Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Dr. Asa Hershoff about his development of what he calls the 5-Element Energy Healing and Elemental Psychology system. This system posits a three-self model of the human being (Spirit, Essence, and Persona) in which the Essence has five modes of being corresponding to the five traditional elements (Ruler, Creator, Lover, Warrior, and Guru). These modes are in turn reflected in the Persona as expressions of Empowerment,...

Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with returning guest Ken McLeod in which we continue our ongoing discussion about the degree to which a transactional mode of being permeates our lives, relationships, and spiritual practice. We explore goals in relationship, the transactional as the currency of the Horizontal Realm, what a non-transaction way of living might be, and the unconditioned nature of the Vertical Realm. After learning Tibetan, Ken McLeod...

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with returning guest Stephen Aronson about his new book, The Search for Meaning and the Mystery of Consciousness – A Psychologist’s Journey Through Gurdjieff and Jung, published by Karnak Press in 2022. This book explores the existential questions of reality, one’s purpose for existing, attention, consciousness, and the nature of the Universe all from a scientific and psychological perspective grounded in...

Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with returning guest Ken McLeod in which we delve more deeply into the nature of the Vertical and Horizontal dimensions of life, what this means in the context of spiritual practice, the nature of transaction as the currency of the Horizontal realm, how we might relate to a spiritual practice in non-transactional terms, and what it means to say that a spiritual path is a “way of living”. This episode is another installment...

Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Michael Allswang, author of Symbolism: Modern Thought and Ancient Egypt. After much study, reflection, and also visits to many ancient Egyptian monuments, Michael has come to the conclusion that the development of consciousness was the essential project of the priests of ancient Egypt, and that one of the means they used to achieve this end was the expression of spiritual truths by means of symbolism. Modern thought...

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 assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Dr. Elliot Cohen is a Chartered Psychologist and...

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 with mortality. Along with the amazing stories of shifters he shares throughout the book, Taylor...

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 to know if a given interpretation of the Buddha's words is correct, and whether "Secular Buddhism" is...

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 learning Tibetan, Ken McLeod translated for his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, and helped to...

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 thinking from the limited beliefs and attitudes that lie behind many of our problems — personal,...

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 Stanford; but then left her career as a scientist to investigate the warrior tribes of the eastern...

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 African spiritual tradition of healing and peacemaking. He is known internationally for his loving presence...

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 teachers, Alfred Etievan and Jessmin Howarth. Ms. Denzey’s mother, Elsa, was an accomplished pianist who...

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 connectivity. We don’t need more information. We need more appreciation. Gratitude opens the heart, and...

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 passion for the subject matter deepened, which resulted in his authorship of articles online and in...

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 Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. He described its study as a necessity - one of five obligolnian...

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 colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of...

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 feeling in allegorical mentation, abiding peace as a consequence of deep practice, and the challenge...

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...

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 international All and Everything Conference, has written for Parabola Magazine, and is a returning guest on...

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 teaching, Cohen opens up for us a new way to read one of Buddhism’s most remarkable spiritual...

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 for the lifesystems within it. Spiritual, etheric, or bioenergetic membranes encase and enclose...

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 Logos, the distinction between Belief and Faith, how practice depends upon context, the practice of...

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 Commonwealth of Australia, serving at one time as acting Senior Assistant Director of Publications. He has...

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" and founding editor in 1998 of the magazine works & conversations. Earlier he founded The Secret...