Spirit Matters

Dr. Alton B. Pollard III is a scholar, author, consultant, and public speaker on the subject of African American and U.S. religion and culture. He is about to join Wake Forest University as the Chair of Baptist Studies in the School of Divinity and professor of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. His prior positions include: President Emeritus of Louisville Presbyterian T...

Adam Bucko is an Episcopal priest, a teacher of contemplative spirituality, and an interfaith activist. Born and raised in Poland under a totalitarian regime, his early exposure to spiritual activism greatly influenced his life trajectory. His books and teachings often include collaborations with spiritual leaders and activists from different faith traditions. He is the author of Occupy Spirituali...

Kimberley Theresa Lafferty is a teacher-practitioner who specializes in what she calls Constructive Developmental Psychology as well as Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. She offers private online psycho-spiritual counseling for individuals and couples, and in that work integrates the latest research on adult ego development, contemplative psychology, and other disciplines. She leads multi-year, pri...

Beryl Bender has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1971, and has been training yoga teachers through her school, The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute, for nearly 50 years. She’s also the best-selling author of several books on yoga, including Power Yoga; Beyond Bower Yoga; and Yoga for Warriors: Basic Training for Strength, Resilience, and Peace of Mind, which was written especially for active...

Daaji, aka Kamlesh D. Patel, is the fourth and current spiritual guide of the Heartfulness Institute, a century-old lineage that used to be known as the Shri Ram Chandra Mission. The organization has taught Heartfulness Meditation to several million practitioners in 126 countries. In addition to teaching and overseeing an international organization, Daaji gives keynote addresses and conducts works...

Ann Helmke is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and serves as the faith liaison for the city of San Antonio, Texas. Prior to that she was the director of spiritual services at Haven for Hope, a program that serves homeless people. She has taught theology, has led workshops and retreats, co-founded the interfaith San Antonio Peace Center, and co-authored books. All...

Yoshin David Radin is the abbot and founder of the Ithaca Zen Center in upstate New York and he also taught regularly at the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles. He began Zen practice in 1976, was ordained a monk in 1983, and an Oshō in 1989. He has been published in Tricycle Magazine and some of his writings have been turned into songs or spoken poems that were released in four collections, inclu...

Dr. David. H. Rosmarin is a board-certified clinical psychologist, a peer-reviewed scholar, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and the director of the Spiritual and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital. A leading expert and recognized innovator in the treatment of anxiety, he founded the Center for Anxiety, which has facilities in New York and Boston. He puts that expertise to use in his n...

Neale Donald Walsch is the author of the hugely popular Conversations with God series, seven of which were on the New York Times bestseller list (the first one, in 1995, remained on the list for 134 weeks. In all, his forty books on contemporary spirituality and its practical application in everyday life, have been translated into 37 languages and read by millions around the world. His latest book...

Imam Jamal Rahman is the co-founder of the Interfaith Sanctuary in Seattle. A popular public speaker on subjects related to Islam, Sufi spirituality, and interfaith relations, he has collaborated with a rabbi and an Christian minister as part of The Interfaith Amigos. The trio has toured the country sharing the message of spiritual inclusivity and have been profiled in national media outlets. As a...

Rizwan Virk is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a video game pioneer, a film producer, a venture capitalist, a computer scientists, and an author whose books explore the intersection of science, business, and spirituality. They include Zen Entrepreneurship and two books at the cutting edge of computer science and metaphysics, The Simulation Hypothesis and The Simulated Multiverse. His mos...

Dean Sluyter is a public speaker, meditation teacher, leader of workshops and retreats, and the author of several critically acclaimed books, including: Natural Meditation, Cinema Nirvana, The Zen Commandments, and his latest, The Dharma Bum's Guide to Western Literature: Finding Nirvana in the Classics. Dean draws on his studies with a number of teachers from different traditions over many years,...

Kimberly Braun spent ten years as a nun in a Carmelite monastic order and then moved on to pursue a multidimensional spiritual path. Now, as a public speaker, author, meditation coach, and ordained minister, she helps guide others closer to the divine presence in a number of ways through her workshops, retreats, and online gatherings. We spoke about her fascinating and compelling journey, which sh...

In our proliferating spiritual environment, with easy access to diverse teachings and practices, Kate Sheehan Roach and Jeff Genung are providing services to help all spiritual explorers find what works best for them. Kate was the founding editor or Contemplative Journal and managing editor at Patheos.com. She currently works at ContemplativeLife.org and Prosocial World. As does Jeff, who is manag...

As a professor of religion, Robert Forman acquired a stellar reputation for his pioneering work on spiritual experiences and the study of mysticism. Some of the eleven books he wrote or edited became classics in academia, including: The Problem of Pure Consciousness; The Innate Capacity; and Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness. He's also written non-academic books such as Enlightenment Ain't What It's...

J.D. Stillwater is a public speaker, author, and science educator who finds--and helps others find--spiritual insight and inspiration in the empirical, evidence-based discoveries of hard science. An officer of the Religious Naturalist Association and a member of the governing council of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, he shares revelations from natural reality to drive spiritual aw...

Christina Donnell has worn many hats over the course of a remarkably interesting life. A clinical psychologist, spiritual teacher, public speaker, and writer, she has not only studied Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, she delved deeply into a shamanic tradition in Peru for thirty years. She's the author of Transcendent Dreaming: Stepping Into Our Human Potential and, recently, Encounters w...

Steve Farrell was a hugely successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur before transforming his life and devoting his time and energy to service. He's the co-founder and Executive Director of Humanity's Team, a non-profit focused on helping people awaken to their deeper selves and "the divine truth of oneness." The company offers a variety of educational programs on "conscious living" in different spher...

Sadly, many spiritual organizations display the negative characteristics of cults, and many spiritual teachers and leaders abuse their power. As a result, many sincere seekers end up disillusioned, wounded, or traumatized. Steven Hassan is an expert on cults, mind control, and "undue influence," and his Freedom of Mind Resource Center is dedicated to empowering spiritual students to protect themse...

We all have wounds. We've all struggled with pain, grief and loss. In this interview, the psychologist, contemplative teacher, and renowned author, James Finley, discusses what he calls "a path, a way of life, in which we human beings may be healed from all that hinders us from experiencing the steady, strong currents of divinity that flow on and on in the bitter-sweet alchemy of our lives." The a...

We've all heard of Kundalini. However, misconceptions about it are commonplace. In this episode we get it all straight by speaking with Joan Shivarpita Harrigan about kundalini and the entire process of spiritual development. An American who was authorized to teach in a traditional lineage based in Rishikesh, India, Joan has practiced, studied, and taught Advaita Vedanta and Raja Yoga for 45 years...

In the first half of this episode, we explore the life and teachings of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy and the Waldorf Schools, with two longtime practitioners and teachers in Steiner's tradition, Signe Eklund Schaefer and Christopher Schaefer. Then Christopher says goodbye and Signe discusses her new book, She Was Always There: Sophia as a Story for Our Time...

Karen Tate is an Interfaith Minister, a public speaker, a podcaster, a social justice activist, and an author. Her books include Sacred Places of Goddess; Voices of the Sacred Feminine; and her latest, Normalizing Abuse: A Commentary on Our Pervasive Culture of Abuse. Observing that "abuse and exploitation are pervasive and global," she warns about the risks of accepting this as "ordinary, accepta...

Mark Matousek is an award-winning author, teacher, and speaker whose work focuses on transformative writing for personal, professional, and spiritual development. He’s the founder of the Seekers Forum, an online community for non-sectarian spiritual dialogue, a founding member of V-Men, an organization devoted to ending violence against women and girls, and he offers workshops in self-inquiry and...

Connie Zweig, Ph. D., is a retired psychotherapist, a prolific author, and a practitioner and teacher of meditation for more than 50 years. Best known for her research and writing on Carl Jung's concept of the shadow, she's the co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and the author of A Moth to the Flame (a novel about the life of the Sufi poet Rumi), the bestselling book on aging...