Bureau of Lost Culture

*Bureau of Lost Culture collect curious, rare, and half forgotten countercultural stories and oral testimonies..*Join host Stephen Coates and guests for tales from The Underground + beyond.*Contribute to the Bureau at www.bureauofostculture.com

Bureau of Lost Culture is a history podcast hosted by Stephen Coates, with 168 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Stephen Coates hosts Bureau of Lost Culture, a history show with 168 episodes published.

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  Episode #172

  Levitating the Pentagon and other Stories

  Aug 2, 20261h 1m

  She's 82 but is firing on all cylinders, still crazy after all these years, as Paul Simon sang, well, still crazy enough to believe the world can be changed for the better, that it's her duty to try to make that happen and crazy enough in her youth to try to levitate the Pentagon. Born into a communist family in Brooklyn, NANCY KURSHAN was involved in Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War protests while at high school, became, along with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, one of the founders of The Yippies, the theatrical protest group whose activities included trying to run a pig for president and all sorts of other countercultural shenanigans. She travelled to North Vietnam with a women-only group during the war, became involved with The Weather Underground, then in prison reform, worked in social work and youth education for years and hasn't stopped continuing to push against the status quo ever since. For Nancy's books Levitating the Pentagon and Out of Control Goodbye to All That - Robin Morgan's polemic on the treatment of women in the counterculture --- Comrade! We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Stephen #Counterculture #protest #civilrights #peteseeger #HUAC #communistpartyofamerica #anti-vietnamwarprotest #vietnamwar #theweatherunderground #abbiehoffman #jerryrubin #chicago8 #activsim

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  Episode #171

  Peace is a Fire: The Monk Who Set Himself Alight

  Jul 19, 202659 min

  There are some images that don’t simply record history—they change it. On the morning of 11 June 1963, at a busy crossroads in Saigon, Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk, calmly sat down in the lotus position while fellow monks poured petrol over his robes. He struck a match and, as the flames engulfed him, he remained perfectly still. The Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne captured the moment; within hours the photograph had travelled around the world and in the years since has become one of the defining images of the 1960s: one that shocked governments, altered international opinion about Vietnam, inspired artists and activists and introduced many people to a very different understanding of Buddhism. In this episode, I’m joined by Canadian-born US-based Professor James Shields , one of the leading scholars of Buddhist ethics and engaged Buddhism. We explore the story behind that extraordinary photograph, the long history of self-sacrifice in Buddhist tradition and how these dramatic acts have been understood over the centuries. We branch out into the wider history of self-immolation as political protest and ask: if Buddhism generally rejects both violence and suicide, how does it distinguish between self-sacrifice and self-destruction? And what might it have to say about contemporary debates surrounding euthanasia and assisted dying? It’s a conversation about protest, conscience and the extraordinary power of a single human act to change the course of history. For more on James and his work To see our gallery of the top ten images that changed the Counterculture, go HERE Can you contribute to this crazy endeavour to build an archive of counterculture and underground stories? Help us keep this place ad- and sponsor-free and join our Patreon HERE You can join for free and receive regular articles, updates and news about our events Stephen Photo: Malcolm Browne

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  Episode #170

  The Road to Rebellion - Part 1

  Jul 3, 202651 min

  Roc Sandford is a British writer, artist and climate activist whose life has been a countercultural journey from an alternative childhood through academia to a remarkable experiment in off-grid living and ecological resistance as a catalyser for Extinction Rebellion and Ocean Rebellion. For more than three decades he has been associated with the remote Hebridean island of Gometra, where he lives much of the year without mains electricity, running water or many of the conveniences of modern life. Roc was born to parents who deliberately turned away from wealth and privilege and chose to live closer to the working-class world they wanted to understand and write about. Amongst other works, his mother Nell Dunn was the author of Poor Cow and Up the Junction, and his father Jeremy Sandford was the author of Cathy Come Home, all made into groundbreaking hugely influential British New Wave films by Ken Loach in the 60s. Their life choices carried Roc from Belgravia, to Chelsea to Battersea, and then to a remote valley in Wales where the family lived a very alternative life. We hear about that and get into the tensions that can emerge when idealism meets reality. We hear about Roc's unusual schooling, his years during the AIDs crisis in New York, studyomg the ideas that shaped his thinking about perception, systems, and the way we interpret the world. And we head to Soho, meet Francis Bacon and Genesis P Orridge again, and hear about his first brush with British law. Roc has led - is leading - a big countercultural life - so this is the first part of a double-header conversation. More on Roc, his work and life --- Hello! If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen

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  Episode #169

  Free Radicals - Tripping in the 18th Century.

  Jun 10, 202656 min

  In the company of historian of drugs, MIKE JAY, we journey back to the first psychedelic age - not the 1960s, but the 1790s, when Britain was at the forefront, at the frontier, of gonzo psychedelic science. We explore the world of the 'Pneumatic Institution' in Bristol, a community of scientists, poets, philosophers, and industrial entrepreneurs who formed a kind of proto-counterculture led by the extraordinary talents of polymath Thomas Beddoes and the boy genius Humphry Davy. We hear about Davy's use of nitrous oxide - laughing gas - and the self-experiments and consciousness-expanding trips he and his friends experienced as a gateway to radical societal ideas and revolutionary thought, laying the groundwork for later countercultures and today's psychedelic renaissance. More on Mike and his book Free Radicals: How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science. --- If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen

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  Episode #168

  The Shadow of the Counterculture

  May 24, 20261 hour

  Ever thought the so-called ‘golden decade’ of the 1960s was only about peace and love? Think again. Beneath the surface, it was riddled with violence, paranoia, and chaos, even in its most iconic moments. So says James Riley, a writer whose work explores the darker edges of late-1960s and 1970s counterculture. His 'The Bad Trip' is an acclaimed study of apocalypse, occultism, paranoia and the collapse of the hippie dream at the end of the 1960s. We examine the romanticised narrative of peace, love, and idealism, revealing how beneath the surface lurked a shadow of violence, paranoia, and societal fractures. How figures like Charles Manson emerged not as aberrations, but as products and archetypes of the era. We talk Jung, LSD, The Trickster archetype, Manson, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the committee for The Summer of Love, to see how the darkness beneath the light reveals more about human nature than the utopian stories we often tell, and how it was the inspiration for some truly great art. For the list of countercultural films we discuss - and more - go HERE --- If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen #Counterculture #1960sRevolution #DarkSideOfThe60s #CulturalLegacy #PsychedelicEra #MansonMyth #Altamont #AquarianAge #ShadowAndLight #CulturalHistory

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