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: