From San Pedro Apprentice to Comic Book Artist | Daniel Moler ~ ATTMind 214

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From San Pedro Apprentice to Comic Book Artist | Daniel Moler

Daniel Moler is a writer, comic artist and shamanic practitioner from the Kansas City area, and a sanctioned teacher of the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of northern Peruvian curanderismo. He spent years apprenticed with the San Pedro cactus, wrote Machine Elves 101 and two books for Llewellyn, and now makes the comic series Psychonaut Presents and The Simon Myth Chronicles.

I read every one of Daniel’s comics before we spoke, and they stayed with me. Psychedelics show up in comics all the time, but almost never like this: as ceremony, as relationship, and as something you are still working out on the page.

We start with how a Reality Sandwich writer ended up in a years-long San Pedro apprenticeship. Daniel explains what San Pedro (huachuma) is, how he looked for a teacher who was legitimate and safe, and why a gentle, slow medicine worked on him when one big experience wouldn’t have. Then we get into what comics can do that prose, film and painting can’t.

In the middle we go somewhere I didn’t expect. We talk honestly about attention, about everything we enjoy having to become content, and about the burnout that made Daniel feel like he was “falling off the earth”.

We close on Dark Medicine, the ceremony he draws as his own decapitation, and on the idea he took from his San Pedro work that ties it all together: something can be completely real without being literal.

‼️ This episode is educational. It does not recommend using San Pedro, mescaline or any psychedelic.

See below for a complete topic breakdown.

Relevant Links

• danielmolerweb.com: Daniel’s website and shop
• Psychonaut Presents and The Simon Myth Chronicles on IndyPlanet
• Psychonaut Sessions, Daniel’s YouTube channel
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, both mentioned during the interview.

Follow Daniel on Instagram

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Episode Breakdown

• (05:10) Interview Begins
• (05:37) Machine Elves, 2012 and the Evolver years
• (13:12) What is San Pedro (Huachuma)
• (14:41) Finding a legitimate, safe teacher
• (17:29) Healing PTSD with a slow medicine
• (23:07) Absolutely serious, but don’t take it too seriously
• (31:42) Comics for people who’ve never tripped
• (38:53) What comics can do that film and painting can’t
• (53:22) Create your own road show
• (1:00:08) Falling off the earth: creator burnout
• (1:05:30) Psychedelics, art and the imaginal soul space
• (1:13:56) Psychonaut Presents, a psychedelic memoir
• (1:17:18) Dark Medicine: the most beautiful experience of my life
• (1:22:45) The Simon Myth Chronicles
• (1:30:48) Real, but not literal
• (1:36:19) Where to find Daniel
• (1:38:31) Outro