Daniel Pinchbeck

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Daniel Pinchbeck bigraphy, stories - American author and journalist

Daniel Pinchbeck : biography

June 15, 1966 –

Daniel Pinchbeck (born 15 June 1966) is an American author living in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of Reality Sandwich, an online magazine centered around New Age philosophy and activism. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

Works and activities

Pinchbeck was a founder of the 1990s literary magazine Open City with fellow writers Thomas Beller and Robert Bingham. He has written for many publications, including Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone. In 1994 he was chosen by The New York Times Magazine as one of "Thirty Under Thirty" destined to change our culture through his work with Open City.

In Breaking Open the Head, Pinchbeck explored shamanism via ceremonies with tribal groups such as the Bwiti of Gabon, who eat iboga, and the Secoya people in the Ecuadorean Amazon, who take the psychedelic tryptamine brew ayahuasca in their ceremonies. He also attended the Burning Man festival in Nevada, and looked at use of psychedelic substances in a de-sacralized modern context. Philosophically influenced by the work of anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, through his direct experience and research Pinchbeck became convinced that shamanic and mystical views of reality have validity, and that the modern world had forfeited an understanding of intuitive aspects of being in its pursuit of rational materialism. Dialogue Talk.

Drawing heavily, and somewhat controversially, from material shared on the forums, Pinchbeck’s second volume, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, chronicles Mayan and Hopi prophecies, and follows Pinchbeck’s travels and travails as he responds to leads, both physical and intellectual, he receives via this forum. Examining the nature of prophecy, Pinchbeck investigates the New Age hypothesis of Terence McKenna that humanity is experiencing an accelerated process of global consciousness transformation, leading to a new understanding of time and space during this period. The book details the psi or extra-sensory perception research of Dean Radin, the theories of Graham Hancock, the phenomena of crop circles, and a visit to calendar reform advocate José Argüelles. Pinchbeck concludes with an alleged direct reception of prophetic material by the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, a claim which was enough to get the book dropped by its planned publisher, delaying its release for the greater part of a year. Pinchbeck alleges the voice of Quetzalcoatl began speaking to him during a 2004 trip to the Amazon in Brazil, though he has since become reticent over any further communications he may have received. At the time, he was traveling by boat on the Amazon between participation in ceremonies of the Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion that uses ayahuasca as its sacrament. Through its references to 2012 and the Maya calendar in the context of New Age beliefs, Pinchbeck’s book has contributed to Mayanism.

In May 2007, Pinchbeck launched Reality Sandwich. He is the executive producer of , a series of web videos presented on the , and co-founder of , an online social network.

Family and background

Pinchbeck has deep personal roots in the New York counterculture of the 1950s and 1960s. His father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter, and his mother, the writer Joyce Johnson, was a member of the Beat Generation and dated Jack Kerouac as On the Road hit the bestseller lists in 1957 (chronicled in Johnson’s bestselling book, Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir).

Books and publications

Appearances and interviews

On 14 December 2006, Pinchbeck appeared on the television program The Colbert Report to discuss his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

Pinchbeck was featured in the 2006 video Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.

Pinchbeck was also featured in the 2008 video 2012: Science or Superstition, a documentary describing how much of what we are hearing is science and how much is superstition.

He interviewed Alejandro Jodorowsky for the German/French art television network Arte in a very personal discussion, spending a night together in France, continuing the interview in different locations like in a park and in a hotel.

Pinchbeck appears in the Reality Sandwich-sponsored documentary film 2012: Time for Change, directed by João G. Amorim, which was released in October 2010.

Pinchbeck appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, recorded on 8 September 2011.