Dharma Combat

History

Dharma Combat was an American periodical published in 1988 that combined UFO and anomalous phenomena coverage with countercultural commentary. The publication carried an irreverent tone, blending submissions on unexplained subjects with broader cultural criticism. Its title references a concept from Zen Buddhism (dharma combat, or the testing of understanding through debate), suggesting an editorial approach that valued confrontation and challenge over consensus.

The zine emerged during a fertile moment for alternative publishing in America. Desktop publishing had lowered the barrier to print, and a network of small-press distributors moved material between college towns, bookshops, and mail-order catalogues. Dharma Combat sat in that ecosystem alongside publications that mixed conspiracy theory, psychedelia, underground politics, and fringe science into a single package. The UFO content was presented not as a separate genre but as one strand of a broader inquiry into what official culture refused to examine.