Don Lattin

Don Lattin
Nationality	American
Education	Bachelor's degree Sociology
Occupation	Journalist

Don Lattin is an award-winning journalist and a reporter covering a wide range of religious figures and movements in the United States. He has written several books. Lattin’s work has appeared in many U.S. magazines and newspapers. He has also worked as a consultant and commentator for several television programs.^[1]

Lattin teaches religion writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, and he served as Managing Editor of the “God, Sex and Family” project for the “News21” program at UC Berkeley.

Books

• In Shopping For Faith, Lattin teams up with Richard Cimino to expose how the United States shopping mall, consumer-obsessed culture influences religious choices throughout the country. Lattin and Cimino attempt to predict religion’s role in the new millennium.^[2]
• Lattin’s Following Our Bliss interprets the American spiritual and religious landscape since the 1960s. Replete with wit and telling reporting, Following Our Bliss shows that the 1960s has had a profound transformative impact in every area of spirituality. This is the first comprehensive look at the spiritual legacy of the 1960s and 1970s, as seen through the lives of those raised amid some of the era’s wildest experimentation.^[3]
• In Jesus Freaks, Lattin tells the story of a January 2005 murder/suicide that sheds new light on the Children of God / Family International, one of the most controversial religious movements to emerge from the spiritual turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. It is the story of Ricky “Davidito” Rodriguez, a child born into the inner sanctum of the Children of God, a cult that sent thousands on a long, strange trip into the messianic fantasy of leader David “Moses” Berg and spawned a second generation that still struggles with that legacy.^[4]
• The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America traces the efforts of four notable players who brought LSD to the attention of the world: Leary, Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass), Smith, and Weil. They were involved with the experimentation with, and research of, psychedelic drugs in the early 1960s. Leary and Alpert were professors at Harvard starting research on the drugs as having possible benefits for alcoholics and criminals. At the suggestion of Aldous Huxley, religious scholar Huston Smith was brought in to advise about the possible link to mystical experiences. Andrew Weil was a student at the time and journalist for the Harvard paper - and ultimately exposed the unorthodox drug use to University authorities, resulting in Leary and Alpert leaving Harvard.^[5]

Bibliography

Books

• Lattin, Don (2003). Following our bliss : how the spiritual ideals of the sixties shape our lives today. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
• Jesus Freaks – A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge (HarperOne 2007)
• Distilled Spirits (2012)
• The Harvard Psychedelic Club (HarperOne 2010)
• Shopping for Faith – American Religion in the New Millennium (Co-author with Richard Cimino, Jossey Bass, 1998)

Articles

• Lattin, Don (Jan–Feb 2013). "The second coming of psychedelics". Spirituality & Health. 15 (6): 54–59.

References

1. http://donlattin.com/pageprofile/dl_profile.html
2. Kirsch, Jonathan (24 July 1999). "Chronicling Our Mix-and-Match Spiritual Quest". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
3. "Author tracks lives of spiritual seekers and their children". The Oakland Tribune. 23 November 2003. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
4. D'Ambrosio, Mary (21 October 2007). "A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
5. The Harvard Psychedelic Club (HarperOne 2010)

External links

• Don Lattin's official website
• Beliefnet Article by Don Lattin
• Don Lattin's HarperCollins author biography
• Don Lattin discusses The Harvard Psychedelic Club Interview on the 7th Avenue Project radio show