The Mystical Positivist

Podcast: This week on the show we converse in the studio with Ken McLeod , founder and director of UnfetteredMind.org, a website offering resources on practical Buddhism. Ken trained in the Tibetan Buddha-dharma, translated for his teacher Kalu Rinpoche, and has written books that translate and comment on Tibetan texts. His books include A Trackless Path , Reflections on Silver River , An Arrow to...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation pre-recorded on October 20th, 2019 with Alex S. Kohav PhD . Alex Kohav is the editor of and contributor to the recently published Mysticism and Meaning: Multidisciplinary Perspectives . He is an independent scholar based in Boulder, Colorado, and an affiliate faculty member at the Department of Philosophy, Metropolitan State...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation pre-recorded on October 13th, 2019 with Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph. D . Neil Douglas-Klotz is a world-renowned scholar in religious studies, spirituality, and psychology. Living in Fife, Scotland, he directs the Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Learning and for many years was co-chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Acade...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation pre-recorded on September 22, 2019 with Fourth Way practitioner Trevor Stewart . Trevor is a student of psychology, meditation, and the Gurdjieff Work. As a young adult, he worked with Buddhist teachers, practicing in an intensive monastic setting for 2 years. Trevor has studied Gurdjieff’s masterwork Beelzebub’s Tales inten...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we speak by telephone with Mark Matousek , author of the recent book, Mother of the Unseen World: The Mystery of Mother Meera . He is the author of two acclaimed memoirs, Sex Death Enlightenment and The Boy He Left Behind , as well as When You’re Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living , and Ethical Wisdom: The Search for a Moral Life . A former...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation pre-recorded on August 18, 2019 with long-time Fourth Way practitioner Federico Balsa . Federico Balsa is a retired Argentine high school teacher, who has been a sincere and persistent practitioner for over thirty years, and is a founding member of The Seeker’s Café website. He began his Fourth Way practice through the lens...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we speak by telephone with Sotantar Suraj , a widely recognized Gong Master Teacher, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, and Kundalini Yoga Teacher Trainer in his home base of Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, as well as in Europe. Sotantar Suraj has practiced and studied yoga, meditation, and healing since his childhood in Spain till present day. The H...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we speak in the studio with Nick Egan, Ph. D. , an educator, award-winning leader and executive coach who uses his deep understanding of positive psychology and Buddhist philosophy to encourage personal and organizational growth. In addition to coaching, he has taught meditation techniques for more than a decade. His newly released book, Shift: The A...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation pre-recorded on August 3, 2019 with Zeke Badger , a long-time Fourth Way practitioner, a writer, blogger, and a founding member of the Seekers Café. Zeke is a career educator whose work focuses upon developing and implementing nature-based educational experiences that inspire and challenge individuals toward personal health,...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , hosts Stuart Goodnick and Rob Schmidt launch into an impromptu conversation after a last minute cancellation by the minister of The Church of Conscious Harmony , a contemplative Christian community in Austin, Texas. They discuss the Sacred, Esoteric Christianity as embodied in the Fourth Way tradition, Magnetic Center, and modern obstacles to valuing...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , Rob and I present a conversation pre-recorded on July 20th, 2019 with Stephen Aronson . Steve received a Ph. D. in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1970. He taught as assistant professor of psychology in the early 70’s at Arizona State and Alfred University. He also served on staff at hospitals in Phoenix and Maine. After thr...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , Rob and I speak with two previous guests on the show Sam Webster and Gus diZerega about their new project Pagan Currents , an online open source creative commons journal for serious Pagan work intended for practicing Pagans rather than academics, while acknowledging the overlap between the two groups. Sam Webster, PhD, M.Div.,Mage , hails from the Ba...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist , we present a conversation with Richard Webb . Richard Webb has been driving the development of cutting-edge solutions in global Fortune 500 environments in the high-tech industry for over 20 years. He brings big-picture vision to both operational and digital transformation by applying lean concepts to optimize systems, streamline processes, and reduc...

Podcast: This week on the Mystical Positivist, we speak in the studio with LGBTQ+ community leader and Kundalini Yoga practitioner, Jacob Rudolph . Jacob Rudolph made international headlines in 2013 when a video of him coming out in front of more than 300 of his classmates went viral with over 2,000,000 views on YouTube. Soon after, Jacob was featured on national TV interviews with Anderson Cooper...

Podcast: This week on the show, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick discuss some of the spiritual practice issues that they have been examining in their personal lives, within the context of their Tayu Meditation teaching responsibilities, and that have arisen in some of the Mystical Positivist shows over the last few months. In particular they dive deep into the sense and meaning of the Ephemer...

Podcast: This week on the show, we speak by telephone with Robin Bloor , author of To Fathom The Gist: Approaches to the Writings of G.I. Gurdjieff and The Arch-Absurd . This conversation ranges from the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff, to how to approach their seemingly impenetrable nature, to the cosmology of the Gurdjieff tradition and how to translate such considerations into practical work on Sel...

Podcast: This week on the show we converse in the studio with Ken McLeod , founder and director of UnfetteredMind.org, a website offering resources on practical Buddhism. Ken trained in the Tibetan Buddha-dharma, translated for his teacher Kalu Rinpoche, and has written books that translate and comment on Tibetan texts. His books include A Trackless Path , Reflections on Silver River , An Arrow to...

Podcast: This week on the show we converse by telephone with Roger Lipsey , a biographer, art historian, editor, and translator. Roger Lipsey earned both his MA (1966) and Ph. D. (1974) from New York University. His Ph. D. was in the history of art at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. Dr. Lipsey has served as the director of the Society for Myth and Tradition, the publisher of Parabola magazine....

Podcast: This week on the show on the show we present a Skype conversation with Brad Warner . Brad Warner is the founder and head teacher of Angel City Zen Center and Dogen Sangha Los Angeles . He is the author of the popular Hardcore Zen blog as well as several books on Zen Buddhism including Hardcore Zen - Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth About Reality ; Sit Down and Shut Up - Punk Roc...

Podcast: This week on the show we feature an in-studio conversation with Antonio Ramirez Hernandez . Antonio Ramirez started learning about shamanism in 1982 when he started to have experiences that were difficult to understand with rational logic. He started to seek guidance until he found the Foundation for Shamanic Studies . He studied with Michael Harner, taking several workshops including the...

Podcast: This week on the show we present a pre-recorded conversation with Terri Daniel . Rev. Terri Daniel, MA, CT, CCTP is a clinical chaplain, certified trauma specialist and end-of-life educator certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling. The focus of her work is to assist dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually-spacious...

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show we converse in the studio with Wu Ming Chuan (aka Jacob Newell), an ordained Daoist priest with a quarter century experience with Buddhist and Daoist meditation & qi-cultivation. He resides with his family in Santa Rosa, California and is the author of These Daoist Bones , a book of contemplative poetry. He writes the blog, Daoist Bl...

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show we converse by telephone with Shawinigan Ungaia (aka Guillaume Gauthereau), Shamanic healer and founder of The Sanctuary Healing Center in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In this conversation we cover Guillaume's unique spiritual path, shamanism, trauma & healing, and the depth of the calling when we feel our soul pushed for anot...

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Christopher Ives , a professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, and author of the recent title from Wisdom Press: Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage . In his teaching and writing he focuses on ethics in Zen Buddhism and Buddhist approaches to nature and environmental i...

Podcast: This week's podcast features: This week on the show on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with The Very Rev. Donald P. Richmond , Doctor of Divinity, a Priest-Oblate with the Reformed Episcopal Church and Order of Saint Benedict. He is a graduate of several colleges and seminaries as well as the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies and the Maryvale Ecclesiastical In...