<nettime-ann> Erik Davis[pam]: New book is out!

Hello folks

This is to announce the publication of my new collection. Please spread the word!

NOMAD CODES: Adventures in Modern Esoterica

By Erik Davis

Essays from the man Peter Lamborn Wilson calls âthe best of all guides to modern American spirituality.â

In these wide-ranging essays, Erik Davis explores the codesâspiritual, cultural, and embodiedâthat people use to escape the limitation of their lives and to enrich their experience of the world. These include Asian religious traditions and West African trickster gods, Western occult and esoteric lore, postmodern theory and psychedelic science, as well as festival scenes such as Goa trance and Burning Man (of which Davis is the best-known chronicler). Articles on media technology further explore themes Davis took up in his acclaimed book Techgnosis, while his profiles of West Coast poets, musicians, and mystics extend the California terrain he previously mapped in The Visionary State.

Whether his subject is collage art or the âmagickal realismâ of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, transvestite Burmese spirit mediums or Ufology, tripster king Terence McKenna or dub maestro Lee Perry, Davis writes with keen yet skeptical sympathy, intellectual subtlety and wit, and unbridled curiosity. The common thread running through all these pieces is what Davis calls âmodern esoterica,â which he describes in his preface as a âno-manâs-land located somewhere between anthropology and mystical pulp, between the zendo and the metal club, between cultural criticism and extraordinary experience, whether psychedelic, or yogic, or technological.â Such an ambiguous and startling landscape demands that the intrepid adventurer shed any territorial claims and go nomad. Davis wanders with sharp eyes and an open mind, which is why Peter Lamborn Wilson calls him âthe best of all guides to modern American spirituality.â

About the Author

Erik Davis is the author of the cult classic Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Harmony Books, 1998), as well as Led Zeppelin IV (331â3 Books, 2005) and The Visionary State: A Journey through Californiaâs Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle Books, 2006). He also wrote the libretto for the rock opera How To Survive the Apocalypse, and he hosts the weekly podcast Expanding Mind on the Progressive Radio Network.

Price: $17.95 Publisher: Yeti/Verse Chorus Press

Be creative, but Amazon is fine! http://www.amazon.com/Nomad-Codes-Erik-Davis/dp/1891241540