Saturday, January 23, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #211 - 23JAN16

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation in the studio with spiritual teacher Kenny Johnson, author of the autobiographical book The Last Hustle, wherein Johnson recounts his early and middle life, during which period Kenny was arrested thirty-seven times and spent much of his life in prison, or on the run. Each time behind bars sent him into a deep and profound despair. Eventually his desire for lasting freedom would drive him to find a power that could not only get him through his final sentence, but free him from prison forever. That new direction opened when he met spiritual teacher Gangaji in prison.

    About that spiritual awakening, Kenny has written:

    “I had to find a power that would not only get me through my current sentence, but would free me from prison forever.

    "During my early years in prison, I spent most of my time participating in religious and substance abuse groups. It was my inner desire for freedom that led me and a band of truth-seekers to a meeting in the prison chapel.

    "There, Gangaji, a spiritual teacher, answered my most pressing question:

    “It is my understanding that we have to wait until we die before we can receive God’s Grace. Is that so?” Gangaji replied, “Kenny, God’s Grace is here now! Kenny you think you are a convict, you think you are your name, you think you are a black man. Kenny you are none of these things.

    "Instantly I knew I would never be a thief again. But how do you re-enter the world outside without resorting to old weaknesses? How would I survive and how would it be possible to maintain this newly found experience of grace?

    “This ever present Grace supports me in each moment now.”


    After his release, Kenny set up a foundation called This Sacred Space to bring the message of spiritual clarity and freedom to those still incarcerated. Today he offers satsang to everyone struggling to escape the prisons of their hearts and minds.
More information about Kenny Johnson's work can be found at:

Saturday, January 16, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #210 - 16JAN16

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • Today hosts Stuart Goodnick and Robert Schmidt converse with one another in the studio on the subject: do ideas about God take us away from God? Given the focus of the show, that rationality can be an ally in the mystical quest, this question is right up our alley. We consider this topic in light of hot-off-the-presses news developments, as well as texts like The Mystical Theology of Dionysus the Areopagite, an early Christian work .

    Dr. Robert Schmidt, spiritual director of Tayu Meditation Center, met and began intensive, 24-hour study with Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis in 1977. After five remarkable training years, he received ordination as a minister of Tayu, and co-taught with his teacher until Mr. Ennis’ death in 1998. His work with Mr. Ennis included co-writing and publishing a book entitled God Is Gay: An Evolutionary Spiritual Work. Rob succeeded Mr. Ennis as Tayu spiritual director, a post he still holds, in collaboration with yours truly. With Stuart Goodnick and Jim Wilson he co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol in Sebastopol, CA, in 2002.

    Currently he’s collaborating with practitioners of many spiritual traditions to create the Conscious Family Festival, a community event scheduled for October 2016 in Santa Rosa, CA. Along the way, Rob completed a Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology at UC Berkeley, where he was co-editor with his grad student colleague Barbara Voss of the award-winning Archaeologies of Sexuality, the first academic edited volume to examine the phenomenon of sexuality as a object of knowledge in archaeological contexts.

    Stuart Goodnick, the Mystical Positivist, has been a practitioner of Tayu Meditation since 1985 and a Tayu Meditation instructor since 1993. He holds degrees in Physics from Caltech and UCSC, and has been an engineering manager in the electronics and software security industries since 1989. Stuart has also been a student of the shakuhachi (Japanese Bamboo flute) under Master Masayuki Koga since 1996. In recent years Stuart has been applying the principles of spiritual practice and transformation in daily life as a senior executive in both Silicon Valley start-ups and global industrial manufacturers. He co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea with Robert Schmidt and Jim Wilson in Sebastopol in 2002.

    A frequent writer and speaker on spiritual topics, Stuart maintains that rationality is no way the antithesis of deep mystical experience, but is in fact a necessary ally. He is currently working on a compilation of some of his essays and transcriptions of talks to be released later in 2016.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, January 9, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #209 - 09JAN16

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation in the studio with Sufi practitioner and poet Raphael Block. Born and raised on a kibbutz in Israel to pioneering parents, Raphael grew up playing on the hills of Haifa. Just before turning 9, his family moved to London. Learning English shaped his ear for sound, and the British climate and temperament fashioned his life for the next 25 years. At age 27 he became a student of the great 20th century Sufi mystic Irina Tweedie, author of one of the greatest spiritual autobiographies, Daughter of Fire. After her death, Block eventually moved from London to northern California with his second wife, who was born in San Francisco, to continue his Sufi studies with Tweedie’s successor in the Naqshbandi Sufi Order Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee. After his wife’s death from cancer in 2002, Raphael continued with the work of raising their daughter. Raphael Block’s poetry volumes include Songs From A Small Universe and Spangling Darkness. His latest volume of poetry, Strings of Shining Silence, will be published later in 2016.

    Raphael has coped with and learned from a succession of health challenges in recent years, including Chron’s disease, which necessitated several major surgeries. The latest challenge is a recent diagnosis of bone marrow cancer (MDS).
More information about Raphael Block's's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, January 2, 2016

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #208 - 02JAN16

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.
This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with poet and Quaker, Jim Wilson, about the life and work of the seventeenth century French Catholic mystic Madam Guyon. Jim Wilson studied Buddhism in Korea, Japan, and the US. He was an ordained monk in the Chogye Zen Buddhist order for six years. He served as a Buddhist Prison Chaplain in an institution for the criminally insane. He also founded and conducted the Sutra Salon, a group reading and discussing the Buddhist suttas and sutras published in English translation. In addition to the Chogye Zen order, he studied in a number of other Buddhist traditions. He is one of the founders of Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol. Since becoming a Quaker, he has published a critical edition of A Guide to True Peace, a manual for the practice of Quaker Silent Prayer that draws on the work of Madam Guyon, the subject of our conversation today. Jim is in the process of preparing An Annotated Edition of A Guide to True Peace, to be published in 2016. Jim is also an accomplished poet, and author of many volumes of poetry, including some of his more recent titles, Shorter Tanka Journeys, Shorter Haiku Journeys, and Shorter Cinquain Journeys. Jim has been a frequent guest on The Mystical Positivist show, learnedly discussing a wide range of topics.
More information about Jim Wilson's work and interests can be found at: