Shows
LevityZone075-LevityZone: Boundary DissolutionDr. Bruce returns for the first Levity Zone of 2021 to mark "Terence Day" celebrating 21 years since entheo-raconteur Terence McKenna passed through the azure veil on April 3rd, 2000. Terence's call to dissolve the boundaries which separate us inspired this rap on how humanity might move forward with healing the trauma beneath these divisions. Since Terence's time we know these boundaries better than ever and the little inner personalities within which can sometimes drive us to be less than our better natures. Next, taking up where Terence left off with his notions of novelty, Dr. Bruce recounts his past two decades of...
2021-04-1547 min
LevityZone074-LevityZone: Pattern BreakDr. Bruce returns from evacuation to tell the dramatic, traumatic tale of the horrific CZU fire nearby, coming within a mile of Ancient Oaks. Climate shocks come home as giant redwoods burn bottom to top for the first time in a thousand years. A pattern break, and then another, and another will impact and transform our lives, individually and collectively as we move deeper into the century. Dr. Bruce himself is entering into his own pattern break, a month of breaking from his mostly mental life into a new state with nowhere to go, nothing to do. How often do...
2020-10-0155 min
LevityZone073-LevityZone Salon4: Pandemics and the Human FutureThe Levity Zone returns after six months of life-changing events for Dr. Bruce including his move in with a new love into a new house, the Gandalf Abode at Ancient Oaks (aka a "COVID romance"). The Zone welcomes in the new Levity Salons. These Salons are live online Zoom sessions which started late in 2019 with Dr. Bruce's Patreon community. This Salon (#4) featured the timely theme of Pandemics and the Human Future, it being recorded in March 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bruce gives his take on the situation and then shares a lively dialogue amongst almost forty...
2020-06-091h 38
Dr. Bruce Damer's Levity ZoneLevityZone Salon 4: Pandemics and the Human FutureThe Levity Zone after six months of life-changing events for Dr. Bruce including his move in with a new love into a new house, the Gandalf Abode at Ancient Oaks. The Zone welcomes in the new Levity Salons. These Salons are live online Zoom sessions which started late in 2019 with Dr. Bruce's Patreon community. This Salon (#4) featured the timely theme of Pandemics and the Human Future, it being recorded in March 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bruce gives his take on the situation and then shares a lively dialogue amongst almost forty participants. Credits: Dr. Bruce...
2020-06-081h 38
LevityZone072-LevityZone: A Heartfelt New Years 2020!With the passing of Ram Dass, your Dr. Bruce speaks from his heart to prepare humanity for the decade of the 2020s, calling for a humane and sane response to coming climate shocks, giving a happy report on the publication of the Hot Spring Hypothesis for and Origin of Life article (his greatest intellectual work), and the blessing of his new home, the Gandalf Wizard's Abode. He departs 2019 in bed in a state of exhaustion, but also holding deep gratitude for our very existence and the conscious, loving awareness which humanity can attain through a Human Wellbeing Climate Moonshot. Credits...
2019-12-3121 min
Ten Laws with East ForestDr. Bruce Damer - Origins of Life, Space, and the Numinous (#74)Dr. Bruce Damer is a liminal traveler of many realms, some magic, others mundane. His work focuses on the origin of life on Earth and finding a pathway for us, a remarkably rare form of complex life, a sustainable path forward into the cosmos. He also places matters of healing and coming from the heart at the heart of his work and life. His Ancient Oaks property hosts transformative retreats and the center called Wyldflower which enable and empower deeper understandings of self and the world. Decades of work in tech, for NASA, in origin of life at UC S...
2019-10-081h 17
LevityZone071-LevityZone: Dr. Bruce TRU Alum-the Boy Comes HomeYour Dr. Bruce returns after yet another four month absence from the Levity Zone. I am thrilled to report that my life transition is going very well with this property transforming into a community with members and retreats, a dream of mine for 25 years. My "Gandalf House" rising on the hill is almost complete and I moved into the upstairs back on June 30th. New ventures are progressing with Mason and Carlos and I am even getting involved in a global effort called Climate Mitigation Associates which will build a network of experts to help bridge our civilization over the...
2019-09-0850 min
LevityZone070-LevityZone: Dr. Bruce springs forward!Your Dr. Bruce returns after a four month absence from the Levity Zone. Remarkable changes have been happening in my life and I am now "springing forward" into a bright new season of starting up ventures in space, origins of life, evolutionary biology, and computing as well as constructing my “Gandalf House” here at Ancient Oaks. So, rejoin me now as I return for our 70th podcast with an update from my world, now more hopeful and more globally connected than ever to support an emerging positive future for humanity. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (recording and editing), Arlene Olynyk (cover phot...
2019-04-1932 min
LevityZone069-LevityZone: Fred McPherson Saving the San Lorenzo!Your Dr. Bruce sadly reports the loss of a dear friend and neighbor of these past 25 years: Fred McPherson. I first met Fred in the 90s when I first moved to Boulder Creek. Some time later I learned that he was a major figure in the counter-cultural movements in Santa Cruz in the 60s and 70s. Working with a set of early environmental activists, Fred had helped lead efforts to prevent a major new highway, a full three or four lane expressway actually, from being built up into the San Lorenzo Valley where I now live. Some years ago Fred...
2018-12-1357 min
LevityZone068-LevityZone: Becoming HumanDr. Bruce is back after a heartfelt series of major life changes to bring you this podcast "Becoming Human", a recording by SAND (Science & Nonduality) for their Emergence Series webcast in preparation for the SAND2018 Conference in San Jose, California. Join us for a wide-ranging storytelling salon with topics as diverse as the cold realms of science, intuition and the synchronous field, connecting with Deepak Chopra, holding Endo thought experiments, my original vision to work on the origin of life, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, deep human evolution, the Eleusinian Mysteries and kitchen biogenesis. Credits: Vera de Chalambert (host...
2018-10-241h 00
LevityZone067-LevityZone: TubCast04-Bagging the FutureYour Dr. Bruce shares a hot tub and a chorus of crickets with Dr. Future (Al Lundell) after returning from highly stimulating and encouraging meetings in Boston and Providence where he met a new team of Mac and Mike who are serious about building a "CubeSat" prototype of SHEPHERD. SHEPHERD is the audacious spacecraft design worked out with Peter Jenniskens and Julian Nott back in 2015. It is a "sailing ship for space" which if it works could encapsulate, handle, extract and make new little worlds out of asteroids and thereby creating the stepping stones for us to become a Solar...
2018-09-011h 09
LevityZone066-LevityZone: Emerald and Azure at EarthFrequency 2015Dr. Bruce returns from science fieldwork and Middle Earth adventures in New Zealand with a full report following this episode featuring his 2015 Earth Frequency festival talk on "The Emerald and Azure Civilization" held in the gum tree forests of southern Queensland, Australia. This free-flowing rap takes you from how our visionary viewpoint has been constricting as we replace a formerly emerald green world of nature with the harsh azure blue glare of technological civilization. He then offers how we might collectively push back against the forces of our darker nature with the calling forth of the evolving forces of light...
2018-08-011h 16
LevityZone065-LevityZone: Deepak Chopra and Dr. Bruce's Emergent ConnectionDr. Bruce Damer and Dr. Deepak Chopra meet and share news and views about the science of life's origins, old rocks and new chemistry, and the fundamental engine of creation in a mutual sense of spirit of healing in this emergent connection. Recorded in Facebook Live in front of 22,000 of Deepak's followers on Friday April 6th at the 2018 Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson, Arizona this was Dr. Bruce's first experience of mass audiences in social media. It was fun so there is more to come! Credits: Dr. Deepak Chopra & Dr. Bruce Damer (recording and discussion), Kristof (editing and cover...
2018-05-3041 min
LevityZone064-LevityZone: Shahnaz Minallah on Lock In, Jedis & CraftsYour Dr. Bruce finds himself back in Islamabad, Pakistan spending one beautiful April spring day at a flower-decked lakeside retreat hand-crafted by a dear friend, Shahnaz Minallah. We spent a delightful time "gup shupping" (Pakistani for shooting the breeze) while breezes flowed and Pashtuns from the wild north worked around us. We explored the theme of "lock-in" which is entering Pakistani society with Chinese development to garner millions in apartment building/shopping mall/smartphone living. Lock-in will soon threaten thousand year old ways of life including craft hand-workers such as a Pashtun weaver who "says a prayer with every thread."...
2018-04-2657 min
LevityZone063-LevityZone: Tubcast03-Healing HumanityDr. Bruce and Al Lundell submerge together in the hot tub on Future Peak to record a new Tubcast. Levity Zone listeners get a first peek into a whole new practice Dr. Bruce has been immersed in for several years within a community called the Luminous Awareness Institute. In Luminous, skilled practitioners use powerful combinations of methods for healing various types of trauma which, for many of us, were "coded in" by experiences in childhood. As living conditions have improved worldwide, people are healthier and live longer than ever before. However, many suffer in a state of anxiety induced by...
2018-04-021h 07
LevityZone062-LevityZone: Dr. Kaushik on The Wiles of the MindDr. Bruce brings you a vital new teaching for our times from Dr. R. P. Kaushik. We live in a time dominated by the "wiles of the mind", thoughts which swirl around mind and trap it within limits, conditioning it and morphing it into "the me", "the ego" or simply "self-centeredness". Operating from this "small self" defined by cycling thought creates suffering within each of us and for the whole world. Fake news and not so fake news, social media, and ordinary computer interactions all trigger thought which activates the small self, often providing initial rewards followed by a hollowed-out...
2018-02-2641 min
LevityZone061-LevityZone: Deeper Communion in the Pyramid @ BurningMan2017Celebrate Dr. Bruce's Blue Moon Eclipse (56th) birthday on January 31st, 2018 by returning to a magickal night last August 31st, at Burningman 2017 with the Wizards Light troupe in the Playalchemist pyramid. Journey on this mystical musical spoken word performance on why communion traces back to our very origins and is the likely mechanism for our very survival. On top of all that, grok a novel insight of a tripartite system that may actually generate everything, from life's beginning through all of evolution to culture, technology and even our experience of spirit in the union of communion. Credits: Brad Nye, Chris...
2018-01-3148 min
LevityZone060-LevityZone: Communion in the Pyramid @ BurningMan2017For the 60th Levity Zone podcast, Dr. Bruce brings you Communion in the Pyramid, a team performance of cosmic proportions held at Burning Man 2017. Join Samantha Sweetwater for an invocation from our deepest communal origins followed by Valentin Santana and Andre Reinero (aka DJ DISSOLV) rocking their board bringing forth a new composition in their "Calibrate" line... danced to by the phenomenal Jasmine. A crack of thunder signaled yours truly, the Wizard, to stride slowly forward into the light on stage in possibly the largest interior space ever constructed on the Playa. Burner brothers and sisters were then piloted on...
2017-12-3032 min
LevityZone059-LevityZone: Origins Science comes to PakistanDr. Bruce reports in from Islamabad, Pakistan where he is on a "round the world" tour from the Science & Nondualists of San Jose, to the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador, to Mars rover roboticists in Pasadena, and from here onwards to China. He gave perhaps the first talk on the origins of life and search for life in the Universe in Pakistan at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. His host, renowned physicist and activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, hosted this talk at the Physics department auditorium. Dr. Bruce "inflamed the minds" of Pakistani students and professors alike as he took them on...
2017-11-181h 30
LevityZone058-LevityZone: Oregon Eclipse Live!Dr. Bruce returns after a magickal mystery tour of epic proportions performing and speaking at the Oregon Eclipse festival and then on to Burning Man. Join John Zielinski, Michael Moore and Dr. Bruce on a hillside above the Eclipse stage to witness the union of darkness and light as totality swept across Eastern Oregon on August 21, 2017. The boys wax poetic on what all of this means as the totality tells the story of perfect chance that pulled us into existence. Shpongle provides a surprise musickal gift to the thousands of gob smacked revelers. Credits: Michael Moore, John Zielinski and Dr...
2017-09-2930 min
LevityZone057-LevityZone: The Origin of Life & Consciousness-1Dr. Bruce returns after a two month hiatus with the first of two talks from the June 2017 Science of Consciousness Conference in La Jolla, California. The first, an interview by Nick Day of Consciousness Central, is a wide ranging conversation exploring the implications of the new Hot Spring Origin of Life hypothesis for biology, physics, philosophy and the origin and phenomenon of consciousness. Credits: Nick Day (interviewer), Dr. Bruce Damer (interviewee), Consciousness Central (recording and cover photo). [released 31 July 2017]
2017-08-0136 min
LevityZone056-LevityZone: Bob Taylor-Innovating our WorldDr. Bruce marks the sad passing in April 2017 of Bob Taylor, the innovative father of much of the digital technology that we use every day. Bob funded Doug Engelbart's lab in the mid 1960s creating the first interactive computing information environment using a mouse and conceived of and headed the ARPANET project, forerunner of the Internet. In the 70s he directed the Xerox PARC Computer Science Lab which brought us the Alto. the first networked personal computer, and ran DEC labs in the 80s-90s launching the first Web search engine before Google. This is the first of several interviews...
2017-04-2031 min
LevityZone055-LevityZone: Dr. Kaushik from Body to RealizationDr. R.P. Kaushik returns to the Levity Zone to describe how listening to the body and becoming the observer separate from mind can open us to a healing and transformative intelligent energy. This energy can unify us with what is: the source of life itself. Dr. Bruce has recently been engaged in practices that are taking him closer to opening to this energy, so his heart was wide open to Dr. Kaushik's telling of this link between the body, the mind and this path to transformation. As our world is increasingly dominated by fear and anxiety through politics and...
2017-03-2241 min
LevityZone054-LevityZone: The Origins and Evolution of PowerDr. Bruce returns for another TubCast with Allan Lundell in a pot boiling historical hot tub conversation about the origins and evolution of the power structures, brokers and abusers we find ourselves surrounded by today. Part One of this investigation takes us through the shaping of power from the temple at Eleusis through the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution up to Dr. Bruce's 1986 meeting of "Kojak and the Serpent". Dr. Bruce then offers a ray of hope through science and the shaman's understanding of childhood traumas that underlie all of the old and new pathological abuses of power we see...
2017-03-0126 min
LevityZone053-LevityZone: The Non-Election of 2016Dr. Bruce shares some heartfelt words on the recent so-called "election" of 2016 in the USA. Recorded on the eve of the new year 2017 and offered on the eve of the so-called "inauguration" of a non-elected "president". It reflects a Canadian but also a human view of the broken nature of the US national political system and its need to be radically remade some time in the future. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (recording and cover art). [released 19 January 2017]
2017-01-1915 min
Vancouver Real#091: Dr. Bruce Damer | The Origins of LifeBruce Damer is truly one of a kind. He is Canadian-American multi disciplinary scientist, designer, and author. Dr. Bruce Damer collaborates with colleagues developing and testing a new model for the origin of life on Earth and in the design of spacecraft architectures to provide a viable path for expansion of human civilization beyond the Earth. He began his career in the 1980s developing some of the earliest user interfaces for personal computers, led a community in the 1990s bringing the first multi-user virtual worlds to the Internet, and since 2000 supported NASA and the space industry on numerous simulations and...
2016-12-201h 07
LevityZone052-LevityZone: Dr. Bruce on Virtual RealityDr. Bruce is interviewed by the "VR The Movie" documentary film crew in April of 2015 on his past and current views of Virtual Reality. This sweeping discussion starts with the story of Jaron Lanier escaping to Silicon Valley in an old car to create the first VR headset and glove in the late 1980s, We then motor on through the mid 90s revolution in online "avatar" virtual worlds and drive up to the second coming of VR with Oculus Rift in the 20-teens. We finally look through the windshield for a forward view of VR and AR given to us...
2016-12-0146 min
LevityZone051-LevityZone: Tubcast #2-Ancestry, Destiny and BubblyJoin Dr. Future (Al Lundell) and Dr. Bruce in another Tubcast, a spirited (and bubbly) hot tub conversation ranging from the cosmic destiny of life beyond Earth, to our own ancestry at the birth of our world, to how we might best survive and thrive for another five hundred years. Is all we have to do to wake up to how rare we are and to the wonder of *what is* rather than falling into stories invented by others? Please join us again in the Levity Zone for dialogues at the edge of the west, or at least the edge...
2016-10-261h 05
LevityZone050-LevityZone: Fire in the SkyFor the 50th Levity Zone podcast Dr. Bruce offers: "Fire in the Sky" a four part full tilt poetic journey from the birth of the cosmos through the origin of life and human conscious awareness. This piece was later performed on stage with Android Jones and Val Santana at the 2016 Lightning in a Bottle festival. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (performer), Lisa Cory (cover photography), Val Santana/DJ DISSOLV (recording and music mixing). [released 29 September 2016]
2016-09-3033 min
LevityZone049-LevityZone: Prime DriverDr. Bruce returns with a report on science field work in Australia and at the Bumpass Hell volcanic springs in California. And then following on to our last episode "Primal Theory" which took up questions on how the universe might work, Dhiren Dasu and Dr. Bruce sit down in the studio and take up the more pertinent, personal question of where humanity might be going next. We asked ourselves the question: "what is your prime driver?" We cycled through whether we should live in tune with rhythms, seeking equlibrium or be driven by cause and effect. Should we always expect...
2016-09-0125 min
LevityZone048-LevityZone: Primal TheoryDr. Bruce returns for a Studio Session with Dhiren Dasu recorded back in 2012 where he dove into his primordial thinking behind the recently published hypothesis on the origin of life, musings on the origin of the cosmos, and the unique place of life and God in the universe. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (speaker), Dhiren Dasu (interview and audio recording), Ryan Norkus (cover art) Mental Physix (theme music). [released 2 July 2016]
2016-07-0333 min
LevityZone047-LevityZone: The DigiBarn does Apple@30!Apple Computer's 30th birthday was celebrated back in November 2006 when Dr. Bruce and his DigiBarn Computer Museum hosted a lively, nerdly and funny panel featuring Steve Wozniak, Randy Wigginton, Chris Espinosa, and Daniel Kottke. The theme was: "Apple in the garage" when these four gentlemen along with Steve Jobs assembled Apple 1 computers in his parents' garage, cooking up what would eventually become the world's most valuable company. This episode is released to coincide with Apple's 40th anniversary on April 1st, 2016. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (host), Allan Lundell (video and audio recording), Bo Millward (sound cleanup) Kyle Espenshade (theme music). [released 31...
2016-03-311h 01
LevityZone046-LevityZone: Steve Wozniak visits the DigiBarnRoll open the doors to the DigiBarn Computer Museum as we enter a new theme in the Zone. Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak gets a grand tour of Dr. Bruce's vintage computer collection. Deep nerd wisdom is mixed with whimsical techie banter as first person true stories of Apple, Xerox and the rise of the personal computer are shared. Credits: Steve Wozniak, Dr. Bruce Damer, Allan Lundell, Sellam Ismail (speakers, recording and editing), Bo Millward (sound cleanup), Kyle Espenshade (theme music) and Jacob Aman (web site). [released 29 February 2016]
2016-03-0136 min
LevityZone045-LevityZone: Merry Pranksters-Lee Quarnstrom & Acid Test @ 50Returning 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 County introduced the set and setting of the 50th anniversary of the first Acid Test then introduced Nicholas...
2016-01-2737 min
LevityZone044-LevityZone: Merry Pranksters-The Acid Test Turns 50!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 it for you here in the Levity Zone. Credits: John Leopold, George Walker, Jami Cassady, Carolyn Garcia, Ken Babbs (presenters...
2015-12-1835 min
LevityZone043-LevityZone: TubCast #1 with Dr. Bruce, Future Al and Mythic PeterReturning 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 and Peter present their first ever TubCast for the...
2015-11-2949 min
LevityZone042-LevityZone: Deep 90s-AvaBruce on NPR-TechNation 1998In 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, families, football games, school classrooms, architecture competitions and even the youngest ever user of the Internet. It was a wonderful pioneering time...
2015-10-3127 min
LevityZone041-LevityZone: Deep 90s-DigiBruce 1995 & 96In 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: Sherwood Forest Towne and planning its first real-world conference. Hear some of the first musings of the medium that later grew into popular platforms...
2015-09-2430 min
LevityZone040-LevityZone: Deep 90's-Craig Newmark March 1996Teleport 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 might even take their computers to bed. This is the first in our "Deep 90s"...
2015-08-2814 min
LevityZone039-LevityZone: Dr. Bruce's TEDx Talks-Origin of LifeDr. 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 at the Astrobiology Science Conference in Chicago. It's been a truly stunning three months...
2015-07-0648 min
LevityZone038-LevityZone: Dr. Bruce's TEDx Talks-Next Space SHEPHERDDr. 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), Ryan Norkus (TEDx graphics and animation), Reno de Caro (Photography), Bo Millward (sound editing), Michael Phillip (Midwest Real Podcast segment), Jacob Aman (site...
2015-06-1230 min
LevityZone037-LevityZone: Dr. Kaushik Long Minding Road to FreedomDr. 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 energy some call freedom or enlightenment. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer...
2015-05-2840 min
LevityZone036-LevityZone: Sydney Serenade part 2 of 2Rejoin 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 paced out a five hundred year runway to the stars. The beautiful monkeys, greatest creation of Gaia's tool of evolution...
2015-04-2551 min
LevityZone035-LevityZone: Sydney Serenade part 1 of 2Join 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 and Vince Polito (intro), DJ Tzentsak (music), Bo Millward (sound editing), Craig Brown (aka Slinky and...
2015-03-251h 06
LevityZone034-Dr.Bruce: Hugo's Ode to IshtarUK-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 Rap News, a ship of the spoken word that pilots us through a cosmos of ideas. Hugo's own journeys...
2015-02-0609 min
LevityZone033-Dr.Bruce: The Jellicle Literary GuildIn 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! Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer, Raymond Soulard (recording, hosting, cover art) Catfilsh Rivers (music). [released 9...
2015-01-091h 01
LevityZone031-Dr.Bruce: Radical Remake of AmericaIn 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. Hear Dr. Bruce in conversation with Michael Zwerling of KSCO AM 1080 bravely put forth the idea...
2014-12-0124 min
LevityZone030-DrBruce: Eleusis on the PlayaThe 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 tendencies? Dr. Bruce explores the return of Eleusinian initiation through rites in circles held around the world in this talk from Burning Man 2014, Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer, Jacob Aman (cover art), Kyle Espenshade (music). [released 14 Nov 2014]
2014-11-1229 min
播主练习生anchor#561 - Bruce DamerDr. Bruce Damer is a polymath scientist, designer, author and general explorer of liminal realms. He has worked for over a decade in simulation and design of space missions for NASA, develops biochemical models for the origin of life at UC Santa Cruz and collects vintage computers and their history in his DigiBarn computer museum. He has a practice exploring beyond the edges of consciousness to bring back stuff that is meaningful for humanity and the Gaian prerogative. http://www.damer.com http://levityzone.org/
2014-10-143h 05
In A Perfect World89: SECOND GENESISCan we discover the exact origins of life on earth? Can shamanic plant entheogens help us reveal this knowledge? Experiential journalist Rak Razam and neuroscientist Dr. Juan talk with Dr. Bruce Damer, a technologist, virtual world pioneer, computer historian, CEO and founder of The Digital Space Commons and psychedelic explorer and commentator. Bruce has developed the unique endogenous ability to sustain altered states of mind–without external agents–and build a replicable neurolibrary of visionary states. After meeting Terence McKenna in 1997, Bruce introduced Terence to virtual worlds, and Terence introduced Bruce to the shamanic paradigm, which he has since explored to g...
2014-10-011h 17
LevityZone029-DrBruce: The Shulgin ChipIn 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. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer, Jacob Aman (cover art), Erothyme (music...
2014-09-2741 min
LevityZone028-Dr.Bruce: Prague GnosisRolling the clock way back to 1994 we find yours truly 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, I presented my 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 poetically about the magic of Prague and the new alchemy of computers, give a futuristic view of...
2014-07-2848 min
LevityZone027-Dr.Bruce: Esalen VisionsBack 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. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (presentation), Lorenzo...
2014-06-2258 min
LevityZone024-Dr.Bruce: Levity Zone Salon1 Pt2-Chemical ConsciousnessPart 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 a more positive light on all this suggesting we may be actually moving toward balance an...
2014-05-1437 min
LevityZone023-Dr.Bruce: Levity Zone Salon 1-Integrating ExperienceIn 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 successful practices to integrate them not only honor their source but could help to...
2014-05-1450 min
LevityZone022-Dr.Bruce: Leave the Machine-Burning Man 2012This “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 live an independent and powerful inner and then outer life...
2014-05-1454 min
LevityZone021-Dr.Bruce: Return of Mitochondrial Eve-Burning Man 2013The 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 human prehistory: a woman known as: Mitochondrial Eve, the true mother of us all. Is she...
2014-05-141h 00
LevityZone020-Dr.Bruce: Re-Imagining the Universe-Burning Man 2013Dr. 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 universe is a mighty big probability engine that is just waiting for you to plug in...
2014-05-1450 min
LevityZone019-Dr.Bruce: Sacred Monkey Power-Burning Man 2013Dr. 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 and 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 opening to a future we all know is possible. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (presenting, editing), David Houl...
2014-05-1458 min
LevityZone018-Dr.Bruce: Monkey Ascension-Symbiosis2013Join 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 monkeys to a union with the universe. And hear a bonus piece on how we...
2014-05-141h 00
LevityZone017-Dr.Bruce: Ojai Salon 3-The Highest Purpose of HumanityA 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 group of young people including join Golan, Aleli, Ingrid, Johann, Immanuel, Andros, Nathalie, David...
2014-05-141h 03
LevityZone016-Dr.Bruce: Ojai Salon 2-The World of 2050 QA3This is the final audience Q&A 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, monkey, but return now to our mitochondrial mother. Credits: Dr. Bruce Dame...
2014-05-1430 min
LevityZone015-Dr.Bruce: Ojai Salon 2-The World of 2050 QA2This second audience Q&A session for Ojai Salon number two (podcast 13) returns to a key theme for how we might reinvent a beautiful world by the year 2050. Central to that vision is the re-centering of civilization on the feminine. Sara, Dennis, Jeff, and Dr. Bruce explore the rise of the feminine in the west, Travel from 21st Century Europe where women’s power is strongly returning back to the shores of southern Africa where the male manic monkey may have been born in the very hearth and home of mitochondrial Eve, our common mother. So, are we finally witnessing th...
2014-05-1453 min
LevityZone014-Dr.Bruce: Ojai Salon 2-The World of 2050 QA1This first audience Q&A session for the second Ojai Salon (podcast 013) treats the sharing of a vision of a sane, sustainable and healthy world of the year 2050. We return to that intimate evening in a stone room in Ojai, California in June of 2013 and dive into dialogue, theories and stories shared by our audience. Audience contributor Dennis Leary emerges here as a powerful new voice of the Levity Zone. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (intro, editing), Steve Murtaugh ((music-see his Splanc portfolio here), Jacob Aman (art), Jeffrey Harris (photography). [released 30 July 2013]
2014-05-1434 min
LevityZone013-Dr.Bruce: Ojai Salon 2-The World of 2050-1This second Ojai Salon opens with the sharing of a vision transporting us to the world of 2050. In this wondrous world of the imagination the ideal outcome has occurred and we are living in a safe, sane and healthy civilization nestled nicely on a recovered and restored verdant Earth. How did we get there? Suspend yourself in disbelief for a while and just settle back and enjoy the given vision. In the next episode the audience dialogue will dive into how we might actually get there. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (intro, editing), Amara (sound cleanup), Steve Murtaugh (music-see his Splanc...
2014-05-1441 min
LevityZone012-Dr.Bruce: Dr.Kaushik-The Evolution of God to Energy of SelfJoin Dr. Kaushik in this tour de force talk from the late 1970s.The Doctor shows how our concept of God has undergone an evolution, from animalistic entities, to angry human deities, and finally progressing to compassionate avatars such as Jesus or the Buddha, But these gods always occupy a part of our mind that allowed them to manifest their opposite. This mind/opposite duality comes down to the persistent duality of the observer and the observed. In those rare moments, or for those rare people who are able to come to the end of thought, and for whom the...
2014-05-1446 min
LevityZone011-Dr.Bruce-Conversation With the Madre Pt2In part 2 of the conversation with the Madre, mother nature, we reply back to her inquiry. The message? It is much needed information on the planetary state of us monkeys, her most promising yet problematic progeny. Why have this conversation? We may be considered crazy, but the survival of us, and all of Earth’s life may rest in the balance. If the Madre can help us, we can help the Madre and there truly is reason for hope. Credits: Bruce Damer (speaker, intro, editing), Chris Aman (editing, musical overlay), Mystical Sun, William and Arturo (music), Jacob Aman (art). Find vo...
2014-05-1433 min
LevityZone010-Dr.Bruce-Conversation With the MadreThere is reason for hope as I take you on a very personal voyage into a lifelong quest for contact with nature and the biosphere: the Madre. She is the entity that for me represents the sentient yet very alien presence that is the planetary living bolus, The following interview, conducted in Sierra Madre, California in November 2012, is the first of two parts in what became a conversation with the Madre. It is a drama of the evolution and the fight for the soul and survival of us monkeys and the Madre herself. Credits: Bruce Damer (speaker, intro, edit), Chris...
2014-05-1432 min
LevityZone009-Dr.Bruce: The Ojai Salon, Rendering the CosmosJourney to the beautiful valley of Ojai, in Southern Californa, where Dr. Bruce engages an intimate audience in the first Ojai Salon at the visionary compound of Jeffrey Harris near where J. Krishnamurti sat under the teaching tree.Come now with us in an inner journey from our insectivore primate ancestors 90 million years ago all the way out to the first flash of the total conscious manifest rendering of the cosmos in our own minds in our own time. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (speaker, intro, edit), Jeffrey Harris (host), Mystical Sun (music), Jacob Aman (art). [released 2 May 2013]
2014-05-141h 12
LevityZone008-Dr.Bruce: John Suntiger-The CircleIntroducing a new voice to the levity zone: John Suntiger, a visual projection artist, and community and environmental activist who takes us on his profound life’s journey through dis-ease, disease from Childhood to a terrifying hang gliding accident and beyond. John truly paid his dues and has emerged a strong advocate and practitioner of the circle. As Lorenzo Hagerty and Dr. Bruce initiated last year in programs about the life of Terence McKenna, the time of the mostly white male guru on stage is now, thankfully, being replaced by circles of sharing, of healing, of exploration and of the cr...
2014-05-1432 min
LevityZone007-Dr.Bruce: Dr.Kaushik-The Universe Within Pt2The second half of a talk by Dr. Kaushik about how the energy moves through our internal universe. He addresses the original audience question about how to handle sexual energy. Next, he explores how when we relate to the universe through thought we become isolated in aloneness. When thought comes to an end, and we face the full void of loneliness it is only there, free of mind, that love has the space to grow to the point you become the energy. In this state all centers are one, and you have become a total human being. Find many more...
2014-05-1430 min
LevityZone006-Dr.Bruce: Dr.Kaushik-The Universe WithinDr. Kaushik reveals how the energy moves within the universe inside each of us and gets caught up as tension. This tension is the source of all of our needs and ills and to move beyond it is to become a new kind of human being. Recorded Ithaca, NY, Summer 1978. Find many more talks by Dr. Kaushik at Dr.Bruce & the Levity Zone Archive and a newly rediscovered booklet and Darshan yoga guide. Credits: Dr. R.P. Kaushik (speaker). Dr. Bruce Damer (intro, edit), MysticalSun (music titled: Place of Refuge from his new album “26000”), Jacob Aman (art). Get voice-only version here...
2014-05-1435 min
LevityZone005-Dr.Bruce: Introducing Dr. KaushikDr.Bruce takes great pleasure in introducing a new voice to the Levity Zone: Dr. R.P. Kaushik. Credits: Students of Dr. K (digitizing this session from Ithaca, NY, 1978), Cynthia Copple (photo), Bruce Damer (editing, introducer), Mystical Sun (music), Jacob Aman (cover art). Find a collection of raw audio of Dr. Kaushik’s at our Dr.Bruce & the Levity Zone Archive at www.archive.org. Find a 1980 Yoga Journal article on Dr. Kaushik there. [released 1 Mar, 2013]
2014-05-1425 min
LevityZone004-Dr.Bruce: Raising the Ruby KeystoneDr. Bruce asked: how may one hold the visionary state? The answer came through a Sudarshan Kriya yoga breathwork session in Aug, 2012. Full script here. Credits: Bruce Damer (author and reader), Chris Adams (music), Chris Aman (editing), Jacob Aman (art). Get voice-only version here. [released 15 Feb, 2013]
2014-05-1407 min
LevityZone026-Dr.Bruce: Studio Sessions #1 Pt2-The Bubble CultureIn 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 through transformational experience but we have the happenings from the fabled but failed 1960s Haight Ashbury to serve as our warning about the cost...
2014-05-091h 00
LevityZone025-Dr.Bruce: Studio Sessions #1 Pt1-The Bubble CultureRecorded 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 loving but concerted advice to young people that while you pursue peak experiences you must als...
2014-04-1529 min
LevityZone002-DrBruce: Naeem at the SourceNaeem at the Source, a visionary journey experienced by Dr. Bruce when leaving Pakistan in June, 2012. Read by Dr. Bruce Damer and Saad Zia in Islamabad, Pakistan, Nov 6, 2012. Find the Urdu version read by Akbar here. Credit: Chris Aman (edit and music). [released: Jan 14, 2013]
2014-03-2706 min
LevityZone003 DrBruce: Conscious UniverseJourney with Dr. Bruce passing through the dark abyss of unbeing to the coming to consciousness of the universe. Performed at the first Palenque Norte, Burning Man, August 2003. Credits: Lorenzo Hagerty (event), Jake McDonald (cover art, music mix), Ankur Dnyanmote, ChaosLab, Splanc, Arturo and Kianna Alarid Cameron/Svamps (music). [released: Jan 31, 2013]
2014-03-2721 minDr. Bruce Damer's Levity ZoneDr.Kaushik - The Universe Within EnergyDr. Kaushik reveals how the energy moves within the universe inside each of us and gets caught up as tension. This tension is the source of all of our needs and ills and to move beyond it is to become a new kind of human being. Recorded Ithaca, NY, 1978. Find many more talks by Dr. Kaushik linked off our site at levityzone.org/podcasts. Music by Mystical Sun titled: Place of Refuge from his new album 26000.
2013-03-1435 min
LevityZone001-DrBruce: Genesis Engines @ Burning Man 2012Dr. Bruce’s Genesis Engines talk delivered at Burning Man on August 30, 2012 as part of the Palenque Norte Speaker Series. Credits: Chris Aman (edit) Kianna Alarid Cameron/Svamps (music). [released: Dec 31, 2012]
2012-12-3139 min
LevityZone032-Dr.Bruce: Radical Remake Part 2 - callersJoin 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. Bruce Damer, Michael Zwerling, Jacob Aman (cover art). [released 11 Dec 2014]
2011-11-1854 min