Bureau of Lost Culture

Peace is a Fire: The Monk Who Set Himself Alight

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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The Road to Rebellion - Part 1

4w ago00:50:50Tap to summarize

Roc Sanford 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 Sanford 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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The History of the Self - Made Record

Jun 1400:53:41Tap to summarize

We are joined by oral historian and broadcaster Alan Dein. We discuss the history, culture and technology of the coin-operated machines that allowed ordinary people to make a record of themselves in the West (and, in adapted bootlegged form, to create records of forbidden music in the Soviet Union) long before the advent of tape or digital recording. We hear a selection of extraordinary recordings of strange, moving voices from Alan’s collection and learn how the records were used to send messages home from the war, record visits to tourist destinations or to capture the sounds of loved ones in a way that had never been possible before. For More on X-Ray Audio www.x-rayaudio.com For More on Bureau of Lost Culture www.bureauoflostculture.com --- 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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Free Radicals - Tripping in the 18th Century.

Jun 1000:55:42Tap to summarize

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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The Shadow of the Counterculture

May 2401:00:23Tap to summarize

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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21st Century Mutoid Man: Joe Rush - Part 2

May 1901:02:55Tap to summarize

This is the second part of our conversation with Joe Rush, the initiator, mentor, and driving force behind The Mutoid Waste Company, that extraordinary countercultural endeavour to turn the waste of our industrial civilisation into art, performance, street theatre - and a way of life. If you haven’t heard the first part, you might want to start here: https://bureauoflostculture.podbean.com/e/20th-century-mutoid-man-part-1/ This time, we covered a huge amount of ground — Joe's personal story, the birth of the Mutoids and the UK counterculture of the ’80s and ’90s: squatting. We hear about the Peace Convoy, the Battle of the Beanfield, the free festival scene, the warehouse party scene, and how those worlds were pushed into exile in Europe, where they helped spark whole new cultural movements of festivals, parties, and creative rebellion including 'Tanghenge', the repurposing of abandoned Soviet MIG fighter jets after the fall of The Berlin Wall and much more.. ---- If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #BureauOfLostCulture #JoeRush #MutoidWaste #ScrapArt #IndustrialArt #BurningManArt #Counterculture #RecycledArt #PostIndustrial #UndergroundCulture

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The Revolutionsts: How The Counterculture Turned to Terror

May 600:53:28Tap to summarize

The Weather Underground, The Baader-Meinhof Group, The Red Brigade, Carlos the Jackal, The Japanese Red Army. The counterculture has always had a shadow side. There have been bad actors, casualties, the needle and the damage done - and in this episode, we dive into the world of revolutionary and political violence, exploring how radical groups emerged from countercultural movements and evolved into what my guest Jason Burke describes as Revolutionists Jason is an award-winning British author and journalist, currently serving as the International Security Correspondent for The Guardian. He is widely regarded as one of the preeminent experts on modern radicalisation, terrorism, and global security, reporting from hotspots around the world. His latest book, The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s, is an extraordinary sweeping history of the period 1968–1979, a decade defined by a global explosion of secular, leftist political violence. The Revolutionists were the orphans of the 1960s, young people who grew up in a 1950s existential vacuum of consumerism and a 1960s idealistic overload. When the student protests of 1968 failed to topple the global order, a radicalised minority concluded that the "System" was too resilient for peaceful protest. Violence and spectacle in a 'theatre of terror' might be the answer. It's an incredible story - and links the counterculture, through 9/11 with events taking place in the Middle East right now. --- If you’d like to get involved and 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 #terrorist #terrorism #revolution #revolutionists #TheWeatherUnderground, #TheBaader-MeinhofGroup, #TheRedBrigade, #TheJapaneseRedArmy #Baader-Meinhof #carlosthejackal

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Sex - Men - War

Apr 200:56:22Tap to summarize

Beyond the official story, the myth, of the Second World War — its maps and medals, courage and sacrifice — there is another hidden narrative. Written in rare memoirs, or in letters and diaries never meant to be read by us, it tells of a kind of underground culture that was secret, transgressive, forbidden With millions of young men and women on military service, the transitory nature of life under threat of sudden and violent death created a charged atmosphere in which conventional boundaries loosened. In London the darkness of the blackout became both cover and catalyst. Writer and cultural critic Luke Turner, is the author of the beautiful book Men at War, Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945, a book that excavates the sexual undercurrents of wartime Britain, how the social upheaval of wartime had a profound effect on the sex lives of British men in particular— in the city, in barracks, in prison of war camps. This is a story that feels less like military history and more like testimonies from an underground scene — improvised, poignant usually invisible - and later to be deliberately repressed.. --- If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen IMAGE: Cecil Beaton /Imperial War Museum #sex #war #military #queerhistory #londonhistory #blitz #transgressive #

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20th Century Mutoid Man: Joe Rush - Part 1

Mar 1701:02:14Tap to summarize

If you had been at the Glastonbury Festival in 1987, you may have seen a familiar silhouette emerging in the dawn light - upright monoliths arranged in a circle. Was it Stonehenge - magically transferred here across the Salisbury plain? No, it was ‘Carhenge'- a circle of upright cars, their chassis standing like monoliths, the archaeology of the automobile age And imagine ‘Tankhenge', a gateway made from abandoned Soviet tanks assembled in Berlin just after the fall of the Berlin Wall — the wreckage of the Cold War turned into a piece of anarchic sculpture Or imagine a huge mechanical creature crawling across the desert at the Burning Man festival in Nevada These strange and spectacular visions all come from the same source: The Mutoid Waste Company— a collective that, since the early 1980s, has been transforming the debris of industrial civilisation into giant sculptures, mutant vehicles and temporary worlds built from waste. This is the first part of our conversation with Joe Rush, the artist at the centre of it all. It takes us into the world of late 1970s West London, the punk years, the alternative communities and squats of the People's Republic of Frestonia, and the signpist along the way to becoming a Mutoid... --- If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen Photograph: Courtesy of Guy Mayhew #BureauOfLostCulture #JoeRush #MutoidWaste #ScrapArt #IndustrialArt #BurningManArt #Counterculture #RecycledArt #PostIndustrial #UndergroundCulture

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The Library of Lost Maps

Mar 300:59:06Tap to summarize

In the heart of London’s Bloomsbury, behind a scruffy turquoise door, the world lies folded into drawers. Here are maps that survived wars, regimes, and revolutions — not because they were valued, but because they were forgotten. Some were reused when paper was scarce - a map of Cuba mounted on the reverse of a Second World War map of Berlin, the roads of one ruined city shining faintly through another place entirely, a haunting map of Hiroshima printed just weeks before destruction. Britain’s only Professor of Cartography, James Cheshire's book The Library of Lost Maps, explores the hidden collection of thousands of maps in a room at University College London. He joins us to tell us why paper maps still matter. Maps tell us what was ignored, how ideology, hope and catastrophe have been drawn onto paper; they tell us how power wanted the world to look, and they reveal hidden patterns in everyday life. And when map libraries disappear, it isn’t just paper that vanishes — it’s memory. --- If you’d like to get involved and contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that really does mean a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with what we do. But that does mean we can really benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes. not just financial. Stephen #maps #maplibrary #hiroshima #ordnancesurvey #mapping #cartography #johnsnow #tubemap

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All episodes

Peace is a Fire: The Monk Who Set Himself Alight

The Road to Rebellion - Part 1

The History of the Self - Made Record

Free Radicals - Tripping in the 18th Century.

The Shadow of the Counterculture

21st Century Mutoid Man: Joe Rush - Part 2

The Revolutionsts: How The Counterculture Turned to Terror

Sex - Men - War

20th Century Mutoid Man: Joe Rush - Part 1

The Library of Lost Maps