The Mystical Positivist: January 2014

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #143 - 25JAN14

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 Sam Webster, founder of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. Sam Webster is a writer, Thelemite, a member of the Golden Dawn tradition, as well as an initiate of Wicca. Sam holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and he is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Bristol (UK). He is notable as one of the pioneers of open source religion - the use of the open source paradigm in the field of spirituality.

Sam has authored a number of articles and essays on occult and Pagan topics, publishing both online and in periodicals such as Green Egg, Mezlim, Gnosis, and PanGaea. Many of his essays on PaganDharma and Thelema have also been made available online. In 2001, he was one of a number of Neopagans interviewed in Modern Pagans - An Investigation of Contemporary Pagan Ritual, a feature article in the counter-cultural journal RE/Search.

He has founded (or cofounded) several occult and Pagan organizations, including the Chthonic-Ouranian OTO (1985), and the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn (2002). Webster's book Tantric Thelema was published in January 2010.

More information about Sam Webster's work and interests can be found at:

Sam Webster's website: samwebstermage.com
Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn Website: www.osogd.org/aboutUs.html

Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #142 - 18JAN14

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 Jim Wilson. Jim Wilson celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of the famous Quaker test, The Guide to True Peace with his own publication of The Guide to True Peace - The 1815 Edition. The Guide represents a radical re-introduction into the Christian tradition of a mystical, inner-directed practice of silence that rivals the power and directness of Eastern meditation practices such as Zazen. Jim Wilson has a background in East Asian Buddhist studies, is a member of a Sebastopol Quaker Meeting, has been a Prison Chaplain, and spends much of his free time these days writing poetry.

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

The Guide to True Peace - The 1815 Edition: Guide-True-Peace-1815-Edition
Shaping Words Poetry Website: shapingwords.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 11, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #141 - 11JAN14

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 Lama Jampa Dorje, aka Richard Denner. Lama Jampa Dorje is a poet-printer-yogi-monk, who lived in the Sebastopol area for ten years before moving to Tara Mandala Retreat Center, in Colorado, to do a traditional Tibetan three-year solo retreat. As a younger man, Richard Denner taught himself to write poetry over decades, including stints attending UC Berkeley, raising a family in the Alaskan wilderness, and operating a bookstore in a small town in rural Washington. He has been a serious student of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism for more than two decades, and was one of the first two American-born students to complete the traditional Tibetan three-year solo retreat in the US. He publishes D Press chapbooks available at www.dpress.net. His most recent book of poetry, written during his retreat, is A Book From Luminous Peak.

More information about Lama Jampa Dorje's work and interests can be found at:

D Press Website: www.dpress.net
Richard Denner on Wikapedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Denner
Tara Mandala Website: taramandala.org

Saturday, January 4, 2014

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #140 - 04JAN14

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 Carol Lee Flinders, a writer, independent scholar, educator, speaker, and former syndicated columnist. She received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, with a focus on medieval women's mysticism. She is currently faculty at the Sophia Center for Culture and Spirituality at Holy Names College in Oakland, California.

Her published writings cover a variety of topics ranging from medieval Christian mysticism to the integration of feminist perspectives into spiritual practices to vegetarian cooking to scientific research on meditation. She is a coauthor of Laurel's Kitchen (1976) and its later editions, which in all sold more than a million copies. Her books on spiritual topics include Enduring Grace, At the Root of this Longing, Rebalancing the World, Enduring Lives, and The Making of a Teacher.

More information about Carol Flinder's work and interests can be found at:

Blue Mountain Center of Meditation Website: www.easwaran.org
Two Rock Institute Website: www.tworock.org

"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.