A few days ago I picked up the September 7 2006 issue of Rolling Stone because of the Vanessa Grigoriadis article on our old friend, psychedelic advocate Daniel Pinchbeck (see parts 1 and 2 of my interview with him from late last year). The article, entitled “Daniel Pinchbeck and the New Psychedelic Elite” (only partially available online) is a fairly tawdry five or so page well-written and interesting character assassination piece on Pinchbeck.
Understandably, Pinchbeck is none too happy to be painted with the broad stroke Grigoriadis is employing in a decidedly obvious attempt to show that this would-be guru seems to be little more than a screwball trying to get laid. Pinchbeck’s response to it can be read online here, and reads in part:
The article, despite its five-page length, is impressively shallow, almost ignoring the ideas in my new book entirely, to concentrate on semi-salacious details of my personal life. I learnt, to my surprise, that I have “buck teeth,†and some undefined similarity to Austin Powers…
The most frustrating aspect of the piece is the impression I get, while reading it, that most of my ideas (as well as salient details of my life) were carefully, almost meticulously, distorted or disconnected from each other so that they would seem unfounded and insignificant.
Pinchbeck goes on to suggest that the author of the article simply didn’t understand his ideas and regretfully concludes “As a messenger or prophet (certainly not a “guru”), I am simply sending out a signal to be picked up by those who are ready to receive it.” And Grigoriadis, it seems, is not ready to receive it. She makes repeated jabs against Pinchbeck for being a philanderer (engaged in the “constant pursuit of erudite high-cheekboned nymphs”) and concludes towards the end:
The first couple times I meet Pinchbeck, he’s affable and calls me “sweetie,” but this soon goes sour. Confronted with this not-hot-enough girl with an open notepad and disbelieving eyes, he starts shooting me private emails asking why I’m not interacting more seriously with his ideas: “As I have kept trying to point out to you the ’story’ here, as I see it, is not just about me - it is about you as well. Now that you have encountered this set of ideas about the immediate crisis facing our world and steps toward its solution in the individual death-and-rebirth process or the apocalypse… what effect does it have on you? Does it shift decisions you might make about subjects you write about, or whether you will pay into a long-term pension plan, or anything of the sort?”
And in his online response, Pinchbeck takes the defensive tactic of doing a moralizing psychological analytic reading of Grigoriadis and her many failings as a person based on his not liking the way she portrayed him. He writes “The lack of dignity, grace, or empathy in her writing reflects her own limitations, as well as her ambitions, at least at this point in time.” Pinchbeck himself, it could be argued, is unable or unwilling to recognize any validity at all in Grigoriadis’ critique of him as a person. And maybe he’s justified in feeling that way; only he can really decide that, obviously, as he’s the only one who knows his own heart.
At the end of the day, what’s interesting here is the stark realization from both the Rolling Stone article and Pinchbeck’s response to it is that even the people we see as being somehow “more spiritually advanced” than the rest of us still fall into all the same old traps of hurt feelings and bruised egos. Nevermind the simple fact that we’re all just human - and we all have elements of our lives which if they saw the light of day in a national magazine might make us look really bad or at least might make us feel a keen and painful split between our own self-image and the image of us others experience.
In any event, this article is well worth reading in my opinion - whether or not it paints Pinchbeck in a negative light undeservedly. It’s well-written, smart, entertaining, and as Pinchbeck himself notes elsewhere:
He notes that you can’t really make a final distinction between our thoughts about things and the things themselves. Thinking, for him, is a part of reality - as much a part of reality as any physical object. He points out that we have no right to consider a plant’s ability to produce leaves, roots, and blossoms as separate from the thoughts we have about that plant. It may be that our thoughts about the plant are as much a property of that plant as its blossoms, stems, and leaves.
In that case, the things people think about Pinchbeck and his lifestyle, whether good or bad, right or wrong, would also be just as valid and worthy of study in developing a complete understanding as are the ideas promulgated by the man himself.
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9 Comments
Word.
I just finished reading Pinchbeck’s book on my road trip. It’s a good book - well worth reading. I appreciated his knack for threading things together (although I think the first part of the book wasn’t as nearly as strong as the last third) and his great stories about his various synchronicities. But to be honest, while I was reading all of his musings over his sexual life, some of it was tiresome. Some of it was really genuine, but I often thought to myself that his writings about the women that were in his life could easily read as though he were a bit superficial. So I could see why (if Grigoriadis actually read the book - I dunno - didn’t read the RS article), she would be a bit skeptical about him. I knew he might get hammered by someone for letting it all out there like that. But I’m glad that he was brave enough to write about all of those relationships: his wife, the “priestess”, et. al. and to try to connect it all in a larger context and meaning. I don’t see a lot of people, male or female, trying to do that. You gotta give the dude credit for his ambitious attempt to put it all together. That alone deserves recognition.
I agree, when you are in the media it is real easy to be reduced to a caricature. In fact I almost remember watching a cartoon in which a gyspe caricaturist is able to turn people into physical caricatures. Anyways, autumn is in the air what a magical time to be at peace!
“The inner light is beyond praise of blame like space it knows no boundaries” Zen koan
This post has brought me full circle in just a few short days. I read the RS Pinckbeck article earlier this week. After reading it, I had planty of mixed feelings. For I too share in some similar,yet not identical ideas and persepctives regarding ayahuasca, the mayan calendar, consciousness evolution, etc. After reading the article, I had wished that it had been heavy on ideas and light on Daniel Pinchbeck, the person, who I had actually never heard of before. The article seemed to focus on the person behind the ideas in a semi-scandalous fashion and contained numerous insinuations at the credulousness of the proclamations made by the faulted character.
So this led me to googling his name to find out more, thinking no one who considers themselves a leader in this movement would really be as much as a self-absorbed, superficial, pseudo-prophet as the article made him out to be. This led me to your interview with him which led me to your blog. I was relieved to find the interview heavy on ideas and thoughtfulness, unlike the tabloid article in RS. I just wanted to say that regardless how I got here, I appreciate the flavors of heart and mind you have written from in the previous week. Your critique on the article brought the whole experience full circle. Anyhow, glad to have arrived. I hope to continue more banter in the future.
Awesome! Glad to have you on board. I was actually hoping that the RS article would encourage some people to Google him and find my interview, so its awesome it worked out and hooked in some people interested in this stuff in a more serious way!
The authentic guru is a target for the technocracy (or whatever nefarious power is in charge.)
Some say the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was the real deal and poisoned by the CIA for being so. I haven’t heard of Pinckbeck but if there is an article out there slandering him my first thought is conspiracy (though Hanlon’s razor fits well, too).
If he is in Tim’s interest then that is more than good enough for me to investigate him. If his message isn’t something close to “Everyone has to be there own guru,” then my interest in him will be only passing. I’m off to google..
I love reading Osho! Despite his flaws he communicated some beautiful words….
“Skeptics ask how I can claim that Rajneesh was enlightened, given his scandals and disastrous public image. I can only say that Rajneesh’s spiritual presence was identical to that of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was recognized as enlightened by every high Tibetan Lama and revered Hindu sage of the day.”
http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html
It is funny, that Jiddu Krishmamurti was never (really) attacked by the establisment. The establishment being organized religion and governments.
all humans tend to be fallable. pinchbeck`s error here, if it is an error, is to reveal his humanity. the predators go for the soft underbelly after all.
my view is that part of prophesy is to be human, and that seems to be what the man was trying to be……….to wake us up to the possibility of our own divinity.
wake up to the sunrise.
wake up to the shock of the smell of dirt.
if the sleeping urban reader wants to remain in slumber then reducing the prophetic to the mundane will allow that trip………….
Well, I would say that I am interested in his work. I can’t say that I vouch for him as a person or all of what he says. Frankly, there is a great deal in his work that I disagree with as well. However, I really don’t think the RS article was any work of conspiracy, nor am I necessarily sure he is an “authentic guru” whatever that even means, I don’t know. And also, I certainly don’t fault Rolling Stone or the author of that piece for how the article came out. It’s a good article, tells a compelling story and more than anything else, it fits into the “lifestyle” aspect of their magazine. Of course they didn’t go into deep ideas - why would they? That’s not what they’re about. That’s not what sells their magazine
An authentic guru, to me, is any person with actual spiritual and/or intellectual wisdom and the desire to share it in a way that
most of the pitfalls of being in a position of power over another person.
The rest, inauthentic gurus if you like, are charlatans -either fooling their flock or themself or both. Some more thoughts on gurus tomorrow.