Saturday, July 25, 2020

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #368 - 25JUL20

This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Anne Sweet, Sydney-based artist and spiritual exemplar of living in the world from a point of view of transcendence. Of her spiritual life she writes:

I had a ‘change of identity’ about 15 years ago. This was very liberating for me, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was or what had happened. By then I had left my teacher and was pretty much done with spiritual life. After 30 years I’d had enough, and been through enough. I had learnt to take care of my interior world and over time had stabilized my ‘condition’ and had no desire to get involved with another teacher in the hope of having my remaining questions answered. In a sense I forgot all about spirituality.

About 5 years ago I began to become very curious about my ‘state’. I was reading the Masters again in a casual way, and their words seemed to match my experience. I believed there was an excellent chance I was fooling myself however, and it became important to find out. I contacted a well-known Vedanta teacher who I trusted with my ‘story’, and he very kindly confirmed my understanding and helped clear my remaining questions. I was satisfied. After that spiritual life slipped even further into the background.


Recently, after a series of formal interviews with her friend, Amir Freimann, Anne has started speaking openly about her state and her ongoing experience of transcendence of a contracted identification with her personal story. In this conversation, we discuss Anne’s background of deep spiritual practice, the crisis that led her to make a decision to shift her sense of identity from her personal narrative to that within which remains unchanging, and how Anne has come to integrate this mode of being into her life in the world.


More information about Anne Sweet's work can be found at:

Anne Sweet's website: www.annepenmansweet.com,

Sweet + Shore Collaboration website: www.sweetandshore.com,

Rebecca Hossack Gallery London website: www.rebeccahossack.com.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #367 - 18JUL20

This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Michael Nagler, founder of The Metta Center for Nonviolence in 1982, and author of The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. The Metta Center provides educational resources on the safe and effective use of nonviolence, with the recognition that it’s not about putting the right person in power but awakening the right kind of power in people. The Metta Center advances a higher image of humankind while empowering people to explore the questions: How does nonviolence work, and how can I actively contribute to a happier, more peaceful society?

As Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley, Michael co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. His previous books include The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World; and The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action. He is a student of Eknath Easwaran, who founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, and he has lived at the center’s ashram in Marin County, California since 1970.



More information about Michael Nagler's work can be found at:

Michael Nagler's personal website: michaelnagler.org,

The Metta Center website: mettacenter.org,

The Third Harmony film website: thirdharmony.org,

Nonviolence + Science = New Story: mettacenter.org/nonviolence/newstory/,

Blue Mountain Center of Meditation website: www.bmcm.org.

Saturday, July 11, 2020

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #366 - 11JUL20

This week on The Mystical Positivist, we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Amir Freimann, author of Spiritual Transmission: Paradoxes and Dilemmas on the Spiritual Path and a doctoral researcher on Living Transcendence: A Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Masters. Amir returns to continue our conversation from May about Living Transcendence and the nature of Spiritual Surrender. Born in 1958 in a kibbutz, Amir grew up in a small village in Israel. At the age of 17 he became deeply interested in spiritual-existential questions about the nature of consciousness, freedom, self and the Whole. He served in the Israeli army and became a pacifist after participating in the 1982 Lebanon War. He then studied medicine but at the end of the 5th year of his studies decided to devote his life to spiritual awakening. He spent 2 years meditating in a Zen monastery in Japan and over 20 years doing intense spiritual practice and engaged in philosophical-spiritual exploration in the community of EnlightenNext in the USA. In 2009 he left the community and moved back to Israel. Shortly thereafter he began interviewing prominent spiritual teachers and their students, which led to the publication of Spiritual Transmission, which is his first book in English.

Note: the video of this conversation can be found at www.youtube.com.


More information about Amir Freimann's work can be found at:

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,

Amir Freimann on The Mystical Positivist: mysticalpositivist.blogspot.com.