E.J. Gold is the son of Horace Gold, founding editor of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. He collaborated on several novels with his father during the 1960s, and they worked on television scripts during this same period.

Gold grew up in New York City and has stated he is friends with many of the writers from science fiction's golden age. He has appeared on panels with Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Alfred Bester at science fiction conventions.

As a child, he created and presented his artwork at the Children's Art Carnival at the Museum of Modern Art (1944—49). He has numbered among his friends many of the artists of the Woodstock Art Association where he spent his summers.

In 1956 Gold moved to Hollywood, California, where his mother worked as a story editor for the Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock television shows. He attended Los Angeles City College, Otis Art Institute and showed at Robert Comara and Joan Ankrum Galleries with friend/mentors Fritz Schwaderer and Peter Jan Hirschfeld.

In the 1960s, Gold worked as a jazz musician, composer, and as a photographer for Tiger Beat magazine. His photos of Harry Nilsson were used by RCA for album covers. He edited Mod Teen Magazine in the 1960s. He also worked as a continuity writer for the Bob Crane radio show on KNX.

Gold staged the "Saints' March" Art Happening where 40 saints were dropped from the official Vatican calendar of saints. The event generated news items in Time magazine and Newsweek leading to several television interviews with Joe Pyne and Richard Dawson.

By the early 1970s, Gold emerged as a sculptor and painter associated with the "California Nine" group.

Gold has for many years acted as an independent spiritual teacher whose work and style bear a strong affinity with the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way school of thought. Gold's particular style, as evinced in his published writings such as The American Book of the Dead, also demonstrate a strong influence of Tibetan tantric teachings such as the concept of bardo or "in-between" states. The fundamental emphasis of Gold's teaching, like that of Gurdjieff, is on the concept of spiritual "Work" in daily life and a constant effort to increase and maintain heightened awareness in all activities. The state of an individual "in the Work" is thus contrasted to what is taken to be the state of the "ordinary" unawakened individual, who is presumed to go through life in a condition of quasi-automatism or mere social conditioning ("asleep," in the metaphorical terminology of this tradition.)

Today, Gold is one of the older online gamers and he has participated in the production of Quake 2, Return to the Lair, Necronomicon, and other online first-person shooters. He has worked with Quake's Capture The Flag and with Team Fortress, both online team games used as teaching tools.

Gold also hosts workshops in onstage comedy and theatre. He is responsible for the creation of the "You Can Paint" art instruction series which is now used at a few universities and art associations. He has also personally conducted public art classes into the 21st century.

Gold has created a line of hand-crafted fiber art beads and his painted celebrity-gear clothing line has been shown at various performance venues. His comedic/tragic play "Creation Story Verbatim" has been performed at several colleges.

Science fiction

• Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine (current editor of galaxyezine.org)

Fine art

• see also: Manifesto of Reductionism

Consciousness, death and dying

• (Also appears in script format for play.)
• (with Dr. Claude Needham)
• (with Parker Dickson, et al.)
• (with Dr. John C. Lilly)
• (Introduction by Robert Anton Wilson.)

Secret Talks volumes