The Mystical Positivist: September 2025

Saturday, September 20, 2025

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #435 - 20SEP25

Podcast:

This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with David Paul Coleman, professional astrologer, practitioner and teacher in the magical tradition of Franz Bardon, and author of The 26 Keys – The Magic of the Astral Light: A New Approach to Astrology. David has been a professional astrologer for 35 years and a practicing magician for much of that time, having first encountered Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics in the mid 1990s. In working with this material, he found that he had a particular facility with astral magic and astral traveling, both of which complimented his work with astrology. His blog, Journeys in the Astral Light, contains a large collection of free material related to his unique perspective on astrology. In 2011, he published The 26 Keys as a new way to approach astrology inspired by his initiation and the practice of magic described in Initiation into Hermetics and The Practice of Magical Evocation. This book represents a unique synthesis of magical practice and a penetrating insight into astrological influence.

More information about David Coleman's work can be found at:

Journeys in the Astral Light website: astralvisions.wordpress.com,

David Coleman on Facebook: www.facebook.com,

Falcon Books interview with David Coleman: falconbookspublishing.com.

"The Mystical Positivist" Radio Show

The Mystical Positivist is a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP FM 107.3 Occidental, CA, and on the web at KOWS-LP Live Feed, Saturdays from 4 - 6pm PST. Coming up on The Mystical Positivist:

October 18: A discussion from the Western Baul Podcast Series featuring Robert Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick. The theme is “The Crisis of Continuity of Wisdom” and the description is as follows:

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus asserted that it’s impossible to step twice into the same river. In other words, flux is all. In terms of religious and spiritual practice, we apply this principle to say that, to be effective, The Work must change with the times, the places, and the people.

Yet we see enacted among religious and spiritual communities well-meaning attempts to rigidly codify formulations of wisdom offered by deceased teachers, as if words themselves, or practices based upon words, could embody timeless wisdom. It’s understandable. The very human tendency is for our minds, our bodies and our hearts to seek the stability of something we believe we can hold onto, untempered by innocent, child-like inquiry. Such innocent inquiry is, arguably and somewhat paradoxically, the most direct and reliable path to re- infuse original creative energy from within a tradition.

Once consequence of this situation, exemplified in many of our recent conversations with senior Fourth Way practitioners, is despair regarding the future of their tradition. For those sensitive to the feelings associated with the living, vivified expression of their tradition, they report a diminution from Gurdjieff’s time, through the long careers of G.’s many students who had worked directly with G., thus carrying on his Work, to what they mourn as the soup of the soup of Gurdjieff’s Work. This talk will strive to evoke a lively conversation about the dialectic between commitment to the living truths that emerged to embody a tradition, and the nature of creative attempts to revivify that tradition in the wake of its original exponents. We suggest that there may be no one answer, but that conversation among people of good will is a feature of how life can find its way to refresh itself.

Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick are spiritual teachers with Tayu Meditation Center, co-hosts of The Mystical Positivist podcast, and co-founders of Many Rivers Books & Tea. Tayu Meditation Center, based in Sebastopol, CA, was founded in 1976 by Robert Daniel Ennis. Grounded in the Fourth Way tradition of G.I. Gurdjieff, Tayu practice emphasises conversation be it within ourselves, with others, and between spiritual traditions.

The Western Baul Podcast Series features talks by practitioners of the Western Baul path. Western Bauls, as named by Lee Lozowick (1943-2010), an American spiritual Master who taught in the US, Europe, and India and who was known for his radical dharma, humor, and integrity, are kin to the Bauls of Bengal, India, with whom he shared an essential resonance and friendship. Lee’s spiritual lineage includes Yogi Ramsuratkumar and Swami Papa Ramdas.