Why do people think what they think?
And how do different ways of knowing filter the worlds we encounter?
The fundamental obsession that permeates my writing concerns what we see when we look through a glass, darkly, and what we miss. I’m also interested in what we are capable of, individually and collectively, when we see clearly - when we experience an "apocalypse" or "revelation" in the broadest sense of those words.
With an academic background in the history and philosophy of science, I’ve published in journals and spoken at universities on history, media, scripture, psychopharmacology and law. I've also published two books exploring linguistics and psychology, neurobiology and neurodiversity, anthropology, medicine and other systems that structure our thinking and our societies.
Danny Diskin AKA Danny Nemu?
About 25 years ago, a strange feeling descended upon me suddenly at a party in Kyoto. I took myself home - to the relief of my ex-wife, as her foreigner was being weird again - and started pouring words into paper. It didn’t feel like I had much choice over the subject matter for the first few years at least, as the raw material for my first three books emerged (I'm still editing number three).
I did have the option of using a pen name so I wouldn't have to censor myself or worry about my students looking me up online. I chose Nemu, which means “sleepy”, as I wrote during the night and her teddy bear called Nemu kept me company. I also added the title of Reverend, mainly because my weekend job was dressing up like a clergyman and marrying Japanese people. I was ordained on the internet for $15 (which is more than Lady Gaga or King Tubby paid for their titles).
Can the real Danny step forward
Embodying a persona was a great way to express myself more fully, especially as a younger man working myself out, playing with ideas at a distance. I’ve changed a little in those 25 years, and the world has changed a lot, so I am launching this platform with my own name to tell stories with a little more gravitas. The first piece is the story of my grandfather’s great uncle, the Maharil Diskin, and it seems like a good way to introduce my name and something of my thinking. He was a leading rabbi, famous for his pedantry, autistic in his cognitive style and outspoken in his criticism of Zionism at its inception. The next piece will continue in the same iconoclastic vein as I take on another golden calf: the “psychedelic revolution”.
Free forever
I'm keeping this Substack free because people some tell me that my writing helps them navigate the painful absurdities of our world (other people get cross with me and deplatform me from conferences, so I must be doing something right.)
I’m unlikely to stick to a writing schedule because I only write when I’m driven, and because researching popular assumptions to the degree necessary to undermine them is time-consuming. So is polishing the writing until the anger or indignation or whatever discomfort stimulated the piece in the first place is tempered into something coherent. It’s a ton of work, basically, and since I have kids and rent to think about, I will be extremely grateful for whatever support you can afford: please subscribe if you are able or “buy me a coffee” if you learn something useful (I probably won’t spend it on coffee).
Other ways you can keep the ink flowing are by downloading a guided hypnotic session from pattern-interrupt.co.uk or buying my books for yourself and your friends at dannynemu.com.
Finally, and especially if you are interested in ecology and traditional cultures in Brazil, have a look at RAIN, the reforestation NGO I founded. This is especially helpful if you are connected to a business that wants to make a difference to people’s lives.
