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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...

A Random Selection

Doom Scroll
Burning Shore
14 min
Doom Scroll

Plus News and Notes

The Life of Things
Media
The Life of Things
Dr. Robert Wallis and the life of things

Consciousness Explorer
Expanding Mind Podcast
Consciousness Explorer
Expanding Mind

Technology, Psychedelics, and the Future of Religion

Philip K. Dick and Religious Studies
Media
Philip K. Dick and Religious Studies
The Philip K. Dick Festival, SFSU, September 22, 2012

Flyboy
Expanding Mind Podcast
Flyboy
Expanding Mind

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

Mind Change
Expanding Mind Podcast
Mind Change
Expanding Mind