Erik Davis is an author, award-winning journalist, and scholar with a wide-ranging focus including the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. Today he talks about the mystic gnostic nature of American spirituality and how essential to Gnosticism is the direct experiential awakening, more than simply knowledge of spiritual mysteries. Erikâs scholarly and popular essays on music, technoculture, drugs, and spirituality have appeared in scores of books, magazines, and journals, and his writing has been translated into a dozen languages.