss

Aaron is a doctoral candidate in philosophy and religion program at CIIS in San Francisco, where he studies Indo-Tibetan and Western philosophies.