The Mystical Positivist: The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #121

Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #121 - 15JUN13

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 Erik Davis, author, award-winning journalist, independent scholar, and lecturer based in San Francisco. He is the author, most recently, of Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica, and The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape, with photographs by Michael Rauner. He also wrote Led Zeppelin IV and TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, the latter a cult classic of visionary media studies that has been translated into five languages. His essays on art, music, techno-culture, and contemporary spirituality have appeared in over a dozen books, including AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Man, Zig Zag Zen, The Disinformation Book of Lies, 010101: Art in Technological Times (SFMOMA), and Prefiguring Cyberculture. Davis has contributed articles and essays to a variety of publications, including Bookforum, Slate, ArtForum, Salon, Blender, The LA Weekly, and The Village Voice. For many years he was a contributing writer at Wired, and he wrote “The Analog Life” for Arthur.

A vital speaker, Davis has given talks at universities, media art conferences, and festivals around the world. He has taught workshops and seminars at the UC Berkeley, UC Davis, the California Institute of Integral Studies, the New York Open Center, and Esalen. He was one of the original minds behind Planetwork, an organization devoted to cross-fertilizaing information technology and global ecology. He has been interviewed by CNN and the BBC, and wrote the libretto for and performed in “How to Survive the Apocalypse,” a Burning Man-inspired rock opera, and occasionally plays guitar in front of microphones.

More information about Erik Davis' work can be found at:

Techgnosis website: www.techgnosis.com
Erik Davis on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Davis
Expanding Mind podcast on The Progressive Radio Network: Expanding Mind on PRN

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AnonymousDecember 19, 2019 at 6:34 PM
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"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:

April 20: A pre-recorded conversation with Ken McLeod, Buddhist teacher and author of the newly released book, The Magic of Vajrayana. In this conversation, we plan to explore a compelling quote from Ian McGilchrist's The Matter with Things: If you had set out to destroy the happiness and stability of a people, it would have been hard to improve on our current formula: remove yourself as far as possible from the natural world; repudiate the continuity of your culture; believe you are wise enough to do whatever you happen to want and not only get away with it, but have a right to it—and a right to silence those who disagree; minimise the role played by a common body of belief; actively attack and dismantle every social structure as a potential source of oppression; reject the idea of a transcendent set of values.

One of the more innovative Buddhist teachers today, Ken McLeod is known for his clear explanations, poetic translations, and pragmatic approach to practice. He is one of the first generation of Western teachers in the Tibetan tradition and one of the few to be authorized to transmit the full scope of these teachings to students. In particular, his approach resonates strongly with those whose path lies outside established institutions.

After graduating with a degree in mathematics, Ken cycled across Europe to Istanbul and then continued his journey overland to India. In 1970 he met his principal teacher Kalu Rinpoche at his monastery near Darjeeling. There Ken began a study and practice in Tibetan Buddhism that lasted more than twenty years. He completed the traditional three-year retreat program two times, translated for many teachers, and helped set up Buddhist centers in Canada and the United States. After his teacher's passing, Ken moved away from the hierarchical structures of Asian Buddhism to explore new approaches.

In 1990, he founded Unfettered Mind in Los Angeles. His approach of one-on-one consultations roiled the Buddhist world in the early '90s, but was quickly recognized as a viable way to teach and guide students in the West. He made individual interviews a central feature of the many retreats he taught in California, New Mexico, and British Columbia. Through numerous small groups in Southern California, he developed the materials that became the encyclopedic meditation manual, Wake Up to Your Life.

Now retired from formal teaching, he lives in Northern California where he hikes and writes. His writings and translations include The Great Path of Awakening (1987), Wake Up to Your Life (2001), An Arrow to the Heart (2007), Reflections on Silver River (2014), A Trackless Path (2017), and The Magic of Vajrayana (2022), as well as a corpus of articles and translations in Tricycle and other Buddhist magazines.