The Mystical Positivist

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, hosts Stuart Goodnick and Rob Schmidt launch into an impromptu conversation after a last minute cancellation by the minister of The Church of Conscious Harmony, a contemplative Christian community in Austin, Texas. They discuss the Sacred, Esoteric Christianity as embodied in the Fourth Way tradition, Magnetic Center, and modern obstacles to valuing the Sacred. They also explore distinctions such as Life as an End as contrasted with Life as a Means. Friction generates heat as our hosts discuss whether the Fourth Way notion of Magnetic Center is really all that useful in explaining why some people value the sacred more than others. Finally they dive into the question of whether any of us can actually DO anything, or whether our sense of agency is more an illusion and a reflection of the action of Being at a higher level than our conventional scale of awareness. Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., and Stuart Goodnick co-direct Tayu Meditation Center, owner and operator of Many Rivers Books & Tea. They studied intensively with Tayu founder Robert Daniel Ennis, and are working to complete a book of his teachings this year called, Living Life As A Work Of Art: The Spiritual Work of Robert Daniel Ennis. More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at: Many Rivers Books and Tea Website: www.manyriversbooks.com, Conscious Family Festival Website: www.consciousfamilyfestival.org, Tayu Meditation Center Website: www.tayu.org/~tayu/, Old Many Rivers Blog: www.manyriversbooks.com/blog1/.

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, Rob and I present a conversation pre-recorded on July 20th, 2019 with Stephen Aronson. Steve received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1970. He taught as assistant professor of psychology in the early 70’s at Arizona State and Alfred University. He also served on staff at hospitals in Phoenix and Maine. After three years of community mental health practice he founded North Country Consultants, LLC in 1975 to provide training and clinical services throughout Maine. He taught family practice to medical students at Maine Medical Center and designed and taught the first year of Behavioral Science at New England College of Medicine. In 1979 he co-authored a pioneering book, The Stress Management Workbook: An Action Plan for Taking Control of Your Life and Health with Michael Mascia, MD. In the late 1990’s he co-founded Mental Health Associates of Maine, a multi-disciplinary psychological/psychiatric practice. Steve retired from clinical practice after 43 years of practice in 2013. Intellectually and emotionally, Steve has always been drawn to the mystery of existence. His interest in consciousness, as one of the most profound of these mysteries, led him to psychology as a career. He submitted himself to nearly 20 years of his own analysis in a variety of disciplines culminating in 12 years of Jungian analysis, during which he came to ‘see’ the reality of the Collective Unconscious and the universality of symbols in religion and dreams. In 1982 Steve experienced a ‘vision’ that was an overture to a series of synchronous events culminating in his discovery of the Gurdjieff Work. He has dedicated his inner search to the methods of G.I. Gurdjieff since that time, accepting the responsibilities of ‘leading’ groups studying this system. Steve’s immersion in ‘spiritual’ psychology led him to an interest in esoteric religion, particularly esoteric Christianity, and a recognition of the universality of the core of all traditions. It also profoundly influenced his understanding of the structure and function of the human psyche and his practice of clinical psychology. He has made a number of presentations to the All and Everything International Humanities Conference and participates in groups in Portland Maine, Moscow Russia and Toronto Canada. Although loving theoretical exploration of both psychological and spiritual questions, he remains dedicated to making the esoteric ideas come alive as actual subjective experiences. He believes that only through direct experience can such ideas find real meaning so that the system becomes the ‘teacher’. His primary objective has been to discover and share the practical application of these ideas and methods to the inner world of people. Steve is a founding member of The Seekers Café, a website supporting an online community dedicated to creating a effective portal to genuine spiritual practice. Note - There is a slight electronic distortion on this recording. More information about Stephen Aronson's work can be found at: Stephen Aronson at The Gurdjieff Club: Preparation for the Third Line of Work Stephen Aronson on The Dr. Lisa Show: Viewpoint, #96

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, Rob and I speak with two previous guests on the show Sam Webster and Gus diZerega about their new project Pagan Currents, an online open source creative commons journal for serious Pagan work intended for practicing Pagans rather than academics, while acknowledging the overlap between the two groups. Sam Webster, PhD, M.Div.,Mage, hails from the Bay Area and has taught magick publicly since 1984. He graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in 1993 and earned his doctorate at the University of Bristol, UK, studying Pagan history under Prof. Ronald Hutton. He is an Adept of the Golden Dawn, a cofounder of the Chthonic-Ouranian Templar order, and an initiate of Wiccan, Druidic, Buddhist, Hindu and Masonic traditions. His work has been published in journals such as Green Egg and Gnosis, and 2010 saw his first book Tantric Thelema, establishing the publishing house Concrescent Press. In 2001 he founded the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn, and in 2013 founded the Pantheon Foundation. Sam serves the Pagan community as a priest of Hermes. Gus diZerega combines decades of work in Wicca and shamanic healing with an academic background, including a PhD in Political Theory and extensive teaching and publishing experience in mainstream academia. He is a Third Degree Elder in Gardnerian Wicca, studied closely with Timothy White, who later founded Shaman’s Drum magazine, and intensively practiced Brazilian Umbanda for six years under Antonio Costa e Silva, as well as integrating it into his own healing work afterwards. He has given workshops and talks on Pagan spirituality and healing in the United States and Canada as well as organized international conferences and taught internationally in the social sciences. Gus’ book Faultlines: The Sixties, the Culture War and the Return of the Divine Feminine, received a 2014 Silver Award from the Association of Independent Publishers. Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience, won Best Nonfiction of 2001 from The Coalition of Visionary Resources. More information about Sam Webster and Gus diZeriga's work can be found at: Pagan Currents website: pagancurrents.com The Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn website: www.OSOGD.org Gus diZerega's Website: dizerega.com

Podcast: This week on The Mystical Positivist, we present a conversation with Richard Webb. Richard Webb has been driving the development of cutting-edge solutions in global Fortune 500 environments in the high-tech industry for over 20 years. He brings big-picture vision to both operational and digital transformation by applying lean concepts to optimize systems, streamline processes, and reduce costs while managing multi-million-dollar budgets and corporate change. Additionally, he cultivates collaboration to bridge development, operations, and implementation while building highly productive teams that increase enterprise resiliency and security. As a young man, Richard entered into an intensive apprenticeship with noted Sufi teacher Reshad Feild and ultimately worked with Feild and his community for almost fifteen years. Having established himself in the world both professionally and with a family, he found himself at a crossroads in the early 2000s that led to his initiation into a shamanic tradition. His work was soon complemented with the initiation into the Tibetan Chöd tradition which weaved in a web of community support into the sometimes wild and elemental work of the shamanic tradition. Throughout these epochal shifts in his spiritual work, Richard maintains a clarity of about the nature of practice and the essence of spiritual transformation. He brings an earthy and immediate wisdom to our conversation that is both deadly serious yet leavened with humor and compassion. More information about Richard Webb's work can be found at: Richard Webb on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com,

Podcast: This week on the Mystical Positivist, we speak in the studio with LGBTQ+ community leader and Kundalini Yoga practitioner, Jacob Rudolph. Jacob Rudolph made international headlines in 2013 when a video of him coming out in front of more than 300 of his classmates went viral with over 2,000,000 views on YouTube. Soon after, Jacob was featured on national TV interviews with Anderson Cooper, Thomas Roberts on MSNBC, Don Lemon on CNN, and with Joy Behar, as well as in the LA Times and other print media. Inspired to continue speaking up, Jacob successfully assisted local civil rights groups that same year in passing a state law that bans conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth in New Jersey. Since then, he has been selected for the Point Foundation Scholarship, the John Lewis Fellowship for diversity and activist change, and was selected as the student commencement speaker at his college graduation-- University of Miami, 2017. He currently serves as the Executive Director of The Pride Network, which offers young LGBTQ+ leaders opportunities for personal transformation and professional development to create change within themselves and in our communities. Jacob is also known as Manush Baldr, a name given to him by his spiritual teachers Trinity Devi and Sotantar Suraj. Founded by Master Gong Avatar, Sotantar Suraj, in Newport Beach, CA, the Gong Avatar Academy is a growing community around the world. In addition to the original community in CA, the GAA has also expanded to the East Coast with trainings in Miami, FL led by Trinity Devi and in Switzerland led by Sekhmet Mera. Through a process of direct apprenticeship, Jacob has dived into a journey of self-study of the Force Within and in All. Using the Gong as a mirror, Jacob studies and applies ancient and modern practices to awaken himself within the matrix, using the principles of nature and the universe, sound and vibration to enjoy the totality of who we are. The Gong Avatar Academy is a journey towards Awareness and Self-Empowerment; raising participants in consciousness as individuals and collectively; discovering a beyond mastery state; commanding and accepting all our thoughts, emotions, feelings and actions; cultivating the Avatar State; and embracing the One and the All. Jacob/Manush is a loving friend, spiritual student, and a passionate advocate for LGBTQ empowerment as the foundation of a compassionate American society. More information about Jacob Rudolph/Manush Baldr's work can be found at: The Pride Network Website: www.thepridenetwork.org, The Gong Avatar Academy Website: gongavataracademy.com,

Podcast: This week on the show, hosts Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick discuss some of the spiritual practice issues that they have been examining in their personal lives, within the context of their Tayu Meditation teaching responsibilities, and that have arisen in some of the Mystical Positivist shows over the last few months. In particular they dive deep into the sense and meaning of the Ephemeral and the Transcendental, and they discuss to what extent it makes sense to configure spiritual practice as a systematic shifting of attention from the Ephemeral to the Transcendental. Also on the show is a discussion of some recent material on Physicalism versus Idealism and the epistemic cost associated with a commitment to a materialistic (physicalist) point of view. Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., and Stuart Goodnick co-direct Tayu Meditation Center, owner and operator of Many Rivers Books & Tea. They studied intensively with Tayu founder Robert Daniel Ennis, and are working to complete a book of his teachings this year called, Living Life As A Work Of Art: The Spiritual Work of Robert Daniel Ennis. More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at: Many Rivers Books and Tea Website: www.manyriversbooks.com, Conscious Family Festival Website: www.consciousfamilyfestival.org, Tayu Meditation Center Website: www.tayu.org/~tayu/, Old Many Rivers Blog: www.manyriversbooks.com/blog1/.

Podcast: This week on the show, we speak by telephone with Robin Bloor, author of To Fathom The Gist: Approaches to the Writings of G.I. Gurdjieff and The Arch-Absurd. This conversation ranges from the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff, to how to approach their seemingly impenetrable nature, to the cosmology of the Gurdjieff tradition and how to translate such considerations into practical work on Self. Mr. Bloor was born in Liverpool, England in the 1950s, studied Mathematics at Nottingham University, and eventually became a computer consultant. Aside from his consultancy work he has established a reputation as an international speaker on technology topics and as a writer by virtue of many magazine articles and technical publications. In April 1999 he published his first book, The Electronic B@zaar, which was about the dot com revolution. Much to his surprise it was a UK business best seller and was published a year later in the US, just as the dot com boom turned to bust. It received several accolades, being referred to as "a classic" by Publisher's Weekly in the US. He has been involved in The Gurdjieff Work since 1982. In 1988 he met and became a pupil of Rina Hands, an accomplished Gurdjieff Movements teacher, and an inspirational group leader, who died in 1994. In recent years Mr. Bloor has turned his attention to writing about The Gurdjieff Work, and is widely regarded as an expert on Gurdjieff's writings. His series of books under the common title of To Fathom The Gist deal directly with the inner meaning of Gurdjieff's writings. They are gradually being rolled out year by year. Robin is also an attendee and participant in the All & Everything International Conference which takes place every year and focuses on Gurdjieff's writings. Robin immigrated to the US in 2002, settling in Texas. In 2003 he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Computer Science by Wolverhampton University in the UK in recognition of 'Services to the IT Industry'. From 2004 to 2007 he participated in writing three Dummies books on technology: Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies, Service Management for Dummies and Cloud Computing for Dummies. More information about Robin Bloor's work can be found at: Austin Gurdjieff Society Website: austingurdjieffsociety.weebly.com, To Fathom the Gist Website: www.tofathomthegist.com, Robin Bloor's email address: robin.bloor @ gmail.com.

Podcast: This week on the show we converse in the studio with Ken McLeod , founder and director of UnfetteredMind.org, a website offering resources on practical Buddhism. Ken trained in the Tibetan Buddha-dharma, translated for his teacher Kalu Rinpoche, and has written books that translate and comment on Tibetan texts. His books include A Trackless Path, Reflections on Silver River, An Arrow to the Heart, and Wake Up To Your Life. Ken’s work focuses upon making the Buddha’s teachings relevant and accessible to western practitioners. More information about Ken McLeod's work can be found at: Unfettered Mind website: www.unfetteredmind.org Ken McLeod's Blog: musingsbyken.blogspot.com Unfettered Mind Podcasts: itunes.apple.com

Podcast: This week on the show we converse by telephone with Roger Lipsey, a biographer, art historian, editor, and translator. Roger Lipsey earned both his MA (1966) and Ph.D. (1974) from New York University. His Ph.D. was in the history of art at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. Dr. Lipsey has served as the director of the Society for Myth and Tradition, the publisher of Parabola magazine. He is also the author of Coomaraswamy: His Life and Work; An Art of Our Own: The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art; Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton; Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and His Abbott, James Fox; and Hammarskjöld: A Life, which has been hailed as the definitive biography of Dag Hammarskjöld. For many decades, he has been a participant in the Gurdjieff teaching. His newly released Shambhala book, Gurdjieff Reconsidered - The Life, the Teachings, the Legacy is the subject of this episode's discussion. More information about Roger Lipsey's work can be found at: Gurdjieff Reconsidered at Shambhala: www.shambhala.com Roger Lipsey at Parabola: parabola.org Roger Lipsey's Dag Hammarskjöld website: www.dag-hammarskjold.net

Podcast: This week on the show on the show we present a Skype conversation with Brad Warner. Brad Warner is the founder and head teacher of Angel City Zen Center and Dogen Sangha Los Angeles. He is the author of the popular Hardcore Zen blog as well as several books on Zen Buddhism including Hardcore Zen - Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth About Reality; Sit Down and Shut Up - Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, & Dogen's Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye; and Don't Be a Jerk - and Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master. He plays bass in the hardcore punk band Zero Defex (0DFx), is the star of the movies Shoplifting From American Apparel and Zombie Bounty Hunter M.D., was director of the film Cleveland’s Screaming! and is a former vice president of the US branch of Tsuburaya Productions, the company founded by the creator of Godzilla. More information about Brad Warner's work can be found at: Hardcore Zen website: hardcorezen.info Angel City Zen Center website: www.aczc.org Brad Warner on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org Brad Warner on Twitter: twitter.com Brad Warner on Facebook: www.facebook.com Hardcore Zen on Facebook: www.facebook.com Brad Warner on YouTube: www.youtube.com