Bureau of Lost Culture

*'This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius' claimed the first song in the hippie musical Hair in 1967.  And perhaps it was.   *As thousands gathered at Stonehenge to welcome the summer solstice sunrise and hundred of thousands gathered at the Glastonbury festival, Ethan Doyle White came to the Bureau of Lost Culture to talk about Paganism.     *Glastonbury itself is regarded by many as a ‘pagan place’ and many of those 8000 people who gathered at Stonehenge might describe themselves as 'pagans' - part of a counterculture that has roots going back to the pre-Christian era.   *But what does Pagan mean? Where did the word come? We take a trip through pagan history and ask what do modern pagans believe, think and do? We hear about Wicca, Heathens and Druids and delve into earth mysteries, magic, the New Age and psychogeography..   *Happy Solstice Brother and Sisters   For more on Ethan and his beautiful visual history of the Pagan Get our Counterculture newsletter The Bureau of Lost Culture Home   #pagan #counterculture #wicca #heathen #dionfortune #psychedelicsound #witch #esoteric #thegoldendawn #aleistercrowley  #magic #pre-christian

*In a remote village in the Ahl Srif tribal area of Northern Morocco, dwell a collective of Sufi musicians. They play a form of trance music which is used for healing.  Timothy Leary called them The 4,000-year-old Rock’N’Roll band - rather superficial hyperbole perhaps - though it is true that what The Master Musicians of Joujouka play is thousands of years old - and shares something in common with the wildest and most inspired of  rock music.   Record producer, film-maker and Beat historian Frank Rynne, who co-organises their annual festival,  came to the Bureau to tell the strange and wonderful story of the musicians of Joujouka, their culture and their interaction with the counterculture of the 50s and 60s   We hear about Tangier at the time - and the life there of Beat artists Bryon Gysin and William Burroughs with digressions into the dark side of bohemia - along with the story of doomed Rolling Stone Brian Jones who came to record the Master Musicians shortly before his death.   For more on the Master Musicians of Jojouka Get our Counterculture newsletter The Bureau of Lost Culture Home   #joujouka #counterculture #themastermusiciansofjoujouka #sufi #brianjones #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #williamburroughs #briongyson #rollingstones  #beatgeneration #thebeats

*They were psychedelic outlaws holing up in hill country hideouts to escape police harassment, dealing drugs to survive and blasting out a mix of LSD evangelism, mystical philosophy and grooved up rock’n’roll.   *In their short existence, The 13th Floor Elevators succeeded in blowing the lid off the musical underground, logging early salvos in the countercultural struggle against state authorities, and turning their deeply hallucinatory take on jug-band garage rock into a new American institution called psychedelic music.    *Paul Drummond author of 'Eye Mind - the Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators’ deemed the band significant enough to spend eight years of his life researching and writing about them - along with producing the definitve compilations of their work.   *We dig into their craziness - and into Janis Joplin, LSD, peyote, Antonin Artaud, mayhem, madness, music and more.   For More on Paul and his work Get our Counterculture newsletter The Bureau of Lost Culture Home #13thfloorelevators #counterculture #the13thfloorelevators #lsd #acid #psychedelicsound #psychedelicrock #occult #psychedelic #peyote  #rokyerickson #esoteric

*If they were a cult, they were a very British cult.   *In the 1920s if you had seen strangely attired groups of people walking in formation along southern England's pagan pathways and round its prehistoric stone circles, you may have encountered The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift.   *They shared their initials - and a predeliction for arcane symbols, pointy hoods and cloaks - with the Ku Klux Klan but that's where the similarities end. *They thought they were spiritual samurai, rebuilding Britain after the Great War with magical rituals, outdoor living and utopian vision. They were clean-living proto-new age weekend hippies directed by a messianic autocratic visionary and produced extraordinary art and craft of graphics, symbols, costumes.   *They remain one of our most fascinating and forgotten countercultural groups.   *They also inspired a '70s rock opera..   *Annebella Pollen, author of a wonderful book on the Kindred, came to the Bureau to tell us all about them and about some of the other strange esoteric groups that flourished in between the world wars.   The episode contains music from Chris Judge Smith and Maxwell Hutchinson's rock opera Kibbo Kift   *For Bella’s book:  The Kindred of The Kibbo Kift   *Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culture https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC   *Listen to all our shows www.bureauoflostculture.com     Photo: Angus Macbean #london #counterculture #naturism #greenshirts #havelockellis #hgwells #aleistercrowley #occult #kibbokift #thekindredofthekibbokift #cults #cult #occult #esoteric #camping

"You do it to yourself" sang Radiohead Well that was certainly true of some of the subjects of this episode.   Historian of the mind MIKE JAY returns to the Bureau to tell of the intrepid scientists, artists, writers and thinkers who were experimenting with psychoactive substances and recording their experiences in the Victorian age and onwards.     But the notion that researchers might partake of drugs if they were going to have something valuable to say about them became unacceptable.   And we hear about the first British psychedelic experiences of Aleister Crowley, W B Yeats, Havelock Ellis and Maude Gone along with some of the lesser known London Psychonauts huffing ether, chloroform and nitrous oxide in the pursuit of knowledge during the 19th century counterculture.   For Mike's book: Psychonauts: drugs and the making of the modern mind    Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culture https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC   Listen to all our shows www.bureauoflostculture.com   #london #drugs #psychoactive #psychedelic #humphreydavy #wbyeats #aleistercrowley #occult #jameslee #morphine #heroin #opium #hashish #nitrousoxide #science

*Do you believe it's possible to know the future?   *Deep in the heart of the countercultural 60s, when the boundaries of consciousness were being explored and pushed forward, when human achievements were coming thick and fast, a psychiatrist and a rather un-counterculural science journalist, prompted by a terrible disaster, carried out a peculiar experiment with time..   *Writer SAM KNIGHT comes to the Bureau to tell their strange story and that of The Premonition Bureau - an attempt to harness the intuitions of the British public in order to predict - and possibly avoid - disasters.   *Visions of the future, foresight, foretelling, divination and  prophecies have populated myth, literature and history - the notion that time is not linear is even gaining currency in science, but is it really possible to anticipate what has not yet happened?   *We talk about all this and about writing, listening, the placebo and nocebeo effects, about psychic research.  voodoo death phenomenon and the writing of his wonderful book.   *Sam's book 'The Premonition Bureau' https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571357567-the-premonitions-bureau/ *Sign up for the Bureau of Lost Culture bulletin https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC   *The Story of the Brompton Time Machine https://soundcloud.com/the-real-tuesday-weld-1/the-brompton-time-machine   Jeff Edwards - the last child to be pulled from the Aberfan wreckage.    #premonitions, #time, #aberfan, #mentalhealth, #london #vision, #prophecy, #disaster, #peterfairley, #jcbarker, #psychiatry, #counterculture, #premonitionbureau, #foresight, #precognition #dreams

He was a member of some of the most influential post punk bands: Magazine, The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds. He's collaborated with a whole range of artists including Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, Diamanda Galas, David Lynch, Jarvis Cocker, Atticus Ross and Depeche Mode. He's written film scores, made films himself, made many solo records and recently published an extraordinary memoir of youth:  'Up Above the City and Down Beneath the Stars.’   The Jazz Devil Barry Adamson came to the Bureau to talk about his life and times - and about bones, about being an outsider, about Manchester in the 70s, about Punk, luck, trouble  - and about heroin addiction.    And we discuss the alchemical process of turning darkness into artness and signposts and signal moments along the way.   For more on Barry  http://www.barryadamson.com   Join us at the Bureau of Lost Culture https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/N0ZYoFu/BOLC   All shows www.bureauoflostculture.com #manchester #barryadamson #magazine #thebirthdayparty #thebadseeds #nickcave #howarddevoto #theclash #punk #postpunk #heroin #davidlynch #jazzdevil #nickcave #johnnymarr

*From heroin to Hollywood,  Here is the second part of our conversation with the writer, countercultural activist, Zen priest and erstwhile movie star PETER COYOTE at his farm in Sebastopol California.    *Last time, we left him isolated and lost in the throes of drug addiction as the countercultural dream had started to turn sour. Now we pick up the story in the American communes of the early 70s, hear how he transitioned to become a successful actor appearing in over 160 films, and dig deep into counterculture, creativity, charisma, drugs, buddhism, how he navigated Hollywood Babylon.   *And Peter gives some amazing advice for actors, artists  - and for all of us   With thanks to Jenny Spires.   Join the Bureau of Lost Culture for countercultural news, stories and special events http://www.bureauoflostculture.com   For more on Peter and his work http://www.petercoyote.com #counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america #heroin #drugaddiction 

*Angels in London *You've probably seen him in a film - he’s performed in more than 130 as an actor for some of the world’s greatest directors including Roman Polanski, Pedro Almodovar, Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderberg, or maybe you have heard his voice - he's an Emmy Award-winning narrator of over 200 documentaries. *He is a writer, a poet, an ordained Buddhist priest who has been practicing Zen for over 50 years.  *But that's not the half of it - as we find out in this, the first of two episodes charting the extraordinary life of PETER COYOTE.   *We did deep into the American counterculture, Hells Angels in London, heroin addiction, radical theatre groups, The Diggers, the Free Family, the birth of the communes, mescaline and how the atom bomb created rock and roll.   *AND Peter reads some of his poems from his collection 'The Tongue of a Crow'   *With thanks and appreciation  to Jenny Spires for connecting us.   Join the Bureau of Lost Culture for countercultural news, stories and special events http://www.bureauoflostculture.com   For more on Peter and his work http://www.petercoyote.com   #counterculture #thediggers #petercoyote #psychedelic #mescaline #peyote #haightashbury #freefamil #london #hellsangels #kenkesey #zen #america

*In 1965 the psychiatrist R.D.LAING formed a commune in an East London community centre called Kingsley Hall where the psychotic and the schizophrenic could live on equal terms with their carers. There were no locks and no anti-psychotic drugs but there were all-night therapy sessions, dinners with visiting mystics and high grade LSD available to any who chose to take it *The Neuro-psychiatrist Anthony David came to the Bureau to talk about Laing and about how his groundbreaking book The Divided Self propelled him into the status of a countercultural guru. He grew his hair, he wore beads, he toured America speaking to large audiences and was asked to pronounce on all sorts of matters far beyond the subject of madness.   *We dig into Laing's life and work, successes and shadows, the subjects of mental health and psychedelics, talk about Van Gogh, David Bowie, Syd Barrett and the links between creativity and madness. And we hear about Tony's own work in London with those suffering from acute mental disorders. *For Tony's book 'Into the Abyss' https://oneworld-publications.com/work/into-the-abyss/ *For the Bureau of Lost Culture  http://www.bureauoflostculture.com #rdlaing, #madness, #psychedelics, #mentalhealth, #london #schizophrenia, #psychosis, #thedividedself, #sydbarrett, #bowie, #psychiatry, #counterculture, #kingsleyhall, #anthonydavid, #vangogh