Saturday, December 29, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #314 - 29DEC18

This week's podcast features:

This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Hokai Diego Sobol. Hokai started practice and study of Buddhism in 1985. After 10 years of exploring Buddhist thought and practicing martial arts, while broadly learning from sources Eastern and Western, mainstream and fringe, Hokai became a practitioner and eventually instructor in the Shingon esoteric tradition of Japanese Vajrayana, under private tutelage of Ajari Jomyo Tanaka. Hokai founded the Mandala Society of Croatia in 1999. Continuing to explore and cultivate his own Buddhist practice, Hokai maintains an ongoing conversation with a number of teachers and senior practitioners. Starting from 2012, he focuses on mentoring individuals to deepen their practice in the context of their lives – those who pray, learn to meditate; and those who meditate, learn to pray. Hokai’s areas of special interest include mystical principles and esoteric practices in daily life, sacred apprenticeship, and deep semiotics. He is based in Rijeka, Croatia. 

More information about Hokai Diego Sobol's work can be found at:

Hokai Sobol's website: hokai.eu

Hokai Diego Sobol on Twitter: @hokaisobol

Saturday, December 22, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #313 - 22DEC18

This week's podcast features:

This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with spiritual teacher J. Jaye Gold, author of Justin Time: Autobiographical Stories from an American Spiritual Master, Another Heart in His Hand: A Spiritual Anomaly, and Highway of Diamonds. In his younger years, J. Jaye Gold studied at a 500-year-old experimental Naqshbandi Sufi school in northeastern Afghanistan. He believed that the methods he learned in this school needed to be modified for people in affluent Western cultures. He took on this challenge, developing tools, dynamics, and explorations of consciousness to help lead Westerners toward “intimacy with the ultimate reality, in order to become true servants.” J. Jaye Gold has been assisting people in their search for inner meaning for 35 years.

He is currently living in the Sierra foothills of Northern California where he works with several dozen seekers of truth. Over the years he has deliberately resisted the trend to become a “traveling guru” with thousands of followers around the world in favor of preserving an element that he considers precious — that of maintaining opportunities for developing an actual teacher/student relationship. He is available to anyone who seeks his guidance. 

More information about J. Jaye Gold's work can be found at:

J. Jaye Gold's website: justingold.net

J. Jaye Gold on YouTube: www.youtube.com

Saturday, December 15, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #312 - 15DEC18

This week's podcast features:

This week on the show our subject is the recently published book, The Fragrance of Emptiness: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra. We replay an interview recorded two weeks ago with the author, Tibetan teacher Anam Thubten, and then we continue the discussion with a live interview in the studio with the editor of the book, Laura Duggan.

Anam Thubten grew up in Tibet and at an early age began to practice in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the founder and spiritual advisor of Dharmata Foundation, teaching widely in the U.S. and abroad. He is also the author of various articles and books in both the Tibetan and English language. His books in English also include No Self, No Problem; The Magic of Awareness; and Embracing Each Moment: A Guide to the Awakened Life. The Fragrance of Emptiness: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra is his latest book.

Laura Duggan has been a student and practitioner of Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, and currently Tibetan Buddhism for the past 38 years. She actively engages in self-inquiry and meditation on a daily basis, and loves to discuss the application of philosophy to daily life. She currently is the volunteer retreat coordinator for meditation retreats with Anam Thubten in the Bay Area. She is the author of An Inquiring Life: Weekly Contemplations, and editor of The Fragrance of Emptiness

More information about Anam Thubten's work can be found at:

Dharmata Foundation website: www.dharmata.org

Anam Thubten on Facebook: www.facebook.com


More information about Laura Duggan's work can be found at:

Inquiring Life website: www.inquiringlife.com

Nicasio Press website: www.nicasiopress.com

Saturday, December 8, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #311 - 08DEC18

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:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with Joshua Leavitt. Joshua Leavitt has pursued spiritual practice intensively since the late 1980s. He has spent extended periods of time in Israel and India; lived for five years on an ashram in the U.S.; and worked closely with spiritual teachers from the Baul tradition, which originated in Bengal, India. He holds a Masters Degree in Religious Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and was chief editor of the spiritual journal Who’s Rowing Your Boat? In his business life, Joshua is the Managing Partner of New Line Consulting, a leadership and strategic planning firm that works primarily with leaders in the National Park Service. His creative writing has won national awards and been featured in Parabola Magazine and various literary journals. He currently divides his time between Bozeman, Montana and the newly founded In Cahoots Artist Residency in Petaluma, California.

More information about Joshua Leavitt's work can be found at:

Saturday, December 1, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #310 - 01DEC18

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:
  • This week we feature a telephone conversation with Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., an American physicist of Greek descent and a writer on spirituality and science, in which we discuss his recent collaboration with Deepak Chopra (You Are The Universe) as well as his engagement with the Shaivist spiritual tradition. Kafatos has written and lectured extensively promoting discourse between science, spirituality, and religion. He has held numerous positions at institutions including Chapman University, George Mason University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He is currently the Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics at Chapman University in Orange, CA. He received his B.A. in Physics from Cornell University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. He is the Founding Dean of the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University, serving as dean in 2009 – 2012. He directs the Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations.

    Kafatos has nearly 40 years of experience in undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. He has published 15 books including The Conscious Universe, The Non-local Universe (with Robert Nadeau), Principles of Integrative Science (with Mihai Draganescu), and his most recent book You Are The Universe with Deepak Chopra; and more than 300 articles in computational science, astrophysics, Earth systems science, hazards and global climate change, regional impacts of climate change, environmental issues, general relativity, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and consciousness.

More information about Menas Kafatos' work can be found at:

Saturday, November 24, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #309 - 24NOV18

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:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with Duane Elgin, an internationally recognized speaker, author, and social visionary exploring the deeper trends that are transforming our world. In 2006, Duane received the International Goi Peace Award in Japan in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.” His books include: The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (2009); Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future (2000), Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (2010, 1993 and 1981), and Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness (1993). With Joseph Campbell and other scholars he co-authored the book Changing Images of Man (1982). In addition, Duane has contributed chapters to twenty-two books, and has published more than a hundred major articles and blog posts.

    In the early 1970s, worked as a senior staff member of a joint Presidential-Congressional Commission on the American Future looking ahead from 1970 to 2000. He then worked as a senior social scientist with the think-tank SRI International where he coauthored numerous studies of the long-range future; for example, Anticipating Future National and Global Problems (for the President’s Science Advisor), Alternative Futures for Environmental Policy (for the Environmental Protection Agency), The Future of the Automobile (for the Ford Motor Co.), and Limits to the Management of Large, Complex Systems (for the President’s Science Advisor).

    As a speaker, Duane has given more than 300 keynotes and workshops with audiences ranging from business executives and civic groups to churches and college students. For the past three years, he has been the executive director of a project that has brought together more than a dozen “Great Transition Stories” that offer new cultural narratives for our collective imagination and that can serve help guide us toward a sustainable and meaningful future. He is now developing a growing number of collaborations with organizations in business, film and media, colleges and universities, and more.

    He has an MBA from the Wharton Business School, an MA in economic history from the University of Pennsylvania, and an honorary Doctor of Philosophy for work in “ecological and spiritual transformation” from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Over the past thirty years, Duane has co-founded three non-profit organizations working for media accountability, citizen empowerment, and a trans-partisan ‘community voice’ movement using the television airwaves legally owned by the public.

More information about Duane Elgin's work can be found at:

Saturday, November 10, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #308 - 10NOV18

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:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with Ken McLeod. Topics include a continuation of the discussion started three weeks ago with Ken and Jim Wilson on the relationship of cosmological views to a given spiritual practice and the distinction between belief and faith. The conversation is fueled in part by some detailed email feedback Ken shared from a European associate responding to our most recent conversation. As the discussion deepens, we get into the nature of Mythos and its role in deepening one's experience of the Mystical Heart. In particular, we explore how a relationship with Mythos is crucial in spiritual practice, how this relationship has been lost in the West, and how a Western practitioner can recover it without devolving into naïve belief.

    After learning Tibetan, Ken McLeod translated for his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, and helped to develop Rinpoche’s centers in North America and Europe. In 1985, Kalu Rinpoche authorized Ken to teach and placed him in charge of his Los Angeles center. Faced with the challenges of teaching in a major metropolis, he began exploring different methods and formats for working with students. He moved away from both the teacher-center model and the minister-church model and developed a consultant-client model. Ken is the author of Wake Up to Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention, The Great Path of Awakening, An Arrow to the Heart, Reflections on Silver River, and his most recent book, A Trackless Path.

More information about Ken McLeod's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 27, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #307 - 27OCT18

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:
  • This week we feature a pre-recorded talk that Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick gave at Many Rivers Books & Tea in September called What Is Spiritual Freedom? To value, admire, and revere freedom is the price of admission to American identity. Yet that price implies little or no commitment to ask ourselves what we mean by “freedom”. Is freedom a simple matter: the right to get to do what we want, perhaps unhappily balanced by considerations of freedom for others? What about the many species of freedom: freedom of expression, religious freedom, economic freedom, political freedom, social freedoms like the freedom to marry? While the evening’s discussion may touch on these questions and others, we will focus upon what “spiritual freedom” might mean. More importantly, we will consider what an examination of spiritual freedom can accomplish in the experience of our lives in the world. For example, how meaningful is it to imagine freedom in the realm of spirit that is somehow disengaged from the experience of living in and as a human body? Is it part of the mind’s delusion for people to manifest a version of spiritual freedom that is somehow unrelated to the embodied realities that we live out day by day? If so, how might we remedy that? Is spiritual freedom balanced by a corresponding responsibility to pay attention to both our interior and exterior lives? The commitment underlying this discussion is to contemplate serious questions, leavened at times by humor that does not take serious questions too seriously.

    After the talk, Mystical Positivist, Stuart Goodnick, concludes with some reflections on the themes raised in the talk and a discussion of a spiritual perspective on the question of Free Will.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, October 20, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #306 - 20OCT18

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:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with two of our favorite guests, Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson. Topics include Ken's work in progress on an expression of Vajrayana practice without reliance on a particular cosmological framework, the relevance of cosmologies in general to the transmission of spiritual traditions, the distinction of Faith and Belief, and spiritual traditions as a set of practices versus as a set of beliefs. We also have an extended discussion on rebirth, the differences in our views, and the relationship of such beliefs to practice.

    After learning Tibetan, Ken McLeod translated for his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, and helped to develop Rinpoche’s centers in North America and Europe. In 1985, Kalu Rinpoche authorized Ken to teach and placed him in charge of his Los Angeles center. Faced with the challenges of teaching in a major metropolis, he began exploring different methods and formats for working with students. He moved away from both the teacher-center model and the minister-church model and developed a consultant-client model. Ken is the author of Wake Up to Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention, The Great Path of Awakening, An Arrow to the Heart, Reflections on Silver River, and his most recent book, A Trackless Path.

    Jim Wilson was a monk and abbot under the direction of his teacher Seung Sahn, a Korean Chogye sect Zen master. He served as a Buddhist Prison Chaplain, studied western philosophy, co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol, conducts a website devoted to syllabic form Haiku, and has penned and published many books of poetry. In recent years his spiritual practice has centered on the Quaker Christian tradition. In addition to his many poetry volumes, he has published several books on spiritual matters, including On Trusting the Heart, a commentary on a famous poem by the third Zen patriarch, and An Annotated Edition of a Guide to True Peace.

More information about Ken McLeod and Jim Wilson's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 13, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #305 - 13OCT18

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:
  • This week we feature a conversation in the studio with Rev. Terri Daniel, MA, CT, a clinical chaplain, ordained interfaith minister 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 understanding of death and beyond. Terri conducts workshops throughout the US to help the dying and the bereaved find healing through meditative, ceremonial and therapeutic processes that focus on inner transformation rather than external events. Her work is acclaimed by physicians, hospice workers, grief counselors and clergy for its pinpoint clarity on the process of dying and grieving, and its heartfelt depiction of consciousness beyond the physical body. She is the author of three books: A Swan in Heaven: Conversations Between Two Worlds, Embracing Death: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude, and God, and Turning the Corner on Grief Street: Loss and Bereavement as a Journey of Awakening.

More information about Terri Daniel's work can be found at:

Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #304 - 06OCT18

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:
  • This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Alan Ramos, a former evangelical youth pastor, and subsequently, an Orthodox Christian priest. After struggling for decades with homosexual impulses, he eventually left ministry when he could no longer ignore the promptings of his inner life in the context of his role as a priest and confessor. The conversation touches on Alan's evolution from an Evangelical pastor to an Eastern Orthodox priest, the contrast between the Western Christian tradition and the Eastern Christian tradition, and the nature of authenticity in both giving and receiving confession.

More information about Alan Ramos's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 29, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #303 - 29SEP18

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:
  • This week we feature a conversation in the studio with Gobind Singh Khalsa, a yogi, teacher, executive leader, and musician who is passionate about helping people. He teaches consciousness and yoga, specializing in Kundalini Yoga and meditation, to enrich, support and empower people to live more conscious, successful and enlightened lives.

    As a teacher, he brings a wealth of wisdom on subjects ranging from yoga, meditation, conscious living, organizational leadership, business, and relationships to help people and organizations realize their highest potential.

    As a business leader, he brings a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and 27+ years of experience in organizational leadership, strategy, finance, and accounting, across several industries including technology, wellness, CPG, renewable energy, and financial services.

More information about Gobind Singh Khalsa's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 15, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #302 - 15SEP18

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:
  • This week we feature a conversation by telephone with Subhash Kak, an Indian American computer scientist, physicist, and prolific author on the vedas, spirituality, and philosophy. He is Regents Professor and a previous Head of the Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, who has made contributions to topics including cryptography, artificial neural networks, and quantum information. Kak is also notable for his Indological publications on the history of science, the philosophy of science, ancient astronomy, and the history of mathematics. On August 28, 2018, he was appointed member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council. His books include In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda, The Wishing Tree: Presence and Promise of India, The Nature of Physical Reality, The Loom of Time, Matter and Mind, Mind and Self, The Gods Within: Mind, Consciousness, and the Vedic Tradition, Consciousness and the Universe : Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind, and The Circle of Memory: An Autobiography.

More information about Subhash Kak's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 8, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #301 - 08SEP18

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:
  • This week we feature a conversation by telephone with Philip Goldberg, author or co-author of numerous books, including Roadsigns on the Spiritual Path: Living at the Heart of Paradox, American Veda, and The Life of Yogananda. He is a public speaker and workshop leader; a spiritual counselor, meditation teacher and ordained Interfaith Minister, and he co-hosts the Spirit Matters podcast.

    He was born and raised in Brooklyn and moved to Los Angeles with stops along the way. As a college student in the 1960’s, he shuttled uncertainly from one major to another while relentlessly searching for higher truths, scratching his way to passions that would mark his adult life: spirituality and writing. Despite having been raised by atheists who disdained religion — or maybe because of it — he was drawn to the pragmatic mysticism of the East, at first through public thinkers like Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley, and then directly from the texts of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism — especially Vedanta and Yoga.

    This led inexorably to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation. Philip spent much of the 1970’s teaching TM (changing the world, one mantra at a time, as he thought of it) and working for that organization in other capacities.

    That affiliation led to an independent spiritual path as a pragmatic mystic —a yogi for whom transcendence is a means, not an end — and also catalyzed his career as a professional writer. Phil’s spiritual pursuits and his writing career ran on separate tracks, coming together only on occasion. In his books, he was able to indulge his interests in psychology, human potential and holistic health. Early on, to pay the bills, he accepted offers to collaborate with experts with good ideas but neither the capacity nor inclination to write. That led to his version of a day job — ghosting, collaborating, editing — while working on his own books screenwriting. Then in 2010, American Veda was published. The book earned good reviews, won awards and spawned related ventures like American Veda Tours, the Spirit Matters podcast, a documentary film project (now in the development and fundraising stage), satisfying lecture and workshop gigs and, of course, more and more writing. Earlier this year (2018) his latest book The Life of Yogananda was published by Hay House.

More information about Philip Goldberg's work can be found at:

Saturday, September 1, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #300 - 01SEP18

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:
  • This week we feature an in-studio conversation with Theresa Dintino. Theresa C. Dintino is an ancestral Strega (Italian wise woman), Earth worker, and initiated diviner. For more than 20 years Theresa has studied and practiced an Earth-based spirituality. In 2011, she was initiated as a diviner in a West African tradition. She currently helps others reclaim their personal lineages through her divination work.

    Theresa is the author of the Tree Medicine Trilogy which includes: The Amazon Pattern: A Message from Ancient Women Diviners of Trees and Time, Notes From a Diviner in the Postmodern World: A Handbook for Spirit Workers, and Teachings from the Trees: Spiritual Mentoring from the Standing Ones.

    She is also the author of The Strega and the Dreamer, a work of historical fiction based in the true story of her great grandparents, Ode to Minoa and Stories They Told Me, two novels exploring the life of a snake priestess in Bronze Age Crete, and Welcoming Lilith: Awakening and Welcoming Pure Female Power

More information about Theresa Dintino's work can be found at:

Saturday, August 25, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #299 - 25AUG18

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:
  • This week we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Peter Coyote. Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audiobooks. Coyote had first discovered Zen in his teens via the works of Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and other Beats. Beginning in 1975, Coyote undertook meditation practice and eventually became a dedicated practitioner of American Zen Buddhism, moving into the San Francisco Zen Center. He was later ordained a lay priest in the Soto tradition and was ordained as a Zen Priest in 2015. Coyote performed audiobook recordings of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Paul Reps's Zen Flesh, Zen Bones as well as narrating the documentary Inquiry into the Great Matter: A History of Zen Buddhism. "I'm a Zen Buddhist student first, actor second", Coyote has said. "If I can't reconcile the two lives, I'll stop acting. I spend more time off-screen than on." In April, 2015, his memoir, The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education, was released, in which he "provides portraits of mentors that shaped him— including his violent, intimidating father, a bass player, a Mafia Consiglieri, and beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduces him to the practice of Zen." Coyote has been working on a new book on Zen that is the principal subject of our conversation with him.

More information about Peter Coyote's work can be found at:

Saturday, August 11, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #298 - 11AUG18

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:
  • This week on the Mystical Positivist, George Barselaar, a devotee of Swami Lakshmanjoo and practitioner of Kashmir Shaivism, returns for an in-studio conversation about the teachings of the Kashmir Shaivist Tantric tradition, the meaning of Grace, the function of Free Will, and more. George Barselaar was born in 1951 in a small town in the south of Holland. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, studied Civil Engineering, and spent all of his spare time Surfing or playing Soccer. At the age of 19, George took a keen interest in Yoga, which inspired him to eventually learn Transcendental Meditation (TM). In 1974, he completed the Teacher Training Program in Transcendental Meditation (TM) under the direction of its founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Having a keen interest in the Vedas and Indian Philosophy, in 1975 he studied Sanskrit for a year at Newcastle University in Australia.

    In 1981 George travelled to India and spent six months travelling and studying the ancient system of Ayurvedic medicine. During this time he had the great fortune to meet with some of India’s renown saints including Anandamayi Maa, and many others. Following his interest in Shaiva Philosophy, in 1982 George travelled to Kashmir to meet the respected Saint and Shaiva master, Swami Lakshmanjoo. George remained in Kashmir for 9 years, until Swamiji’s passing in 1991. It was during that time that he became associated with John and Denise Hughes, who had already compiled a library of over 700 hours of recorded lectures given by Swami Lakshmanjoo on the oral tradition of Kashmir Shaivism.

    In 1988, after years of working in the garden and doing various construction jobs in the small ashram, Swamiji gave George permission to begin transcribing his recorded lectures. Working closely with John Hughes, it took almost 20 years to completed the English transcriptions of all of Swami Lakshmanjoo’s recorded teachings.

    For a decade after Swamiji’s passing (September 1991) George returned to Kashmir each summer, specifically to learn certain rituals unique to Kashmir Shaivism. Part of that study was learning the recitation of hymns and various mantras that accompany the Shaiva rituals.

    In 2000, George and his partner, Claudia Dose, moved from Australia to the USA and began working full time with John and Denise Hughes. At that time a decision was made to publish all of Swami Lakshmanjoo’s teachings as original transcripts along with the original audio recordings. This format, enabling the student to hear the teachings directly from a master of the Oral Tradition, has been well received by sincere students of Kashmir Shaivism worldwide.
More information about Swami Lakshmanjoo's work can be found at:

Saturday, August 4, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #297 - 04AUG18

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 Bruce Fortin, guiding teacher of the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol, California.

    Bruce Fortin began studying Zen at San Francisco Zen Center in 1971 and was ordained a Soto Zen Priest in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi in 1976. He spent thirteen years as a resident in Zen Center’s three monastic practice places: Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center’s City Center, and has received Dharma Transmission to teach from Zoketsu Norman Fischer. He has also studied with a number of other teachers in the Tibetan and Vipassana traditions and his teachings reflect their influence.

    Bruce’s work experience in the world includes serving as Executive Director of Home Hospice of Sonoma County for a number of years. In addition to being a Buddhist teacher, he has a private practice in Sonoma County where he practices mediation law and psychotherapy with a specialty in relationship counseling and transpersonal psychology.

More information about Bruce Fortin's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, July 28, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #296 - 28JUL18

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 by telephone with Shinsu Roberts, author of the recently published volume Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji.

    In his forward to the book, author, Zen teacher, and previous Mystical Positivist guest Norman Fisher writes “Impermanence is time itself, being itself—yet time and being are not at all as we imagine them to be. To really understand and fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world—a world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Zen Master Dogen frames the teaching on impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time—and all of Dogen’s profoundly poetic teachings flow from his seminal understanding of time, as expressed in Uji (Being-Time), the famous—and famously difficult—essay in his masterwork, Shobogenzo. In Uji, Dogen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is all-inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and eternal. In this book, Shinshu Roberts does full justice, as does no other book I know of, to Dogen’s words. She offers interpretation of Uji only after careful consideration and marshaling of many sources—and offers simple everyday examples to illustrate points that seem at first abstruse. If this text causes you to doubt your most cherished concepts about your life, it will have done its work.”

    Leilani Shinsu Roberts is a Dharma Heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, abbot of Berkeley Zen Center and in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. She received her priest training at San Francisco Zen Center and from the North American branch of the Japanese Soto School. She has been appointed Kokusaifukyoshi (International Dharma Teacher) by the Shumucho (Japanese Soto Administration). She co-founded Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA with her spouse Jaku Kinst.

More information about Shinsu Robert's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, June 30, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #295 - 30JUN18

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 Ken McLeod, a teacher and translator in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for many decades. Ken is the author of a number of books, including his most recent title A Trackless Path, as well as Wake Up To Your Life, Reflections on Silver River, and An Arrow To The Heart: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra. In the first hour of the show we discuss the three core lines of Vajrayana practice (Direct Awareness, Transformation/Energy, and Protector) and how these translate for a Western audience. This leads into a rich discussion of Protector practice, traditional Tantra, and the principle of "Saying Yes to Life." In the second hour we explore more deeply the project of Mysticism including questions such as whether Mystical practice is necessarily a solitary pursuit or whether an important element of the Mystical is found in work within community.
More information about Ken McLeod's work and interests can be found at:

Saturday, June 16, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #294 - 16JUN18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation with Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick about a recent trip our Mystical Positivist team made to Japan to follow and support Shakuhachi Master, Masayuki Koga, on a series of performances throughout Japan. Many Rivers co-founder Stuart Goodnick has studied Shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute, for over 20 years with Masayuki Koga sensei, one of the greatest performers on this instrument on the planet. Koga and his American student ensemble gave a series of performances across Japan in early June, returning to the Bay Area earlier this week. Today we mix some wonderful flute performances tempered in the fires of presentation to Japanese audiences, and some trip reminiscences from Stuart and humble roadie Rob. Included are recorded performances by Masayuki Koga from Kobe and live in-studio performances by Mystical Positivist, Stuart Goodnick.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, May 26, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #293 - 26MAY18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation with Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick about what Mysticism means in a modern western oriented spiritual practice. In the first hour our hosts argue about whether non-theistic Buddhists such as Gil Fronsdal and Stephen Batchelor, and atheist/materialist Sam Harris represent the modern era voice of the Mystical project. In the second hour they reconcile with a more substantive discussion about what constitutes the Mystical and how certain types of practices and perspectives can cultivate access to it. In addition, they discuss the moral dimension of Mysticism.

    Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., and Stuart Goodnick co-direct Tayu Meditation Center, owner and operator of Many Rivers Books & Tea. They studied intensively with Tayu founder Robert Daniel Ennis, and are working to complete a book of his teachings this year called, Living Life As A Work Of Art: The Spiritual Work of Robert Daniel Ennis.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #292 - 19MAY18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation in the studio with our former Mystical Positivist host colleague Dr. Nicholas Egan, an educator and long-time practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism with his teacher Anam Thubten. Nick has had long career in independent schools including time as a Sixth Grade Lead Teacher, a History Department Chair, and Administrative roles, providing him first-hand knowledge of the various interconnected layers of a school. He is currently Head of School of The Healdsburg School. Nick has successfully helped design and implement in-depth Social & Emotional Learning curriculum that integrates emotional awareness, healthy relationships, and ethical decision-making. He is also the recipient of a lifetime Sara D. Barter Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University for his achievement in working with academically talented students. Additionally, Nick has created and taught an innovative world religions program emphasizing critical thinking through studying foundational beliefs and practices of the world’s major religious traditions. His doctoral work in Asian Studies, as well as his experience leading cultural and educational tours for children and adults to destinations including Bhutan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand, and Tibet, bring a rich layer of experience to his current position at The Healdsburg School. Nick lives in Healdsburg with his wife and three daughters.
More information about Nicholas Egan's work can be found at:

Saturday, May 12, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #291 - 12MAY18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation in the studio with Kittisaro and Thanissara, Buddhist teachers and practitioners who are strong proponents of the “Engaged Buddhism” movement. They are co-authors of Listening to the Heart: A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism. Separately, Thanissara authored Time To Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth—The Buddha’s Life and Message through Feminine Eyes.

    Kittisaro grew up in Tennessee, graduated from Princeton as a Rhodes Scholar and went on to Oxford before going to Thailand to ordain with Ajahn Chah in 1976. He was a monk for 15 years and during that time helped found Chithurst Monastery and Devon Vihara in the UK. He also taught extensively during this time and was involved in the training of monks. He disrobed in 1991 and since then has taught internationally in the US, Europe, South Africa, and Israel. He has studied and practiced Chan and Pure Land since 1980, informed by the Chinese school of Master Hua. Kittisaro has completed two one year long silent self retreats and is currently writing in between continuing his teaching engagements.

    Thanissara was born into a London Anglo-Irish family, and started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975. She was inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah and spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun where she was a founding member of Chithurst Monastery and Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. She was also co-initiator of events for children and families at Amaravati. Thanissara has facilitated meditation retreats since 1989 and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from Middlesex University & the Karuna Institute in the UK. She is author of several books: Garden of the Midnight Rosary, The Heart of the Bitter Almond Hedge Sutra, co-authored with Kittisaro Listening to the Heart, and her latest is Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth.

    Both Thanissara and Kittisaro co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in 2000 in South Africa, where they continue to lead retreats and support Kulungile, a loving home for vulnerable children and adults. They are core teachers at Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts, co-founders of Chattanooga Insight, TN, and are are on the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California.​ They also co-founded Sacred Mountain Sangha, which is based in Sebastopol, CA, and which recently launched the Dharmapala - Protectors of the Earth & the Dharma - Training facilitated by Kittisaro & Thanissara.
More information about Kittisaro and Thanissara's work can be found at:

Saturday, April 28, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #290 - 28APR18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation in the studio with M. Amos Clifford, author of Your Guide to Forest Bathing: Experience the Healing Power of Nature. In addition to the book that is the topic of our discussion today, Amos is the author of the Kindle book Coyote Stories for Connection to Nature and Spirit: Tales From the Edges of the Untamed World. Amos Clifford is one of the leading voices for Shinrin-Yoku-inspired Forest Therapy in the United States. He began his career as a wilderness guide in 1972. He developed and managed programs that included pioneering approaches to eco-therapies connecting troubled teens to nature. In Sonoma County he served as Executive Director of Restorative Resources, an NGO focusing on the use of restorative justice and related practices. Amos has practiced Zen meditation for 20 years and is a founder of Sky Creek Dharma Center in Chico, California. Amos is accompanied by Pamella Wirth, a certified Forest Therapy Guide and longtime associate of Amos Clifford.
More information about M. Amos Clifford's work can be found at:

Saturday, April 14, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #289 - 14APR18

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:
  • This week’s show features a public talk that Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick gave at Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol, CA, on April 5th, 2018. The talk is titled, Living Life as a Work of Art. Swimming in the river currents of life, every thought, every emotion, and every physical act ripples outward, leaving a wake. Consider this truism along with the assertion that great spiritual adepts are notable precisely because they embody the goal of striving to put attention on every moment. What is it like to cultivate exquisite sensitivity to actions and their effects within dynamically changing conditions? Is it helpful to call that practiced sensitivity, and the effects of that sensitivity, art? Traditional views of art assume a stable canvas upon which we impose a vision and expression. Tayu Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis asserted that painting with the brush of conscious habits permits meaningful artistic expression within the dynamic currents of life. In other words, we can paint meaning within the intermixing energy currents where no configuration lingers. In so doing, we can relieve a portion of God's suffering with our own exquisite artful expression in the moment, just as when we view human art, the experience of our own suffering shifts within a vaster perspective.

    Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., and Stuart Goodnick co-direct Tayu Meditation Center, owner and operator of Many Rivers Books & Tea. They studied intensively with Tayu founder Robert Daniel Ennis, and are working to complete a book of his teachings this year called, Living Life As A Work Of Art: The Spiritual Work of Robert Daniel Ennis.
More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Saturday, April 7, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #288 - 07APR18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation in the studio with Douglass Truth, artist, writer, performer, and more. Douglass writes:

    I was born a long time ago in Indiana. I never knew I had any aptitude as a painter until I was in my early 40s, when I started painting pretty much by accident. As far as writing, even in junior high school I started to see myself as a writer. Decades of adventures, crap jobs, amazing jobs, and much wandering led to no marketable product, or even readable material as far as most people were concerned. I told myself I was a slow learner, a late-bloomer, and so on, and I guess I was right.

    I come from a family of professionals. I was the youngest, and maybe that gave me license to do whatever I wanted, which was not always an obvious bit of data. So, a lot of wandering and washing dishes and slinging hash and pouring coffee. I did work in Alaska as a surveyor and designer for most of the 70s, but after that I couldn't fake it anymore and I ended up tearing down old buildings around Anchorage with a Jehovah’s Witness named Dwayne. We had a lot of fun, hopped freight trains together but then we started arguing about drugs and such and our relationship soured, and it certainly wasn't one you wanted to engage when around dangerous tools.


    Douglass Truth is the creator and performer of the one-person show, An Intimate Evening with Death, Herself, next showing on April 19th at The Marsh (1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco). Tickets are $15.
More information about Douglass Truth's work can be found at:

Saturday, March 31, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #287 - 31MAR18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation with David Kherdian and Nonny Hogrogian, editor and art director, respectively, of Stopinder, A Gurdjieff Journal for Our Time. David Kherdian is an award-winning Armenian-American writer, poet, editor. He is the author and editor of over seventy books that include poetry, novels, memoirs, biographies, bibliographies, children’s books, as well as critical studies, translations, and retellings. His Armenian-American wife, Caldecott Award winning children’s book illustrator, Nonny Hogrogian, was the art director for Stopinder and many other joint projects; together they operated three small presses, that included books handset and hand-bound, and published in limited editions by letterpress. Kherdian wrote about his experience of working in the Fourth Way in his book On a Spaceship with Beelzebub By a Grandson of Gurdjieff.
More information about David Kherdian and Nonny Hogrogian's work can be found at:

Saturday, March 24, 2018

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #286 - 24MAR18

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:
  • This week’s show features a conversation with two intuitive healers, Trina Marie Vega and Anna Felciano. Trina Vega a Native American Pomo Indian, a mother to 3 grown sons, 1 daughter and a loving grandmother to 18 beautiful grandchildren. An intuitive reader for most of her life, Trina has offered readings on a professional basis for over 10 years. She is a Reiki master and teacher, earned her doctorate in metaphysical studies, and is an Angel Therapy Practitioner®, certified by Doreen Virtue, and is an ordained minister. Sonoma County native Anna Felciano is the proud mother of a son and 3 grandchildren, and is an intuitive reader who has been studying with Trina Vega since 2012. She has been certified as an Angel Card Reader and is a Reiki Master. She writes: "I have always been aware that my intuition is strong, but since studying with Trina, I have been able to focus the intention and help others and myself in everyday life."
More information about Trina Vega and Anna Felciano's work can be found at: