Norman Ohler | Nazis on Drugs, LSD Origins & Psychedelic Futures
LIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
Release Date: 11/03/2025
LIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 fired under a family’s car. Drawing on his background as a public historian who has studied fascism and genocide, Adam places these events within a broader historical and political context, warning...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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’t fully understand the scale, history, or mechanisms of what’s happening. This conversation felt like a necessary public service—to learn, to document, and to share what’s largely being...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 him far beyond anything he could have imagined. Over the decades, Patrick has lived what he calls “ten different lives”: a kung fu master an internationally celebrated jewelry designer for...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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, Jonestown, and the cult “wars” of the 1970s, Don breaks down the psychological, political, and religious dynamics that define cult leadership — and why so many of those same patterns are visible...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 are inevitable. In this episode of Liminal News, I’m joined by filmmaker and AI storyteller Ari Kuschnir and embodiment guide Schuyler Brown for a wide-ranging conversation about...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 talk about masculinity beyond ideology — exploring failure, forgiveness, empathy, parenting, and the search for meaning in a time when old models no longer work and new ones haven’t fully...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 institutions—from Harvard on down—are suddenly opening their doors to rigorous studies of psychic phenomena. “The seesaw has turned… we are in the midst of the paradigm shift right now,”...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 tech executive Mike Brock, whose recent Substack essays have gone viral for their sharp, insider-level analysis of the American political meltdown. We explore the dizzying speed at which...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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 of "Beyond Ayahuasca" and co-founder of the Paititi Institute for the Preservation of Ecology and Indigenous Culture. For over twenty years, Roman has lived and apprenticed among Andean and...
info_outlineLIMINAL NEWS with Daniel Pinchbeck
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, and hierarchy have been sanctified as “tough love.” Read the original essay here: Watch on YouTube: 📚 References & Mentions Eros and Civilization — Herbert Marcuse...
info_outlineWhat 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 the hidden story of methamphetamines in Nazi Germany, Hitler’s staggering drug intake, and how these revelations reshape history. We also dive into his follow-up book "Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of Psychedelics," which uncovers the early history of LSD, Nazi-era drug experiments, and how CIA programs like MKUltra grew out of those foundations. Along the way, Norman and I share personal experiences with psychedelics, including ibogaine, and reflect on their potential to transform individuals and societies. We also discuss Rudolf Steiner, Western esotericism, and the importance of reclaiming spiritual traditions in our fractured world.
👉About: Norman Ohler is a German novelist, journalist, and historian best known for his international bestseller "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich," which revealed the hidden role of methamphetamines in Nazi Germany. His follow-up, "Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of Psychedelics," traces the early history of LSD and its entanglement with intelligence agencies and Cold War experiments. Ohler’s work blends meticulous archival research with narrative storytelling, reshaping our understanding of history, politics, and consciousness.
==================================
Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter!
https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck
Please buy my books!
Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE:
Instagram:
Official Website:
#NormanOhler #Blitzed #Tripped #Psychedelics #LiminalNews #DanielPinchbeck #Ibogaine #RudolfSteiner #MKUltra #LSD