Daniel
Pinchbeck has written features for The New York Times Magazine,
Esquire, Wired, Harper's Bazaar, The Village Voice,
Salon, and many other publications. He is one of the founders of Open
City, an art and literary journal, and an independent book publisher.
He was a 1999 - 2000 Fellow of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia
University. He has also been a columnist for The Art Newspaper of London,
and an editor at Connoisseur Magazine. Born in 1966, he grew up in New
York City, where his father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter. His mother,
Joyce Johnson, was part of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. She is the author
of several books, including Minor Characters, a memoir. He went to Wesleyan
University in Middletown, Connecticut, then worked as a magazine editor and
journalist.
His latest book, Breaking Open the Head () describes his own process of discovery, and a profound paradigm shift. He admits to still being surprised - even extremely astonished - at what he has found. Through direct experience, Pinchbeck learned that shamanism was a real phenomenon, that direct access to the spiritual world is available to anybody who is willing to explore for themselves and escape the prevailing orthodoxies, the "irrational rationality" of the current system. He supports the perspective of Christ in the Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas," who said: "Open the door for yourself, so you will know what is."
Read more about Daniel and his latest work on his personal Web site BreakingOPENtheHead.