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 experience. It is this shared, intimate, profound spiritual friendship that Amir and Anne are discovering is the most compelling aspect of their respective spiritual endeavors and at the very heart and soul of their work. We cover such topics as risk taking and vulnerability, the giving up of control, spiritual practice as the Art of Living a Life, and conversation as creating an invocational space. Anne Sweet has been involved in spiritual life for over four decades. During that time, she lived for many years in ashrams and committed spiritual communities in India, the U.K and America. She has studied with both Western and Eastern teachers and completed thousands of hours of spiritual practice and enquiry. Anne writes, “I was no closer to finding what I was looking for, however, until 2004, when utterly disillusioned with spiritual life I struck out on my own and in the midst of an ongoing crisis and the intense period of self-enquiry that ensued, finally discovered the truth of my own Self beyond the personal identity.” Anne lives and works in Sydney, Australia with her partner Dr Jesse Shore. Together we have created Sweet+Shore, an art/science collaboration. She is also an exhibiting solo artist under the name of Anne Penman Sweet and is represented by Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London. Most recently, Anne has been creating a website called The End of Seeking: demystifying the spiritual path - a straightforward, no frills, no cost, guru-free guide to Self- knowledge, which aims to assist the (often weary!) seeker, not from a teaching position in the usual sense, but as a fellow traveler and spiritual friend. Amir Freimann was born in 1958 and grew up in a village in Israel. After studying Tai Chi, medicine, and the Philosophy of Science, he lived for two years in a Zen monastery in Japan and for more than two decades in a small community with a spiritual/philosophical orientation in the United States called EnlightenNext. These days Amir lives with his wife, Ruti, and Corgi (their dog) in the village where he grew up, earns a living by translating pharmaceutical papers from Japanese to English, serves as executive director of an NGO called The Education Spirit Movement and writes books. He has published two books on the connection between formal education and philosophical/spiritual inquiry, Education: Essence and Spirit and Education: The Human Questions, as well as his recent, Spiritual Transmission: Paradoxes and Dilemmas on the Spiritual Path. In 2018, he began studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Haifa and writing a Doctoral dissertation (and a book) on the subject: Enlightened Life - a Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Masters. Note: a Video version of this conversation is available here: www.YouTube.com More information about Anne Sweet's work can be found at: The End of Seeking website: www.theendofseeking.org, Anne Sweet's website: www.annepenmansweet.com, Sweet + Shore Collaboration website: www.sweetandshore.com, Amir Freimann's website: The Freedom to Question, Amir Freimann on Facebook: www.facebook.com, Spiritual Transmission at Monkfish Book Publishing Company: www.monkfishpublishing.com.