The Mystical Positivist

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Elliot Cohen , author of The Psychologisation of Eastern Spiritual Traditions: Colonisation, Translation and Commodification . This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content, and context, to be more readily assimi...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Steve Taylor , author of Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation . In this book Steve shares dozens of amazing stories of individuals who “woke up” to profound transformation following bereavement, deep depression, suicide attempts, addiction, military combat, imprisonment, or other intense encounters...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Richard Payne , editor and contributor to the 2021 Shambhala publication, Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition . This collection of essays explores how secular values impact Buddhism in the modern world, what versions of Buddhism are actually being transmitted to the West, whether it is possible t...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with returning guest Ken McLeod in which we discuss the role of Imagination in spiritual practice, the distinction between the Vertical and Horizontal dimensions of life and the modern struggle to imagine the Vertical dimension, how we might imagine a non-transactional embodiment of spiritual practice, and much more. After lear...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with author, Peter Russell , about his latest book, Letting Go of Nothing: Relax Your Mind and Discover the Wonder of Your True Nature (An Eckhart Tolle Edition) . Peter Russell is an author, speaker, and leading thinker on consciousness and contemporary spirituality. He believes the critical challenge today is freeing human th...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with author, Pamela Logan , about her latest book, Compassion Mandala – The Odyssey of an American Charity in Contemporary Tibet . Pamela Logan can usually be found with her head in the clouds, moving uphill. At the age of 19 she took up karate while pursuing an engineering degree at Caltech. She later got an aerospace PhD from...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with Zimbabwan healer, Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa . Mandaza is a spirit medium and medicine man from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In Shona, his native tongue, he is known as a Mhondora , Svikiro , and Gombwa . He was initiated through the tradition of the njuzu , the water spirits. Mandaza carries with him in his heart the Central Afric...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with Fiona Denzey , a long-time practitioner and teacher of the Gurdjieff Movements. Born into the Work, Ms. Denzey’s parents were founding members of the Gurdjieff Foundation of Toronto . At an early age, she was introduced to the Gurdjieff movements and received direct training from Mr. Gurdjieff's designated Movements teache...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with Robin Bloor about his latest book, Gurdjieff’s Hydrogens – Volume 1: The Ray of Creation . About the book, he writes, “Gurdjieff clearly wanted his pupils to try to understand Objective Science. He left two accounts of it. One adorns the pages of In Search of the Miraculous ; the other merges itself into the text of Beelze...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Professor Kate Crosby , author of Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia . Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western coloniali...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we feature a pre-recorded discussion with returning guests Anne Sweet and Amir Freimann about spiritual transformation through conversation. As Anne and Amir have found in multiple conversations with a number of spiritual exemplars that the interviewer/interviewee dynamic can somehow dissolve and give rise to a truly intimate and profound shared expe...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Trevor Stewart , practitioner and writer in the Fourth Way tradition. Trevor Stewart has experience in both the Zen Buddhist monastic and Gurdjieff Work buy-a-farm-and-try-to-fix-it-up traditions. A longtime Beelzebub's Tales practitioner, he leads private online study groups. He presents regularly at the annual internatio...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Ji Hyang Padma , author of Field of Blessings: Ritual & Consciousness in the Work of Buddhist Healers . Ji Hyang believes that we are hungry for a direct experience of the sacred in this culture. We try to fill the void with technology, and its “quick fix” of images and information. This leaves us hungry for true conne...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Christopher Pinard , author of Celtic Mythology for Kids: Tales of Selkies, Giants, and the Sea . Chris' interest in folklore and mythology began at a very young age when his mother first read the stories of the Mabinogion, Eddas, the Irish Mythological Cycle, and various collections of folk tales. Over the years, his pass...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature feature a pre-recorded conversation in which Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson return to continue our discussion from several weeks ago. In this installment we go deep on the question allegorical thinking and the modern mind's difficulty with allegory. Only here will you find the subjects of Star Wars, the Borg from Star Trek, Game of Thrones, the function of fee...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Jundo Cohen about his latest book, The Zen Master's Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe . In The Zen Master’s Dance , Jundo Cohen takes us deep into the mind of Master Dogen—and shows us how to join in the great and intimate dance of the universe. Through fresh translations and sparkling t...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Theresa Dintino , author of the newly published book, Membranes of Hope: A Guide to Attending to the Spiritual Boundaries that Keep Life Systems Healthy from the Personal to the Cosmic . The membrane is a permeable boundary with intelligence and discernment that allows in or keeps out that which it senses is appropriate fo...

Podcast : This week on the show on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson . Today we tackle a number of questions that have been bubbling up from the early days of Christianity through to the Reformation and into the modern epic. Topics include Faith versus Works as a path to salvation, what happens when Mythos is projected onto L...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Father Joseph Azize , author of the 2020 book, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, & Exercises . Father Azize is a priest in the Maronite Catholic Church, working chiefly in the Chancery. He is also an honorary associate at the University of Sydney. For twenty-three years, he was a practicing attorney for the Commonwe...

Podcast : This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Richard Whittaker in which he brings his considerable interviewing skills to bear on interviewing The Mystical Positivist hosts, Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt , Spiritual Director of Tayu Meditation Center. Richard Whittaker is the co-founder, with Rue Harrison, of the non-profit "Society for theReCognition of Art" an...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Zoketsu Norman Fischer and Ken McLeod framed by two key questions. The first is whether mystics or mystically inclined practitioners have responsibilities to society and the World, and if so, what might those responsibilities be. Out of this question comes an extended exploration of what it means to be a my...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a telephone conversation with Barbara Du Bois . Barbara Du Bois, Ph. D., longtime teacher of Buddhadharma, is known for the clarity, freshness, humor, and fearless love with which she shines a frank Western light on the path. Her principal gurus are Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Machig, H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche, and H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. Barbara’s lifetime of se...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with Hersch Wilson , author of Firefighter Zen: A Field Guide to Thriving in Tough Times . Hersch is a thirty-year veteran volunteer Firefighter-EMT with the Hondo Fire Department in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. He is also a story-teller, committed to explaining how First Responding can change how we see and experience our own...

Podcast: This week on the show, we present a pre-recorded conversation with Robin Bloor , author of To Fathom The Gist Volume III: The Arousing of Thought . In this book, Robin demonstrates a method of reading and comprehending the contents of G. I. Gurdjieff’s master work, All and Everything: Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson . Our conversation ranges from some practical insights from The Tales ,...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Anne Sweet , Sydney-based artist and spiritual exemplar of living in the world from a point of view of transcendence. Of her spiritual life she writes: I had a ‘change of identity’ about 15 years ago. This was very liberating for me, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was or what had happened. By then I had...