Returning for the second half of the Merry Pranksters visit to the Levity Zone, Prankster Lee Quarnstrom reads from his autobiography "When I was a Dynamiter" with a spectacular telling of the 1965 bust at Ken Kesey's house in La Honda. Yours truly, Dr. Bruce, shares Leon Tabory's hitherto untold tale of the accidental painting of Kesey's magic bus before its epic 1964 New York trip, a chance inspiration that colored up the whole 60s. And John Leopold, First District Supervisor of Santa Cruz Cou...
Jan 29, 2016•37 min•Season 4Ep. 45
The Merry Pranksters return to Santa Cruz to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Acid Test! Hear George Walker, Mountain Girl Carolyn Garcia and Ken Babbs on stage at Don Quixote's hold forth on deep counter-cultural history. Hosted by County Supervisor John Leopold, this important historical event, which back in 1965 spawned the Grateful Dead, is commemorated by a proclamation, and a historic marker... a bus stop! Santa Cruz honors its Psychedelic history and Dr. Bruce was there to capture i...
Dec 16, 2015•35 min•Season 4Ep. 44
Returning from the Deep 90s back to the future in 2015 Dr. Bruce joins Allan Lundell and his mythic friend Peter Fae for a hot tub confab high on the mountaintop of Future Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Not only is Al a true bon homme but he is also a keen observer of the cyber-culture and developing trends in tech and the social landscape, chronicling all of this in his KSCO Santa Cruz radio show, Dr. Future. Realizing a twenty year dream of networking hot tub conversations, Dr. Bruce, Al an...
Nov 28, 2015•50 min•Season 4Ep. 43
In the next "Deep 90s" episode in the Levity Zone we roll the clock to January of 1998 when Bruce Damer appeared on National Public Radio's TechNation program with host Dr. Moira Gunn. By this time Internet virtual worlds had exploded as hundreds of thousands of users, clothed in digital representations called avatars, had homesteaded their way into second lives in Cyberspace. Well before Internet voice chat and video, social networks, and networked games these worlds hosted group building, fami...
Oct 30, 2015•27 min•Season 3Ep. 42
In the next of our "Deep 90s" episodes join Dr.Bruce back in 1995 and '96 in two seminal conversations with journalist Darek Milewski on the emergence of a new medium: Internet virtual worlds with users represented as "avatars". Dreams of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" metaverse were being realized by users placing millions of 3D objects into personal homesteads in Alphaworld. Bruce relates how his new organization, the Contact Consortium, was also building its first experimental project: Sherwo...
Sep 24, 2015•30 min•Season 3Ep. 41
Teleport back to the Deep 90s in March of 1996 when Dr. Bruce and the founder of Craigslist Craig Newmark were interviewed for UC Berkeley radio KALX by journalist Darek Milewski. They opined on the future of publishing and whether the printed book would survive in the future. This brief dialogue with Craig, now a household name on the Internet, captures that innocence and dreamy time of all possibility. Craig is optimistic that many more people would soon be hooked up the Internet and that some...
Aug 28, 2015•15 min•Season 3Ep. 40
Dr. Bruce presents his most deeply held idea: a new hypothesis for how life began on the Earth, The Coupled Phases model was developed over thirty years of inquiry and completed with the collaboration of his mentor and colleague at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Professor David Deamer. Hear how the model works and how it might help us refigure our civilization, first in his TEDx Santa Cruz talk, then in an interview on the Midwest Real podcast, and finally from his presentation of a...
Jul 06, 2015•48 min•Season 3Ep. 39
Dr. Bruce presents his greatest idea yet for spaceflight in the first of two TEDx talks given for TEDxSantaCruz on April 24, 2015. Hear how humanity might create a sustainable presence in the solar system in this century through SHEPHERD, an innovative new type of spacecraft. After the TEDx talk we continue with an extended discussion about new possibilities in space with Michael Phillip of the Midwest Real podcast. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (introducer and presenter), TEDxSantaCruz (event host),...
Jun 12, 2015•31 min•Season 3Ep. 38
Dr. R.P. Kaushik returns to the Levity Zone in what I call "the Long Minding Road to Freedom", He first recounts the long history of spiritual traditions in India and the West all of which eventually devolve into limited products of Mind and Ego. He then examines the nature of the mind itself showing that this most sensitive instrument can become our guru, if we will only choicelessly follow its meanderings until the end. In this way we will open out into a new space: the flow of universal energ...
May 28, 2015•41 min•Season 3Ep. 37
Rejoin Dr. Bruce during his 2015 Levity Zone Tour in Australia for part 2 of the Sydney Serenade. Ray trace a visionary beam through the crystalline structure of Endo, diffracting through the azure jewel of civilization, passing back through ancient Australian zircons to the origin of life, completing our photonic journey in a glint off Incan temple foundations. The crystal sphere then went out to dance by moonlight and found itself in a Gaian dialogue with the local Lukuma and together they pac...
Apr 25, 2015•51 min•Season 3Ep. 36
Join Dr. Bruce midway through his 2015 Levity Zone down under tour of eastern Australia. In an artsy warehouse in the artsy Sydney district of Newtown Dr. Bruce presented an evening serenade of visionary story threads woven with the chill tones of live DJ Tsentsak (aka Richard Baron). Lie back with the Aussies and take in part one of a trip through our deepest history hyperdriving up through to the fragile but potent present, riding the liminal zone between reason and magick. Credits: Dr. Bruce ...
Mar 27, 2015•1 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 35
UK-Australian performer Hugo Farrant teams up with DJ Treats and enters the Levity Zone with his unique visionary rap. Hugo takes us back way before Eleusis to Mesopotamia's Spring Goddess Ishtar. We fall into his spell of words and music and journey as the grateful pilgrim in search of the divine feminine and our collective rejuvenation from Mother Nature herself. Hugo also raps with whimsical world band Dub The Magic Dragon, and PhD historian and musician Giordano Nanni, co-creator of Juice Ra...
Feb 05, 2015•10 min•Season 3Ep. 34
In April, 2014 the members of the Boston-based Jellicle Literary Guild met to consider a question posed virtually by Dr. Bruce on: can we remake our communities in the old model of the closely knit circle? See how a group of intelligent New Englanders tackle this question. Host and publisher of Scriptor Press Raymond Soulard has guided the guild since its founding in New Britain, Connecticut in 1988. If you would like to host your own salon with a question posed in the Levity Zone, let us know! ...
Jan 09, 2015•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 33
Join us for part 2 of the controversial Radical Remake show with Dr. Bruce, and KSCO Radio's Michael Zwerling as they take on a barrage of callers from a mostly politically right of center listenership. As a preamble Dr. Bruce summarizes the five points his Radical Remake blueprint as well as Lawrence Lessig's book Republic Lost. Both documents outline how a constitutional convention might be held in the USA to deal with corruption and reboot the country's system of governance. Credits: Dr. Bruc...
Dec 11, 2014•55 min•Season 3Ep. 32
In November 2011 at the peak of the Occupy movement Dr. Bruce was moved by the protesters who so bravely spoke truth to power. Occupy represented deep dissatisfaction with a nation and a system deeply riddled with corruption that even the founding fathers of the Republic had feared and foretold. So he penned a five part document: "By and for the 99%, a visionary Blueprint for a Radical Remake of America (or any country)" which drew enough attention that he ended up on conservative talk radio. He...
Nov 30, 2014•25 min•Season 3Ep. 31
The Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece initiated an awakening into civilization, science and art but were lost when fanatical Christians and savage tribes smashed the temple as the Roman empire fell. Are we living in an inferior culture driven by non-initiates subjecting our world to the worst juvenile destructive tendancies? Dr. Bruce explores the return of Eleusisinian initiation through rites in circles held around the world in this talk from Burning Man 2014, Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer, Ja...
Nov 14, 2014•30 min•Season 2Ep. 30
In honor of the passing of Dr. Alexander 'Sasha' Shulgin a special group journeyed to a lush green spring-fed valley in dry far Northern California back in June of 2014. Dr. Bruce spins a tale of how we came to vision, the coevolution of technology and then on into how we may open to a group overmind driven and connected through the 'Shulgin Chip' and reach a place where we resonate with a cosmic destiny.Thanks to author Ramez Naam for his novel Nexus which was the inspiration for this talk. Cre...
Sep 27, 2014•42 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Rolling the clock way back to 1994 we find Dr. Bruce living and working in Prague, the beautiful medieval capital of the Czech lands. As well as leading a team of top class Bohemian engineers at Elixir, Dr. Bruce presents his very own Prague Gnosis in three interviews edited for you here in the Zone: Jan and Krystyna Kaplan's video documentary Good Morning Prague, Molly's interview on Radio Metropolis, and Wendy Haller's D-Salon arts piece on Radio Prague. Hear a very early Dr. Bruce wax poetica...
Jul 28, 2014•49 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Back in June of 2012 Lorenzo Hagerty and yours truly, Dr. Bruce, presented a program on the life of Terence McKenna at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Join us in the Big Yurt perched over the Pacific in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I fulfilled a promise Terence and I made to 'do my own thing' and return to Esalen in his name to present my particular raps.Join me as I weave some new myths, flow out Esalen visions and inspire a hopeful view of our coming to consciousness...
Jun 20, 2014•58 min•Season 2Ep. 27
In part two of the Bubble Culture Dhiren Dasu and Dr. Bruce continue to tackle the trends, economics, and purported transformational community of the festival scene. This August 2013 studio session unravels the 'entitlement generation' and recalls the features of real community versus the ephemeral and unsustainable nature of the festivals. While peak experiences have value, Dr. Bruce asks the question: does the festival scene feed the machine? Still there is a chance for the opening of lives th...
May 09, 2014•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Recorded at the Blue Lotus Temple of Sound and Light, this is the first of the "studio sessions" to be brought out into the Levity Zone. Featuring musician, artist and neighbor Dhiren Dasu in conversation with Dr. Bruce we tackle a topic not often taken on: the viability of the festival scene and the image and the reality of the "counter' or 'bubble' culture lifestyle prevalent on the West Coast of the US and elsewhere. As the philosopher Alan Watts counseled fifty years before, Dr. Bruce offers...
Apr 15, 2014•30 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Part two of the first Levity Zone Salon held in December of 2013 at Ancient Oaks Farm covers Dr. Bruce's personal integration guided by the teachings of Eckart Tolle and J. Krishnamurti. Travis then shared his heartbreak and frustration with powerful prescription drugs given to kids at his school putting them into a manic monkey mind state. The medicating of generations of youth by society may be altering the future of human consciousness and the very world in which we will all live. Mikey casts...
Mar 28, 2014•38 min•Season 2Ep. 24
In this special edition of the Levity Zone we embark on a new leg of our journey with the start of Levity Zone Salons. The first one was held at Ancient Oaks Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains on December 7th 2013 and featured: Dr. Bruce, Jacob Aman, Mark Boolootian, Mikey Siegel, and Travis Rios. The theme was: how do you integrate deeply powerful spiritual experiences into your everyday life? Those precious elevated states doled out from some ineffable source are rare in the human experience and...
Feb 22, 2014•51 min•Season 2Ep. 23
This lost talk from Fractal Nation at Burning Man 2012 was resurrected by Andrew O'Keefe! Introduced by the artist Android Jones, Dr. Bruce goes on to unbolt the gears and camshafts of the machine that drives society, from the Mad Men who created the advertising that is supposed to define who we are, to how the machine may rattle itself apart like the long lost Soviet Union. How do we prepare for when the wheels come off? Listen in and find your way to slowly, but surely leave that machine and l...
Jan 30, 2014•55 min•Season 2Ep. 22
JThe Levity Zone features the third and final 2013 Burning Man talk held at the Palenque Norte tent in Camp Soft Landing, Dr. Bruce takes up the vitally important theme of the re-balancing of the feminine in the world as a force to re-center the course of our crazily careening civilization. Dive into this fanciful yet provokative story, based partly on profound new scientific discoveries yes mostly drawn out of the imagination, Follow the life of one of the most important figures in our deep hum...
Jan 15, 2014•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 21
JDr. Bruce returns with another 2013 Burning Man talk held in the spectacular dome at Fractal Planet, a camp centered around visionary art led by the eclectic crew of spectacular visionary artist Andrew (Android) Jones. Android and a large spirited audience resonated with a vision of how we monkeys might use our fully activated minds to re-imagine and then re-make our world. Is this even plausible or possible? Dr. Bruce invites you to try it in your own life and see for yourself, for the univers...
Dec 15, 2013•50 min•Season 2Ep. 20
JDr. Bruce returns from the Amazon rainforest and opens the Burning Man 2013 talks series with Sacred Monkey Power, a talk about our 90 million year deep ancestry starting out on the limbs of rainforest giants. A real dragonfly graced the colorful pavillion of Sacred Spaces Village during the talk adding to the magic. Pressing on Dr. Bruce showed how we may push back against the coiling snake of technology, the thrall of our manic monkey masters and aim our civilization for that bright crack ope...
Nov 19, 2013•58 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Join us on the Pantheon stage at Symbiosis Gathering 2013 for Dr. Bruce introduced by visionary activist and coyote spiritwoman Caroline Casey. Dr. Bruce threaded together five of his recent raps from the Levity Zone and Burning Man, weaving in the story of the birth of the visionary experience 300 million year ago, the Madre seeing through our tiny primate eyes and being challenged by the snake of tech, the birth and life of Mitochrondrial Eve, all the way up to the dreamed for ascension of us ...
Sep 27, 2013•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 18
A spirited group in Ojai Salon number 3 takes on a big theme: what is the highest purpose of humanity? Topics include: our deepest origins in time, bringing a new myth to the extant world, alien abduction visions, Burning Man as a vehicle for ascension, the thinking of joseph campbell, or simply existing in the present. It is true that humanity is already on the best possible path, carried along by the enormity of nature, and that we are accelerating toward some kind of ascension? This positive ...
Sep 14, 2013•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 17
This is the final audience QA session for Ojai Salon number two (podcast 13). We continue with Dennis, Jeff and Dr. Bruce delving deeply into the mad mesmeric monkey, creator of one of the greatest diversions in history from our path to personal freedom and to fashioning a better world by 2050. 200,000 years ago did the mad monkey run off with history's greatest secret? In the 21st Century will we finally witness the waning of male blood lust as he puts down the spear? You've spread our genes, m...
Aug 21, 2013•30 min•Season 1Ep. 16
