LIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck

Please share the full video essay @LiminalNewsPod on YouTube: https://youtu.be/huRl4PptlkA?si=HcG8Kr0op4f7UJXQ In this essay, I explore the rise of Palantir, Peter Thiel's techno-authoritarian worldview, and the emerging fusion of AI surveillance, militarism, techno-feudalism, and reactionary politics in America. Drawing on thinkers like Byung-Chul Han, Eva Illouz, and Catherine Liu, I examine how...

Please share the full video essay @LiminalNewsPod on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nt333tOV0RE?si=VpcCGmWWicR1MMPT I explore the rise of Palantir, Peter Thiel's techno-authoritarian worldview, and the emerging fusion of AI surveillance, militarism, techno-feudalism, and reactionary politics in America. Drawing on thinkers like Byung-Chul Han, Eva Illouz, and Catherine Liu, I examine how modern subject...

What if Elon Musk is possessed? This video essay examines the unsettling, dissociated facial expressions Musk made during his stint as Trump's chief buddy at the White House and Mar-a-Lago — and what they reveal about a crisis the materialist worldview can't explain. When Musk fed USAID into "the wood chipper," Bill Gates told the Financial Times: "the picture of the world's richest man killing th...

What happens when the grift consumes the grifter? In this video essay, I examine the suicide of David Wilcock — bestselling New Age author and a central figure in what's now called "conspirituality" — and what his collapse reveals about a culture sliding toward collective psychosis. Within days of his death, conspiracy theories began circulating through the same alternative-media ecosystem he help...

In this episode of Liminal News, I'm joined by journalist and author David Z. Morris, whose book Stealing the Future examines the rise and collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried — not just as a crypto scandal, but as a warning about the belief systems driving Silicon Valley power today. We explore how effective altruism, longtermism, and utilitarian ethics became moral loopholes — allowing fraud, deception...

I speak with Adam Levy, a Minneapolis-based activist, educator, and musician, about what he describes as an unprecedented federal crackdown unfolding right now in the Twin Cities. Adam shares first-hand accounts of ICE raids, racial profiling, mass detentions, and families being targeted in their own neighborhoods — including a harrowing incident in which a baby nearly died after tear gas was fire...

In this episode of Liminal News, I speak with Salih Hudayar, Foreign Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, about China's mass detention system, the ongoing Uyghur genocide, and why East Turkistan has become one of the most advanced surveillance laboratories in the world. I've long known that the Uyghurs are a deeply oppressed people, often compared to Tibetans, but I realized I didn'...

In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I'm joined by Patrick McCollum, a global peacemaker and the subject of the new documentary The Man Who Saves the World, directed by Gabe Polsky. Patrick's life defies easy explanation. At 15, he was killed in a motorcycle accident and pronounced dead for more than seven minutes. What he experienced during that near-death encounter set him on a path that would take...

In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I'm joined by journalist and author Don Lattin, who spent decades as the religion beat reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, covering cults, new religious movements, and American spirituality from the inside. We begin with a provocative question: Is Donald Trump functioning as a modern messianic cult leader? Drawing on his firsthand reporting on Jim Jones, Jone...

The real battleground of our time isn't politics or technology — it's the imagination. Filmmaker Ari Kuschnir and embodiment guide Schuyler Brown join me for a deep conversation about AI, storytelling, spirituality, and how we reclaim agency in an age of dystopian futures. The future is being shaped in the imaginal realm — by the stories we consume, the images we repeat, and the futures we're told...

In this episode, I'm joined by Frank Schaeffer and Warren Farrell for a deep, unflinching conversation about masculinity, fatherhood, and the growing crisis facing boys and men in modern society. Frank and Warren help me unpack how anger often masks vulnerability, how fatherlessness reshapes culture, and why political polarization is inseparable from unresolved emotional and relational wounds. We...

Are psychic phenomena real—and are science and the humanities finally ready to admit it? In this episode, I speak with Jeffrey Kripal, PhD and Dean Radin, PhD about consciousness, magic, telepathy, UFOs, and why a genuine paradigm shift is already underway. Dean, one of the most prolific researchers in parapsychology, and chief scientist at the Institute for Noetic Sciences, describes how academic...

Former tech executive and political writer Mike Brock joins me for one of the most urgent and explosive conversations we've had on the channel — covering Trump's accelerating authoritarianism, the GOP civil war, Silicon Valley's Christian turn, Epstein revelations, and the structural collapse of American democracy in real time. In this new episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I speak with writer and former te...

Can ancient plant medicines and indigenous traditions help heal our fractured civilization? Daniel Pinchbeck speaks with Roman Hanis—author of Beyond Ayahuasca and co-founder of the Paititi Institute—about his two decades apprenticing with Amazonian elders, bridging Tibetan Buddhism, Jungian psychology, and ecological preservation. In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I speak with Roman Hanis, author...

This is an audio version of my recent video essay  based on my recent Substack post, "Toxic Empathy: The Supreme Court and the Death of Christian Compassion." I explore how right-wing Christian nationalism has inverted the moral teachings of Jesus—transforming empathy into sin and cruelty into virtue. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse, Joy DeGruy, and the Gospels, I unpack how repression, self-denial, an...

I sit down with Ramez Naam—scientist, technologist, and award-winning sci-fi author—to unpack how we arrived at the brink of democratic collapse, and what we can still do to pull back. Ramez and I first met years ago at Burning Man. Since then, he's become one of the most lucid voices connecting climate change, clean energy, technology, and political reform. We talk about the tech industry's dange...

I sat down with Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn to talk about his new book "Manifesto for World Revolution" and his call for a "third crack at world revolution." Lasn reflects on the legacy of Occupy Wall Street and 1968, arguing that real change requires vision, not reaction. We explore his ideas for true-cost markets, meta memes, and a new Bottoms Up Majority Party—a "Third Force" that could redefi...

Filmmaker Betsy Chasse, co-creator of "What the Bleep Do We Know!?", joins me to dissect how the New Age movement morphed into a billion-dollar self-help industry. We discuss cult dynamics, spiritual narcissism, the rise of Trumpian mysticism, and how "manifestation" culture paved the road from The Secret to MAGA metaphysics. In this episode, I speak with filmmaker, author, and cultural critic Bet...

Frank Schaeffer grew up inside the birth of America's religious right — making films with his father, Francis Schaeffer, that helped launch the modern anti-abortion and Christian nationalist movements. In this episode, we unpack how that movement gave rise to Trump, how money and media corrupted the church, and what real spirituality looks like beyond ideology. Frank was at the center of it all in...

Liberal capitalism tells us to be good and bad at the same time—innovate, compete, and care. In this episode, I talk with economic anthropologist Brett Scott, author of "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for Our Wallets", about the failure of liberal reformism, the rise of tech-fueled authoritarianism, and how the ESG illusion collapsed into the culture wars. In this episode of Liminal N...

What role did drugs play in the Third Reich—and how are psychedelics shaping our future? I sit down with Norman Ohler, author of "Blitzed" and "Tripped," to explore hidden history, consciousness, and the power of altered states. In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I talk with acclaimed German author Norman Ohler, best known for his groundbreaking book "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich." We explore t...

In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, I talk with Ralph White and Walter Alexander about the extraordinary life, teachings, and legacy of Rudolf Steiner—a visionary philosopher, spiritual scientist, and founder of biodynamic agriculture, Waldorf education, and anthroposophy. We explore Steiner's esoteric Christianity, his teachings on reincarnation and the evolution of consciousness, the challenges of...

What role do psychedelics play in shaping culture, spirituality, and the future of consciousness? I sit down with journalist and author Joe Dolce to explore his latest book on psychedelics, the neuroscience of altered states, the wisdom of indigenous traditions, and the risks of commercialization. From ayahuasca to MDMA to microdosing, our conversation opens new perspectives on how psychedelics ca...

DMT as a hidden technology? Jeffrey Kripal & Andrew Gallimore join Daniel Pinchbeck to explore consciousness, aliens & the end of history. In this episode of the Liminal News, I sit down with two extraordinary thinkers: Jeffrey J. Kripal, historian of religions and author of "The Superhumanities" and "Secret Body," and Andrew Gallimore, neuroscientist and author of "Death By Astonishment", "Alien...

Are we truly in control of our minds — or are unseen forces at play? In this latest episode of Liminal News, I speak with Robert Falconer, author of "The Others Within Us", about trauma, spirit possession, and the porous nature of human consciousness. Falconer brings decades of psychotherapeutic experience and a deep understanding of Internal Family Systems (IFS) to a conversation that dives into...